by Paul Kropp
“You pervert!” Val spat in my face. “I heard what you tried to do to my sister.”
“I didn’t.”
“Don’t try to BS me,” he went on. Val Halvorsen had one beefy hand at my neck and another clenched into a fist. One of his buddies held my left wrist in a Vulcan death grip; another had my right arm in some kind of wrestling hold.
“I didn’t. I never.” I am not articulate at the best of times. In a situation like this, I was reduced to the vocabulary of a two-year-old.
“You’re gonna pay for this, Macklin,” Val went on. “You’re gonna wish you were never born.”
I am actually reducing his speech somewhat, dropping out the swear words that he used as punctuation. With each swear word, he seemed to be spitting in my face.
“This is just for starters,” Val said, and sent his clenched fist into my gut.
I would have doubled over in pain, but the other two guys literally held me up against the wall.
“And this—”
Val’s words were cut off when the door opened. Over his shoulder I could see Mr. Greer, probably on smoker patrol. I had never, in my life, been so glad to see a teacher.
“Ah, Mr. Greer,” I managed to say.
“Are you gentlemen having a discussion?” Mr. Greer asked.
“Uh, no,” Val said, his voice suddenly sweetness and light. “We were talking about, uh, imperfect fractions. We were just giving Al a little study session because, like, he’s got a few problems.”
That, I realized, was an understatement.
10
If at First…
IF AT FIRST YOU don’t succeed, try, try again. What kind of idiot came up with an idea like that? If at first you don’t succeed, give up and go try something else. For the next few days, I considered life in a monastery. After a little Internet research, I figured I could be a very effective Benedictine monk. They have a simple life: no women, no talking, no making a fool of yourself. Besides, they make a very fine brandy that probably gets tested in the monastery before it’s shipped out to the rest of the world.
I was being treated like a leper at school, a pariah to use Jeremy’s word. I’m not sure that being a pariah is worse than being a leper, but it certainly sounds worse. On top of all that, I had to keep a wary eye out for Val Halvorsen and his football buddies. I suspect they had some cruel and unusual punishment in mind for me, something like disassembling my body parts, or maybe worse.
“You need a bodyguard,” Jeremy told me. “Somebody like Moose Mulkiwich.”
Moose Mulkiwich had been the biggest kid in our class ever since kindergarten. By grade four he was taller than the teacher, by grade eight he had to duck to fit through the classroom door. Unfortunately, he is also the most gentle person I’ve ever met and he’s probably never been in a fight.
“Don’t think so,” I replied. “He’s not mean enough.”
“How about Ratsy Malone? He’s already been arrested a couple of times. He’s small and wiry, but probably a little dangerous.”
“Yeah, he used to steal milk money from me five years ago.” I sighed. “But I’m not sure I want to give him the business.”
“So I guess you take your chances,” Jeremy told me.
In truth, the physical danger didn’t bother me as much as the general embarrassment—that pariah thing. Even friends like Scrooge were pretending they didn’t really know me, or acting like I’d had some kind of seizure that night at the movies.
Rubbing the whole thing in were my parents. “Whatever happened to that Halvorsen girl you were dating?” my dad asked.
“We only had one date,” I mumbled. I was midway through a bit of mashed potatoes. My father is a master of asking questions at that midway point, when any answer means spitting out your food or swallowing it in a lump.
“Didn’t work out?” he went on.
“You could say that,” I replied. I washed down the potatoes with milk.
“You did respect her, didn’t you? That’s so important,” he told me.
“Of course,” I lied, “of course.”
What is respect? I asked myself. It’s like a Jeopardy question: a six-letter word with two e’s, starting with r and ending in t. That’s all. The dictionary says it means you have “to show deferential regard” to someone. Why should I show deferential regard to a girl who was literally climbing all over me in the movie but then gets embarrassed when her friends catch her in an awkward clinch in the elevator? I mean, if I were Brad Pitt, she would have been proud to have my hand stuck in her…Okay, forget that. It was a bad moment in my life; one of those shame-filled moments that will come back to haunt me for the next thirty years or so. It could have been worse. That’s what I have to keep telling myself—it could have been worse.
