Hip to Be Square

by Hope Lyda

  I do a Vanna White motion of my outfit and say, “Obviously I am not like everyone else,” in my usual self-effacing way with an extra touch of nervousness.

  “Obviously.” He says this in a nice “and that is a good thing” way. “I’m Peyton Foster.”

  “You don’t seem to be drinking. So what is your strategy for these games?”

  “I prefer to work the old-fashioned way. Beat ’em at their hobby and then hold it over them in the boardroom the next week. Besides, these tournaments feel too much like fraternity years as it is.” He pushes his blond hair out of his eyes.

  I decide that if I can remove Peyton Place from my memory, his is a rather nice name. “Hi.” As I reach my hand toward him I catch the edge of my mondo-glasses. They end up beneath the table. Now that the glasses are not making Angelica feel silly but me feel stupid, I have my own regrets.

  He tries to decide whether to shake my hand first or retrieve my glasses. This is a gentleman’s dilemma. I want to say, “Your mother raised you well,” but I know that will sound…old.

  He grabs my hand and bends over to snatch up my sorry eyewear. There is no way to look at these and not mention them. He holds them up to the light and acts really impressed. “Aren’t these the kind Jeff Gordon wears for the Daytona 500?” He is mock-serious but in the spirit of friendliness, not facetiousness.

  “That they are. Well, that and a bit more advanced, I might add. I test drive endurance glasses and other products for sports celebrities. I have another pair here somewhere.” I fumble in my pockets. “Tiger Woods is interested in trying them out. So I’m here today really just to test these for Tiger. Testing for Tiger.”

  He laughs and doesn’t seem at all put off.

  “And you?” I see he is beautiful enough to be “one of them,” but his personality seems a bit too…present.

  “I don’t have a tester.” He shakes his head, disappointed by his bad luck.

  “What are you doing here? Are you here with the other socially acceptable drug dealers?”

  He laughs again. “You caught me. Though I have a very good lawyer if you should choose to prove it.”

  “And ruin my chance to get a free neon Just Focus pen? Never.”

  We go back and forth like this for several moments. I almost feel social. If I were looking at me…well, and if I ignored the outfit and the special needs glasses, I would think I was someone like Angelica. Sure, confident, and hip.

  While we are chatting away, I notice that he keeps rubbing his hands together and looking at them. “Are you planning a sinister plot for a B movie?” He looks puzzled. “All that hand rubbing.” I realize I am being as bold as Angelica, and probably as rude.

  He gets it and laughs a very nice laugh. “In this heat the golf glove really irritates my hand. See…” He removes his Michael Jackson paraphernalia and reveals a bumpy heat rash.

  Though I act disgusted, I am secretly delighted because I can offer my beautiful new friend a cure. “Well, I know just the thing for you.” I reach into my bag and pull out Garden Glove hand mask. “This stuff is wonderful. You smooth it on, and it creates a layer of protection on the surface of your skin. Put the glove on, and I guarantee at the end of a day like today, everyone will think you skipped a few holes and hit the Elizabeth Arden spa for a manicure.”

  “You are amazing. So you really are a tester of some kind?”

  “No.” Here it comes. Do I admit what I do for a living or make something up? No time to be clever. “I…I work at Golden Horizons Retirement Center.” His face still says “interested,” so I continue. “Our maintenance and landscape guy told me about this because a lot of residents with casts or bandage wraps end up with ghastly rashes…though not nearly as scary as yours.” I turn the attention back to his shortcoming in case my job status was too much information.

  “I just wish I had met you sooner.” He says this while flapping his hands to get cool air on the sores.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Angelica rushing over. I am not sure who she is set to save, but it turns out she likes Peyton and misinterprets his motions as a wave.

  “Peyton. So good to see you. Remember the Miami tournament? Crazy. Crazy.” She makes the universal motion for crazy…finger twirling outside her ear. Her right-hand diamond ring blinds us both.

  “Yes. It was crazy…uh…” He wants my name. I realize I have not yet introduced myself.

