In Stereo Where Available Read online

One toe tapping behind her, the opposite shoe,

  Plebian and practical. But her eyes betray,

  With hazel complexity, something softer.

  Close behind her, the swirl of her hair above her nape

  Distracts me; “Hello” is difficult.

  She smiles, her offered hand shaming my too-big grasp,

  And I am struck silent by these unfamiliar things,

  By the shape of women.

  Her name in my pocket, the strange numerology

  Of her home, folded and unfolded,

  Soft-edged, in its trailing penned lines

  A Scriptural kind of hope.

  Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

  Jerry

  When Lauren got home from her date later that night, I asked her, “How was the computer programmer?”

  “Oh…no good. I could tell as soon as I saw his car.”

  “How is that?”

  “It’s a Suburban. No wife, no kids, and he drives a big gas-guzzling Suburban. I drive a Prius, right? That’s definitely not in the cards.”

  “You’re car-incompatible.”

  “We are. It’s too bad, too. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  I turned the page of the art resource book I was looking through and began making a list of necessary supplies. Tempera paint, I wrote. Manila paper. Soda straws.

  “So give him another chance,” I told her. “Maybe you can talk him into trading it in for a smaller car.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No way. I’m not about changing anybody. Besides, it says a lot about him psychologically. He wants to be able to look at every other guy on the road during that morning commute and say to himself, ‘I’ve got a bigger one.’“

  “So what kind of a car are you looking for in a guy?”

  She considered the question seriously. “I think maybe an Acura Integra. Something that says ‘financial security,’ but at least somewhat environmentally responsible, and classy without being showy. You know what I mean?”

  “I suppose.”

  “A Saturn would be good, too. Speaking of men, did you ever call good old Jerry?” I’d told her about my mystery caller. She was following the developments like a newspaper serial.

  I sighed. “Yeah. I couldn’t break it to him that I’m not Karen. He sounded so happy, I just couldn’t do it. He asked for my e-mail address.”

  “Did you give it to him?”

  “Yeah, I figured that way I’d get an e-mail from him, and I’d be able to write him back and tell him about the mix-up without having to hear his reaction, you know? But you know what he sent me?”

  “What?”

  “A poem, Lauren. He wrote it himself, to me. I mean, to Karen. It was so sweet. I can’t tell him I’m not her. He’ll be so embarrassed.”

  She grinned and took a few steps into the kitchen, opening the fridge door and pulling out a Styrofoam container of leftover steak fajitas and a packet of tortillas. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t just ignore it. I’d feel like he was just sitting there forever waiting to hear back from me. Besides, I don’t want him to start sending me a string of e-mails that sound as pathetically hopeful as his phone messages. That I just couldn’t handle.”

  The microwave buttons beeped, and the light inside flashed on, the foam container turning slowly. “Can you pretend you’re Karen and tell him you’re in a relationship right now?”

  I shuddered. “I couldn’t do that. It would break his heart. Anyway, why would I have given him my phone number if I was in a relationship? He’ll never believe it. He’ll know I’m just ditching him.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to do something.”

  “I know, I know. I just have no idea what.”

  “He could be a psycho, you know. Maybe there’s a reason Karen gave him a phony number. What kind of guy sends a woman poetry after he’s just met her, anyway?”

  “A sweet guy, maybe. I don’t know. I’m just going to sit in front of my computer and wait for insight.”

  “Let me know what happens,” she said, spooning sour cream onto a plate. “I don’t envy you. I hate breaking up with guys I don’t like anymore. I’ve never had to break up with someone I haven’t even met.”

  I closed my bedroom door and turned on my computer, staring at the screen blankly, knocking the mouse every now and then to keep the screen saver from coming on. Finally I hit “Reply.”

  Dear Jerry, I wrote.

  Your poem was so sweet. Thanks so much for sharing it with me. Things are kind of busy for me these days, but I’ll get in touch if I get any free time in my schedule. Take care!

