Waltz This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  Macdaddy typed, “Cool.”

  “What brought you to the site, Macdaddy?” Callie asked, for what felt like the zillionth time since she’d begun this. Meaningless conversation suddenly made sense to her.

  “I hate the bar scene. I want to find my soul mate.”

  On Heavenly Hook Ups? That was reaching… ”And you think you’ll find that here?” Callie asked.

  “I’m sure going to give it a try. That’s why I Im-ed you. We have a lot in common.”

  Callie skimmed his profile again. Well, they both liked coffee. Certainly soul mates shared a good love of coffee. It went without saying…on the commonality scale that rated as a big, fat ten.

  “So have you been on any dates?” Callie typed into the small box.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And I didn’t find my soul mate.”

  Duh. “So you’ll keep looking?”

  “For as long as I have to…”

  Callie sensed a loneliness in Macdaddy that she couldn’t pinpoint, but was decidedly there. Maybe she was just being sensitive to the fact that most everyone who placed a profile on Heavenly Hook Ups was probably lonely. With the exception of her, that was.

  “What are you looking for in a man?” Macdaddy asked.

  Callie scratched her head. Someone who didn’t sleep with anything that had fake boobs and bleached blonde hair and pitched a hissy fit when she chipped a nail? No, that sounded bitter and she wasn’t a lot bitter over Frank anymore. He was just a pig.

  What did she want in a man? She hadn’t given that any thought at all. She only knew she didn’t want Frank or a derivative thereof—Callie hadn’t thought past that notion in two years since her divorce. “I want someone real. Someone genuine and faithful. Someone who will want me as much at fifty-eight as he does right now.” Callie’s answer surprised even her.

  “Isn’t that what we all want?” Macdaddy asked.

  Callie twisted a strand of hair before typing, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “What’s your idea of a romantic evening?”

  Anything that didn’t involve her getting a divorce lawyer? “I’m not like most women, I think. I don’t need candles and wine and all the frills. I think it’s romantic if you just hold hands when you walk through the mall while you window shop.” That much was a true statement. She loved to hold hands and kiss…and she’d better stop this right now, Callie chided herself, but it couldn’t hurt to be honest while lab rat hunting, could it?

  “I like to hold hands. Want to hold hands with me?”

  Um, no, she thought. “LOL, “Callie typed instead, because she didn’t know what else to say and Macdaddy’s words didn’t just look needy, they felt needy.

  “Are those your initials?”

  “?.” Callie typed a question mark.

  “LOL. Are those your initials?”

  Callie laughed. She forgot that sometimes not everyone was as familiar with cyber-speak as she was. “LOL=Laugh out loud. It means, I think you’re funny.”

  There was a pause in the screen and then, “What’s your name?”

  Shoot. Should she give her name? It probably didn’t matter. She wrote her column using a pseudonym. “I’m Callie. You?”

  “Mitch.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mitch.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Callie. Wanna have a cup of coffee sometime?”

  Wow. That was quick, they hardly knew each other, but she had a deadline to make, so there was no time like the present and if she followed the guidelines set up for safe dating she’d be alright. Mitch wasn’t exactly a dream come true, but he was nice enough, hopefully he was harmless enough too. She wanted to interview all different varieties of men—every flavor at the ice cream counter. “Sure, that’d be nice.”

  “When?”

  Callie looked at her calendar on her desk with the cute cats on it. Huh, totally blank. Go figure. She could squeeze him in between mopping the floor and scrubbing the toilet. “Well, why don’t you tell me what your expectations of a first meeting are?”

  “I just expect to meet you and have coffee.”

  Oh, okay, so they weren’t hitting the sheets? Deal. “Sounds like fun. When would you like to meet and where?”

  “How about tomorrow at say, five?”

  Callie grinned. Gotcha in my clutches now, Macdaddy. “Okay, where?”

  “There’s a coffee house on San Pedro. How about there?”

  “Sounds great, Mitch! I’ll see you then.”

  “Take my cell phone number, just in case you get lost or something comes up.”

