Mika's Notes: My BFF is attempting to get back into the dating scene and told me yesterday that it'd be so much easier to find a man if she could just pick one out of a catalogue. That innocent (and oh-so-honest) comment inspired this. Thanks Red, and yeah, I know, you'll never forgive me, right?
Deafened by the roar of the truck in the garage, she rubbed her temples, praying for an Advil or two. Imagine that, and I haven’t even made it inside where the kids are yet. Ali smiled to herself, forcing herself to leave the solitude of her truck’s cab. The vibrations made by the obnoxiously loud vehicle still reverberated in her head and the garage.
It’s such a man thing, she thought to herself, to have a vehicle that people can hear before they ever see it. But then, that was Blake all over. This was the man that managed to rig a custom muffler onto his tractor after all.
Laughing quietly, she grabbed her laptop and walked the fifteen feet to her mailbox. Securing her computer between her boots, she tugged open the ailing metal box and started pulling mail out. Bills, bills, and more bills, she noticed. A few ads, a letter from a friend on the other side of the country, and a thin, cardboard box.
Odd, she thought, turning the box over in her hands. I haven’t ordered anything. My Perfect Man & Co? She shook her head as the laughter bubbled out of her. Sounds like an ‘adult bookstore’ to me. Shrugging, she piled all the other mail on top of the box, lifted her laptop and headed back towards the chaos.
“Ah, thank God you’re home,” Blake announced upon seeing her. “I have to run.”
“What?” Ali asked, setting her laptop on the breakfast counter. “Where are you going?”
“To meet Billy and that brother of yours, remember?” He had a brief moment of panic, thinking he’d forgotten to tell her after all.
The light came on and she relaxed. “Of course, I forgot.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Blake teased her, flashing her his overly white teeth in a broad grin. “Thanks, Cookie.”
“Be home by curfew or else,” she teasingly threatened.
“Or else what?” he joked back, kissing her forehead.
“Come home late and you’ll find out,” she grinned back evilly.
Blake grimaced, knowing she still had her firearm stuck at the small of her back. “Yes ma’am,” he saluted before blowing her another kiss and running out the door.
~*~
With the kids fed and down for the night, Ali grabbed the mail and sat on the couch, a glass of water on the table before her. She’d just separated out the bills from the junk when the front door opened and a red head poked inside.
“Is it clear?”
“Yeah, Shana, it’s clear,” Ali laughed at her friend. “Come on in.”
“Thanks. If those rugrats of yours saw me…”
“It’d be all over but the ‘Auntie, Aunite!’” They both laughed at that; Rory and Rayna had an unnatural love for her best friend. “And, on that note, where is the little one?”
“He’s at home, asleep. I needed a few minutes alone, so I rustled up a baby sitter. Figured I’d be home long before Billy anyway.”
Ali nodded. “Yeah, and if it came to that, you could sneak home and get him and bring him back. It’d take two seconds to set up the play pen.”
Shana eyed her closely. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Aren’t you the one who always said, “Lead me not into temptation; I can find my own way?”
She just laughed evilly. “Paying bills? How exciting,” she teased. “Ali hon, I think you’ve been married too long.”
“Not paying them, not just yet. Sorting them out from the riff raff that came in today’s mail.”
“Ahh,” Shana commented, understanding. “Get anything interesting?”
“Aside from a letter from Courtney, not much.”
“She doing okay out there in Hell?”
Ali had to smile at that. Shana, being from the South had no real concept of heat and couldn’t comprehend why anyone would willingly want to live in the southwestern United States. “Yeah, seems to be enjoying her new post, so all is well.”
“That’s cool,” she was saying when she spotted the box. “What’s that?”
Shrugging, Ali had no answer. “Dunno, haven’t opened it yet.” She handed it to her friend and allowed her the honors. “Didn’t order anything so it’s probably junk.”
Ripping open the easy pull tab, Shana silently agreed. Upon getting the box open, she pulled out a hardbound book. The cover depicted a buff, bronzed man in nothing but his tighty-whiteys. “…Assembly Required: Go from slim pickens to perfect pickens in six weeks,” she read, amused.
“What the hell?” Ali asked, taking the book from her friend’s hands. Flipping through the pages, their eyes widened as they grazed over the full-color glossy pictures of men’s bodies.
“Oh my God,” Shana snorted, “I think it’s a catalogue of some sort.”
Ali closed the book and looked more closely at the cover. “I think you’re right.” She pointed to the fine print near the bottom of the front cover, near to the UPC code. “A do-it-yourself catalogue for building the perfect man.”
“No freaking way!”
