Rent A Husband: a Romantic Comedy

by Sally Mason

  “Shall I come by the house, say 4 p.m.?”

  She can’t face him here.

  “No, rather meet me at the Book & Bean.”

  “I hate that place.”

  “Sorry, Porter, you’ll just have to grit your teeth.”

  He sighs. “Well, okay then. See you tomorrow.”

  She ends the call, her mood a little deflated.

  Come on, she says to her reflection, pick yourself up.

  Go and see the local librarian and the gas station owner putting on silly British accents and stumbling around the church hall stage.

  She stands and drops her robe, and for just a second as she catches a glimpse of her near-naked body in the mirror, she hears Forrest playing “Let’s Do It” and feels his hands on her skin.

  44

  When Forrest finds himself staring at the wall again, he knows its time to get out of the apartment before he weakens and calls Darcy.

  He leaves his cell phone lying on the bed, locks up and makes his way past the pool where a fat man floats on an inflatable chair, a drink with little umbrellas balanced on his massive belly.

  Forrest finds himself wandering down to Rick’s bar and steps into a replay of the last time he was there: the bartender slumped at the counter reading a horseracing formbook, the old man at his station near the door, sucking on a beer.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Lucky,” Rick says.

  The old man lifts a bottle in salute and Forrest says, “A round on me.”

  “You’re a gentleman,” the old timer says to Forrest when Rick thumps a fresh beer down in front of him.

  Forrest raises his Maker’s Mark.

  “Cheers.”

  The barkeep waves the formbook under Forrest’s nose.

  “I see your Mr. Darcy is running again Friday at Hollywood Park.”

  “Good for him.”

  “You gonna give me a shot at winning some of my money back?”

  “I’m done with gambling.”

  The barkeep laughs. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But the question is: is gambling done with you?”

  “Very Zen, Rick.”

  A couple of men in cheap suits come in and the bartender goes across to serve them.

  Forrest hears a sigh as the old man settles on a stool beside him.

  “You mind?”

  “No.”

  “Made my day, you winning like that.”

  “Made mine too.”

  “So you’ve sworn off the ponies?”

  “Yes. I’m done with all of it.”

  “More power to you.”

  The old man stares at him.

  “Something wrong?” asks Forrest.

  “No, just that looking at you is like looking in a mirror.”

  Forrest smothers a laugh, staring into a face creased and wrinkled as a tortoise.

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “You’re clairvoyant?”

  “Nah, just been around a while.” He drinks. “You’re what, thirty-five?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘A very good year . . .’ ”

  “Not so much.”

  “Looking at me you wouldn’t think that I was quite the swell in my day, would you?”

  “Oh, you have a certain . . . panache.”

  “I like that. Panache.”

  The man slurps the last of his beer and Forrest beckons to Rick to bring a refill.

  “Appreciated,” the old geezer says as he takes a frothy sip.

  “Sure.”

  “Would you be offended if I offered you a word of advice?”

  “No.”

  “I look at you, I see a handsome guy, well brought up, but maybe down on his luck.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh huh. You not careful, you’re gonna go into a tailspin and end up like me, wondering where the hell all the years went.”

  “Sounds bad.”

  “It is. But, you’ve still got the time to set things straight.”

  “And how would I do that?”

  “With the love of a good woman.”

  Forrest stares at the old man, trying to see if he’s joking, but he’s not.

  “I’m serious. Find The One.”

  “Capitalized?”

  “Yessir, capitalized. The. One,” he says underscoring the words with his finger.

  “Did you find her?”

  “I did. And I’m ashamed to say I let her go. Too busy chasing tail and drinking and throwing money away on the ponies. Got nothing to show for it but these arthritic old bones inside a sack of wrinkled skin.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Hell, I lost track of her in Cleveland back in ’72. But hear me, son, and hear me good. You find The One you hold onto her real tight.”

  Forrest downs his drink.

  “I hear you.”

  He tips a salute to Rick and walks out into the gasoline scented night, feeling a yearning that reminds him of another lifetime . . .

  45

  The stuff of dreams, Billy.

  No, let’s try that again: the stuff of dreams, William.

  As he speaks to himself in the mirror, preparing for his momentous date with Darcy Pringle—Darcy Pringle!—Poor Billy Bigelow feels a momentary twinge as he remembers Brontë Baines looking at him with those huge eyes saying, “You look like a William to me,” and he finds himself wondering what she’s up to, in the little room adjacent to his apartment.

  Then all thoughts of Brontë are banished when he sees Darcy smiling up at him earlier, her beautiful face aglow, saying in her breathy voice, “I’d love to go to the theater with you.”

  As he runs a brush through his hair in a futile attempt to tame it, Billy marvels at how she read his mind, intuited the words that his twisted tongue had been unable to speak.

  What a wonderful woman.

  How had she tolerated that oaf Porter Pringle for all those years?

  Another flashback hits Billy, this one from long ago, but it’s lost none of its power to hurt.

  He sees himself at sixteen, a few months after the deaths of his mother and sister, still locked in a private hell of grief and guilt, walking out of the high school, past a knot of kids gathered around the brand new convertible Porter got for his sixteenth birthday.

