The Fussy Virgin

by McGarvey Black

  41

  January 2018

  To kick off the new year and create positive changes in her life, Callie made some resolutions that she intended to keep. She would get herself on a regular exercise program, which meant not just signing up for a gym membership, but actually going. She would start eating healthier and doing laundry in a timely manner. She would finish editing the final draft of The Fussy Virgin Guide while simultaneously writing her romantic comedy novel entitled, In My Opinion. The novel began with a phone call between a telemarketer and a man on the phone answering a survey. Unlike in life, in her novel, the two people do find each other again. Her secret fantasy was that In My Opinion would become a bestseller and the Mystery Man would read it, find her and they would then live happily ever after.

  “What happened to your New Year’s resolution about moving on?” said Jess after Callie shared her multi-pronged plan.

  “I am moving on. I’m exercising, doing laundry…”

  “You’re writing a novel about the Mystery Man.”

  “It’s a great story for a rom-com,” said Callie starting to squirm. “If he happens to read it and finds me, everyone wins.”

  “You think your Mystery Man reads romantic comedies?” Jess said.

  “I don’t know, probably not. If it’s a really big success, maybe they’ll make a movie out of it and he’ll see it.”

  “You’re delusional,” said Jess.

  “If it won an Oscar for Best Picture, he might hear about it.”

  “You’re a genius.” said Jess, rolling her eyes. “It’s so obvious and simple, an Oscar winning film. Why didn’t we think of that before?”

  “It could happen,” said Callie as Jess put her head in her hands and groaned.

  Election day was now only ten months away and the workload at Ariom Marketing had ramped up to meet the demands of their many political clients. Almost daily, George dumped additional polling projects on Callie’s desk and asked her to work overtime, again. Callie, Jess and a handful of the other senior pollsters were also pulling some weekend hours. Callie agreed to it because she needed the extra money and had a practically non-existent social life anyway.

  Making good on her pledge to get in better shape, she signed up for yoga and spinning classes near her upper westside apartment. One cold winter evening in the last week of January, she took an hour spinning class followed by forty-five minutes of restorative yoga. When she dragged herself off her yoga mat her limbs were like wet noodles. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror in the changing room and gasped. Her face was red, blotchy, puffy and sweaty and her hair looked like something a mother bird had assembled for laying her eggs. I look horrible!

  She zipped up her gym bag, tucked all her hair up inside a baseball hat, pulled it down low, wrapped a blue woolen scarf around her neck so it covered half of her face, put on her green down winter jacket and walked briskly out onto the street headed towards her apartment. Purposefully, she kept her eyes down on the sidewalk to limit the chance of an encounter with anyone she knew. Please don’t let me run into anyone I know on the way home.

  With her earphones in and music on, she avoided all eye contact with fellow New Yorkers. As she neared her apartment on West 109th Street she remembered there was nothing to eat in her apartment. Despite the cold, she made a last-minute decision to make a detour and duck into her local supermarket. After several weeks of working nights and eating company-paid dinners at the office consisting mainly of pizza and Chinese food, she promised herself that she was going to eat something healthy.

  The small upper westside supermarket was crowded with hungry shoppers picking up prepared food for dinner and the lines at the checkout were long. Callie navigated her cart through the narrow city market aisles looking for ingredients to make a big chopped salad. She grabbed lettuce, carrots, cucumber and a red onion in the produce section and threw them into her cart. Moving on to the dairy aisle, she picked up some cheese, milk and a gluten-free French baguette. After examining the contents of her cart, she needed one more thing to complete her salad—garbanzo beans for some protein.

  Pushing her cart down the aisle of canned goods, she spotted the beans she wanted on the top shelf, way above her reach. She looked for an employee to help her but no one was around. Hungry, tired and impatient, she put her right foot on the bottom shelf and her left on the shelf above that and boosted herself up. Scaling the shelves while leaning dangerously to the right, Callie reached for the elusive can at the same time as a man, carrying a food basket and wearing wireless earphones, came down the aisle.

