Fiancé at Her Fingertips (2 page)

That same day, Debra began to compile a list of her minimum requirements for the position of Mr. Right. But finding a man who fit the bill had, so far, proven tricky, and Debra was ready to concede the possibility that the position might go unfilled—which was, Debra again assured herself, not the end of the world. After all, she had a very nice life. She had a pleasant home, plenty of good friends, a devoted pet, a job she loved, and a loving family that included a mother, father, grandma, brother and sister-in-law, and two mischievous nephews who, when they weren’t driving her crazy, were really very nice.

Maybe now would be a good time to go for that supervisor promotion at work, Debra decided. It was possible—at least for the short term—that might take her mother’s mind off messy matrimonial matters as her daughter took on greater vocational responsibilities. Debra was ready to try anything.

Debra entered a gift shop and sucked in the yummy scent of vanilla candles and dark-roast coffee. Her best friend, Suzi, had a birthday coming up—one of those awful ones that ended in a zero: the big three-oh. A milestone for an unmarried woman. Or was that millstone?

Debra wanted to pick out something extra-special for her bummed-out friend, as she herself had just recently hit that age. She browsed the shelves, sniffing a candle here and picking up a novelty item there. She paused at the end of an aisle, trapped by several laughing youngsters pointing out plastic poop and bogus barf to one another. Debra smiled.
Ah, youth
.

She cast an eye at the end of the top shelf. A bright orange and neon green box caught her attention. The last of its kind, it sat alone amid odd-sized T-shirts featuring Spanish-speaking Chihuahua dogs and cute, fluffy kittens. She picked the box up, snorting at the lame, geeky-looking game-show guy caricature featured front and center.

“What in God’s name?
Fiancé-at-Your-Fingertips
,” she read. “‘Impede Misdirected Matchmaking Efforts. Silence Sweetheart-Shilling Strategists. The Single Girl’s All-In-One Solution to those Friendly Fix-Me-Ups.
Guaranteed to pacify
frustrating family members and insensitive coworkers. In no time at
all, you’ll be the envy of your of fice
. Intrigued, Debra turned the box over. A half dozen billfold-size hunks smiled up at her with bleached grins and dimpled cheeks. Below each photograph was a caption identifying the gorgeous guy and his profession: Pediatrician Paul, CEO Clay, Writer William, Teacher Thomas, Farmer Frank, and Lawyer Logan.

Touted as the single woman’s most effective weapon against meddling parents and rampant workplace speculation, Fiancé at Your Fingertips was guaranteed to quash matchmaking efforts and silence “helpful” romance armchair quarterbacks, and all for the super low price of $19.95. Within one small box, the package proclaimed, you had at your disposal everything necessary to invent the perfect boyfriend.

Fiancé at Your Fingertips included a high-quality five-by-seven photograph of the man in your life, plus two
handy-dandy billfold photos. A background sheet outlined a brief but believable history of your beauteous beau, and a wallet-size cheat sheet to refresh your memory on the run came with the kit. Several pink While You Were Out message slips were included, with titillating messages already recorded from your special fella, along with signed all-occasion greeting cards to add to the illusion. The step-by-step instruction manual practically guaranteed success.

Debra stared at the box in her hands. An intriguing idea hard-knuckled its way into her subconscious. The more she thought about it, the more she knew that this was, indeed, the answer to all her dating woes. And it would be an over-the-top “gotcha” to her family to boot.

She considered the choices on the back of the box again, examining the item in her hands.

Lawyer Logan
. She shuddered. A lawyer! Oh, Lord, no. She could never be that good an actor.

She searched the shelf for another choice. A CEO would be cool. Or the pediatrician. Her mother would love that. And Debra? She’d be content with the pig farmer. But a lawyer?

“No way!”

Debra tossed aside every last T-shirt and groaned in frustration. There was only one Fiancé at Your Fingertips left: Lawyer Logan.

Nearby, a short, elderly man busied himself dusting Illinois souvenir mugs. Debra hailed him.

“Sir, could you help me?”

He turned and shuffled toward her. “You need some help there, young lady?” he asked.

Debra held out Lawyer Logan. “Do you have any more of these?” she inquired. “CEO Clay or Pediatrician Paul would work. Even the farmer. I’m not picky.”

The old fellow began to cough. The cough became a belly-jiggling number, which evolved into a hacking wheeze.

Debra frowned. “Are you all right, sir?” she asked.

He shook his head and dried his eyes. “Allergies,” he said,
motioning to the dusty box in her hand. “Something wrong with that box you got there?” he asked, once he’d caught his breath.

