And the Next Thing You Know . . .

by Chase Taylor Hackett

  “We had Star Wars. Dinner and a movie. Sounds like a date to me.”

  “It was, but it was somebody else’s date, remember? For me it was—what? A hand-me-down.”

  “Look. I’m trying to be perfectly clear here. We’re not dating, okay?”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Just one of those things.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “No interest.”

  “No interest.”

  “Because that’s not how it sounded yesterday when you were all like—” And he made gagging noises. Not like a retching cat, but like—yeah, you get it.

  “For the love of God, Theo—”

  “Fine. Be that way. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.”

  “Look, Theo, don’t be mad—”

  “I’m not! You’re not raining on my parade.”

  “Good. No reason we can’t be friends—”

  “I’m fine! The sun’ll come out tomorrow. You menopausal fart.”

  “Glad you’re not mad, then,” I said, without rolling my eyes even.

  He got up, walked to the door, and I breathed a sigh of relief. He’d go without me killing him first.

  “It’s your loss, Jeffie. But anyway, Madison and I are trying to work things out.”

  “Really?” I tried not to laugh. “Good. I’m happy for you both. Is that what you were doing the last couple days, working things out with Madison?”

  “Madison is crazy about my body, you know. I know he doesn’t look like much, but in bed? Madison, he gets down there and he just worships my—what’d you call it—my hoo-ha?”

  “Hey!”

  “Too much information?” The little bastard.

  “Just—just—just go, okay?”

  The brief thought of that slob with Theo and his—hoo-ha—rattled me beyond words. I was repulsed and horrified. And furious. And jealous. Viciously, viciously jealous.

  Theo had done that deliberately.

  Yeah, I admit it. My first reaction was jealousy. I’ve always been easily jealous. I can be jealous about things I don’t even want. Maybe I didn’t want Theo as a full-time thing, but I didn’t want him back with that overgrown, overripe Brooklyn slacker either. Or anybody else.

  He was leaving. Should I say something?

  Theo opened the door, stood in the doorway, and turned back to me.

  “Enjoy the rest of your morning.”The smile he gave me was half-seductive, and the other half—was straight from hell. “Later.”

  And he went.

  Deep breath.

  I tried to calm down. Don’t think about him. This is exactly the reason this guy can’t be even a small part of your life. Too distracting. Huge waste of time and energy. Focus on work. Do not think about Theo. Or Madison. Fuck.

  I turned to my computer to dig through the pile of I hadn’t dealt with the day before. Which I would do without thinking about Theo. No Theo. No thought of Theo. Totally Theo-free.

  I started clicking through my e-mail, and—fuckaduck—nothing on the computer was working right. It took me a few tries to solve the mystery.

  My mouse was backward. Of course it was.

  Theo.

  That little left-handed lemur had switched the buttons on my mouse, something I suppose, when you’re left-handed, you know how to do; and when you’re right-handed—you don’t. I had no frigging clue how to change the damned thing back. I looked all over the mouse for some kind of lefty/righty switch but there wasn’t one, not that I could find. I was ready to scream.

  And I realized—this too Theo had done deliberately. He didn’t even have to be in the same room to drive me crazy.

  I didn’t have time for this. I simply did not have time to ponder the sheer maliciousness of that satanic little vandal, and I most definitely didn’t have time to futz around with a fucking computer mouse!!!

  I’d figure it out later. I’d find time later to google the fix and until then—muddle through. Most of this was just read/delete anyway. Shouldn’t be that hard.

  Of course, half an hour later I was tearing my hair out, trying to remember to use my middle finger for everything—but only after my index finger had already gotten in the way and opened some frigging menu or other. Everything was taking me forever.

  I had been in a bad mood when Theo left and since then that bad mood had tripped over a skate and gone crashing down a flight of stairs—what with Theo and the backward mouse, my frustration with said mouse, my frustration with said Theo about whom I was not going to think, remember? Theo, who had pissed me off so much I’d almost forgotten to think about fuckingfuckingfucking Madison, all fat and naked and hoo-ha worshipping—

  I was interrupted in this peaceful reverie because some moron had made the mistake of knocking on my office door.

