Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight

by Ann Mauren

  I picked out the items that I needed—feeling weird the whole time because I was usually with an adult when the shopping cart was this full—and made my way to the register. I must have looked weird too, because the cashier kept searching behind me, like she was waiting for my mom to return with whatever item she had forgotten to pick up in the first aisle. It seemed like she was really dragging it out too, moving in super slow motion, trying to give my parent a chance to make it back before it was time to pay.

  When the last item was finally scanned, about ten minutes later (good thing I wasn’t in a hurry) and a variety of hopeful customers had abandoned the line behind me for more promising service in lanes on either side of me, I produced the credit card and handed it wordlessly to the cashier. She seemed a bit contrite, but didn’t apologize.

  I laughed to myself thinking about how my mother would have regarded all of my product choices. Using her credit card, I purposely bought exactly what I wanted, price or artificial ingredients be darned. I made a mental note to destroy the receipt, though, just to cover my tracks. After loading up the trunk and returning the cart to its corral, I headed for home.

  I had decided to use a recipe from my Paula Deen cookbook. It was easy and there was no way to mess it up, unless I forgot to take it off the grill. After I put everything away, I placed the things I needed out on the counter and started to assemble our dinner.

  The Torrences arrived just as I’d finished putting the chicken on the grill. I placed the platter in the oven to keep it warm, washed off my hands and went to answer the door.

  As I passed the front window on my way, I noticed they had traveled in the Z. If it worked out, maybe we could go for a drive in it later, I schemed to myself.

  Standing inside the foyer, Lidia introduced me to her husband, Ray. He looked so much like the actor Denzel Washington that I had to struggle to control my impulse to gawk. She was obviously a supermodel. Would it be such a stretch for her to be married to a movie star? It was strange but I noticed that he seemed to be as taken with me as I was with him—except whom did he think I was?

  Lidia was clearly enjoying our reactions to each other. I swallowed down my shyness, giving myself an internal pep talk about how much she must like me to waste a Friday night like this.

  I welcomed them both as warmly as I could, trying hard not to sound nervous, but without complete success. I invited them to join me in the kitchen while I finished up staging our dinner. I tried not to notice, but from the edges of my careful concentration I could see that they were both watching my every move with rapt attention. Was it really that novel to be entertained by someone like me? Apparently so.

  I forgot that wild rice takes about twice as long as white rice to cook, so it wasn’t finished and it wasn’t something I could rush. It would be at least another twenty minutes.

  To stall, I suggested that we have drinks and I’d show them how to play corn-hole.

  “Would you like to choose the wine?” I asked to no one in particular with my back turned.

  My parents were really into wine and kept a very nice selection in a special wine valet next to the refrigerator. I opened it up and Ray stepped forward to oblige.

  “We’re having grilled chicken breast stuffed with swiss and prosciutto, topped with a balsamic and cherry glaze. I don’t drink wine, but I think that a dry white might go well, or a Zinfandel. But, since you’ll be doing the drinking, just choose whatever sounds good,” I said as I set out two wine glasses.

  I couldn’t help but be slightly smug about my wine pairing knowledge. They seemed sufficiently impressed. Ray chuckled in pleasure and said, “If our hostess recommends a dry white, then that’s what we’ll have.”

  He selected a bottle, manipulated the complicated bottle opener with the motions of an expert, and poured a glass for his beautiful wife, and one for himself. It could have been a commercial.

  We stepped outside and into the back yard. I already had the corn-hole game set out, but I had forgotten the bags that were kept in a storage area under the deck. When I went to retrieve them I realized, to my great dismay, that several of the bags had been vandalized, probably by a gang of field mice. I scrambled for a remedy and an idea came to mind. It was a long shot, but I thought it was still worth a try.

