Man Camp

by Adrienne Brodeur

  While Adam tends his wound in front of the fire, Lucy packs and cleans: She finishes the dishes, unhooks and drains the hose, locks the outhouse, and throws their clothes into bags, which she lugs out to the car and tosses in the backseat. She hops into the driver’s seat and turns the key, but the engine won’t start. She gets out and looks around: The trunk is ajar.

  Back in the house, Adam is anesthetizing himself with the last of the wine and looks content with his notebook opened on his lap, absorbed with an equation.

  Lucy’s mouth tastes sour. “The battery’s dead,” she says. “The trunk was open.”

  Both of them know who left it that way.

  “I’m going to walk to the nearest neighbor and see if they can give us a jump,” Lucy says.

  To his credit, Adam is waiting outside when Lucy returns. She’s in the passenger’s seat of a rusted-out Chevy pickup truck, driven by a man who looks to be in his seventies, wearing a baseball cap and a smile that reveals a gleaming set of dentures.

  The man whistles slightly when he speaks. “Only too happy to help a friend of the Wolfs,” he says, enjoying the opportunity to rescue city folk. Grabbing the jumper cables from behind his seat, he instructs Lucy to get into the rental car. “Pop the hood for us and when your husband gives you the signal, start the engine. You’ll want to give it a little gas, but not too much.”

  I know how to jump-start a car, Lucy thinks. And he’s not my husband! She’s suddenly flooded with relief that she and Adam are not married. She gets out of the pickup and, without meeting Adam’s gaze, sits in the driver’s seat of the rental car.

  The old man pops his hood and greets Adam with a neighborly “Hello.” He attaches one end of the cable to his truck’s battery and hands the other to Adam, who holds a clamp in each hand and looks bewildered.

  Misunderstanding Adam’s confusion for marital distress, the old man pats him on the back. “She a little teed off about this, eh? Don’t worry, we’ll have it fixed in a jiffy.” He gets back into the truck. “Okay,” he calls out. “Hook her up and tell me when!”

  From the driver’s seat of the car, Lucy watches Adam through the gap between the two raised hoods. He’s staring blankly at the engine, clearly not knowing how to attach the clamps. Right out of the Boy Scout manual, my ass! she thinks, furious at Cooper now, too, with all his Yankee-girls-need-to-let-men-be-men crap.

  Under normal circumstances, Lucy would try to figure out a way to help Adam without letting him know that she’s helping him. But these circumstances are far from normal. She gets out of the car, snatches the jumper cables from him, and tells him to get behind the wheel. Then she clamps the red end to the positive terminal of the battery and the black end to the engine block, and says, “Okay. Now!” to signal the men to start the cars. Adam revs the engine. A few minutes later, she removes the cables in reverse order, looping them around her elbow and wrist, and returns them to the Wolfs’ neighbor in a neat coil.

  They are halfway home before Adam speaks. “I’m sorry, Lucy. There’s nothing I hate more than disappointing you.”

  Lucy says nothing.

  It’s a long ride back to the city.

  CHAPTER 4

  “The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.”

  Jilly Cooper

  MONDAY NIGHT — KURT BECKER

  Martha’s FirstDate client Kurt Becker waits for her at the bar of Mare, a celebrity-chef-owned restaurant that’s been getting a lot of buzz. When she arrives, only ten minutes late, he greets her with a firm handshake and plenty of eye contact. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. McKenna,” he says stiffly. “How do you do?”

  “I’m terrific,” she says. “Call me Martha.” Following his greeting, she wonders if hers seems too exuberant, but she’s just come from a voice-over audition that turned into a job on the spot, the first acting gig she’s had in weeks.

  “A voice-over?” Kurt says with uncertainty.

  “Voice-overs are to actors what mole removals are to dermatologists. Not glamorous, but necessary. They pay the bills.” Lowering her voice, she adds, “The truth is, I’m not the pickiest thespian,” and laughs at the thought of how many times that afternoon she’d been made to repeat the line “It takes grease out of your way” under the grave direction of an ad exec who advised her to sound more grateful to the product.

