by Maria Geraci
“The reason I didn’t go to Mass this morning was because I was in Vegas.”
Pop’s brows nearly crossed over themselves. “You went to Las Vegas? Was it last-minute business?”
“Did you hit a jackpot?” Abuela asked, excited.
“Not business, Pop. And yeah, Abuela, you could say I hit a jackpot. I got married this morning.”
Grace heard herself screech, “You got married? In Las Vegas?”
“Ave Maria!” Abuela said. Her eyes shot up to the ceiling. “I knew the Virgin was listening!” She got up from her seat and wrapped Charlie up in a hug.
“Charlie,” Pop said. His face was now pink. “Let me get this straight. You went to Vegas last night, met some girl, and married her?”
“Calm down, Charlie,” Mami said, addressing Pop. “Remember your high blood pressure. And I am going to say something about it when I think I need to. Just try and stop me. But seriously, cariño, are you that clueless? Of course our son didn’t marry some girl he just met. He married Sarah!”
“Sarah who?” Pop asked, confused.
“Yeah, Sarah who?” Grace chimed, because he simply couldn’t mean her Sarah.
Charlie crossed the living room in three long strides to open the front door. Sarah, (her Sarah!) stood in the doorway wearing a simple cream-colored above-the-knee dress and the goofiest smile Grace had ever seen. Her blonde hair hung loose and straight to her shoulders. She wore the barest of makeup and Grace could immediately sense that, like Charlie, Sarah hadn’t slept last night, but she still looked beautiful. And . . . happy. Truly happy. In a way Grace had never seen her.
Before Sarah could put a toe over the threshold, Charlie swooped her up in his arms and carried her into the living room.
“Put me down!” Sarah laughed, her arms looped tightly around Charlie’s neck.
“Never!” Charlie said with such vehemence that Grace almost didn’t recognize him.
Mami and Abuela fell on Sarah and Charlie, crying, laughing, telling each other that they’d always known that Sarah was the one for Charlie. The whole time Charlie held Sarah in his arms, grinning, like a besotted idiot.
And Pop and Grace stood there, mouths gaping open, like everyone had known about Charlie and Sarah but them. Which, apparently, was the case.
Pop recovered first. “Put her down, Charlie. She’s not going anywhere,” he said.
Charlie reluctantly set Sarah on her feet. “She’d better not.”
Sarah gave Charlie a smile that made Grace’s eyes sting. Pop gave Sarah a big kiss and welcomed her to the family. And Sarah actually blushed.
What was going on here?
It was like someone had taken the real Sarah off to the pod people and replaced her with this version that Grace had never seen before.
“I’m sorry that we didn’t tell anyone,” Sarah said. “It all happened so fast! And since I can’t get married in the Church, Charlie thought that Vegas was a simple solution.”
Pop punched Charlie playfully in the shoulder. “You could have given us a heads-up!”
“Do your parents know?” Mami asked.
“We called them. They’re our next stop,” Charlie said.
“Not until we have some champagne first.” Mami scurried off to the kitchen. “This calls for a celebration!” she cried over her shoulder.
“Have you eaten yet?” Abuela asked. “Of course you haven’t. The airlines want to starve you now, probably so they can keep making the seats smaller. I’ll go heat up the leftovers.”
“Grace?” Sarah said shyly. Up until now, Grace hadn’t said anything, only because, well, because she had no idea what to say.
“What happened?” Grace blurted. “I mean, when . . . when did . . .”
“When did I know that Sarah was the girl for me?” Charlie interrupted. “That would be about twenty-five years ago.”
Now Sarah wore the same identical, stupid grin Charlie had been sporting. It was like the two of them had been drinking the same alien happy juice.
“I’m serious,” Grace said. “When did this happen?”
“Last night, after the club meeting, I went to Charlie’s place,” Sarah said. “I wanted to warn him about the stuff Phoebe was saying. And—”
“I’ve been in love with Sarah for a long time.” Charlie put his arm around Sarah in a protective gesture. “After she told me about Phoebe, she confessed that listening to Phoebe disparage me at the club meeting brought out feelings that . . . well, that she never knew she had for me. So I finally told her how I felt. I asked her to marry me and she said yes, so I grabbed her and threw her on a plane to Vegas before she could change her mind.”