  I explained the situation to my confused guests and excused myself, promising to return with usable game pieces momentarily. Walking out my backyard in a diagonal trajectory toward the corner of our property, I crossed part of one neighbor’s yard and entered the next. Moving along the edge of this yard, I made my way to the place where I knew corn-hole bags would be available. But getting their present owner to hand them over might be the hard part. I wasn’t certain whether he would even answer the door.

  This neighbor who had purchased my grandpa’s home and nearly everything in it was an absorbing mystery. I’d never gotten a good look at him. He kept odd hours. I’d seen him coming and going in his car just a handful of times, but the windows were heavily tinted and he always shut the garage before he got in or out of his car. A lawn service cut the grass. The realtor told my mom that he was a computer software engineer. He obviously traveled quite a bit because at night his house was dark more often than not.

  I knew that he was in town today because I had seen his SUV pull into the neighborhood as I was coming back from the store. I rang the doorbell a total of four times, not in rapid succession, but with appropriately polite spacing in between. I think perhaps he meant not to answer, but when it became clear that I had nothing better to do but to annoy him all night, he must have changed his mind. I was about to go for five rings when he suddenly materialized out of thin air. It startled me because I hadn’t heard or seen him approach. The door went from being closed tight to open with him standing there looking at me, as though I had missed the part in the middle where you hear the footsteps coming, the lock un-clicking, and the door swinging open.

  Suddenly we were face to face. It was like standing in the sun. I could feel the heat on my skin, and just like staring at the sun, I knew it was a bad idea to keep looking, but I didn’t stop.

  It was HIM! The one called Ash! As Sam had once put it, my ‘totally handsome stalker.’ The one who nearly freaked out when I disappeared at the theater. The one whose face starred in all my girlish fantasizing these days…

  And now several pieces of the puzzle of my watchers came together simultaneously. It explained why I couldn’t go outside in my own yard without instant scopophobic sensations cropping up. It also explained his reclusive, retiring habits. And it made perfect sense that he, or someone like him, would now occupy the house that backed up to my own. It was shocking to think perhaps he’d been living there all along, but not unpleasant…no, not unpleasant at all.

  He was just so beautiful to look at. Very different. What was he? I couldn’t decide. Not Hispanic. Not Indian (the Native American kind or the Asian kind). Usually I could guess a person’s ethnicity accurately—it was a secret talent of mine. But I’d never seen anyone in real life or on TV that looked like him, so I had no frame of reference. He was a completely new kind of gorgeous—a very pleasant mystery, too. I think what was throwing me off were his eyes. They didn’t seem to go with the rest of his ‘décor’.

  He had black, sort of curly, medium length hair. No beard or even the hint of one—he seemed too young for that any way. His nose was perfectly straight and there was a suggestion of a cleft in the center of his chin. His skin tone was like a cup of coffee where the normal proportions of java and cream had been reversed. But his eyes, the very best part of his face, seemed so unlikely, yet there they were. They were bloncket: a soft, light color, not quite blue, but not grey either—something in between that sort of changed back and forth the more I stared at them. And those eyes were staring a hole through me now, too.

  How long had I been gawking? I suddenly remembered that I had been ringing the doorbell, so I should be doing the talking now.

  “H-hi…I’m…uh…(wh
at was my name again?)…Ellery…” I struggled to concentrate and communicate, “I-I live…next door.”

  Yeah, in the group home for mentally handicapped people, he was probably thinking by now.

  I commanded myself to breathe and took a generous gulp of air. His expression was like a parade, something new every second. First it looked like shock, then it was inquisitive, next it phased into confusion as I gawked, standing there speechless. When I had finally stumbled through my introduction his expression looked amused.

  My mind was racing to chase down the reason I had come here.

  Oh, right.

  “I was hoping to see if I could borrow the bags to your corn-hole game?” I asked, spitting the request out in double time.

  There was no comprehension in his face. To help explain myself I used a hand gesture, pretending to throw something from my open palm up and away, while slowly enunciating the words “C o r n - h o l e?”

