Secrets of a Shoe Addict (17 page)

It wasn’t bright in the car, but there was enough light to see that he looked sincerely befuddled. “What act?”

Sandra noticed that Arlon’s wooden head turned to look at her the same time Louis did.

“The
ventriloquist
act.” She was losing patience. Enough was enough. And this was way more than enough. “When you wrote to me on Match, I had the impression you were interested in getting to know me, not just performing for me.”

“I didn’t write to you.”

“What?”
Now, Sandra had certainly been eager to get a response to her profile, but not so eager that she’d
imagined
he’d written first. Frankly, given his profile answers, he probably wasn’t someone she would have picked out and approached herself. “You
did
write to me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But . . . yes, you did.” Was this all some big crazy misunderstanding? Had he meant to write to someone else, perhaps a mime in Alexandria?

“No, I didn’t,” he said yet again, with exaggerated patience. “Arlon wrote to you.”

Oh, my God.
“I don’t think so.”

“You’re not my type.”

Incredibly, she felt insulted. “I think that’s something we can safely agree on, but when I got the note, it clearly said the account was that of Louis F., and you
are
Louis Feller, aren’t you?”

Louis nodded. “Of course. But Arlon needed to use my credit card information, obviously. You didn’t think he had his own card, did you?”

No. Because expecting a doll to have human qualities was
insane.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, a creepy feeling coming over her. She knew where this was headed, but she couldn’t stop it. “You’re saying you aren’t the one that approached me, Arlon is.”

“Correct.”

“And you just helped him out.”

He shot a finger gun in her direction. “Exactly.”

“So I’m on a date with—” She hesitated, hideously aware that she was about to hit a new low in dating. “—Arlon?”

Louis nodded again.

Like, of course.

“Got a problem with that?” Arlon snapped.

“Yes, I have a problem with that.” Sandra turned the car onto Wisconsin Avenue and accelerated as much as her conscience would allow. She didn’t want to hit a person, but she was willing to take her chances with the police in order to get this lunatic out of the car. “I don’t date puppets.”

“First of all,” Arlon screeched, “stop calling me a
puppet
. I have a name.”

“Okay, sorry, you’re a dummy. Is that better?” Now she was getting sarcastic with her wooden date. Great.

“Both of you calm down,” Louis said, sounding oddly like the voice of reason.

The traffic loosened and she drove up the hill out of Georgetown, looking for the comforting sight of the National Cathedral.

“Sorry,” Sandra said, without meaning it. “You’re right, let’s just get to the Metro station and call it a draw. This obviously isn’t going to work out.”

“You’re a bitch,” Arlon said.

She was looking at the road, but in her peripheral vision she saw Arlon’s head crank to face Louis and—she hated that she knew this—they both nodded.

Sandra’s foot went a little heavier on the accelerator.

Louis’s voice was next. “Now, that’s not entirely fair, Arl.”

Arl.
He had a nickname for his puppet, who, really,
already had
a nickname.

“—she’s just ignorant.”

Sandra adjusted her grip on the steering wheel and wished she could floor it past all these slowpoke law-abiders who were stopping for red lights and pedestrians.

“I am not
ignorant
,” she objected, though, God knew, she should just have kept her mouth shut until they got to the Metro stop. Clearly there was nothing more to say. “I’m
normal
.
Anyone
would react this way to this situation.”

“I’d think you’d be glad to have a date,” Arlon said.

She drew the car to a halt at a stoplight and turned a murderous gaze on the dummy. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s not like your profile had a lot of hits.” The jaw clapped with every word.

“How dare you—”

“It’s true.”

The light turned green, and she lurched forward. The Metro stop was within view. Thank God. “I am not so desperate that I am willing to date a
puppet
with an insensitive freak along as chaperone.” She didn’t care if she got a ticket; it would be worth the price just to get these creeps out of the car.

“You’re lucky I gave you a chance,” Arlon said as Sandra pulled over to the curb in front of the station.

“Funny, I’m not feeling so lucky about that.”

“You should be. Have you had any better offers?”

Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s was a far better offer.

But Sandra refused to engage in this argument any longer. She was taking the high road, damn it.

Or at least the high
er
road. The exit for the high road had passed a few miles back.

She put the car in park and hit the button to unlock the doors. “Get out of the car, please.”

“Now, come on,” Louis began.

“Out!”

Louis rolled his eyes and moved to get out of the car. “Fine. We’re going. But you’ll be sorry later.”

“I’m sorry now.”

He stopped. “Then I accept your apology.”

“Not that kind of sorry. Go.” He started to move toward her, and she held up her hand.
“Go!”

“No kiss good night?” The exaggerated wooden face came toward her like a specter in the dark.

She pushed him away. “No, jeez,
stop
it!”

“You’re fat!” Arlon shrieked, apropos of nothing.

That did it. Of the many sensitive buttons Sandra had, that was the hottest. Without thinking, without even pausing to question the wisdom of it, she balled up her fist and punched Arlon hard, right in his painted bulbous nose.

His head went flying off, slamming against the window and bouncing into the backseat.

Louis looked at Sandra, stunned.

Actually, in that moment, he looked quite a bit like Arlon.

Her heart was pounding. What the hell had just happened? She hadn’t meant to break the thing.

