Wanted: Wife (3 page)

If the morning hadn’t already unhinged me, this Andy Devine threw the door right off the hinges. “You’re wrong,” I said, my hands clenching so tightly I nearly crushed the mic. “Even after what my fiancé did to me, I still believe the only
logical progression
is people meet, fall in love, get married.
That’s
the way it’s supposed to be. Because without love, Mr. Devine, your marriage will never be a real one.”

He sprung from the table toward me. “Oh believe me, Ms. Knott, with or without love, this marriage will be a real one. In
every
sense of the word.”

It wasn’t fair, it really wasn’t, that this strange man got to set parameters for what he believed a marriage should be, and then have a hundred women lining up ready to agree with him. And then there was me, who always played by the rules, who couldn’t even manage to keep one man happy.

Suddenly everything descended on me: the impatience of the crowd outside, the hot room, and then there was the scent of him, a rustic mix of pine and cedar, all wrapped up in a package so enthusiastically male I went a little weak in the joints. I took a step back, teetering against a chair.

Andy Devine’s hand shot out. “Steady,” he said, ready to assist me.

I straightened instantly. “I’m fine. It’s just these chairs, I didn’t see—”

“You’re a woman of strong passions, Ms. Knott, and I upset you.” His gaze skimmed over me. “Truly, I didn’t mean it. Please forgive me.”

“You didn’t upset me. You just kind of threw . . .” The words stuck in my throat because really, talking to him was starting to prove pointless. I wanted to shove him, curse him out for being so presumptuous, but there was something so damn chivalrous about him.
My God
, I thought,
how the hell did his eyes get so blue?
Their swirly, little vortexes made my head go a little . . . I backed away, clearing my throat.

“You’re a most unusual man, Mr. Devine,” I finally said.

When he smiled, his whole face seemed to glow. “I’ll take that on authority, Ms. Knott. You get paid to know.”

Devastatingly handsome wasn’t enough. He had to go ahead and be witty. “So you do see my point then?”

He shrugged. “Let’s just say I see it and leave it at that.”

It would be easy to spend the afternoon sparring with this disconcerting man. Why? The outward reasons were fairly obvious. As for the inner, my battered ego relished the attention, as much as I did the idea of digging further into his archaic ambitions. But Denny was making impatient little noises, hardly audible above the restlessness rising from the line outside. But I never did get an answer, did I?

“So what about the story, Mr. Devine? I promise I’ll be tasteful.”

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not. What do I have to do?”

I explained we’d like to ask him a few questions about himself before he started, then we’d record him as he did the interviews. Each woman would have to sign a release so we could use the resulting footage and their names. We would then ask him a few more questions afterwards, and that would be it.

“Sounds simple enough.” he said, turning to sit behind the table. “And as far as whatever else you need to know about me . . .” He slid over a photocopied set of papers. “This should answer your questions.”

As he readied himself for the interviews, I perused Mr. Devine’s so-called Fact Sheet. He was forty years old, in perfect health (a copy of the results of his recent physical was conveniently attached), no social diseases (bonus), six foot two, two hundred twenty pounds (yikes!), black hair, blue (definitive) eyes, left-handed (?). He was a college graduate (though he didn’t say where), had traveled extensively, and was a native of Iron Bog, though he hadn’t lived there in “quite some time.” He was the outright owner (no pesky mortgages or liens) of a large tract of land in a wooded area outside of town, which included two acres of highbush blueberries, peach and apple trees, mushrooms, a kitchen garden, holly bushes, chickens, and a few “various items of special cultivation,” whatever that meant. He also added he was “financially secure,” details of which would be further disclosed during “final negotiations.” He also had a house on that large tract of land which, he conceded, “needed some work.”

Needed some work
. Right. A falling down house out in the woods with chickens. I looked to The Catch in question as he straightened his vest. Six-pack abs or not, I had the feeling his dazzley-eyed wife-to-be was going to be in for one big eye-opener.

“All set?” I asked Denny.

He hoisted the camera to his shoulder. “Open the floodgates.”

I looked to Andy Devine. “Ready if you are.”

He smiled. “I always am.” He nodded to the firefighter at the door. The man opened the door, letting in the first batch of prospective brides.

