by Rick R. Reed
“Yeah.”
“Well, when you leave here, turn right and go down to the next conference room. That’s where the video interviews are being done.”
“Really?”
“Really. Good luck.” Martha stood and shook his hand.
Cody left the room with the distinct feeling he was dreaming.
* * * *
When he finished his on-camera interview, Cody returned to the ballroom to look for Matt, but he was nowhere in sight. Cody assumed he was being interviewed, just as he had been.
He sat back down, pleasantly exhausted and hopeful. He knew he had done well with Martha Stewart, once he had loosened up, relaxed, and just been himself. And the on-camera interview was an assembly line thing, more like a photo shoot. He simply had a very brief conversation with a guy his own age, and they talked about Cody’s favorite books to teach in his English class. The interview seemed like it was over before it had begun. He was barely aware of the small video camera aimed at him.
The ballroom had cleared out a lot since he had left it, and he assumed the production staff was most likely wrapping things up for the day. The room had the sense of being in a state of after. Before long, someone would be in here pushing a vacuum. They’d be folding up the tables and chairs.
Cody glanced up to see Matt. He looked like Cody felt—exhausted. Cody guessed all the adrenaline they had expended on the day had caught up with them.
Cody tried to discern, from Matt’s body language and facial expression, how things had gone for his friend. It made him a little sad to realize the best guess would be that things had not gone well.
Matt wasn’t smiling, and Matt was almost always smiling. Hell, the guy even giggled to himself at his own private jokes. Now he wore a somber expression and looked lost in thought, pensive. Cody had expected Matt to bound up to him like an excited puppy and demand all the details.
Cody stood and smiled. As his friend approached, Cody raised his eyebrows. “How’d you do?”
Matt shrugged. “Who knows? They said they’d let me know, which is usually the kiss of death. I couldn’t get a good read.”
Even though Martha Stewart had not come right out and said Cody would be on the show, she had as much as implied it. He was pretty sure he’d made the cut.
“How’d you do?” Matt asked. “Don’t tell me. You’re in like Flynn.”
Funny how Matt used the same expression Cody had in his interview earlier.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cody said. “Like you said, it was hard to get a read.” Cody would be crushed if he got on the show and Matt didn’t. After all, this whole thing had been Matt’s idea. If anyone deserved a slot in the programming, it was Matt.
Matt’s jaw dropped. “You mean you didn’t get on?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t know.” Cody had been all set to share his good news with his friend, that it looked like he was a shoo-in. But now it seemed like that would be rubbing salt into a wound. “Did you have a video interview?” Cody asked. Maybe Matt was just being pessimistic. As he had told Martha Stewart, Matt was a guy who was totally clueless about his sex appeal. And his charm.
Matt shook his head. “Nah, just a face to face with one of the producers, a guy named Wally Fielding. He was kind of fun, until he started to seem a little too interested in my sex life, or lack thereof.” Finally Matt laughed. “Why? Did you have an on-camera interview?”
What should I say? What do you mean, what should you say? Protect your friend’s feelings. “No. I just happened to walk by a room with people being interviewed on camera and thought maybe you had one of those. I was just curious.” Cody felt an odd mixture, almost like nausea, in his gut. What would he do if, as he suspected, he was selected to be on the show and Matt wasn’t?
As they gathered up their coats, he came to a decision—their friendship was worth too much. If both of them didn’t get on the show, Cody simply would turn them down. It was a stupid idea, anyway. As if he would actually find someone he wanted to marry on a TV show! Preposterous! No, Cody thought, I won’t drive a wedge between Matt and me. The show might be fun, but to think it will have a serious reward is wishful thinking. His last thought caused a question to burst forth. “Hey! What happens if there’s no love connection?”
“What do you mean?” Matt was all buttoned into his pea coat and was wrapping a blue and brown scarf around his neck.
