by Karyn Bosnak
Wade glances up. “Oh, don’t worry.” He looks back down, but then quickly back up. “Wait . . . Delilah?” Hearing him say my name, I stop reading the bag. When Wade and I make eye contact, I let out a fake gasp and press my hand to my chest for dramatic effect.
“Oh my gosh . . . Wade?” (I’d like to thank the Academy . . .)
“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “Gosh . . . so nice to see you!”
“You too!” I exclaim. I’m not sure why, but I throw my arms around him and give him an enormous bear hug. When I let go, I stand back a little and shake my head in disbelief. “What a coincidence—I can’t believe this.”
“I know . . .” he says. “Do you live here in Chattanooga?”
“Me? Oh, no. I’m still in New York. How about you?”
“Yeah, I live about five minutes down the street.” Actually, it’s more like two, but I don’t correct him. “Why are you here?”
“For work.”
I tell Wade the story about Elisabeth’s store and he believes me, like my mom and Daisy did, like Rod did. He asks where in Chattanooga the store might go, and since I’m not sure what to say, I tell him it’s top-secret.
“How about you?” I ask. “How long have you lived here?”
“A couple years. I love it here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else, especially back in New York. The people here are so nice and so much more approachable.” I’ve never agreed with this, that New Yorkers are rude. I’ve always found them to be the nicest people anywhere. But to each his own, I guess. Wade and I stare at each other for a few seconds in awkward silence.
“Well, it was nice seeing you,” he eventually says. He then turns away, but doesn’t exactly leave. I remember him as being shy when we first met, and I have a feeling he doesn’t know what to do right now, so I decide to make the first move.
“Hey, Wade, before you go, I’m in town only until tomorrow and don’t have anything to do today. Are you busy?”
Wade turns back around and smiles. “That’s so funny—I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come for a bike ride with me. I mean, it’s so nice outside today, and I have an extra bike.”
I perk up. “A bike ride? That sounds like fun.” Suddenly I remember Eva. “Ooh, wait—I have a dog, though.” Looking down, Wade jumps when he sees Eva’s little black nose pressed up against the mesh pane of the bag.
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t know there was a dog in there!” he says. “I thought it was a purse.”
“That’s the point. I don’t think dogs are allowed in grocery stores, so I snuck her in.”
“She’s so cute,” he says, peering inside at her. “You know, the second bike has a basket in the front. Maybe you could put the bag inside the basket and I could strap it in.”
I make a face. That doesn’t sound safe. Wade senses my uncertainty.
“Come on . . .” he says. “I’ll make sure she’s safe and we’ll make it an easy ride. I’ll even pack a lunch and we can have picnic.”
After thinking about it, I give in. I’m sure Eva will be fine. I smile. “Yeah, okay. Sounds like fun.” I look at Eva. “Right?” She looks at me and blinks, which I think means yes.
After driving back to my hotel to change, I meet Wade out front around noon. Once Eva is zipped inside her bag, I place it inside the bike basket, making sure to face the mesh opening forward so that she can see where we’re going. Wade then secures it with an elastic bungee cord and the two of us head toward a nearby park.
For the first mile or so of our ride, Wade rides slightly ahead of me so he can check on Eva. Every time he turns around and looks at her, he bursts into laughter. Apparently she’s having the time of her life—her tongue is hanging out of her mouth and her hair is blowing in the wind. Since I can’t see, I give him my digital camera to take a picture. When I see the photo, I also burst into laughter. Not only is she the cutest thing on Earth, but I look like the biggest moron. I’m riding a bike with a Yorkie in a pink and green argyle doggie bag strapped into a basket on the front of it.
Wade and I ride around Chattanooga for about an hour. Although I have a nice time, it’s hard for me to tell if he’s changed. I can’t exactly talk to him. Thankfully, around two o’clock or so, we stop at a park near the Tennessee River to have our picnic. When I let Eva out of her bag, she runs around like a little hooligan. She’s so funny, she keeps kicking dirt back like a bull, like she did the day I got her. The bike ride revved her up. She’s so sassy!
