Rent A Husband: a Romantic Comedy

by Sally Mason

He bumps his head on the low-hanging branch of a tree.

  When he crosses to the opposite sidewalk he trips on the curb and only a desperate lurch and spin stops him from falling.

  He is, without a doubt, the clumsiest man Brontë has ever met.

  And the most adorable.

  When she sees him enter the Senior Center she tells herself that decency demands that she turn around and go home.

  But curiosity, that old cat killer, has her in its grip, drawing her into the garden.

  She hears music, something very old and scratchy.

  Strings and horns and a high croony voice waft out into the night, and the music draws her toward a picture window.

  Hiding in the shrubbery, Brontë peers through the window and sees the most incredible sight.

  A gaggle of old ladies, bent and wrinkled, some tiny as children, mob huge, bumbling, William Bigelow.

  He takes one of them by her birdlike arm and leads her onto the dance floor.

  Oh God, Brontë thinks, I can’t watch this.

  Is this some strange method of euthanasia, turning this massive clumsy man loose on these tiny, fragile women?

  But then William takes the old woman’s hand in his, places his fingers on her spine and moves her around the dance floor in the lightest and most graceful of waltzes.

  Brontë blinks, convinced she’s dreaming.

  But when she opens her eyes and sees the big man twirl the old lady and sweep her into his arms, the woman smiling in delight, Brontë realizes that it’s official: she’s in love with William Bigelow.

  25

  Eric Royce sits on his porch in the dark, his demons dancing around him in the shadows.

  Darcy’s words stung, and he feels as empty, shallow and unloved as she said he was.

  How easy it would be to hit speed-dial on his phone and summon a dealer from down in Ventura.

  In forty minutes a car would draw up outside his house and a man in a bad suit, gripping an attaché case filled with chemicals, would oil up his pathway and the last few years of living clean would be gone.

  Poof.

  Eric takes his phone from his pocket, but when he dials a number it’s not his dealer he’s calling.

  “Forrest,” he says when a voice answers, “how are you?”

  “I’m good, Eric. I returned the car as promised.”

  “Of course you did, that’s not why I’m calling.”

  “Oh?”

  “There’s a situation.”

  “A situation?”

  “Yes. That stunt of yours has had repercussions, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh? You’re not telling me I have to go through with the wedding are you?” Forrest says, laughing. “I mean, come on, it was all in the way of fun.”

  “Yes, and fun it was. No, it’s about Darcy.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s low, Forrest.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but what can I do?”

  “Call her up. Ask her out.”

  “She loathes me.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Eric, she’s a nice woman. She doesn’t need a guy like me in her life.”

  “Oh, au contraire, I think you’re exactly what she needs. She’s lived amongst philistines for far too long. Show her that there’s more to life than the low horizon of this bloody town.”

  “I thought you loved it up there?”

  “I do, but only because I’m jaded, Forrest. I’ve seen it all. Darcy has seen nothing, and I want you to give her a glimpse of the big, wide world out there.”

  “How?”

  “Talk to her. Tell her things. Tell her about India, about Africa. Intrigue her, for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t think so, Eric.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “How?”

  “I’m putting together a pilot, for a reality show.”

  “Hell, that’s really scraping the barrel.”

  “I could say something about glass houses and stones, old son, but I won’t.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry.”

  “I’d like you to audition for presenter.”

  “Me? When I tried-out for Startup you told me that my wooden performance lived up to my name.”

  “Maybe I got a little carried away by my own cleverness.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Forrest, I’m sincere. I’ll have my people line up an audition. I saw something in you at the Ball last night that caught my interest. But I need you to help me with Darcy.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask her out, even though she’ll probably turn me down.”

  “I suspect she won’t. But one thing, Forrest, she’s never to know that we spoke, understood?”

  “Sure.”

  Eric ends the call and feels not the slightest twinge of guilt.

  He can master his addiction to chemicals, but nobody—not even his dearest friend and neighbor Darcy Pringle—is going to stop him from playing God.

  26

  Wearing her darkest dark glasses, Darcy reverses the SUV (a clunky relic of the Porter-era as she now finds herself calling the twelve years of her marriage) out of the garage and turns it toward town.

  This is the first time she’s left the house since her coffee date with Eric at the Book & Bean three days ago.

  She’s been lying low.

  Ben and Jerry have been her BFFs and she’s watched enough ten-tissue weepies—Nicholas Sparks should be tried for crimes against the female heart!—to turn her brain to mush along with her midriff.

  She doesn’t look at Eric’s house as she passes, and if a lace curtain twitches at Carlotta McCourt’s lair she doesn’t allow herself to see it.

  Darcy drives down the main road, fights off the temptation to dash into the Book & Bean for a caramel iced mocha and a cream Danish to go, and heads for the hills.

  The quaintness of Santa Sofia dribbles away into the brush as Darcy crosses a ridge and winds down to the town of Bascomb.