  “I’m telling you, Danny,” said the man, engaged in a phone conversation, “you’re going to have to do a whole new contract. They’re trying to screw us.”

  He looked up and saw the back of a woman in a baseball hat dangling from a high shelf stretching for a can clearly beyond her reach. In one fluid movement, without stopping or interrupting his call, the man easily plucked the can of garbanzos from the top shelf, put it in Callie’s outstretched hand and continued down the aisle without stopping.

  “I’m serious, Danny, tear up that document and start over or there will be hell to pay later on.”

  “Thanks,” said Callie weakly to the back of the man’s head as he turned the corner and disappeared.

  Later, after she paid for her groceries, she walked out the front door of the market into the icy January wind. It blew right through her and she started to shiver. Turning in the direction of her apartment, she took a few steps and suddenly remembered she had to pick up her clothes from the dry cleaners. She made an abrupt about-face, and nearly collided head-first into the stomach of the man who had handed her the can of garbanzo beans.

  “Whoa,” said the man as he sidestepped around her.

  “Sorry,” she said, looking down as she hurried away.

  Watching the diminutive woman in an oversized parka and baseball cap sprint away, Patrick’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Sunny wanting to finalize plans for the weekend. Friends of hers had a beach house in Montauk and had invited them to come out and stay over on Saturday night. Sunny had been bugging him to commit. Patrick let out a long frosty breath when he read the text.

  “I don’t know what’s holding me back with Sunny,” Patrick had complained to Lorenzo a few weeks earlier.

  “You’re crazy. She’s seriously gorgeous,” said Lorenzo.

  “I know.”

  “Stop fighting it. Most people would kill for a girl like her.”

  “It’s just…I don’t know.”

  “You’re not still thinking about that girl from last Valentine’s Day,” said Lorenzo.

  “Nah. I’m totally over that,” said Patrick, forcing a smirk.

  “Good, because that lost puppy dog thing you were doing for months after that call, it wasn’t a good look for you.”

  “I know. And, you’re right, Sunny is a great girl but…”

  “Or is it because…Houdini’s back in town?” asked Lorenzo with a big smile, as if he were in on a private joke. “Historically, whenever one of your relationships drifts into the serious zone, you disappear.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Incredulous, Lorenzo stared at his friend. “Y’okay, guy.”

  “I like to keep things simple and light. Women always want to get serious so fast,” said Patrick. “Half of them show up for a first date wearing a wedding gown. Besides, none of those women were right for me.”

  “And Sunny?”

  “Jury is still out. The other day I was watching a documentary on space travel and asked her what she thought about NASA and the space program. She said she doesn’t pay attention to that stuff. The woman has a master’s degree and works in a newsroom and she knows nothing about the space program.”

  “She’s not obsessed with the same things you are. Is that a crime? You love sports; if Sunny didn’t like basketball, would that be a reason to end it?”

  “Not liking basketball seems wrong.”
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  “Y’okay, Houdini.”

  42

  The minute she walked into the KNYC newsroom that Tuesday morning carrying a cup of hot tea, Sunny sensed something was off. Heads turned and eyes followed her as she walked through the main thoroughfare towards her small office in the weather department. Her eyes darted from side to side as she observed everyone was watching her. She looked down at her phone to see if there were any new texts. Nothing. She shrugged, held her head up and kept walking.

  When she got to the doorway of her office, she waved to her assistant, signaling for the younger woman to follow her in. Twenty seconds later, her assistant stepped inside Sunny’s office with a cup of coffee.

  “Sit down and shut the door,” commanded Sunny as she sat at her desk and took the lid off of her tea. “What’s going on around here? Something’s happening. I can feel it.”

  “Oh my God, Sunny. I’ve been dying waiting for you to get here,” said the assistant. “All hell’s broken loose. It’s not good.”

