“Yes, to the funk. And I don’t know what I’m doing tonight. Why?”
“Well, I talked to my friend Darrin Becker, the hottie lawyer, and he said he could squeeze in a dinner date between 8:00 and 10:00 if you could meet him at a restaurant near his office.”
“I can tell he’s really into this whole dating thing.” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
“It’s not like that. I promise, Erika. It’s just,” she paused to put the right words together for a second, “he’s a bit different. It’s like I said, he’s a little shy. But he has a smoking hot bod.”
“And how have you seen his body?” I asked.
“Okay, full disclosure. His parents are friends with my parents. We grew up together. And I may have seen his body once, twice, or a dozen times over the years. We shared the same rental property every summer. I would play out in the ocean, and he would read under an umbrella, avoiding the sun.”
“So, you’re setting me up with a nerd. Better than my last date, but that’s easy.”
“Yes, he’s a total nerd, but he’s a great guy. And he has a killer six-pack. He’s one of those guys who doesn’t have to do anything to stay fit or look hot. He wakes up, throws on clothes, and goes about his life. But he has one of those male model bodies. You know the type. No matter what the guy wears, it fits him like a glove and looks like he stepped out of a catalog.”
“I may have dated a couple of guys like that. Admittedly, the last one who could pull that off was Asher. As much as I hate admitting it, he could wear anything and look like a fashion model gracing the cover ofGQ.”
“Maybe so, but from what you’ve told me about Asher’s recent problems, this Michelle Bouvier character atThe Posthas an ax to grind with Asher.”
“Or Bouvier had the unfortunate experience of holding a conversation with Asher,” I grumbled. I had to check myself. I may not like Asher, and he was many unflattering things, but he wasn’t a completely horrible person. “I don’t think anyone deserves to be beaten up in the press unless they’ve done something horrible. And no matter how much I think being a prick should be punishable by death, it’s not. And whether I want to admit it, there’s still a place deep inside my body that cares about him.”
“Those are called your ovaries, dear. You want to borrow his sperm and make babies,” Katherine joked.
“Don’t ever say that again. Not even as a joke. The idea of having any part of Asher worming its way into my body is enough to make me go get my tubes tied tomorrow.”
“Ahhh…come on. He’s not that unattractive. The two of you would have such adorably cute babies.”
I knew she was joking and trying to get under my skin. But the thought of having anything to do with Asher made me physically ill. I never really dealt with Asher’s betrayal. Sure, I’ve talked to my shrink about Asher, but I haven’t seen him or talked to him sincethe incident.
“Okay,” I finally blurted out. “I’ll go on a date with the hot lawyer. But if he ends up being married or engaged, I may go Lorena Bobbitt on him.”
“Who?”
“I sometimes forget how young you actually are,” I joked.
“Huh?” Katherine asked, clearly not following my brain’s thought train.
“Lorena Bobbitt chopped off her husband’s…candy caneand threw it into a field.”
“When was this?” Katherine asked as she gasped in disbelief.
“It happened in the early to mid-1990s.”
“Ahh…pre-millennium news. Kind of surprised more women didn’t join her movement over the years.”
I considered it for a second, and realized I don’t think I’d heard about another woman chopping off her husband’s candy cane since Bobbitt.
Katherine texted the lawyer. A couple minutes later, she texted me the location and time. I’d heard of the restaurant but knew little about it. I glanced down at my watch, and it was almost time for us to be back in the theater.
“We really need to pay up and hurry out of here. We don’t want to be late for whatever grand new idea Eldridge has come up with last night.”
“Maybe she’ll decide that the whole show will take place in Whoville,” Katherine said as she giggled at her own joke.
“I’m sure there’s a copyright infringement in there somewhere. But I’m sure she could stage the whole show on Mars. We could call itChristmas on Mars. We could all be aliens instead of elves.”
“Don’t you dare give her that idea,” Katherine said in all seriousness. “You know as well as I do, Eldridge might like the idea. And honestly, I don’t want to play green again.”
“Me neither. Playing Elphaba was fun for a time, but I swear I still have nightmares. I’m still painted green, hitting the C# five to eight times a week. After a show, I go to my dressing room to shower, but the green won’t come off. I scrub and scrub. But the more I try to wash the green makeup off my body, the greener I become.”