Polite to a fault, she started to apologize. “Louis, I didn’t mean to—”

“Help! Help!” Incredibly, the voice actually sounded like it was coming from the backseat. It was even muffled. Sandra was slightly impressed, despite herself.

“I’m coming, buddy.” Louis dived into the back and retrieved the head, trying to put it back on the severed neck. It was like some sick parody of the Zapruder film. He looked at Sandra with tears in his eyes. “You stupid cunt.”

Her guilt dissolved. There were only a few words that got her ire up immediately and completely, and that was one of them. “
That
is verbal assault. Get out of the car before I call the police.” She had no idea if she could actually call the police on a date she had gotten herself into, but the threat seemed to work.

He’d probably heard it before.

“I’ll send you the bill for this repair,” he said, cradling Arlon’s body in one hand and his head in the other. “And if you don’t pay, I’ll sue!”

“Good luck, Gepetto.” She jammed her foot onto the accelerator, and the door slammed shut, making the perfect statement. Fortunately there was no oncoming traffic, because in her frenzy she hadn’t even looked.

She rounded a corner, and the sidewalk where she’d left Louis fell out of view, and she breathed a sigh of relief. What a nightmare! The entire thing had left her rattled. Her foot shook on the accelerator, and she struggled to keep her focus on the road.

Up until about a year ago, she used to have a standing weekly appointment with Dr. Ratner, a therapist who had helped her with her anxiety and agoraphobia. That last appointment, knowing she was through, had given her a great feeling.

But an experience like this might be enough to drive her straight back to Dr. Ratner’s loving armchair.

She was almost home when a dark Volvo swerved in front of her to avoid hitting a drunk who had stumbled into the street. Sandra’s
reflexes were good, and she got her foot on the brake immediately, but the pedal wouldn’t depress. Frantic, she swerved her own car into the oncoming lane—which was mercifully empty—to get around the Volvo.

All she could think was how sad it would be if this was the last night of her life.

Fortunately it was late and the streets were fairly empty, and Sandra pumped at the brake, trying to get it to go down. It was barely budging; she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. But she knew her time of being able to coast without danger was short, so she put the car in neutral and slowly lifted the emergency brake.

Luckily, that did it, and she was able to pull over safely into a noparking zone.

It was better than crashing.

She sat for a moment, her hand on her chest, trying to calm down. Could this night get any worse? She was afraid to ask, for fear that fate would give her an answer she didn’t want.

Taking a deep breath in, the way she’d been taught in the yoga class she’d attended briefly during her Weight Watchers run, she tried to will herself to calm down. It worked somewhat.

So she reached for the glove compartment and took out the flashlight she kept there for emergencies, aiming the beam toward the brake.

Something was behind it, physically blocking it. Which was potentially good news, as it would mean she could hopefully fix it herself and drive on home. She bent down and reached for the thing, pulling on it with a little difficulty, then, frowning, raised it in front of the flashlight beam to try to figure out what it was.

“Oh, good Lord.”

Arlon’s hat.

For a long moment she stared at it, turning the molded plastic over in her hands, hating how neatly and ironically it summed up the misery that was her dating life.

Then she lowered the window, tossed the thing out into the street, and drove home.

Chapter
      
11
  

Y
ou punched a puppet?” Tiffany asked incredulously.

It was Monday night, four days after they first met, and they were sitting in Loreen’s modest living room with Abbey while Loreen banged around in the kitchen.

“Yes,” Sandra said, “but you’re missing the point. Not only did I punch a puppet, but I—” She hesitated, because it was true and it was just too too awful. “I went on a
date
with a puppet. That’s even worse.”

Loreen was sympathetic, no small feat given the circumstances. “No, you didn’t,” she said, coming in the room with a big tray of cheeses and crackers. “You went on a date with a guy who turned out to be a wacko. Just because
he
thought you were on a date with a puppet doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“What about that other guy?” Tiffany asked. “Mike?”

“The Adonis?” Loreen supplied.

“Ah, but is he nice?” Abbey asked. “That’s the important thing.”

“Mike?” Sandra said. “Oh, he’s a very nice Adonis.” She took a short breath and decided to fess up. “Especially if you’re a blond-haired, blue-eyed, Nordic-looking male about six foot two, give or take.”

Abbey made a face. “Isn’t that always the way?”

“Wait a minute.” Tiffany was slow on the uptake with this one. “Are you saying . . . are you saying Mike’s . . .
gay
?”

Sandra nodded, amused that the minister’s wife was the one who was quickest to understand and accept. “One hundred percent.”

“Was he always?” Tiffany asked, and it was difficult to determine if she just didn’t know how homosexuality worked or if she had so little faith in Sandra that she believed she could turn an otherwisehetero male to other men.

“It seems he was,” Sandra said, a little crisply. “It’s not like I
made
him turn that way.”

Tiffany frowned. “I didn’t mean that—”

“Did you not know at first?” Loreen asked quickly, then added, “Sorry, I always blurt things out when I shouldn’t. But I would just be
so glad
to find out I’m not the only one who can’t tell who a man really is until it’s too late.”

“Well, you’re not,” Sandra said. “Believe me, you’re not. It’s a jungle out there. I really envy people who are married, and not just because of the companionship and so on. This dating business stinks. Big time.
Especially
once you’re past, say, nineteen.”