Plotting Mr. Perfect

by S. E. Babin

  If he was a gentleman he’d offer to help her. Katie didn’t look his way, even though she hoped he’d take mercy on her. She might have overestimated her upper body strength she thought as she steeled her shoulders and lifted her head. She’d be damned if she looked like she was struggling with this. And why did she have to buy so many things anyway?

  Flushed and panting under the weight of all the crap she didn’t really need, she managed to get to her front door only to realize her keys were in her purse. And her purse was still in the car. She looked down at the dozen or so bags she was carrying, looked longingly back at her car and cursed out loud. Katie untangled herself from the plastic bags and set them all down on the porch. Her car door hung open and her neighbor stood watching her with his mouth slightly open and the weed whacker rumbling in his hand.

  “What are you looking at?” Katie pushed a handful of sweaty hair out of her face and glared at her neighbor.

  His mouth twitched.

  “I dare you to laugh!” Katie shouted and stomped down the porch stairs to grab her purse. She slammed the car door and turned to face him.

  “I would have helped if you would have asked.” His voice was a calm Southern drawl that managed to soothe her frazzled nerves even as it made her angrier.

  “A lady does not ask for help!” She sounded ridiculous. She knew it and she knew her neighbor knew it. Instead of waiting for him to respond, she let out a sound of frustration, turned away and stomped back up the stairs while digging through her purse for the keys.

  “Name’s Will, by the way.” That voice followed her up the stairs. She stopped digging and turned to him.

  “Not that you ever asked or anything.” Will didn’t wait for a response, but did tip his ball cap at her. The sound of the weed whacker drowned out her response and Katie found herself wondering more about her mysterious neighbor. Like mostly how she never realized how much of an ass he was.

  “Will,” she muttered under her breath as she finally snagged her elusive keys and opened her front door. “I hate that name.”

  * * * *

  Two hours later, Katie dusted the flour off her hands and popped the last pan of cookies into the oven. Success.

  The house was clean, the dirty clothes picked up, and everything for tonight was neatly set out for consumption. She’d even remembered the wine opener. Satisfaction filled her chest as she leaned against the counter. Lots of work, but totally worth it. Next time, though, she’d suggest someone else as host. Katie’s house had been the go-to spot for weeks now and she was ready to hand the chore off to someone else for a while.

  She glanced down and grimaced as she noted the flour on the knees of her jeans and the grubby tennis shoes she’d thrown on this morning in an effort to get to the coffee shop to write. She might try to look presentable, but today the effort was only mediocre. She tossed the apron she was wearing onto the kitchen counter and walked into her bedroom to grab a quick shower.

  * * * *

  Refreshed and flour-free, Katie dragged a fine-tooth comb through her thick blonde hair. Fairy-tale hair, her mother called it. A nightmare was the term Katie preferred. Cutting it off crossed her mind more than once, but it had been with her for so long she hesitated to make such a drastic change. Baby steps. Let’s get through the book first, she told herself, then we can go wild on some other things.

  As she meticulously combed the knots out with one hand, with the other she threw on a towel, knotted it securely, and strolled over to the closet looking for something suitable to wear. It was casual, but they were ladies, so everyone would be at least a little bit dressed up. Her gaze fell on an emerald green wrap dress, one of her favorites, so she snagged it off the hanger and laid it across her bed.

  Once her hair was tangle free, she slipped on the dress, noting with satisfaction how it hit all the right places. Wrap dresses were a lazy woman’s best friend. She slipped on a pair of sandals lying on the side of the bed and glanced at her profile in the wall mirror.

  “Not too bad,” she said and walked back into the bathroom to grab a hair tie to put her hair up and stayed to finish her makeup. And not a moment too soon.

  The doorbell rang right as Katie put the last touches on her appearance.

  “It’s open!” she shouted as she poked her head out of the bedroom door.

  She heard the door open and bags banging. It could only be Mel.

  “Katie! Do you know your neighbor is still outside doing yard work? What is with that guy?”