  A glorious, bemused smile broke across his face, like a solar flare. It warmed me. He must have gathered that I was questioning his local language skills and he wanted to put me at ease. In perfectly articulated English with no discernable accent, foreign or American regional, he said, “Oh…I mean yes. Certainly. You’re welcome to whatever you need from me. Any time.”

  I thought about how wonderful it would be to have him make good on that promise…

  He was still smiling at me and it was disrupting my thinking ability. I couldn’t decide if he was gorgeous, or adorable, or handsome, but the sum of his attractiveness was greater than the combination of the individual adjectives that described him.

  After another embarrassing interval, I realized that I was copying him…just standing and smiling, except my mind was whirling in a way that I doubted his was.

  I almost thanked him and excused myself. Then I had a moment of clarity, the first I’d experienced since looking at his face. The clarity didn’t translate into anything cool or pithy. It just made me repeat myself.

  “C o r n - h o l e ?” I asked, gesture, and all.

  He gave a short nervous laugh and said, “Oh yes. Okay…I have to admit, I don’t know what that is, exactly.”

  I laughed too and replied, “Oh, sorry. It’s the game where you throw the bag of corn into the hole…” I knew it sounded ridiculous. I started again. “Did you clean out your garage after you moved in?”

  This must have seemed like an odd question. He looked like he was struggling to come up with the right answer. I continued.

  “It’s just that if you didn’t move it or throw it away, I probably know where to find what I need…”

  He seemed to accept that and immediately stepped aside, indicating for me to enter, and proceed. As I moved through the door, it occurred to me that this might be hard for me. The nostalgia and sentimentality might be too much. Reminding myself that I was here on a mission seemed to help me maintain my focus, and keep the emotions at bay.

  He followed me through the foyer, down the hall and into the kitchen, where I turned and headed out into the garage. There was a bank of cabinets just outside the kitchen door, and the corn-hole set was stored in the nearest section. The bags were sealed in a clear plastic container.

  That was smart.

  I took the rectangular container out and closed the cabinet door.

  “Here they are. So I just need them for tonight. I can bring them back when we’re done… or…” a wonderful plan had just materialized in my mind, “or would you like to come over and… be my partner?”

  His eyes widened and some inscrutable thought flashed through them, and then out again. His smile was soft, and a little sad, it seemed. Maybe he already had plans. I pushed ahead anyway.

  “I mean, if you don’t have plans, that is. I made dinner…and there’s plenty,” Duh! That was stupid, he could eat my share if there wasn’t plenty, “and when we play, well, you’re supposed to play on teams, and well…we could be a team.”

  I wondered if he had any notion of how much I wanted there to be a double meaning to that last part.

  I was starting to feel embarrassed because he hadn’t said anything since I had walked in. Finally, he broke the silence.

  “Amazing! I just went from a TV dinner all alone to a gourmet meal and a game night. I gladly accept your invitation. What time should I arrive?”

  He was radiant with pleasure and it warmed me again. I had to gather all my focus to wrap my mind around his answer.

  So that was a YES! What did he ask me at the end, though?

  I knew I was just smiling stupidly now. Seconds passed. I was so happy he said yes I didn’t know what to do next. He helped me.

  “Shall I escort you home now, or would you like me to stop by a little later?” he asked very sincerely.

  His expression held no trace of the mockery I deserved.

  “Oh! You can come with me now,” I said in a tone that was overly enthusiastic.

  Then like a gentleman from one of my Jane Austen novels, he took the box from my hands. Then he held out his elbow for me and I looped my hand through and around it. I was smiling so big it was almost painful, but in that ideal moment of receiving acceptance from the most handsome man I had ever encountered—just by a nose, but still—I could have been hit over the head with a frying pan and felt no pain!

  He escorted me back into his kitchen and then out through the back of the house to the yard and on to my own. The whole time I clung to his arm as if he might de-materialize if I loosened my grip by even a fraction. Could I hold on to him and still eat dinner or play corn-hole? My mind was on random access, searching for a way to work that problem out while I switched to the issue at hand: introducing our fourth.

