The Wedding Bet (3 page)

Listening to Cynthia’s confusing rhetoric, I came to realize that as a gender, we women have no clue what we want. We say we want a strong man and then we criticize men for acting like strong jerks. Of course, I wasn’t confused at all. I labeled all alpha men for the stalkers they truly are. I didn’t need excess drama in my life; I ran a wedding catering business. The right man for me would understand kindness, consideration, was patient.

He would go overboard being an unassertive gentleman. He’d wait for me to realize he was there, in my vicinity. Then I’d find him for the golden treasure he truly was. He’d accept that his rationalizations that his perfection slipped by my radar and he wait for me to take responsibility for my error.

My dream man forgets all the bad dating advice about Alpha and Zeta males. He would toss thirty thousand years of dating rules out and meet me as my equal, as partner. He’d love me not only for my body, but also my mind, heart and soul. Of course, I knew all this flew right over the heads of the other two Triad members and eighty-five percent of the human race. That didn’t bother me in the least. Three hundred and sixty four days began to look longer than I’d imagined. Life came in small doses. Surprises with it and I took that as a sign things were looking up.

Cynthia and Olivia huddled briefly.

Cynthia said. “We’re going to approach this more professionally—from a Public Relations direction!”

“No!” I faked my surprise.

“Yes,” the two grown women interlocked their hands like evil witches. “We are going to hitch your wagon to the man star of your dreams, Megan.”

Olivia said, “You won’t be able to say no. Because we will bring you men who are yeses!”

The two women of our triad giggled.

For the first time, I realized maybe we were drifting apart. The old adage lurked in the background. Men drive women apart and women drive men together.

By the time all the cleaning up and laughing at the two failed marriage attempts ended, so had the day. There was no way I wanted to start off my Public Relations Relationship with Mr. Steve Laferte on a Saturday night. That would give him the wrong impression.

Besides I was too tired to speak to anyone. Finding a man exhausted my energy and drive. You think frogs made themselves known so a girl might select her prince. But tactually, the frogs seemed much like Princes. Both wanted to get their hands all over you and not let go. Both knew only one way to go—onward, forward, to the bedroom! Both claimed they met you by the accident of their having just landed in that particular spot. And both frogs and princes wanted their kiss before they said their goodbyes.

* * * *

I went home and pet my cat, Do the Right Thing, an all white tabby cat. He lived indoors mostly, until he got the third call of nature and whined a lot. I let him go out and roam around. I tried my best not to think of what he did, without marrying any of the female cats.

I curled up on my sofa and waited for a good romantic movie to come-on. None came on so I read a romantic novel. That didn’t last long and I read a fantasy short story. That didn’t last long and so I listened to some songs, but they were all about love and I wasn’t in the mood for love.

That only left me with my wedding planner and the next gig. Making money is a girl’s fastest way to get over a break up. Of course, I didn’t have a breakup, unless you count the failed attempt of Mr. Bond and Instant Alpha Lenny. Yeah, I guess I counted them as breakups—it was a Saturday night after all.

When you haven’t had a man that you remember try in two years, that’s sad. Downright sad all the men who might have tried to date me and without me knowing it!

Well, that’s their fault. I’m a modern woman. My schedule’s busy and I need to get things done. I hope this PR Steve is attractive. That is bound to make this whole year much more fun, for me anyway.

He’ll probably find the job of keeping me unmarried a bore. How much easier to just find a rich husband for a girl? Send all your lonely guy friends to check out the hot single chick, Megan Bedrosian.

Gee this is almost like being a hooker or an escort girl. Maybe Steve will turn out to be my reverse pimp! Find the right men for me and then send them far, far away. Every love delayed leaves the choices further open.

How much is this going to cost? I’ll pay of course; nothing like winning a bet against the Triad. Every dime going to prove I am more than a body and baby-birth machine. I rock as a heart, mind, and soul person.

Chapter Two

Monday morning, I waltzed into Limber and Love Public Relations firm and stopped at the secretary’s desk.

Hi I’m Megan Bedrosian. I called earlier.”

“Yes. Hello. I’m Amy Steel. I totally sympathize with you Ms. Bedrosian. No woman should have to endure stalkers.”

“I am not exactly being stalked. I responded to categories you mentioned.”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Amy hit the computer keyboard and a paper started printing out. “I volunteer for the Joinrite Women’s Center Shelter. I’ve seen it all. Stalkers, Jealous husbands. Men who want to force girls to marry them. Men who abandon their wives. It’s the infantile-boy culture driving it all.”

“Infantile-boy culture?”

“Sure all men want to do is throw their bodies around against one another like they never graduated from high school”

“Infantile-boy culture.” I considered this. Why should men want to grow up their being paid mega bucks to act like boys? “Amy, aren’t you a little young to be having your marriage dreams dashed to the curb?”