Cody tugged on his black stocking cap. They started out of the ballroom, Cody looking around for his Jesse Williams lookalike. He was nowhere to be seen. Now there’s a guy I would bet money is a contestant. He’s probably being kept behind so he can sign all the releases and shit. “I mean, what if the husband hunter doesn’t find a husband? Do they just abandon the episode? Do they force you to get married? Can they do that?”
Matt appeared to be thinking as they headed down the escalator. Once in the lobby, Cody could see rain pouring down, relentless. The streets were slick with it and bereft of any of the white stuff from the morning.
Matt looked back at him, frowning. “Shit. Did you bring an umbrella?”
Cody cocked his head. “Who in this town ever carries an umbrella? You want I should look like a tourist?” They both laughed.
In Seattle, the rub went that it was only the out-of-towners who carried and used umbrellas. Seattleites were made of heartier stuff, fearless of the frequent gray skies and precipitation.
“You want to get a drink in the hotel bar?” Matt asked. “Maybe it’ll calm down.”
“That sounds good.” The pair turned and headed toward the bar. “You never answered my question, though. What if the guy doesn’t pick a husband? On House Hunters, at least, you never see anyone say, “Nope. None of these will do. We’ll just stick with our apartment.”
They went into the low-lit bar and climbed up on stools. Matt asked, “You’ve never really watched the show, have you?”
“Nope.”
“And yet you trusted me enough to play along today?”
“Yup.”
A bartender, a dark-haired older woman wearing crimson lipstick and what looked like a permanent frown, took their orders—a beer for Matt and a Bloody Mary for Cody. “Well, to answer your question, some of the shows just end with no one getting married. They had to allow for that. Surprisingly, though, it happens very rarely.”
Cody nodded and took a sip of the Bloody Mary the bartender placed before him. He still felt an uncomfortable twinge of guilt at the fear he’d be chosen for the show and his friend would not, which was why he paid for their drinks and later offered to take Matt out to Ba Bar, one of Matt’s favorite Vietnamese restaurants. “My treat.”
“What’s up with you?” Matt asked as they were leaving the bar. “I can pay my own way.”
“I want to. Let me.”
“Hey, who am I to argue? Living on a teacher’s wages”—Matt swung his scarf around his neck as the pair prepared to emerge into what had turned to sprinkles—”a girl needs all the help she can get. I am getting dessert too…and a Moscow Mule, maybe several. Just so you know.” Matt winked at him.
The wink made Cody warm inside, in spite of the chill and drizzle. Yes, he thought, I will definitely decline unless we’re both chosen. I couldn’t do that to him. Cody followed his friend into the rain, looking forward to a big steaming bowl of pho ga at Ba Bar. The Vietnamese noodle soup was the perfect antidote to the day.
Cody was already putting Husband Hunters, and this afternoon, far behind him.
* * * *
Martha Stewart just happened to see and recognize Cody and Matt as they emerged into the rain, shoulders hunched, walking fast. She smiled, and her work counterpart, Wally Fielding, came up behind her. He slid his arm around her waist and kissed the back of her neck.
“What are you looking at? I got room service to bring us martinis—filthy—and oysters.”
Martha purred, reaching down to feel Wally’s hardness inside his khakis. “My, aren’t we frisky?”
“I might like that,” Martha said, turning toward him. “I was just watching our two favorite contestants. Looks like they’re headed off to dinner together.” She kissed him.
When they both came up for air, Wally said, “Their show is going to be brilliant. Best friends to romance. It’ll be great. And the fun part is they’ll have no idea until we start shooting.”
“It is a delicious idea. Devilish too.” Martha moved away from the window, clinging to Wally in an awkward waltz.
They collapsed on the bed together. “Delicious and devilish are two words I think of when I think of you.”
“Flatterer!” Martha accused. Then she asked, “Think we have time for a quickie before room service arrives?”