“Oh heavens to Mergatroid, I think it is.”
Laying the book flat on the coffee table before them, Ali opened to the table of contents and they skimmed the page, commenting on the chapter titles.
“Introduction,” Ali quipped, seems like a good way to start a book.
“Brains vs. Brawn: How to decide if you want a smart man or a buff man.” Shana grinned, thinking on Billy for a moment. “Definitely buff over brains any day.”
Ali sighed. “Easy for you to say, I’ve got neither.”
“Aww, poor Blake,” Shana giggled, “but at least he’s cute.”
“Yeah, there is that. And look at this one, Chapter Six, Packages vs. Prowess: Should he be hung or should he have staying power?”
“Ohmigawd,” she choked, “can’t we get both?”
“Finally,” Ali laughed, “I’ve got at least one of those.”
Waggling her eyebrows, Shana grinned, “Wanna share which one?” Knowing Ali would change the subject instead of answering, she blurted, “And this! Hair and Eyes: Do blondes really have more fun? And are those baby blues worth the upgrade?”
After perusing the table of contents, they went over the color contents with a fine-toothed comb, building their ‘perfect’ man in jest. Knowing that while the men they already had were far from perfect, they were also far from rotten.
“Oh geez, look at the hair on that one,” Shana groaned. “How could anyone find that sexy?”
Ali coughed, choking on her mojito. Sometime during their perusal, they’d graduated from water to rum. “Wanna rethink that one? Last time I saw Billy without a shirt I remember thinking he needed some mowing.”
“Not my fault your man has more hair on his face than on his chest,” she teased back.
“I like it that way, thankyouverymuch.” She laughed until she saw something else that caught her eye. “How about this, you can get your skin tones in anything from albino, and that’s an actual color here, to ‘as dark as it gets’.”
“Hmmm, dial-a-tone on your man, interesting. I’ll take mine somewhere in the middle, not too dark, but not pale either.”
Ali nodded in agreement, “Me too. Like mine toasted a bit.”
(September 18, 2008)
“Toasted? Yeah, I think you are,” Shana laughed, raising her glass. Taking a sip, she noticed the time suddenly. “Damn, this has been fun, but I promised I’d be home by ten.”
Looking up, Ali noticed it was quarter past. “I’ll call home and let your sitter know you’re on your way. We can pick this up at work tomorrow.”
Shana leered and giggled, “You can count on that.”
She shook her head and watched her friend climb into her car and drive off. Satisfied that she’d be okay, Ali called ahead and let Shana’s temporary replacement know she’d be home before long. “Guess I ought to check on the kids and put myself to bed as well,” she muttered walking down the hallway, turning off all but the entrance light.
~*~
The alarm jolted her out of sleep, startling her awake. Ali stretched and yawned, looking beside her to make sure her husband had made it home in one piece. He evidently returned sometime during the night. The drool on the pillow proved he’d been home for at least a couple hours. He didn’t start that until he’d been asleep at least three hours.
She’d been in the shower before it hit her. The build-a-man catalogue. Ali started to laugh at the absurdity of her subconscious mind. “What a bizarre dream,” she told the shampoo. “Just one question, is somebody trying to tell me something?”
Having gotten herself together for the day, she holstered her gun and reached for her cell phone, pressing the talk button and dialing Shana, intending to make sure Billy had made it home as well. “Morning,” she greeted her long-time friend, closing the bedroom door behind her. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Not too shabby. Billy stumbled in sometime after two this morning, I think.”
“Sounds about right,” Ali agreed. “I have to tell you, I had the strangest dream last night.”
“Really?” Ali was known for her bizarre dreams and any mention of one perked those who knew her right up. “Was it juicy?”
Ali snorted. “Not quite, but it had potential. I got a catalogue in the mail,” she began, entering the living room and spying her glass of water and grinning, “and it was a build your own man spec book.”
“Oh my God, you’ve got to be joking!” Shana exclaimed. “Did you share with me?”
“Yeah, we actually looked at it together and…” her voice trailed off as her eyes spotted a piece of cardboard on the floor.
“And?” Shana urged.
“And we built our perfect men.” Moving to the far end of the coffee table, she found the box. What the hell?
“Sounds like fun to me, although I am pretty partial to the one I’ve already got.”
“Yeah,” Ali agreed distractedly. “Me too, usually. Um, can I talk to you in a bit?”
“Sure, I need to finish getting dressed anyway. See you in ten.”
“Yeah, see you.” Ali pressed the end button and stared at the coffee table. And the catalogue from My Perfect Man & Co. sitting on top of it.
