Rent A Husband (2 page)

“What the hell,” Darcy says, “I’m in.”

2

“Not the face,” Forrest Forbes says, curling into a ball, trying to cover his head. “Please, not the face.”

The first kick had been to his groin, which had felled him, leaving him lying amongst the garbage in the alley.

The second kick takes him in the side, beneath the ribs, and as air leaks from him Forrest waits for the third kick, which doesn’t come.

He peers through his fingers at the shaven-headed giant in the baggy pants, tattoos coiling down his arms.

Something is said in Spanish, and Forrest looks across at dapper Raymond Gomez, dressed in a polo shirt, chinos and slip-on moccasins.

The new face of LA bookmakers.

Raymond waves a hand at the giant who takes a step back, then he tugs at his chinos and squats down, careful not to dirty himself.

“Forrest,” he says, in a voice light years from the
barrio
.

“Raymond.”

“The money. You have been delinquent.”

Forrest drops his hands and smiles, and if it weren’t for the insalubrious surroundings of the downtown LA alleyway, he could be in a smoking room in an Upper East Side club, with his fine bones and his patrician accent.

“A cash flow issue. I’ll have it resolved by the end of the weekend.”

Forrest is trying to get up, but the bookmaker places a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay down, Forrest. So you won’t have to fall again.”

“You’re not done?”

“No, I think my message needs to be underscored.”

“Raymond, be a sport. We’ve known each other a very long while.”

The bookmaker pats his shoulder.

“Exactly, Forrest, which is why I’ll tell Edmundo to keep his size twelves out of your pretty face.” He stands. “You have until Monday.”

There’s a rattle of Spanish and Forrest covers up again as the giant steps in and delivers a series of kicks that leave him stunned, lying alone and miserable in this stinking alley, bemoaning fate and life.

No, not quite alone: he sees a rat peering at him from behind a trash can.

It seems to shake its head, as if recognizing a kindred spirit, before it darts away, its pink tail snaking after it.

The day gets no better when Forrest Forbes arrives back at his Hollywood walk-up, after a long and painful trek from downtown—no money for a bus, let alone a cab—and finds his few pitiful belongings dumped out in the corridor, the apartment padlocked.

Forrest sits down on the stairs and leans his throbbing head against the railing. He finds his hand under his shirt, toying with the ring that is looped through the chain he wears around his neck.

His mother’s ring.

The mother who died giving birth to him.

He knew her only from photographs and the glimpses of her beauty in his own face.

But her imagined love sustained him through years of arid relationships with aloof stepmothers.

The ring a,
cluster of diamonds and sapphires
, is worth a fortune and Forrest, disgusted at himself for even allowing this thought into his mind, can’t stop the awful realization that all that stands between him and the ER are these stones.

His cell phone buzzes.

Amazed it wasn’t damaged in the fracas he draws it from his pocket and thinks that things may be looking up when he sees caller ID.

“Eric,” he says, not quite masking a groan.   

“Forrest, why do you sound as if you’re in agony?”

“Just finished a grueling squash session, old man. What’s up?”

“How would you like a job?”

‘Well, I’d have to check with my agent.”

“Stop being silly, darling, this is me.”

“Okay, what are you offering? A walk-on part in
Startup
?”

“No, my friend, the leading man in Santa Sofia.”

“I haven’t seen that show.”

“It’s not a show, it’s a town. Where I live.”

“I’m not with you, old son.”

“I want to employ you to escort a very dear and very lovely friend of mine to a ball.”

“I’m not a damned gigolo, Eric.”

“No, what you are is broke and desperate. It’ll be for one night and it’ll pay well.”

“How well?”

Eric names a figure that would make a serious dent in Forrest’s gambling debt.

“Okay, I’m warming to the idea.”

“How lovely. Do you have a tuxedo?”

“It’s at the cleaners.”

‘You’re lying to me.”

“Eric, I was burglarized . . .”

“Spare me. Do you know Lightbodys on Beverly?”

“Yes.”