Chapter 4
Cody had pretty much forgotten all about Husband Hunters when he got the call. After all, it was now late in the spring, school was winding down for summer vacation, and a whole slew of things had happened to crowd out the day he had spent auditioning for the show. He had just gotten back from the Chicago area and a visit to his parents over spring break. There, during a night out alone in the city’s Andersonville neighborhood, he had met and spent a wonderful night with a guy named Andy. They had made out in Andy’s car, parked near St. Boniface Cemetery, and then had headed back to Andy’s condo on Lake Shore Drive. Cody had awakened to sweeping views of Lake Michigan, the sounds of Andy whisking something in the kitchen, and the smell of coffee brewing. Andy had served him breakfast in bed—soft scrambled eggs with goat cheese, heirloom tomato wedges, and sourdough toast slathered with fig and walnut preserves. They had promised to e-mail and become Facebook friends. But Cody had gotten busy and his good intentions to be in touch turned from days into weeks. Besides, Andy had never followed up, either. So Cody’s hopes for a summertime visit from Andy decreased with each silent day. The memory now became more and more like a fantasy, wish fulfillment, or a dream.
He had gotten a dog, an irascible mutt from the pound who one of the workers described as a bulldog/dachshund mix and who had to be one of the ugliest creatures on God’s green earth. The dog was three years old, and the sign on his cage had told potential adopters that he needed lots of “TLC.” In other words, he had behavior problems. But Cody, peering in at him one Saturday in March when he had wandered into the shelter on a whim, found himself unable to forget—or to resist—the dog’s warm brown eyes. They seemed to plead with Cody.
There was something almost comical about the dog’s elongated body and smashed-in face. He looked like a mistake! That and his eyes, which were so expressive as to appear almost human, caused Cody to return to the shelter the next day and say the words that changed his life, for better or worse: “I’ll take him.”
He brought the dog home and found he had a fetish for pulling apart zippers—in pillows, couch cushions, whatever he could find. Ryder, as Cody named him, seemed to have a deep-seated hatred for the zipper and was on a mission to destroy each one he found. “You and your dog both can’t stand to see a zipper zipped. You guys are a match made in heaven,” Matt had quipped early on. Ryder was also not housebroken, and soon Cody found himself using lots of pet stain and odor remover spray and getting acquainted with puppy pads. Ryder hated puppy pads almost as much as he hated zippers and liked to rip them to shreds, but God forbid he should ever actually pee on one.
Yet in spite of all this, Cody had fallen hopelessly in love with the dog the moment he walked out of the shelter with him, Ryder trying desperately to bite at his leash. Even though he had bought a big dog bed for him, Cody found that Ryder preferred to sleep in bed with Cody, curled up between his legs. Cody dared not move throughout the night for fear of disturbing his new pal’s slumber.
Oh yeah, and Ryder could snore like a three hundred pound truck driver after a long haul.
Maybe it was precisely because Cody knew Ryder was so unlovable that he lavished all of his own love and attention on him. Cody and Ryder soon became a familiar pair walking down Stone Way toward Lake Union. Ryder loved to frolic at Gas Works Park, and Cody had actually met a couple of fellow dog owners he would talk with at the park. The curious thing, though, was that he knew the dogs’ names—Daisy and Esther—long before he knew their owners’ names.
Matt had told Cody he was crazy for taking in such a “hideous cur.” But Cody could see his friend had a soft spot for Ryder too. Matt couldn’t resist bringing the dog a treat every time he came over—a stuffed animal, a bone, a piece of steak leftover from his dinner the night before.
Ryder was just one more reason Cody had, for all intents and purposes, forgotten about his weird day auditioning as a contestant for the show. Training Ryder to, at the very minimum, direct his aggression toward his rubber toys as opposed to zippers and take care of business outside was almost a full-time job.
It was a Saturday morning in early May when Cody’s phone rang. He had been wrestling with Ryder on the bed and thought the call would be from Matt. There would be plans to be made, like where to go for pizza that night. And more importantly, which bars to use as their command headquarters in searching for Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right Now.