On Thursday, Maggie found me while I was eating my lunch. She seemed unusually cheerful, or perhaps it was just in contrast to how I felt.
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she began. “I assume you want the bad news first, courageous guy that you are.”
“Of course,” I replied, smiling faintly. “It’s not enough that my friends have abandoned me and everybody else thinks I’m a pariah. I really do need more bad news.”
She ignored my sarcasm.
“Okay, it’s time for your first bill,” she said. “Let me know if this is in order.”
Maggie McPherson Consulting
Statement of Account for March
Project: Alan
Initial consultation $5.00
Instruction set #1 21.00
First date, Mel Halvorsen 25.00
Counselling 10.00
Second date, MH 5.00
Instruction set #2 26.00
Website setup 10.00
Total for March $102.00
Less retainer 50.00
Installment now due $52.00
Your patronage and prompt payment is always appreciated.
“You realize that this adds insult to injury,” I told her.
“A very effective cliché, Alan, but you did sign a contract and I delivered on my end of the deal. Instructions—done; two dates—complete. It’s really not my fault if you forget my instructions and lose control of yourself,” she said. “Any other issues?”
“What’s this thing about a website setup? What website?”
Maggie positively beamed at me. She has unusually large cheeks when she smiles, cheeks accentuated by her freckles so that she sometimes resembled a red-headed squirrel.
“It’s part of the good news,” she told me. “If the bill is in order and the cash is forthcoming, I’ll give you the rest of the good news.”
I did a mental calculation of the cash in my bank account: $642 less the $50 I’d already given her left me with roughly $590, so I could afford the money. And I really did owe it to her, given the contract and all.
“You take Visa?” I asked.
“Sorry, cash or cheque,” she replied.
“I was kidding. I’ll bring you the cash tomorrow. Now what’s the rest of the good news?”
“I found a girl who’ll go out with you,” she said brightly.
“Under a rock?” I asked.
“No, at St. Agnes. Hidden away in her posh private school, she hasn’t heard a thing about the Mel Halvorsen fiasco. In fact, all she knows about you is what she’s heard from me, delivered in suitably glowing terms. A little exaggeration is all part of the service, Al.”
“She’s not an ugger, is she?” I asked.
“No, the girl I have in mind is really quite beautiful if you like that vapid Nordic blonde look. In fact, she’s so beautiful that most guys are afraid to ask her out. She’s ripe for a boyfriend, Al, and that could be you.”
“What’s her name?”
“I’ll give you her name and more details when I get my second installment. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Al, but this is a business transaction. And I should remind you, when we go forward you’re into a new billing period, of course, with the usual ch
arges.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get the picture,” I said. “But you still haven’t explained the website.”
“It was part of building you up,” Maggie said. “I was telling the girl in question what a great guy you are, and she asked the obvious question of why you didn’t have a girlfriend. I couldn’t tell her about the Mel problem, so I made up something about an old girlfriend who didn’t work out. A bit like Rosaline in Hamlet.”
“Yeah, sure.” I really have to read that play some day.
“But then I thought, what if she Googles you?”
“Googles me?”
“Yeah, what if she put your name into Google to see what comes up. Mel already has a website up called Alanthejerk.com but it doesn’t have your last name. So I set up a site called AlanComeBack.com. It talks about how much a girl named Rosaline misses you, and how wonderful you are, and how she wants you back.”
“Very creative,” I said.
“I thought so. So AlanComeBack.com is what this girl will get if she Googles you.”
I sighed. “Maggie, sometimes I think you’re a genius.”
She smiled in triumph. “Sometimes I do, too.”