“We had to buy a dress at the airport gift shop. He wouldn’t even let me pack!” Sarah said.
He won’t even let you speak either. Grace’s head was buzzing. This was all too . . . much.
“Sarah was hoping that with the time difference we’d still be able to make it to Vegas in time for a Valentine’s Day wedding, but the official date is February 15. I like it better. Less sappy, huh, squirt?” Charlie said.
Charlie was probably the only groom in history who called his bride squirt while looking like he wanted to jump her at the same time. Before today, Sarah always scoffed at the nickname, but now she practically glowed at the endearment. She gave Grace a watery smile. “I hope you’re happy about this.”
Happy? Of course Grace was happy!
“Are you kidding? You’re my sister-in-law. Oh my God. You’re my sister-in-law!” She hugged her and the two of them started laughing. Because this was perfect. Charlie and Sarah. But still . . . it was so unexpected that Grace couldn’t help but feel that they were leaving something out. “It’s just so crazy! So impulsive. Sarah, it’s just so not like you.”
“There’s no logic to love, sis,” Charlie said.
Sarah smiled, but she didn’t meet Grace’s eyes.
Mami passed around the champagne and Pop made a toast to the couple’s future happiness. Charlie kept his arm around Sarah the whole time, and Grace could plainly see that the two of them were in love. She looked around at the faces in the room. Nobody seemed anything less than totally thrilled by Charlie’s impromptu nuptials.
The Lettuce scores a touchdown!
Grace instantly felt like a big weasel. What was wrong with her? Isn’t this what she’d wanted? For Charlie and Sarah to get together? So why was she trying to find something wrong with a perfectly wonderful situation? Could it be that subconsciously Grace didn’t want Sarah to be happy because Grace’s love life was falling apart? Could she be that selfish?
No. She’d wanted Charlie and Sarah together. It was the whirlwind manner in which the whole thing had gone down that had Grace spooked, not the end result.
Abuela insisted that the newlyweds eat something, and after another hour of talking about how they’d always been meant to be together and how weird life turned out, and then drank some more champagne, they’d left to meet with Sarah’s parents.
“This has been some day, huh, Pop?” Grace said.
Mami and Abuela were off in the kitchen, planning a reception for the new couple. She and Pop were alone in the living room for the first time today.
“It sure has.” He didn’t meet her eyes.
“I’m . . . I’m really sorry about all the stuff that happened at the store.”
“Let me get this right. For the past few months—” He stopped and gave her a questioning look.
“Um, since November,” Grace squeaked.
“For the last four months, you’ve conducted these boyfriend meetings at my store. Hundreds of women—”
“It wasn’t hundreds,” Grace rushed. “Except . . . maybe last night, it was,” she admitted.
Pop closed his eyes. Grace could have sworn she heard him chanting something under his breath. “For the past four months, you’ve conducted these boyfriend meetings,” he repeated in an eerily calm voice. “Unknown legions of women have trampled through my store
after-hours, some of them bringing in alcohol, and last night the meeting got so out of hand that the police had to be called?”
It all sounded so horrible the way Pop said it. Grace swallowed hard. “I swear to you, Pop, it will never happen again.”
“Oh, I know it won’t.” He shook his head and sighed. “You know I love you, Grace. More than anything, and that’s why this is going to be hard as hell for me to say, but I just got to come out and say it. Tomato, you’re fired.”
30
I Bet Jane Austen Was Fat
“Are you awake?” Ellen’s voice crackled over the phone. “I’m driving in a dead zone so my connection might die, but Grace, you need to turn on the radio. Everyone’s talking about us!”
Grace crawled out of her warm bed, her cell phone clutched to one ear. “What? Who’s talking about us?”
