The Reality Engine Ch. 06

"What did your friend's wife have to say about it?" Scott asked.

"She won't say anything about it," Lory replied. "She said it's a normal sorority that's simply extremely cautious. No one believes that, of course, and everyone desperately wants to know what dark rituals take place in that house?"

"Wow, mysterious," Scott said, as he felt a shiver run up his spine.

"Sure is," Lory said. "Of course, they go to pretty much every party they are invited to, and because it's a sorority of only the most beautiful women, they are invited pretty much everywhere. However, it's strange that no one can ever enter their house, and that they never have parties at their own place."

"What do you think they're hiding?" Scott asked.

"No idea, but it's one of the most interesting topics of speculation in Frostbite Falls, at either University," Lory said. "Personally, I don't think anything unusual is going on, and I think they just act that way to preserve their air of mystery. They only gain prominence by having everyone gossiping about them all the time."

"You may very well be right," Scott said, as he finished eating his lunch. Lory got up, smiled, and told Scott she would see him next time, and left. Scott threw away the remains of his lunch, and went back to work.

The hours flew by, and Scott continued to work, but he made no progress. There were a couple of times when he thought he had something, only to have the equation fly apart on him before he could pin it down. Before he knew where he was, it was 6:45 PM, and Scott realized he had to close up shop and hurry, or he would be late for dinner.

He arrived at the Limberger Lily dinning commons at 8 minutes past 7 PM, and Chad, Steve, Henry, and Bridget were already there, and already had their food. With a mumbled apology for being late, Scott got his food as well, and then sat down with his friends to eat.

"So, what do you think about this bitch?" Bridget asked Scott, as she showed him a picture of a lovely woman on her cell phone.

"Who is she?" Scott asked.

"This is Mia," Bridget said. "Half Italian-half Czech girl I graduated with last year, nice, huh?"

Scott looked her picture over; blonde hair, blue eyes, and all the fixings.

"No," Scott said. "She's too attractive for the job."

"Huh?" Bridget asked.

"Remember what I said," Scott replied. "You want a girl who's above average looking, but not one who's beautiful. With an operation like this one, success depends on what your brother feels, and not what he's told. If you pick a girl who's too good-looking, he's going to curl up into a ball. You can tell him that your family is paying a girl to date him, but as long as that girl isn't top tier beautiful, what you tell him won't matter, he'll feel like he has a shot to impress her. There's no way a guy like Calvin thinks he can impress a woman as good-looking as Mia, so no."

"I think you're overthinking this," Chad said. "Men don't need a reason to try to impress any girl."

"Men like you, sure, but I agree with Scott," Steve said. "After what I went through with Alania on Saturday night, I didn't have the courage to even pay her what she'd earned last night. Calvin will react the same way if the girl is as lovely as Alania is, or even close."

"So wait, you're saying that there's like a Goldilocks zone here?" Bridget asked. "That she has to be attractive enough that she gets my brother's attention, and he tries to impress her, but not so attractive that he decides he has no chance to do so, and just curls up into a little ball and says nothing to her? That's a pretty thin needle to thread, especially if you don't know how much is too much, and how much is too little."

"We'll play it by gut instinct," Scott said. "Steve and I are both excellent proxies for you to use. When the right lady's picture shows up, Steve and I will know."

"Okay, Scott," Bridget said. "I want you to know that it was not easy convincing my sister and my parents to give this idea a try, and that they are deeply skeptical, but that it's something they haven't tried before, and that they're willing to do anything at this point. What do we want to review with my folks at 8 when we do the call?"

"What the purpose of this project is," Scott said. "The three phases of it, with special attention on phase one. We answer any questions your parents have, and we go over what is required from the young lady, including what characteristics she should have. We should also spend as much time listening as speaking, and I want to hear everything your parents can tell us about your brother."

"To be honest, there isn't much to tell," Bridget said. "He is what I told you he is, and there isn't that much complexity to him. Now that I think about it, I don't think anyone in my family could describe him in any more detail than what I've already told you."

"Do you know what kind of video games he likes best?" Scott asked.

"Hell if I know," Bridget said. "They all look the same to me, and my parents won't be able to tell you that either."

