Page 2 of Save the Drama for your Mama
Photo or not, he’d sealed his fate as my next potential suitor, barring any setbacks from an FBI background check, blood sample, and a sworn promise to never eat pizza with a fork and knife.
If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet there he was, getting lost in the pages of a story that had captivated the hearts of millions of women and surely more than a handful of men.
This monumental occasion was more visually appealing than a man playing with a dog or even one snuggling a baby. More powerful than a man doing housework without being asked. Holy cravat! Talk about thirst traps. After all, they say you eat with your eyes first! It was science and reality colliding right here in Coronado.
I don’t know how, but I’d manifested the perfect man.
Too bad he opened his mouth and shattered my dream.
“What a load of rubbish,” he said, shaking his head.
His words felt like a bucket of ice-cold water poured ruthlessly on the top of my head, waking me up to the harsh reality that my perfect man was an illusion, and I was living in a fantasy world.
“‘You have bewitched me, body and soul’?” he continued. “No man would ever say that. And what woman in her right mind would want to hear those words coming out of a guy’s mouth?”
“I would!” several women, including me, exclaimed while two older ladies near the cookbooks enthusiastically waved their hands like they were hoping to be chosen as the next contestants onThe Price is Right.
I wasn’t the only one who had been foolishly and falsely enamored with his handsome face and potential bodice-ripping skills. I had assumed he was an intelligent, sensitive, romantic at heart, but I knew better now.
“Shouldn’t this be in the discount bin or on the fantasy shelf?” he asked.
I was stunned silent as I tried to formulate the perfect retort for this chisel-jawed cad.
“That book is quite good,” Abigail insisted from the end cap. She’d obviously decided to join the hunky-man observation party. “The movie, too. I’ve watched all seventeen adaptations. I read that they’re going to film a new version of the story. Isn’t that exciting?”
“I would rather watch a ten-hour nature documentary on the mating habits of snails, narrated by SpongeBob SquarePants,” the man said with a scowl.
“I had no idea that snails even mated,” one woman stage-whispered. “That must take forever.”
Abigail returned to the front counter to help a customer.
I took one more long look at how he filled his black jeans so well, then mentally deleted the man from my list of potential ravishers.
“Why are you spying on that dude over there?” asked a nosy teenage boy with a hank of blond hair.
I shushed him with an index finger to my lips. “I’m not spying. I’m browsing through these books, and they are in the same line of sight as him.” I kept my voice low and grabbed the closest book I could get my hands on. “Here it is! I’ve been looking all over for this. Okay, you can run along now.”
The kid cocked his head to the side to look at the cover of the book I was holding. “Fifty-two Ways to Walk?”
Sure enough, that was the title, much to my chagrin. The little twerp had the gall to stare at me, like he was waiting for me to explain my literary choices.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and I like to have options,” I said.
He leaned closer and squinted. “Are you high?”
“Are you lost?” I replied.
“Whatever, clownfish.” The punk rolled his eyes, walked over to the man, tapped him on the side of the arm, then gestured back at me. “That wacky snack over there is spying on you.”
Like a five-year-old, I darted behind a life-size cardboard cutout of Reese Witherspoon, but then lost my balance. I reached for the edge of the table to steady myself, teetered precariously, and with the grace of a newborn giraffe on ice skates, I slid sideways to the floor.
Then Reese Witherspoon fell on top of me, making my bumbling descent anything but discrete.
“Do you two want some privacy?” the Jane Austen hater asked out of nowhere, pulling Reese off me and setting her upright next to the table of her book club picks.
I glanced up at him and blurted out, “I wasn’t spying.”
“James Bond will be happy to know his job is secure.” Surprisingly, he held out his hand to help me to my feet.
