Man Camp (6 page)

Allen looks traumatized. “It’s okay if you want to go home. I’ll understand.”

“What? Over a little spilled beer?” Martha’s look says,
Don’t
be ridiculous.
If Allen were another client, a more resilient one, she might have taken him up on his offer, but she doubts that Allen would reschedule and she thinks she can help him. “I’m fine, really,” she says, pulling her blouse away from her chest where it clings to a lacy bra.

“I just don’t know how I could have done anything so stupid. All I did was this—” he says, repeating the folding gesture he’d made moments earlier. What follows is as inevitable as the next wave on the beach: For one slow-motion second, Martha’s glass is suspended on its edge, like a basketball player defying gravity under the hoop, and then the laws of physics take hold.

MONDAY NIGHT — BRYCE CARROLL

Martha’s on time when she walks through the doors of Bubbly, the champagne lounge that Bryce picked for their date, and sees a neatly dressed man waiting at the bar, facing the door.

He seems to know it’s her immediately. “Martha?” he says. “
You’re
Martha?”

“That’s me,” she answers. “You must be Bryce.”

He cheek-cheek kisses her, European-style. “I wasn’t expecting such a bombshell.”

Martha wasn’t expecting such unbridled enthusiasm. She feels slightly suspicious.

“You’ve got this great Andie MacDowell thing going on,” he says, “but you must hear that all the time.” Bryce steps back to take all of Martha in. “Damn! Look at those curls!”

Martha wonders why she’s more dubious of a man who compliments her than of one who checks out other women in her presence. She touches her hair, suddenly self-conscious.

“Nice,” Bryce says, stroking the soft sleeve of the sweater Martha bought that afternoon. “Prada?”

“How’d you know?”

“I know my designers and I love a woman who can put an outfit together. Now, what can I get you to drink?”

Martha lifts her shoulders and says, “When in Bubbly . . .”

“Perfect.” He orders her a glass of champagne and himself a Ketel One martini, straight up, very dry, with a twist. When their drinks arrive, Bryce’s martini is “bruised,” and he patiently instructs the bartender on the merits of stirring over shaking. “What can I tell you?” he says to Martha. “I’m particular.”

Bryce is particular. He wears Diesel jeans, a perfectly pressed oxford shirt, and Gucci tasseled loafers. He tells her he’s in advertising and Martha wonders if he gets lots of freebies from clients. It would explain his dewy skin and shiny hair, but before she has a chance to ask, Bryce suggests they trade their best grooming tips.

“PureSkin,” he says, touching his face. “Ten percent fruit acid, CoQ10, and lots of vitamin E. Gets rid of spots, fine lines, and makes your skin smoother than you ever thought possible.”

Martha’s riveted. It’s like having a conversation with a girlfriend.

“Your turn,” Bryce says. “I have to know what you use on your hair.”

“Are you straight?” Martha asks, looking directly into his eyes.

“As an arrow,” he replies.

We’ve just landed on your dating issue, she thinks.

CHAPTER 5

“Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us anything.”

Oscar Wilde

IN THEIR ENTIRE FRIENDSHIP Martha has never arrived anywhere before Lucy. Yet, there she is, elbows resting on La Luna’s shiny bar when Lucy walks in a few minutes late.

Martha looks at the clock. “Where have you been?” she jokes, putting on a worried voice. A glass of Chardonnay sweats on the counter in front of her. “Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

Lucy has been hoping to avoid the topic of her unhappy weekend with Adam. “Sorry, I’ve been completely swamped at work.”

“I was here five minutes early,” Martha says proudly. “All part of keeping up with my New Year’s resolutions.”

As Lucy takes off her coat and puts down her shoulder bag, heavy with journals and magazines, she realizes her friend’s punctuality will cut significantly into her reading time.

“Have you even noticed that I used the plural?” Martha asks. “Resolution
s
?”

It takes Lucy a moment to grasp the implication. “You have a date? Mr. February? Who is it?”

“Fred,” Martha says coyly, somehow making the single syllable sound exotic.

Has Martha ever mentioned a Fred before? Lucy doesn’t think so.

“It’s a blind date,” Martha says.

“And guess who fixed them up?” Eva asks, appearing out of nowhere, both index fingers pointing toward her own round face.

“You don’t say.” Lucy orders a glass of red wine and once Eva’s out of earshot says, “Have you lost your mind?”

“What? Just because Eva’s gay means she doesn’t know any straight, single men?”

“
We
don’t even know straight, single men and we’re constantly on the lookout,” Lucy reminds her. “Have you forgotten our Christmas party last year? Six couples, eleven single women, and seven gay men?”

Martha shrugs.

“What do you know about Eva’s taste in men?”

“Lucy, she’s the only person who’s come up with anyone, okay? One Thursday night with Eva’s friend isn’t going to kill me.”

“Thursday? That’s when Cooper arrives. We’re all supposed to have dinner.”

“Well, you know I’m not going to miss seeing Cooper,” Martha says. “I’ll stop by after my date.”