  * * * *

  Wine and conversation flowed freely over the next couple of hours. Katie, playing the dutiful hostess, made sure everyone was comfortable while also encouraging them that, yes, they really could get their own drink. The small bungalow was full of friends and contagious laughter, and a weight Katie hadn’t known she carried fell away from her shoulders.

  This was what life was really about, she told herself. Snagging another glass of wine, she weaved in and out of the furniture and plopped down next to Mel, who was involved in a heated conversation about Chris Hemsworth versus Ryan Gosling.

  “Hands down Chris Hemsworth,” Katie interrupted.

  Mel chortled and gave her a high-five. “Right? You can’t even put Gosling in the same category as Thor. That’s mythology sacrilege, ladies.”

  Sherry, friend and heavy wine consumer, tipped her glass toward Mel. Katie watched as the ruby-red liquid sloshed dangerously toward the edge. She could handle a lot of things. She wasn’t sure a red wine spill on her new carpet was one of them.

  “I happen to disagree,” Sherry said. “Hemsworth might be Thor, but Gosling is a gangster! He, like, carries an automatic weapon and blasts the hell out of everything within a fifty-foot vicinity. Now that, my friends, is badass.” She bobbed her head in finality, the tangle of red curls flopping around.

  “Not even close,” Piper chimed in. “Thor carries a hammer. A hammer, people! He don’t need no stinking machine guns to get his point across.” She leaned back against the couch, her long legs stretched across Katie’s floor, and fanned herself. “Plus, that hair. Who needs Eva Longoria for L'Oréal when you’ve got all the blonde glory of Chris Hemsworth?”

  “Three against one,” Mel chimed in. “Hemsworth wins!”

  Sherry stuck her lip out, but then grinned. “Next week, this battle is mine.”

  She never won the Man Wars. It never stopped her from trying, though, and the debate often resulted in a rowdy discussion about some of the other aspects of Hollywood’s leading men.

  Mel reached forward and grabbed a handful of chips from the platter on the coffee table. “So, next topic of discussion? Katie’s love life. Who brought the charts?”

  Katie choked on her wine. Tears flooded her eyes and she patted herself on the chest, trying to draw oxygen into her shocked lungs.

  “Charts?” she wheezed out.

  “Don’t look so shocked.” Mel grinned. “But I’m kidding about the charts. For now.”

  Katie reddened under the scrutiny of her friends’ knowing gazes. It had been a while since she’d been out on a date…a long while, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t date. She just didn’t want to all that much.

  She needed more wine.

  Katie set her wine glass on the coffee table and stood, the room swaying a bit as she got her bearings. She made her way over to the kitchen, snagged two bottles of red wine and her trusty opener. Katie avoided the gazes of everyone as she made her way back to the couch, sat down and opened one of the bottles. She poured a healthy slug of red into her glass and then nudged the bottle at Mel.

  “More?” Mel nodded at her cautiously and handed her glass over.

  Sherry laughed. “I’d need more wine for this crowd, too. While you’re at it.” She handed her glass over and Katie poured another healthy serving.

  Piper looked around at the three of them, shrugged one thin shoulder, and handed her glass over, too. “All in.”

  Katie obliged, sat the close-to-empty bottle down
, picked her own glass up and proceeded to take a fortifying long drink. She had a feeling she’d need it soon.

  Mel, the leader of this disturbingly cheery gang, piped up. “For the record, it’s been six months, two days and sixteen hours since Katie’s last date.”

  A resounding noise of sympathy went around the room. Katie snorted, unsure whether she was more amused or disgusted at the blatant examination of her personal business.

  “Six months isn’t so long,” Katie tried to explain.

  “For whom? The pope?” Mel patted her knee. “Katie, you don’t have to marry these guys, but you do need to put yourself out there.” Nods all around.

  It was easy for them to say. Mel happened to be gorgeous and brilliant, an uncommon combination these days. Sherry was a successful entrepreneur and a redhead with mad social skills. And Piper…she was lithe, lean, gorgeous and had the self-confidence of a superhero.

  It was maddening sometimes. Katie wasn’t gorgeous by any stretch of the means, but people occasionally called her cute. She was petite, blonde and introverted. Katie would much rather snuggle up on her couch with a romantic novel than be forced to socialize with strangers. Going on a blind date was equivalent to having a root canal. Making the effort to meet someone new almost always resulted in her doing or saying something regrettable.