  Callie wrote it down and said goodnight to Mitch, heading back to her inbox to tackle more e-mail. Cool, she had a date.

  Her first in thirteen years.

  Yippee Skippee.

  She could hardly contain her excitement. Now back to the business at hand. Answering e-mail and finding more interviewees.

  From: PrinceCharming

  To: Writer66

  Subject: You are amazing

  HI,

  OMG you are GORGEOUS! We wrote briefly last week and now I know why you stopped, you are WAY out of my league. To say you are stunning is a huge understatement. Although I realize you are too good for mere mortal men and way out of my league, I wanted to take this opportunity to say that you are magnificently gorgeous. A true Goddess sent from Heaven to grace us all with your beauty and presence. I hope the man you ultimately choose realizes what a special gift God has blessed him with in you and he better drop to his knees every day and worship you and thank God for you. I hope you find all the love and happiness you seek and never settle for second best. My God you are so beautiful. I am 39, 6”1, 165 lbs, athletic, smoke/drug/alcohol free, funny, romantic, attentive, affectionate, caring, warm, loving, great kisser (LOL) and a retired United States Naval Officer now living in the California area. What do you think, pretty good? You are amazing.

  Whoa.

  Callie leaned back in her office chair and tried to remember having contact with Prince Charming, aka Goddess spotter. Oh! Maybe he’d e-mailed her prior to her placing her picture on the site. The response to just her profile alone had been a slow, steady stream of e-mail. Ten or fifteen tops, but when she’d placed her picture on the site the responses had picked up in volume and intensity. Well, actually, they’d exploded. How did you answer an e-mail where a mere mortal claimed you were a Goddess?

  This was simply ridiculous. Callie Winston a Goddess? If she was such a damn Goddess, then why was she divorced? If she was a Goddess, dark haired and dark eyed as she was, then Callie could only imagine what these men would think of Frank’s squeeze. Goddesses were thin and blonde and waif-like and had names like Mandy and Candy.

  As Callie read PrinceCharming’s profile, she realized that while they shared some things in common, she couldn’t go out with someone who thought she had Goddess tendencies. It was just too bizarre. Though maybe being a Goddess had its perks…

  To: PrinceCharming

  Subject: Re: You are amazing

  Hello PrinceCharming,

  Um, thank you for the very kind words, however, my Goddess status doesn’t allow me to date mere mortals. I’m joking…but, really, I’m just an average girl.

  Thanks for the ego boost here in sunny California,

  Writer66

  Callie shipped off a reply that she hoped would burst PrinceCharming’s illusions of all Goddesses. She began to read subject headers that caught her eye instead of the more typical Hello, hot stuff.

  The subject line “Awesome” was there again and Callie’s breath hitched in her throat. Brian_SOF had replied back? She couldn’t explain it, but her heart rate sped up.

  Just a little, mind you.

  Callie opened the e-mail while she looked at his picture again. Damn him for being so cute and so far away. He’d have been a great subject to interview. Big, brawny man joins date site. Hotties need dates too. Come to think of it, why did someone as cute as Brian was, join an online
dating site?

  Because he wants to hook up and boink, Callie. He was in the service or whatever, so dating had to be tough in between picking bad guys off.

  To: Writer66

  From: Brian_SOF

  Subject: Re: Re: Awesome

  I didn’t mean any harm by calling you awesome and distance is relative to someone like me. Tell me about your writing. Are you published? What’s your name? Oh, and tell the tofu loving, surfer boys I said hey.

  Brian

  Distance is relative. Was age? Brian was two years younger than she was, according to his profile he’d never been married, but was no stranger to serious relationships. He had no children and he was a Gemini, whatever that meant in the scheme of soul mate searching.

  But he thought she was awesome. In all of the e-mail she’d received, the comments on her bedroom eyes and sexy lips, no one had said she was awesome.

  It wasn’t such a big deal, it was just a word. Shrugging, Callie replied to the gun-toting Brian.