  “Yes!” I yelled.

  The door pushed open a few inches.

  “¡Hola!” It was the hottie from IT, the guy from the cafeteria. “Wassup?” he wanted to know, and he came in a step.

  Funny, just a few days ago I’d have been all smiles for this guy, and now I’d be all smiles throwing him down an elevator shaft.

  “You need some help?” He gestured to the computer.

  “Why?” I spat it out like an accusation.

  He held up his hands in surrender.

  “Hey, I’m only here because Theo said your mouse got switched around to left-handed and you didn’t know how to change it back. Need help or no?”

  “Theo said.”

  “He did,” said Enrique. “So?” He looked at me like he was expecting something. It took me a second, and then I hopped up to get out of his way.

  “Have at it.”

  The hottie sat down and started minimizing stuff I had open, most of which I’d opened by accident because of that damned mouse and that damned Theo.

  Theo.

  And a dark, warty, venomous thought came slithering into my brain.

  “So—like—when did you talk to Theo?”

  “Just now,” he said casually. “I check in on him every morning, make sure he’s doing okay.”

  “Just part of your job, right?” I asked, all friendly, even as I was thinking of ways I might get this scumbag fired.

  “Yeah. That and,” at this point he paused in his work to look over his shoulder at me with a roguish smile, “just between you and me, that kid is hot.”

  “Hadn’t noticed.”

  Okay, I reminded myself. I had made the decision that I didn’t want anything steady with Theo, so why did I care? Even if this guy was so obviously a total player—it was Theo’s problem, it had absolutely nothing to do with me. There was no need for me to twist myself into a knot over this, if Theo wanted to do…whatever.

  Enrique winked at me. Whoever thought winking was sexy? It’s not. It’s just slimy.

  “Cute little Theo just needs a little convincing,” he assured me. “He’ll come ’round.”

  Enrique was between me and the letter opener or things might have gone very differently.

  “Yeah? Think he’s all that into you, do you?”

  “You know I didn’t at first, but dude—check this out!” This grinning hormone case pushed up his sleeve to show me the sexy underside of his sexy forearm. There, some twerp—and you didn’t have to work too hard to figure out who, because the twerp had put his twerpy little name right there in big block letters—some twerp had written something along the sinews of Mr. Testosterone’s beautifully developed arm.

  “Theo” it said. Followed by a cell phone number.

  The hot Latino underscored the significance of this revelation by bouncing his eyebrows at me a couple times. Enrique should have been able to hear my teeth grinding.

  “Are you—done yet?” I asked, still thinking about that letter
opener.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s taking me a little longer than it should because—you know—the mouse is messed up.”

  “Hadn’t noticed.”

  “Finished.” And with that, the guy, whom I suddenly hated way more than his life was worth, stood up and went to the door. “I told Theo to put his number in my phone, but he insisted on writing on my arm, all old school like that.”

  “Almost like a billboard.”

  “I know, right? He was pretty cute about it, too. Couldn’t stop giggling the whole time.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Open?” he asked as he stood in the door.

  “Closed. Definitely closed.”

  “¡Hasta la vista!”

  I stared at the closed door.

  “Not if I vista you first.”

  I sat down at my desk to ponder what had just happened.

  Theo.

  Deep breath. And again. And again.

  I wasn’t going to think about Theo today, remember? And what had I done so far? And what was I going to do for the rest of the day?

  I stared at my screen full of e-mails.

  I stared at my mouse that that nice Enrique had just fixed for me. I was clenching my teeth ’til my head hurt. Words—and images—floated through my head.

  Theo. Enrique. Madison. Worshipping. Diddling.

  Flip-diddling.

  I reached down with one hand and calmly untied my right shoelace. I pulled the shoe off, held it up by the toe and—with three good thwacks—bits of computer mouse were flying in all directions.