  Karen

  There, I thought. Perfect. Flattering, while making use of Lauren’s never-fail method for avoiding men: the busy schedule. I sighed and logged out of my e-mail account, musing on the irony of Jerry and his lonely love poetry. I’d written in my profile on Kismet that I was looking for someone intelligent, romantic, and gentle yet assertive. Finally there was a chance he was coming my way—and he was looking for somebody else. Go figure.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Welcome to an enchanted world where the morning brings gentle mists that rise over fields of cotton, lovers share secrets in the cool retreat of a grape arbor, and gorgeous spreading vistas offer little girls a chance to dream of princes and castles on a slow summer afternoon. Here in this beautifully restored antebellum mansion, twelve very special ladies will have the opportunity to seize their fate and make that dream their own—if they can become—the Belle of Georgia!”

  The camera swooped dramatically through the front door of the vast white-columned house and into what looked like a ballroom, where the twelve very special ladies fanned out on each side of a guy who looked like he’d just stepped out of a cologne ad. He wore a loose white cotton shirt and khaki pants with a pair of old-fashioned leather explorer boots—everything but the pith helmet and a spider monkey on his shoulder. When he smiled, the cleft in his chin deepened. My sister was third from his right, flashing thousands of dollars in cosmetic dental work. She wore a dress of pink rosebud-print calico, her shoulders bared, her skirts four feet in diameter. She looked like some kind of early Dolly Parton album cover.

  “Each of these ladies has been chosen in a nationwide search to vie for the love of a Southern gentleman—and yet not one, but two gentlemen will be competing for their hands. True love will prevail, and with it, a spectacular reward unlike anything they might have imagined. Stay tuned for the television event of the century!”

  A maid-service commercial came on. I microwaved some leftover chicken casserole and sat down just in time to see the contestants’ bios flashing across the screen.

  “Lily Martin, nineteen, a personal trainer from Tallahassee, Florida; Kathy McNamara, twenty-two, a pediatric nurse from Boston, Massachusetts; Grace Kassner, twenty-four, a first-grade teacher from Silver Spring, Maryland…”

  “You wench!” I said out loud. Riding the coattails of my job like that. And she’d shaved five years off our age.

  “And I’m your host, Brent Holloway. Now let’s meet the eligible bachelors who will be competing for the hands of these lovely ladies. It is of utmost importance that the true identities of these gentlemen not be revealed until the conclusion of our whirlwind romance. With this in mind, may I introduce you to our first bachelor—Rhett!”

  A tall, dark-haired man in a red silk smoking jacket was standing in an elegant library, one hand on his hip and the other on top of a bust of Julius Caesar. He was pretty cute, even if he didn’t look all that much like Rhett Butler. He was missing the mustache, and his toothy grin looked more uneducated than piratical.

  “A Charlestonian by birth, Rhett is searching for a woman who is intelligent, beautiful, and knows what she wants out of life. She should be free-spirited yet devoted, with an interest in exotic travel and enjoyment of fine wine and cuisine.”

  I nodded approvingly. Madison had as good a shot at him as anyone.
She fit most of that description, except for “devoted” and, to some extent, “intelligent.”

  “Our next bachelor, a Georgia native, is a man we will call—Ashley!”

  The camera cut to a lanky, well-bred guy with curly blond hair, wearing riding boots and standing beside a horse, reins in hand. He turned and looked casually into the camera, smiling a little sadly.

  “Ashley prefers to spend his days discussing poetry and philosophy, and is searching for a kindred spirit with whom he can share his innermost thoughts and feelings. He enjoys European travel, great literature, and the orchestra.”

  Well, Maddie was out of luck there. At least she still had Rhett.

  “On their own, each of these wonderful ladies has a marvelous opportunity to win the heart of one of our gentlemen. Yet they will not be competing alone. Two teams will be chosen, and accept challenges to display the skills and talents becoming of a Southern belle. Each week, the losing team must choose one contestant among themselves who will return home—a dream forever lost, and yet, tomorrow is another day!”

  I rolled my eyes and poked around in my chicken casserole with my fork, looking for more of the Ritz-cracker topping.

