1
Iwas a woman in want of a husband. Thus the reason I was standing in front of the Deadicated Dating Agency yelling at the top of my lungs for someone to let me in.
I’d been here for seven days.
Not consecutively. A girl had to eat. My stalking time could be considered banker hours. From 9-5 you could see me, an average height, slim, twenty-something woman, holding an overly large cappuccino and screaming about the need for a husband. In addition to that, I’d also add on that every second they delayed my said husband, one of my eggs would shrivel and die a horrible death. Thus, by not letting me in, they would also be responsible for all of my unfertilized eggs and all the children I could have had.
I learned guilt trips from an expert.
My mother.
My histrionics had gathered quite the crowd. I figured I didn’t give a shit. I’d been waiting long enough. I was reasonably attractive. Good teeth. Decent smile except a bit lopsided. Rather than a flaw, I considered it character enhancing. My eyes were bright and blue, my nose could be considered pert...if you were the type of person who used words likepert. I had a long neck, enough breasts to fill an average handful, and a rear end that looked good in a wiggle skirt but could use the benefit of some squats. To add to that, I considered exercise to be a form of torture used by the masses to induce guilt and after midnight drunken purchases of exercise programs.
I could read, write, add simple numbers (let’s not get too crazy), and I considered myself to be quite the witty conversationalist, though no one could tell right now because of my unfertilized egg rant.
What could I say?
No one was perfect.
But even after describing myself in almost glowing terms, I had one unerasable, permanent and terrible flaw. Try as I might, I couldn’t make it go away. Some people considered me to be “blessed”. I wanted to punch those people in the face.
I was a clairvoyant. If you searched for that term on the internet, you could see the disbelief written all over Webster’s. It wasn’t described as a person with a gift, the word (as a noun) was used to define a person whothoughtthey had the gift. The wordallegedlywas also used when describing us. Bunch of skeptics.
My entire family could name at least one awkward dinner moment with me when I had blurted out something creepy and weird about someone’s future. All of those predictions had come to pass, though not always in the most predictable ways. So I wasn’t a person who thought I had anything other than a real pain in the ass ability that had hampered my ability to date since the first time I thought of a penis as anything other thanewww gross.
Considering I was twenty-eight years old and the last date I went on ended with the man running screaming from the room, I’d say I was due for an epic mental breakdown in a public place.
Also, I forgot to mention the other flaw I had been blessed with. I was an unapologetic, professional clutz. Give me a clutter free hallway and a pair of non-slip shoes and nine times out of ten I would slip or find something imaginary to trip over. So far in my week long diatribe directed toward our local dating agency, I’d managed to skin my knee, bruise both of my thighs, and wound up tearing one of my good blouses. So not only did I sound crazy, I looked like I’d just broken out of my padded cell and had forgotten my meds.
If Portia Kadish were smart, she’d open the door and whisk me in just to get me to shut up. But since I’d been here for seven days, I’d bet one of two things were happening: she didn’t give a crap and had set up a wide screen television and a popcorn station so she could watch me rant or she wasn’t there and all of this was for naught.
From the things I’d heard about Portia, I’d say the popcorn station was more indicative of her personality.
But two could play that game. Today I’d brought in reinforcements. An umbrella, just in case my good weather luck didn’t hold, a lounge chair to sit in when my feet got tired, sunscreen, even though the sun acted super weird in this town, a ponytail holder if it got too warm, and a cooler full of water and snacks. I would not be able to maintain a dating agency rebellion with good snacks. If this was not a rebellion rule, it should be. Snacks were life.
I’d also brought my megaphone. This was day one of my escalated plan to win over Portia Kadish and make her produce me a suitable husband.
This was also the day I’d most likely be shunned from all the social groups in Midnight Cove. If it got me a husband, though, I’d consider it totally worth it.
As long as he was handsome.
I made myself comfortable in my lounge chair, rummaged around in the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water and a piece of beef jerky, and was just raising the megaphone to my mouth to scream another diatribe about my unused eggs, when something amazing and totally out of character happened.
The doors to the Deadication Dating Agency opened.
And out walked Portia Kadish.
This had the effect of stopping people in the middle of their steps. After all, it was basically unheard of for those doors to open. Recently there had been some rumblings around town that Portia had been making her presence known to a few lucky (or unlucky, depending on who was telling the story) residents. I didn’t think it was just a weird coincidence that there was a rash of new couples and weddings happening around here.
When word of this possibility got back to me, I began to plan my attack. Granted, it made me look like I was a) desperate and b) crazy, but what wouldn’t you do for love? I was well aware this was not a romantic comedy. If it had been, the time that passed between me arriving and the doors opening would have been no longer than an awkward pause to allow for tension in the setting, and not a lengthy seven days where I was forced to bring snacks and bug spray.
But, alas, fiction was usuallywaycooler than real life, but right now, with the woman standing in front of me with her lips pressed together in a firm line and wearing an angry glare, I had to admit my life had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.
I slowly set the megaphone down and awkwardly got out of my lawn chair. There was simply no graceful way to get up from one of those.
Portia’s hair looked glorious, like a unicorn and a tiger had gotten into a fight and decided instead to make a baby. It waved around her head in wild curls, making it look like a mane surrounding her face. Sometime since she’d last been seen, she’d added in pink and blue swaths, making her look like an angry Rainbow Brite.
“Miss Kadish?” I asked, once I’d managed to stand.
She rolled her eyes at me and let out a little snort through her nose. “You are a very annoying woman, Grace Banner.” She turned and flicked a hand at me. “Come inside before the public finally reports you as a nuisance.”
I turned to stare at the crowd, surprised to see many of them blushing and looking away. Was I the only one who had appreciated my firm stance on the lack of husbands around here? I let out a scoff and trailed after Miss Kadish, careful to watch my steps so I didn’t faceplant on the way into the agency.
I navigated the steps with care and swept past Portia and into the cool air of the mysterious agency.
The first thing that struck me was the atmosphere. I could always tell when there was tension in a room or a place of business, but any sign of tension here was nonexistent. Laughter filtered down the hall, but the only annoyed person here was Portia. The doors slammed with a loudwhoomphand without waiting for me, she continued down the long corridor and into the heart of the building.
