Chapter 1 : Part 3

Miss Match
by Leslie Carroll

(Page 3 of 5)

He found it sweet that she was blushing a little. "Is there anything you want to tell me that you didn't put down on your application?"

Kathryn ran a manicured hand through her coppery curls. "I don't know - I'm just looking to meet a nice guy, I guess. I was engaged to the fiancé from hell until the end of last year, and I'm ready to get back on the horse and do some serious dating. I like the idea of marriage, in principle, anyway. I want someone to come home to. I like how that feels, when it's working. It's just that it's never worked for very long for me. My job is not exactly a great place to meet people, except for the divorced dads . . . but that gets too weird. I did that once, and it sort of freaked me to get out of the shower in the morning and ride to school with my date and my student in the same car. Try giving a kid a grade when he knows what you did with his father the night before. Probably heard you, too. As far as I'm concerned, the other teachers - and obviously the students - are off-limits. But then, I like a guy who looks old enough to shave."

Walker reflexively stroked his jaw, ruminating on the tidbit Kitty had just dropped. Clearly, in the right company, the woman wasn't exactly shy. He blinked, which is what he always seemed to do when he couldn't quite focus because his train of thought had become derailed. It was sort of a mental "rewind." "Okay. You said on the tape that you didn't want to meet men for whom money is their reason for living."

"Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. That was the fiancé, Lance. Rule number one: never date anyone named 'Lance,' let alone get engaged to one. Lance is what you're supposed to do to a boil."

"Why did you call off the engagement?"

Kathryn leaned back in her chair and gave Walker a sideways glance.

"I'm asking for purely professional reasons. For all I know, you could be one of those nut jobs who just toys with a man's affections and then dumps him once he's hooked."

"I'm not that kind of girl. The problem was that Lance and I were both in love with the same person: Lance. He was the only guy at his fifteenth high school reunion who wasn't follically challenged. And he was proud of it - to the nth degree. Lance couldn't pass a mirror without stopping to check himself out. And one Saturday last November, when he used the Barney's Christmas display window as a looking glass and actually said aloud 'Damn! I look good!' I realized the relationship was doomed. Besides, do you have any idea what it's like to live with a man who buys more-expensive conditioner than you do?"

"Actually, no, I don't." Walker gave his new client a warm smile. "Now, as our company's name - Six in the City - implies, we guarantee you five matches with different men, all of whom will be selected in accordance with your criteria. Five bachelors plus you, equals six. Each time we match you with a candidate, his name gets written on your card, which is kept in your file." Walker waved a white four-by-six-inch index card in the air.

"So, that's essentially a five-stud card," Kathryn deadpanned.

Walker maintained a poker face but his eyes fully conveyed the impression that he'd gotten her pun. "You can come in to the office and view their tapes, if you want to, after they phone you and identify themselves as a Six in the City client."

"Basically, that boils down to a hundred dollars per guy; and if they spend more than that on dinner, which is easy to do in Manhattan, then I actually come out ahead of the game."

"If you choose to look at it that way. I thought money was not a reason for living for you."

"It isn't. Just doing the math. Actually, only two point five of them need to drop a C-note. The other half are on my sister's nickel. By the way," Kathryn barreled on, "you are the one who coyly suggested that I talk to the manager about not getting any personal satisfaction from the videotape we just made. Well, I'm talking to you now. I don't think I got my money's worth in there Bear, and if it's all the same to you, I'd like a reshoot."

"Personally - sorry." Walker coughed when Kathryn rolled her eyes. "I've been running this service for a while now, and frankly, I think your tape is refreshing in its spontaneity. I'll make you a deal. If you don't derive any personal satisfaction from any of our five guaranteed fix-ups, I'll either refund your five hundred dollars or offer you a reshoot, gratis, and we'll start the whole process all over again. Care to shake on it?"

Walker stood up and offered Kathryn his hand. She leaned across the desk, took it, and was surprised at its warmth and how even such an inconsequential contact made her feel. She felt the blood rush to her head. He came around to her side of the desk unshod. She noticed that he was almost a foot taller than she was, and had maybe a pound or two of "cuddliness" around his midsection, but she liked that. He looked great. Not perfect, but perfect was always under suspicion. Perfect meant they probably liked themselves more than they would ever like you. Lance had been perfect. "Slightly cuddly" meant that you could indulge in spaghetti and the occasional hot fudge sundae - heck, even a beer in his company, and not feel the need to convert just so you could go to confession. Kathryn was never a salad person, no matter how hard she tried. She looked like a woman, not a waif, which is why she'd been so self-conscious on camera. Oh, there were plenty of wolf whistles from the Neanderthals in the streets, but those weren't the kind of men she aspired to attract. Sooner or later she would have to face the fact that she did not have the wafer-thin looks of an elegant East Side matronette, although her kid sister kept trying to tell her that real men didn't find stick figures attractive. Kathryn tugged on the bottom of her pale blue sweater, to disguise what she thought was a tummy bulge.

She tried to divert Walker's gaze, which had followed her hands, from her midriff. "Cute socks," she offered. "What are those - dragons?"

"My mother sent them to me from Wales. She seems to have frozen my age at nineteen. When I was in college, I was into that sort of fantasy stuff. You know, dragons, druids. I used to be a big Tolkien fan."

Copyright © 2002 by Leslie Carroll.

About the Author

Native New Yorker Leslie Carroll is a professional actress as well as a novelist. She has appeared on stage, in short films, daytime dramas, and commercials, and has done voiceovers and talking books. She is the author of Miss Match. Leslie also writes historical and New York noir detective fiction, and is the author of three stage adaptations of nineteenth century/early twentieth century English novels: Ivanhoe, The Prisoner of Zenda, and The Scarlet Pimpernel.