While Wade spreads out a blanket, I ask him where he’s working nowadays while silently praying it’s not Amway. “I’m managing a restaurant in town,” he says, much to my relief. “I’m not crazy about it, but you gotta stick with what pays the bills, you know?” He sounds a bit glum as he says this. I hesitate for a minute, not sure if I should ask the one big thing I want to ask, but it’s burning inside me so I decide to go for it. “So what happened to your dreams of becoming a stuntman?”
Wade gives me a thin-lipped smile. “It didn’t really work out.” He then turns red. “It was kind of a pipe dream.” I feel bad for him; he looks embarrassed.
“No it wasn’t,” I say, trying to make him feel better. Wade stops what he’s doing and gives me a look that says, Yes it was and you know it. “Okay, maybe it was a little,” I say, smiling.
By God, I can’t believe it. Based on the little conversation that Wade and I have had, he seems to have changed; he seems more mature. However, I’m not sure I buy his new persona. Something tells me that the little boy is still lurking inside him somewhere. I need to test him. I need to see if this is all an act or the real deal, so I devise a plan. First up, Shania Twain. While Wade unpacks our lunch, I plug tiny portable speakers into my iPod and tune it to “Man! I Feel like a Woman.” As soon as it comes blaring out of the speakers, I bite my lip to stop from giggling and watch Wade closely. He used to lip-sync this song to me when we dated. If anything is going to break him, it’ll be this. When Wade hears Shania’s voice, he stops what he’s doing and stares into space. Come on Wade, you can do it. “Man shirts, shorts skirts. Oh UH oh!” Wade doesn’t do anything; he just stares. “Color my hair, do what I dare. Oh UH oh!” Come on, come on, damn it! But again, nothing. Damn it! I move on to my next test: twenty questions.
While eating lunch, I begin to ask Wade all sorts of questions—stupid questions, questions with one-word answers—to see if he’ll break into a game of charades. If I asked the old Wade what his favorite color was, he’d pull his ear and hold up his shoe. (Sounds like shoe . . . means blue.)
“What’s your favorite color?” Blue.
“Who’s your favorite president?” Kennedy.
“Where’s your ideal vacation spot?” Africa.
“What’s the first thing you’d buy with a million dollars?” A house.
“Which superhero do you secretly want to be?” Superman.
Much to my amazement, Wade answers all my questions vocally. Honestly, I’m astounded; I can’t believe it. He doesn’t even look like he’s fighting the urge to mime. He seems to have grown up. He seems to have (gulp) . . . become a man.
When we finish eating, Wade pulls out two cookies that he picked up at a bakery near his apartment. They’re sugar cookies, shaped and decorated like tulips. The petals are iced with pink and yellow frosting, and the stems and leaves are covered in green sprinkles that glisten in the sunlight. “To celebrate spring,” Wade says. “A time of new beginnings.” He then holds my gaze for a minute. I think he’s trying to tell me he’s changed.
After smiling at Wade, I scarf down the cookie even though it’s almost too pretty to eat. Seeing that the sprinkles have turned my tongue and lips green, Wade teases me. “You look like Kermit the Frog!”
“No, I don’t!” I say, hitting him.
“Don’t be offended,” Wade says. “It’s a compliment.”
A compliment? Wait, huh?
whatever
Around four o’clock, Wade asks if I’d like to see where he lives and I imme
diately say yes. If he’s still hanging on to any old quirks, they’ll surely come out there. While following him home in my car (Ladies: Always make sure you have a getaway car just in case), I try to remember what it was like having sex with him, if it was any good, but my mind keeps drawing a blank. The only thing about that I can recall is that he was overly animated—he’d always make “sex faces” while we were doing it, like one second he’d close his eyes and grit his teeth and the next he’d open his mouth wide, like he was a roaring tiger. He always looked intense.
I park in the street outside Wade’s town house then walk up to meet him at the front door. I still have Eva with me, asleep in her bag. She’s had a big day and is wiped out. While I wait for Wade to unlock the door, I think about our day together. If he’s normal, I think I could seriously make this thing work with him. If I could only figure out a way to get rid of his family . . .
