Trophy Husband (8 page)

As I walk away, he calls out casually, “Or
maybe the cat will pee on your iPod.” I look back, meeting his gaze
even from several feet away as he adds, “If I’m lucky.”

I drive to Golden Gate Park
with those three words playing on repeat.
If I’m lucky. If I’m lucky. If I’m lucky.

Then I tell myself he’s just a flirt.
Because there’s no other reasonable explanation.

All I can say is Andy was wrong.

Because there is nothing pathetic about
Meter Man.

Nothing at all. At least from a distance. He
is walking toward me right now and I like the way he walks, I like
the way he moves.

I’m camped out on a bench in front of
Shakespeare Garden, surrounded by the ponds and hills and bike
paths of Golden Gate Park. Though Shakespeare Garden has a big
name, it’s a little spot, maybe the size of a large backyard or a
private courtyard. Twin columns frame wrought-iron double gates, a
brick walkway cuts across the garden, and a sundial stands in the
middle.

I like this spot for many reasons, but
especially because Todd and I never went to Shakespeare Garden in
all our time together. It’s untouched by the enemy.

I met Todd because we took the same bus to
work every morning, him to his PR shop and me to the fashion brand,
Violet Summers, I worked at before I started my blog. Almost every
morning I watched Todd get on the bus, slightly disheveled, wearing
a blue, white, or blue-and-white striped button-down Oxford cloth
shirt and khaki pants. He always sat in the same spot, two seats
from the front of the bus. I started inching closer, a seat a day.
Two weeks later, I was in the seat behind him.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah, and that’s quite a feat in this
town.” He turned around, his elbow resting on the back of the seat.
“You know what Mark Twain said about San Francisco?”

His eyes lit up, he was excited, like he was
about to share the coolest, most unusual quote in all of literature
with me. But like everyone else who’s ever set foot in San
Francisco, I knew it by heart, so I said loudly, “The coldest
winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.”

He smiled back, his light blue eyes
twinkling mischievously. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds
and his sneaky silence unnerved me. Then he said, “Not that one.
This one.” Then he quoted the Mark Twain saying that no one ever
quotes about San Francisco, but one that is more beautiful, more
original, more sexy. “It is the land where the fabled Aladdin's
Lamp lies buried – and she, San Francisco, is the new Aladdin who
shall seize it from its obscurity and summon the genie and command
him to crown her with power and greatness and bring to her feet the
hoarded treasures of the earth."

I felt warm all over, lured into his gaze,
his charm. He wasn’t like every other straight guy in San Francisco
who rattled off the Mark Twain summer-winter line as if he were the
cleverest male in all the universe. Todd was clever, he was
charming, he was smart. He knew something other people didn’t
know.

Sweetly, he added, “I like that one
better.”

We chatted until my stop.
As I stood up I reeled off the one San Francisco quote I knew. “You
know what Oscar Wilde said?
Anyone who
disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.
”

“Don’t disappear. Have dinner with me this
weekend.”

“I won’t. And I will.” Then I hopped off the
bus and counted down the hours until the weekend.

I cringe now at the memory, but that was all
it took back then. I have always fallen first for cleverness, for
smarts, for wit. Looks have been secondary.

That’s about to change, I tell myself,
because looks are clearly where Dave Dybdahl excels. He is
ridiculously handsome. He’s wearing jeans, work boots and a white
ribbed tee-shirt. Twin straps from a purple Jansport backpack line
his shoulders. Even from a distance, even from twenty feet away, I
can tell – heck, anyone within eye-goggling distance can tell – he
is fantastically cut. His shirt isn’t snugly, but it’s near enough
to his body so I can make out the firmness of his pecs underneath
the fabric, the absence of any fat on his belly, the slight bulge
of his biceps peeking out right where the shirt sleeves end.

His body isn’t the only thing chiseled. As
he nears me, I take in his well-designed face again, like a model,
an escort, with Johnny Depp-esque cheekbones, deep blue eyes and a
subtle wave in his brown hair. I take my headphones out of my ears
and gently lay my iPod on the bench. I smile, a little nervously,
and stand up. I am not sure what the proper protocol is – shake
hands or hug? I rack my brains trying to remember how a first date
usually starts. It’s been eons, entire evolutionary stages it
seems, since I last went on a date. I could say the wrong thing, do
the wrong thing, mess up the secret handshake that experienced
daters know, a sure cue I’m a newbie. I’m probably on some Do Not
Date list, like that Do Not Call List.

