When Size Matters

Damn. I’d been avoiding this guy forever. There I was thinking about hot lips and they belonged to Brad you-two-would-be-just-perfect-together Davis, the blind date I was never going to have. My guy friends were always trying to set me up with him. Poor old Dylan. And they knew I didn’t do blind dates anymore. I’d eventually figured it out that lonesome was loads better than loathsome.

“But,” they said, “you’d love Brad. Y’all would be great together.” I knew what they meant by that. They loved Brad. All of them. He was a man’s guy. All rough and tumble, dirty fingernails from fixing stuff and not very successful. Not the kind of guy who would threaten their egos, but good to hang out with, good to hunt with or bowl with or some damn thing. Perfect for good, old low-maintenance me. It made me mad that they’d think I’d want someone like that. He didn’t even live in Austin, but up in Dallas. On top of every other bad thing, he was G.U. Geographically undesirable. Hardly Mr. Perfect.

And here he was, in all his glory. Manly Man himself.

“Oh, um, sorry. I, uh, just wasn’t expecting…Well, I mean I’d heard about Brad Davis and thought…” Get a grip! I grimaced at him and extended my hand, intending to introduce myself.

Instead, he took my hand in both of his and held it. His hands were strong and hard. Not gravelly like sandpaper, though. Smooth and tough. More like an old shoe. Ooh, romantic. At least his nails were clean. “You’re not exactly what I pictured, either. Lemme see. Shapeless clothes, thick glasses. Long stringy hair. Earnest and a little intense.”

I pulled my hand back with a jerk. “They said that?” “Nah.” He laughed as he lifted my hand again, pretending to study my palm. “They said I’d love you. A free spirit. Said you’d be purrrfect for me.”

“So why stringy hair and shapeless clothes?” I asked, but I knew. It was the usual response to my name. I’d been born in ’79, aka the reckless years of my mother’s life. Her decade of free love, peace and the noble, all-consuming quest for self. She’d named me in one of those classic flashes of seventies free thinking. An innocent act of whimsy and she’d guaranteed—for my entire life—that complete strangers would feel compelled to hunch up their shoulders, squint at me knowingly and exclaim, “Your folks were hippies, right?” I quit answering. The truth was I didn’t know. When I was little, I’d once asked my mother if we were hippies.

“Hippies?” she’d giggled, rolling her eyes. “Dylan! Nobody’s ever called themselves a hippie. They might say, ‘I’m into peace’ or ‘I seek enlightenment.’ But—” She stopped and balanced on one leg with her other foot pressed into the knee. She tilted her head to her shoulder, put on a dopey face and raised four fingers in twin peace signs. “Oh, wow,” she droned. “I’m a hippie.” Then she unwound, laughing her luscious laugh and dropped down so she’d be right at eye-level with me. “Dylan, love, ‘hippie’ is a word used by people on the outside.”

I didn’t ask again.

Over the years I’d tried out different responses to the hippie question, trying to discover the one that most effectively discouraged further inquiry. I’d abandoned the humiliated silence that I’d used in elementary school when the Jennifers and Ericas first heard my name and sang, “Sky-dle is a hippie. Sky-dle is a hippie.” Outsiders, I thought. By the time I was in college I was affecting a world-weary shrug and an ironic grin anytime anyone brought it up. But no response had been half as effective as my latest reply, which not only halts the line of questioning, but usually puts an abrupt end to all further conversation. “Oh, no!” I say, fixing them with my best wide-eyed gaze. “We’re from New Mexico.” The question marks form in a bubble above their heads as I make my escape.

Brad kept his head tilted down, peered at me from under his eyebrows and grinned. He looked quite guilty. And sooo fine.

“It’s my name, right?” I asked him.

He didn’t say anything. I could tell he wasn’t about to get tricked into saying something wrong. He was probably thinking this was a hot spot. Guys are never really sure where the land mines are so they try to be really careful to avoid setting one off accidentally. At least in the beginning, they try.

But I had no hot spots. Not anymore. Just lots of little frozen places. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my own fake ID, my camouflage. I love my name.” And just how dumb did that sound?

“Me, too,” he said with not a hint of irony. “Dylan’s great.”