Debra shook her head. “No. It’s just that I’ve got this thing about lawyers. I mean, my
friend
doesn’t care for attorneys. It’s her birthday, you see.”

The clerk nodded. “Uh-huh, I see. And this friend of yours, she’ll appreciate the sentiment with which this gift is intended?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” Debra said, suddenly confused.

“Your friend—she must be desperate if you think she needs that kind of self-help kit,” the clerk observed.

“I wouldn’t exactly call her desperate,” Debra said. “She just needs a bit of a respite from the whole dating rat-race. You know, time to search her soul and discover a greater purpose for her life, and to reflect on a burning question women have sent out to the vast, unresponsive cosmos since time began: Where the devil are all the good men?” Her volume suddenly rivaled that of Landscaper Larry.

The clerk’s eyes grew big and he took a step back. He cleared his throat.

“Uh, it appears your friend has…issues,” he said. “Well, I’m sorry to have to disappoint, but that’s the last one of those we’ve got,” he added, pointing at the box in Debra’s hands.

Just Debra’s luck.

“Could I, perhaps, order another?” she suggested.

He shook his head. “It was a special, one-time deal. The manufacturer discontinued the product so there’s no way to reorder.”

“Then do you know where I could find more of these?” she pressed. “Another store that sells them?”

He shook his head again. “Nope, sorry. Can’t help you out there.”

Debra looked down at the dark, do-it-yourself design- a-dude kit and wrinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t you know it?” she mumbled. “A friggin’ lawyer.”

“ ’Scuse me?”

“Never mind,” Debra said with a long, heavy sigh. She handed the clerk her credit card. “I’ll take it.”

“Very good, miss.” The clerk beamed at her. “Very good.”

Debra traced Lawyer Logan’s likeness with a fingertip, then brightened. Her parents would be so pleased.

She’d just found Mr. Right!

That evening at home, over a bowl of popcorn and a glass of orange juice, her golden retriever, McGruff, at her feet, Debra got acquainted with the new man in her life. She pulled the personal history sheet out first.

Logan Tyler Alexander, DOB September 2, 1975
, she read. That made him thirty-four—an appropriate age. She glanced at the rest.

Debra giggled at the thoroughness of the profile.
Prefers
boxers to briefs?
McGruff raised curious eyes in her direction. What would they think of next? She scanned the rest of the information. Lawyer Logan’s hometown was St. Louis, Missouri, and he was a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Law. His father, Warren, owned a Chevrolet dealership in St. Louis. His mother, Ione, was a financial-aid officer at a community college. Logan Alexander drove a dark blue Chevrolet Suburban and resided in a downtown luxury apartment complex.

Debra took a swig of juice and continued to read.

Debra slumped to the couch in hoots of laughter.

Women bodybuilders and hairy dogs? This little gem was well worth the twenty bucks in entertainment value alone, she thought as she scanned the rest of the document.

Logan Alexander’s past romantic history included one long-term relationship that almost led to the altar, and a string of short-term relationships since. According to the profile, Logan Alexander wanted the traditional white picket fence and 2.7 kids. The lady need not be traditional.

His goal in life was to make senior partner in his law firm, with political aspirations a possibility. Marriage and family were definites.

Debra made a dill-pickle face. A lawyer with political ambitions who hated hairy dogs? Hello? Could there be a man more wrong for her? Still, this cockamamic courtship quest was too good to pass up—glaring incompatibility issues aside.

Grabbing a notebook, she began to outline her courtship caper. In order for her little mystery-date diversion to work, she would have to plot each detail with the utmost care, and then perform her role flawlessly.

Debra giggled, tossed the notebook in the air, and gave McGruff a playful bear hug. She giggled some more. This bogus-boyfriend scam was going to be an absolute riot.

Pulling out the five-by-seven color photo of her lawyer beau, she whistled. The billfold-sized images on the back of the box hadn’t done the good counselor justice, Debra decided as she studied the handsome, smiling face that looked back at her. Just wait until she whipped out her glossy of ol’ lover boy here! The ladies would swoon. Okay, some of the guys, too.

Debra focused on her invented intended’s likeness. Funny—he didn’t really look like a model. Perched on the edge of a big, shiny desk, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing toned, muscular forearms, he looked like…well, a lawyer. A very yumalicious lawyer. One tanned, nicely shaped hand clasped a sturdy-looking thigh. Law books graced the shelves of an oak bookcase behind him. Debra found herself ensnared by compelling blue eyes.

She shook her head and reached for her planner. If all went as intended, she could get at least six months of mileage out of good old Lawyer Logan. Then, when push came to shove and her family began harping, begging to meet her hubba-hubba hunk, she would spring her little practical joke on them. Once they saw the lengths to which she would go in order to get them off her back, they would surely cease
and desist all matchmaking mayhem. Then maybe she could live in peace.

