For those of you who have observed that Chapters 3 and 5 seemed a bit truncated, please understand that they were originally sort of gun barrel sequences for Chapters 4 and this one. I felt that leaving them that way made for over-long entries...
And while I have not iterated it with this series, please remember that I do not presume to write deathless prose, not realistic fiction. I just aim to manage plausibly ridiculous.
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Sylvan Courtyard -- Six: Career Assistance
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Patty Bohannan and I were having lunch, doing our usual thing of having her proof my writing while I checked her math. She really was a natural beauty, I found myself musing almost regretfully. If it were not for mutually incompatible life plans... Right now, while I was still here and still didn't have my doctorate, I was decidedly not relationship material. Relationship material is what Patty wanted. And what she deserved.
An idea formed fully in my head in an instant. Maybe a terrible one, but I doubted it. I was pretty sure it was genius.
"Patty," I said suddenly before I could chicken out, "There is a pool party at my apartment complex on Saturday. Wanna come?"
She looked at me. "Another date, Ken?" she asked dubiously. "I thought we decided we weren't going to work. Hell, you were the one who said it first..."
"I am not asking you out, Patty," I said firmly. "I am offering the opportunity to come hang out Saturday by my apartment's pool. There will be beer and likely other beverages. As an added incentive, I have a lot of good-looking male neighbors who will be standing around shirtless." She smirked. "And to be honest, there is one such guy in particular that I think you might like to meet." I paused. "My landlord."
"You want to set me up with your super?"
"He is not what you are thinking," I said tartly. "He is my age, in great shape, and owns the place. He is also quite alone in life, since he spends almost all his time with his tenants, and he won't touch any of them. He deserves the chance to meet someone great like you." I did not add that Jesse was highly educated, a former doctoral student himself, wildly responsible, and had a ruggedly good-looking face. I didn't want Patty to think I was over-selling him.
Damn, Jesse really was a catch, wasn't he?
*
Saturday, I came out to meet Patty in the parking lot and let her in through the entrance. She climbed out of her Chevy and waved.
Patty had been pretty eager for an afternoon poolside, but less impressed at the idea of being set up with a stranger. Nevertheless, I got the idea that she had decided to come loaded for bear anyway. What gave me that idea? The bright yellow bikini she wore under a sheer purple coverup. She wasn't necessarily going to hunt the bear, but I was encouraged that she had come prepared for said hunt... should the bear appear tasty...
The vague outlines of the bikini once more made me regret that this woman had not been down for some casual sex...
I buzzed us into the courtyard, where the party had been working for almost half an hour already. As we entered, both Patty and I got a few looks. Dates are allowed at pool parties but are rarer than you would think. Me bringing one was unheard of. I got a few curious gazes from various women. Patty got more than a few curious gazes from some guys. As we moved into the courtyard, I introduced Patty as a friend to several people.
I will admit, the guys I introduced her to were all handsome, but with personalities I knew she would not like. I can be a plotter.
But I steered us inexorably toward the beer keg, where Jesse was as usual hovering vigilantly.
"Jesse," I waved. "You ordered up some more good weather again today. How do you always pull it off?"
"Hey, Ken. It is better to be lucky than good."
"Listen, I brought a friend today. This is Patty Bohannon. She's a colleague at the university. Patty, this is Jesse. He owns the place and tries to keep us from burning it to the ground."
Jesse may have been circumstantially womanless in recent years, but he remembered how to be charming. And he seemed to want to be charming when confronted with an attractive woman like Patty, even if he did clearly think she was my date. "It is a hard job, but my sister and I manage it somehow," he smiled, shaking her hand. "Ken always manages to help out. I even trust him to keep matches in his apartment, unlike some of these gremlins."
Patty had been giving me the side-eye once she had realized that I was making a beeline for the guy I had wanted her to meet, but I could tell that she was grudgingly pleased with the bear that she was presented with at the end of our journey. We chatted for a while, and I contrived to take a back seat in the conversation as it progressed. When it became clear that both Patty and the bear were happy with that dynamic, I managed to extricate myself from the conversation at a moment when it would have been awkward for Patty to follow me.
I was pretty pleased with myself, honestly. And if they wanted to get together, they could damn well do it themselves from here on out.
"I think my brother is stealing your date," a voice said from behind me.
I turned to look at Josie, who had been who knows where, taking care of who knows what, when I had arrived.
I sighed inwardly. As was her usual practice, she was not in a bathing suit, despite it being a pool party. But the black shorts and close-fitting Avengers teeshirt she wore looked awfully good on her anyway.
I had come to realize that my gaydar had definitely been wrong about Josie. She was no lesbian. The flannel shirts and ubiquitous workbelt had thrown me off to start. And the lady electrician she had been bummed was not a babe the first day I met her? She had been bummed for Jesse, not herself.
But look, I was just not going to hit on Josie. I wouldn't do that to Jesse, I wouldn't do that with my landlady, and anyway... just... no. But nothing was going to stop me from looking. It's what I do.
"She is not my date," I said firmly, not for the first time that afternoon. "She is a friend at work. She lives in a rental house in town with four roommates and no pool, and I thought she could use a dip on a nice day like this."
"Uh-huh," she replied skeptically. "Still, I should probably thank you. My brother looks damn near smitten."
"Really?" I asked, openly enthusiastic and glad for some confirmation from a knowledgeable source.
"Really," Josie said firmly, a little enthusiastic herself. She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "Jesse just let Randall Weems, of all people, operate the keg on his own, while he was standing right there! All so her could keep his attention on your girl."
"Not my girl," I said again, automatically. "But yeah, he usually won't even let me pour for myself."
Disappointingly, Patty left before sundown. She had 'unbreakable commitments', she said.
Damn. But I could still have hope, I decided.
It was two days before I ran into Jesse again, and he pulled me aside. "Hey," he said with an elaborate casualness that was unconvincing. I perked up. "It was nice to meet your friend, um, Patty the other day. Do you think you'll ask her to come again?"
It would be fairly easy to ask Patty again, of course. But Jesse needed to work for this a little himself. So did Patty for that matter...
"Honestly, I hadn't thought about it, Jesse," I replied dismissively. Then I stopped. "That said, I do think she enjoyed herself. She only left because of that thing she had. I don't always see her at work," I lied easily, "but why don't you just call her yourself? I think she felt a little awkward not being a tenant at your party. If you are the one asking her, then she won't feel that way."
I turned to walk away, as if this had just been a passing conversation. I felt some gently evil satisfaction when Jesse found himself forced to hustle after me, while pretending he wasn't, to get me to give him her number.