  She just wasn’t good at it. So most days she didn’t even try.

  “And how would you suggest that?” Katie said, genuinely interested in hearing their thoughts. They were all so good at this dating stuff.

  Mel blinked, taken aback by Katie’s question. “You really want to know?”

  “Well, apparently since girls’ night has morphed into Dr. Phil, yes. The sooner we get through this, the sooner I can get back to drinking more wine and not dating.”

  “Awesome,” Sherry piped up, reaching over to clink her glass against Katie’s.

  “Don’t encourage her hermit state.” A thoughtful look stole across Mel’s face. “All right, let’s start with a list! Get your laptop out.”

  “I draw the line at actual work.” But Katie obligingly reached over and grabbed her laptop case. She slid out the computer and placed it on top of the coffee table. The ladies gathered around, Piper squeezing herself onto the couch, all silent while she hit the power button and waited for it to come on. Once she brought up a blank document, she turned to stare at Mel. “Now what?”

  “Now you need to drink up so you won’t be so crabby. And you need to title the page…” She tapped her lips thoughtfully. “Hmm, let’s see, we need something catchy. You’re a writer, after all, and this will be your perfect man list.”

  “Ooh, I got it!” Piper’s hands shook in excitement. “How about Plotting Mr. Perfect?”

  Katie couldn’t lie. The sound of it rolled off the tongue. “Catchy,” she murmured. “But you guys still suck.”

  Mel topped off Katie’s wine glass. “And yet here you are doing our bidding. We’ll have you dating in no time!”

  “Yippee,” Katie grumbled. “Only if my computer was magical and my list came to life. But since it isn’t, I’m pretty sure I’m done with dating for a while.”

  “Honey, if you could write the perfect man down and it actually happened, none of us would ever leave our computer. Now shove over some more. I can’t see the screen.” Sherry nudged her with an ample hip, squishing Katie in between Piper and Mel. All hunched over, staring in anticipation at the screen.

  “Um, guys? No idea where to start here.”

  Mel blew out a frustrated breath. “Do I have to do everything for you? Start a column. One side is yeas, the other side nays.”

  Katie gave Mel a sideways glance. “Since when did we start speaking Middle English?”

  “Since you decided to become a Hobbit! Now start typing before I take it from you and do it myself.”

  Katie took another gulp of wine, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. She set the columns up and came up with…nada.

  Think, Katie, think. She sat there, her mind fuzzy with all the wine and tentatively typed out Awesome in the yea category.

  Piper groaned. “More like lame! Dig deeper, kid. Think about the color of his hair. The way it smells. Your future children. Will they be blonde little towheads, mischievous redheads, intelligent brunettes? Does he make you breakfast? Drive a Lexus?”

  An image of Will popped up unbidden in her head. That sort of non-smile he’d given her when watching her with the groceries today. He was exactly the kind of complication she didn’t need in her life.

  “Communicative,” she said out loud while typing the word on the screen.

  “You really are a giant nerd, you know that?” Sherry reached over and took the laptop away from her, settling it onto her lap.

  Katie huffed, trying not to get her feelings hurt, but failing. What was wrong with communication anyway?

  Sherry cracked her knuckles. “All right, let’s really get this show on the road. Mel, what type does Katie always go for?”

  “Geeky,” Mel answered with zero hesitation.

  “I do not!” Katie glared at Mel. “Don’t you dare type that, Sherry! What Mel meant to say was intelligent. I like smart men.”

  “So smart they can’t manage to match their socks properly,” Mel mumbled under her breath. Sherry and Piper snickered, but the word “intelligent” appeared on the screen.

  “Aaaand,” Katie continued, cutting off Mel’s commentary. “I like independent men. Men that love their mother but don’t live with them or expect her to bring over home cooked meals all the time. He needs to have a good job with an income to comfortably support himself.”

  Sherry dutifully typed away. “What kind of job should he have?” She looked up from the screen as she posed the question to Katie.

