Chasing Romeo

by Sarah Ready

  I shake my head. “No.”

  We’ll make it. It’ll be tight, but I have the trip planned to the mile and have prepared for contingencies. Everything will go according to plan.

  We’re silent for a minute. She stares at the couple. There’s a lot of PDA happening. I sigh and pull out my phone to take a few more photos. It’s what I’m getting paid for after all.

  “Why are you taking photos?” Chloe asks.

  “I’m on a job,” I say as I snap another.

  “Wait a minute. You knew they weren’t…” She ends the sentence on an outraged squeak.

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  She grabs the map and looks over the route. Then, “So, Connecticut, Illinois, Nebraska, Colorado, and two in Nevada?”

  Six potential guys all lined up to sweep Chloe off her feet and out of my life forever.

  “I’ll pick you up at nine a.m.?” I ask.

  “Okay,” she says. She hands the map back to me. I take it, fold it, and put it in my pocket.

  Even though I’ve already agreed and I really want what Erma has promised, I need to make sure… “Chloe,” I start.

  She looks up, and I realize she’s surprised because I don’t usually use her real name. I clear my throat and start over. “You sure about this? There’s no guarantee any of these guys are the one. You could get hurt…”

  I stop when I see the way she’s looking at me. It’s real similar to the look she sent my way on her wedding day right after the groom grabbed the bridesmaid and ran down the aisle. I scowl and reboot again.

  “It’s not real,” I say. “It’s not worth getting hurt over. Love is just a chemical cocktail mixed up for the propagation of the species. When the cocktail runs dry, you’re just left with one hell of a hangover.”

  I start to wave my hand at myself then turn it to the affair couple as the perfect example. “Exhibit A.”

  Chloe doesn’t turn to look, instead she stares at me. “Aunt Erma must be paying you in gold,” she says. She always was way too intuitive.

  I shake my head. It’s none of Chloe’s business what Erma is paying me.

  “I’m not naïve,” she says. “No matter what you think. Yeah, I’m upbeat. I believe in silver linings and happily ever afters. That doesn’t mean I’m blind to all the crap in the world. I just chose to be happy in spite of it. So yes. I’m sure. I’m going after my soul mate and I’m not going to give up until I find him. So here’s my question for you. Are you in? Or are you out?”

  I scowl at her fierce expression. Why do I feel like I’m leading a lamb to the slaughter? But if I don’t go along, she’ll do it by herself, and trouble follows her like a teenager with his first crush. I should know.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. I already agreed. I’m getting everything I want. There really isn’t any downside to this. Just one week with Chloe and it’ll be over. Really, there’s no decision at all.

  “I’m in,” I say.

  She grins. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  6

  Chloe

  * * *

  Six Days Left…

  * * *

  “I’m not riding in that thing. No way, no how,” I say.

  That thing is a 1969 Dodge Charger. Think the Dukes of Hazzard car, except it’s electric blue with a gray racing stripe. There’s a dent in the passenger door, rust on the metal trim, and a long cut in the blue vinyl of the rear seats. The car roars when the engine turns and rumbles under you like a wild animal ready to be let loose. When it drives down a straight stretch you feel like you could soar to the moon, and when she’s purring and still in a parking lot it feels like anything is possible as long as you lay down and soak in the splendor. The inside smells like gasoline and drive-in popcorn. Don’t ask me how I know. This car and I go waaaay back.

  “Shelly’s not a thing. Don’t hurt her feelings,” says Nick. He strokes her hood lovingly and I resist the urge to throttle him. Figures that he still has her after all these years. He always did love her more than just about anything else in this world.

  I’m not jealous. Puh-lease.

  It’s nine in the morning and it’s time to head out on our cross-country road trip. My suitcase sits on the sidewalk next to me. It has my clothing, makeup, curling iron, toiletries, emergency chocolate, and my travel art supplies. Oh, and Veronica’s survival kit. She insisted. All the essentials. I packed only my cutest and flirtiest dresses. I’m a dress girl as a rule, but I packed my best. There’s no way I’m meeting my soul mate in anything less than a mega-flattering outfit.