  Billy didn’t really see them, deep in a funk.

  Didn’t see the trash can either, until he’d ploughed into it and sent it flying, the garbage inside flung at the feet of Porter and his friends, and some of it striking the shiny red paintwork of the new car.

  Billy felt hands on him and then he, too, was flying, as Porter and his acolyte Walt McCourt upended him and shoved him head first into the trash can.

  Then they’d loosened his jeans and pulled them to his ankles, the kids sniggering as he kicked his legs and bellowed.

  It was Darcy who’d saved him.

  He couldn’t see her, of course, but he heard her voice, saying, “Get him out of there, Porter!”

  “He messed with my car.”

  “I said get him out of there. Now!”

  And the boys pulled him out and dropped him to the asphalt, where Billy hitched up his jeans and wiped crud off his cheek with his sweater.

  Darcy knelt beside him, her lovely face blurred through his tears of humiliation.

  “Are you okay, Billy?”

  He’d said nothing, just grabbed his backpack and fled.

  Billy Bigelow shakes his head at his reflection in the mirror.

  No time for nonsense like that.

  Not now.

  He reaches for a pair of cufflinks on his dresser—a gift from his mother on his sixteenth birthday—and sends them flying to the floor, where one of them skids under the bed.

  As Billy gets down on all fours, reaching for the errant cufflink, he hears the pants of his suit rip at the backside.

  The cufflink forgotten, Billy rockets to his feet, striking his head a painful blow on his beside table and sending
the lamp flying, plunging the room into darkness.

  A minute of muffled oaths and bumps and groans follows, before he manages to find the lamp and plug it in again.

  When he rises and inspects his rear in the mirror, he can clearly see the white of his underwear showing through the tear.

  He’ll have to keep his suit jacket pulled low.

  Billy sees that his hair looks like the coat of a rabid dog.

  He rushes into the bathroom and wets his wiry curls at the sink, plastering them down on his head, toweling away the rivulets of water that trickle down his face.

  He selects a necktie from his closet and as he returns to the mirror he takes a deep breath.

  Neckties are his mortal enemies.

  The last time he’d worn one, to his father’s funeral, he’d been unable to tie the thing and had to undergo the humiliation of asking Peggy at the diner to do it for him.

  He glimpses the watch on the dresser: 7:56 p.m.

  There is no time to go across to the diner.

  He’ll have to do this himself.

  Billy drapes the tie round his neck and with the concentration of Houdini busy with one of his more perilous escapes, he tries to knot it.

  The necktie has a life of its own, rearing like a snake in his hands and it ends up flying to the floor.

  He tries again.

  7:58 p.m.

  Again the necktie defeats him.

  Red in the face, panting, almost ready to pound on Brontë’s door and beg her to help him, Billy flashes on Porter Pringle in the bookstore a few days ago, with that little bimbo on his arm.

  Dapper Porter, wearing an expensive suit over a dress shirt buttoned to the collar, but with no necktie.

  Billy closes his eyes, challenging his memory.

  Could he be right?

  Could Porter—a man who has traveled to Paris, who entertained business associates in fancy restaurants—really have been wearing a suit without a necktie?

  Yes, Billy decides, it was what he’d seen.

  So he throws the necktie to the floor, shrugs on his suit jacket, making sure that it covers the rip in his pants and hurries to the door.

  Other than a painful tumble on the stairs—he’ll bear a bruise on his knee tomorrow—he makes it down to the parking lot in time to see Darcy’s SUV ease to a halt.

  As he walks over to the car the driver’s window slides down and Darcy, a vision of loveliness in the spill of light from a streetlamp, says, “Hi Billy, why don’t you ride with me?”

  He grunts something and falls up into the passenger seat of the car as Darcy pulls away.

  She’s wearing a black dress and smells like heaven.

  For a few seconds Billy wrestles with the seatbelt, then surrenders and lets it coil itself back into its mount with a little click.

  They stop at a light and Darcy smiles at him.

  “I like the no tie look. Very continental.”

  Billy gulps and tugs at his collar.

  The light goes green and as Darcy accelerates her dress rides up a little, showing her shapely knees and Billy, quite overcome, has to look away at the passing stores.

  46

  Now, Darcy is no expert on plays (she snoozed through Shakespeare at high school and her idea of a theatrical experience is curling up on the couch with a tub of butter-free popcorn and a Cats DVD) but even she knows that this performance of Pygmalion would have the fearsome looking George Bernard Shaw—glowering from the program with his pointy beard and piercing eyes—spinning in his grave.

  The local librarian, Miss Simms, as Eliza Doolittle begins with an accent that’s more Calypso than Cockney and—during the flower seller’s transformation into a lady—sounds like she’s speaking around a mouthful of marbles.

  Eddie Hancock, owner of the Chevron station, forgets more lines than he remembers (Miss Simms helping him along in hissing whisper) and plays Professor Higgins as a cross between Christopher Walken and a gigolo on The Love Boat.

  By the intermission Darcy is ready to hurry home, but she puts on a brave smile and lets Billy get them drinks (will he spill them? she wonders) as she head for the ladies’ room.

