Trophy Husband (10 page)

Baby Doe’s is where you took your prom date
in 1977. It hasn’t changed a lick since then. It’s the same
dimly-lit restaurant, with the same red pleather, same puckered
booths, same orange chandeliers, and probably serving the same
steak and baked potatoes and garden salad.

Steely Dan Duran loves this place. Had I
known he was taking me here, I would have found a gentle way to nix
it. I would have perhaps delicately suggested something more
interesting, like sushi, Japanese, Thai. Heck, a pizza joint or
even a taqueria somewhere on Fillmore would be better. But Steely
Dan Duran wanted to surprise me. So he picked me up, wearing dark
brown slacks, a striped shirt, and a tie of all things, and kept
the location a secret as we drove down the 101 in his sky-blue
Buick. When we arrived, he came around and opened my car door – I
will concede he gets points for that – and said “Ta Da!”

“Your baked potato, ma’am.” The waiter lays
the side dish on the table for me, complete with a sprig of parsley
and a pat of butter. Then he presents a baked potato to Steely Dan
and heads back to the kitchen to retrieve my date’s steak and my
chicken.

I gesture to the spud, my right index finger
adorned with a flashy pink stylized ring in the shape of flower
petals that complements my maroon lightweight sweater, one of those
wrap-around numbers with a super slim tie around the waist and a
low-cut neck. I’m wearing a white lacy cotton camisole underneath
it and black capri jeans with ballet flats. I lean in and say
playfully, “Maybe we could get bacon bits for the potato too.”

Steely Dan stops his fork in mid-air. “Would
you like me to ask for some?” He’s so earnest, so thoughtful, but
there goes another joke, falling to the floor with a dull thud. “I
was just kidding. I don’t like bacon bits.”

He looks at me quizzically as if I have just
told him I have three ears and one of them is on my forehead. “You
don’t? Why not?”

Um, because they’re gross?

“Just not my thing,” I say lightly. Then I
happily spear a hearty glob of potato innards and smile broadly to
show I am enjoying every second of our evening. Just as I am about
to taste the spud, he reaches for my wrist and stops me.

“We have to say grace first,” he says.

“Oh.” I place my potato-filled fork
down.

He lays his hands out on the table,
gesturing for mine.

“Maybe I could say it,” I say, sort of
teasing him. Because I wouldn’t know the first thing about saying
grace. I’m all for religion, but have never been into it
personally. My parents were completely non-religious. He shakes his
head. “The man should lead.”

“Excuse me?”

“The man should lead. That’s why I was the
one to make sure to ask you out. Because the man should be in
charge. Guide all the decisions. For the woman. For the
family.”

“About everything? Like dinner? Like work?
Like where to live?”

He nods. “All of that. And also, what a
woman should wear. For instance, I would never let my wife leave
the house until I had approved her outfit.”

I crack up into peals of laughter. “You are
a funny guy! That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

His face is stony. “I wasn’t joking.”

Oh. That’s not going to fly. I think I’m
about to officially walk out on a date for the first time. Yep. I
definitely am.

“Goodbye Steely Dan Duran. This girl dresses
herself.”

* * *

“So maybe I should call this off,” I tell
Hayden as I flop down on her couch after the cab drops me off, and
she lets me into her house.

“Because of one bad date?”

“Two bad dates. Dybdahl was a total
bust.”

“Oh right. Good point,” she says as she
settles in next to me.

“And to top it off, Todd now wants custody
of the dog.”

“You’re not going to let him, are you?”

“Of course not. But do I have a choice?”

“Well, I’m a patent attorney, not a pet
attorney, but I’ll look into it for you,” she says. “Because that
is a cause I can totally get behind. Project Dog Custody.”

I pull myself into a sitting position on her
couch. “And I thought you weren’t fond of pets,” I tease.

“Not the ones that pee on my furniture. But
the good ones, like Ms. Pac-Man? Yeah, I’ll help you win this
battle, that’s for sure.”

I glance at the couch and the cushion I’ve
been sitting on. “That’s not your way of telling me Chaucer peed
right here?”

“No,” she says with a laugh.