Kidding.
Maybe not.
Anyway, I’m so excited about the possibility of Wade being normal, that I can’t help but grin as I enter his apartment. As I do, he turns around. “What’s with the smile?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, blushing. “I guess I’m just happy.”
“Happy why?”
“Happy because I ran into you, I guess. I mean, you’re so nice and norm—”
Whoa, wait.
Perhaps I spoke too soon.
As I walk into Wade’s living room, I stop talking when I see something incredibly disturbing: about a dozen or so stuffed animals, in all different shapes and sizes, are hanging from sticks fastened to the wall above his couch. They’re big, like the size of a forearm, and freaky, so freaky that I have a feeling they’re going to be an integral part of my nightmares for years to come. And did I mention that they’re staring at me? They are. Every one of them is staring at me. I’m frozen in fear.
“Um . . . what are those?” I ask uneasily, pointing.
Wade looks at me, then back at the wall. “Those?” he asks. I nod. “Oh, those are my Muppets.” He says this very matter-of-factly, like he’s talking about a wall shelf.
“Your Muppets?” I ask. Wade nods. “You mean like puppets?”
“No,” Wade says. “Muppets and puppets aren’t the same thing—you use your left hand to operate Muppets, and your right hand to operate puppets.” He points back up to the wall. “Those are Muppets.”
There has to be some sort of logical explanation to this. “Are they some new kind of art or something?” I ask.
“No, no, they’re not some new form of art,” Wade says, chuckling. “I’m a Muppeteer.”
I shake my head, not sure if I heard him correctly. Did he say he was a Mousketeer or a Muppeteer? “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”
“I said I’m a Muppeteer. I put on Muppet shows on the weekends.”
I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And I jinxed it—by almost telling Wade he was normal, I jinxed it. Wade isn’t normal. He never has been. He never will be.
“I know it might sound funny,” he explains. “But adult puppet shows are becoming really popular. At least in Knoxville they are, which is where my buddy Jed lives who taught me how to work them. I met him in clown school.”
“Clown school?”
Wade nods. “Yeah, when I realized the whole stuntman thing wasn’t gonna pan out, I had to quit living in a dream world and get a real job, so I went to clown school. I’ve always loved to perform, you know?” I nod—yeah, I know. “I did the whole clown thing for a while—you know, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, and such, but the makeup made me break out really badly, so I had to cut back.”
“Break out?”
Wade nods and points to a pimple on his cheek. “Yeah, see? It happens to all clowns. It’s a real drawback to the profession.” I’m guessing not the only one.
Okay, this isn’t just not normal—this is plain weird. Weird beyond any weird I’ve ever encountered in my life. And I’ve been to a Michael Jackson concert before. And I watched Diane Sawyer interview Whitney Houston. And I’m aware of the trials and tribulations of Courtney Love. Wade was a clown? And now he’s a Muppeteer? It takes everything I have inside me not to run out the door.
“Yeah, someone needs to make better clown makeup,” Wade continues, as he sashays over to the couch and plops down. “Because what’s out there right now is way too thick.”
“Did you ever think about being that someone? Did you ever see this problem as an opportunity to make a little money?”
Wade looks at me like I’m crazy. “Develop clown makeup? No way! Who has time for that?”
Who has time for that? People who have time to play with puppets have time for that. Wow. I mean, wow.
“Muppeteering comes naturally to me,” Wade says, as he brings his wrists together. “I always loved making shadow puppets as a kid.” Gracefully waving his hands up and down, he pretends they’re a bird soaring through the air.
Oh, Jesus.
After breathing in and out heavily, to prevent myself from hyperventilating, I begin to look around for cameras because, even though I’m not famous, I’m positive I’m being punk’d. I have to be—there’s no other explanation for this. Ashton Kutcher’s behind this—he’s gotta be. There’s no way my ex-boyfriend is a Muppeteer.
“What are you looking for?” Wade asks, seeing me peer under his couch.