“I like what I do every Saturday afternoon. I wouldn’t spend them any other way.” She reached under her desk and pulled out a robotic red and black and green toy helicopter. “I need to fix the motor, but I go to the park with the other robotic and drone enthusiasts on Mondays and fly my helicopter. On Sundays, I go bird watching. It’s mostly old farts there though.”

I stifled a laugh and almost lost my footing. “That—that is very unusual, Amy.”

“Thank you. I’m a strange sort of girl. I figure I’d find a nice outgoing boy sooner or later—on Mondays at the robotic park.” She nodded in a paternal way. “Better to be with someone with whom you enjoy an outside interest.”

I nodded back and flashed my brightest smile. “Better to date a friend than an enemy.”

She started quickly typing at her computer again. “I’d need a true boyfriend for that.” Not just someone who wanted to get into my pants.”

“Uhm. I—” I pointed to the sign over Amy Steel’s head. “Did anyone ever tell you your business name ‘Limber & Love’ sounds naughty?”

Amy Steel swiveled her chair around at the gold engraved sign in shock. She wore a black above the knee skirt, white blouse and black jacket and sensible low-heel pumps. She swiveled back to face me. “No. For 150 years no one’s ever questioned our business name. Maybe they are too polite to mention it.”

“Today, everyone has a dirty mind, kiddo.” I nodded standing there waiting for Steve Laferte.

“Makes sense, infantile-boy culture and dirty minds.”

Several men came out and walked past me and went straight out the door.

“Is it me, or do I have B.O.?”

“We’re a busy, busy PR firm. Steve is on his way out now.”

“Thank goodness because I thought maybe I didn’t need his services. None of these attractive men paid any attention to me.”

“Oh, as for men. Limber and Love is full of good looking hunky guys.” Amy Steel giggled. “But you didn’t hear me say that. The real reason is Andy told everyone you had a stalker and were not seeking to get married.”

“No. Not for this year. It’s complicated,” I said pondering. Boy, that sounded stupid. Was this the right move? Would Steve Laferte be too attractive? Do I need to go with a more ugly boys PR firm? Just when I nearly concluded I would find it safer on my own, Steve Laferte came out.

“Hi, I’m Steve Laferte. I’ll be your Public Relations Specialist for this year. Step this way into my office.” He turned and started walking down the hall. He turned back over his shoulder, “Or in theater terms, I’ll be your leading man, minstrel, scene-stealer and prompter guiding your every step of the way in this artistic endeavor.”

I realized Steve paid no attention to my sunny smile or my bright, happy eyes. He didn’t even wonder what I might be glowing and ecstatically enthused about. How long could I endure the cold shoulder from attractive hot-blooded men?

“It took so long because I needed permission from our emcee Andy?”

“Andy is your Boss?”

“My boss and others’. He is over all the Public Relation Specialist in Joinrite City. His granddad started this business. He decides if a case is worth taking on; or if it’s a been-there-done-that job, we can let go to a lesser known firm in our donation rolodex.”

“Donation rolodex, I love this place already.” They gave away business. Charity meant a heart lurked about somewhere, no matter how deeply buried under the raw need to scarf down as much money as possible.

“Mom-and-Pop agencies. Puffery exaggerated ads. Little jobs like birthday parties for the rich children, etc. We’re more upscale. Also if the ad campaign is more risky, image wise we may outsource the campaign to one of our rolodex friends.”

“I’m certainly not rich.” I wonder how my campaign rated on the edge of risky or fairly traditional.

“And keeping you from being married for a year is a creative and challenging assignment. I’m going to love being your Public Relations Specialist;” Steve concluded his maze tour of hallways and closed door offices. He waved his hand in front of me allowing me to enter his office first.

I noticed his Clio award for television right over his large black office desk. Covering the desk was his android phone, a small statue of a couple embracing. A gold wire framed rolodex’s, papers and two pens and a sketch pad. That was comforting.

“Please, have a seat.”

I sat down and noticed a big landscape picture on the right wall. “That’s beautiful,” I remarked.”

He pushed some papers in front of me. “I’ll need you to sign a press release, so I can use your photo for a Triptych (three side displays), throwaway hand bills, A-boards, accordion, bus cards, brochures, billboards, a marquee in the theater,” he paused and lay one hand calmly on top of the other. “Preferably at a romantic comedy show, showing two people who are hopelessly not suited to one another.”

Steve chuckled quietly. He started sketching on the sketch pad and in minutes as I pushed the press prelease papers back to him, he raised the once-blank white pad. On it a smiling funny caricature of my face. The likeness very true and somewhat funny. I laughed. “You’re an artist too.”