"I don't really know either," Henry said. "Whenever I go and hang out with him, we play sports games, because those are the kind I like best, but I don't really know what he likes to play when he's there alone. I know he's got games from pretty much every genre there is, and his collection is massive. However, I just never thought about it, and it never occurred to me to ask him which ones are his favorite."

"That's something I'd like to ask your parents to ask him in the next few days," Scott said.

"So, different kinds of gamers will like different kinds of girls?" Bridget asked.

"No, but knowing what kind of games he likes best will help us coach whoever we choose to be his date," Scott answered. "She has to be able to talk to him, at least a little."

"Heaven help us, but we really don't know what the fuck we're doing, do we?" Chad asked.

"We'll make it up as we go along, and now, I have something I need to talk to Steve about," Scott said.

Scott explained the fiendish plan he had discussed with Kloe the night before, and told Steve what he needed.

"Is she pretty?" Steve asked, when the explanation was complete.

"She's good-looking," Chad said. "At least, I think so, but she's not in Alania's league."

"Okay, I'm on board, then," Steve said. "What do I have to do? Take her out on a date so that she can take pictures to post on Facebook?"

"It's going to have to be 2 or 3 different dates, and probably a couple of places for each date," Scott said. "The more locations she can take pictures of the two of you out on a date at, the better it will look on Facebook. You can ask her, though, as it's really her preference. In return, she agrees to help you with Alania by posing as the girl you're dating. Hopefully that increases your bargaining power with Alania, and decreases your fear."

"I think it's a brilliant idea!" Bridget said. "It's exactly what you need, Steve, and it sounds like you'll be helping her out a lot too. This is win-win."

Scott's phone rang, so he fished the device out of his pant pocket to answer it. It was Kloe.

"Hi Kloe, what can I do for you?" Scott asked.

"Are you guys about to go and do the call with Bridget's folks?" Kloe asked.

"Yep," Scott replied.

"Is Steve with you?" Kloe asked. "What did he think of your fiendish plan?"

"He agreed to do it," Scott said. "You guys are all set."

"Can you bring him with you to my room after you're done with your phone conference?" Kloe asked. "I'd like to meet him and go over details personally."

"Sure thing," Scott said, as he bid Kloe good-bye and hung up the phone. He informed Steve of what Kloe had said, and Steve agreed to come with Scott to visit Kloe after the phone conference was over.

Dinner ended with the agreement sealed, Chad went back to his room to study, while Henry, Bridget, Scott, and Steve went off to the crucial business of the conference call with Bridget's family. For the purposes of this initial call, it had been decided that only Bridget, Steve, and Scott would be on the line, and would speak to Bridget's mother, father, and sister, as fewer people would result in a more concise call and less confusion.

The call went about as well as could have been hoped for, considering Scott got the impression that Bridget's parents and sister were deeply skeptical of his plan, but were resolved to follow through on it because every avenue had to be tried, even the ones that didn't make any sense. Scott breathed a sigh of relief as he and Steve left Mohave Max Hall, the budget had been agreed to, and the lure was to be cast for the girl to star in this drama.

"That was tough, they had a lot of hard questions," Steve said to Scott as the two friends headed over to Maybe Dick Hall.

"I hope we're doing the right thing," Scott said, as he gave his friend a pat on the back.

"Where did you come up with this idea, anyway?" Steve asked.

"If I had to say where my inspiration came from," Scott said. "I would point to an old British comedy written by PG Wodehouse, titled The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy."

"What?" Steve asked, laughing. "It must be a great comedy, because just the title alone is funny. What was it about?"

"It was about this guy, named Oliver 'Sippy' Sipperly," Scott said. "He was the editor-in-chief of a popular-ish lite society magazine, called The Mayfair Gazette, if memory serves me. When Sippy was at school, his old headmaster was a man named Waterbury, who had an intimidating demeanor. Waterbury wants Sippy to publish articles he's written which Sippy thinks are boring and completely unsuitable for a lite society magazine, however, due to having once been Waterbury's student, and being afraid of him, Sippy can't refuse."

"Wow," Steve said, as he pondered a moment. "That reminds me a lot of me. Do you think I have an inferiority complex when it comes to Alania?"