“I have an account there. Go over and get yourself wardrobed. The tux and a casual outfit to travel in. Stylishly preppy, you know the score. Then I want you at Union Station by six to get the train to Santa Sofia.”

“Eric, I’m a little financially embarrassed. I think train fare is beyond my means.”

“Darling, darling, darling, what has happened to the power elite? Okay, James at Lightbodys will make some cash available to you. Enough to get you to Santa Sofia. I’ll meet you at the station at seven-thirty.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Don’t let me down.”

“I won’t.”

As Forrest levers himself to his feet and walks away from the small pile of belongings he no longer wants, he whistles the song from his alma mater to stop himself weeping at the pain in his bruised abdomen.

He no longer feels the bruises to his ego.

3

The only time Poor Billy Bigelow isn’t clumsy is when he dances, an amazing fact that only a handful of the ancient female inhabitants of the Santa Sofia Senior Center know.

In the last few months of his life, Ben Bigelow (Big Ben, of course, to his cronies) had been too ill for homecare and had to go into assisted living at the Senior Centre where cancer had finally taken him.

 Billy had visited his father daily, and one evening had been press ganged by a bevy of old women to dance with them, and found he’d retained all the steps his mother had taught him, to the delight of the widows that made up the bulk of the population of the Center, their husbands keeling over young.

So once a week he danced with these old ladies who smelled of lavender and medication, knowing that he’d never be able to do this with a younger woman.

Like Darcy.

Twirling skinny Mrs. Keeler, with skin as blue as the rinse in her hair, the tubes of a portable oxygen tank in her nose (the cylinder in a bag hanging from her bony shoulder) the woman light as air in his arms as they sway to “Some Enchanted Evening” while the other old ladies look on smiling and applauding, he imagines he’s leading Darcy in the first dance of the Spring Ball to the applause of the well heeled citizens of Santa Sofia.

Pretending to be stacking books in the self-help section that abuts the coffee shop, he’d eavesdropped earlier when Darcy spoke to Eric Royce, and caught the first part of their conversation before a customer summoned him.

He’d heard Darcy bemoaning her lack of a date for the ball.

Unbelievable that a woman as desirable as Darcy should have to be escorted by her gay friend Eric.

So, Billy imagines that he’s invited her, that she’s accepted and they are dancing, light as feathers, under the glow of the chandeliers at the country club.

The song ends and Poor Billy comes back to reality, thanking Mrs. Keeler who gives him what he once heard described as an old fashioned look.

Billy goes out on the porch, taking in the ocean air and the sweetness of
the blooming bougainvillea.

“Who is she?”

He turns to see Mrs. Keeler shuffling out after him, her breath coming in little rasps.

“What do you mean?”

“That sure as hell wasn’t me you were twirling around back there.”

Poor Billy is pleased for the darkness that masks his blush. He shrugs and stares out into the night.

Mrs. Keeler says, “You’re a nice guy, Billy.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not meant to be a compliment.”

“Okay, sorry.”

“Hell, stop apologizing for being alive, Billy.”

“Sorry,” he says again, before he can stop himself and Mrs. Keeler laughs.

The laugh becomes a coughing spasm and he looks away.

When she’s recovered she says, “Look at me.” He does. “I was a hot number, you know, years back?”

“I can believe it.”

“I had more than my share of suitors, and one thing I learned: nice guys really do finish last.”

He has nothing to say to this.

“This girl you’re crazy about . . .”

“She’s not a girl.”

“Honey, next to me they’re all girls. You’ve got to show her you have gumption, okay? Nice is for puppy dogs.”

She coughs again, covering her mouth with a Kleenex.

Gasping she says, “Life is short, sonny. Over in the blink of an eye. Get off your butt.”

She shuffles inside leaving him with the moon and his dreams.

4

Madness.

This. Is. Madness.

Darcy Pringle, prowling the sprawling mausoleum of a house—always more to Porter’s taste than hers—feels so agitated that she cracks a bottle of wine for the first time in months, and has slugged half a glass before she even realizes it.

Slow down, Darcy.

Breathe.