  Once the center of a minor oil boom, Bascomb was flooded with money a hundred years ago—people living high-on-the-hog as her absconded dad (a wildcatter in his youth) may have said—but is a sad and depleted place now, with rusted oil rigs littering the horizon and storefronts in the main road boarded up.

  The place depresses her deeply and if she didn’t have a mission to accomplish here, she would turn the fat-rumped SUV around and head home to continue her career as a miserable shut-in.

  But she drives on and parks outside a freshly painted building with a small yard filled with flowers, an oasis in the midst of the grim surroundings.

  Darcy checks her face in the mirror and judges her appearance adequate to the task at hand, and as she steps down from the high vehicle, she even manages to find something resembling a smile.

  The smile becomes real, and the sadness and humiliation of the last days is forgotten, when kids spill from the entrance of the building and mob Darcy, resisting the attempts of their harried minders to contain them.

  If they think of pretty, nicely-put together Darcy Pringle as their fairy princess, what harm can it do?

  Darcy visits once a month, always with gifts and provisions and she knows most of the children by name.

  Had even chosen—one of the most difficult choices she’d ever had to make—a beautiful freckled five-year-old, Sam, as the child she and Porter would adopt.

  Before.

  Before.

  Before . . .

  Darcy on her knees talking to Sam, feels the prick of tears.

  God, girl, I thought Mr. Sparks had you all wrung out.

  She’s saved when one of the saintly women who run the center appears in the playground with a giant check: the proceeds from the Spring Ball.

  The check, of course, is purely symbolic, prepared for a photo-op with the Bascomb Bugle.

  The money raised a few nights ago has already made its electronic way into the Children’s Center’s bank account.

  Darcy stands and th
e kids crowd around her as she holds one side of the check, the editor-cum-journalist-cum-photographer of The Bugle hurrying up, looking as harried as ever, his combed-over hair flapping in the slight breeze in the open playground.

  He looks around and says, “Your husband on his way?”

  One of the women makes frantic signals, tapping her own ring finger—indicating Darcy’s empty one (Forrest Forbes’s ring is back home in her safe) but the man doesn’t get it, staring in confusion.

  “Mr. Pringle and I are no longer married,” Darcy says, with as much composure as she can muster. “So I’m afraid you’re going to have to make do with just me today.”

  “Of course, I see. I’m sorry, I had no idea,” the man mumbles, fussing with his camera.

  The photograph is taken and Darcy spends a little more time with the kids, her broken heart broken all over again (is that even possible, Darcy?) when she has to say goodbye, watching Sam—always the last to go inside—waving at her through the fence.

  As she drives home, the afternoon sun silhouetting the rusted old rigs, she feels a sadness so profound that when her phone (left untouched in her purse these last days) rings she draws it out, expecting it to be Eric, begging to be recalled from purgatory.

  But it’s not Eric.

  CALLER UNKNOWN is displayed on the face of her BlackBerry, and she almost ignores it, thinking it’ll be a phone marketer trying to unload something useless on her.

  But she answers and hears a voice saying, “Hi, Darcy, this is Forrest. Forrest Forbes.”

  27

  Forrest has found the last few days strangely liberating.

  What was it that great 20th century philosopher Kris Kristofferson once said about freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose?

  With his winnings—Mr. Darcy has his eternal gratitude—Forrest was able to square the debt with Raymond Gomez.

  The bookmaker had seemed almost disappointed when they met at a juice bar in Westwood.

  “I thought I was going to have a bit more fun with you, Forrest.”

  “Sorry to deprive you, Ray.”

  Raymond shrugged. “So, what do you fancy today?”

  Forrest shook his head. “I’m swearing off the gambling, Raymond. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  The bookmaker laughed. “You know how many times I hear that on any given day, my friend?”

  “I mean it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can make book on it.”

  “Sure. I’ll take that action.”

  Forrest laughed too, declined the offer of a Spirulina Surprise, and headed out into the eternal Californian sunshine, off to look at a couple of apartments in the Hollywood area.

  He found a furnished studio off Bronson—close enough to the Hills to hear the wail of the coyotes at night—as soulless a place as he’d ever seen, but it was conveniently located.

  Lying on his bed, staring up at the ripples made by the communal pool catching the afternoon light—trying desperately (and failing miserably) to find some Hockneyesque glamor in all of this—he wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

  Face it, old fellow, you don’t even know what you’re going to do with the rest of your day.

  The answer to that, at least, was supplied when his phone rang and a very youthful-sounding girl told him to be at a studio down in the Valley in two hours for the casting session of Eric Joyce’s show.

  He was to wear a tuxedo.

  Forrest muttered something and hung up.

  Did he want to host a hidden camera show?

  God, no.

  Was he going to attend the audition?

  Hell, yes.

  He showered and shaved and put on the outfit he’d worn to the silly Ball.

  Wearing a tux during the day made him feel like a parking valet.

  He sat down on the bed, staring at the blank white wall.

  Forrest was mildly surprised that he’d being called in for this audition, he’d been convinced it was merely a ploy to get him call Darcy Pringle.

  Which he had no intention of doing.

