Pencil Him In

“You need two dates?” he asked.

“No!” she said. “Just one. It’s a picnic and birthday party combined.”

“For a doctor?”

“No, I’m trying to stay away from the doctor.”

“Oh!” Understanding dawned on his face. “You need a decoy date.”

That sounded a bit cold, but when a spade was a spade… “Yes, I need a decoy. I came by here to get Gary to go with me but…”

“He’s moved.” He nodded his head and Anna reminded herself that he had been flirting with her. She wasn’t that out of practice. She wasn’t that blind. Sam had shown definite interest and she was just doing what hundreds of women did everyday. She was asking a handsome man on a date. Well, a decoy date, but he seemed to understand.

“It’s on Monday. Noon,” she said into the very uncomfortable silence. “Memorial Day.”

“Good day for a picnic.” He was nodding again and the suspense was becoming almost too much. She was about to tell him to stick his six-pack and his lovely hairless chest right up his…

“I’ll think about it, Anna,” he said with a smile.

I’ll think about it? He might as well say I’d rather date Don Rickles.

“Okay,” she answered, feeling like an idiot.

She turned.

“Maybe you should leave me your number?” he said.

Right. Number. Duh. She turned around and told him her number before he could go back in and get a piece of paper or a pencil. Then she leaped down from the landing and walked across the grass, feeling the whole time the weight of his eyes on her back. What the hell was that? she wondered. I’ll think about it? The man had stroked her hand with his thumb. Men don’t just do that, do they? Maybe they do. Maybe I am a complete loser.

She almost went back and told him not to do her any favors, but in the end decided that there really was only so much embarrassment a girl could take in one day and she had hit her limit.

The last part of the day stretched ahead of her in one long yawn. A whole lot of absolutely nothing. How was she ever going to survive this sabbatical? Perhaps if she made an effort to make an ass of herself in front of a handsome guy every day, the time would just fly by.

Anna shook her head and shoved open the door to her apartment.

Maybe daytime TV improved the later it got in the day. She shrugged. It’s not like she had anything better to do.

SAM DRYNAN watched Anna leave and couldn’t quite decide what to do. He couldn’t actually figure out who she was and why he even wanted to watch her walk across the manicured lawn that separated her unit from his.

She was partly a nightmare, that was certain. A bossy nightmare. But at the same time there had been a few seconds while watching her dance around the laundry room that he had been charmed. And then she had looked at him with those impossible blue eyes and wide genuine smile and he had thought, Am I really this lucky? Do I get to walk into a laundry room and meet this girl?

Then, of course, she’d opened her mouth and ruined the image.

She was gorgeous. Tall and thin with black hair that had been tied back in a sort of serious-looking bun. Mostly it was her eyes, so big and so blue, blinking up at him that had him wondering what he was doing. A woman with eyes that big and that blue could only be trouble.

He had had the same kick-in-the-gut feeling tonight when he opened the door and saw her there with the same smile. Of course, immediately after she asked him out as a decoy. Did she think he was nuts? Well, he was a little, clearly, because he was thinking about going with her.

Sam laughed and shook his head. He closed his front door and went back into his apartment. He walked to his kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water and leaned against the counter to drink it. She was something.

One minute sharp and bitchy, the next sort of soft and sad and awkward. Watching her ask him out on a date was like watching a train derail. Gorgeous women like Anna usually weren’t so uncomfortable. Which was the real Anna? Sam wanted to put his money on the soft, sad and awkward girl with the genuine smile and big blue eyes.

“Anna,” he said out loud and then shut his mouth. He drained the bottle of water and went back into his spare bedroom where his weights were so he could finish his workout.

A year ago he used the weights to keep his body in shape so he could perform his job and stay on his toes. Now he used the weights as physical therapy so he could regain mobility and just a little bit of the strength he had lost.

It was the only thing he was ever going to get back.

AT 3:00 A.M., Sam was staring up at his ceiling.

Anna. What a piece of work she was. A real piece of work. Sam was fully aware of what he was doing. This obsessing was something he had been battling since the accident. In the deadening never-ending hours of free time, Sam would become fixated on something. Like woodworking. Like long-distance running. Like the stewardess on his flight to Los Angeles last month. Like how, if he had been just a little bit quicker in that hallway, if he had turned right instead of left when the wall came down on him, he wouldn’t be where he was now. Anna had joined the list of obsessions.