"Maybe a little," Scott said. "We all fear things, in life, that can't really hurt us, and that are all in our mind, but a man has to learn to break through those fears, and stand on his own two feet. SIppy did it, and you can too."

"How did Sippy eventually manage to stand up to Waterbury?" Steve asked.

"Sippy was in love, at this time, with a lady poet named Gwendolen Moon, and, naturally, as often occurs when men with inferiority complexes are in love with women, he couldn't speak to her of his love," Scott said. "He considered himself spiritually below her because, the year before, he had spent thirty days in jail, without the option, for punching a policeman on boat race night."

"He punched a policeman, without the what, on what now?" Steve asked, straining to keep up with the story, as the two friends stopped their walk to Maybe Dick Hall to get the details of this story right.

"Let's take them one at a time," Scott said. "He punched a policeman on boat race night."

"What is that?" Steve asked.

"It is the evening following the traditional boat race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, when a certain license for drunkenness is given by the law," Scott said. "Many of the characters in a PG Wodehouse story are former Oxford students."

"Oh, I see now, it was a sporting competition between two Universities, right?" Steve asked.

"That's right" Scott said.

"Okay, I've got that clear," Steve said. "Now, how about the other one?"

"As punishment for his deeds," Scott said. "A judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail without the option, meaning, without the option of paying a fine instead of serving jail time."

"Wasn't he the publisher of a newspaper or a magazine or something?" Steve asked. "Who kept up with the paper while he was in jail?"

"PG Wodehouse wrote the details of that tale in another story, titled, fittingly, Without the Option," Scott said. "Sippy was actually supposed to visit some friends of his aunt while he was in the hoosegow, but the catch was the people he was slated to visit hadn't seen him since he was a small child and didn't know what he looked like. So, an impostor went in SIppy's place, claiming to be Sippy, while he sat in jail and paid his debt to society."

"Maybe we'd better save this story of what happened on boat race night for another time, as I'm having enough trouble keeping up with the main continuity as is. So, how did Sippy overcome his inferiority complex?" Steve asked. "I mean, he had the complex on two fronts, right? He felt inferior to both Waterbury and to that girl, Gwendolen Moon. That's a pretty tight spot."

"Sure is," Scott replied. "Sippy had two friends who helped, sort of. The two most famous protagonists that PG Wodehouse created are the rich, upper-class idiot, Bertie Wooster and his all-knowing valet, Jeeves. Bertie figured you solved the inferiority complex by arranging a situation where Sippy sees Waterbury humiliated. Jeeves figured the best way to solve the problem was on the other end: get him to propose to the girl, and if she accepts, the inferiority complex with Waterbury solves itself. Bertie tried to attack the problem from the job/work/education angle. Jeeves realized the problem was really a romantic one, and that all Sippy needed was to get the girl."

"I begin to see now your approach with Calvin," Steve said. "Everyone else has been trying to solve his issues the Bertie Wooster way, you're going to try to do what Jeeves would do."

"Right," Scott said. "Bertie's solution was to rig up a bag of flour over Sippy's door, which would fall on Waterbury, and when Sippy saw his former headmaster in such a humiliating way, his inferiority complex would be broken. Jeeves' plan was to have Sippy fake an injury, and call out to Gwendolen Moon, and then propose to her when she came to see him."

"Hmm, both of those ideas sound promising to me, and I wouldn't know which one to pick, however, this being a PG Wodehouse story, and with Bertie being the bumbling idiot and Jeeves famously being the all-knowing valet, I suspect that Jeeves' plan was the one that worked," Steve said.

"Correct," Scott said. "Jeeves knocks Sippy over the head with a golf club, and then called Gwendolen Moon, who came to see him. She was already in love with him, one thing leads to another, and before he knows where he is, Sippy is engaged to be married. He returns to his office, and with his confidence at an all time high, he denies Waterbury without any fear. Naturally, at the end, Bertie leaves his hat in Sippy's office, and rushes up to get it and wounds up covered in flour, walking into the trap he had set for Waterbury."

"So, Jeeves' plan worked and Bertie's completely backfired?" Steve asked, as the two friends started to walk again.