  Kurt seems taken aback by Martha’s gusto, as if it’s at odds with the earnest mood he’s trying to establish. He laughs awkwardly, and Martha decides to follow his lead and tone down her enthusiasm. He hands her a small yellow-pink rose, the stem of which is wrapped in a moist paper towel and covered in aluminum foil. “I grew it in my hothouse,” he says, and attributes his green thumb to his family’s Norwegian-bachelor-farmer roots. “I’m experimenting with heirloom roses.”

  Kurt looks to be in his early forties and Martha finds him unnervingly handsome, with dark blond hair, cool gray eyes, and gleaming white teeth. She lifts the flower to her nose and for a moment forgets Kurt is not a real date and hasn’t grown the rose with the real Martha in mind. She closes her eyes and gets lost in the delicate fragrance of the flower.

  Kurt clears his throat. “You still with me, Martha? Or am I talking to myself here?”

  Martha’s eyes pop open. You’re on a job, she reminds herself, and your client wants his money’s worth of your attention. “Sorry,” she says, noticing that when Kurt’s handsome face isn’t smiling, there’s something hard about his mouth and a vein in his forehead promises to bulge when he becomes angry. He has style—always tough to detect in conventional business attire, but discernible to Martha, who’s attentive to the subtle wit of tie selection, the play of checks on stripes, the daring vocabulary of collars. She starts to wonder why he hired her—he seems to be a fairly capable dater—and launches into her rote FirstDate questions: “What do you hope to get from this experience?” “How did you hear about FirstDate?” “What do you believe are your dating issues?”

  Unlike most of her clients, Kurt is ready with answers. “At the risk of sounding arrogant,” he starts right in, “I think I’m a decent catch.” He ticks off his attributes one finger at a time until his palms are open, all ten fingers extended: “I’m intelligent, healthy, financially secure, well educated, well traveled, well read—”

  Well, well, well, Martha thinks, assuming he’s joking.

  “—a fine cook, sophisticated, in excellent shape, and shall we say, not horrendously unattractive.”

  He’s not joking.

  “Basically,” he continues, “I can offer the right woman a pretty good life.” His pretty good life includes a house in the country, a fifty-foot schooner, a four-story brownstone on Gramercy Park, and his own plane. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I expect the woman I end up with to have a lot to offer, too.” His look asks a rhetorical Do you?

  Martha’s look doesn’t have an answer. But she does find it odd, even if Kurt’s fine qualities don’t include her personal favorites—warmth and humor—that he hasn’t landed someone who likes what he offers enough to stick around. She wonders if he might not be one of those men who wants a woman’s love, only to become contemptuous when he gets it; one of the if-you-love-me-then-something-must-be-wrong-with-you types. Kurt’s face doesn’t look so handsome anymore.

  Then his list begins: “The right woman must be intelligent, beautiful, athletic, and a lover of the arts.” He goes on to say that money isn’t a requirement per se, but an impressive academic record and some level of career success are. “Above all, she can’t require a lot of coddling. I need a woman who can hold her own at a business dinner.” He pauses and gives Martha a guilty look, perhaps realizing he sounds emotionless. “I’m a real sucker for sad eyes.”

  Sad eyes? Aren’t they usually part of a larger, sad person? Martha wonders.

  Mental note: Lose the list.

  “Mostly, the woman I’m with needs to understand the pressure I’m under,” Kurt says
with an urgency that suggests he needs Martha to understand. “I work in a war zone. People are being obliterated out there. They’re dead before they know what’s hit them. That’s what it’s like in my business every day.” He takes a sip of his drink, a double scotch on the rocks. “When I get home, the last thing I need is someone desperate to rehash my day. I need peace.”

  Martha can’t believe that she’s blanked on such a major piece of information in his bio. She wishes she could light up a cigarette. “What is it you do again, Kurt?” she asks in her mother’s calmest flight-attendant voice. Trauma surgeon? Al Qaeda–cell infil-trator? Mob informant? She can’t recall.

  “I run a software company,” he answers.

  Martha quells the urge to laugh and reaches for her napkin.

  “Do you have any idea what’s been happening in the software industry in the last few years?” he asks incredulously. “It’s been decimated. We’re dodging bullets.”

  “Uh-huh.” Martha leans back in her chair.

