When Size Matters. Carly Laine

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      WHAT WAS IT about an honest-to-God rescue? I swear I would have swooned if I’d been the type. I saw myself—in the movie star’s sleek column of a dress—weaving my way across the crowded floor. In my head, no one leered. People smiled and moved aside.

      It wasn’t just me. We all wanted that perfect someone to waltz—or, even better, tango!—in and deliver us from our dreary, boring, ordinary lives. Someone to save us from ourselves. We’ve watched Pretty Woman, seen the tender young thing being saved by a handsome, rich, charming, intelligent man—in a limo, no less—and we’ve said, “Right there! That’s exactly what we want.”

      I don’t think we were brainwashed by the perfect Hollywood story, though. I think we inherited the want from the cave ladies, as with our good eye for color and great gathering skills. I figure the only cave women who survived long enough to produce offspring were the ones who got rescued on a regular basis, it being tricky to run from a saber-tooth while pregnant. We’ve got a genetically patterned appreciation of the whole rescue business.

      If you thought about it, though, it wasn’t enough to be rescued. There was that part about the rescuer being handsome, rich, charming and intelligent. We wanted that, too, please. Liberation be damned, we’d like the whole hunky package.

      Actually, that’s not quite right, not for all of us. Not for the Diamond Girls. Their definition of happiness had that overriding mathematical bias: perfect someone = rich guy. It seemed the rich part of the fantasy was an adequate substitution for the handsome, charming and intelligent parts. Or maybe more accurately: rich = handsome, charming and intelligent. Automatically.

      Not me. I was looking for someone to capture my imagination, to ignite me, to complete me in every way. Mind. Body. Soul. For me perfect guy = soul mate. Tragically, the soul mate had proven to be a lot tougher to find than a diamond.

      But now I’d been rescued. In real life. My heart lurched up in my throat and I could feel a silky dampness in my thong. Dylan! Do not think about the thong!

      The guy met me halfway across the dance floor, having taken advantage of the momentary distraction of a passing hors d’oeuvre tray to deliver a good-old-boy whack to Groom Daddy’s back, bark a fond farewell and then half sprint away. It had worked. I could see Groom Daddy leaving the bar, storming up the hill toward the luncheon tent, hunting for less agile prey.

      The guy walked me through the dancers to an empty corner at the dance floor’s edge.

      “Thanks doesn’t quite cover it,” I purred as I tried to arrange myself back into bridesmaid propriety. I made a swipe at my forehead, repositioning wanton curls, brushing sweat salt from my hairline—probably Groom Daddy’s…Yuck—and wiping away any mascara tracks running up my forehead. All with—I hoped—one casually elegant stroke.

      “Yeah, you looked like you could use a break out there,” he said, turning to face me, still grinning out of the corner of his mouth, a mouth just bold-ass begging for kisses. “You’re Dylan, right? I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Brad. Brad Davis.”

      I’d like to say that I believed in love at first sight. It kind of went with the whole soul mate thing: when you meet him, you will know. I was sure that’s the way it would be. But if I’m truthful with myself, I don’t think I was thinking right then about love or sight or souls or anything else. I wasn’t thinking; I was on fire. Consumed. That was not an everyday occurrence for me. I was usually quite calm. Other girls could go on and on about a guy’s this or that—his lips or abs or some damn thing. Blah, blah. I never got it. To me, a mouth was a mouth, like a knee was a knee. I was an eye chick. I didn’t have a color preference as long as they were deep, soulful and carried thoughts without words. Eyes spoke to me.

      But here was this crooked smile. Lips you could take a nap on, lips that could undo buttons…And then his name wormed its way into my thinking brain. “No!” It was a yelp.

      “‘Scuse me?” he asked at the damsel’s ungrateful response.

      “The Brad Davis? Brad Davis of Dallas?”

      “Well, not the Brad Davis. There’s prob’ly more of us up there, if that makes you feel any better. But—” he flicked his hand in the direction of a group of my guy friends standing now at the bar, all sporting goofy smiles as they watched us “—we do seem to have some of the same friends.”

      Damn. I’d been avoiding this guy forever. There I was thinking about hot lips and they belonged to Brad you-two-would-be-just-perfect-together Davis, the blind date I was never going to have. My guy friends were always trying to set me up with him. Poor old Dylan. And they knew I didn’t do blind dates anymore. I’d eventually figured it out that lonesome was loads better than loathsome.

      “But,” they said, “you’d love Brad. Y’all would be great together.” I knew what they meant by that. They loved Brad. All of them. He was a man’s guy. All rough and tumble, dirty fingernails from fixing stuff and not very successful. Not the kind of guy who would threaten their egos, but good to hang out with, good to hunt with or bowl with or some damn thing. Perfect for good, old low-maintenance me. It made me mad that they’d think I’d want someone like that. He didn’t even live in Austin, but up in Dallas. On top of every other bad thing, he was G.U. Geographically undesirable. Hardly Mr. Perfect.

      And here he was, in all his glory. Manly Man himself.

      “Oh, um, sorry. I, uh, just wasn’t expecting…Well, I mean I’d heard about Brad Davis and thought…” Get a grip! I grimaced at him and extended my hand, intending to introduce myself.

      Instead, he took my hand in both of his and held it. His hands were strong and hard. Not gravelly like sandpaper, though. Smooth and tough. More like an old shoe. Ooh, romantic. At least his nails were clean. “You’re not exactly what I pictured, either. Lemme see. Shapeless clothes, thick glasses. Long stringy hair. Earnest and a little intense.”

      I pulled my hand back with a jerk. “They said that?” “Nah.” He laughed as he lifted my hand again, pretending to study my palm. “They said I’d love you. A free spirit. Said you’d be purrrfect for me.”

      “So why stringy hair and shapeless clothes?” I asked, but I knew. It was the usual response to my name. I’d been born in ’79, aka the reckless years of my mother’s life. Her decade of free love, peace and the noble, all-consuming quest for self. She’d named me in one of those classic flashes of seventies free thinking. An innocent act of whimsy and she’d guaranteed—for my entire life—that complete strangers would feel compelled to hunch up their shoulders, squint at me knowingly and exclaim, “Your folks were hippies, right?” I quit answering. The truth was I didn’t know. When I was little, I’d once asked my mother if we were hippies.

      “Hippies?” she’d giggled, rolling her eyes. “Dylan! Nobody’s ever called themselves a hippie. They might say, ‘I’m into peace’ or ‘I seek enlightenment.’ But—” She stopped and balanced on one leg with her other foot pressed into the knee. She tilted her head to her shoulder, put on a dopey face and raised four fingers in twin peace signs. “Oh, wow,” she droned. “I’m a hippie.” Then she unwound, laughing her luscious laugh and dropped down so she’d be right at eye-level with me. “Dylan, love, ‘hippie’ is a word used by people on the outside.”

      I didn’t ask again.

      Over the years I’d tried out different responses to the hippie question, trying to discover the one that most effectively discouraged further inquiry. I’d СКАЧАТЬ