“Speedway Gonzalez! He’s talking about the boyfriend club on his radio show. I called in and—”
“Ellen, you’re not making any sense. It actually sounded like you said you’d called in to Speedway’s show. Hold on a sec.”
First things first. She laid her cell phone down, shuffled to the bathroom, and brushed the gritty feel from her teeth. She wished she could make the pounding in her head disappear as easily, but that was going to require three Tylenol, a gallon of water, and, knowing from previous experience, at least twenty-four hours. Grace didn’t do hangovers well.
Why had she drunk so much last night?
Well, there was Charlie and Sarah’s unexpected news. That had been cause for celebration, even if it didn’t make sense. So the champagne had been happy drinking. But the tequila shots she’d done by herself while watching late-night TV? Those had been the result of feeling sorry for herself.
Who got fired by their own father?
Slackers who didn’t listen to their boss and took their jobs for granted, that’s who.
“Okay, I’m back. Let’s start at square one. Why would Speedway Gonzalez be talking about the boyfriend club?”
“Because of Shania’s post on What’s Up, Daytona Beach? Which is completely awesome, by the way. Shania is totally on our side. She loves the club! You have to read it.”
The call-waiting on Grace’s cell phone beeped. It was Penny. Grace put Ellen on hold. “What’s up?”
“Have you had your morning coffee yet?”
“Is this about the Speedway thing?”
“Grace, it’s bad. Look, I’m pulling into the store. We’ll decide what to do when you get here. I tried calling Sarah but her cell keeps going to voice mail.”
That’s because she and my brother are probably too busy screwing like rabbits.
Coffee! Grace needed coffee. “Pen, I won’t be going to the store this morning. Pop fired me last night.”
“This isn’t the time for jokes, Grace. I’ll see you in fifteen,” Penny said, and hung up.
Grace sighed and clicked the call-waiting back over to Ellen. “Okay, so why would Speedway be talking about us?”
“Because of Shania’s blog!” Ellen said. “Go read it and call me back ASAP. My first class starts in forty minutes, but I’ll have my cell on until then.”
Grace put a pot of coffee on to brew, doctored her first cup of the day with plenty of half-and-half and Splenda, then sat in front of her desk and turned on her computer. She did a Google search for What’s Up, Daytona Beach? and clicked on the link. Shania’s blog jumped out in living Pepto Bismol hot pink. “Ugh!” Grace placed her hand up to shield her eyes from the screen until her vision adjusted. Then she took a big gulp of her coffee and began to read.
Using the Power of Literary Archetypes to Determine Dating Compatibility By Shania Brown
Good grief. This sounded about as interesting as Ellen’s thesis. No wonder Ellen was so excited about it. Grace popped the Tylenol in her mouth and chugged it down with another big gulp of coffee.
Dating in this day and age has become as dangerous as hunting for food must have been for early man. Twenty-first-century carnivores and herbivores disguised in their Armani suits and too-tight jeans crawl, snarl, and bite their way through the dating jungle while ill prepared gatherers haplessly stumble through the romance minefield.
While the odds of finding true love are heavily stacked against us, women right here in Daytona Beach are simply not content to leave it all to chance. Take Grace O’Bryan, the thirty-year-old never-been-married manager of central Florida tourist mecca Florida Charlie’s. Just a few months ago, Grace was like every other woman battling out there in her quest for true love. But unlike her fellow sisters in the hunt, Grace decided to arm herself with the most powerful weapon available—information.
Similar to the format of today’s popular book clubs, Grace established a much more practical group—a boyfriend club that meets once a month and allows women to discuss the men they’ve dated, building up “reviews” they post on a closed Yahoo! site.
But the boyfriend club takes it one step further.
Club cofounder, Ellen Ames, a professor of English at Daytona State College, author of “Undressing the Romantic Hero in Popular Literature,” and web mistress for the club, has developed a simple computer program that matches up boyfriend profiles with well-known literary characters, giving a glimpse of just how likely your “happily ever after” might be. The experiment is in the beginning stages, but Ms. Ames hopes to compile enough data to expound on her original thesis and develop it into a book.
