So far.
“I’m experiencing a wardrobe malfunction,” I explain.
“Wardrobe malfunction? Like Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl?” Gina gasps.
“Exactly like that.”
“Are you with Justin Timberlake?” she squeals. “Can you get me his autograph? You meet lots of famous people, don’t you? Could you get him to sign my *NSYNC poster from when I was a kid?”
Gina can be a touch too literal.
“No. Get the professor on the phone.”
“Yes, sir?” She sounds like she’s about to cry.
Silence, then:
“Andrew!” Professor Kensley-Wentingham chirps. “How is your marriage proposal?”
“I have a problem. The pants got wet.”
She clears her throat softly, twice, in rapid-fire succession, like a ’57 Chevy revving the engine. “Oh, dear. Well, it happens to every man some time. Don’t believe the ones who say it doesn’t. You get overly excited, and when sexually aroused, the cannon can fire a bit early—”
“Not that!” I shout in horror. “Water. I went swimming in the costume. In a pond.”
“WHAT? Why on earth would you ruin my beautiful costume with such an atrocious, impulsive act?”
“My costume. I paid for it. And I can’t feel my legs. The button holes have shrunk to the point where I cannot unbutton the front flap. I am trapped in my own breeches.”
“Circulation will be an issue,” she says tersely. “You need to take the breeches off.”
“Take them off?”
Declan’s booming laugh is so close to Terry’s that I jump.
“Immediately. As the fibers shrink, you will find yourself in an increasingly uncomfortable situation.”
I look at the car. “Already happened.”
“If you are able, remove the breeches. Where are you? I am happy to come to your location and help.”
I’ll bet you are.
“No, thank you. I’m perfectly capable of taking my own pants off, Professor.”
Amanda climbs in the car and whirls on me. “Who are you talking to?”
“The costumer.”
“But Andrew, you have been sewn into the pants, remember? You wanted authenticity,” Professor Kensley-Wentingham declares.
Sniff.
“At this point, screw authenticity. I’d like to hold onto some surviving sperm. I want children someday.”
I hang up on her.
And with that, I reach behind me and rip the seam.
“Thank God,” Amanda and I say in unison, for completely different reasons. The seam in the back was a long one, so the pants are completely useless. The cold feel of cheap vinyl is a relief as I peel the front panel of the breeches off me, wincing.
“It’s like you’re getting a free waxing,” Amanda marvels.
Dec won’t stop laughing.
Tap tap tap.
I look up and out my window to see a uniformed police officer looking right back at me.
Then at my hands in my undressed lap. I scurry to pull my shirttails over my open pants.
“This just gets better and better,” Declan gasps.
“Excuse me, sir? Please roll down the window slowly.” The cop is wearing a hat and I can’t see his eyes.
“Officer? Is there a problem?”
“Your junk is resting on my backseat, Andrew. Of course there’s a problem,” Declan hisses. “You’re paying to steam clean the car when this is over.”
“Shut up, Declan!”
“I need you to roll down the window, sir. We had a series of reports about a man and woman in period costume harassing people at Walden Pond, and you fit the description. Did you throw a rock at a red convertible on Route 126?”
“Oh, God.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to step out of the car, sir.”
Amanda’s mouth is open, eyes the size of globes, and she lets out a shaky breath.
“Dec?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose as I prepare for the inevitable.
“Yeah?”
“Get Grace to call the family lawyer.”
“Will do.”
“Sir.” The cop’s voice has gone firm. “You need to step out here.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t?” I can hear the felony charge in his voice.
“I’m not wearing any pants.”
He frowns. “You realize I could charge you with public indecency if that’s true.”
Dec is holding back laughter so hard he’s crying.
“Technically, I have pants on. But I had to rip them off.”
“Rip them off?”
“I was losing circulation to my stones.” When confronted with possible arrest, my Scottish roots emerge.
“Stones?”
Amanda leans over my lap, looks up, and says, “Al?”
“Amanda?”
“You set this up?” I sit up in shock so fast my head bangs against the car ceiling.
“No! This is a true coincidence!” she says to me. “Hey, Al! Sorry to cause trouble. We were just doing a re-enactment of parts of Pride and Prejudice. You know, Jane Austen?”
“You two are into that?”
Amanda gives him a sweet smile that goes all the way to double dimples. “You know.”
His eyes go to my lap, then her face. “Right. But the pants...?”
“These old costumes.” She plants a possessive hand on my thigh, moving the cloth just enough that I really am in danger of public indecency. Her hand right there is like pouring Miracle-Gro on a tomato plant. “They tear. Andrew was in the middle of a sword battle when they split.”