  Of course I hadn’t thought about what my original guests would think about the addition of my new one to our dinner party. As different as their reactions were, they both seemed as though they were trying hard to control them.

  Ray seemed pleased. At first I thought maybe he was glad to have another man present, but I realized that wasn’t it. There was something more, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Conversely, Lidia seemed displeased. It was as though she didn’t like him, but how could that be? I knew that I was missing something here, and I wished that I could understand.

  I embarrassed myself when I attempted to make the introductions.

  “I found some corn-hole bags, and someone to help us play. Lidia and Ray, this is…my neighbor…whose name escapes me…at the moment.”

  They all laughed at me. I was still too happy to be overly self-concerned. I looked up at the nameless angelically beautiful one for his assistance. He wasn’t nameless in my mind, but he needed to think so.

  “I’m Ash,” he said to me alone.

  A drift of smoke from the grill reminded me that I was supposed to be cooking.

  Oh no! How long had it been? Did I burn the chicken after all?

  “I have to check on dinner…I’ll be right back.”

  Then turning, I sprinted to the grill. A big cloud of smoke released when I opened the top, but thankfully, the meat didn’t appear to be burned.

  Lucky.

  With relief I marched into the kitchen to retrieve the platter from the oven where it was being warmed and then set about arranging the miraculously perfectly cooked chicken on to it, piece by piece. Then I toted the platter into the kitchen, setting it onto the counter so that I could finish garnishing each breast with more glaze and fresh cherries that had been warming on the stove. Then I carefully covered the platter with its matching lid. Next I checked the progress of the rice. It, too, was perfect and ready to serve. I transferred the contents of the rice into a ceramic bowl, replacing the lid to keep the contents warm.

  Lidia joined me now and we worked together to transport the food to the table outside. At my instruction she retrieved the bowl of salad from the refrigerator. The men joined us on the deck and my three guests took their seats. I remained standing as I removed the covers from each of the dishes. All the while,
I carefully observed their reactions to the site of my culinary productions.

  Everything looked great, and I knew it. So I should have been insulted at the surprise that unfailingly registered on every face at the table.

  What were they expecting? Spaghettio’s?

  I couldn’t feel the proper affront, though. I was just too happy with myself. To her credit, Lidia’s surprised expression transitioned more quickly than her male companions, morphing into approval and, was it possible, pride? I wasn’t sure which was more satisfying, the fact that I had pulled off a decent meal or that there were witnesses to that fact. I must have been reveling in my triumph for too long because I awoke to the realization that no one was eating, and everyone was looking at me.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked as I sat down.

  Ray spoke up.

  “So…I’m guessing you’re not that serial killer known as the Teen Gourmet, are you?”

  The aura of self-satisfaction around me burst like a bubble.

  Why would he say that?

  Lidia shot him a dark look, dripping with disapproval. Ash’s expression was negative as well, but something more like disappointment, it seemed.

  Ray chuckled nervously and continued, “Well, it looks like you’re not planning to eat, and I was just curious about that.”

  What?

  I was starving. I hadn’t eaten all day. Of course I was planning to eat. As the faces all turned back to me, I looked down nervously and it made sense now. There were only three place settings on the table and I was sitting at the end that was empty.

  Why do people feel the need to tease me all the time?

  Scraping together what little maturity I possessed, (which seemed to be more than Ray had, at least) I smiled graciously, with just a hint of chagrin, and said, “Oh. There are four of us now, aren’t there? I’ll be right back. Or would you feel better if I did a safety taste test first?”

  I was all pleasantness and no sarcasm.

  They laughed in unison, and with that, the intensity around the table evaporated. Lidia began to serve herself a piece of chicken. Ray started to spoon into the rice. I noticed that Ash was still looking at me, his expression unreadable. Being caught in his gaze made me feel warm again. In a mental aside I thought that having him around in the winter would be very good for my comfort, temperature notwithstanding.