“It’s really pretty simple,” says Ms. Ames. “The key is to pull out the correct four ‘descriptors’ or key words from the critiques that can be placed into the program. I’ve done extensive research on the hundred most popular heroes and villains in well-known English literature, and have created a data bank using their personality traits.”
Fascinating stuff, isn’t it? I decided to give the club a try for myself. What sort of characters do we having running around Daytona Beach, you might ask? Let me give you a sneak peek.
Grace skimmed down to the next part and nearly choked on her coffee.
Meet Iago, the villain from Shakespeare’s Othello. In real life he’s actually D, an average-looking CPA who’s climbing the company ladder by sleeping with the boss’s daughter. He’s been described as charming, smart, manipulative, and vengeful. Certainly not someone you’d want to meet in the corner of a dimly lit bar, right, ladies?
Then there’s F, the maître d’ of one of Daytona Beach’s swankiest new French restaurants, who’s been compared to the licentious Henry Crawford from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. The critique on him alone is worth joining the club for. Frankly, I’d like to know if any man I’m considering dating can only get “inspired” by listening to Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.”
Not every comparison is negative, however. B, a well-known wealthy Daytona Beach bachelor, has been compared to perhaps the most famous romantic hero of all time—Pride and Prejudice’s very own Mr. Darcy. Only this Mr. Darcy plays rugby by day and is secretly into Zumba classes by night. Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .
And, last but not least, we can’t have a Mr. Darcy running around Daytona Beach without his literary counterpart, none other than the villainous Mr. Wickham. Watch out for this one, ladies! Our modern-day Mr. W is J, a dentist who likes to pick up his conquests at raunchy bars with lines like, “What’s a nice pair of legs like yours doing in a place like this?” I know how I’d answer that one.
There is one element to the experiment that needs refining. “Sometimes, we get two very different views of the same man,” Ms. Ames said in her interview. “Which is to be expected, on occasion. But it’s a variable I’m trying to iron out.”
I was privy to an example of this during the February meeting when one member accused single local attorney C of sexual harassment. Another member jumped vehemently to his defense, creating a near riot that resulted in the police being called.
“There’s a level of subjectivity that can’t be completely ignored,�
�� Ms. Ames said of the encounter. “It’s like a book or a movie review site. Why does the same book receive both five-and one-star reviews? It’s because we can’t take the emotion out of the experience. One woman’s masterpiece is another woman’s dregs. What the boyfriend club offers is information. It’s up to the members to take it in and make up their own minds.”
So there you have it. Internet dating and now boyfriend clubs. What’s next?
Meetings currently take place the first Saturday of the month at nine p.m. at Florida Charlie’s off I-95. But don’t be late! Space is limited.
Grace stared at the screen in horror. The pounding in her head was nothing compared to the pounding in her chest. She speed dialed Ellen.
“Ellen,” she said, trying not to yell into the phone, not out of courtesy for Ellen but because the noise would have hurt her head too much, “please explain how Shania’s blog is being on our side.”
“So you’ve read it?”
“She names names!”
“No, she doesn’t, silly. She gives one little initial.”
“Ellen, there’s only one restaurant in town that fits the description of”—Grace paused to read her computer screen so she could quote it verbatim—“‘Daytona Beach’s swankiest new French restaurant,’ and that would be Chez Louis. Do you really think that Felix isn’t going to recognize himself? And what about Joe? Ellen, you had no permission to write up that file on Joe!”
“Grace, calm down. I know this tiff with Joe has you all upset. And I’m sorry about that file, but you have to admit, the facts do point to Joe being a Wickham. But as for Felix? I’m not the least bit sorry if anyone figures out who he is. Felix deserves to be exposed! He broke your heart, and now he’s just going to have to pay for it.”
“Pay for it? Ellen, this isn’t about revenge, it’s about . . . well, like we’ve been saying, it’s about empowerment. Only I didn’t want to empower all of Daytona Beach! You need to shut down that Yahoo! site.”