  Angelica interrupts me. “She is with me. Peyton, I wish we had spoken sooner. I just set up a foursome with Dr. Ravin and Winchester. I’d try to get out of it, but you know Winchester. The guy can make or break your career with a call. Right?”

  Who is she? Why am I with her?

  “Well, it was nice to see you again Angelica. And to meet you…?” He tries to get my name.

  “Mari. Mari!” I yell this as Angelica hurries me toward the two fake-tan, old Ken dolls poised by their cart just yards away.

  “Thanks for the great tip!” He waves the tube of lotion in the air.

  Angelica gives me a dirty look. “What kind of tip could you possibly give Peyton?” Her pearls pull tight against her enlarged neck veins. “He is one of the top golfers. I hope you didn’t just embarrass me.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of taking that away from you.” She doesn’t get the slight because she is marching me along the green to meet Howie and Stu, the secret names I use in my head to separate these clones with clubs who seem to have matching divots on their heads.

  Our foursome turns out to be so bad I actually am searching the course for Scottie-man in case I can make amends. Our teammates are just Angelica’s type, playboys who forget that innuendos are supposed to be subtle. She is flirting back at them while I watch indifferent and uninvited in the background. I am the nerd serving punch at Angelica’s prom.

  By hole eight I am dragging. Sweating. Tired. Sick of their stupid, intoxicated jokes and Angelica’s willingness to laugh. I keep checking her water bottle to be sure it really is from Artesian springs and not the flask Stu keeps in tow.

  As Angelica is about to swing she sniffs the air. I assume this is a way to see which way the wind blows, so I lick a finger and stick it in the air beside her.

  “Pretty mild,” I say with authority.

  “What is that smell?” She says this in my ear but quite loudly.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” Though as I hold my arm up, I get a whiff of my shoulder…the Muscle Heat, which is supposed to be odorless, seems to turn quite rancid in ninety-degree weather. I quickly put my arm down.

  “It is you!” She leans away from me and actually pinches her nose. Pinches her nose! And waves the air about her. The LA guys are taking this in as though they are hopeful it will turn into a chick fight. Howie, the doctor, removes another clandestine beer from his golf bag. The caddy looks the other way. Either that or he is trying not to smell my shoulder.

  Denying this seems useless. “Okay. So I used Muscle Heat on my shoulder. I pulled it helping Walt to the bathroom yesterday. All week I was hoping to destroy my rotator cuff because I wanted to get out of this spectacle and then this shoulder thing happens, but it is too short notice for you to find another pawn…so I caked on the ointment and showed up. For you.” I point at her and her pearl necklace and her sleek tank sweater with a vengeance.

  Angelica drops her club and stands with her hands on her hips, looking to Howie and Stu for moral support. They are talking about leather vs. fabric upholstery in the Tucson heat. So she takes a deep breath away from me and comes in for the kill. “Why do you insist on all of this?” She motions up and down as though I am a life-sized model of disease. A disease which leads to social death, no less.

  By now I have my sorry sunglasses on and am perspiring more than usual. My odor is the last straw.

  “I only signed on for nine holes anyway. So me and my stink will be gone in no time at all.”

  “You only signed up for half? I could have joined the three Rogers from Chicago. They are all in th
e top five for sales this quarter. And they totally love me.”

  “So go join the Rogers.” I am tumbling toward another breakdown. “This stupid event isn’t even for charity. It is like a traveling cocktail party—pretentious players, lousy appetizers, and not a chance of good conversation.”

  I toss my club at Charley, our caddy, and start speedwalking toward the Halfway House Café, which is a mock-dilapidated shack that charges twenty dollars for a burger and fries are extra. I know how bizarre speed-walkers look…like they are animated with their hips popping out. With my baggy khakis and wrinkly shirt, I’m sure my movements resemble that of the Pillsbury Dough Boy on his way to a kitchen fire.

  It doesn’t occur to me until I am halfway to the Halfway House that Angelica is my only way home.

  Second Opinions

  When I pray for my life to be changed, that is one thing.” I reach for my Americano from a harried barista and keep talking to Denton, who stands behind me. He is the minor character I have chosen to help me process my ambush intervention.