11
Practice Makes Perfect
I RATHER LIKED the AlanComeBack.com site. Maggie had put together a number of low-res photos that showed somebody, presumably me, out hiking or dining or laughing with a girl named Rosaline. Then there were some fond memories of our “time together” and a plea for me to “give it another chance.” I found the whole site so touching that I really would have given Rosaline another chance, if only she had actually existed.
Of course, I also had to check out Alanthejerk.com. It had only one photograph, of Mel delivering the finger to (presumably) me, and an awful collection of nasty comments about yours truly. Some were complete with descriptive language unsuitable for children, others had threats along the lines of “If I ever see you again, your…will be stuck so far up your…that you’ll never…again,” with some colourful words in place of the ellipses.
I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or embarrassed about my sudden prominence on the Internet. Nonetheless, I was glad that AlanComeBack.com was on the first Google page that came up if you typed in my name.
So the next day, I brought Maggie the cash for her fee and received, in return, a photo, a phone number and an email address for a girl named Taylor Hoskin. It was the photo that made my jaw drop—Taylor Hoskin really was a Nordic beauty. She had fine blonde hair, pale eyebrows, flawless skin, gorgeous blue eyes, and a general resemblance to Gwyneth Paltrow.
“Why do guys go so ga-ga over a decent-looking blonde?” Maggie snapped back. “You don’t even know what kind of person she is.”
That was true, so I apologized for guys everywhere who begin drooling over the mere picture of a beautiful girl. It is a defect in the male personality, I think, that we are so swayed by good looks. For all I knew, Taylor Hoskin could be an axe murderer; she could be a terrible tease; she could be a snob to her girlfriends; she could be dumb as a doorknob. Nonetheless, I found my heart beating faster just holding her picture in my hand.
By Maggie’s report, Taylor was not a tease, a snob or a doorknob. She was a bright, pretty girl who just happened to play on Maggie’s soccer team. Taylor was apparently an excellent forward with a mean kick—something that made me a little wary after my last date.
Taylor’s father was a surgeon in town and the family lived up on Mayfair Drive, in a modern mansion built to resemble an ancient Greek temple. For whatever reason, Taylor Hoskin was dateless—and thus ripe for me.
Maggie suggested I begin by emailing her. “Be funny,” she told me, “and keep them short. In fact, you better copy me in on each one.”
“Maybe you should write them,” I suggested.
She did a mental calculation. “That would be ten bucks a message, Al. Unless you have money to burn, I suggest you give up on the Cyrano de Bergerac approach.”
Since I had no idea what a Cyrano de Bergerac approach might be, I decided to do the emails myself. I can write a rather amusing email, I’m told, and these are frequently appreciated by my grandmother and Aunt Betty, the usual recipients, who often comment on my excellent spelling.
“Be flirtatious but not pushy,” Maggie told me.
“Exactly what I had in mind,” I said.
The prospect of a date with Taylor Hoskin—actually, the prospect of a date with anyone—lifted my spirits considerably. I began smiling a bit in class. I even talked to my parents over dinner. And I felt relaxed enough to let down my guard against Val Halvorsen and the goons who wanted to stick my…so far up my…that I’d never…again.
My improved spirits were finally noticed by Jeremy. He commented that no one in my position should be as cheerful as I seemed to be.
So I told him the truth. “Maggie is hooking me up with a girl from St. Agnes,” I said, trying hard not to brag too much.
“No way,” he spluttered.
“Her father is, how shall I say this, an important person in the medical community and the girl herself, well, somewhat resembles Gwyneth Paltrow.”
Jeremy gave me a look that mingled disbelief and scorn. “And she’s going to go out with you?”
I decided that Jeremy was asking a rhetorical question that did not really deserve an answer. I admit, I had thought about the question he raised—how would a smart, rich, beautiful girl respond when she actually met me, a rather ordinary, poor and homely guy? On the other hand, there are many fairy tales about princesses falling in love with frogs, so perhaps anything is possible.