  “Our teams have been chosen based on one of the most important events in the history of our great nation—a crucible on which our national identity was forged. As Americans, our contestants are eager to participate in the re-creation of this most significant time in our history—the epic battle between North and South!”

  Brent Holloway gestured toward a small mahogany table draped with a dark blue cloth and pulled the cloth with a flourish. Laid out in a shallow box were twelve oval brooches, six of the American flag and six of the Confederate. There was an audible gasp from the women behind him.

  “As I call your name, ladies, please come forward and receive your colors.”

  One at a time he pinned the brooches to their strapless dresses. The two cameras switched back and forth between the contestants’ cleavage and the way Brent Holloway’s nubby cotton shirt floated over his pectoral muscles. When my sister came forward and he picked up an American flag, she looked nervous. I knew what she was thinking. Maryland. Border state. And those Southern girls looked mean.

  The first challenge came right after the commercial. It was called “Barbecue at Twelve Oaks,” and began with a scene of all the girls running around a big, pale-blue bedroom in old-fashioned underwear, lacing each other into corsets. Lots of leering shots of women moving their boobs around and their suggestive grimaces as they pulled each others’ laces as tightly as they could. One girl, a Yankee, passed out. Lined up in two neat rows in the rose garden, they sucked in their stomachs as Brent Holloway measured their waists with a long yellow tailor’s tape. The Rebels won by a good six inches, and Brent unveiled a table full of barbecue and iced tea for them to enjoy, if they could, while schmoozing with Rhett and Ashley.

  “We gave it a good try,” said a girl from New York, weakly.

  “I guess that’s the price we pay for not being a bunch of anorexic debutante bimbos,” my sister added acidly. They voted out a girl from Delaware. She was the fat one.

  I sat in a shaky black chair just behind the window at Starbucks, swinging my crossed-over leg with studied nonchalance and reading a celebrity magazine someone had left behind. Rhett’s Real World was the name of the article, the red letters splashed above a full-page photo of Rhett sitting in a living room that looked like part of a Pottery Barn showroom. From the custom-built wine cellar to the African-inspired master suite, this is the villa that the rakish Charlestonian calls home.

  “Phoebe?”

  I’d already seen him walk in, but I looked up from my magazine in feigned surprise. “Sam! Nice to meet you.”

  He was short, with the kind of close-cropped haircut that men get when they realize they’re going bald, but he wasn’t too bad looking. I shook his short-fingered hand and let him get in line to order me a cappuccino.

  “So,” he said, sitting down in the chair opposite mine and handing me my coffee, “I understand you’re from around here?”

  “Originally? Yeah. I grew up in Takoma Park.”

  “Really? That’s a nice area. I’ve hit the antique stores there a few times.”

  I smiled. That was a good start. “So where are you from?”

  “Ohio. I moved out here for work.” He crossed and uncrossed his legs nervously. “I work for a nonprofit downtown. The Children’s Action League.”

  Even better. I pushed the magazine onto the windowsill and wrapped my hands around my coffee, leaning toward him. “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Yeah, definitely. It’s rewarding, you know? Trying to make sure every kid gets a fair shot. Well, you know. You’re ateacher, right?”

  “Yes.” I was already sorry I’d not only foregone the heels, but had worn jeans and an oversized L.L.Bean sweater. The idea had been to project an “I’ve got no investment in this date” vibe. Unfortunately, that was no longer the vibe I wanted to project.

  “You’ve got to love your work,” he said, tapping the table with his fist. “It’s not enough just to collect the paycheck. Life’s too short.”

  I nodded avidly. “I completely agree.”

  “That’s the difference between here and Ohio, if you ask me. People rush around too much. I see it all the time when I’m working at the blood drives. People pass by, they don’t want to come in. They don’t want to slow down, or run the risk that they’ll have to take it easy for an afternoon. It’s sad, really.”

  This was getting better and better. Mentally I started sifting through my calendar for the next three months, trying to remember how many weekends I had free. “Is that like a volunteering thing you do?”

