“Or older, and in need of love…” Edna added, a devilish grin on her face.
“What I need is another latte,” Sunny said, as their laughter died down. Edna’s mention of a shower scene had her mind returning to Jake’s half-naked body and the fantasy of her, him and a bar of soap. Again, she considered telling them about her flirtation with Jake, but she didn’t need to get involved with another man who was all wrong for her. It was easier to stay home with Beau and fantasize about an affair with her fictitious romance novel pirate.
“What you need is a man,” Edna said. “It’s been too long since you’ve even been out on a date.”
“What does she need a man for?” Maggie asked. “As long as she can run a lawn mower, knows a good mechanic, and has a fresh supply of Duracells, she doesn’t need one.”
“Seriously, Sunny, when was the last time you went out on a date?” Cassie asked, ignoring Maggie’s comment.
“Yes,” Edna said. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
Sunny fidgeted with a napkin as all eyes turned to her. “Gosh, seems like only a few weeks ago. You know, that date with what’s-his-name?”
In truth, it had been months since Sunny had been on a real date. So much of her time revolved around her job as a teacher. The fact that she worked primarily with women, and didn’t like to club-hop sorely diminished her chances of meeting eligible men. Life had sort of settled into a routine of working, coming home, walking Beau, then curling up on the sofa with dinner, a good book or a movie, and collapsing into bed around ten o’clock. Her only sister had moved out of the country last year in an effort to find herself, and she was lucky to hear from her mother once a month. Her weekends were spent around the house, cleaning, gardening or hanging out with her girlfriends.
Said girlfriends now watched her intently, and Maggie had that one eyebrow-raised look she got with defendants who weren’t always telling ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.’ “Liar.”
“Well, it seems like a few weeks ago.”
“Girls, we’ve got to help her. Now my friend has a grandson–” Edna began.
“Stop,” Sunny cried. “Don’t go any further. I’m perfectly happy to find my own man. I don’t even know if I’m searching for my own man.” Suddenly that vanilla latte was not setting very well as her stomach churned with the thought of a set up with one of Edna’s friends’ grandsons. She hated all this attention focused on her and her failed attempts to find or hold on to a guy.
“That’s your problem,” Cassie said. “I think Edna’s got a point. You’ve had plenty of time to find a man on your own. And, frankly, you stink. If this were your job, you would be fired. In fact, you are fired.”
“I’m fired from my own love life?”
“You’re fired from managing your own love life,” Cassie continued. “I hereby declare The Pleasant Valley Page Turners as the new managers of Sunny’s non-existent love life.”
“Wait a minute–” Sunny said, the latte now threatening to come back up.
“You’ve already waited minutes, hours, days, weeks, years. Forget it. We are now in charge. We will make it our mission to find you a man or else.”
Sunny knew Cassie was used to leading troops of moms into getting fired-up for PTA projects and bake sales, but this was her life (or lack of life, it seemed) they were rallying around.
The girls seemed to eat up the ‘Grand Pooh-Bah’ Cassie’s words as they nodded and edged forward on their seats.
“I know where they do speed-dating,” Edna said. “I tried it once, but those men were only interested in my body.”
Sunny almost spit out her mouthful of coffee. “I’m not speed-dating.”
Cassie opened her planner. “I think you’re on to something, Edna. Let’s designate Saturdays as date days, and we each take turns setting Sunny up on dates throughout the summer. By fall, we should have a match. You’ve just started your summer break, Sunny, and I know you’ve got a giant stack of novels you’re planning to read, but you’ll still have plenty of time to devote to finding Mr. Right.”
Finding Mr. Right? I didn’t even know if I was looking for Mr. Maybe. Things were really getting carried away here. No one was paying attention to her or to what she wanted. But what did she want? Her life was safe and quiet. Had it only been a couple of days since she had wished for more excitement? She feared she was about to get her wish.