  “I can’t believe you still own this thing,” I say. I don’t make a move to put my suitcase in the car. I’ll start as I mean to go on, and I don’t mean to go on in Shelly.

  Nick runs his hands over the car’s body. “Don’t worry, baby, she doesn’t mean it. She’s just jealous of our special bond.”

  “Hello, Earth to Nick, we can’t drive three thousand miles in this rust bucket. It was on its last leg in high school.”

  He gives me a dark look. “Put your bag in the trunk.” He opens it for me.

  I shake my head. “We can take my car,” I say.

  I point to my yellow Volkswagen Beetle. It’s only two years old, I just had the oil changed, and most importantly, it can drive six thousand miles round trip without falling apart.

  Nick turns to look at my car in its parking spot and starts to laugh. “Sparky. I can’t drive that car.”

  I glare. “You won’t be driving. I drive.”

  His shoulders shake he’s laughing so hard.

  “Done yet?” I ask.

  “The backseat’s not big enough,” he says. Then he waggles his eyebrows.

  Anger gushes up like that geyser Old Faithful. I’m steaming mad.

  “You…you…”

  “Use your words,” he says.

  “You’ll never get in my backseat,” I say. My voice rises and it sounds shrill, even to my ears.

  He leans back against his car and chuckles, deep and wicked. “Couldn’t fit. Looks too tight.”

  “Grrr…ack,” I say. Great, he’s reduced me to outraged animal noises.

  Then, he picks up my suitcase and tosses it in his trunk, and before I can pull it back out, he’s slammed the trunk shut.

  “Nick. Nick.” I tug at the latch, but it doesn’t open.

  He calmly walks to the driver door and gets in. Then he starts the car. It backfires and shoots oily black smoke at me. I jump back and cough. Nick rolls down his window and casually hangs his arm over the door.

  “Come on, Sparky. The road’s waiting. Your future of abject disappointment and betrayal lies just around the next bend. Hop in.”

  He. Is. Awful.

  I bare my teeth and bite back a response. Calm is needed here.

  I look up at the sky and ask heaven to send me a little help. It’s mid-September and the sky is clear cerulean blue with a few wispy clouds. It’s the kind of sky I’d paint on a card. The color alone reminds you of tart apples, hay rides, and the smell of falling leaves. Downtown Romeo is bustling. People pile in and out of the bakery with apple fritters, donuts, and their morning coffee. The toyshop and the bookstore are turning on their open signs. Mr. Kwan at the hardware store is watering his flower pots out front. I can hear the river running at the bridge and the old mill less than a block away. It’s a perfect day in Romeo. After one last deep breath, my calm is restored. Thank heavens.

  I walk over to Nick’s open window and smile down at him.

  “This car isn’t road safe,” I say in a reasonable tone.

  He smirks. “Got her serviced last week. Greg at the garage said she’s as fit as a fiddle. She’ll make the trip no problem.”

  Unfortunately, Greg is my mechanic too, and I trust his judgment implicitly. I scuff my heel into the grass growing from a crack in the sidewalk. Okay, fine, the car’s probably fine to make the trip. But it’s more than that. I flick my eyes to the backseat. Nick notices where my eyes have travelled, and in a
moment of surprising sensitivity, he looks away and gives me a moment.

  Then, “I’m six foot four. I can’t fit in your Bug. Shelly will get you where you need to go.”

  “But—”

  He shakes his head. “She’s never let me down. Not in fifteen years.”

  I look at the backseat again. It’s smaller than I remember.

  “I just…I don’t really want to find my soul mate in the car where you and I…ugh.”

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “Never mind,” I say.

  He nods and wisely doesn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “You know. He could be in Connecticut, and that’s only three hours from here. You’d be with your Matt Smith before lunch.”

  Good point.

  “Okay,” I say. “Fine. But don’t think that I’m going to do anything just because I’m riding in your teenage love mobile.”

  I slide into the passenger seat and he flashes a grin my way.

  “Shelly already worked her magic. I don’t need a repeat performance.”

