The setting is Holland Patent, New York, a sleepy little town outside of Utica, and the year is 2001.
.........
Chapter One: My best friend's mother.
"I swear Robbie, if you tell anybody about what I'm going to show you, I'll fucking kill you," Ted warned me, and judging my the veins bulging in his neck and the crimson color of his face, he probably meant it.
The madman look was something that Ted had inherited from his father, a hothead who had abandoned ship many years ago, leaving Ted and his mother to fend for themselves while he went to make other people's lives miserable, I assumed.
At least that was my opinion, and I kept it to myself because it wasn't one that Ted shared or appreciated. As far as Ted Price was concerned, Warren Price was a god who walked on water, and had every right to leave.
Ted felt that way, at least to my way of thinking, because when his old man left his mother was stuck with the job of being both mother and father. Because she had to be the villain in terms of discipline, and because Ted was far from being an angel, he felt his mother was a miserable shrew.
His father waltzed into his life from time to time, and Ted seemed to think that because he took him to a ballgame or a movie once in a while, he was a great father. I didn't see it that way, and told him so once. Ted, being a far bigger and stronger kid than me, kicked my ass big time for offending his worthless old man, so I never mentioned it again, but it was worth it. Warren Price was a vile sack of garbage, and I knew that Ted would figure that out someday, if he didn't suspect it already.
So when Ted made me swear that I would never say anything about what he was about to show me, I took it to heart. I knew that it was about his mother, so it wasn't likely to be anything positive, but I nodded and watched him hitting the keys while waiting for the screen to light up.
"Check this shit out!" Ted crowed as he brought up the home page of this website that was called Finding Love.
It was a dating service or something along those lines, and Ted scanned through the numerous ads before stopping and pointing at the screen.
"Ain't that hilarious?" he asked me, while stepping aside and letting me see the picture of the woman who I knew very well.
Ted's mother.
"What's so funny about that?" I asked.
"How fucking desperate can you get?" Ted snapped.
"I don't know. How did you find the ad, anyway? Looking for a date yourself? It isn't like you're all that popular either."
"She wrote something down and left it in the desk, so I checked it out and saw her puss," Ted declared. "Look at that picture! It's like 10 years old!"
"So what?"
"So if some desperate asshole actually does hook up with her, when he shows up and gets a look at her now, his dick will shrivel up fast," Ted announced. "Although I can't imagine anybody wanting to tap her sorry ass to begin with."
"Well, she was good enough for your father for a long time," I suggested.
"He wised up though," Ted said. "You should see the pussy he's banging now. I'd do that broad in a minute. And check out what she's looking for!"
Under the various listings, Ted's mother had left them all with the default listing of "any", and this got Ted fuming.
"Looking for a nice man," Ted scoffed. "Any age, race, height, weight, religion - you know what that says? It says she will fuck anything with a cock."
Ted then proceeded to loudly suggest the various people that were likely to answer an ad for someone that looked like his mother, rattling off a series of degrading descriptions of people of different races and creeds, but I had stopped listening.
Instead I just looked at the picture of a sad eyed Rose Price, circa 1990 or so, as she sat back at the picnic table that still sat in their backyard today. A woman who looked no more or less lonely today than she did in that photo.
"Thank god I'll be in college soon, and won't have to watch the parade of desperate old coots coming up to the door to screw the bitch," Ted said.
"I think someday you'll regret the stuff you say about your Mom," I suggested as Ted killed the computer.
"I think not," Ted said. "Shit Robbie, the way you think she's such hot shit, you ought to take a shot at her. You're almost as desperate as she is! Just put a bag over her head, and one over yours too just in case hers falls off!"
Ted slugged me affectionately after that, assuring me that he was only kidding, but we both knew that he wasn't. The truth was that I was a disaster with girls, and we both knew it.
The other truth was, and this was something that Ted was definitely NOT aware of, was that there was somebody who liked his mother a whole lot, and that somebody was me.
And saying that I liked Rose Price was not a proper choice of words either. I liked Jim Kelly and the Buffalo Bills, the banana fudge ice cream at Carvel, and the bear cubs at the Utica Zoo. Rose Price? Her, I loved.
***
Chapter Two: Love grows.
I went home and went to the Finding Love website and stared at the picture for a good long time, which depressed me a great deal. It seemed like Ted was right about his mother putting an ad on this website being an act of desperation, and I hoped that nobody she knew ever saw the ad.
I wasn't very familiar with dating websites, but it seemed like most of the ads on this particular site were for people looking for sex, not relationships, and the way she had written her ad was very tame compared to most of the others.
After giving the matter a lot of thought I decided to something to cheer Ted's mother up, so using the credit card I had just gotten after graduating from high school last month, I spent $25 for a two month membership in this dating service.
It took me all night to compose a response to Rose's ad, and after I had finished the brief paragraph I looked it over for several minutes before sending it on to "Miss Hopeful", which was the name Rose Price was going by.
"Dear Miss Hopeful," I had written. "I saw your ad and I felt I had to write you and tell you what a lovely woman you are, but I'm sure you hear that a lot. If you would like to write me back, I would love to hear from you."
I signed it with the name I had chosen for myself, Jim Kelly, and figured I would check back in a couple of days to see if she replied. As it turned out, I had gotten an answer that very evening.
When I saw a message in my box, my fingers were shaking as I clicked on it, and in contrast to my brief note, Rose was very wordy as seemed excited as well.
"Dear Mr. Kelly," Rose wrote. "Thank you for your nice note in responding to my ad. I know I'm not very pretty, especially compared to a lot of the women with pictures on that website, but I liked reading those nice things you wrote a lot.
I went to see your ad but I saw that yours didn't really have any information on it, and I'm dying to know something about you. Won't you please tell me a little bit about yourself?"
I hurriedly crafted a brief response, explaining that I had just joined the website and was a little afraid about putting personal information about myself for all to see until I got a better idea about how I was supposed to do things, having never done this before.
At the end of the message I suggested that if she wanted to, we could chat via instant messenger, and gave her my address to use. The next day, Rose replied that she understood about not wanting to put things about myself on the ad because she had felt the same way.
Rose said that she didn't know what instant messaging was, but promised to figure out how to sign up and get back to me. The next day she sent me another message and suggested that we chat the next evening at 8. At 7:30 that night I was sitting in front of the computer with my heart racing and my hands shaking.
***
Chapter Three: Hello Miss Hopeful.
I didn't want to appear too anxious but at ten minutes to 8 the pressure got too great for me and I sent Rose a message.
Me: Hello Miss Hopeful?
The answer came back almost immediately.