Now what? I was stuck to the spot. Manly Man appeared to possess some kind of magnet, an intense gravitational pull. I couldn’t budge. It always took me a while to get a rhythm going when I was first talking to a guy, even one I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be talking to. Or maybe especially then. I just knew I was a whole lot easier with a breezy tempo. I made a stab at it. “I guess I should properly introduce myself. Glad to meet you, Brad Davis. Sky Dylan Stone,” I announced, turning my hand into his palm for a shot at a breezy handshake. “Sky with no cute little ‘e’ on the end.”

“Sky Dylan Stone.” He rolled it around on his tongue, tasting it and laughing at the same time. I watched his mouth as he said it. All other issues aside, it really was an incredible mouth. It was saying now, “Where’d it come from? Your name.”

I took my hand back and looked away from his lips, off to the side. So I could concentrate. “Who knows?” I shrugged. “My mom’s been typically vague on that point.” I laughed a little then, thinking about it, about her, seeing her again in my head.

“Oh, I don’t know, Dylan,” she’d said, laughing, when I’d asked about my name. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Which was her favorite explanation for the stuff she did back then, her only excuse for the reckless years.

I put her away and looked back at him, smiling, plunging ahead with my breezy tone. “She said the Dylan part came from Bob Dylan. She and my dad really loved that old guy. Still do.” And God knows, it could have been worse. She liked Jimmi Hendrix and Janis Joplin a lot, too. Or, heaven forbid, Roy Orbison. I could just hear her. “Well, Orbison, darling, what can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It’s not so bad,” I continued, “I like Dylan’s songs okay—well, the words to his songs. I think his voice must be an acquired taste.” I saw my mom again, thirty-some years ago, in halter top and hip huggers, hair to her waist parted straight down the middle, acquiring a taste for Dylan with a bong and a beanbag chair. “Anyway,” I breezed on, “Nobody calls me Sky, except my grandma. Thank goodness. I’ve been Dylan since birth.” I stopped, suddenly aware of the important distinction between breezy and windy, not even sure which parts I’d said aloud. “It suits me just fine,” I mumbled, puttering down to a halt.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Kinda no-nonsense and poetic both.”

Ooh. I liked that. I stared at his mouth again.

“But Sky…” He let the thought trail. “Sky’s magic. Sky…just floats off your tongue.”

I shouldn’t have been looking at his mouth. I flushed red at the image. It’s okay to be a visual person if your visions don’t play out on your face for the whole damn world to witness. I pictured myself, legs dangling, head and arms thrown back, floating off his tongue. I blushed.

“So…no more images of shapeless clothes and stringy hair?” I croaked, probably sounding way too earnest and intense.

His look took in the straying curls and vacuum packaging. “No, no. Sorry about that. It’s just that I quit trusting my friends ever since they hooked me up with that Dallas Cowboy’s cheerleader who was uncomfortable with silence. Hell, my ears are still throbbin’. But now it’s your turn. You tell me. How’d ya have me pictured?”

Lord. That smile again. He could have been talking about worm farms for all I cared. I didn’t answer. I was thinking that this was what a heart-melting grin must look like. A true Texas-boy smile. Impossible not to get pulled in. That was the magnet. The beautiful teeth, those fantasy lips, the smile that tugged over too far to the right. It made you want to stick around, hang out. Maybe I could learn to like bowling.

“Dylan?” he coaxed, eyebrows up.

I forced myself to look up at his eyes, or at least his eye. I could never look at both of someone’s eyes at the same time without mine crossing. I just picked one and stared at it. Come to think of it, the saying is “look him in the eye” so maybe everyone does that. I like it when I find evidence that I’m not totally weird.

His eye was pirate black. I could hardly even see the pupil. I looked right at the bridge of his nose to see both of them at once. They were so, so dark, not dazzling like his mouth, but deep and unreadable. I wondered what our children would look like. Stop it, I ordered.

His question had hung in the air too long; I decided not to answer. I gazed back at him, smiling my version of Mona Lisa’s smile. Then I had this image of a baby smiling when you don’t know if it’s grinning or having gas and decided to just plain smile. I felt the heat in my body, wanted him to touch me again. The quiet hung between us but it didn’t worry me. It was a good thing. Unlike Chatty Cheerleader, Silence would be my friend.

He read the vibes, stepped closer and took my hand again, holding it to his chest, cupped loosely in his. “You wanna go somewhere?” he asked in a kind of croaky whisper. “Now?” If this had been a movie, he would have said, “Let’s get out of here.” He was good in this new role, husky voice and all. I knew he knew the effect he had, knew he did it on purpose. He was too close. I wanted to step back, get a little space, but he’d tightened his grip on my hand and I’d have had to yank it to get it loose. I willed myself still and tried to read the vibes, tried to get a sign from those night-black eyes.