  Kurt takes a breath, relaxes his shoulders, and smiles. He turns handsome again. He takes her in, not in a lewd way, but in the way that a man does when he’s letting a woman know he finds her attractive. “Enough about my work,” he says, allowing his voice to become softer. “Let’s get down to romantic business.”

  Encouraged that he’s trying to lighten the mood, Martha smiles back.

  “The right woman for me is slender, above five-five, and under thirty-five . . .” He pauses for a moment as if to gauge if he’s unintentionally insulted his date. “. . . so she isn’t in too much of a rush to get married and have children.”

  “Do you feel pressure to get married?” Martha asks.

  Kurt adjusts himself in his chair. “Are you always so direct?”

  “Pretty much,” she answers, though if it were a real date, she knows she’d never have asked the question.

  “My motto with women is to take it one day at a time.”

  That’s the Alcoholics Anonymous slogan, too, thinks Martha. “Let’s forget about who you want to date and focus on your skills as a dater,” she suggests.

  Kurt’s forehead vein swells a little. “I was only informing you of my minimum standards. I know you’re not a match-maker. You’re a dating expert.” His emphasis on the word expert somehow makes it mean the opposite. “It’s not as if I don’t know how to treat women.”

  I didn’t hire me, thinks Martha, you did! But still, she wishes she hadn’t made Kurt feel defensive. He brings to mind her first foray into psychoanalysis when she was twenty-four. Her goal then was to be declared problem- and neurosis-free, to be told by her shrink that she was wonderfully sane, amusing, talented, and well adjusted. She realizes that’s how Kurt is approaching FirstDate, with the goal of being declared a perfect date.

  “How about we just try to figure out some new romantic approaches for you?” she says and tries to come up with an appropriate war metaphor that will bring him around, but all that comes to mind is Damn the torpedos! Full speed ahead, which seems more like advice for herself. She opts for a sports cliché instead: “Kurt, we’re on the same team here.”

  It turns out that Kurt speaks Sports as well as War. “All’s forgiven,” he says, smiling. “Ready for dinner?”

  Forgiven? thinks Martha, slightly rankled.

  Kurt signals the tuxedoed maître d’ and they’re escorted from the bar to a lovely table, secluded in a corner. Kurt gently pulls the chair out for Martha. “Just because this isn’t a real date doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t make you feel as special as I would any woman.”

  Martha wonders if he’s aware of exactly how unspecial saying that would make any woman feel.

  A waiter rushes over and places a dozen long-stemmed yellow roses on the table, another brings a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and yet another sets up a bucket of ice. “The world has been very kind to me,” Kurt says, elaborating on his trust fund, his Nantucket home, his racing schooner.

  When menus don’t arrive after twenty minutes, Kurt is compelled to explain that he’s taken the liberty of ordering them both the chef’s carte du jour.

  Mental note: Even if your compulsive list-making has successfully weeded out 95 percent of the female population, you never, ever presume to order for a woman on a first date.

  Over their six-course meal, Kurt tells stories in which he quotes people quoting him, makes elaborate displays of wine tasting, and sends back his filet mignon for being overcooked to medium. “When you spend this much on a meal, you expect perfection,” he explains smugly.

  And throughout all of it, Martha does what Martha does best: She watches. She studies her date’s behavior and tries to enjoy herself. After dessert, she excuses herself, goes to the bathroom, and scribbles notes in a tiny notebook: Don’t brag about being rich, just spare no expense at dinner. Don’t boast about your fitness, let me admire your physique. Don’t list your academic credentials, dazzle me with your wit. She looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, noting that she’s over thirty-five, has happy eyes, and might even be good for a man like Kurt. She opens her notebook again. Your list of requirements for a mate is a recipe for staying single: It rules people out. A better way to find the right woman is to be open to her, whoever she is.

  TUESDAY NIGHT — CHARLES FRINGER

  Charles leaves a message on Martha’s voice mail canceling their dinner date just a few hours before they’re supposed to meet. He tells her machine that his weekly meeting has been switched to Tuesdays and he never misses them. Can they reschedule?

  Weekly meeting? What could it be? Martha wonders. His parole officer? Anger management? Dinner with mom? Group therapy?