  “Creep,” I say.

  He shrugs. But there’s color traveling up his neck and staining his cheeks. Oh my gosh.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” I ask. “That’s the reason you’re doing this. All these years you’ve been waiting to get back at me for breaking up with you. That’s why you’re here, you want another backseat performance.”

  He looks over at me and scowls. “Not even close,” he says.

  “Oh my gosh. Look at your face. You think you’re going to seduce me away from my soul mate. That’s how you’re going to prove me wrong. That’s why you’re coming,” I say. I’m floored.

  His jaw clenches, then he yanks a picture from his pocket. “Think again,” he says. He shoves a polaroid into my hands.

  “What’s this?” I ask. I look down at a photo of a bunch of trees and stumps.

  “That is why I’m doing this,” he says.

  “For a tree stump?”

  He grabs the picture and puts it back in his shirt pocket. “No. Not for a tree stump. You and your backseat fantasies have nothing to do with it. I’m here for this photo and nothing else.”

  Well.

  I’m quiet as he drives out of Romeo and onto 87 South. The trees fly by. The first leaves are turning. Ochre yellow and burnt sienna are stark brushstrokes against the deep green of the roadside forest. Autumn in New York is a color artist’s dream.

  After an hour I look back at Nick. His jaw has unclenched and his hands are relaxed on the steering wheel.

  “So, what was the photo of?” I ask.

  He looks at me from the side of his eyes, measuring my seriousness. Finally, his shoulders loosen again. “It’s ten acres out on the mountainside. I do this and the land’s mine.”

  I consider this information. I remember Aunt Erma owns some vacant land outside of town that she never built on, but I didn’t know Nick was interested in land.

  “What for?” I ask.

  He looks over at me and there’s a soft look to his face that I haven’t seen in a long time.

  “When I was in the Marines, breathing dirt in the desert, sweating my ass off in the Middle East, all I could think of was this cool, quiet, shaded forest on a mountainside. It became my Eden.” He looks over at me and scowls, like he’s embarrassed to be caught dreaming of something.

  “Oh,” I say. “It sounds beautiful.”

  He stares out at the highway and I leave him be. I think about turning on the radio but remember that Shelly only gets the AM stations, so I leave it off. Two hours into the drive, I’m getting jittery. What if Nick is right and this is my Matt Smith? In an hour we’ll meet and then…my whole life will change. I mean, it’s likely that it’s him. He’s the only Matt Smith on the list that lives on the East Coast and this is where he grew up. It’s probable that I’m about to meet the man that will love me forever.

  I smooth my hands over my dress. It’s a satin gown with an abstract watercolor pattern bursting with bright colors. It has little cap sleeves, a tight bust and a skin-tight skirt that hits above mid-thigh. I run my hands over the fabric and fuss with the skirt.

  “Stop fidgeting,” says Nick. “You’re stressing me out.”

  My hands stop mid-stroke. “I guess it’s good we didn’t make it,” I say. I clench my fists then loosen them. “We mix as well as oil and water.”

  He doesn’t agree or disagree with my statement, which I was hoping he’d do. Instead he asks a question. “I always wondered, what would it take for you to know a guy was the one? Besides your aunt’s say so.”

  I sink back into my seat and let the warm fuzziness of my romanticism settle around me.

  “A grand gesture,” I say.

  He looks over at me and squints in the bright sunlight coming from my window. “What? Like running out on your wedding to be with the girl of your dreams?”

  I wrap my arms around myself. “Don’t be a dick.”

  “Sorry,” he says, and…he means it. His voice is laced with regret.

  “S’alright. Anyway, don’t you watch romcoms?”

  He turns and raises his eyebrows. “Do I look like I watch romcoms?”

  I snicker. No. No he does not. But the way he says it, filled with dirty innuendo, makes me want to watch one with him.

  “Fine,” I say. I decide that I’m going to enlighten Nick on the highlight of the romcom. “A grand gesture is an elaborate and public declaration of love. It’s a wedding proposal via sky writing airplane, or…” I shift in my seat, excited to be sharing my grand gesture theory. “It’s organizing a serenade with a band and backup, where you sing a love song to prove—”

  “Please. Stop.” He shakes his head.