Cassie’s persuasiveness took over, and Sunny found herself agreeing to open up the next six Saturdays of the summer to let each of the women set her up on one blind date of their choice. In some odd twist of trying to include her, they even let Piper have one shot at matchmaking stardom. Maggie, always the lawyer, negotiated an extra two Saturdays, in case of illness, hurricanes, tornadoes, or other acts of God that might interfere with one of the Saturday nights.
So the evening progressed from Catcher in the Rye to a game of Catch Me If you Can, with Sunny as the prize.
* * *
After leaving Starbucks, the Page Turners took in a chick flick, then ended the evening in their favorite pizza place downtown, destroying two large pizzas and a Caesar salad. The pizza turned Sunny’s stomach queasy every time the topic of her dating life resurfaced, and she continually tried to veer the conversation back to the movie.
“That ending was so cheesy,” Maggie said. Edna and Sunny had given her a ride home, and they sat in front of her house as she collected her bag and complained about the movie. “It was so unrealistic to have all that occur exactly in that order so he would just happen to see her again on that exact train.”
“I liked it,” Sunny said. “Sometimes all the planets do align just right, and you can have a happy ending.”
Maggie’s phone beeped, and she dug through her purse and pulled free her Blackberry. “Speaking of endings, it’s the asshole himself.”
Maggie’s ex-husband, aka Chad the Cheater, had left Maggie and their teenage sons, Drew and Dylan, sixteen months ago on an ordinary Tuesday night. He’d tried to put a romantic spin on his affair, but when it was all said and done, Maggie Hayes, successful attorney-at-law, had been left for a Hooters’ waitress named Sapphire.
Maggie now held up her phone and read the text aloud. “Sorry, won’t be able to make Drew’s thing this weekend. Sapphire and I will be in Mexico. Tell him I’ll make it up to him later.”
“He is such an idiot,” she said. “Drew’s thing this weekend is his high school graduation party but evidently Chad’s thing comes before anything else in his life right now.”
Sunny put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Maggie sighed, and Sunny knew her heart ached for her seventeen year old son. Sunny hugged her, then Maggie got out of the car, slamming the door behind her.
Watching her beautiful friend cross the lawn, Sunny was struck with doubt over this blind date scheme. Both Sunny and Maggie had been burned by men, and if a gorgeous, intelligent woman like Maggie didn’t have a man, what chance did Sunny have of finding not even a Mr. Maybe, but a Mr. Might Be Okay?
3
Not bad.
Sunny surveyed herself in the full length mirror that hung from the closet door. It was Saturday night, and she was ready for her first blind date. Maggie had called a few days before with the news.
“All right, I’ve got your first guy,” she had said as Sunny answered the phone Thursday afternoon.
Sunny gulped. She thought it would take longer than a few days before the ‘dating game’ would begin. “I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“You’ll be fine. You just have to start,” Maggie said.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Blaine Bishop. He’s a rich stockbroker who is a client of mine. He’s divorced, no kids and did I mention rich?”
“What does he look like?” Not that looks were the most important part of a man, but a certain suspicious new neighbor had been creeping into her night time fantasies and a new hunky guy would be a great dis
traction.
“He looks like an attractive, rich guy.”
“Nice. Any other details, besides his wallet thickness?”
“Sunny, would I set you up with a dog? No. He’s tall, has dark hair, a great tan and he works out.”
“Well, he sounds all right, I guess.”
“Great,” Maggie said. “He’ll pick you up at seven on Saturday night, and I’m sure he will take you somewhere snazzy, so dress up.”
My first date starts tonight with a man I don’t know, going somewhere I’ve never been. How did I get myself into this? She took a deep breath and threw her shoulders back. I was looking for more excitement in my life, right?
She wore the classic black dress and pumps for her date with Blaine that evening. She’d chosen a halter style dress to accentuate the good cleavage of her top half, and an A-line style to de-accentuate the bad cleavage of her bottom half.
It had been several days since the garage explosion. Edna had called a handyman, and he had replaced their broken windows and helped to repair the damage to their homes.
Sunny had seen Jake outside, paintbrush in hand, working to restore Walter’s house to its original state. He wasn’t allowed around the perimeter of the actual garage, but she was impressed that he was taking the time and effort to try to fix the side of the house where the fire had destroyed the paint job.