  A little later, both shoes on, I passed my secretary’s desk on my way out.

  “Darlene,” I said. “Call IT and tell them I need a new mouse. Something happened to mine.”

  Chapter 30

  One More Stab at a Blind Date

  Theo

  I’m not sure how much I’m willing to admit to, but I’ll go this far: I was maybe a teensy bit more put out by Jeff’s dismissing me—correction: his attempt at dismissing me, his pathetic and utterly ineffectual attempt at dismissing me—this morning, than I may have immediately let on. Hence that little telegram I sent him by way of poor Enrique.

  Now it was evening, I found myself with nothing to do. Footloose and fancy free. And those loose feet found themselves fancying a walk.

  Across Central Park.

  You know what happens if you’re on the Upper West Side, and you walk across Central Park long enough? You get to the Upper East Side. And the next thing you know, you’re standing in front of Jeff Bornic’s building. Or, more accurately, across the street from it anyway, so you can get a better look.

  Jeff had said he was busy. Too busy for me. Fine. Somebody else might have been daunted by that. To me, it just meant that if I interrupted him, it would be even more irritating.

  Even so, I wasn’t completely sure what I was going to do. I could ring the bell—but there actually was no bell, just the weaselly doorman. Okay, I could go ask the weasel to interrupt his illicit cigarette to call upstairs. I could just imagine how that would go.

  Weasel: “Your name, sir?”

  Me: “Theo McPherson.”

  Weasel (speaking into the phone—for some reason, in my imagination, the weasel has an accent straight out of My Fair Lady): There’s someone here to see you, sir. Claims his name is Theo McPherson.” (He listens, then he hangs up.) “Mr. Bornic says he never heard of you, and that I should, to use his words, ‘throw the baggage out.’” (That’s actually a line from My Fair Lady. At this point, the Weasel starts to get up, scraping his chair loudly on the terrazzo.)

  Okay, so forget that plan.

  I could give him a fake name.

  Seymour Wieners.

  Warren Piece—I always thought that would be a great porn-star name if I were ever going to be a porn star. I was so disappointed when I found out a porn star had actually used it.

  Helena Handbasket?

  It was almost worth it just to hear the weasel say one of those names on the phone. But Jeff would know right away it was me. Same result.

  If this were TV, I’d create a diversion, slip past the weasel and knock on Jeff’s door, thereby successfully interrupting his no-doubt well-planned evening, whatever it was. As I was calculating the possibilities of success (slim) with this diversion scheme with no accomplice to do the actual diverting—I saw something that made me stop, mid-scheming.

  He was about six feet tall, dark curls, with blue eyes—always a killer combination—and he was totally built. Not a full-on body builder, but super fit and bulgy in a really sexy way. He was either wearing a very tight blue polo shirt or he had one painted on. With a perfect lock of black hair pulled artfully down onto his forehead. One of those guys.

  Please understand, this little sex-puppy didn’t catch my eye because I was thinking I wanted to git me summa that. Nosiree, he caught my eye because he looked exactly like the kind of sex-puppy who might catch the eye of a certain douchebag lawyer.

  I hadn’t really tried to imagine what Jeff would be doing that he was going to be too busy to see me, but it definitely hadn’t occurred to me that he’d be busy doing some gym-bunny pick-up.

  Then I thought to myself—be fair. This guy could be going anywhere, he could even live here, you never know. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. I didn’t even know if Jeff was home. He’d said he was busy, he was probably out somewhere, not waiting at home for this hot gayboy. The city was full of hot gayboys. I shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about this particular hot gayboy.

  And then this particular hot gayboy looked at his phone. I would have bet my Steve Sondheim autograph that the little skankster was double-checking the address. In his Grindr app, I was sure. The guy had “internet hook-up” stamped on his gorgeous forehead, and I was pretty certain I knew exactly where the guy was going.

  As he headed for the door, I scrambled across the street to get in not too far behind him—and not too close either. He stopped at the weasel’s desk just as I stepped inside.