And in the meantime? Well, she and ol’ blue eyes here would just have a little fun.

Debra grinned and raised her juice glass in a mock toast, greatly pleased with her master plan.

Debra put Operation Fictional Fella into action the following morning. It took some doing, but she managed to paste a perky smile on her face—or what she hoped passed as perky. She hadn’t had a lot of practice.

“Good morning, Tanya,” she greeted the receptionist at her place of work, the Illinois State Crime Victims Assistance Bureau. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she gushed.

The young secretary looked up, eyes wide in a “do I know you?” look. “Uh, it’s a Monday, and it’s pouring out there,” she said. “What’s so beautiful about that?”

Debra laughed. “I wonder who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, Tanya? Let’s see a smile there.” She squeezed the girl’s mouth between her thumb and forefinger. “Come on, now. You can do it. Let’s see a smile.”

The receptionist slapped her hand away. “Since when are you all of a sudden a smile broker? Next to you, Oscar the Grouch is a regular little Mary Sunshine.”

Debra grinned. “Maybe I’ve had a change of heart,” she said.

“Yeah, and maybe I still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, that bikini waxes don’t hurt, and that men can not only spell ‘monogamous,’ but actually be it.” Tanya snorted, her bitterness evident. She’d just recently broken up with her boyfriend.

“Ho, ho, ho,” Debra said, mimicking Santa Claus, for lack of an appropriate response. “By the way, do I have any messages?”

Tanya’s brow wrinkled. “It’s seven thirty. We don’t start answering the phones around here till eight. Why? Were you expecting a call?”

Debra shook her head. “Just checking. I’ll be doing paperwork in my office all morning.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, just keeping you informed, that’s all.”

With a smile, Debra made her way down the hall to her office and greeted other early arrivals to work, aware of Tanya’s puzzled gaze on the back of her head the whole way.

The morning flew by. Debra spent several hours on the phone conferring with various county attorneys’ offices on restitution amounts for a number of pending cases. She also contacted several clients for additional information and clarification of claims they had submitted to the bureau for reimbursement. Close to noon, Debra stretched and, noting the time, grabbed her handbag. Act one, scene three, of
Debra’s
Bogus Boyfriend
was about to begin.

She swept out of her office, a spring in her step, a new buoyancy to her stride. Coming to a sudden stop, she looked down to make sure that her own feet were actually the ones supporting her. She wiggled her toes. Yep. Hers. And darn it all if she wasn’t bouncing. She’d never bounced in her life. Unless, of course, one counted bouncing a basketball. She shrugged.

“I’m heading to lunch,” she announced to Tanya.

The receptionist did a classic double take. “Uh, you’re going
out
for lunch?”

Debra nodded. “Yes. As in, Debra Daniels has left the building.”

“You’re not working through your lunch hour?”

“Not today. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“An hour? You’re taking a whole, entire hour?”

“Isn’t that the customary lunch break?”

“Well, yeah, but you never take a whole hour. You pretty much just grab something from one of the machines in vendoland and scarf it at your desk.”

Debra lifted one eyebrow and shrugged. “I guess I’m changing,” she said. “Growing. I want to take some time to stop and smell the roses.”

“You’re going out in that downpour to smell roses?”

Debra almost grimaced at the astonishment in the girl’s voice. Had she really been such a stick in the mud? “I’m going out for lunch. Get used to it, Miss Templeton. You see before you a new woman.”

Tanya’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. Well, can I sign the new Deb Daniels up as committee chair to or ganize and plan the office Christmas party this year? Everyone else in the office has done it at least twice, with the exception of the former Ms. Daniels, who always arrives unfashionably late and leaves unforgivably early.”

Debra’s smile lost a bit of its perkiness. “Sure. Absolutely,” she made herself respond. “Sign me up. Put me down. I’d be happy to help out this year.”

Tanya’s eyes almost crossed. “Uh,
oo
-kay.”

“Anything else before I leave?”

Tanya considered her a moment. “Just one question.” Her eyes narrowed to mere slits. “Have you ever seen
Invasion of
the Body Snatchers
?”

Debra laughed, recorded her time out on the log, and headed for the door, humming music to smell roses by. She turned back to the confused receptionist. “Toodles,” she said, and gave a little wave and a grin.

From the look on poor Tanya’s face, the receptionist fully expected Investigator Daniels’s head to do one of those full-rotation moves at any moment.

Debra waited until she was outside before she burst into laughter. “Lawyer Logan, you little devil.” She giggled. “Where have you been all my life?”