Til the Real Thing Comes Along Read Free

billboard companies that rent advertising space on the Sunset Strip, knowing that Sunset was the route R.J.
     always took home from work. And “spent a friggin’ fortune,”Dinah would announce, just so he could tell R.J. he loved her.
    But how did Michael know that R.J. would even see it? That was what someone invariably asked Dinah when she told the story.
     And Dinah, who had set the story up perfectly in the hope that someone would ask just that, was ready with an answer.
    “Because,” she would say, heavily mascaraed eyes aglow, “it wasn’t
a
billboard. It was three—count them—three billboards. The first one said ‘Michael loves’; the second one said ‘his beautiful
     R.J.’; and the third one said—are you sitting down, everyone?—’more than life itself.’”
    “No!” People would invariably shriek in amazement, and R.J. would shift uncomfortably in her chair, and they would turn and
     look at her as if to ask: This can’t possibly be a true story, can it? And she would nod weakly and admit it was not only
     true, but that renting the three billboards was one of the less extravagant things Michael had done in an effort to win her
     hand. Making her feel as if her life were an episode of
Love American Style.
And sometimes someone would say, “I remember that. I had a meeting at the nine-thousand building and I remember seeing those
     billboards and wondering what shmuck did that?”
    R.J. would always jump to Michael’s defense then, remembering how sweet he looked that day, standing on Sunset knowing just
     when she would drive by because he’d paid someone at her office to call him at a number in a phone booth as soon as R.J. left
     for the day. He was carrying two dozen roses and had his thumb up as if he were hitchhiking. But R.J. didn’t see him at first. ROCKY II: THE STORY CONTINUES. A determined Clint Eastwood punching his fist through the prison wall to ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ . R.J. loved the billboards. Later she remembered that she’d once told Michael that the reason she took Sunset home instead
     of Beverly was to look at the billboards. MICHAEL LOVES… HIS BEAUTIFUL R.J…. MORE THAN … Oh, God.
    “No,” R.J. said aloud when she read the three signs and her brain put together what they said. “No. Oh, please, no,” she said
     again when she spotted Michael standing at the curb just beneath the third sign. “No.” And she pulled up and rolled down the
     car window.
    “Yes, darling,” Michael answered, walking to the car and leaning against the door. “Let me be your husband.” Atleast that sounded like what he said, because his words were nearly drowned out by the noise of the -passing cars. “Let me
     be Jeffie’s father. You’re my life,” he said louder. It was sweet. There were tears in his eyes.
    “Oh, Michael,” R.J. began, but a motorcycle whizzed by, roaring above her words. When it had passed, Michael said, “Don’t
     answer now. Give me some time to prove to you how wonderful our life together can be. Tell me every dream, every fantasy you’ve
     ever had, about how you want your life to be, and I’ll make it come true.”
    His eyes were filled with tears. R.J. took a deep breath to stall for time so she could decide what to say to him. She could
     hear an ambulance in the distance and she waited while it got doser and very loud, then passed and disappeared.
    “This is wrong,” she said finally. “It’s too soon. We’ve just been seeing each other for such a short time and—”
    “I’ll quit smoking,” he said, as if that would change her mind. “I’ll do anything. I’ll even grow taller.”
    Then he laughed a little laugh at that, but she knew it was a touchy subject. He’d always been the shortest boy in his class,
     in his family too. On his twenty-first birthday his mother had taken him out to dinner to a fancy restaurant, and after the
     meal had given him a box containing a pair of elevator shoes. Michael had had a few drinks the