The email correspondence went quite well. It was actually a three-way chain: I’d send a draft to Maggie; she’d make corrections and return it to me; I’d send the email to Taylor; then I’d forward the reply to Maggie.
People say that the Internet has killed the art of letter writing, and that may be, but there isn’t much connection between a short, highly abbreviated email and the great love letters of the past. Here’s how it began.
From: mackman@ibid.net
To: tmhoskin@fonzie.com
Hey, my name is Alan and I used to play soccer with ur friend Maggie McPherson, at least until the coach discovered I had been born with 2 left feet. :-) Anyhow, life has moved on and I’ve grown up to be tall, dark, handsome and terrifically witty. Or whatever. Maggie thinks we might be perfect for each other, and she’s frequently right about a lot of things. So long as you don’t ask me to play soccer (I hear ur wicked) we might have a lot in common.
From: tmhoskin@fonzie.com
To: mackman@ibid.net
Hey, Alan. Maggie says you’re cute and funny and you were always a lousy soccer player, regardless of your feet. One thing I know for sure, you’ve got to be more attractive than anybody here at St. Agnes! :-) ;-)
The correspondence continued in a similar vein for almost two weeks. I don’t think the emails got any more profound or interesting, but they did lead to the phone call that got me a dinner date. I decided that a girl of this quality—a surgeon’s daughter, after all—deserved the best.
“You’re planning a snow job” is what Jeremy said.
“A what job?” I replied.
“A snow job,” he said. “That’s when you try to seduce the chick with your money, class and savoir faire. She’s so snowed by the big dinner out that she kind of throws herself at you.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Where you taking her?” he asked.
“I was thinking about the Beef and Barrel.”
Jeremy shot me a look. “You’re going to take a girl who looks like Gwyneth Paltrow to the Beef and Barrel? You’re going to try to snow a gorgeous chick—a doc’s daughter—by buying her a T-bone? Alan, let us get real!”
“Not the Beef and Barrel?”
“For a real snow job, you gotta go to Rayburn’s,” Jeremy declared. “I once took a girl up there for dinner, did my little savoir faire thing, and the next thing you know…well, I was
a pretty happy camper.”
There were so many strange metaphors in what Jeremy said that I had a hard time making sense of it all. The implication was clear, however. Dinner at Rayburn’s improved a guy’s chance of getting laid.
“Is it expensive?”
“Yeah. That’s what makes for the snow job. You don’t get lucky by taking a girl out to McDonald’s, you gotta lay out some cash. Believe me, Al, I know what I’m talking about.”
“Whooo,” I sighed. “This whole project is getting expensive.”
“It’ll be worth it, Al. And I’m going to do you a favour. My dad has a buddy who’s got a little limousine service. I bet I can score you a limo for, say, half price.”
In retrospect, it seems a little over the top, but at the time I had this image of me—looking a bit like Brad Pitt—leading Taylor Hoskin—looking a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow—out of a stretch limousine and into some fabulous Hollywood restaurant. The simple fact that I don’t at all resemble Brad Pitt, and that we don’t live in Hollywood, still did not dispel the image. It seemed romantic, poetic, sensational…exactly what I needed to seduce the beautiful Taylor Hoskin.
“Rayburn’s?” Maggie asked.
The two of us were at my house, after school, trying to get me ready for the dinner date. I had expected a set of instructions, but Maggie told me that I needed some more direct teaching. So now we were in the computer/TV/everything room on two rolling computer chairs.
“I hear it’s quite elegant,” I told her.
“And quite pricey,” Maggie said. “If I knew you could afford to take somebody to Rayburn’s, I would have raised my whole fee schedule.”
I decided not to tell Maggie about the limousine. For one thing, I didn’t know if Jeremy would be able to pull it off. Jeremy’s record for follow-through is not really the best. For a second thing, I didn’t think Maggie would approve. There was something about her attitude that day that seemed just a little strange.
“Okay, I’ve done a little analysis of the Mel fiasco, trying to get to the root of your problem,” Maggie began.