I must admit the variety of the applicants who came through the door over the next three hours surprised me. Granted, there was a liberal sprinkling of gold diggers, but there were also quite a few professional women: two accountants, a national sales rep for a
Fortune
500 company, a bank executive, a nurse practitioner, a freelance journalist and even a veterinarian.

“Oh, mushrooms!” the vet said as she read the fact sheet. She was blonde and petite with a curvy figure. “That must be where the chickens come in.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

She looked at me as if obvious. “Everyone knows you need them to cultivate mushrooms.”

“
Chickens
cultivate mushrooms?”

“No,” she said dryly, “but their manure does. Industrious little things, aren’t they?” She poofed her hair, straightening her pencil skirt. “Just like me.”

“So you wouldn’t give up your practice, then,” I asked, noting it was about twenty miles away in tony Moorestown.

She looked at me as if I were daft. “In a snap, sweetie. I’ve had it with birthing overbred puppies.” She tossed Andy Devine a lascivious glance. “From now on I’ll be squeezing out my own. Ta!”

I quickly learned I’d better get used to my jaw dropping. Because it was more of the same with each woman I spoke.

From one of the accountants, a slim, designer-suited Latina: “From my calculations, we should be able to subdivide some of the land and sell it as farmettes. Plus blueberry demand is way up, and with last year’s disappointing yield in Maine and Wisconsin, the Jersey crop is worth a record amount. So after we invest in some more acreage, we can take . . .”

It seemed as if she and Mr. Devine shared the same pragmatic bent. “Sounds like you want to expand the business, make it more profitable.”

“The only thing I really want to expand is
this
,” she said, pointing to her flat belly. “But if talking profit-and-loss gets that big hunk of
machismo
off?” She leaned in, “
Chica
, I have nothing against spreading myself like Excel.”

From the bank executive, dark-skinned and drop-dead gorgeous: “Says here his house needs some work. Well, I’m not afraid to invest in capital improvements. And as far as him being financially secure?” She winked at me, sliding her hand down the trim hip of her tailored pantsuit. “So am I, and I’d love to merge our assets.”

Then there was the
Fortune
500 executive, a willowy brunette teetering atop Louboutins and jittering from too many sips of her venti Starbucks coffee. “This farm he’s talking about,” she said, her eyes darting from side-to-side, “It’s out in the boondocks, right? I mean I gotta know this.”

“So he’s saying,” I said. “Is it important?”

She pointed a Frenched fingertip at my heart, glancing over her shoulder. “Don’t quote me on this, and you’re a dead woman if you do, but if you hear about someone from some company getting arrested for misplacing ten million, give-or-take a mil, you didn’t hear it from—
shh!”
She whirled around. “What was that!”

I scanned the busy room. “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, don’t play dumb with me.” She bolted out the door.

Denny just looked at me and shrugged.

And then there was the nurse practitioner, full-figured, with piercing, blue eyes and an easy smile: “I’m nearly as good as a doctor, so think of the medical expenses we’ll save. Plus I was raised on a farm, so I’m no stranger to hard work. In fact, after being cooped up in a hospital all these years”—she tossed her auburn hair—“I think I’d love working out in the fresh air. I also know a bit of carpentry, having renovated my own Victorian, so I could help with the house. And I already have a large nest egg, so he really wouldn’t have to worry about supporting me. Plus I love children. I can’t wait to start a big family.”

She sounded perfect. A distinct air of reason surrounded her, off-setting the room’s palpable vibe of lust. So I had to ask: “You seem quite accomplished in your own right. So, what’s your reason for coming here?”

At once, she turned somber. “Above all, I’m a practical person. All I have to offer is how wonderful I look on paper. Because when you meet me . . .” She thumbed the waistband of her plus-sized skirt. “This is the only thing they see.” Then she brightened. “Which is why I like that he’s calling it a partnership, rather than a marriage. Tells me he’s willing to look below the surface.”

She was perfect, but I couldn’t get beyond how short she was selling herself. “Listen, he’d be lucky to have you.”

“Thanks.” She stood for her turn. “Let’s hope so.” And she left to sit before Andy Devine. Not a minute later, he was smiling wide.

A hidden jewel
, I thought. I just hoped he was smart enough to delve deeper. And then the next candidate, the freelance photojournalist, blew that hope all to hell.

