Virtually Mine: a love story (6 page)

Charlie
surveyed the offerings, his breath short. “Right.”

Samantha
continued, never missing a beat. “Cross reference gift ranks with the
corresponding level of payment and log each gift onto the account as you pull
it. Do not, under any circumstances, boost levels. Got it?”

Charlie
nodded. He totally got it, at least on an intellectual level. Resolving
technical difficulties was one thing, but interacting with actual women as an
Imaginary Boyfriend, that would be quite another. Though he did his best to
hide his unmitigated fear of rising to this ersatz romantic occasion, his heart
beat triple-time at the prospect.

♥    ♥    ♥

M.J. knew that there were defining moments in life, and for her, this gulpy
moment felt like one of them. It was now or never, she coached herself. She
refused to live in her never. It was high time that she lived in her now.

She
would boldly go where no Meter Maid had gone before. She would follow the adorable
rusty-haired guy and his golden retriever away from Palisades Park, and into
the posh neighborhood it bordered. Maybe he didn’t live there, she supposed.
Perhaps he’d only pass through on the way to the many apartment buildings just
a few blocks south.

Suddenly,
the golden retriever bounded up a flagstone walk toward a stately home. The
rusty-haired guy followed, and then let himself in the front door.

M.J.
swallowed. “Okay, not at all intimidated.” She pulled out her freshly-minted
dog walker card. Even with its lightly perforated edges, it looked much more
official than she felt. “So, here we go,” she said as she turned up the walk to
the door.

M.J. lifted the polished brass knocker, th
en lowered it for two distinct raps. Quickly, she rehearsed as she
waited. “
Hi...I’m... You’re probably wondering why... Hello... Hey, I was
—”

Mid-rehearsal,
the door swung open. There was the rusty-haired guy, not three feet away,
smiling at her, even cuter close-up than he had been at a distance.

“Hi,”
M.J. managed.

“Hi.
Do I know you?” said the rusty-haired guy.

“Not
yet. I mean, now you do...or, a minute from now or...” M.J. thrust her business
card toward him, a little more gingerly than she intended. “I’m M.J. Poster,
Dog Barker Extraordinaire.”

“Dog
barker?”

M.J.
snorkled involuntarily. “Did I say
barker
? I meant
walker
, not
barker, but still most definitely extraordinaire, at the dog walking. It’s my
business.”

“Full
time?”

“Working
toward it. That’s my home number.
 
I’m
just building up the clientele, which is why I’m here because I’ve seen you
around, in the park, strictly in a dog scouting context and—”

The
rusty-haired guy gestured back into the house. “You saw Freddie?”

“Freddie?”
M.J. inquired. “Oh. Freddie’s the golden, right? Freddie’s my kid brother’s
name and we won’t even go there, but...what did you say your name was?” Just
then, M.J. heard the phone start to ring inside.

“I’m
Rob. Rob Galloway. And I’d better get that. Might be one of my patients.”

M.J.’s
eyes bugged a little. “You’re a doctor?”

Rusty-haired
Rob nodded. “A therapist. Thanks for dropping by, B.J.”

“M.J.,”
she corrected, as cheerily as possible.

 
With that, Rob took M.J.’s card, went inside,
and closed the big door to the beautiful home.

M.J.
whirled, elated. She put a hand to her forehead, and then saluted her victory
as she strode away. “M.J. Poster, Dog Barker Extraordinaire!”

♥    ♥    ♥

Kate shuffled into her apartment. Normally, Kate wasn’t a shuffler. She had
more of a bounce to her step, but shuffle Kate did on this day. In fact, she
shuffled right into the
Virtually Mine
brochure that M.J. had tossed in,
onto the floor.

Numbly,
Kate picked the ad up and checked her answering machine. The L.E.D. readout was
a big fat zero. No one had called her. Not Dustin, not her mom or dad, not even
one of those pesky refinance-your-mortgage type solicitors who hadn’t done his
homework enough to know that she lived in an apartment.

