Guys in Suits - Softcover

Whitfield, Van

 
9780385498470: Guys in Suits
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0385498470 ISBN 13: 9780385498470
Verlag: Anchor, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A group of friends try to make sense of love and life in the new millennium in this hilarious novel from Van Whitfield, author of Something’s Wrong with Your Scale! and Beeperless Remote.

After years of disappointment, Simon Washington has grown tired of the Washington, DC, dating scene. He’s desperately looking for a wife when he runs into his first love and determines to regain her affections. Meanwhile, Simon’s best friend Stuart Worthington is doing his best not to settle down when he also rekindles a relationship with an ex-girlfriend. As it happens, both friends are in immediate need of dates for their annual New Year’s vacation. With the clock ticking and their tickets waiting, Stuart and Simon lay plans to convince these old flames to accompany them, only to have a shocking revelation threaten everything at the last minute. With its page-turning plot and hilarious insights, Guys in Suits is a delightful novel that shines a spotlight on the imperfections of men, the enigmas of women, and the perils they both face in the quest to find someone right.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Van Witfield is the author of the Emerge and Blackboard bestselling novel Beeperless Remote, which has been optioned as a feature film, and Something’s Wrong with Your Scale! He lives in suburban Washington, D.C.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

A group of friends try to make sense of love and life in the new millennium in this hilarious novel from Van Whitfield, author of "Something's Wrong with Your Scale! and "Beeperless Remote.
After years of disappointment, Simon Washington has grown tired of the Washington, DC, dating scene. He's desperately looking for a wife when he runs into his first love and determines to regain her affections. Meanwhile, Simon's best friend Stuart Worthington is doing his best not to settle down when he also rekindles a relationship with an ex-girlfriend. As it happens, both friends are in immediate need of dates for their annual New Year's vacation. With the clock ticking and their tickets waiting, Stuart and Simon lay plans to convince these old flames to accompany them, only to have a shocking revelation threaten everything at the last minute. With its page-turning plot and hilarious insights, Guys in Suits is a delightful novel that shines a spotlight on the imperfections of men, the enigmas of women, and the perils they both face in the quest to find someone right.

Aus dem Klappentext

riends try to make sense of love and life in the new millennium in this hilarious novel from Van Whitfield, author of Something s Wrong with Your Scale! and Beeperless Remote.

After years of disappointment, Simon Washington has grown tired of the Washington, DC, dating scene. He s desperately looking for a wife when he runs into his first love and determines to regain her affections. Meanwhile, Simon s best friend Stuart Worthington is doing his best not to settle down when he also rekindles a relationship with an ex-girlfriend. As it happens, both friends are in immediate need of dates for their annual New Year s vacation. With the clock ticking and their tickets waiting, Stuart and Simon lay plans to convince these old flames to accompany them, only to have a shocking revelation threaten everything at the last minute. With its page-turning plot and hilarious insights, Guys in Suits is a delightful novel that shines a spotlig

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Chapter 1

The Bus Driver

October 25, 2000

Simon

Imagine your life as a championship football game. If you pick up a yard and scamper into the end zone, that gleaming Super Bowl trophy is yours. You're going to Disney World! That picture on the Wheaties box, it's yours! And most important, besides a trip to the White House and a downtown tickertape parade, you'll get the girl. All it takes is a yard. Thirty-six measly inches. And your life will be forever changed.

But the linebacker on the other side of the ball isn't having it. He could care less about the trophy. He hates parades. And as far as he's concerned, Disney World is an overblown Florida swamp inhabited by a cartoon rat with size-nineteen feet. You and he couldn't be more different. You're playing for the whole bag of chips, but his purpose is single-minded.

He wants the girl.

The whistle blows, the fans in the packed stadium roar and, in an instant, there's a collision on the field that's so loud, it scares the guys stealing cars all the way out in the parking lot. A pile of grossly overdeveloped guys in grossly oversized pads will tell the final tale. The linebacker motions wildly and drives the crowd to a frenzy. A sack has ended the game, and you can hardly wait for the dust to clear. You're anxious because you know it's over. And because at the bottom of that pile is a man gasping for air and hoping that John Madden and the folks at Fox have cut to commercial.

The guy at the bottom is you.

You never made the Wheaties box. The invite to Disney World must have gotten lost in the mail. And you absolutely didn't get the girl. She was too busy posing with the linebacker at what was supposed to be your parade.

I can relate to your dilemma. I feel your pain. Because like you, I've been sacked.

That's my life.

We were knee-deep into a new millennium and I had nothing to show for it. No wife. No girlfriend. I didn't even have the ever-present "girl you call in a pinch."