They still hadn’t heard from Walter, and Sunny was actually starting to worry about him now. Jake’s blue eyes took on a strained look the last time she asked him if he had heard any news on his ‘relative’s’ whereabouts. He claimed there was no word yet. She still couldn’t figure out what his game was. She had watched him flip through Walter’s mail as he brought it into the house, but she had also seen him water the flower beds around the yard.
Walter took great pride in his yard and his flower gardens. The book club had met at Sunny’s house the week Piper came to live with Cassie, and Walter had joined in that week because they had a read a book about the depression and he could offer some real life insight.
Walter had formed a grandfatherly bond with Piper, inviting her to help with his flower beds and teaching her how to garden. Sunny loved watching Piper blossom under his grandfatherly attentiveness.
That spring, the two could often be seen quietly working side-by-side in Walter’s backyard. His precious flowerbeds were now ravaged by fire and his lawn was patchy with burned-out grass in the areas closest to the garage. The grass was muddy and trampled as different sets of firemen had clomped around the burn site, and though they had dug through the rubble for hours, they seemed no closer to finding a cause for the fire.
Sunny’s thoughts stole back to how it felt to be in Jake’s arms as he held her after the explosion, but she worked to dampen them. She barely knew him and was still suspicious of why he’d shown up out of the blue and how he deftly changed the subject whenever she tried to ask him about himself or his relationship with Walter.
Grrr! Why was she thinking about Jake when her future Mr. Right could be on his way to pick her up right now? She hadn’t been on a date in so long, maybe she was using the idea of Jake as an excuse to sabotage her evening’s plans. But that wasn’t fair to these women who cared about her happiness. Her friends were so hell-bent on this blind date idea, Sunny felt like she needed to at least give it the old college try. And in all honesty, she was a little excited to see who would show up behind door number one.
Dragging herself back to the present, Sunny dabbed on a little more lip gloss, then took a final look in the mirror. She decided to go with bare legs instead of nylons, and just to be daring on her first date, chose a black lacy bra and matching black thong panty. She felt sexy and racy and ready…
Ding-Dong.
Oh crap. Not ready. Definitely not ready.
“Pull yourself together,” Sunny said out loud to her reflection. Then she put what she hoped was a genuine smile on her face, walked down the stairs, and opened her front door to one of the most gorgeous men she had ever seen.
He stood before her, all six foot, three inches of him. His dark and wavy hair probably cost a small fortune to have cut so it looked like he was just overdue for another one. He had that scruffy five o’clock shadow thing going on, and wore an expensive, tailored suit over a light blue shirt open at the neck.
“Hi, I’m Blaine Bishop, Maggie’s friend,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite meet his dark eyes. He gave her an appraising look, as he surveyed her from top to bottom, but he kept his face impassive so she couldn’t tell if he liked what he saw.
“Uh, hi. I’m Sunny,” she lamely answered, and stretched out her hand to shake his.
Before he could take her hand, a golden ball of fur ran to the door and leapt for joy that someone had come to visit him. Beau proceeded to sniff Blaine’s shoes, his pant legs, and his crotch. Blaine did the keep-your-knees-together dance of non-dog lovers while he used his left hand to keep Beau away from his expensive inseam.
“Beau, get back.” Sunny grabbed for his collar and pulled him back into the house. She snatched her purse from the hall table and pulled the front door shut, leaving Beau to whine and cry at their departure. “Sorry about that. He gets kind of excited when he meets new people.”
As she turned from the door, Sunny noticed Blaine nonchalantly lean down and try to brush off Beau’s blonde hair that clung to the legs of his black pants. Definitely not a dog person.
They crossed the lawn as he clicked his key fob, and with two quick beeps, he unlocked the doors to his silver Porsche Carrera. He opened the passenger door, and Sunny slid into the sleek, black leather seat. Unfortunately, as she slid in, her dress had slithered up, and her bare butt cheek caught on the seat and made a small squeaking sound. Blaine had been in the process of closing the door as she quickly adjusted her dress, and she fervently hoped he hadn’t heard or seen her dilemma. Stupid thong underwear!