Kate
picked up the remote and flipped on the television. Though she was no more a
flopper than a shuffler, she flopped on the couch.

A
silver-tongued spokesperson announced the upcoming topic as animated graphics
filled the screen: “Next up on LIVE WITH CELESTE: Sensational Singles—How to
find satisfaction inside yourself.”

Kate
rolled her eyes. She grabbed a journal off the coffee table and uncapped its
pen. There were times when the only solace Kate could find was sitting with her
journal. It was a place she could unburden herself of everything she was
thinking and feeling, no matter how embarrassing it was to admit to anyone but
herself.

Kate
turned to her most recent entry. It was from just a few days prior. Doodled in
the margins of her enthusiastic detailing of what had been a progressing
relationship with Dustin, she had written in his last name with her first. How
quickly life could change.

As
she turned the page, the talk show guest’s commentary captured her attention.

“
That’s when I
finally confronted my reality.
 
I’m
pushing the big 3-O,” the woman on set said.

Kate looked up at the TV. “My
sympathies.”

The talk show guest continued, as if in
answer to Kate. “I live in L.A. where, like it or not, the male population in
my decade is divided thusly: fifty-percent married, twenty percent lazy-butt
gigolos, roughly fifteen percent are not of my general persuasion, then ten
percent are your basic drippy, I’d never look at them guys, and what’s left?
Let’s face it. Prison romances are highly overrated.”

Kate zapped off the TV. Lazily, she
breezed through the
Virtually Mine
pamphlet, and then talked back to the
silenced set. “Hey, you forgot imaginary. The rest of the guys are imaginary.”

 
Just then, M.J. returned to the apartment, bubbling over with
excitement. “He’s a therapist and his name is Rob. Do you love that? Dr. Rob
Cute-Beyond-Belief-With-A-Dog Galloway. Wouldn’t that sound great? It rhymes.
M.J. Galloway. Ha!”

Kate looked up, determined not to let her
own discouragement drench M.J.’s delight. “How did you meet him?”

“I pitched him on my dog walking
business.”

“You don’t have a dog walking business,”
Kate countered.

M.J. picked up the
Virtually Mine
brochure off the cushion and perched on the couch by Kate. “Well, I couldn’t
say I’m a Meter Maid. Everybody hates Meter Maids.”

M.J. extended one of her dog walker cards
to Kate.

Kate admired M.J.’s indefatigable spirit
as much as the computer-made card. “Ooh, slick. So, he has your number, now.
Maybe he’ll call you.”

M.J. perused the
Virtually Mine
flyer. “Mama! Cute guys. You should totally do this. Things don’t work out with
Robbie-boy, I might.”

“They’re not real boyfriends,” Kate
explained. “They’re totally imaginary. See? Rent an Imaginary Boyfriend. It’s a
virtual romance thing.”

M.J. leafed through the pages. “I had an
imaginary boyfriend when I was eleven. Jimmy Carmichael. Let me tell you, we
were quite the little item.”

“It says they send you cards and call you
and stuff. Shoot, I’d be happy just to have the light blink at me on the
answering machine.”

M.J. handed Kate the brochure. “So do it.
At least an imaginary guy won’t break your heart.”

Kate shook her head. “It’s not like I’m
over Dustin. And let me tell you, my mother is definitely not over him.”

A look of shock crossed M.J.’s face.
“Haven’t you told her?”

“Can’t. Not yet. So, maybe Dustin isn’t
classic marriage material, but I already miss him. I still expect him to come
walking through that door.”

M.J. shrugged. “So, buy yourself a buffer
boy. Bridge the gap.” The ringing phone interrupted.

“If it’s my mom, don’t answer it,” Kate
said. “I’m not ready to get into this.”

M.J. checked their Caller ID. Her eyes
widened. “It’s him!”

“Who, him?”

“My him,” M.J. effused. “Rob Galloway!”
With that, M.J. picked up the wireless and happily headed back toward her room.
“M.J. Poster, Dog Walker Extraordinaire speaking...Oh hi, Rob. Great to hear
from you.”