  He sipped his coffee and nodded. “Yeah, for the Red Cross. I do it once, sometimes twice a week. It’s important work.”

  “Wow. That’s terrific. I mean, that you’re willing to take so much time out to do that.”

  “I don’t mind.” He shrugged, then smiled at me. “I’m great with a needle. I can get a vein on anybody. You’re probably pretty easy. Your veins, I mean.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I never have any problem at the doctor’s office. How can you tell?”

  “Just your look. Your build, I suppose. Some people bleed easier than others. Hey, is that an antique shop?”

  I looked at the place he was pointing to across the street. “No, it’s a fake one. They sell country crafts. You know, cows and angels and stuff.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad.”

  I extended a finger timidly from my coffee cup and poked his hand. “I know a good store in Kensington, though, if you want me to show you sometime.”

  He grinned. “That’d be great. I’m pretty specific in what I look for, though. I’m kind of a collector.”

  “So what do you collect?”

  “Oh…pictures. Old photos, mostly. Specific old photos.”

  “Like a particular celebrity or something?”

  “Not exactly. I collect mourning photos.”

  I looked at him curiously. “What’s a mourning photo?”

  “Oh, they were an old Victorian tradition from the early days of photography. When a loved one died, they took a picture. For posterity.”

  I nodded. It seemed a delicate subject. “Of the mourners. That makes sense. Sometimes it seems like that’s the only time you can get the whole family together. I remember at my grandma’s—”

  “No, not of the mourners. Of the deceased.”

  I stared at Sam for a long moment. “I beg your pardon?”

  He curved his furry eyebrows upward as if in sympathy. “It makes sense when you think about it. People didn’t have a lot of photos of their loved ones to remember them by. So sometimes they took the final picture in the coffin, sometimes on their bed. It was pretty common. It’s not, like…weird.”

  I shook my head slowly. “No, not at all.”

  He sipped his coffee. “They’re kind of hard to come by. I’ve only got ab
out fifty. A lot of antique-store owners aren’t even aware of the custom.” He reached into his back pocketand pulled out his wallet. Flipping it open to the plastic photo pages, he said, “I always carry a few with me, so they’ll know what I’m talking about when I ask. Reproductions, of course.”

  “Of course.” Through a half squint, I peered at the photo he’d laid on the table. It showed a woman who looked like the Whistler’s Mother, white bonnet and all, resting peacefully on a satin-ruffled coffin lining. Over her head, in elaborate white script, was the word Mother.

  I managed to steer my gaze up to Sam’s face and waited for him to give me the punch line. Perhaps this was his idea of a great first-date gag, or else some kind of a test of how tolerant or compassionate a person I was. Unfortunately, it was a test I was about to fail.

  “I have other ones,” he offered, his tone hopeful. With his index finger, he flipped through a few of his other samples. “A tree-cutting accident, an epidemic victim. Back at my place I even have one from Hawaii. That’s very unusual. Maybe I could show it to you sometime.”

  I raised my eyebrows as high as possible and answered with an excited nod. When I’d walked into this Starbucks, my goal had been marriage and children. Now, it was to leave without seeing any more dead people.

  “Well, I’d better head out,” I said, glancing at the wrist I’d forgotten to put a watch on. “Lots of papers to grade.”

  “Sure.” Sam flipped his wallet closed and moved to tuck it back into his pocket, then hesitated. “Hey, you forgot to give me your phone number. I’m free next weekend, if you like. We can go antiquing, maybe. Or you could come over to my place and I can show you my collection.”

  “Sure. Sure.” I peeked into my purse. “Oh, I don’t have a pen or paper.”

  “I do.” He tore a corner from the celebrity magazine and handed me a pen from his pocket, then winked at me. “I won’t lose it. Promise.”

  I breezily wrote down a string of ten random numbers, properly punctuated, and handed it to him with a smile.

  “Give me a call,” I said, with as much cheerful warmth as I could muster. “If I’m not there, just leave a voice mail. And it’s been great meeting you.”