I had never seen a more beautiful woman, and that’s the truth. She was olive-skinned and brilliantly green-eyed, her hair long and wavy and flowing in lush waves around her shoulders, definitively voluptuous in a simple tank top and khakis. Her gaze was sharp and intelligent, and when she told me about herself, her voice as clear as it was smokily seductive, her reason for being there was as logical as any I’d heard so far.

“I only came out of curiosity, not with any real intention, just having seen the flyer on the pole and thinking I could take a few shots. And probably just like you, I muscled past everyone to take a peek inside. Then I saw him.”

I thought of my own first impression. “And when you did . . .?”

Her eyes fluttered and she shivered. “I turned around and got in line.” She looked to Andy Devine as he shook the hand of the now-supplanted nurse practitioner as she left. “Oh man . . . you can’t get much better than that.”

When she went to him—when his jaw dropped at the sight of her, the same as mine had when I first caught sight of him—I knew he had met his match. In fact, he was so transfixed the insanity of it all took my breath away.

Because insanity was what it had to be.

I turned to Denny. “Did you see that?”

“Yeah,” he said, still shooting. “I believe we have a winner here.”

I tried to look away, but watching those two freakishly beautiful people was as compulsive as gawking at a car wreck. “This is so wrong. I just can’t understand how otherwise-sane women could prostitute themselves like this.”

“It’s as old as the hills, Jules. The classic impetus of love and money.”

“It can’t be that simple,” I said. The woman laughed heartily as Andy Devine’s animated hands moved about. “There has to be more to it. Especially with this one.”

“Well, she is a writer. Imagine her story now. If you want to be jealous over anything, there’s that.”

“Jealous? Of that walking Viagra ad?” I could feel the blood rising to my face. “I’m hardly a crone. How could you think I’d be jealous of
her
?”

He lowered the camera, glaring at me. “Calm down, princess, I’m not attacking your feminine pulchritude. I’m only referring to her inside scoop. Jesus.”

“I knew that.” But, of course, I hadn’t. Because this whole thing was beginning to feel a little too personal, and even more weird. I plopped to a chair, my head in my hands. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Not after this morning. Maybe it cuts a little too close to the bone.”

Denny squeezed my shoulder. “I don’t doubt it. But at least we’re almost done. Did you see that?”

“What,” I said wearily, not looking up.

“Andy Devine just signaled to the door guy. He’s not taking any more.”

“What?” I looked up to see the photojournalist making her exit, smiling and waving to me as she breezed past, an apparent triumph. I needed to wrap this up. The whole day had been a bad dream. Then my BlackBerry vibrated against my hip. I pulled it from my pocket. My heart leaped—
Richard
.

He was texting an apology—he had to be! It had been the stress of the wedding. We had fought before, and—as in all normal relationships (the antithesis of which had been percolating in this very room)—we’d live to fight again. Were we any different than any couple anywhere?
Of course not
, I told myself, smug in my normalcy. Suddenly I felt better and I got up, mic at the ready. If the day had been a bad dream, I was awakened now. And more than ready to
carpe diem
.

Denny caught my arm, chin thrust toward my phone. “Don’t tell me that was Richard.”

“And what if it was?” I said, shoving it into my pocket. “Would it matter?”

His grip got tighter. “Things happen for a reason. Don’t do it.”

“Do what?” I said blithely.

“The man’s a shit, Jules. Consider the morning a lucky break and keep running.”

“I’ve never run away from anyone or anything, Denny,” I said, shrugging him off. “You know that.”

“I also know maybe this time, you should.”

I ignored him and fell back into the swing, whipping out my mirror to reapply my lipstick. Suddenly, I felt revived. I tucked back a few tendrils falling from my combs and turned to Andy Devine, just rising from the table.

“Let’s wrap this thing up,” I said, switching on the wattage as I went to him.

The man seemed taller three hours later, seemed broader in the shoulders and leaner in the waist, his eyes now nearly azure, his face more determined. Odder still, in the time it took to travel the twelve-or-so feet to get to him, I became curiously tenuous, as if I were teetering on some unknown brink—no thanks to Denny, I’m sure. Suddenly my heart began to race, an excitement boiling inside me. “Well, Mr. Devine, that last one sure seemed like a winner. Was she the one?”