By H.P. Price
 
'SLIM PICKENS' A Lighthearted Rom-Com portrays the frustrations of a young woman, Mary-Beth Dearing seeking romance or a husband temp. Mary-Beth Dearing who had chosen an engineering career rather than marriage, found herself in uncharted waters and a short time to learn to navigate. The last will and testament of her widowed grandfather stipulated that she marry in sixty days or lose her inheritance. Her search for mister right lead to several disappointing arranged dates and brought her to the decision to lease a husband from a list of potentials. Mary-Beth's was put in the gruff hands of her widowed grandfather, Jake, at the age of ten. Jake believed there was only two activities, other than hard work worth pursuit, golf and chess. Golf because one could take out one frustrations smacking a little white ball around and it was good exercise. Chess because it exercise the mind. Jake's last will and testament was one last game of chess. The board was preset and Mary-Beth was in check with not much time on the clock and not a realistic chance of winning, unless she cheated. The game "matrimony", the quest, matrimony
within sixty day of the reading of the will and stay married for at least two years.
To win Mary-Beth would need to forgo love and romance and pursue a temporary husband. She thought to put an ad in the paper that would read; "Single white female seeking to lease a husband, two year lease required. Terms negotiable' Potential lessees, a rich man, a poor man, a beggar man and a thief, a doctor, a lawyer and an Indian chief, a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. Not that they were all bad apples, it just seemed that if they weren't wormy, they were sour or overripe. For Mary-Beth it was SLIM PICKENS. But there was one.