  Katie thought about it, but honestly couldn’t come up with a good response. “Doesn’t matter as long as he has one to pay the bills and pad his savings account.”

  “So let’s go with investment banker,” Sherry said as she typed the words.

  “Boring!” Piper exclaimed.

  “We’ll give him hobbies to make up for his boring job,” Mel said. “Cliff diving. How about that one?”

  Katie sat back, flummoxed by her friends. Whose man was this? Certainly not Katie’s. “No, no, no. Delete the cliff diving. Something safer. Like…slam poetry.”

  “Living dangerously, Katie.” Sherry rolled her eyes and deleted the extreme sports. “I refuse to type slam poetry. Come up with another hobby that doesn’t involve amateur night at a hipster bar.”

  Again Katie’s mind slipped back to the sight of Will outside tending his lawn with the voracity of a professional gardener. “Gardening,” she blurted out and then laughed uncomfortably. “That’s safer, right?”

  “Umm, yeah. Just about as safe as knitting, I’d say.” Mel gave her a perplexed look and shook her head.

  “Now wait, gardening can be hot,” Piper said. “Haven’t we watched enough movies where the hot gardener falls in love with the rich heiress to know it could really happen?”

  “Katie isn’t rich,” Sherry said.

  “Hey! I have enough money to be comfortable! Let’s move on before I kick all of you drunkards out.”

  She pulled the laptop toward her. In the yea category were the words independent, loves gardening, and six-pack abs, which they hadn’t discussed but Katie didn’t mind. Every girl needed a man with rock-hard abs.

  “No crazy ex-girlfriends and no surprise out-of-wedlock babies.” Katie tapped the words on the nay side of the screen. “And no prison history, either.”

  “Dream big, Katie,” Sherry said and snickered.

  By then the wine had really kicked in and Katie’s thoughts were churning. What traits would she really want in a man if she could choose them?

  “Do you guys remember the movie Weird Science?”

  Mel unsteadily reached for the second bottle of wine. “We are not hooking a Ken doll up to your computer. You can forget it.”
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  “Considering I don’t even own a Ken doll, I’d have to agree with you. But let’s come at it that way. Everyone stop for a moment and think about what could happen if this man really did come alive! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

  Her friends stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. With the amount of wine she’d drunk tonight she may very well have. Sherry was the first to speak. “Well, of course it would be awesome, but remember how much havoc Lisa wreaked upon them?”

  “But she did it because she cared! Okay, everyone humor me for a minute.” Katie pushed the laptop off her and grabbed Piper’s and Mel’s hands, motioning for Sherry to do the same. “Now everyone take the next minute to fully visualize this man coming to life and what it could mean for me!”

  Piper gave Katie a dubious look. “Is this one of your freaky visualization exercises from your Buddhist retreat or is this the wine talking? I hope it’s the wine.”

  “Combo of both,” Katie slurred. “Now shut up and visualize.”

  Piper mimed a zipping motion and closed her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. Visualizing!”

  Katie made sure Mel and Sherry both had their eyes closed as well before she did the same. “Now, let’s go for sandy-blond, swimmer build, clean shaven, highly educated, prison-free, late-twenties to early-thirties hunk. Everyone holding an image in their mind?”

  All three groaned and Katie heard various words like lame, drunkie and freak show from her friends’ mouths. She snorted and squeezed their hands tighter. “Let’s stay like this for the next minute. Hold the image of my new hunk in your mind.”

  “I never should have suggested this. Writers are weird.”

  “Shut your face, Mel. This was your idea.”

  “Visualization and wine do not go together. You could wind up with Jabba the Hut in your living room.”

  “Shut it,” Katie said again. “Forty-five seconds to go.”

  The room fell silent. Katie’s mind worked overtime trying to visualize the perfect person for herself. Not a Ken doll—she couldn’t handle someone prettier than her. Alex Skarsgard was definitely out, so…maybe a Simon Baker type with a Steve Carell sense of humor? Perfect. The image set in her mind so well she could almost smell his cologne. Weird…she could smell his cologne. She cracked one eye open and looked around the room, noting with amusement her friends’ faces scrunched up in drunken concentration.