  To: Brian_SOF

  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Awesome

  I’ll be sure to pass that along to the surfer dudes. LOL. I write a column for a magazine, so yes, I guess I am published. I do dabble in fiction occasionally. Seems I’ve been writing a book forever, in one way or the other.

  Callie thought about her writing ambitions for a moment. No one who’d e-mailed had asked her anything in depth about her writing, except this Brian. Which made him what, Callie? Sensitive? Caring?

  Please.

  But her negative thoughts didn’t stop her from continuing her e-mail.

  Are you in Iraq right now? I see from the picture on the site you must be in some sort of military capacity? Are you stationed overseas?

  Writer66

  Oh, P/S. My name is, Callie.

  Callie didn’t know why she needed to know where Mr. Top Gun was, she just did and sharing her name wasn’t a big deal, she guessed. His approach to her made her curious. He had a different take than the rest of the buffoons she was getting e-mail from.

  Yawning, Callie took one last look at Brian_SOF’s picture.

  He didn’t have to be so good looking, did he? And so young?

  An older, more mature man who wanted forever, not temporary, was a much safer bet. That was if forever was what she was looking for. She wasn’t, she was looking for the scoop.

  Callie was too tired to answer any more e-mail tonight and too tired to try and figure out soldier boy’s motivations.

  Besides, she had a date tomorrow.

  Well, aren’t you the captain of the cheerleading squad, prom queen and Shania Twain all rolled into one?

  Clicking off her computer, Callie wished it were Brian she had a date with and then she thought, the one hormone she had left was affecting her thinking.

  Repeat after me, Callie Winston. Dates are to be treated as lab rats.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry, say that again? You have a what?” Callie’s best friend and editor at California Hip, Katherine Nix, said into the phone.

  “I have a date. You know, like I meet a man and go somewhere with him? A date.” Callie responded with a chuckle at Katherine’s surprise.

  “Um, yes, sweetie, I do know what that is, but do you?”

  “Of course I do, Katherine. I’ve been on a date before.”

  “But that was when big hair and ripped sweatshirts were fashionable, honey.”

  Callie rolled her eyes as she hooked the phone over her shoulder and cleaned the toilet. “Look, it’s for my column. Research.”

  Katherine snorted. “I thought you were just going to research the online thing, not do it.”

  “What better way to get the skinny than to actually do it myself?”

  “How very sacrificial of you.”

  Callie twitched a little as she sprayed cleanser into her toilet bowl. “Look. I gotta be in it to win it, ya know. I can’t get people to talk to me and tell me why they’ve resorted to the Internet for a date if I don’t keep a low profile. I write humor, Katherine, I can’t think of a more amusing way to write this than to experience it myself. Some of these people probably don’t want anyone to know they’re even on an online dating site. So, I go on a few dates sorta undercover, I have some coffee and I get some readers. I’ve been on dates before. I know it was a long time ago. So what?” Callie flushed her toilet with satisfaction and set about cleaning the sink.

  “Because dating is different now in two-thousand-five,” Katherine reminded her. “There are all sorts of things you need to be aware of and I don’t want you going alone.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring you to meet Mitch, my date. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

  Katherine sighed. “You know what I mean,” she chided. “You make sure I know exactly where you are at all times and you better call me if he gets out of line, because I’ll whack his ass.” Katherine paused and took a deep breath. “Mitch, huh? What’s Mitch look like?”

  Callie tried to draw up an image of Mitch, but Brian’s got in the way.

  Crap. It had to be that gun he had in his picture. It was sexy or something.

  “Mitch is a very nice man, who looks pleasant enough and so far, he’s the only man who wants to have coffee with me. So Mitch wins the booby prize.”

  “How does this date site thing work anyway? Did you put your picture up?” Katherine asked.

  “Yeah, I did and a snappy profile. I tried to be as honest as I could about what I want in a mate. I wrote it as if I were actually seriously contemplating finding my soul mate.” Now it was Callie’s turn to snort.

  “You never know, sweetie. You could get lucky. How many responses did you get from this date site?”