  I stop speaking while we wander around the coffee shop looking for a table not occupied by the unemployed clutching classifieds or pairs of Brads going over their monthly figures. A corner booth opens up, and I clear it of breakfast debris.

  “But when others pray for someone to change in front of said person, then it is hard for one to not feel like their life is a complete mess.” I have switched to third person. It is safer from a distance.

  Denton sips his green tea. I am counting on his nature as a peacekeeper to not add insult to injury by agreeing with my confronters. An administrator at a nursing home, he was my table partner several years ago at a conference entitled “Staying Healthy in Health Care.” We exchanged phone numbers, compelled by a force larger than us. In a room of mostly over-fifty-year-olds, our twentysomething souls felt obligated to consider pairing up, mating for life, procreating, and perpetuating the species in the face of extinction. One date later, we realized we would have to leave the populating of the earth to another couple…a couple that perhaps found more than safety issues and state codes to discuss.

  Still, though Denton and I are a boring combination, he is like a thick cotton sweatshirt that resurfaces in the bottom drawer just when the weather changes—a never-failing source of comfort that is forgiving and fits perfectly every time.

  “I believe they assessed you properly, Mari.” The pressing of his tea bag occupies his field of vision while I sit and stew across from him.

  Did I say comfy sweatshirt? I meant unforgiving, lace-up, full-body corset.

  “Geez, now I’m sorry you didn’t get an invitation to the big event.” Bitterness coats my tongue, and it isn’t the freshly brewed French roast. “You could have joined the club or signed up for the newsletter that must be circulating. I haven’t seen it, but it has to exist because suddenly everyone is inspired to comment on my life.” My frustration pours out and sets like concrete. Something else for me to carry around.

  The shoulders of my counterpart shrug slightly. Then he sits back and puts his mug down with a ceramic thud. A judge passing a sentence. “Mari, my evaluation is made only because you brought the subject to my attention, not because you are so pitiful I feel compelled to fix you.” He motions his flat hand up and down, like a crossing guard requesting a driver to slow down.

  “True.”

  “Maybe you take your work home with you too much.” He doesn’t look down this time, knowing he hit a kernel of truth.

  “Look who’s talking.” Yet even as I say it I know that he speaks as one who has crossed over to the other side of workaholism. And not just because he is drinking tea.

  “I’ve taken up with a book club at the Reading Room bookstore over by campus.”

  I nod to honor his big step, but I roll my eyes on the inside.

  “I started training for a 10K run and have just signed on with the Trail Tweeters, a hiking and bird-watching group that has the lofty, admirable goal of walking a different trail and identifying a different bird each week.” Denton pauses to literally put his finger on the right word. He points to his phone resting by the napkin dispenser. “Connected. Mari, I feel connected to my peer group for the first time in my life.”

  I want to comment on the way his ridiculous suspenders would be evidence to the contrary. But as I consider my list of reasons for not connecting, I notice that Denton has a chic edge to him. The difference from old Denton is subtle, but nonetheless, he is slightly more attractive. What is it about him? A bit of stubble darkens his narrow features. Once-beady eyes seem brighter and more observant, ready to identify an Ash-Throated Flycatcher or, if one is lucky, a Yellow-Billed Cuckoo.

  “Want to go with me this weekend? We are hiking a trail on Mount Lemmon and hoping to catch a glimpse of the mating Ruby-Throated Hummingbird.” At the mention of mating, his cheeks flush the shade of this rare bird’s throat. Could there be more than birds and lack of connection causing Denton to take to the hills? I imagine a college girl clad in REI attire embarking on the Catalina Trail. Her tousled hair and drooping safari hat blends with her bookish nature to camouflage what is model beauty. She lifts her binoculars to her bright blue eyes…no, hazel…but she doesn’t direct them toward the bird as the leader has suggested but toward her fellow fowl-tracker, Denton. She scans him from bottom to top and becomes flustered when her close-up view reveals that his eyes are not focused on the wing span of fowl but are peering right through the convex glass of her standard equipment to her soul. She loses her balance. Denton is so sensitive he instinctively knows she is about to tumble. His surprisingly strong arms reach out, pulling her back from the abyss.

