"Romance",Anne thought,"Is highly overrated." Those red roses might be pretty, but she had 5 bushes out back - and those didn't shed petals all over the countertop; when they shed, the wind swept the debris away, did her housecleaning for her. She was supposed to appreciate (and get the hint from) the black lace underware that last guy brought, but she really would have preferred dremel bits; if he know her so well, as he was proud of declaring, why did't he know that she was a wrench wench? And then, there were those interminable conversations, better over the phone where drear dearie couldn't see that she was sketching bats at war, of "Do you love me?; do you really, really love me? Say the words, I want to be sure that you really, really really really love me....."
Now that Wanda woman was after her again. "Don't you get lonely in that house, all alone? Don't you know it's not healthy to be all alone?". The Wanda woman was always out there, raking leaves or pruning the sidewalk hedges before the frost; Anne heard from her whenever she checked her mailbox or climbed into the car. "There's a guy at work, single, your age, really nice with thick dark hair; I've told him all about you, how lonely you are...."
But did she want a man, even the good man who's hard to find? She'd have to shake her horsehair out of its habitual bun, scrub her scalp free of dandruff and curl the split ends. A man could get away with a $10 crew cut. Her own father had worn hair blotched orange and gray, with jagged edges in back, to work. He'd bought dye to hide the gray, applied it haphazardly without reading the instructions, and rinsed it off when he'd grown bored with waiting. "The right side's orange and the left side's gray", Mother had exclaimed, "You can't go out like that!". Coppertone orange. But father had glanced in the mirror, said "Looks fine to me" and driven to the lab. Mother, who always looked meticulous, had complained "Why should I cut his hair, play barber, when he never even combs it?" And Anne had thought "He doesn't, I never noticed". "Why," she asked herself now, "Couldn't a woman be more like a man?"
"His name's Bill," Wanda had whispered yesterday, "He owns the video store - his own store, and he knows all about videos. And funny as all get-out, I told him to expect you around 8."
Anne sighed. Hopefully she'd find that long suede skirt in her thrift shop bin; otherwise, she'd have to shave her legs. Hopefully, she'd find a matching blouse in one of her piles. She hadn't gone clothes shopping in years - too lazy, cheap and practical. She'd even once calculated that, if her weight didn't change, she'd accumulated enough thrift shop clothes to last her until she died. Some of those $1 sweaters might be frayed and stained, but everyone would blame the scruffiness on Alzheimer's, not on her. They'd probably just see the wrinkles and not notice anything else at all;old hags got dismissed, became invisible and free in a land of hallowed youth denying any hint of mortality.
"And dress nice,"Wanda had added. "Bill's got good taste. He's an artist on the side and you know how artists are - like color, something unique."
At least the shoes wouldn't be a problem, Anne thought. She'd do what she'd done for that New Year's party - spray paint them. For New Year's, she'd sprayed her flat slippers and a pair of pantyhose gold; tonight, she'd spray them with Premium Decor colonial-red decorative enamel. The enamel was meant for metal and wood but had stuck well to leather so far. If all the layers of paint started peeling away before she met this artistic Bill Somebody, she'd tell him that the splattered look was the newest fad in Paris; you just wait and see, Bill Somebody, next year this will be the rage in New York. He, being someone who liked the unique, would appreciate the novelty.
Makeup? She'd thrown away those Revlon kits that her mother sent her routinely at Christmas. Staring at her mirrored sallow face, she imagined talking to Wanda. "Wanda dear," she'd drawl while poking her foot into a pile of papery tan leaves, "Once I flashed my toothless grin, he forgot that I wasn't wearing lipstick. Besides, he was already too busy stroking my hairy legs, soft as a dog's paw with all that fur and him being a natural man. And he really appreciated how practical the hair was - stopped ticks before they could crawl up to warmer darker private parts."