“So, um, Hayden. Do you think I should just
throw in the towel on the Trophy Husband thing?”

She gives me a rueful smile. “McKenna, I
think you should do what makes you happy. Would it make you happy
to throw in the towel?”

I shrug. I don’t have an answer. I don’t
know what makes me happy except for the dog. “I think I’m going to
go spend the rest of my night with my dog.”

I head home and Ms. Pac-Man is so excited to
see me that I give her a kiss on her wet snout. She licks my cheek,
a big, sloppy dog kiss, and I love it. “There is no way I will let
anyone take you away from me,” I tell her, and I know she
understands. I know she wants to be with me. She loves me
unconditionally, and I love her the same.

I pat the side of my leg, her cue to trot
along by my side as we head into my bedroom and over to the closet.
“Let’s look at clothes for tomorrow’s shoot, shall we?” I say to my
favorite creature.

She sits down and watches me as I survey my
clothes, her eyes on me, her tail still wagging. I can’t resist. I
bend down to pet her once more. The dog is kind of my soulmate, and
maybe I will keep fighting the good fight. For her. I won’t let
Todd win. Not when he’s throwing punches so far below the belt.

“So that makes me O-for-2 in the old Trophy
Husband date department, so you know what I did after being told I
should have my clothing approved? Call me crazy. Call me wild.” I
lean into the camera and stage whisper. “I went online and bought
myself some awesomely hot tops. Like this one!”

Then I let Andy pan over my
shirt – a peach colored tee with ironed-on female superheroes like
Wonder Woman and Bat Girl. It says
Ladies
Night
on it. Then I share the shopping info
with viewers. “Oh, and one last thing. I am totally striking out in
the date department. I’m basically abysmal at dating. A total
dating dork. So I might have to call this whole thing off, my
fellow fashion hounds. Unless you can send some pretty young things
my way, this girl is going to have to be over and out.”

I place my palms together in a plaintive
sort of plea, then we stop rolling, and I exhale. Being the Fashion
Hound requires my utmost focus on appearing upbeat, confident,
sassy and totally kickass tough. I am take-no-prisoners on camera.
But off-camera, I can be more of myself.

Andy and I begin our usual wrap-up routine.
“How was it?”

He gives a cursory thumbs up, and walks out
to his car, parked in front of my house. I follow him. He hasn’t
gotten over his little snit fit from last week, evidently.

“Andy, can we get this sorted out please? I
hate fighting with you. Can we go have a cup of coffee or
something? Or come inside and have a Diet Coke?”

He doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t start the
car either. Instead, he rests his hands on the steering wheel and
stares off down the road, not looking at me. I seize the window of
opportunity, the temporary break in the clouds. “You know, a Diet
Coke? Were both junkies. It’ll be fine.”

He sighs heavily, then looks at me. “Maybe
you shouldn’t spend all your life trying to make a point. Anyway, I
have to go.”

But if I don’t make a point, then where
would I be? Back in the bathroom of the diner I can’t go to
anymore? Huddled in a stall, too scared, too embarrassed, too damn
wrecked to leave?

I head inside and pull my
phone from my back pocket. The message rush won’t start for an
hour, but the habit is hard to break. I walk upstairs, thumb
tapping in my password. I click on the envelope icon and once I do,
I simply stop walking, stop moving, stop doing anything. I rub my
eyes, sure I am seeing things. My inbox is bursting with 307 new
messages. I wonder if I have an email virus, something that sends
spam with abandon to my email address. But as I scroll down and
scan the messages, most of them have similar headings: Re:
Let the Wookie Win, Saw You on Wookie Win, From
Let the Wookie Win.

Then I notice a few other
subject lines:
TH project, regarding
trophy husband, I’m a candidate.
“I click
on an envelope icon and read a random note. “Hey there. Def
interested in your quest. You need better guys! I am your man.
Would love to see you anytime.”

I open the next one: “I could be your arm
candy anytime.”

Then the next: “I have been waiting my whole
life to be kept.”

Finally, I reach the top message in the queue. It
reads: “Blame the Cat” in the subject line. I open it.