I err on the side of friendliness, reaching
out for a quick, short hug, his hands touching my hair briefly.

“Hey there to you,” Dave says.

“Good to see you again.”

I sit down on the bench. He follows suit. I
reach for my iPod, tucking it safely away in the small lime green
vinyl purse I switched to for the date. The purse is covered in
yellow lettering listing “hello” and “goodbye” in a smattering of
foreign languages. It’s my date purse. This purse hasn’t gotten any
action in years.

“Were you just bopping out on your iPod?”
Dave asks.

Bopping out?

But at least we have the iPod icebreaker to
get the conversation going. “Billie Holiday. I love the classics.
I’m kind of a retro girl.” I gesture to my shirt.

He nods a couple times. A thoughtful look
descends on his face, like he’s considering what I just said. “I
gotta admit, I’m pretty good with music. But you stumped me right
there. I don’t know him. What does Billy boy sing?”

“No, no. Billie’s a girl.
Billie’s a lady actually. You know Lady Day, first lady of jazz?” I
say to prompt him, trying to jog his memory. I’ve got to believe
the gears in his brain simply sputtered for a moment, hit a tiny
roadblock. He’ll get back on track, I tell myself. So I keep going.
“You know she sang
You Go To My Head,
Embraceable You, These Foolish Things
?”

He shakes his head a few times and lets out
a deep breath. “Damn. You just really got me there. Who does she
sound like? Katy Perry? Rihanna? Beyonce?”

“Love those ladies, but yeah, I’m gonna have
to say none of them.”

So what if we don’t have the same taste in
tunes? It’s not the end of the world. Focus instead on his firm,
sculpted body. “So, did you have to work today?” I ask. Meters,
after all, can be violated on weekends too.

“No, but I did take a training class this
morning.”

I brighten. I love to learn new stuff. “What
did you learn?”

“It was fascinating.” He leans forward on
the bench, closer to me. His eyes really are magnetic. They’re like
the color of a clear blue sky, a sapphire even. “You see, there are
sections of the city that are moving to resident-only parking
during certain times of the day, but at other times of the day,
other people, not just the residents, can park there too. But on
weekends, you see, it’s only the residents. But during the day,
like, anyone can park there. So it’s just really, you know, it’s
just you need to focus on when the cars are illegally parked and
when they’re not.” He furrows his brow.

I nod a few times, waiting for him to
explain the part of this that seems so complicated to him. Dave
closes his eyes for a second, squeezing them shut, repeating a
mantra, “Residents only – only residents can park. Other times –
anyone can park.” He opens his eyes and breathes out. “Yep. Yep.
Sometimes I need these little sayings to help me remember.”

“Like a mnemonic device.”

He purses his brow. “Like pressurized air
and stuff?”

I shake my head. “No, that’s pneumatics,” I
say, pausing for a moment to tuck my hair behind my ears. “You
know, it’s like a memory aid?”

“A memory aid!” He’s excited, delighted at
the idea. “That’s great. That is exactly what I need.”

“Well, that’s what a mnemonic device is.
It’s like ROYGBIV to help you remember the colors of the
rainbow.”

“This is so great!” He slaps his thigh in
excitement. “Where do I get one of those?”

I breathe in, trying to center myself. Focus
on his eyes. Focus on his biceps, his belly, his pecs. Focus on
anything other than what’s coming out of his mouth. A good body can
cover up a lot of flaws. A centerfold physique can mask a poor
intellect, I try to tell myself.

“Yeah, you don’t buy them. It’s just
something you use, a saying, for instance, to help you
remember.”

“Cool beans.”

“So, Dave, what’s next after being a parking
meter attendant?”

His eyes light up. “You know, I think I’d
really like to be a parking consultant.”

“Really?” I’m going to need to just zero in
on his eyes and hair right now. Wait, I have a better idea. I’m
going to think about him without a shirt because that may be the
only way I will make it through this date. “What does a parking
consultant do exactly?” I ask, resting my arm on the back of the
bench and pretending Dave is taking off his shirt. That’s right,
one sleeve off, then the other, then the shirt goes over your
head.