She settles on a couch in the living room, staring blankly at
The Bachelor
on TV, and realizes that she has taken leave of hers senses.

That the sight of Porter and his fertile little floozy left her unhinged enough to be hypnotized by Eric Royce and his screenwriter fantasies.

She has an image of Eric as a snake charmer, dressed in pantaloons and a turban, blowing on a flute in some Kasbah or souk—is there a difference?

Porter would know.

God, how she misses him.

They were the golden couple at high school and married while Porter was still at college finishing his business degree.

They’d battled through a few tough years, and then Porter had started making serious money in property development, and the cash rolled in and with it came the big house and the cars and the trips to Europe.

Suddenly Darcy had a walk-in dressing room jammed with Prada and Manolo Blahnik.

But the room that she’d decorated as a nursery stayed as empty as Darcy’s womb.

Porter said it was fine, that he loved her, and when in vitro didn’t take, they spoke of adoption.

But Porter started spending more time in the apartment down in LA, needing to be close to his office.

Spent more time traveling, too, on business.

Taking along his assistant, the froth-haired Paige.

Darcy feels so miserable she is tempted to call her sister Susan, who lives in a small town up in Maine.

But when she looks at her watch she realizes that Susan and her stolid carpenter husband and their three angelic kids will be asleep.

Darcy, no matter how hard she’d tried, had always felt just a little smug when she compared her life to Susan’s.

But now, imagining that family sleeping in their cluttered little wooden house (built by her brother-in-law) with their menagerie of pets, she feels so alone and unloved and empty that it takes all her strength not to dissolve into a puddle of tears.

She has no other family to call.

Her mother died five years ago of an aneurism, dropped dead at the returns counter at Walmart, arguing with a customer representative.

She’d been
left enraged when her husband had walked out on the family when Darcy was ten, and had spent the rest of her life directing that rage at the world in random fits of temper.

Where her father is, and if he is still alive, Darcy neither knows nor cares.

But what Darcy does know is who she must call: Eric.

She must stop wallowing in self-pity and call him and put and end to this madness.

No matter how desperate she is, there is no way she is going to pay a man to escort her to the Ball.

Darcy picks up her cell phone from the side table and hits speed-dial.

The phone trills for a few seconds before Eric answers. “Darling.”

“Eric, we need to call this off.”

“Come on Darce, don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?”

“If they got any colder they’d be frostbitten.”

“Hah, hah.”

“I’m not doing this, Eric. It’s crazy. I should never have let you bully me into this.”

“Bully? Darling, I object!”

“Object away, but just stop this madness. Get hold of your Forrest Lawn—”

“Forbes, darling, Forest Lawn is the cemetery.”

“Whatever. Just get hold of him and tell him it’s off.”

‘Too late honeybuns.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s en route, clickety clacking your way on Amtrak as we speak.”

“Well, derail him.”

“I hope you don’t mean that literally? There are innocent lives at stake.”

“Stop trying to be witty, Eric, and hear me when I say this isn’t going to happen.”

There’s a moments’ pause before Eric says, “Darcy, I understand your apprehension.”

“Thank you.”

“But may I make a teeny-weeny suggestion?”

“No.”

“Why don’t I pick him up at the train station and bring him by? If you don’t like him we’ll send him packing. Think of it as an audition.”

“I won’t like him. This is worse than a blind date. I feel like you’re pimping for me.”

“Ouch!”

“Admit it, Eric, this is distasteful.”

“Oh, I don’t know, it all feels quite sophisticated to me. Almost French.”

“Call the man.”

“Darce, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble on your account.”

“I’m sorry, Eric, I know you have.”

“Please, just take a look at him.”

“No.”

“I may have called you many things, Darcy, but never rude, and turning this poor fellow away sight unseen, is very,
very
rude.”

Oh the bitch knows just where to hit.

Darcy sighs and says, “Okay, bring him here for a drink, then I’ll very sweetly explain that I wasn’t in my right mind, that it has nothing to do with him and pay him some kind of cancellation fee and send him packing.”