He sat parked across the street in a banana yellow Toyota Corolla. Not a new model. I couldn’t get a clear picture of him through my binoculars.
I was kneeling on my red beanbag chair, peering out the small dormer window between my bed and Rosie’s. With my free hand, I dug into a box of Life cereal – a pre-pizza snack.
Suddenly Rosie came tearing into the bedroom, wearing nothing but her underpants. A colander was perched on her head. “Lemme see, lemme see!” She started jumping on her bed, careful not to hit her head on the sloped ceiling, then she launched herself onto the beanbag chair and tried to yank open the curtains.
“Rosie! You almost blew my cover,” I scolded, as she tried to grab the binoculars away from me. “Cut it out! He’s opening his door.”
I glanced at my watch. It was exactly 6:00 p.m. This put him a step ahead of Larry the Unibrow, who, during the brief period he’d dated my mom, showed up anywhere from half an hour to ninety minutes late. Of course, this made a lot more sense when Mom found out he was married. With four kids.
I tried to get a good look at her new date as he crossed the street, but he glanced up toward the window and I had to duck out of sight.
We listened as his feet thumped up the old wooden stairs. Then he rang the bell. We knew he’d rung the bell, even though we didn’t hear it. It had been broken for over a year.
Rosie stood up, but I gripped her arm. “Rosie, you know the rules. Not yet. Besides, if you want to go to the door, you have to put on some clothes.”
Rosie slipped on the clothes she’d been wearing earlier while I grabbed my Magic 8 Ball from its perch on my bookshelf.
I knew Mom’s date was ringing the doorbell again. I knew he was starting to worry that he had the wrong address, or, worse, that he was being stood up.
“Will this guy be any better than all the others?” I asked the Magic 8 Ball, giving it a good shake and flipping it over.
Highly doubtful, it read. I placed it back on my bookshelf.
Finally – like I knew he would – he knocked.
“Violet, can you get that? I’m still putting on my face,” my mom hollered from the bathroom down the hall.
“Got it,” I shouted back.
“And be nice!”
I slowly made my way to the stairs. Rosie, the colander still on her head, tried to scoot around me, but I spread my arms to block her path.
“Lemme answer!” she shouted.
“Rosie. What have I told you?”
Rosie sighed. “Play it cool.”
As we continued our leisurely descent, I said my little prayer: Dear God, or Allah, or Buddha or Zeus or Whoever-You-Are, please let this one be okay. Please don’t let him be a cheater (Jonathan), a cheapskate (Alphonse), an alcoholic (Carl), a creep (Guy), married (Larry), or a general, all-around jerk (Dimitri, Paulo, Jake, Yuri).
I said this prayer even though I’m a cynic when it comes to love because I know that my mother is not. You’d think, after what had happened with Dad, that she’d have given up on men and found contentment in a life dedicated to child-rearing, hard work, and celibacy. But, no. Despite a growing list of epic failures, she had this freakish need to have a man in her life. So she dated like there was no tomorrow, always hoping the next guy would be The One.
Did I think this was a kind of sickness? Yes! Did I find it tragic? Of course! But I also knew that she wasn’t going to stop until she’d found her version of The One, and that once she found him, Rosie and I were going to have to live with it too because, let’s face it, we were a package deal.
So, yeah – a small part of me had no choice but to hope that the next guy would be so spectacularly awesome, he’d put an end to the serial dating that was torture for all of us.
Just as he started to knock again, I opened the door.
The guy blinked like a startled mole. “Oh, hi. I was beginning to think no one was home.”
I gave him my classic once-over.
He was pudgy. His pale skin was sprinkled with freckles. His ears were too small for his head. His hair was reddish brown and thinning. He was wearing a loud multicolored sweater. Its loose fit did not manage to hide his man-boobs.
“You must be Rosie,” he said, bending down to shake her hand. “I like your hat.”
Rosie beamed up at him. “It’s a crown.”
I love my little sister. I really do. But she made my job very difficult because, like Mom, she’s an optimist, which means she likes all of Mom’s dates, at least in the beginning.
“And you must be Violet,” he said to me, holding out his hand. I shook it. His skin was moist and clammy. “I’m Dudley,” he continued. “Dudley Wiener.”
Groan. I’d seen enough. I turned away without another word. I walked back up the stairs and into our bedroom, where I threw our clothes and sheets into a laundry bag to take to Phoebe’s house. Then I went into Mom’s room and added her clothes to the bag. When I was done, I lined up all the makeup and perfume on her dresser in precise little lines, tallest to shortest.
This was the tenth guy my mom had dated post-Dad. The tenth guy who wouldn’t be good enough for her. The tenth guy who’d either dump her because she was too clingy, or who’d do something so awful, she’d be forced to dump him. The tenth guy who wouldn’t come close to being The One.
I couldn’t be a bystander any longer. Something had to be done.