  But since Eric seemed to be making good his promise, wasn’t Forrest obliged to honor his?

  He dialed Darcy’s number, sure that the conversation was going to be short and by-no-means sweet.

  28

  Darcy, driving into the late afternoon sun, tries to hide her shock at hearing Forrest’s voice.

  “Mr. Forbes,” she says, putting some permafrost into her tone.

  “I imagine you’re a little surprised to hear from me?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess you want your ring back. How come nothing lasts with you guys?” When she hears only silence she says, “That was a joke, Forrest.”

  “Oh, of course. Sure. No, I’m not calling about the ring.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m calling to ask you out, actually.”

  “Mr. Forbes don’t you think you’ve had enough fun at my expense? How many pranks can a poor girl stand?”

  “Darcy, this is no prank. I’m calling to ask you to have dinner with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why does a man usually ask a woman out to dinner?”

  “In the normal world that would be because he finds her interesting and attractive.”

  “That’s it exactly.”

  “But since you clearly don’t live in the normal world, I can only imagine that you have some ulterior motive.”

  “Such as?”

  “I really don’t know. Money perhaps?”

  “Money?” The man sounds genuinely offended.

  “Well, I did pay you to date me the other night. Perhaps you’re just coming back for seconds?”

  “Darcy, I can assure you that’s not why I called. I feel I owe you an apology. I’d like to take you to dinner. My treat.”

  “Let’s back up a bit shall we?”

  “Okay, backing up.”

  “Apology for what?”

  “Well, for that whole crazy proposal thing. I can imagine it has been an embarrassment to you.”

  “Oh, just toss it on the humiliation pile, Mr. Forbes. Anyway, I enjoyed it at the time, I seem to remember. You don’t owe me an apology and you certainly don’t owe me a dinner.”

  “And what if I said I want to take you to dinner because I like you?”

  “I’d say you’re lying. To a guy like you I’m just some boring little house mouse.”

  “Not at all. I think you have . . . verve.”

  “Verve?”

  “You know, vivacity, vitality.”

  “I know what the word means.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “But I’m going to have to turn you down, Mr. Forbes.”

  “Well, I’m very sorry to hear that.”

  But he doesn’t sound sorry, he sounds relieved.

  And even in her morose state that pricks Darcy’s interest.

  “Eric put you up to this, didn’t he?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “For a member of the elite you’re a very poor liar, Mr. Forbes. Didn't they teach you to fib through your teeth at Choate or Groton, or wherever?”

  “I went to Andover.”

  “That must have been nice. What’s Eric offering you?”

  “Nothing. You’ve got this all wrong.”

  “No I haven’t. Oh, okay, I think I understand what’s going on here. He’s promising you a shot at that dumb hidden camera thing in exchange for wining and dining me, isn’t he?”

  “Darcy, please . . .”

  “God, he’s a manipulative little creature. I almost have to admire him. Can I ask you to be completely honest with me, Mr. Forbes?”

  “Of course.”

  “You really don’t want to take me to dinner do you?’

  “Well . . .”

  “Come on, Forrest, give it to me straight.”

  “No, I don’t want to take you to dinner.”

&
nbsp; “It’s pretty much the last way you’d want to spend a night, isn’t it, short of emergency root canal?”

  “Well, yes.”

  Darcy laughs. “Okay, then I accept. Let’s do it.”

  She hears him strangling. “I’m sorry, I’m a little bamboozled.”

  “That’s okay, you’ll catch up. I’ll come down to LA tomorrow. Text me the venue and the time.”

  She ends the call and Santa Sofia comes into view.

  For reasons Darcy can’t begin to explain, the conversation leaves her cheered as she drives down toward the ocean.

  29

  Forrest Forbes sits at the bar at the Chateau Marmont in a state of confusion that has nothing to do with the four Maker’s Marks he’s downed in quick succession.

  His head is still spinning from the conversation he had with Darcy Pringle hours earlier.

  Forrest had once claimed he could write the book on female perversity.

  He’d been a connoisseur of the subject since his French tutor had let him pay to see her in her underwear—disappointingly staid underwear for a woman who spoke in with such a seductive accent—when he was in the third grade.

  But he’d never before encountered a woman who would agree to a date only when she’d established that he really didn’t want to go out with her.

  Bizarre.

  It had left him perplexed during the taxi ride down to the casting session where he found himself being asked to leap out from behind a light stand (pretend it’s a wall, the bored video cameraman had said) and shout, “Bam, bam, bam! You’re on SpyCam!”

  Eric, of course, was nowhere in evidence, the casting run by a couple of girls who looked like they were still in school.

  One of them had muttered something about getting back to him, and Forrest spent another hour in a cab inching its way through the traffic, still trying to solve the enigma of Darcy Pringle.

  When the tower of the Chateau Marmont appeared against the night sky, Forrest stopped the cab and decided he owed himself the drink he’d skipped the other day.

  So, here he sits in his tuxedo, a sophisticate, a man of the world, contemplating the actions of a small town house mouse.