And then, pop! The bubble burst. My mom always said I got too tangled up in my own antennae. I felt myself spiraling into rapid cool-down, getting uncomfortable, antsy. I looked around to see if I could see my date, see if maybe he’d like to take another stab at a rescue. He was gone.

I shook my head, telling Brad, no, sorry, no, I was busy. That’s what I said to guys who made me nervous. But this time it was true. Somewhere out there I had a date, a date anxious to relive my special moments of humiliation on the dance floor.

“Come on. Just coffee. I’d like to get on out of here. I’ve enjoyed about all I can stand of the funny looks.” He tilted his head at the people walking by, sneaking peeks. I’d been in my own world, thought we were alone. “How about it? We leave now, you’d have time for just a little coffee. Yes?” He stepped back, turned down the heat and cranked up the sunbeam. It looked like it came from inside, way deep down inside.

And I could feel the pull again, tugging. No way, Dylan. Magnet Man’s a player. A rough-edged, hard-handed player. A noncandidate. I looked away from him, still shaking my head a little, and tried to go through my usual list, those things that I absolutely required in potential candidates. The list I used to talk myself out of guys. Except I couldn’t focus. I just knew that he wasn’t shorter than me and that he wasn’t dumb—that was a guess. It was hard to tell with all those long drawn-out Texas vowels.

I couldn’t seem to help it, flopping around from flame to ice to fire again. My friends said I did it so I could stay safe, keep guys from getting too close. But it wasn’t that. It was just that I was looking for the right guy. A real guy. Someone I could count on.

It took such a leap of faith.

But here was this guy with the sunshine smile, a guy who made my heart flip and my toes curl. This time I needed to get brave enough to jump. Except my feet were nailed to the floor.

3

BY THE NIGHT of number eleven I’d already had a thousand first dates. Let me make sure that’s right. Let’s see, a thousand first dates calculates out to about a hundred and eleven first dates every year since my first soul-shriveling date with Cal Richardson when I was fifteen. That would mean at least two first-dates every single weekend for the past nine years…Okay, no, not a thousand, then. But however many there had been, I had a tight, blue rubber band around my heart from each one of those disasters. Pity I couldn’t just look inside and count the bands. Like rings on a tree.

Sadly, my second dates numbered somewhat less. Like maybe ten. Steady, long-term relationships had not been my specialty.

If somebody else told me that about themselves, I’d guess the problem was something subtle, not immediately apparent. Like maybe misplaced nipples or braided nose hair. So what was it with me? My super-helpful friends had offered their theories: I was too cautious, I was scared of being left, yada, yada, yada. I had no idea what the problem was, either, but I did wonder why I kept trying. ’Cause it kept getting harder.

Cal Richardson was my first first date. Cal was fairly typical of the guys at my high school—walking hormones with lips. I was so flattered that Cal-oh-my-God-Richardson had asked me out that I floated on air the week before the big date. My feet didn’t once touch the ground from the time he called until the disastrous end of the date when I had to put one foot in front of the other as I stumbled to a pay phone to call my mom to come get me. I went out with Cal because he was gorgeous, intelligent and had crystal blue eyes. Cal went out with me to see if my boobs were real. Apparently he and his jock friends were unaware of the phenomenon of girls maturing suddenly and dramatically over the few months of summer vacation. They nicknamed me Mammy, short for mammary. It stuck for a long, long time. And, okay, I’m not going to think about that anymore.

The day of number eleven, I’d already had one thousand and one and counting first dates—okay, really, some-big-number-less-than-a-thousand plus one with Matt. The guy who wanted to be friendlier than friends. The guy who didn’t rescue me. A perfect Dylan-style first date. And like so many before it, a date that would have no second date follow-up.

So there I was, searching the reception for Matt, Dr. Nice Guy, trying to think what excuse I’d give for dumping him and running off with Brad the Magnet. Because that’s what I was going to do. While I’d been shaking my head “no,” feet firmly nailed, I’d started thinking about Brad standing on the dance floor, asking Groom Daddy to dance, heels together, arms extended. My last head shake kind of morphed into a nod, and I heard myself saying, “Yeah, okay, I guess.” I tried not to feel that sizzle of fear in my veins after opening myself up like that. I smoothed my face into complacency so he wouldn’t think I was flaky, or rather, wouldn’t know that I was.