  Isn’t this what all of us want? To be pulled back from a fatal misstep by the very person who will eventually agree to keep us from falling into the bottomless void forever after?

  The force of his modest changes and my overindulgent imagination pushes me back in my chair. All I can think of at the moment is that everyone is doing it. If Denton is merging with society, I don’t want to be left behind. I mean sure, we weren’t meant to populate the earth as a couple, but we still comforted one another in our shared, uncouth universe.

  “The world of birds is really quite fascinating. Before, I used to shoo away anything with wings, and now, after looking them up in the Little Big Book of Little and Big Birds, I am compelled to spend moments contemplating their vibrant colors.” He is peering out the window, willing a bird to land on the shrub outside so he can introduce me to the nirvana of air vermin.

  “No, thank you, Denton.” I mean the no and the thank you. I am not sold on his version of transformation, but I am inspired. Here I wanted Denton to be on my side. To say, “Mari, you’re perfect as you are.” But instead he offered a glimpse of what life can be like if we give ourselves over to risk. I consider what new things could be a part of my future: respectable job, recognition, exotic travel, a broader circle of friends, clout at the best restaurants, a new apartment in the trendy part of town, a date.

  We leave our breakfast chat without making plans to meet up again. Between his day job and his extracurricular activities there isn’t time to laze about with someone who isn’t yet crazy for cuckoos. He strides over to his dazzling silver SUV with a “Tucson is for the birds” bumper sticker; the morning sun glints off of his compass watch, waterproof up to fifty meters, and I sit on the torn vinyl driver’s seat of my lackluster car and know that dreams do come true for others.

  Maybe…for me too.

  Lost and Found

  Did you feign cardiac arrest? Angina? Or did you stick with the clichéd broken rotator cuff excuse?” Lysa asks from her file cabinet corner. She is compiling a demographic study of the residents. Sadly, this institution often knows more about these people’s lives than their families do.

  “I did not fake anything, including my hostile departure from the green. I ended up taking a cab home.”

  “Uh-oh,” she says knowingly. Lysa had witnessed Angelica at
her finest one day when the queen of blunt stopped in before a lunch date. The female cyclone kept ranting about the Golden Horizons’ color scheme “that would make the seventies gag itself with a spoon” and the “whole One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest creepy vibe.” Later, when Lysa politely asked what Angelica and I possibly had in common, the answer “God” didn’t seem like a great witness. I had said I was obliged by court order to spend time with her.

  “It was not pretty. Probably rather humorous for our caddy, though. The good news…the court order might be canceled after my out of order behavior on the course.”

  “That is good news.” She clasps her hands together in mock rejoicing.

  Her fake, over-the-top smile reminds me of Wendy Skies, a former weather girl who is now a popular anchor on the local news station. “It is time for the news,” Frank says as he walks by with his push broom. He nods and he salutes with two fingers to his gray baseball cap, signaling that he will take care of it.

  “What was that about?” Lysa asks raising her eyebrows. “Your club have a special handshake too?”

  “Walter Simmons…the guy who carries the backpack and his checkers wherever he goes…”

  “Yes. And smells like sandalwood. He’s sweet.”

  “Very. But sadly he is the father of KTSN’s Miss Popularity—Wendy Skies. You know, the one who presses her palm to her heart and says ‘God bless ya’ as her sign-off.”

  “So very fake. Does she come in all the time and act superior?”

  “I wish she did for Walter’s sake. She doesn’t visit at all, but the poor man still religiously watches her show. He says her God bless you sign-off is their little way of communicating. It just breaks my heart.”

  Lysa considers this. “Well, maybe it is something they used to say when she was growing up.”

  “I understand wanting to give her some credit. Nobody wants to assume a gentle man like Walter is ignored by his only daughter. But I’ve looked into it. The woman lives about five miles that way.” I point in the direction of Paradise Properties, an elite development where each mini-mansion has its own pool, courtyard, tennis court, and the sure sign of money—an irrigated, lush lawn. “She has to go by here to get to the station, so she has no excuses.”