“Tom,” she says gently, “I didn’t mean the wrong girl part. I meant because you can’t sing.”
“I know.” I sigh heavily.
“But you can design boomerang thunder domes that zip and zing and slide,” she says, whipping her hand up and down, imitating, I think, a roller coaster. “Why not play to your strengths?”
“I should design a roller coaster to win her back?”
She shrugs in that it’s-not-a-bad-idea way. “That’s a better option. You could call it The Cassie. The Loop-the-Loop Cassie. The Screaming Cassie. The Cassie Blaster.”
I laugh. “Those are terrible names for coasters. I mean . . . the Cassie Blaster?”
“Not my best idea,” she adds, cracking up. “But you get my point. You could turn her name into an anagram. Cassandra.” She stares at the ceiling, putting the letters together in reverse, I suspect.
I jump in as she’s still spelling them. “The ARDNASSAC Drop.”
“Yes! That sounds terrifying, like I’ll encounter prehistoric winged dinosaurs at every climb and dip. You could make it a dinosaur-themed coaster.”
I file that away. “That’s not a bad concept for a roller coaster.”
“Listen, the point is this: Dobler’s stunt worked because it was a movie, but also because he knew Diane Court’s character. If you want to win Cassandra back, you need to understand who she is today, or at least know her a little better. I can help you.”
“But you said you don’t know Cassie.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “I’ve never met her. That’s the crazy thing. Even when we swapped mail, I left it outside her door with a note and vice versa. But I know women, and I want to help you.”
My skeptical side steps up to the plate. “Why?”
“I’m a writer. My job is understanding human behavior, and you, Tom, are a fascinating experiment. I’ll help you on your quest, and you, in turn, can continue to be one of the most interesting curiosities I’ve stumbled across.”
I laugh, unsure what to make of her compliment, or un-compliment. “I’m a curiosity?”
She nods. “Curiosity, noun: one that arouses interest due to uncommon or unusual characteristics.”
“Such as singing bad ballads?”
“To a girl you loved before.” She raises a glass. “A girl you clearly have your heart set on. It’s sweet. It’s romantic, and I want to help you win her back. Devise a plan, a blueprint, then follow it. Are you game?”
I study her face, considering her offer. Practically, it’s doable. “I’m in town for a few days for meetings. Then I’m cruising down the coast, visiting some parks.”
“We can hatch a plan, then. Work out the kinks and make it airtight,” she says, and the idea is appealing. I have some free time in front of me to focus on a reboot of my attempt to win Cassandra’s heart. I’m nothing if not persistent, and I’m all for triangulating a problem to find the solution. We quickly exchange numbers, but there’s also something I want to know.
“What’s in it for you? You like observing curious human behavior that much?”
She stretches her hand closer, her eyes intense. “I don’t like it. I love it.”
I lift my glass, considering her offer. Every great ’80s hero had a great sidekick. After all, where would Ferris Bueller be without Cameron Frye?
He wouldn’t have spent the day in a Ferrari, that’s for sure.
“Yes.”
It seems like the only fitting answer to give the woman who’s just renamed me.
5
Finley
I am not spying.
How could this be spying? I’m simply positioning the ladder just so against the back of my home to clean my windows. I’m not actually trying to peer into Cassie’s home early the next morning.
At the crack of dawn on a Friday.
When no one’s around.
I’m just climbing the ladder with this bucket of soapy water, and I’m a-scrub-a-dub-dubbing my windows.
Who doesn’t clean their windows at six in the morning?
I scrub religiously, and maybe if I get this corner right here, at the very edge, where I have to lean, I might happen to see inside her home.
Not that I need to.
But it can’t hurt, right?
All I know about Cassie is that she bought the townhome adjacent to mine about two months ago and has rented it to a steady stream of Airbnb-ers the entire time.
Surely I’m entitled to a little peekaboo. After all, I’m practically Cassie’s unpaid concierge.
First, there was the couple from New Zealand who had recently retired from their sheep farm and wanted to tour wine country. I pointed them in the direction of the best wineries, and in turn, they showed me a video of their sheepdog back home, hard at work herding sheep.
I mean, really. Videos of dogs at work are stupendously awesome. Fair trade.
Next up came a newly married couple from Dallas, and I don’t believe they made it to any wineries. The wife did ask me for directions to the nearest pharmacy that sold lube . . . so I have a good idea of what kept them occupied on their honeymoon.
Also, I wore headphones for most of their stay.
A few weeks ago, a mélange of Manhattan society gals rented the pad for a girls’ weekend, tottering in and out on their skyscraper heels. I suspect the half dozen of them were sober for a grand total of five minutes. I helped them order a Lyft on their way to the Two Cows Vineyard and then pre-ordered their return trip too.
And Cassie rented it recently to a lovely gay couple from San Francisco who were so damn cute they invited me over for a barbecue on the back porch. Since I don’t eat meat, I declined, but I gave them the name of the best butcher in town.
See, I’m such a Good Samaritan that it’s only reasonable I get to peek at Cassie’s life, right? She never even introduced herself to me the one time she was here. Fine, fine. I was in Los Angeles visiting the network when she finalized the sale, and she did leave me a lovely gift bag with a package of gummy bears inside. Points for her—they were the gelatin-free variety.
Which reminds me. I do know something about her. She must be a vegetarian. I don’t know anyone else who buys gelatin-free gummy bears except vegetarians.
But I get nothing else on her from staring in her window.
I can’t see any books, so I can’t report back to Tom that her shelves are teeming with titles like The Joy of Deep Throating or 101 Ways to Tie Up a Woman and Make Her Meow.
Besides, those are on my bookshelves, and by bookshelves, I mean e-reader. I’m no dummy. I don’t leave that kind of self-help material out for anyone to see.
From my vantage point, Cassie Martinez appears to be 100 percent minimalist—her home looks like it’s been staged by a real estate firm.
I will say this though. She treats her renters right in the towel department. She had some linens from Restoration Hardware shipped here a month ago and brought in by the cleaners. I was tempted, vaguely tempted, to snag that box. I’ve always wanted Restoration Hardware towels.
But that’s all I know, and really, I suppose that’s all I should know about the woman who doesn’t live next door.
Helping Tom should be less about Cassie and more about women in general. Like, learning you don’t ever say fine in reference to a woman’s hair. What was that man thinking with that comment last night? My hair is fluffy. So what?
I lower the bucket, climb down the ladder, and congratulate myself for having the cleanest window I’ve ever had in my life.
“Well done, self,” I say then head inside and dump the bucket in the sink.
The notification light on my phone blinks at me, and I slide my thumb across the screen. I’m greeted by an email from my father, titled, as nearly all his emails are, “Daily Doggie.” He lives a few towns over, and every morning on the dog walk, he sends me a picture of his shepherd-beagle-dachshund-mix, and every day I respond, noting the canine’s cuteness as we correspond about what we’re up to.
It’s part of his efforts to be happy, to rise above the depression he’s been battling since my mom died.
My heartbeat spikes as I open the note, hoping it’s not bad news. It’s been bad news, and that’s one of the reasons he keeps emailing me daily. To bring positivity into his life. Something his shrink advised him to do several months ago, along with the suggestion to adopt a dog.