As I looked for Matt, my head kept asking me, How are you gonna pull this one off? Without lying? And then he found me.

“Dyl, are you okay? You want to go home?” he asked, putting his arm around my shoulders as though he was protecting me from physical blows, not just more prurient stares. I saw again what they’d seen, an upside down me, leg waving in the breeze. Stop thinking about it! I snuck a peek at Matt. There was no anger evident in him, no sign he was bothered that I’d run off to talk to Brad. Matt and I had been friends a long time. Of course he’d understand. Matt was a practical guy. And careful. If Matt were a girl, his name would be Prudence.

“Yeah, I guess maybe I do.” I sounded fairly pitiful. Poor Dylan, ready to go home and lick her wounds. Liar!

“You want me to drive you? We could always come back and get your car tomorrow.” We each had our own cars because I’d spent the night before at the bride’s house, playing lady-in-waiting. Is there just no end to bridesmaid fun?

So there was Prudence, the most serious, dependable guy on earth, caring about me. I hated myself. But apparently not enough to find my way back to the path of righteousness. “No, thanks. I’ll be fine.” I stared at the grass, avoiding his eyes.

“Are you sure?” he asked, turning to look at my face.

By now I’m thinking, Yes, already! “I’m sure. Really.” We went back and forth a few more times. He seemed truly, genuinely concerned. But it came down to this: I couldn’t stand not being with Brad more than I could stand being deceitful to Matt. Where was the guarded Dylan I used to know?

Meanwhile, my second first date that day had already been arranged. The Magnet had agreed to meet me at Skinny’s after I’d extricated myself from the festivities. We both knew that would take some time. I was in the bridal party, after all.

I was home in twenty minutes. I’d no sooner gotten the words “better go” out of my mouth than the bride had me air-kissed, hugged and sent me on my way to the parking area with an escort. I felt like a fart being fanned out of the room with a towel. I knew the entire Groom Daddy incident would be all my fault!

The phone was ringing as I unlocked the door to my little detached apartment. I kicked off the satin pumps and ran to answer it, guilt propelling me forward, knowing for sure it was Matt, dear Prudence, calling to make sure I was okay. All the way home, I’d been feeling kind of heartsick about the whole thing. I’d messed up again. Why, Dylan? Why run from such a decent guy as Matt? And to what? A good-ol-boy chick magnet? G.U., financially U., and—if I had to venture a guess—commitment challenged to boot.

I held on to the wall, did a quick spin around the corner on the hardwood floors, was almost to the phone in the kitchen, when wham! I tripped right over the top of my oversize chocolate Lab bounding around the corner from the other way. Guinness was always late, a burglar alarm on a sixty-second delay. I actually felt myself horizontally airborne a blink before I crashed to the floor.

The orange pouf, with all its unflattering layers of tulle underskirts, saved me, cushioning the blow. “See,” I could hear my sunny-side-up mom say as my knees banged into the floor, “Nothing’s all bad.” Not true. The pouf was bad, all bad.

The phone was still ringing. I’d programmed my answering machine to pick up after nine rings. It helped eliminate all but the most ardent of callers. How many is that? I couldn’t say; I’d lost count while falling. Hang on, Matt, I’m coming. I crawled on stinging knees over to the counter, fighting the dress every tangled-up inch of the way.

guilt = incredible motivator

I reached up to the counter and grabbed the phone. “Hello?” I didn’t sound half-bad…considering.

“Hello, little one,” my grandma sang out of the earpiece.

I adored my grandma. I can’t think of a time when I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to her. Except maybe right then. It took me a second to switch gears, to turn off all the what-am-I-going-to-say buzz whizzing around in my head. Maybe it was a good thing, though, that it wasn’t Prudence. The whizzing hadn’t come up with anything.

“Grandma Frank!” I sang back, trying to sound easy, relaxed. I didn’t want to get into it right then, to try to explain my situation to her. First, I had to explain it to me.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. I should have known. Grandma Frank could read vibes before they happened.

“Nothing, Grandma. I just tripped over Guinness and I’m really in a hurry. That’s all,” I said. It was the truth. I had another first date to screw up.

“Speak quickly, then.”

“There’s nothing. Really. At all. Nothing’s the matter.” How lame was that? I didn’t even believe me.