"Uh huh," Scott said. "Terrific short story and it taught me that sometimes, a man's failure in jobs, or education, or life is not a failure in one of those things, it's a failure in love, and that to fix his life, his issues with dating and women must be fixed first. That fixing his romantic failures will give him the confidence and sense of purpose needed to correct other areas of his life."

"Hey, how does the Goldilocks zone thing play into it?" Steve asked. "That the girl can't be too beautiful, but should be well above average looking?"

"That isn't part of the story," Scott admitted. "That was my own invention. I tried to think like Jeeves would, to put myself in Calvin's place, and to come up with a plan based on what Jeeves called the psychology of the individual."

"Wow," Steve said. "That's a really deep insight to be gained from a British Comedy."

"Well, PG Wodehouse was one of the very best, and most prolific, writers of them all," Scott said. "His novels and short stories make for very amusing, light reading. My roommate Sophomore year at the University of Iowa had a bunch of them, and I borrowed them from time to time."

"Do you really think your plan can help Calvin?" Steve asked, as the two friends walked into Maybe Dick Hall.

"I don't know," Scott said. "If his family hadn't tried every single other solution, I wouldn't have proposed my idea. However, they have tried every other one, by their own admission. I think the odds it's a romantic issue are pretty low, but, every other possibility being eliminated leaves this one as the only one left. The thing about being an early 20th century writer of humorous British fiction is that you can give your characters whatever motive you want, even if they don't make any sense at all. In the real world, it's never that simple."

"So, like another famous British protagonist once said, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," Steve said.

"The master of number 221b Baker Street, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, himself," Scott replied, as he and Steve mounted the stairs to the second floor.

Soon enough, the two friends stood outside Kloe's room, and Scott knocked on the door. Kloe told the two gentlemen to enter, which they did.

"Hi guys," Kloe said, as Steve and Scott entered, and Scott closed the door behind them. "Come in, and make yourselves at home."

"Thanks," Scott said. "This is Steve."

Kloe and Steve shook hands.

"You know how we're going to help each other?" Kloe asked.

"Yeah," Steve said. "What is your status with your boyfriend? I don't want to date you unless you're a free agent."

"It happened this morning," Kloe said. "Right after our discussion section for our History class. One thing led to another, and he said he thought we should split up. I agreed."

"So, he pulled the plug at last?" Scott asked.

"Yeah," Kloe said. "There comes a time when, if there's enough available pussy on the market, a man stops caring so much about his reputation back home, and just wants to plow into it. I think Derrick got an offer he couldn't refuse. I want him to be happy, so I agreed to break up. That's why I called you at dinner, Scott, I need a rebound date soon."

"What night do you want to go out?" Steve asked.

"I can't do Thursday night, because I have an 8 AM history class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," Kloe said. "How about tomorrow night?"

"That should be fine," Steve said. "I'll be sure to pack three or four different sets of clothes, so that you can get as many good photos for your Facebook page as possible."

"Why would you need so many changes of clothing?" Kloe asked.

"Well, you're going to need 3 or 4 dates worth of material right?" Steve asked. "It's really simple to do that in one night if we drive around to a bunch of different places."

Kloe burst out laughing, and only stopped laughing when she saw Scott and Steve exchange a silent look, and she realized Steve was serious.

"Scott," Kloe said. "Can you excuse Steve and I for a moment so that we can have a word in private?"

"Sure," Scott said, as he looked at Steve, who nodded yes. "Let me know when you're done, okay? I'll be waiting right outside."

Scott walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, and he leaned up against the wall on the opposite side from the door to Kloe's room and waited. A moment later, and several doors down, the door to the girl's bathroom swung open, and Alania emerged, clad in only a pair of panties and a bra.

"Hey twip," Alania said, as she walked up to Scott. "Read any good books lately?"

Scott smirked at Alania's attempt at humor, "wear any good clothes lately?" he asked in response.

"Oh, just shut the fuck up," Alania snapped at Scott. "You know you fucking want my body, and that you would do anything to take me and use me. I'm not showing you anything you don't want to see."

"You have a point there," Scott said.

"Yeah, at least I'm not sick in the head like you are, Scott Cooper," Alania said. "You like to smell women's butt-holes. It's not only a weak move, it's also a sure sign you're a fucking pervert. All butt sniffers should be dragged out into the street and shot."