  “Jeffrey in 24H please.” I knew it. IknewitIknewitIknewit. Jeff Bornic: Attorney at law and part-time whore-ball. He was too busy to see me, because he was going to be too busy banging that.

  Fine.

  He’d made it clear we weren’t going steady—who wanted that anyway?

  So fine!

  Calm, easygoing, laid-back guy that I am, you can imagine just how well I was taking this.

  “Ya’ name?” the weasel asked the gym-slut. In reality, the weasel’s accent was more Passaic than Mayfair.

  “Name’s Chip,” he said.

  Of course it was. And I was Warren Piece.

  My first impulse was to throw something. Starting with Chip. But I stopped myself.

  The weasel called upstairs, then he waved Chip in, and Chip strolled off toward the elevator bank.

  I still didn’t have a plan, but I went in after him anyway. I’d wing it.

  “Hey, how’s it goin’?” I waved to my old buddy the Weasel-Boy as I strode past.

  “Hey! Whehja’ think yer goin’?” he yelled after me.

  “I’m with Chip,” I called back.

  Of course I had caught the attention of my new best friend, Chip-Chip the Chelsea Boy. As we waited for the elevator, he looked me up, he looked me down, he even leaned back a little to check out the rear elevation. Subtle, dude, real subtle.

  He smiled, slyly.

  “Jeffrey didn’t say anything about a three-way, but I’m down for anything.” He smiled. “Or,” he added, lowering his voice seductively, “if you just wanna get outta here, I’m sure we could have a good time, just us. You’re way hotter than Jeff’s picture.” Ding, the elevator doors opened, and two nattering old ladies stepped out past us. Chip waited until they were gone before he added, as further inducement, “I go cuh
-razy for redheads.”

  “I bet you do,” I flirted back. “I’m gonna pass this time, but c’mon up.” He followed me into the elevator. “Jeff and I hooked up not that long ago. And just so’s you know, that picture he’s using? Ten years old, at least. Just sayin’.” The elevator door had closed. “I’m only here to drop something off.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the tube of Tommy’s moisturizer. “I just got this stuff from the drugstore. The old guy said to shampoo down there really well with this—and wash all the bedding in hot—and that should take care of ’em.” The elevator door opened and I stepped out.

  “You’re kidding me,” he said, but he didn’t follow me.

  “You ever had this problem?” I asked, shoving one hand into my jeans to scratch my pubes for effect.

  The effect was effective.

  His index finger jabbed frantically at the button for the lobby until the doors started to close on our Chip. I gave him a little wave.

  “Bye, Felicia.”

  And I whistled a happy tune as I went down the hall to Jeff’s door, which opened right about then.

  “Hey, sexy,” I said, and pushed in past him.

  “What the—” He leaned out to look down the hall. “Theo, you can’t stay. I’m expecting somebody.”

  “You’re looking for Chip?”

  “How do you…?” he said turning back to me.

  “We met in the elevator. Nice guy, and hot? Hoo-ee!!!” I waved my right hand—bent at the wrist, the way guys do when someone is hot, don’t ask me why.

  I wandered into Jeff’s apartment, now with fewer drop cloths—and I carefully skirted the gigantic hole in the floor for the stairs. “But the old Chipster must have suddenly remembered another appointment.” I opened the fridge, and helped myself to a bottle of water. “Or maybe Chip got a better offer, I don’t know.” I started flipping through Jeff’s envelopes and catalogs. “Man, you get a lot of bills. Anyway, the guy seemed a little feckless to me. I should tell you, he even hit on me in the elevator. Complete absence of feck.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Chip! Keep up!” Poor guy. “Jeff, you look downright discombobulated. Do they say that out here? We say that in Iowa anyway. Discombobulated.” Jeff stuck his head back out into the hallway again, hoping. “In the end,” I said, calling him back, “and what a very nice end it was! I just wanted to reach out and—well, anyway. In the end, he simply skedaddled.”