3-When in Doubt--Pants

"Helpful hint from a benevolent friend," I advised Eve when she came out that morning with two cups of coffee: "wear pants."

Eve looked down at herself and realized what she'd forgotten. "Fuck," she said. She went back inside with both cups of coffee still in her hands.

"Thanks for leaving me some of that!" I called after her. Eve was not at her best in the mornings, and menial things like pants didn't usually get through her coffee-coffee-coffee mantra until the caffeine hit her system. If I didn't suck at making coffee, our living situation would have been perfect.



The dude from across the street was staring, apparently enjoying the show my could-have-been-a-supermodel-if-she-hadn't-gone-to-law-school best friend was providing. I smiled brightly and waved as if this was nothing out of the ordinary (and, sadly, it wasn't, though I usually caught Eve before she made it to the porch). He blushed and looked away.

When Eve returned, she had both sucked down half a mugful and put on a pair of old bluejeans, two good signs. She handed me my coffee; I drank gratefully.

The guy from across the way was now sneaking surreptitious glances at Eve over his newspaper. "He enjoyed the view," I commented softly, hiding my lips behind the rim of my mug, just in case he was a lipreader. Eve and I had a running debate on whether I was paranoid or just careful.

Eve looked around with no attempt to conceal it. "The dude in the manpris?" she asked in evident horror as she sat down next to me on the top porch step. I nodded. "No man should ever wear capris, Jen," she all but moaned. "It's unnatural."

I nodded again. "The word I would use is German, but--"

"Don't," Eve interrupted. "That's the rule. No law and no languages in the house."

"I was just about to cite the rule, Eve," I simpered.

Eve and I had known each other since being undergrads and were collectively Those Girls That Never Stopped Going To School. Eve had gone to four years of pre-law and was about to enter her final year of law school; I had done a five-year program that had earned me my bachelor's and master's and was currently pursuing my doctorate in the Romance Languages.

Manpris man stood, accenting the uncouth length of his pants. "Hello," he called, trying to sound as if he wasn't nervous, talking to us. Collectively, Eve and I often prompted this reaction. After all, Eve was Eve and while I very clearly wasn't Eve, I wasn't that bad myself.

On the bright side, to scare away unwanted suitors, I could always start in on etymology and Even could start dropping court vernacular.

"Hey," I called back. Eve was busy trying to get the last drops from her mug; I held on to mine tightly, lest she try to nab it.

The dude walked down the steps of his porch. I groaned inwardly--I'd wanted to coerce Eve into going for a walk around the Point with me this morning, before all the people were out and about. Now it seemed we would be here making small talk with I ♥ Manpris for some time. Worse, Eve would probably, at some point, leave me to fend for myself.

"I'm Charles," introduced the International Mascot for Manpris. "Charles Dobbler. My uncle owns this house. Maybe you know him?"

I loved Mr. Dobbler, and had been extremely disappointed when he hadn't shown up this summer. Eve had been hoping he'd died; she found him creepy.

For this, Eve emerged. She had a red ring around her nose and mouth. "Is he dead?" she asked, sounding a bit too hopeful for tact. Malicious glee shone in her eyes.

Charles "Manpris" Dobbler looked taken aback. "No, not at all. He got married this spring and he and his bride are cruising around the Caribbean for a month. He let the house to me for the summer."

I gave Eve a triumphant smile, while she looked glum, though whether from the fact that Mr. Dobbler was still alive or that this pasty, Manpris-wearing replica, complete with a bad haircut, was staying all summer I couldn't know.

While I exulted and she lamented, Charles moved forward until he was on the edge of his lawn. "It's great to get to know your neighbors." He was trying to sound speculative, but he was clearly fishing. The whole spectacle was so painful. "I don't believe I caught your names," he prompted when I didn't reply. Eve lay on her back, her mug balanced over her mouth and an arm over her eyes to block out the steadily rising sun.

"I'm Jen," I finally offered, after much deliberation; as it was, I purposely left out last names. "And the zombie over here is Eve."

"Nice to meet you," said Charles. Whatever you could say about him (and manpris--which I now realized were accented by a too-short shirt--came to mind), he was pointedly polite.

"Enchantee," I replied, in French. Eve pinched my thigh viciously, even though we were technically out of the house.

Charles looked intrigued, and crossed the road. His unkempt lawn had left the bottom of his manpris wet; ours, kept scrupulously short by Craig, my fiance, who came up on weekends, barely skimmed his ankles.

"Parlez-vous francais?" he asked in an accent so atrocious that it was a struggle not to wince.

Eve groaned. "Do not get her started," she moaned. With the cup over her face, it came out garbled and muted. Charles moved forward to catch her words. He now stood at the base of our porch.

"Oui," I answered, in an accent that was perfect, if noticeably Parisian. "Je parle francais, et anglais, et italien, et espagnol, et--"

He cut me off with a laugh that sounded forced. He hadn't understood me. "I'm afriad I know only rudimentary French," he confessed. Clearly--nothing I'd said was at all complex. "Are you a French teacher, then?" he asked.

From up close, Charles was even more unattractive and awkward: his face looked distinctly squished, and he toyed almost constantly with the tie to his manpris. If Eve had been looking, she almost certainly would have made some lewd comment concerning the location of those ties.

Prepared to disconcert him immensely, I said with a straight face, "I'm a student. So is Eve."

His control was impressive: he barely flinched. I enjoyed watching him squirm as he wondered just how young were these girls he'd just tried to pick up.

Of course, being contrary in the mornings, Eve sat up. "Don't let her fool you," she advised. "I'm in law school and Jen's going after her doctorate. We're not undergrads."

Where this normally would have further disconcerted a man--the question went from "Just how young are thses girls?" to "Just how smart are these girls?"; it wasn't often you saw a twenty-five-year-old doctorate contender--Charles actually seemed soothed. This either meant that he was extremely smart or extremely stupid.

Charles mounted the first step of our porch. The victim groaned in protest. "I only went to community college," he said. Well, there was my answer. "But I own a hardware store with my father. It's a living." I was a total snob when it came to education, but at least I knew it. I nodded curtly. My dislike of Charles so far, added to my love of college, added to my inbred politesse led to lukewarm civility.

"Where did you go to school?" Charles asked after an awkward pause.

"Yale," I said.

"Harvard," Eve said.

"Princeton," I said.

"Georgetown," Eve said.

"Yale again," I said.

"Wow," said Charles. "That's an impressive repertoire. Sure more impressive than old Brookdale CC." His abbreviation bothered me.

Then he came up the steps and sat down next to me, his leg almost touching mine and his hand oh-so-casually partway over mine. With a shock I realized that this whole time he and his manpris hadn't been hitting on Eve; he'd been trying to pick up me. Standing up so fast that I nearly spilled the dredges of my coffee all over Charles' manpris, I jumped up, dragging Eve with me. She gave me a look that spelled her disgust at moving, but came along docilely.

"It's been great meeting you, Mr. Dobbler," I assure him, hurrying inside.

Eve paused and looked over her shoulder at the shocked Charles. "A friendly tip," she offered: "when in doubt--pants."

And it was with that well-wishing that we left him on our porch.