“You know, I’m like not entirely sure, but I
just gotta think there’s a need for someone, like a real expert to
consult on parking matters.”

Just toss that shirt on the ground right
now. “Oh sure, parking matters. That’s gotta be huge.”

His eyes light up. “You think so?”

“Definitely,” I fib. Just undo that belt
buckle next and maybe the button on your jeans too. “Huge demand
for parking consultants.”

“Yeah, so maybe, I could get an office and
start a web site.”

“Absolutely,” I say enthusiastically. Now
just stand up and unzip those jeans and loosen them. Yep, drop them
on the ground. “And advertise your services too,” I add, keeping
him going.

He snaps his fingers and tosses his head
back, amazed at my seeming brilliance. “Like on billboards around
town. That is such a great idea!”

Oh it is, indeed, so just stand there now
for a minute in your snug black boxer briefs and let me gaze.

“Hey, what are the colors of the rainbow?
That ROYGBIV thing?”

The words that come out of his mouth are a
gigantic buzzkill. So I put his clothes back on. The jeans come up,
now they’re zipping, the button is going back in its button hole,
the shirt comes back down over his oh-so-wonderfully sculpted abs –
I feel a momentary pang as I say goodbye to them – and then I
mentally tuck his shirt back in.

He’s not Chris. He’s not even close. I can’t
even undress this guy in my imagination. Call me crazy, but I want
the complete package. Brains, humor, looks, hands and tongue and
lips that turn me inside out, and most of all, a kind heart.

“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet.”

* * *

“How can I put this
tactfully? He wasn’t exactly playing with a full deck, know what I
mean?” I state as I take another drink of my
Purple Snow Globe
, a new drink Julia
is testing out on me at her home away from home, Cubic Z in the
SOMA neighborhood where she tends bar. It’s got raspberry juice,
gin and sugar crystals on the rim.

“Like missing a card or two, or maybe an
entire suit?”

“Jules, he could have had an eight-incher
and I wouldn’t have cared.”

Julia raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever had
an eight-incher?”

I shake my head. “Not that I know of.”

“Let me tell you something, sister. It’s not
like you need to break out the ruler to know when it’s eight
inches. You just know.”

I place the martini glass down on the
counter and look straight at her. “You’ve had eight inches?”

“Why do you think I dated Donovan three
times? It wasn’t his conversational skills,” she says, then tells
me she’ll be right back. A customer at the other end needs a
refill.

Julia is, quite simply, a heartbreaker.
First, she’s sexy and curvy and has that kind of reddish-auburn
hair that drives men wild. Second, she’s a bartender. Men dig that.
They think a chick who can mix drinks is manna from heaven and
Julia is. That’s why Donovan kept returning to her. She kept going
back to him because he was, evidently, endowed with a Magic 8. But
she wanted other attributes kicking on all cylinders too.

“All I am saying is,” Julia begins after
she’s returned to my corner of the bar, “Looks and, well, you know,
size, aren’t all that. You’ve got to be able to have a conversation
with a guy. When I find someone I can actually talk to that’s when
I’ll know I’ve found the one.”

I flash back to Chris, to
our easy conversations in the store, and earlier today by the
beach. Fine, we only chatted for a few minutes each time, but there
was something sort of instant in our connection. The kind of quick
banter and repartee that makes a girl think of possibilities, of
days and nights, and music and laughter. That makes a girl think
songs were written for them. As I take another swig of her
concoction, I let myself linger on those words again.
If I’m lucky.

Did he mean those words? Was that some
subtle way of saying he wants to see me again?

I click on the browser on my phone and go to
his Web site. The connection in this bar is molasses slow, so the
page won’t fully load, but his picture appears.

I can’t help myself. I smile. My stomach
executes a teeny-tiny flip. I trace a line across his face. He’s so
handsome, with that sun-kissed hair, and his bright green eyes. He
has this fabulous smile, like he’s a happy guy, like life is good,
and he’d bring nothing but pleasure and wit and great conversation
into my life. I should call him. I should email him. I should ask
him out on a date. We could be so good together, we could sail off
into the moonlight.