“Huh?” I turn back to him. “Oh, uh . . . I’m just checking out the rest of the place.” I suddenly feel Eva rustle around in her bag. When I look down, she peeks out at me with sleepy eyes and then lazily glances over at Wade. When she sees the Muppets hanging on the wall behind him, she cocks her head, raises her ears and lets out a low grumbling growl.
“Eva, no,” I say, trying to quiet her down, but she doesn’t listen. Within seconds she breaks into a barking fit and won’t let up. The only way I can get her to stop is to turn the bag away from the wall so she can’t see the Muppets, so that’s what I do. As Eva silently retreats back into her bag, I apologize to Wade. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” he says. “She must be freaked out by the Muppets.”
“Yeah,” I nod. And she’s not the only one.
Wade motions to the empty spot next to him on the couch, directly underneath them, and asks if I want to have a seat. “Um, sure,” I cautiously sit down, positioning myself at the edge of the sofa just in case one of them flies off the wall and decides to eat me, I put Eva’s bag on my lap.
“So Wade, where do you”—I search for the right word—“Muppet at?”
“Most of the shows I do are held at the local playhouses,” Wade explains as he reaches up to take an old man Muppet off the wall. He begins to play with it. “But the last one I did—my personal favorite—was held at a church not far from here. Called Equestrians for Christ, it was a modern-day reenactment of the crucifixion. Basically, it was my version of The Passion of the Christ. It was a big undertaking—there were so many Muppets that I had to get some of the local high school kids to help.” Wade stops talking for a moment and becomes melancholy. “You should’ve seen the end. All the Muppets rode atop horses while chanting, ‘We ride because Christ died.’ It was really powerful.” Turning around, Wade points to one of the Muppets. “There he is. See?”
I turn around and look up and, low and behold, see Jesus in Muppet form, hanging from a wooden stick. Once again. Poor Jesus.
“But truth be told,” Wade continues, looking back at me, “non-religious people didn’t respond to the theme, so I canceled the show, and well . . .” Wade hesitates, like he’s afraid to continue.
I prod. “Well . . .?” Come on, Wade, spill the beans.
“Well, I figured I had to make a show that was a little racier, so I put together an adult show, about a cranky, undersexed old man who has a crush on his neighbor. It’s really fun and kinda sexy. I tested it out last month at the National Day of Puppetry Convention and got a lot of positive feedback. So I’m gonna try and book myself a couple gigs at the p
layhouse in town and see if people respond to it.”
A sexy puppet show? An undersexed puppet? Is he kidding?
Ewww! Ewww, ewww, ewww!
As Wade continues to play with the puppet he’s holding, I watch in horror. With his hand inside, he’s turning it every which way, moving its mouth, moving its arm, making it blink. I wish I had a camera on my lapel to capture all this because no one’s going to believe me when I tell them, no one. It’s so bizarre. He’s so bizarre. Wade needs his own reality series.
Realizing I’m staring, Wade scoots closer to where I’m sitting, if I’m not mistaken, to try to kiss me. Since I don’t want any part of that—there’s no way I’m going to let a man who just described a puppet show as being sexy kiss me—I shift my body away from him, hoping to send the signal that I’m not in the mood. Wade, however, doesn’t get the hint. Moving the puppet off his lap, he puts his arm around me, sending chills through my body. “You know, Delilah,” he says, looking at me intensely, “I think we have a real connection here.” As he begins to move his lips toward mine, I realize that he’s going in for the kiss. I need a panic button. I need to stop him. I need to say something to change the mood.
“You mean like a rainbow connection?” Wade immediately freezes. As he slowly leans back, the look on his face changes from one of seduction to one of what-the-fuck’s-your-problem? Oops. I think I offended him.
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks.
Yep, I’ve offended him.
“Making fun? No, I was just making a joke.”
“A joke? It’s kind of an odd time to make a joke, don’t you think?”
“An odd time?” He’s lecturing me about being odd?
“Yeah, I was just about to kiss you.”
I look at Wade for a second, and then decide to come clean. He has to understand. “Wade, to be honest . . . I’m a little put off by the puppets.”