Hey there, McKenna. Has your neighbor’s cat caused
any more trouble? If he has, you know where to find me. Also, I
checked out your blog and I love your current thread, so I talked
it up in my own show, Let the Wookie Win. You might get a few
emails. Watch today’s episode and you’ll see why…

I let out a happy squeal, even though I have
no idea what the episode is about. Then I look around to make sure
my neighbors didn’t see or hear me. I return to the message, and
I’m sure there’s a smile plastered on my face simply from seeing
his name.

I hit play and watch the
episode as he demos a car racing game, then shares some viewer tips
from Call of Duty, analyzing each one. Chris finishes the moves and
then says to the camera, “All right, I’ve heard you clamoring for
another segment of
Games People
Play
. For those of you new to the show,
this is where we step away from the console, from the computer, and
we talk about, well, you can figure it out from the title. This
one, guys, you’re going to love. There’s a hot chick out there in
the video blogosphere who’s looking for a man to keep. I know a lot
of you are twenty-three or under and if you are, she wants to hear
from you.”

He rolls into a clip
from
The Fashion Hound
from a week or two ago when I first introduced the quest. Then
the video cuts back to Chris and he says, “Dudes, don’t sit there
and watch me any longer. Go pimp yourself to the cause, go get into
the Trophy Husband sweepstakes. There’s a babe out there willing to
put you up and all you have to do is look good. Just think, you can
probably play games all day long. So go play this game and tune in
tomorrow for the next episode of
Let the
Wookie Win
, the one gaming rule you should
always follow. Later.”

I don’t move. I am frozen
at my desk.
Hot chick.
He called me a hot chick. He called me a babe. There is hope
for me after all. I write back:
A few
emails, Chris? More like 300! I should take you out to lunch to say
thanks.

I hit send as the nerves of asking a guy out
swoop down on me. It’s just a business-y lunch, I tell myself. I
totally didn’t just ask him out on a date. I merely proposed a
thank you meal with a fellow video fiend. He may not even write
back today.

But Chris does not make a woman wait. Thirty
seconds later a reply arrives.

I never turn down a free meal. Want to have
lunch at Fritz’ Gourmet Fries tomorrow?

More than anything in the world right
now.

Hayden adjusts her glasses, a sign she’s
about to go into lawyer mode. “Now, bear in mind that my area of
specialty is in patent law, not pet custody.”

“First the disclaimer,” I say. I’m hanging
out at her house that night, stretched out on her couch with my
laptop, her doing the same. Greg’s at a business dinner, and Lena
just went to bed.

“But I looked into Todd’s claim, and even
though it’s ridiculous you can’t just ignore it. If you do, that’s
when problems start to occur.”

“Are you saying he can just come and take
the dog?”

“No. I’m not saying that. And to be honest,
possession is nine-tenths of the law, so you have that in your
favor. But what you need to remember is San Francisco is a city
that enacted an ordinance elevating pets above property in family
law matters. Pet owners are now legally considered guardians rather
than pet owners, so you have to take this seriously.”

I roll my eyes. “Seriously?”

“It is a left-wing paradise, isn’t it? So
you need to start rounding up documents. To show you take care of
the dog. Vet bills, Vet records.”

“What about her health insurance? I pay for
that too.”

“I still can’t believe you have pet
insurance. But yes, gather all those documents. Along with pet food
receipts, receipts for toys you bought for her.”

Something about her list energizes me. It’s
fuel for my never-let-Todd-win mission. “I brush her teeth every
day. I buy the dog toothpaste online, so I have all the records of
the times I buy her toothpaste.”

Hayden snaps her fingers and points at me.
“I like. Yes. That. Do that. Anything. Amass it all. Because if it
gets to a court, or a judge, or even a pet mediator, you want to
show that you are this dog’s sole owner.”

I tilt my head and give her
a chiding look. “Hayden. You mean
guardian
, don’t you?”

She smiles. “Yes,
counselor. I mean
guardian
.”

“They really have pet mediators?”

“This is San Francisco. How many domestic
partnerships and common law marriages do you think involve
pets?”