In the silence that follows, Lucy removes her barrette, which allows a shiny cascade of hair to fall forward. Martha notices some heads turn their way.
Blondes do have more fun,
she thinks and wonders why her pretty friend doesn’t make the small effort it would take to be totally stunning—a bright lipstick, a fabulous blouse, a real haircut. Always pale, Lucy looks positively washed-out tonight.

“Is everything okay, Luce?”

Instead of answering, Lucy says, “Do we even know how Eva knows Fred?”

“He’s in her pottery class at the Y.”

“Pottery class?” Lucy says, the way anyone else might say,
Strip club?

“What’s wrong with that? I kind of like the idea of a man who’s interested in exploring his artistic side. It tells me that he’s sensual.”

“Plus he makes a mean pinch pot,” adds Eva, brandishing a bottle of Shiraz.

Lucy says, “Tell us more about your friend Fred.”

Eva doesn’t know much more: He’s in his early forties, has all his hair, is divorced, and—she thinks—employed.

Lucy frowns. “That can’t really be all you know.”

“He shares the wheel nicely?” The bar is getting crowded and Eva doesn’t have time for the third degree. “No good deed goes unpunished,” she mutters, rushing off to serve an impatient customer.

“For God’s sake, Luce, it’s just a date. What’s with the inquisition?”

What
is
with the inquisition?
Lucy takes a deep breath. The image of Adam, clueless with jumper cables, flashes into her head. “I guess it just amazes me how low we set the bar for men these days. Look at you: You’re brilliant and gorgeous and talented and funny. And you’re being set up with someone whose only known strong points are that he’s divorced and not bald.”

“Okay. What’s really going on here?” Martha asks.

Lucy crosses her arms on the bar and sinks down, head falling forward. “The truth is I’m upset with Adam and I don’t mean to take it out on you or Fred or Eva. Things didn’t go so well at the farmhouse. Actually, it was a full-on disaster. We came back two days early.”

“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.” Martha puts an arm across her friend’s shoulder. “Tell me everything.”

“Give me a few minutes, okay?” Lucy sits up and tries to regain her composure.

“No problem.” Martha looks around; the bar is almost full now. “How about we skip the wine tonight and go for a little liquid armor?” she suggests. “I’m thinking tequila.”

Lucy knows she’s in the hands of a skilled emotional paramedic. “Sounds perfect.”

“Play your cards right and I’ll tell you some doozie FirstDate stories.”

Eva replaces their wine with two shot glasses, several lime wedges, and a small bowl of salt. “Sauza?”

Martha nods.

The first shot carves a delicious channel of heat down their throats and into their chests.

A short, pudgy man standing on his tiptoes on the periphery of a semicircle of dark-suited men catches Martha’s attention. He’s leaning in, straining to be a part of the group. “What’s his deal?” she asks.

“Easy,” Lucy says, popping a handful of wasabi peas into her mouth. “A low-ranking gorilla trying to fit in with the big apes. He can’t get what he wants on his own, but if he hangs out with them, there’s a chance he’ll get their leftover food and females.”

They call their game zoomorphism.

“Poor chunky monkey,” Martha says, already on the lookout for her next subject. “What about that older guy, the sexy one with the red tie?”

Lucy follows Martha’s gaze to an attractive man with graying temples at the center of the semicircle. He’s just punctuated a point by slapping the bar so hard that the resultant
clap
silences his group and causes their pudgy friend to take a small leap back. The man laughs smugly.

“Duh. He’s the alpha. The noise is to intimidate competitors and scare away predators,” Lucy says. “Mr. Red Tie is the giant silverback of their troop.”

“Hello, Mr. Kong,” Martha says in a sugary Fay Wray voice. She flags Eva for another round. “Ready?” she asks Lucy.

“Ready.”

They place a pinch of salt on the trampoline of skin between their thumbs and forefingers, and on the count of three lick it off, take the shot, and bite the lime wedge.

Emboldened, Martha sits up tall, arches an eyebrow, and says, “Find me something more interesting than a primate.”

Lucy scans the bar.

“What about her?” Eva suggests, nodding toward a voluptuous redhead standing at a table behind them.

Lucy studies the woman, whose hips are swaying to the beat of the Cuban jazz playing in the background. “The behavior is called ‘flagging,’ ” she tells them. “A doe in heat wags her tail to indicate her interest in breeding with available bucks.”

“And apparently every buck in this bar is available,” Martha says, “even those with wedding rings.” She looks around and sees no one she’s even remotely interested in flagging. “I’m never going to have any fawns at this rate.”

“Newsflash,” Eva says, pouring a pink drink from a shaker, “it’s the twenty-first century. We does don’t need bucks to have fawns.”

Martha’s face falls. She can’t bear to think about her biological clock driving her to such drastic measures. “How about finding some creature I can relate to, like a black widow spider or a praying mantis?” she asks Lucy. “Something that devours its mate after sex.”

