A Write Time for Love
Chapter 2
MCRW Round Robin
Author: Jody Wallace
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: December 2002

“SWM iso slender, athletic SWF for partying, fun and maybe more. Pretty face a plus, good bod a must!”

“Well, at least he didn’t say pretty hair.” Maggie clicked through the available men on the “ImmediaDate” Web site and fingered her raggedly shorn and decidedly unpretty curls.

Sasha at the Curl Up & Dye had convinced Maggie short and sassy was the hair choice for today’s career women. The peppy blonde, whose short and sassy hair looked like a magazine ad, clipped Maggie a trendy, maintenance-supposedly-not-required hairstyle, claiming her wavy hair would cooperate flawlessly. When she’d strutted out of the salon looking like a magazine ad as well, the ends of her hair “tweaked” and “pieced”, she’d felt like a new woman.

Now that it was two days and two showers later, she felt like a new woman all over again, only this woman’s hair looked more like a weed whacker attack than Faith Hill. The dark strands, released from years of heavy ponytails, sprang wildly all over her head, but not in any semblance of order. Or artful disorder. Just plain, ugly disorder. She looked like one of her old Barbie dolls after a run-in with a pair of child-safe scissors.

Perhaps she should have had the saleslady at Parisian throw in a couple hats when she blew that chunk of change on trendy dating duds. But, short of buying a wig or, God forbid, getting Sasha to cut her hair even shorter, she was stuck with this strange mess until it grew enough to wad into a ponytail again. She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. At least it was soft.

What the hell did she know about hairstyles and styling balm and curling spritz? Oh, well. Anything for an article that led to a byline in the political forum. It might only be January, but this year’s elections were building up to be some of the hottest jockeying in ages.

Now to find a couple more dates. The Web site promised immediate results, or dates, by posting only ads from guys and gals willing to drop everything and go out with you, which suited her purposes splendidly.

Here was a winner: “SM iso any nice F who doesn’t play games, looks not important,” wouldn’t care about her hair.

She’d spent the weekend hiding out, researching, and dreading work on Monday. She set up interviews with several online success stories as well as several online horror stories, all of whom agreed to speak with her over the phone. A large package of research materials about Internet Dating was shipping to her via Amazon.com and courtesy of Frank. She should be able to knock this article out in three weeks, if the dates went as planned.

The phone rang, and she reached to pick it up without taking her eyes off the screen, accidentally knocking over her beer. The can clattered onto its side. She grabbed for it, cursing, and knocked the phone off the cradle.

“Horse’s ass!” She dabbed at the beer with her sweatshirt and wiped the wet phone on her sleeve. “Hello?”

“Are you all right?” said a deep, masculine voice on the other end.

Was this one of her dates already? No, she arranged the “immediadates” through email, and she hadn’t given any of them her number.

“I’m all right. I just knocked over my beer.”

A pause. “Is this Maggie Breedlove?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?” Whoever he was, he had a voice like rich, dark chocolate, oozing right out of the little holes in the phone and sweetening up her sorry weekend. She smiled.

“You may not remember me, but we met at your office party last month. My name is Cole MacNeil.”

Cole Porter MacNeil? She stopped dabbing up beer with her sleeve and leaned back in her chair. “How could I forget the copy room, Mr. MacNeil?”

Cole chuckled. “I know I haven’t forgotten it. Please, call me Cole.”

“Ok, Cole. You can call me Maggie. Or Mags, everyone at work calls me Mags.” She was babbling. She pinched her lips shut with the hand not holding the phone.

“Maggie, I realize we didn’t meet under the best of circumstances.” He sounded amused, as if he knew what she was thinking. “I noticed you do local music reviews for the Weekender, and I wanted to compliment your insightful write-up of the band Newgrass is Greener.”

“Um, thanks?” He phoned her at home, on a Sunday night, to tell her he liked her article? Why not send an email?

“I was wondering if you had ever had a chance to hear the guitarist, Jim Leary, doing his solo stuff. He’s playing at Big Corral tomorrow night.”

Maggie gulped. This sounded suspiciously like he was about to ask her on a date. Cole Porter MacNeil, a tall, blond god of a man known to show up in the society pages, had no earthly reason to ask Maggie Breedlove out, even before the bad haircut. And tomorrow night was her first immediadate with Bruce, SWM, 5’8.75”, 38, never married, iso proportional female age 18 - 28, for dinner, dancing, and being swept off her feet.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You can’t see Jim Leary?”

“I can’t go out with you. I have a date.”

Cole laughed again, sending shivers down her spine. “I think we have a misunderstanding, Maggie. I work for Big Corral in several capacities, and one of them is as its entertainment director. I hoped you could drop by and catch Jim’s show for the newspaper.”

“Oh! Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” If her face got any hotter, it was going to leach the curl right out of her hair. Come to think of it, that might not be a bad thing.

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not, I shouldn’t have assumed, I mean, why would you want to go out with a lunatic like me?”

“I don’t think you’re a lunatic. I know it wasn’t your idea to sit on the Xerox machine with your pants down.”

“They made me do it. Everyone else was photocopying themselves, and I refused.”

“I understand. I was there, remember?”

“I really shouldn’t have insisted you keep the photocopy. I’m glad you stopped them from making more, but my rudeness to you was uncalled for.”

“It makes for a nice addition to the local artwork on the walls at Big Corral.”

“What? You…you have it up on the wall? My butt is on the wall at Big Corral?” Maggie felt her heart threaten to race up her throat and out her mouth.

She could hear Cole smiling through the phone. “If you’ll come to the show tomorrow, I’ll give you the photocopy back. Consider it a bribe. I’ll leave tickets for you and your boyfriend at the door. What do you say?”

“That’s not a bribe, that’s blackmail.”

“Whatever works.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she believed Cole about the artwork, but she couldn’t stand not knowing. “All right, I’ll do it.” Bruce claimed he liked dinner and dancing, and the Big Corral had both, if you liked peanuts and cowboy boots. The bar was as good a place as any to go on her first immediadate. And anyway, she didn’t care what Bruce thought. She just wanted to use him as research and get back her photocopy.

***

So who does Maggie end up with?  Bruce or Cole?  Read Chapter 3

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