out there was the guy for me. Bryant Gumbel, alas, was spoken for, but somewhere in the Green Mountain state was a man who’d see me and love me and think I was the most wonderful person on earth. We’d get married, and there’d be days when I’d come home and we’d sit on the front porch, and all I ever wanted would have come true.
And so, shoving aside the feelings of sloppy misery and humiliation and summoning the relentless optimism I’d wielded all my life, I took a deep breath, causing Bowie to snap to attention as if I were about to announce something momentous and hugely brilliant. “Bowie,” I said, loath to disappoint, “let’s find you a daddy.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THURSDAY MORNINGS MEANT Senior Citizen Yoga. Granted, I was forty or fifty years younger than most of the other attendees, but since I was extremely unlimber and therefore made them feel good about themselves, I was welcomed. The fact that I brought my famous chocolate chip cookies was just gravy.
I never really got yoga. Indeed, I often dozed off during deep meditation at the end and had to be nudged back into consciousness by a classmate. Leslie, the instructor, often shot me disapproving looks as I blinked sleepily. Then again, I’d been getting those looks ever since I beat her out for prom queen. But I loved yoga class, because I loved the ladies and figured the exercise and chakra alignment (whatever that was) couldn’t hurt. Still, it was a little embarrassing to be the only one grunting as we moved into Upward Laughing Monkey.
One of the far-too-many reasons I loved Mark was that he was a wonderful boss. He gave us a flexible schedule, figuring happy employees worked harder, and so I could always squeeze in a yoga class or chaperone a field trip for one of my nieces. Besides, Mark encouraged his employees to be active in the community; like me, he was a Georgebury native, and we often did pro bono work for various nonprofit groups, including the Senior Center. We’d helped with the fundraising drive a couple of years ago, and I’d made some nice friends during that time.
I confess, I also enjoyed being fussed and cooed over. It was a commonly held belief that I was a jewel and destined for a wonderful romance with a wonderful man. I often heard things like, “You’re smart to wait for the right man, Callie, sweetheart. You don’t want to end up like my daughter/granddaughter/niece/sister/neighbor/self.” Then the horror stories would begin, and though I probably shouldn’t admit it, I loved hearing them. Jody Bingham (who could do a full split at the age of seventy-six and had better legs than I did) knew a woman who married a man who already had a wife, possibly two. Letty Baker’s daughter married a “crackhead pot-smoker” who was arrested during the wedding reception. Elmira Butkes’s daughter Lily was twice divorced—the latest ex was a poet, and the shocking news was that he didn’t make enough to feed an ant. He was suing Lily for alimony … insult to injury.
“Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Elmira said as we smoothly transitioned into Downward Looking Giraffe (well, some transitioned smoothly. Others looked like Downward Dying Giraffe, but I was trying). “Why can’t she find a normal man with health insurance and a decent haircut?”
We all murmured in sympathy, getting a dirty look from Leslie, who frowned on chatting during class. “Well, anyway,” Elmira said, “I took Mr. Fluffers to the vet this week, and he’s single—the vet, that is, not Mr. Fluffers—so I called up Lily right away and said, ‘Lily, the new vet is single. Why can’t you go after someone like that?’ Well, of course she didn’t listen to me …”
“You should give him a try, Callie,” Jody said, sliding into her trademark split, the show-off. “A vet’s almost as good as a doctor.” She smiled up at me and gave me a wink as I struggled into a distant approximation of her position. How Jody could smile while doing that was a mystery of physics and superior genes.
The new vet, huh? I thought. Very promising indeed! I’d worked for Dr. Kumar, the old vet, back when I was a teenager. Everyone adored Dr. Kumar. He offered coffee and doughnuts in the waiting room, gave out his home phone number and sang to nervous animals until they were literally eating out of his hand. He was so tenderhearted that he often cried more than the pet owner when Roscoe or Tabby had to be put down. He’d retired recently and had great plans to take the lovely Mrs. Kumar to Branson, Missouri, where they were eager to tour the wax museum and ride the duck boats.
This new vet … hmm. If Dr. Kumar had sold the practice to him, the new guy had to be a real sweetheart. Already, we had so much in common! Vets loved animals … I also loved animals! With a hopeful note ringing in my heart, I contorted myself into Westward Twisting Heron and made a mental note to call for an appointment this very day. It was worth a shot, and I was taking all the shots I could find.
Last night, for example, I’d registered on eCommitment. Annie had been more excited than I was, since her last first date had been at age 14. Several friends, including Karen, our office manager, had met their husbands online, so what the heck. Yes, it would be nice to meet someone the old-fashioned way … my maternal grandparents, for example, had met over a cadaver in mortuary school. Well, okay, maybe that wasn’t the epitome of romance I was going for, but still.
In the past, before Mark and I were together, I’d had a relationship or two. I wasn’t a troll or anything. In fact, men really liked me. I was quite attractive, if I do say so … smiley brown eyes, shiny brown hair (it ought to be shiny, considering the number and cost of the hair-care products I used). A dimple in my left cheek … adorable! I’d grown a little chubby in the past year, courtesy of trying to bribe my heart into a good mood by eating cake batter, but still fell in the pleasingly curvy range. My Wonderbra and I could manage some very impressive cleavage. Men’s heads still turned. I was popular with the River Rats, a local boating club who worshipped my grandfather. I met clients who, occasionally, were single, normal, age-appropriate males.
Despite my parents’ wretched example and Hester’s utter revulsion of the idea of marriage, despite the fact that Noah had been gutted by the loss of my gran, I’d always been an optimist. Love made you a better person. Made you feel protected and precious and chosen. Chosen. Such a lovely word! And in loving someone else, you became better … noble and generous and beneficent.
I stretched my arms wide in Gentle Gorilla and tried to embrace my karmic blessings, as Leslie was telling us to do. The new vet, huh? Employed. Educated. Smart. Someone who could definitely compare to Mark. No doubt this new vet was also tender, loving, funny, probably a fabulous cook with Ryan Reynolds abs. Ryan Reynolds everything, maybe.
Not that I was getting ahead of myself, of course.
I MANAGED TO GET an appointment to see Dr. McFarland late in the day, telling Carmella Landi, the longtime receptionist, that poor little Bowie wasn’t himself and I figured he should be checked out. “Got it,” she said, her voice short.
“I think he ate something weird,” I added, trying to be convincing. This was half true … Bowie ate something weird at least once a day … a sock, a chunk of wood, a bag of frozen lima beans. Once he ate one of Noah’s feet … the rubber kind that was attached to the end of a particularly ugly prosthetic.
However, as we got ready for the appointment (I’d gone home to fetch my dog, of course, and freshen up a bit), Bowie looked in fighting form, all glossy and gorgeous and yipping and singing, his unusual eyes winking at me as I adjusted my cleavage. Should I change my shirt? Yes. Pulling on a pale green short-sleeved sweater, I unbuttoned the top two buttons. Should I go for three? No, three was slutty.
“Try to act calm, at least, Bowie,” I said. “You don’t have to lie, but you don’t have to do somersaults, either.” I switched my earrings to match the sweater, added a green and blue beaded necklace, then smiled winningly