He put the pad down and drew more. Seconds later he dazzled my drawn image encircled in puzzling symbols like question marks of different sizes, pitchforks, box opening with all kinds of word rushing out like nag, several hundred cats, no sex! Reads books, never goes out.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Steve. That’s crazy.”

“We—will spare no creative expenses on this campaign. Creativity being the key word here.”

“That’s good.” I signed my name under the funny, cartoonish portrait. “One of my best friends who pulled me into this mess works for Judoon, Smith and Hanson.”

“They’re almost as big as we are,” Steve said sitting back in his big black leather chair. He put his hands on top of one another again.

“Don’t worry. Cynthia Tinderholdt just got married. I’m sure her husband Vic doesn’t want to spend a lot of money on finding her best girlfriend a husband.”

“Cynthia...Cynthia. Can’t say. I don’t remember a Cynthia Tinderholdt.”

“Cynthia Bently was her maiden name.”

“Aha!
That
Cynthia Bently. She was very clever in a radio ad. I believe radio is her specialty area.”

“She—never mentioned it.”

“Do you mention all the things you’re good at in catering?”

“Gosh. No one has time to listen.”

Steve shrugged his shoulders. He clapped his hands once suddenly. “Shall we get started? There is a little thing of payment.”

“Up front. Everything for the year. Just let me know how the fund is shrinking. It’s got to last an entire year. That was my early vacation savings. But now...”

“I must ask this. Why didn’t you just say no?”

“You can’t just say no to marriage.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a woman thing. Every girl, mom, aunt, niece, girlfriend, wants to know when a girl’s going to get married. I believe—” I paused to sound more intellectual about it. “Each girl wants to assure the other girls are doing their part to bring in the babies of this world. No girl wants to have fourteen children—that so passé.”

“Thank goodness. Back to the painting, occasionally when I get the chance I dabble in landscape paintings. That particular one happens do have been done by a Flemish painter who lived in the 16th century. 1525-1569. Pieter Brueghel the Elder: Flemish.”

I found the picture oddly familiar. “They died young in those days,” I added. “But such rich colors and brush strokes. I’d love to see more of his works.”

“They married young as well. Sometimes women got married at the age of fourteen.”

“Fourteen. That’s the age of a child. When did the girls experience life, see the world, and grow up?”

“I’ve traveled in several places developed and underdeveloped. You be surprise how little they have to experience before death comes.”

“I guess our times are like a dream. Life expectancy is what—eighty-five?”

“Ninety-five in some cases.” Steve turned in his chair and pulled out a chart of the ages when girls married all over the world. “You see there really is no time to waste. Most girls want to marry between sixteen and twenty-seven.”

I thought about my own age of twenty-seven. “Wait. I’m twenty-seven. That’s a double standard. What about men’s marriage age?”

“Men want to wait until at least thirty-five?” Steve put away the map into his drawer.

“You just happen to have a map of women’s marriageable age, but no map of the men’s marriage age?” I shook my head no. My smile widens. “Come on let me see the marriage chart for men?” I coaxed.

“I don’t think there is one made yet.” Steve let a rare emotional slip crawl onto his lips. “I simply wanted to test your resolve. Many women say they don’t want to get married then within a year, they’re running off on a European wedding honeymoon.”

I adjusted myself in my comfortable leather chair in front of his black desk. “I assure you Mr. Laferte, I don’t want to be married. I—I—too many plans in my itinerary to be married this year. I want to save as much money as possible to avoid being an old bag woman.”

“Occasionally, I’m surprised by a woman’s answers. I like that. You’re concerned about becoming a leading lady bag woman. You’ve got talent. A college degree. You demonstrate drive to push forward and accomplish something special in life. You don’t strike me as an understudy for a bag woman part.”

I got up and walked around Steve’s office noticing all the bookcases and stacks of magazines neatly on the shelves.

“Some of the ideas for the No Wedding Campaign are: Posters on Walls, Posters on Buses, Ballad of Megan by country Singer singing ‘Megan doesn’t want to be married.’ Go on the local Brent Parks Talk Show.”

“I love to watch the Brent Parks Talk Show. Sometimes I watch it while I’m baking my wedding cakes. That sounds great Mr. PR Man.”

“You can call me Steve.”

“I fell in love before with a Steve.”

“I’m different.”

“Steve Jobs was different. I don’t think you measure up.”

“I’m not trying to date you.”

“Good, because I thought we were clear your goal is to make sure I don’t get married before next year.”

“On my word, I guarantee you that you will not get married this year or next year. You will win the Wedding Bet. Limber & Love wants your business. I enjoy making a lot of money, especially on a creative campaign like this. So you can call me Arnold then.”