To the Gentleman in the Back:
Full story will be available on fanfiction.net in 2008.Mina always came home with extraordinary ideas that were guaranteed to be extraordinarily bad ideas. Though her intentions were always good, she had a tendency to not think things through, which left the other girls thinking of ways to persuade her from her latest crazy endeavor. More often than not, Mina managed to convince them to go along with it, though.
Posing as stagehands for Coldplay so that they could sneak backstage and meet the band comes to mind. Or when Charlie’s Angel’s reruns convinced her to sign them up for martial arts, gymnastics, and target practice in hopes of becoming a five-person team of sexy international spies.
So when Mina came home one evening and rushed into the living room waving a flier and singing out, “I have the best idea,” a mutual groan rose up from her roommates.
Raye, painting her nails red from a bottle labeled Blushing Phoenix, did not bother to look up as she suggested, “Lita, get the rope. Amy, get the duct tape. I’ll grab a sock.”
Lita and Amy both smiled whimsically at the thought but did not rush for the bondage pieces as Mina scowled at the back of Raye’s head. But her irritation lifted almost instantaneously, as it always did, and she skipped over to sit next to Amy who had been reading at the kitchen counter. On the other side of the bar, Lita was just dunking chicken breasts in flour and seasonings. “Where’s Serena? She’s going to love this!”
“Job interview.”
“Another one?”
All of her roommates nodded with unreadable expressions, trying to acknowledge only the fact and not the underlying sadness of it. Since she’d graduated from college with a bright and shiny degree in relationship therapy and counseling, Serena had been on countless interviews ranging from interning at a local clinic to being a backstage hand on a TV program specializing in marriage and family advice, but she’d been turned down every time. The girls were beginning to feel that even Serena’s unshakeable optimism was beginning to, well, shake.
“What’s this one for?”
“Nurse’s assistant at a middle school.”
“Wouldn’t you need a medical degree for that?”
Amy shrugged.
“So what was your great idea, Mina?” asked Lita, sticking the chicken into a preheated oven. Raye quickly tried to shush her and was again met with Mina’s glower. Again, it didn’t take long for her to perk back up, though, and slam her flier down on the counter.
“A date auction!”
Lita and Raye exchanged curious glances—Raye raising her eyebrows to confirm that Lita should have kept her mouth shut. Amy placed a finger in her book to hold her spot and leaned forward to peer at the bright blue paper.
“Is this like a Chip’n’Dales thing?” Raye asked skeptically.
“Mina, we aren’t all extremely successful models like you,” Lita teased. “We can’t afford to buy our dates. Some of us have to earn them the hard way.”
Mina rolled her eyes. “We wouldn’t be the bidders! We’d be the… you know, the lots!”
Amy guffawed, burying her face in her hands and losing her place in her book.
“You want us to be in a date auction?” Raye bellowed. “How sleazy is that?”
“Look!” Mina held up the flier and pointed at something that Raye was too far away from to read. “It’s for the children’s hospital. We could help raise money for a good cause. Just think of the karma points!”
“And this has nothing to do with the potential for meeting Mr. Right?” Lita asked, peeling a sweet potato.
That was another thing about Mina’s ideas—they almost always presented some manner in which Mina just might meet her soul mate. She liked to point out that she wasn’t the only single one in the household and they could all use a little TLC themselves.
Mina smirked. “Well if you don’t want to get picked up by some rich and sexy and generous doctor, you can leave them all for me.”
Raye plunged the nail brush into the little bottle and moved on to her toes. “That works for me.”
The apartment door opened and Serena paraded in, dropping her jacket and mittens on the floor and leaned back against the doorframe with a long, relieved sigh.
“Serena! What are you doing next Saturday?”
Blinking, Serena eyed Mina, before shifting her gaze to Amy, attempting not to giggle, and Raye, smug and incredulous. “She’s had another idea, hasn’t she?”
“Oh, just wait ‘til you hear this one.”
“How was the interview?” Lita asked, appearing from behind the kitchen wall and leaning over the counter with a dishtowel in hand.
“I think it went really well!” Serena chirped, but there was something forced in her smile that all of her friends understood. She’d said the same thing about every other interview, and evidently, none of them had gone very well at all.
Lita grinned back at her—trying not to force it herself—and said, “Great! Chicken and sweet potatoes for dinner; ready in an hour.”
