Her Leading Man. Maggie Dallen

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СКАЧАТЬ between Murray Hill and home, Cagney’s was an old-school pub that offered the sweet, sweet temptation of blissfully mind-numbing alcohol. “I'll be there soon.”

      Meg and her husband, Jake, had bought the bar several years before, and at the time it had been as run down as the old movie theater it neighbored. Caitlyn spotted Tamara in the ticket booth as she walked by the theater. Her friend was bundled up, her long blond hair tucked into an oversized hat, and her slim shoulders hunched over beneath a puffy winter coat. She looked freezing and miserable, but she gave Caitlyn a smile and a wave as she passed by. “How was the date?” Tamara mouthed through the glass.

      Caitlyn scrunched up her nose in disgust and gave her the thumbs down signal. Tamara’s face fell, but she didn’t look surprised. As a fellow single lady, she was adamantly opposed to blind dates or online dating…or dating at all, for that matter. She would most likely take Caitlyn’s failure and use it as yet one more reason why dating was not for her.

      And maybe she was on to something. Her friend seemed to be quite content with work and friends. Maybe that’s all she needed too. Inside Cagney’s, a fire roared in the giant fireplace and couples cuddled up against one another in the booths. Loneliness made her throat tighten. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t like Tamara—she wanted to find someone and she couldn’t deny it. And not just any someone, she wanted to find the one. A partner, a friend. Someone she could count on. Her parents had found it. They’d been lucky in that regard. Even if they hadn’t had a full lifetime with one another, the time they’d had together had been perfection. Or at least that was how Caitlyn remembered it. They died when she was a teenager, but all of her memories were of her parents as a united, contented team.

      She slumped onto a barstool beside her very pregnant best friend. “I just want that,” she said, nodding toward a nauseatingly cute couple to her right. “Why can't I just fast forward to that? I'm tired of all this online dating.”

      “You've been on one date so far,” her friend reminded her.

      “Yeah, but it was the worst.”

      Jake set her drink in front of her and leaned over the bar, apparently eager to hear a horror story. “How bad was it?”

      Caitlyn sighed. “The only thing more depressing than wasting an evening on a date from hell is having to relive said date for one's happy couple friends.”

      Meg rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop whining. We could use a good laugh.”

      They were watching her with expectant looks, and Caitlyn resigned herself to the inevitable. “Fine, but you two are buying my drinks tonight.”

      By the time she was finished recounting the story, Caitlyn found herself laughing alongside her friends. “God, how pathetic am I that I actually sat there for an hour?”

      Meg nodded and picked at the bowl of popcorn sitting between them. “Mmm, I would have walked out immediately.”

      Jake leaned against the bar with a mocking grin. “So he was no Cary Grant then, huh?”

      Meg stifled a laugh as Caitlyn tipped up her nose and pointedly ignored the comment. All of her friends thought it was hilarious that she was actually seeking her dream man. Granted, her dream man had died decades before, but still—was it too much to ask to find a sexy, chivalrous, self-deprecating, gallant, charming, and witty single man in the city?

      Apparently so.

      When her ex had dealt the deathblow to their long-term relationship, she’d fallen into a bit of a depression, if she was being honest. She’d thought they were happy, that they’d had a future. He was supposed to be the one. Her life partner. The man she would grow old with. They’d never really talked about marriage and kids, but Caitlyn had assumed it was just a matter of time. Once he grew up a bit, surely he would want to settle down. After all, they were happy—or content, anyway.

      Or at least she’d thought they had been. But looking back, she was no longer sure. The day he’d broken up with her was the day the rug had been pulled out from under her feet. Her perfectly content world tipped over. It was all over. Like someone had snapped shut a book they were finished reading and moved on to the next one on the shelf.

      Her friends had done their best to drag her out of her funk, but for a solid six months she’d grieved for the life she wouldn’t have. No longer able to envision her future, she’d found it hard to know where she was in the present. For the first time since her parents died, she’d been aimless. Lost.

      It still wasn’t easy, but at least she’d fallen into a rhythm and forged new habits and pastimes over the past few months.

      When she’d finally caved and let her friends convince her that it was time to get back on the horse, she’d felt the first glimmer of hope. Maybe her ex wasn’t the one. Clearly he wasn’t or he wouldn’t have left. Maybe there was someone better out there—someone who fulfilled her wildest dreams. Sitting in front of her computer, staring at all of the limitless options, the huge unseen universe of potential mates—she’d finally been able to see that there might be a new and exciting relationship in her future.

      So why not aim for the best? Why not set out to find the ideal man of her dreams? And that was Cary Grant. It had been since she was eight and she’d stumbled upon Bringing Up Baby one rainy weekend afternoon. She’d known then and there that he was her perfect man—always had been and always would be.

      She was certain there were men out there that embodied his charm and chivalry—his kindness and warmth. She just hadn’t met one yet. But he was out there, she knew it. And this time when she fell for someone, she would make sure he was the spitting image of her perfect leading man.

      Caitlyn let out a wistful sigh and Meg patted her arm. “Cheer up, buttercup. Maybe if you’re this pathetic tomorrow, Tamara will pick Cary Grant for the next weekend double feature.”

      Caitlyn’s eyes widened with excitement. “Ooh, you think?”

      Every other Saturday for the past two years, Caitlyn, Meg, Jake, and a few of their friends volunteered alongside Tamara to keep the Ellen Theater in some semblance of working order. The current owner had let the place fall into disrepair over the past decade, which was not only bad for the neighboring bar’s business, but just plain sad. There wasn’t much they could do as far as restoring the architecture of the old theater, but they did what they could to keep the interior clean and functioning.

      Meg had recruited her younger sister, Alice, and Tamara had enlisted her roommate, Marc. They’d named themselves “Operation Petticoat” for the Cary Grant movie of the same name, thanks to a comment by Jake about how they were attempting to save a sinking ship. It turned out to be a rather fitting name for a bunch of classic movie nerds. Like the film, they were a motley crew, to be sure. But they shared a love of old movies and that, plus the free drinks that Jake provided at the bar next door, had been enough to cement the crew’s friendship.

      “Jake has been trying to sweet talk Tamara into picking a James Cagney lineup this week,” Meg said, nodding toward her husband, who was pouring a draught beer at the other end of the bar.

      “I can’t compete with that. Jake has the whole ‘I’ll give you free drinks for life’ edge,” Caitlyn whined.

      Meg cocked her head and made a show of studying her friend. “Normally I’d say you’re right, but you are so pathetic right now that you just might win.”

      Caitlyn СКАЧАТЬ