Blaine opened the driver’s door, slid into his seat (sans any peculiar fart noises), and started the car with practiced efficiency. He pulled into the street and headed toward the highway.
“Hope you like Italian. I thought we would try Maggio’s, if it’s all right with you.” He named an upscale Italian restaurant centered in the downtown area.
“Great. I love pasta,” Sunny replied, and thought, for a moment, she saw a smirk sneak across his face.
He shifted gears as they merged onto the highway, and she inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of leather and his expensive aftershave. It was a mix of woodsy musk and…and…poo? She wrinkled her nose in distaste, and wondered if maybe he had a spastic colon, or had Mexican food for lunch. She snuck a glance at his face, and saw he wore the same expression, and he looked at her with poorly disguised disgust on his face.
He thought that smell was her! It must have been that dang squeak when she got in the car. She shifted in her seat, and the smell of poo again wafted in her direction. Sunny looked down and oh, no! Her left heel had a big glob of dog poop stuck to it! When she crossed the lawn, she must have stepped in a fresh pile of Beau-B-Doo.
“Dang it. I’m really sorry, but I seemed to have stepped in a little dog poo on my way to your car,” she said, her face crimson with embarrassment.
Sunny hit the button for the car window as she slipped her shoe off and proceeded to hold it out the window. “I’ll keep my shoe out here until we get to the restaurant, and I can clean it off.”
His look of horror as he glanced to the floorboard of his car then to her shoe as it dangled out the window was almost comical until he began gliding into the neighboring lane.
“Watch out!” she cried.
As he swerved back into his lane, Sunny’s elbow bumped into the window frame which knocked the shoe loose and sent it careening into the oncoming traffic.
“Oh no! My shoe!” she cried. “We have to go back!”
Blaine pulled to the side of the road and flicked the lever to start his hazards flashing. “I’ll get it,” he said, with a sigh.
Sunny watched him retreat into the blinking hazard lights as she scrunched down into her seat in humiliation.
Within moments, he was back and dropped what was left of the shoe into her lap. “I think it may have been run-over.”
A small whimper escaped her as Sunny regarded her beautiful black pump. The sides were smashed in, it was covered in dust, and the heel was completely missing. Since the heel was the source of the offensive doggie doo, at least that problem was now solved.
“Um, I’m sorry about your shoe.” Blaine eased back into traffic as Sunny rummaged a tissue from the depths of her purse and began to wipe at the mess her shoe had become.
Not really knowing what else to do, they proceeded to the restaurant. Though humiliated and bummed about ruining her best black pumps, Sunny was also starving, and she couldn’t very well back out now. She thought about what the book club gals would want her to do. She put her shoe back on as well as she could, so when Blaine opened the door of the car, Sunny stepped out and held her head high as she walked lopsided up the steps of Maggio’s.
All thoughts of the shoe incident left her head as Sunny stepped through the doors and was engulfed in the heavenly scent of garlic and simmering tomato sauce. Maggio’s was fabulous, and the sights and smells of the restaurant renewed her faith that there was hope to salvage the rest of their date. Blaine did have good taste.
“Reservations for Bishop,” Blaine informed the Maitre D’, who took one subtle glance at Sunny’s feet before he turned and issued a “Follow me, please”.
He showed them to their table, discreetly setting Sunny in the back corner chair so her feet would be hidden from the other patrons. She flashed a thankful smile at him as he passed her a menu and gave her a slight nod of acknowledgement.
Sunny loved Italian food and ordered the Tuscany Trio of lasagna, ravioli, and a portion of fettuccine alfredo.
“You certainly have a healthy appetite,” her date commented, as he ordered a spinach salad with crumbled gorgonzola cheese. The waiter took their menus and turned toward the kitchen, but not before Sunny caught the small smirk on his stupid, twenty-something face.
Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got No Body (A Page Turners Novel) Page 3