  She checks her muted cell phone for messages.

  Nothing.

  As Darcy washes her hands, Carlotta McCourt sweeps in, dressed as if she’s going to a gala performance at the Lincoln Center.

  “Darcy, how nice to see you have a date. I’ve always thought Billy was more your type.”

  “Billy’s a treasure,” Darcy says, drying her hands.

  “Yes, a deeply buried one.”

  “And how’s Walt?” Darcy asks with a smile like a dagger. “As husky as ever?”

  She pushes out of the bathroom before Carlotta can dredge up a reply and returns to where Billy stands with his back to her, staring at a corkboard of photographs of the stars of the show.

  His jacket has ridden up and Darcy has to bite back a smile when she sees a tongue of white poking through a split in his pants.

  She eases up behind Billy, and without him noticing, slides down his jacket.

  He spins and—of course—sends half of Darcy’s white wine over the front of her dress.

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”

  He sets down the drinks and fishes a handkerchief the size of a table cloth out of his pocket.

  When he advances on her, Darcy backpedals dabbing at herself with a Kleenex.

  “It’s fine, Billy, really,” she says and is relieved to her the bell announcing the second part.

  She takes his arm. “Come, let’s go in.”

  “Are you enjoying it?” he asks.

  “I’m loving it.”

  He leans in and says, “Darcy, it’s awful, isn’t it?”

  She has to nod.

  He whispers in her ear, “Eddie Hancock’s doing Christopher Walken.”

  She nods again, giggling.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Billy says and she feels a surge of affection for him when he takes her arm and leads her out.

  He trips up only once between the hall and her car.

  47

  As Darcy drives them back toward the bookstore Billy knows he only has a few minutes before she’ll leave him in the parking lot of the Book & Bean.

  He has to make his move.

  But how?

  Billy remembers Carlotta McCourt speaking to him the other day in the coffee shop: “Don’t breathe a word of this, but Darcy has let it be known that she likes you.”

  Could it be true?

  Well, Darcy had agreed to come tonight, and seemed genuinely pleased.

  And Carlotta said she was all alone and unhappy.

  Before he can stop himself, Billy says, “I’m sorry if you’re lonely, Darcy.”

  She looks at him, moving a strand of hair from her face as she drives.

  “Well, divorce is never easy. But you know all about being on your own, don’t you, Billy?”

  Was this an opening?

  Was she leading him on?

  “Yes, I do,” he says, “and it’s not something I enjoy.”

  “Oh, then you must do something about it.”

  This, even a man with Billy’s limited—make that non-existent—experience knows is a come on.

  “Oh, I intend to change it.”

  “Do you have somebody in mind?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And who’s the lucky lady?”

  This is going really well, way better than he could have imagined, and as Darcy turns into the Book & Bean parking lot, Billy takes a deep breath and says: “You.”

  Darcy brings the car to such a sudden halt that Billy, unfettered by a seatbelt, bumps his head on the windshield.

  “Oh, Billy, I’m so sorry” Darcy says, and Billy knows this is the moment.

  He must kiss her.

  He’s leaning in, puckering up, when he feels Darcy retreating from him.

  “Billy, no, this is a terrible misunderstanding.”

  His mouth opens and c
loses like a goldfish, before Billy says, “It is? I thought, when you wanted to go out with me, that you liked me?”

  “Oh, but I do like you, Billy. You’re a wonderful friend.”

  “That’s what I am? A friend?”

  “Yes, Billy. And you always will be.”

  He sags back in his seat, deflated.

  “Of course. I’m sorry I tried to kiss you.”

  “Don’t be, it’s very flattering.”

  “You don’t have to be nice, Darcy.”

  “I’m not being nice. It’s true.” She takes his hand. “Billy, I’m just coming out of a divorce, I’m not ready for a relationship.”

  “And even if you were, I’d be the last man on the planet you’d look at . . .”

  “Billy, I’ve known you too long to see you as anything other than a very, very dear friend. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “But when you said just now that you had someone in mind, I thought you were going to ask my advice about Brontë Baines.”

  “Brontë?”

  “Yes, haven’t you seen the way she looks at you, Billy?”

  “No,” he says, confused.

  “Hell, what do you need? Brontë to send you a message in skywriting? She’s crazy about you. And you two would make a perfect couple.”

  “We would?”

  “Yes. You both love the same things, like books and culture.”

  “Mnnnn,” he says, “I suppose we do.”

  She touches his cheek.

  “Promise me you’ll ask her out.”

  “Okay, I promise.” He looks at her.

  “What?”

  “This is going to sound crazy, but there’s something I’ve wanted to do with you since high school.” He sees her face and has to laugh. “Relax, Darcy, not that. I’ve wanted to dance with you.”

  “Dance?”

  “Yes.”

  He clicks on the radio and searches for a station.

  After a buzz of static he hears Billie Holliday crooning “My Man.”

  Billy climbs out of the car, steps out into the beams of the headlights and says, “Darcy, would you do me the honor of this dance?”

  If Billy’s clumsy pass surprised Darcy—she knew he had a crush on her, but never thought he’d act on it—this invitation to dance leaves her flat-out astonished.