A peacock enters in a black leather coat with a rainbow-striped scarf, stopping just past the door to see who’s watching him. He struts the long way around the bar to an empty stool.

“Not in the market for a peahen, I’m afraid,” Lucy says, bright-eyed and loose.

“What about those two?” Martha asks, pointing down the bar to a well-tanned fiftyish man showing photographs of some property to a petite Asian woman. He appears eager for a reaction from her but none is forthcoming.

“Weaverbirds!” Lucy says, in a triumph of intellect over alcohol. “When a male weaverbird spots a female he likes, he suspends himself upside down from the bottom of his nest and flaps his wings until he gets her attention so he can show her his home.”

“That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard,” Martha says. “I’d move in before he could put out a welcome twig!”

“She doesn’t look so easy,” Lucy says. The Asian woman brushes aside a long strand of black hair and looks away from the gentleman with the photographs.

“Are you suggesting I’m easy?”

“Not exactly,” Lucy says, “but let’s face it, you’re no weaverbird.”

“What does a weaverbird do that I don’t do?”

“Well, for starters, lady weavers don’t mate until after thoroughly inspecting the gentleman weaver’s nest,” Lucy says. “If it’s not up to par, no nookie.”

“Wow. Weaver-girls
are
smart,” Martha says. “That’s it. From this day forward, I’ll never get involved with a man without a passing-grade home.”

“That’s the tequila talking,” says Lucy.

“Oh, really? What was Adam’s apartment like when you met him?”

Lucy makes a face.

“Sorry. I forgot we’re not talking about him yet.” Martha orders two more shots of tequila.

As Eva pours the drinks, Martha imagines a human version of a male weaverbird, a man willing to flail his wings to get her attention. “Who am I kidding?” she says to Lucy, looking at the amber liquid and feeling its effects. “I’d always overlook a shoddy nest for someone who tries hard enough to win my love.”

“Me, too,” Lucy says, clinking Martha’s tiny glass. “Adam was
sharing
a studio in Hell’s Kitchen when I first met him. Why do you think he moved into my place?” She salts her hand. “We should try to learn something from the female weaver because at least they act with their own reproductive interests in mind.”

“To thinking more like weaverbirds,” Martha toasts, quickly downing her third shot. “Why aren’t we more like them?”

“Humans don’t approach mating in a particularly pragmatic way.” Lucy thinks of her relationship with Adam and frowns. “Love just isn’t a very precise tool for measuring the evolutionary advantages of hooking up with one guy over the next.”

Martha can see her friend is headed for a maudlin melt-down. “Want to hear about my FirstDates?” Without waiting for an answer, she launches into her stories, greatly exaggerating each of her client’s flaws. She tells Lucy how Kurt punctuated all his sentences with battle sounds, how Walter kept dropping his fork to get the waitress in the billowy blouse to bend over, how Bryce offered to give her a facial using the bar’s pre-prepared garnishes of olives and lemons.

Soon Lucy is laughing so hard that tears are streaming down her cheeks.

“At least they were trying!” Martha laughs right along with her.

“It counts for something,” Lucy agrees, wishing Adam would try harder. “But here’s what I’m curious about. What do you say to them during their follow-up sessions? How do you tell someone like Walter he’s got to stop ogling? Or Bryce to lose the gay vibe?”

“Metrosexual vibe,” Martha corrects. “It varies from man to man. Take Kurt, for instance. He’s a smart guy. At our follow-up meeting, I told him that bragging about a fat bank account actually makes him seem insecure, not the opposite.”

“The ole luxury-sports-car-equals-a-small-johnson theory?”

“Exactly. And he got it right away. It’s just that . . .” Martha’s voice trails off.

“Go on,” Lucy prompts.

“FirstDate has a fatal flaw,” Martha says. “One date just isn’t enough. How can I hope to help these men in two or three hours? They’ve spent twenty or thirty years becoming who they are. It’s not enough to tell them not to talk on their cell phone or to chew with their mouths closed.”

Lucy nods.

“These guys don’t just need pointers on how to get a second date,” Martha continues, “they need lessons on how to be successful in full-fledged relationships.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know . . . general how-to-be-better-men sorts of lessons,” Martha says, biting into a lime wedge. “Classes in everything from confidence to carpentry to chivalry. And those are just the
C
s.”

“Well, have I ever got a
D
for you, baby,” Lucy says, describing Adam’s total lack of skill behind the wheel. She pitches herself forward and back to illustrate what the trip was like, unintentionally slipping off her bar stool in the throes of her demonstration.

“You okay?” Martha holds Lucy’s arm as she climbs back on.

“Every man should know how to drive well,” Lucy continues in a slightly drunken yet professorial voice, as if nothing had happened.

“Here, here,” Eva chimes in. “Men need lessons on just about everything: how to order wine, make a bed, dance, build a fire—”

“An absolute must!” Lucy interrupts. “In fact, they should be required to master all the basic caveman skills: how to kill small animals, scare away big ones, find water. All that stuff.”