I tried, Ben said. I really did. I ignored the complaining about waiters. I said nothing about the constant texting. When she ordered lobster fettuccine I didn’t flinch.
“You’ve got to spend money to make money.”
The bon mot made Ben flinch, but Jake didn’t notice. He searched the dusty shelves of the equipment garage, moving pails and quarts of oil. He found it. A pair of work gloves. He turned to his pal.
“I’m assuming you left the door open.”
“You assume wrong.”
It was Jake Hooker’s turn to blink. He had done all he could. He set up his friend with the richest girl in Illinois. Rather, the second richest. Stella’s friend, Molly Poll, lived in Barrington, in a very ostentatious compound of houses, pools, courts, gardens, and horse rings.
The Poll family couldn’t compete with the McGinneses in sheer dollars. No one could. But their front atrium featured a lifesize replica of Michalangelo’s David, each detail exact right down to the… Well, let’s just say each detail exact.
Ben took her to Chez Rudy’s, at the suggestion of Stella. It didn’t occur to her that the entrees were eighty dollars. She just knew Molly liked Italian.
It did not go well.
Molly sat like a spoiled grade-schooler made to wait her turn at four-square. She even looked like a little girl, with a round pouting face and a pink headband holding back colorless, lank hair. Her pleated baby blue dress billowed from a plump waist. It was a Mac Duggal, one thousand dollars — she made sure to tell him this — and the dress reminded Ben of a truism he either knew or did not know. He was not quite sure.
Short-necked women should not wear dresses.
“You’re not going to see her again?” asked Jake.
“I think it’s the other way around.”
Jake pulled on the gloves. None of the grounds crew wore work gloves. Not driving a mower. Not in ninety degrees, with the sun pounding down.
“What are those for?” asked Ben. His friend turned. One might have called Jake Hooker stupid handsome. But the brown eye was shrewd. He looked into the future as though watching a favorite TV program, adjusting the audio.
After loosening the fingers on each glove, just a bit, one by one, he pointed at his pal.
“Stella.”
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com