  “Around two hundred and fifty.” Give or take a few hundred.

  Katherine’s whistle hurt Callie’s ear. “Jeeesus, Cal. I should have known, though.”

  “Known what?”

  “That you would line ‘em up.”

  “The men?”

  “Yes, Callie. The men. You’re gorgeous, all lips and eyes. The amount of response doesn’t surprise me one bit, but I’m not shocked it surprises you, sweet cheeks.”

  Callie shook her head and ran a hand towel over her sink to dry the wet spots. “What does that mean? Of course, I’m surprised. Who wants to go out with a thirty-eight-year-old divorcee who has thighs that are spreading like Ebola?”

  Katherine sniffed into the phone and it crackled in Callie’s ear. “Anyone with a brain, Callie. You’re a beautiful woman and you’re the only one who doesn’t know that. You just don’t pay attention to it because Frank taught you to stifle it. He was an asshole and his residual effect continues to haunt you.”

  “Well, whatever. I’m going to knock our readerships socks off with this and shut Tyler up for good. That’s all that matters to me.”

  “And maybe you’ll meet someone who will take you away from your Saturday night Love Boat marathons too. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, would please me more.” Katherine chuckled.

  Lest Katherine forget the Love Boat was followed by Fantasy Island… ”I didn’t join this site to meet the man of my dreams, Kath. The man of my dreams is Aston. I don’t have a man of my dreams. I have the non-man of my dreams. He’s a beagle.”

  “Look, I just want you to be really careful, honey,” Katherine interjected.

  Here came the speech about naïve Callie taking the dating world by storm. Poor, sheltered Callie, married most of her adult life. Inexperienced Callie. Homebody. Non-party animal.

  “Remember one thing for me, will you, doll?”

  Callie rolled her eyes again and began to re-organize her medicine cabinet. “What’s that, Kath?”

  “No glove—no love.”

  Callie screeched with laughter. It echoed off the tile in her small bathroom. “Kath! I haven’t had sex in over two years and not with anyone but THE FREAK. I’m researching a column. I’m not having sex with anyone! Besides, I’m thirty-eight years old. I know not to have unprot
ected sex and I’m on birth control to regulate me. You know that.”

  Callie heard Katherine’s derisive sniff. “Yes, that’s what we all say. No nookie and then we meet a stud and turn into a bad episode of ‘Sex and the City’. I just want you to be careful.”

  “I’m having coffee not shopping for Trojans. Relax, Katherine. I’m not like most women who are single in this day and age. I haven’t been out in the meat market and I have no intention of sleeping with anyone but Aston.” Good hell. Sleep with someone…as if that were likely. Who’d want to sleep with her? There was no way she was showing her bare, naked booty to anyone but God.

  Katherine laughed, a light tinkling lilt of a chuckle, a sure sign she was going to pooh-pooh Callie’s thoughts. “You’re a beautiful woman, Callie. Many men will want to sleep with you on this journey, believe me. I just don’t want you to sleep with them until you’re sure you know what you’re doing. You’re not the kind of girl who can sleep with someone and walk away scot-free.”

  Oh, okay. So now we knew what Callie would do in and out of bed? Callie shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. I promise not to shimmy out of my clothes and grab the nearest greased pole. Stop worrying, would you? I’m doing research. According to the sites match-up percentages, Mitch and I are an eighty-six percent match. I want to see if that’s true. That’s it. No glove needed.”

  Katherine was silent for a moment and then she said, “Okay, where are you meeting?”

  “A coffee house on San Pedro.”

  “What time?”

  “Five tonight.”

  “I want to hear from you when you get home and I want to know that you’re safe. Take a different route home when you leave old Mitch, just in case he thinks he can follow you home. Make sure there’s good lighting and lots of traffic wherever you park. Call me if you need someone to get you the hell out of dodge.”

  Katherine was making this far more complicated than it needed to be and Callie was beginning to feel as though Katherine were her parent rather than her best friend. “I promise to call you from the Motel Six when we’re done fucking like rabid animals in heat. After coffee, of course.”