But when Cody looked at his phone’s screen, he was confronted with an unfamiliar number and no name. The area code didn’t even look familiar. And when he answered with a cautious “Hello,” the words that came back to him made him laugh because they were words he never believed would come through his own humble smart phone.
“Hello. This is Martha Stewart. Is this Cody Mook?”
Cody laughed out loud, not even making the connection to his audition from last winter. “Come on, bitch, quit pulling my leg. Martha Stewart indeed!” Cody laughed again. “What? You need my recipe for roast chicken?”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and Cody felt a flash of burning heat rise to his cheeks as his memory filled in what was missing and the audition, at last, clicked into place. He thought with horror, did I really call her bitch?
“Oh, Martha! Right!” he jabbered. “From Husband Hunters. Of course! How are you?”
“Bitchin’,” Martha responded, deadpan.
“That’s good.” Cody tried to swallow but found there was no spit in his mouth. “What’s up?”
Martha let out a quiet little snicker, and Cody surmised she was most likely thinking of simply hanging up. “I was calling to let you know that we’re interested in having you on the show.”
“Seriously? Me? Husband Hunters, you mean?”
“No,” Martha said. “The Real Housewives of Dayton.”
Cody scratched his head.
“I’m kidding. Yes, Husband Hunters. I was calling to see if you’re still interested and still available.”
“Well, I’m still on the market. Surprising as that may be…” Cody didn’t want to commit to anything. He recalled his promise to himself that he would not do the show without Matt. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to find out more.
“That’s good for us,” Martha said. “Maybe the show can change that.”
“One can hope.”
“One can indeed hope. We’re in our third season, and I like to tell folks we’re responsible for more than three dozen happy marriages!” Martha practically squealed. Squealing did not become her. “We need to know if you’ll be available for several weekends of taping over the summer.”
“Um, gee, I’d have to look and make sure.” How did he do this? He needed to know if Matt was a contestant before he committed.
“You’re a teacher, right? Aren’t you pretty much off for the summer? Or do you do summer school or some other kind of work? Are you one of those workaholic types? God, if I had the summer off…” Martha’s voice trailed off as she presumably thought about how she’d spend all her idle hours.
Cody snorted. “I’m a lazy bum. Do you know how beautiful Seattle is then? I like to just t
ake it easy in the summer.” He was looking forward to lots of quality time with Ryder too, and transforming the dog from a bad boy to Pet of the Year. He imagined many long walks around Green Lake with the pooch, handsome shirtless runners stopping to marvel at the poor dog’s unfortunate looks.
“So, what’s the problem? It sounds like you’d have more free time than most of our contestants.”
Cody told himself he might as well just come right out and ask. If Matt not being on the show was a deal breaker, he should get it over with now. The thought rankled, though. A part of him really did want to be on the show, to see if the promise it held out could actually be realized.
“What about Matt Connelly?”
Martha didn’t say anything for a moment, and Cody was getting ready to refresh her memory, certain she would have no knowledge of his friend or, if she did, no memory. But all she said was, “What about him?”
“You know who I’m talking about? My best friend? I came to the audition with him.”
“I know who he is.”
“Is he gonna be on the show too?”
Again, Martha was quiet for several seconds. Cody filled the silence, anticipating her reply, something along the lines of “No, I’m sorry, but Mr. Connelly was not selected.” Instead she said, “I’m not supposed to say. But I often do what I’m not supposed to, hence the string of failed marriages. Matt has already agreed to be on the show.”
That took Cody by surprise. Matt had already agreed? Really? And he hadn’t told him? “Is that so?”
“Yes. I just spoke to him before I called you. We’re trying to line up several contestants in the Pacific Northwest.”
“And did he agree?”
Martha laughed. “Did he ever! I thought he was going to have a coronary.”
That sounded like Matt. As though summoned by their conversation, his call waiting showed a call from Matt coming in. Cody pressed the screen to decline the call and send it to voice mail.
“So are you in?” Martha asked, a tiny bit of impatience coming through.
“Like Flynn,” Cody replied.