“Oh, Leets, you’re the best! So what’s Mina’s newest idea?”
Raye groaned and slumped into the sofa cushions. “Haven’t you all learned not to encourage her yet?”
“We’re going to sign up to be auctioned off in a date auction!”
Serena tilted her head and thought for a moment. “Do I get to dress up?”
“Of course!”
“Do we keep the money we make?”
“Even better. It goes to the Children’s Hospital.”
“Might we possibly meet Mr. Right?”
“You know it,” Mina said with a wink. Serena was almost as determined to find the man of her dreams as she was.
Raye snorted. “Blondes.”
“Mina, don’t you at all feel like people paying to go out with you is a little, well, beneath you?” Amy suggested.
“Beneath us,” added Raye.
“It isn’t prostitution! It’s for a good cause. Besides, Amy, I thought you of all people would be thrilled about this idea.”
“Me? Why me?” Amy, always the shyest of her friends, was terrified of Mr. Right.
“Because you work there! Don’t you want to support your own hospital? I’m surprised you didn’t bring this idea home yourself.”
“Of course I’d heard of it, but the thought had never occurred to me to actually sign up! Going on a date with a complete stranger is risky.”
“We’re in the age of Internet dating sites, Amy. Going on a date with a non-stranger is abnormal. Besides, the hospital screens these guys.”
“What, do they run a DNA test on them?”
“Maybe,” Mina spat.
“What if we sign up and then no one bids on us?”
“And it all comes down to pride.” Lita smirked, twirling a spatula like a baton.
“Amy, you’ll probably get more bids than any of us. After all, you’ll be the only one who knows the doctors.”
“I don’t really know that many doctors…” In her fifth year of medical school, Amy was working swing shift at the Children’s Hospital, a requirement for her degree. “Mostly I just associate with nurses and other students.”
“I kind of like the idea,” said Serena, pulling off the heeled sling-backs she’d stolen from Mina that morning. “It sounds like fun.”
“Well the two of you can go and have a grand time then.”
“I haven’t said no,” Lita pointed out, grabbing the flier from Mina.
“Just think, Lita. We could be going out with doctors. Rich, handsome doctors!”
“Mina, it says here that it’s open to the public. There’s absolutely nothing that suggests you’ll be bid on by one of these fabulous doctors of yours.”
“Yeah, open to the public with a $250 ‘donation.’ Plus the money required to bid. Trust me, anyone who wins us will be made.”
“There’s a lot more to a good man than a fat wallet.”
“Oh, but it helps ever so much.”
Raye shook her head and capped the nail polish. “Mina, you make more money than the rest of us combined. And work half as hard.”
“Hey! Modeling is a lot harder than it looks!”
“I’m just saying that I think you can afford to find a guy who has more promising characteristics.”
“It isn’t that I’m not looking for those things too.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I’m in,” Lita interrupted, sliding the flier back toward Mina and returning to her potatoes. “The restaurant is sponsoring it; I’m sure they’ll let me off for the night.”
“Oh, really? Lita, you’re my hero!”
“Lita, why on Earth are you agreeing to this?” Raye asked incredulously.
“Why not? Mr. Right or not, I’d still get free dinner out of the deal.”
“And contribute to a good cause,” reminded Mina. “Serena, are you in?”
“You know it!”
“Amy?”
Amy wrinkled her nose and looked utterly incapable of resisting, and more than a little bitter about that. “I’ll have to check and make sure the hospital doesn’t have rules against med students being in it.”
“They don’t,” Mina said with confidence, swiveling her stool to face Raye. She fluttered her thick black lashes. “Raye, now you have to. It wouldn’t be the same without you!”
Raye scowled. “I’m awfully busy that weekend. The gallery has a new exhibition opening on the first and I need to get the installation piece ready and…”
“Come off it,” Lita said with a smirk. “Even you are not immune to the possibility of meeting a great guy.”
“And…”
“And giving to charity.”
“You’re all crazy.”
“I’m so excited!” Serena squealed, grabbing up her things and skipping off toward her Raye’s shared bedroom.
Folding her arms, Raye glared crossly at Mina’s pouting face. “You’re gonna let me borrow that black Vera Wang, right?”
“Sure!”
Raye sighed. “Then fine. I’ll do it. But it’s for the children.”
“Wonderful! Here’s your registration packet.” Mina reached into her purse and pulled out five manila envelopes. “I signed us up this afternoon.”