  “What’s not good? Everyone was staring at me when I walked into the office. Am I getting fired?”

  The assistant shook her head. “I don’t know. Let me just say, I don’t believe a word of it, not a single word.”

  “A word of what?”

  A loud knock sounded on Sunny’s office door and it slowly opened. “Morning. Here to water your ficus tree,” said the plant man.

  “Not now!” shrieked Sunny, causing the man to slam the door shut. She turned her attention back to her assistant. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on right now, I will scream.”

  “This is kind of awkward but apparently, Jim Bauer, our senior news anchor…”

  “I know who Jim Bauer is. Get to the point.”

  “Apparently, Bauer is…was having an affair with someone here at KNYC. Mrs. Bauer found out about it and hired a lawyer. A formal complaint was sent to our station’s legal department and also to the president of KNYC.”

  Sunny leaned forward. “What has this got to do with me?”

  The assistant swallowed. “Apparently, Mrs. Bauer said that her husband has been aggressively using his senior position here at the station to solicit romantic liaisons with certain lower staffers which is expressly forbidden in our contracts. She said it was her moral obligation to put a stop to it, what with the whole ‘Me Too’ movement happening.”

  Sunny looked at her assistant and cringed. “Who would even hold hands with Jim Bauer, let alone do anything else?” she said as she shivered. “He’s repulsive. He’s a human reptile.”

  “Thing is,” said her assistant, swallowing again, “Mrs. Bauer named you as the lower staffer he was involved with.”

  “WHAT! ME?” screamed Sunny as she jumped up from her desk. “Are you crazy?”

  “That’s the rumor.”

  Sunny’s phone dinged. It was a text from HR. They wanted to see her in thirty minutes.

  “This is insane,” said Sunny after reading the message. “Look at me. Does anyone really believe I, Sunny Raines, would be involved with old man Bauer? He’s like fifty-five years old with overly white fake teeth, a bad set of hair plugs and his skin is as oily as a fish. Why would anyone think I would be involved with him?”

  “Don’t know, but that’s what Mrs. Bauer thinks.”

  Sunny picked up her phone and called Jim Bauer. It went straight to his voicemail. “Jim, it’s Sunny,” she said through clenched teeth. “What the hell is going on? I just heard some ridiculous story about you and me having an affair, like that would ever happen. You and I both know this is not true. We need to straighten this out immediately. Two minutes ago HR just summoned me to their offices. Call me. Immediately.”

  Her assistant slipped out of her office while a frantic Sunny called Patrick and told him what had happened. She had often complained to Patrick about several of the male jerks at KNYC, and Jim Bauer was always at the top of the list. She’d even change the TV channel if Bauer came on to do the news.

  From her first day of work at KNYC, Sunny had taken an instant dislike to the veteran news anchor and remembered their first meeting vividly. She had been working at a local cable channel on Long Island, doing the weekend weather. Landing the job at KNYC, though a second-tier New York City news station, was a big deal and put her on the right trajectory to reach her ultimate career goal—nightly news anchor. She was uncharacteristically nervous that first day of work as she entered the news station building. While unpacking her personal items in her tiny office, a loud knock on her door made her look up.

  Jim Bauer, the top weekday evening news anchor stood in her doorway smiling. “Welcome to KNYC,” said Bauer as he reached out to shake her hand and then held it just a little too long. “I heard we had a new weekend weather girl. Sunny Raines, right? Perfect name for a weather girl. I’m Jim Bauer, I’m the evening anchor here.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Bauer,” Sunny said as she tried to disentangle her hand from his, but he held it firmly while he flashed a set of neon white dental implants. With a firm tug, she pulled her hand back and quickly put it into the pocket of her jacket, as if to protect it from another advance from Bauer.

  “They told me the new weather girl was a knockout but they didn’t do you justice. You know what I always like to do, Sunny?” said Bauer, expanding his grin. “I like to take the new people out for lunch and give them the lay of the land. How about next week. I’ll fill you in on the politics of this place so you don’t inadvertently step on any landmines.”