Later that night, as hard as Kate tried
to focus on pouring her heart out into the receptive pages of her journal, it
was that
Virtually Mine
brochure that kept tugging at her mind. It
wasn’t so much the concept of having an Imaginary Boyfriend that tickled her
thoughts. It was the idea of what the illusion might do to Dustin, especially
after what Reesa had said about a little competition bringing Andre to his
senses.

Maybe, just maybe, an Imaginary Boyfriend
could be more than a buffer boy. Perhaps just the impression of her having
moved on would be enough to regain Dustin’s attention. Maybe it would
revitalize and recalibrate their relationship. She could be truthful in what
little she would choose to tell Dustin about it. The rest could be her secret.

Pondering things, Kate couldn’t see the
harm. After all, this boyfriend would only be a flight of fancy. There was no
real person this would actually hurt. There was even a chance it might actually
help.

Kate picked up the brochure. She studied
at its glossy images and the Internet site it boasted. Clearly, this was a
thriving enterprise. A lot of women must be renting Imaginary Boyfriends from
them for one reason or another, she presumed. Finally, Kate put the brochure
down. Resolutely, she told herself there was no way in heaven that she was
anywhere near that desperate.

five

♥

C
harlie
straightened up in his chair. His new Operator’s terminal was perfectly
organized. The top of the desk had the faint aroma of disinfectant. It wasn’t
that Charlie was a germ-o-phobe, but nothing had been happening, so he’d passed
the time by wiping down his new station with the antibacterial wipes that had
come with his take-out lunch. It couldn’t hurt, he had told himself.

Samantha
Raznick glided by. “
You can’t just wait for them to come to you, Charlie. Direct
Mail, social network, e-mail, cold call—I don’t care—as long as absolutely
nobody connects the company with your face. You know how to compensate. You’ve
probably been doing it all your life. Make it happen.”

Charlie nodded compliantly. “I did put
out some brochures this morning.”

Samantha stopped. Her face took on an
unnerving sneer. “Some? Charlie, please. The ratio of solicitation to response
is roughly ninety-to-one. A good Operator maintains a client base of at least
twenty, so twenty times ninety is—”

“Eighteen hundred solicitations to go,”
Charlie calculated.

Samantha clapped her hands as she moved
on. “Chop, chop!”

Charlie looked back at his computer
screen, overwhelmed. He turned to his silent phone.
How bad could cold
calling be?
No one would even know who he was. He could get his feet wet in
total anonymity, at least, under the protective banner of the company’s Caller
ID.

Charlie flipped through his Operator’s
Manual to the cold calling copy section. Dozens of sample intros were written
out word-for-word. All he would have to do would be to read it and the product
would sell itself, one out of every ninety calls, Samantha had promised. He
cleared his throat to practice. Suddenly, a tone from his computer arrested his
attention.

A mechanical voice startled him with an
announcement: “
You’ve got a customer
.”

“I do?” Charlie blustered. “I have a—”
Charlie rose to call after Samantha. “I have a customer!”

Samantha turned his way, “Well, then. Set
the hook; get her profile and credit card. I’ll walk you through the rest.”

“Right,” Charlie agreed, and then sat
down at his station. He clicked on his Instant Messaging box.

The system identified the customer: It
was Kate Valentine. His Kate Valentine. The message read:
Operator 52, are
you there?

Charlie paled. He folded his hands and
raised his eyes. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he murmured. “Oh, and
please don’t let me say anything stupid.” Don’t over think this, he coached
himself. Then, remembering Kate’s penchant for grammar, he typed a response:
How
may I help you?

Time elapsed.

Charlie checked his watch. A full minute
had passed without a reply, yet there she was, still visible on the line. He
wondered if this was as hard for Kate as it was for him. He wanted to reassure
her, to tell her how amazing she was, something that anyone worth anything
couldn’t possibly fail to recognize.