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT — WALTER SHERMAN

  Martha is her usual ten minutes late, but Walter Sherman arrives even later, pecking away at the buttons on his BlackBerry. When he finally looks up, he’s unable to find his date among all the leggy starlets who hang out at Bellisima, the Soho hot spot where he suggested they meet. Models and models-in-the-making lean against columns and drape themselves over the stools, crossing and uncrossing their long legs, wrapping and unwrapping their willowy arms around their slender selves. Walter’s eyes move from one woman to the next, lingering over their lithe bodies, until at last they land on someone who is actually looking back at him.

  Martha? he mouths.

  She nods, yes. Despite being dwarfed by two statuesque beauties, Martha holds her own at the bar in a red silk blouse, black skirt, and sleek black boots.

  He raises an apologetic, just-one-more-minute finger and continues punching buttons.

  Martha orders a Chardonnay, which arrives in a thimble-size glass. She downs it in two swallows.

  At thirty-four, Walter has not quite grown into his body and the words overgrown puppy pop into Martha’s head. He has a jowly, droopy face, big ears, and rounded shoulders that hunch over a soft middle. He pads toward Martha, still clutching his BlackBerry like a favorite chew toy, and apologizes, offering his free hand to her, his left, and they endure one of those handholdy greetings usually reserved for the aged. Martha releases first.

  “It was a work thing,” he says, placing the device in his pocket and nodding as if they both understand that he had no choice. “I think I might have mentioned that I’m a producer for the NBC Nightly News, ” he says anchorman-style, catching his reflection in the mirror behind the bar and smiling. “The news doesn’t stop just because I’m having a drink with a pretty girl.”

  His BlackBerry makes a delayed ding-dong powering-off sound and it occurs to Martha that he might have been playing a game.

  “I guess everyone knows how crazy the news business is,” he says.

  Martha has never been in a newsroom and braces herself for a Kurt-style onslaught of war metaphors.

  “Essentially, as the producer, I’m the critical link between world events and you, the TV viewer. I get the news out,” Walter says, glancing down the bar. He smiles at the model beside Martha, assuming she might also be listening and,
consequently, be impressed. “The tricky part is to avoid getting sidelined by all the fame and power. I have to remain clearheaded and objective at all times whether I’m talking to the secretary of state or Miss America.” He interlaces his fingers except for his pointers, which he aims at Martha. “You should check out my Web site: www.walterpsherman.com. It’s got some great stuff: Walter’s World, Walter’s News, Walter’s Contact Info.” He glances to see if the model is taking notice. She’s not.

  Mental note: Delusions of grandeur.

  “Will do,” Martha promises, wondering if Walter has ever had a second date.

  His beeper sounds and Walter fumbles to remove it from his belt. “Excuse me,” he says, bringing the device up close to his face, where he studies its tiny screen and gravely reports seventeen missing in a plane crash in Montana, all presumed dead. He pauses for a moment, then adjusts the beeper to vibrate mode and snaps it smartly back into place on his belt. “Isn’t this a great spot?” he says, looking around, whistling as he exhales. “You’ve got to love how amazingly beautiful and stylish New York women are. I mean, there are more gorgeous women on one block in Soho than there are in the whole state of Kansas.”

  Mental note: Never assume your date will enjoy admiring women as much as you do.

  “Are you from Kansas?” Martha asks, but Walter’s distracted by their teen-model waitress, braless in a peasant blouse, who takes them to their table, a linen-covered square crammed along the back wall less than six inches from the next table.

  “My name’s Ashley,” the girl calls out over the rhythmic beat of some too-loud electronica. “What can I get you?” She takes their drink order and bends over to hand them menus, providing an unobstructed view down her blouse. “Let me know if you need anything else!”

  “Will do, Ashley. Thanks,” says Walter. “Martha, would you mind switching seats? I prefer to observe the crowd. It’s how I stay sharp.”

  Martha feels animosity welling up inside and reminds herself to be professional. This is not a date, it’s a job, and you’ve been hired to help. She switches seats and watches Walter check out the happenings at Bellisima. His nose twitches. “What made you decide to try FirstDate?” she asks.