  “What?”

  “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “What are you talking about? The grand gesture is a cultural icon.”

  He scoffs. “Riiight. The grand gesture. An icon for snivelly losers who can’t get a girl on their own so they have to resort to emasculating themselves in some bizarre stereotypical ritual pre-ordained by out-of-touch romantics.”

  “That’s not true! Some of the greatest love stories of all time have grand gestures.”

  Nick laughs. “Oh, right. I remember. Romeo kills himself. Juliet follows suit. Catherine dies. Heathcliff becomes a raving psycho.”

  “You read Wuthering Heights?”

  “No.”

  I shake my head in confusion. “Those grand gestures weren’t used for good. It’s supposed to only be used for good, not evil.”

  Nick looks at me and lifts an eyebrow. “Wait. The grand gesture theory was invented in Star Wars? Spoiler alert, when Luke grandly blew up the Death Star and got the girl, he found out she was his sister. Grand gesture fail.”

  “Ugh, you’re twisting everything around.” I squirm in my seat and try to impress on him the importance of my belief. “Back to your original question. If my aunt hadn’t told me my soul mate, I would’ve known he was the one by his grand gesture. And my ultimate grand gesture is a public love serenade Bollywood-style—big music, lots of color, singing, dancing, it would be the ultimate in romance.” At least I think I would. Like I said, I haven’t trusted my judgment in a long, long time. But still…

  Nick sighs and looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You’re lucky your aunt pulled the soul mate card. Because you’d never find a man willing to make a fool of himself like that. Not in a thousand years.”

  “Well, maybe you wouldn’t—”

  “I definitely wouldn’t.”

  “So it’s a good thing you’re not my soul mate,” I say.

  “Damn straight.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and turn back to the window. Matt Smith lives only thirty minutes away. I let myself dream about what he’ll look like, what I’ll say when I meet him, how he’ll fall into my arms and we’ll be in perfect loving accord from day one. In my imaginings he’s nothing like Nic
k O’Shea.

  Besides, what could possibly be worse than a cynic like Nick?

  7

  Nick

  Greenwich, CT

  Matt Smith Number One…

  * * *

  That is one big yacht. Real big. The sucker has to be at least a hundred and fifty feet long. It’s a shining white, polished chrome, ginormous ode to penile one-upmanship. Matt Smith Number One is hosting a party for feline Sphynx enthusiasts. On his yacht.

  It’d taken a little work to find this yacht. Number One lives in a gated community for the mega rich, movie stars, and East Coast elite. At least this is what the security guard told us when he denied our entrance to the community. Regular Joes…not allowed. Somehow Chloe managed to stupefy him with her smile and before we knew it the butler was answering the door of Matt Smith’s waterfront mansion. The butler was very sorry, but Matt was on his yacht at the harbor. Were we by any chance here for the Sphynx gathering?

  Why yes…yes we were.

  The butler kindly gave us directions and here we are, staring up at the most massive yacht I’ve ever seen.

  “He’s my soul mate, I can feel it,” Chloe says. She stands at the end of the dock and stares at the massive yacht, her eyes all sparkly and excited.

  “Doubtful. The only thing I can feel is a hundred-foot-long inferiority complex.”

  She turns to me and beams, so I scowl at her.

  “I don’t care what you say. I have to get on that boat to meet my Matt Smith.”

  I step up next to her and look down at the gray, frothy water. It smells like fish, salt and seaweed, and there’s some slimy green plant floating on the top. Not exactly pleasant, but hey, we won’t be swimming in it. The yacht is moored a ways out, we’re going to need to talk to the dockmaster for a tender boat to drop us off.

  Chloe vibrates with anticipation. When we pulled up to the mega mansion, her eyes went wide with shock. But now…I expect she’s going to start doing cartwheels down the dock.

  She turns to me. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are bright. “Remember in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth Bennet says she first realized she loved Darcy when she saw his huuuge estate?”