  Bauer gave her the creeps but Sunny had reluctantly agreed given Bauer’s position at the station. Before her lunch with him, she was given a little advice from several of the women in the office who warned her about the anchor. “Hold your own with him,” said one woman from the marketing department. “If he thinks he can get over on you, he’ll keep trying. He’s as relentless as he is smarmy.”

  “Bauer hits on every woman under sixty in this place,” said one of the makeup ladies. “How can I put this professionally? He’s a pig.”

  When they finally did go to lunch, Jim Bauer behaved like a wolf about to devour a lamb. He practically smacked his lips. What he didn’t bargain for was that Sunny was no lamb. The new weather girl was a woman on a mission and she was not about to let some lecherous old geez-bag derail her career plans with innuendo and gossip, not to mention she found him beyond vile.

  “I could really help a young woman like you,” Bauer said, leaning closer to her at the table. “You’ve got all the right stuff. I know a lot of people and if being an anchor is your goal, I could mentor you.”

  Not a woman to be trifled with, she let Bauer know in no uncertain terms that she’d be happy to get his advice but that was all. “That’s very kind of you, Jim. I’d really appreciate your guidance providing it remains strictly professional. In my last job, the head of the station kept trying to get me to sleep with him. I finally had to get an attorney. Needless to say, that station manager is now working as a DJ at a radio station somewhere in Arkansas, and we’re not even talking Little Rock.”

  That lunch with Bauer had been nearly two years earlier and Sunny had held the line. Bauer made a few additional attempts to entice her into his web but she remained firm and he eventually moved on to greener, more agreeable pastures.

  “If there’s no truth to it,” said Patrick, “my advice is to stay calm and you and Bauer go together to HR and straighten it all out. There is no truth to this, right?”

  “How could you even ask that? If he’s in the elevator, I take the stairs.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sunny, Jim Bauer, the SVP of Human Resources and two KNYC attorneys sat in the ninth floor’s small conference room to hash things out. Turned out, Mrs. Bauer was trying to gain some leverage in her divorce proceedings and figured this accusation was a way to upset her soon-to-be ex-husband’s professional apple cart. She knew the one thing her husband cared the most about was his precious career. When Sunny vehemently denied any association with Bauer, an
d Bauer explained his wife’s vindictiveness and volatility regarding their divorce, the KNYC lawyers did a one-eighty and said they thought they could get the matter resolved.

  News travels fast in any organization and by the time Sunny got back to her office, her assistant had already heard the whole accusation had been labeled a hoax. Though the nasty rumor had been squelched, Jim Bauer’s star had been permanently tarnished with the higher ups. That same week, the station’s top brass started looking around for Bauer’s replacement. Sunny came out of the whole thing looking like a team player and smelling like a fragrant rose. Everything worked in Sunny’s favor, as it often did, and now KNYC owed her one. She intended to milk it for all it was worth.

  43

  The Fussy Virgin Guide:

  “Do Soulmates Really Exist?”

  For centuries, great loves have been romanticized in real life and in literature. Some think our souls are connected before birth and paired together for eternity. Some believe that before babies are born, a soul is randomly stuffed inside of them. Then, once we’re on earth, we’re supposed to spend our lives hunting for that one kindred spirit who is our other half—our soulmate. This seems like a highly inefficient way to run the universe. If we’re supposed to find our other half, shouldn’t we be labeled or something?

  This brings me to my second question—is there only one soulmate per person or could we have several? The possibility that one might have more than one soulmate made me think deep thoughts. Or conversely, what if there’s no such thing as a soulmate but we still spend our whole lives looking for one? Is that not a monumental waste of time?

  Lastly, what if we’re not supposed to marry our soulmate? What if they’re only meant to make us a better person but not necessarily meant to be our romantic partner? Ugh, my head is aching.