She placed the red shoes next to the suede skirt and a crimson blouse scrounged from the dollar bin. The colors would match in candle light. And that, she nodded smugly, was as good as it got from a woman who had her own roses and could entertain herself anytime by exploring Home Depot.
He couldn't fire her. She was so reliable, arrived on time even during a blizzard, could file away videos even more efficiently than he could. But Wanda was afflicted with verbal diarrhea. Thought in, comment out, and everyone had to live with the stink.
"So Bill," Wanda yapped, "Why don't you have a girl yet? I keep telling you - a nice looking guy like you should be working on children by now, not living all alone with his 2 cats, 2 chihuahas, 1 hairy mut and 5 hens. And why do you wear sweaters with gold threads in them? Don't you know that this is a *conservative* town, only 2 Democrats registered in the whole county?"
She doesn't know what I have at home, Bill smirked to himself. A hot-pink feather boa, a silver sequinned shirt that jingled as he shimmied at the New Year's Eve ball. And his hair hadn't always been neatly cropped at the nape of his neck; that had been a concession to the Republicans and his role as respectable shopkeeper.
"So," Wanda squawked for all the customers to hear, "I decided to do something about it, if you wouldn't"
"Hmmm...what?"
"I decided to shop around for a girl for you," Wanda exclaimed proudly. "Now, I know you don't like the cheap ones, a guy with your taste. No fake boobs or silicon lips for you. So I found someone, and right next door! She's a little plain, but she's got depth. Oh, I know what you're thinking - how can a bigmouthed booby like me see depth? Well, I'm not as shallow as you think. I see things, I see it in her eyes. She'll be good for you, kinda grows on you...."
Like mold, Bill thought. If only Jay were eavesfropping, playing fly on the wall; tonight, when they lay together like spoons under the plump eiderfown quilt and the blue light from the faintly murmering TV spilled over them, he'd tell Jay all about it.
"I told her to meet you here tonight," Wanda continued. "Tonight - that way you can't run away. You have a date. Her name's Anne."
Jay would want to hear all about the plain girl with real breasts who was sent to save Bill's soul. If this Anne was quiet, knew what had to be kept secret in the village, he might tell her about his past as a beauty queen, about how he'd starred as Miss Gay Louisiana in his youth and played Diana Rossetti dancing to "Stop, In the Name of Love" at an AIDS fundraiser. The boxes filled with stage make-up were still stacked on his top closet shelf - enough creams, blushes, fake eyelashes and eyebrow pencils to make anyone look any age and any race.
"But don't you have a different sweater?" Wanda barked, "One that doesn't have *gold* in it? A thick brown wool one? Or...with your build, you'd look spiffy in a turtleneck"
If Anne liked the gold weave in his sweater, maybe he'd give her a sneak peek at his boa. If she liked the boa, maybe he'd show her his collection of fur collars, including those vintage minks from some grandmother's attic, with pasted-on glass eyes above a real mink mouth that clamped down on a real mink tail. If she liked the minks, maybe he'd drive her all the way to the mall for a real girls' night on the town; if she was also a mall junkie, as addicted to plumes and sparkle as he was, they'd pick through clothes until the lights dimmed and a security guard hustled them out.
A spiffy brown turtleneck? One of his "get down and be dirty in" work sweaters, now splattered with teal and yellow from housepainting, had once been pure brown. He and Jay had planned for a quiet night at home, savoring Jay's home cooked spaghetti while mellow blues drifted softly over them; when Wanda left, he'd have to call Jay and listen to him snicker. And Anne would probably just be a village girl;he probably wouldn't even be able to greet her with his "Hello, here's everything about me" speech about how his fluffy mut was mothered by a keeshond who was raped by a golden retriever and about how he'd named his guard-dog chihuahas "Killer" and "Spike".
He sighed. He'd have to wait, as twilight dimmed into night, dutifully obeying the orders of his employee
Yo, STOP! Even if the copy's not quite right, it's still copyright.