“And the truth is…?” she asked, patiently.

Grandma Frank was my mom’s mom. She lived in a rambling old adobe in Socorro, a dusty little town in the center of New Mexico, famous for its green chile burgers and for having the most powerful radio telescope in the world. Grandma Frank was eighty, lived alone, wove expensive hand-dyed shawls on giant looms, read people’s minds and occasionally answered the door to her little hacienda stark naked—spare yourself, don’t visualize it. And she was the stable one in my family.

“I don’t know, Grandma Frank,” I said, sighing, giving up, letting her suck me in. “Maybe you could tell me. Because I can’t seem to figure it out.”

“You have a date tonight.” She didn’t ask it like a question. She already knew. “That’s good? You’re pleased?”

“Well, it’s not really a date. A date is something you plan. In advance. This is more like a—”

“Sky, darling,” she interrupted. I loved it that she called me that. It meant I was someone else in Grandma-world. “Maybe you’re too rational,” she said, chuckling to herself. “It’s important also to listen to your heart.”

“Yeah? What? And end up like my mom?” I asked her, sounding a little harder than I’d intended.

“But your mother’s very happy.”

“Yeah.” I tried laughing but it came out like a snort. Note to self: You might want to work on that ironic laugh. “She makes damn sure of that. Nothing else matters. If happiness was a church, she’d be kneeling at the altar.”

It sounded so harsh in my head when I did the instant replay. Wow, Dylan, I thought. Where’d that come from?

“From deep inside,” my grandma said. “Sometimes it’s good to hear what you think. Helps you decide if it’s true. Happiness is good, too, Sky.” She continued speaking, not waiting for my comment. Or maybe not wanting to risk another snort. “What is it going to take to make you happy?”

“I don’t know,” I said. But I did. Someone who would always be there. With or without the diamonds.

“Ah, yes, if only it were that easy,” she whispered. “You go now. You’re in a hurry. I love you.” Then she was gone.

The wood floor was hurting my knees. I settled onto my butt. The bridesmaid dress puffed up in front like a just-landed parachute. Guinness came and sat on his haunches beside me. Maybe I wouldn’t go, instead just stay here with Guinness, in my hideout, where things were uncomplicated and I was safe. I put my head against his. “No offense, Guinness, but I like it that you’re so simple.” He jerked away. Offense apparently taken.

I took his big head in my hands and looked him right in the eye. “So, my little pet,” I told him nose-to-wet-nose. “What’s it going to take to make you happy?”

Guinness stuck out his tongue and gave me an enormous Lab-kiss. And then couldn’t stop because, slurp-slurp-slurp, Groom Daddy sweat was too yummy to resist.

4

I’D BEEN LATE getting to Skinny’s. With all that time to spare I’d still managed not to make it on time. No wonder we drove guys crazy! I’d felt better after my talk with Guinness, had taken a quick shower and raced around my apartment trying on different outfits. Good thing my roommate, Andie, hadn’t made it home from the wedding yet, to delay me even more, asking a billion questions I couldn’t answer. I did have to keep stopping to explain to Guinness that we weren’t playing fetch. But that wasn’t why I was late. I’d felt so relaxed in my jeans, short sweater and favorite tennies—really, for the first time in ages—that I’d decided to walk down the long hill from my apartment to the coffee shop instead of driving. Or maybe I was stalling. I never know with me.

Brad was still wearing his suit pants and dress shirt, but he’d pulled off his tie, undone the strangle button on his shirt and rolled up the sleeves a couple of turns. One yummy look.

He was waiting for me in the parking lot, leaning against his old, faded-blue BMW and looking out over Lake Austin, that lengthy stretch of the Colorado River where they’ve dammed it up on the West side of town. I could feel the lick of the flames again as I walked up to those long, long legs. Brad pushed himself off the car—no hands, just legs—told me I looked great and kissed my cheek. There were those lips again, wrapped around the off-center smile. Matt who?

Skinny’s was a big deal to me, my wild life refuge, a place I went by myself not to be lonely. And I never shared it with people who wouldn’t be good to run into at a ragged three in the morning or at ten o’clock on a dateless Saturday night. Brad lived in Dallas, which made him pretty safe.

“Hey, thanks again for the rescue,” I said to fill the silence while we were waiting in line, perusing the pastry case. “I’d been about to do something dire.” It came out breathless. Maybe because of the gravitational pull.