Five minutes later, I’d paid my $29.95 to have access to Hottie profiles in my area and frantically searched for one that looked like Ryan Gosling. It didn’t take me long to realize that the guys they used on the home page weren’t entirely representative of the actual stock, but I didn’t see anybody that looked like they just got out of the state penitentiary, either. Finally, I saw someone I thought might work—he had sandy hair, light eyes, a solid eight on a scale of one to ten, and his name was Fred.
According to his profile, Fred was a pilot and enjoyed traveling, meeting new people, and classic cars. He was six feet tall, thirty-one years old, and had never been married. He had two dozen five-chili-pepper ratings, and the comments were all positive. “So much fun!” said Lisa in Orlando. “An absolute doll,” gushed Jasmine in Phoenix. “Charming and sweet!” exclaimed Shelly in Buffalo. “And an awesome dancer!”
Orlando, Phoenix, and Buffalo? Wow, he really got around. Was that because he was a pilot? Where was home? Not that I needed to care. All I needed to worry about was that he showed up on time and pretended to like me, which I hoped wouldn’t be that hard of a job, as long as he was a better actor than I was.
For a hundred dollars an hour, he’d better be.
I took another gulp of wine and sent him a message via the site. Hello Fred, my name is Claire, and I’m looking for a date for a co-worker’s wedding the night of Friday, December 21st. Are you available? If so, would it be possible to meet for coffee first just to get to know each other a bit? Discuss the situation?
Right before I sent it, I had a little panic attack. This was totally insane, wasn’t it? Renting a man just to save face? What if he strangled me and stuffed my body in the trunk of his vintage Camaro or something?
Then I remembered the time I sat at the singles table and the guy next to me recited 369 digits of pi before asking me if I’d like to read his erotic Pokémon fanfic.
Click.
Thank you! Fred will get back to you soon!
I closed my laptop and sat there for a moment, trying to decide if I felt creepy and desperate or modern and edgy. There was nothing wrong with this, was there? After all, I was a woman of the new millennium! We weren’t bound by old-fashioned rules about dating like our mothers and grandmothers! And this wasn’t really dating, anyway. It was just…online shopping. For a human.
Oh, God.
I felt a little queasy. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and a few hundred bucks would be a bargain if it shut everybody up and bought me a seat at a better table. Plus I’d spend an evening with a handsome date whose job it was to flatter me all night long. No one would ever know that I was paying him. At the end of the night, we’d go our separate ways, I’d tell everyone at work a breakup story that sounded plausible and definitely not my fault (Fred, you bastard), and that would be that.
What could go wrong?
* * *
At three o’clock in the morning, I awoke in a panic.
What the hell had I done? Now that the wine buzz had worn off, regret attacked me from all sides. I jumped out of bed and bolted for the stairs, but my pajama pants were too long and my heel slipped, and I ended up bumping down the entire flight on my butt.
At the bottom of the steps, I scrambled to my feet, hitched up my pants and ran for the couch. Frantically I opened my laptop and clicked on the browser. Damn you, chianti and Hallmark Channel! Was there a way to retrieve my message? Had he seen it yet? What would I do if he’d replied?
My heart pumped hard as the Hotties for Hire site loaded. I was still logged in and saw right away that I had a message from Fred.
Hey Claire, I am available on that date. Sure, we can meet for coffee ahead of time. I actually do that with every date I book. I just ask for a $100 nonrefundable deposit at that meeting, which will be applied to your balance, whatever that turns out to be. Let me know, thanks!
My hands shook as I tried to come up with a reply that didn’t make me sound pathetic.
Hi Fred, it looks like my boyfriend will be in town that weekend after all, so
No, that was ridiculous. Now I was making up a second fake boyfriend so that my original fake boyfriend wouldn’t think I was a loser? What on earth?
I tried again.
Hey Fred, turns out I can’t make it to the wedding. Sorry for the
No, that was stupid, too. What could have happened in the few hours since I’d messaged him that would prevent me from being able to attend?
I chewed the tip of one finger. Should I go through with it? I looked at his picture and read his message again. He was cute. And he sounded nice.
I can just meet him for coffee. What’s the harm in that? If it’s a disaster, I won’t book the date. I’d lose my hundred bucks, but at least I wouldn’t be stuck with him all night. And a coffee shop was a public place, so there’d be no strangling or dismembering or anything. Just a quick introduction and a brief chat about how things would go the night of the date. If we got along OK, I’d book him.
I sat up taller and typed a response.
Hey Fred, thanks for the reply. Could you meet me downtown at 5:00 pm on Wednesday the 19th? Great Lakes Coffee makes awesome lattes.
I took a breath and clicked send. Then I went back up to bed, rubbing my sore butt and wishing Boy-Meets-Girl wasn’t so complicated. Why couldn’t life be more like a storybook, where fairy godmothers granted wishes or handsome princes needed saving from shipwrecks or stable boys turned out to be the one?
* * *
Fred had replied that my suggested time and location for coffee worked for him, so after school on the 19th, I ran home, took my hair down from its messy bun, noticed I’d gotten paint on my shirt, hurried upstairs to change it, rushed back to the bathroom, re-applied my makeup, and scolded myself a million times for being so flustered.