The one thing I did have was a job. I was a mass transit operator. You'd probably have called me a bus driver. And I probably wouldn't have answered. I didn't drive a bus. I operated a vehicle. I didn't grow up thinking I'd one day be a major cog in the nation's capitol's mass transit system, but over the years, my career choice had grown on me. I was proud of what I did and I was good at it. Sometimes career choices fall into your lap. That's how it worked for me.

Literally.

It happened eight years ago on the F-14 route, which connects D.C. to the Maryland suburb I called home, Capitol Heights. I was a slim and trim twenty-one-year-old stud and had just finished a game with my flag football team. My teammates all had cars or rides with their girlfriends to ensure their ways home. All I had was a beat-up pair of cleats and a bus token.

Thankfully, I located a stop about a block from the field, and when a vehicle pulled up, I wearily climbed on board and made my way toward the dreaded "back of the bus." I was dead tired and reasoned that sitting away from the other passengers would afford me a bit of privacy and a well-deserved nap. As we rolled down Benning Road and slowly crept past one of D.C.'s old-school culinary landmarks, the Shrimp Boat, I had no idea my life would soon change in ways I never imagined.

I was on my way to the Super Bowl!

When we stopped at Texas Avenue, a woman stepped aboard, and I immediately felt I was in the throes of a medical calamity. She was so thoroughly beautiful that I first thought I was paralyzed. Seconds later, my heart was racing so fast I could have sworn I was having a heart attack. And immediately thereafter, I worried I'd been struck with lockjaw, because I literally felt I couldn't speak. A fact that was plainly evident when she smiled at me and asked, "Is that seat taken?"

"S-s-seat?" I nervously stuttered.

"The blue one beside you," she replied, still standing. "I assume it's available."

"The seat?" I repeated.

"Yes," she answered, starting to sit. "I know I didn't have to ask, but I figured, 'he looks pretty tired,' so I went with it."

"Yeah," I said, sitting up from my slouch. "I'm pooped."

"So you're a football player," she observed.

"The jersey gives it away, huh?" I replied.

"Actually, it's the cleats," she acknowledged, looking down. "Anybody can sport a jersey," she added. "But you don't run into too many people wearing cleats."

"Point well taken."

"Did you win?"

"Win what?" I asked.

"Your game," she asked, suddenly turning toward me.

"Don't take this wrong," I quickly answered. "But do I know you?" I asked, noticing that she seemed far too friendly to be a D.C. gal.

"Not yet," she admitted, reaching for my hand. "But if you play your cards right, who knows?"

"Do you realize your hand is on top of mine?" I asked, surprised.

"Are you saying you don't like it when the woman's on top?"

"That depends on what she's doing when she's on top," I told her.

"Just go along with me here," she whispered, smiling. "One of my customers just got on and if he sees me in public, I want him to see me with somebody."

"Somebody?" I asked, concerned.

"If he sees me with you, maybe he'll think I'm taken and I can get him off my back," she remarked. "You know how you men are," she went on, still forcing a smile. "He bought me a drink and then he acted like I was his personal property."

"What do you do?" I asked, trying to spot her "customer." "Are you a hair stylist or something?"

"Not quite," she answered, reaching into a soft leather handbag. "But if you go get yourself cleaned up you can come down and see me," she said, handing me a glossy red note card.

"Get it at Vic's," I read from the card. "What do you get?"

"Maybe you'll get me," she answered, starting to stand. "It's right over there," she said, pointing. "Hopefully, you'll make it through."

She then smiled, blew me a kiss and winked before stepping away from the vehicle.

She didn't need to worry about me getting there. I'd miss club-level luxury box seats to the NFL Hall of Fame game first. It took me all of thirty minutes to shower, dress and make my way back into town, where I quickly learned that among the craziest places in D.C., Vic's was perhaps the craziest.

I should have expected no less. Especially from a business that billed itself as equal parts barbecue pit and low-down "get your money's worth" strip lounge.

The moment I walked in, I couldn't help but notice that the walls were painted in the blackest of black. Four well-placed neon signs flashed Get It At Vic's almost in unison. A nonstop showcase of strobe lights, beacons and wannabe lasers gave the main hall a peculiar glow. The bar was shiny and very long. It was stocked with everything from mind-numbing malt liquors like Olde English and St. Ides to smooth and sassy fine liqueurs like Canadian Mist and Courvoisier.

At Vic's, the music came in one easily distinguishable form--loud--and the main hall carried the airy aroma of fresh barbecue. It always struck me as odd that guys would actually want to suck on a rib bone while stuffing a five-spot down some dancer's overworked G-string, but Vic had it all figured out. He knew that guys could deal with the hickory redolence of ribs and rib juice over the crotch-grinding...

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Verlag
Anchor
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385498470
ISBN 13 
9780385498470
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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