“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to go rinse this. I’ll be right back.” A quick rinse under hot water, and I had the sprayer working again in under two minutes. The end was in sight, and so by the time I returned to the tanning room, I was almost in a good mood. Until I pulled back the curtain on the tanning room and saw Ichabod standing there, facing me and completely naked. I squeaked, and then, I swear I couldn’t help it, my eyes shot to his down- below before zipping back up to his face. My cheeks burned. Never underestimate the skinny guys was the hard- earned lesson there.
I covered embarrassment with indignation. “What the put-your- pants-on is going on here?”
He might have blushed, but it was impossible to tell because before leaving I had sprayed his face the color of a tropical sunset. “You told me to treat this like a tanning booth. I tan naked at the tanning booth. Tan lines, you know. Everybody tans naked,” he added, as if I hadn’t gotten the memo. He looked ready to cry, but defiant, like he didn’t want to admit that this mortifying situation was all his fault.
He looked so, well, naked. I felt bad for him. I sucked in a deep breath. “You’re right that I did say to treat this like a tanning booth. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer. I really should have been.” I indicated his lower torso without looking directly at it. Okay, I might have snuck in one more glance. Goodness. “This is only top-up tanning. Nothing from the waist down. I’ll step out so you can get dressed.”
“But what about my back?” He whined. “Will you still tan my back?”
“As soon as your pants are back on.” I stepped out and inhaled deeply. I was certain I was going to have nightmares about anteaters tonight.
He called me back in once he was dressed, and we both made a Herculean effort to avoid eye contact. He made awkward conversational attempts, but accidental nudity is hard to recover from. I quickly spritzed his back and exited the booth to help Kennie herd the lovelorn singles to their grazing ground.
While I’d been spraying the two dozen odd clients, she’d been plying them with liquor. As a result, almost everyone in Stub’s back room was approximately the color of traffic cones, and blitzed. They were voluntarily sex- segregated, the women on one side of the room giggling and staring at the men, and the men on the other shoving their hands in their pockets and dearly wishing the guy next to them would morph into a TV. It was like being at a Martian dentists’ convention: a bunch of boring, drunk, orange creatures standing around uncomfortably.
Kennie had deliberately kept the male/female ratio as close to even as possible. She’d told me the plan for the night was to seat one man at each table, and then she would blow a whistle. Each woman would charge toward the table she wanted and then have five minutes to talk up the man sitting there. When the next whistle blew, the women would stand and move one table to their right. I calculated it should take less than an hour to get through this skin auction, I’d get the dirt on the suspect from Kennie, and I’d be home to wash my eyes with hydrogen peroxide before 10:00 pm.
Kennie explained the rules to the participants, and I helped her seat one man per table. Then we stepped out of the way.
The fast-action love tango was surprisingly painful to watch, hopeful singles striving to flirt, make small talk, and open their heart in the space of five minutes. It was like watching an excruciating, high-speed job interview play itself out over and over again. The worst was when one person at a table showed an immediate interest and the other person did not, which I observed was frequently the case with Ichabod Crane, my pee-peeper. It got so by the end of the night, I was feeling even sorrier for him than before. I overheard him trotting out the same jokes to woman after woman, and they weren’t buying it:
“Hey, I’m Darcy,” he’d say, “and I just want to know, if airports are so safe, why do they call them terminals?”
If the woman laughed politely, he’d follow that with, “and have you ever noticed that how long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you’re on?” That one was almost a guarantee that the woman would excuse herself to get a drink, but if she was kind enough to stay put, he’d roll out his ace in the hole. “There seems to be something wrong with my cell phone.” And he’d pop it out and flip it open. Yes, flip it open. “It doesn’t have your number in it.”
I finally couldn’t stand it any longer. I slipped in the seat across from him at the next whistle. He was by now so dejected from the process that he didn’t look up, just said in a morose voice, “Hey, I’m Darcy, and I just want to know, if airports are so-”
“Stop it.”
He glanced up. “What are you doing here? Are you a speed dater too?” He returned his gaze to his lap, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but you’re not really my type.”
“What?” I was insulted before I realized I didn’t care. “Never mind. You’re not my type either. But you might meet a nice woman if you stop being so pitiful.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said pitifully.
“Look, despite the fact that you depantsed yourself, you seem like a nice guy. Am I right?”
“My mother thinks so.”
“Jeez. See what I mean? You talk too much. You’re on automatic spiel, and you’re not even listening to the women across from you. Everyone likes to be listened to.”
He pulled out a well-worn book from his back pocket. “Not according to
I chucked the book across the room and saw two men scoop it up quick like seagulls on a hot dog. “There’s no prescription for love. You have to be yourself if you want to find someone who loves you.” Who did I think I was? Me dispensing dating advice was like Humpty Dumpty telling people how to sit.
“But no one likes me when I’m myself,” he said in a tiny voice.
“Try me. We have forty-five seconds left.”
“I’m feeling kind of insecure right now. Could I have a hug?”
“Try harder.”
He drew in a shaky breath. “Hi. My name is Darcy. I’m an online game developer. I make around $40,000 a year and hide most of it in a Crisco can under the sink because I’m afraid of banks. If I was an animal, I’d be a fish that no one has ever discovered. I’ve only kissed one female besides my mom, and we got our braces tangled and had to be brought to the E.R. to separate them. She never wanted to see me again, which was hard because we were in the same homeroom.”
I held up my hand. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Do you have anything positive to say at all?”
He dragged his eyes to meet mine with great effort. “I volunteer at the Humane Society, and I love it. It’s the only place I’m happy. I spend every free moment helping out.”
My light bulb went off, though it was dim. “Hold it right there.” I looked around for the woman with Toby tattooed on her back but couldn’t find her anywhere. As a last ditch effort, I searched the bathroom and came across her hiding in a corner, clutching a drink like it was a life preserver. “You okay?” I asked.
She had tear streaks on her carrot-colored face and wiped them away quickly. “I don’t think this is for me.”
“Care to give it one more chance?”
She shook her head. “I think I want to go home.”
“Please? It can’t get much worse, right?”
She smiled tiredly and slammed what was left of her drink. “If it’ll make you feel better. I suppose you get in trouble if we’re not all at the tables like we’re supposed to be.”
“Sure.” I led her over to Darcy. They might not find love, but I had a good feeling they’d be nice to each other. “Darcy, this is…?”
“Cindy,” she said, averting her eyes.
“And Cindy, this is Darcy.” I pushed her in the chair.
“Hi, Cindy. My name is Darcy.” He still looked demoralized. “Why, if airplanes are so safe, do they call them terminals?”
I launched evil eye daggers at him-had he not listened to one word I’d said?-but stopped when I heard a faint snort-hiccup and realized Cindy was laughing. Darcy, encouraged, shared his second and third joke and moved on to a fourth, and by the time I realized I wasn’t needed, Cindy was laughing so hard she was doubled over and Darcy was staring at her with a dazed, goofy grin.
The world is a strange place, and I’d had enough of it for the night. I tracked down Kennie, who’d pulled the beefiest guy out of the line-up and was trying to convince him, between whistle blasts, that he’d need to come by
