“I didn’t know who you were when Michael Thomas ran you through the showrooms yesterday,” Terrence said in an apologetic tone. “I thought you might be one of these recently wed women looking to set up a new home. Welcome,” he added, offering his hand and holding on to mine a little too long. He had a soft voice with a British accent that Daddy used to call the king’s English.
“No problem. I saw you were busy,” I said.
He offered to give me a better tour of it all. “I’ve been here longer than most of the employees,” he bragged. “And I grew up in this town, so don’t hesitate to ask me anything. If you have a free weekend, I’d be happy to show you around, take you to lunch, whatever.”
“Thank you. I have it all under control for now,” I said as sweetly but as firmly as I could. He looked surprised more than disappointed as he left.
“You dented his ego,” Michele said. She had overheard
it all. “Second to Liam, he’s the Don Juan of the company. Don’t let that accent fool you. He’s nowhere near as bright as he pretends to be.” Unable to disguise her jealousy, perhaps her longing for her own youthful, carefree time, she added, “They’re all going to hit on you. The word’s out, apparently.”
“What word?”
“That you’re young, beautiful, and available.”
“I’m not so available,” I said sharply.
“Oh. Are you seeing someone here already?”
“No.”
“Someone in Boston?”
I shook my head but offered no other explanation.
She shrugged. “Whatever.” She checked her watch. “I hope we don’t have any other interruptions. I’ve got to go to a doctor’s appointment. Let me just run through this list of important names, people Mr. Dolan considers his A-list. There are some politicians on it, so not everything here involves plumbing supplies, if you get my drift.”
“I do,” I said. “Thank you.”
I was too busy the rest of the morning to give Liam or the other young men who had stopped by much thought, even if I had wanted to, and when the women from accounting invited me to join them for lunch, I agreed, actually jumping at the invitation. They told me they sent out for sandwiches, and we would all have lunch in an area reserved for employees to have lunch or take snack breaks. There was a refrigerator and a microwave for our use. I checked what sandwich I wanted on the takeout menu and returned to the letters and
phone calls. Just before noon, Liam stopped by to see if I was going to join him for lunch.
“You’ll really love the food at this place.”
“I’m just too busy,” I said. “I agreed to join the other employees ordering in sandwiches. It’s probably a good idea for me to get to know them all, anyway, don’t you think?”
Of course, he didn’t. “It’s better to get to know me,” he half kidded. “But whatever . . . I’ll go with Michael to this new job site to help formulate a bid, then. You’re forcing me to be a good employee, too.”
“It’s not castor oil,” I said. “And I repeat, you should want to be that without my influencing you.”
He laughed. “You sound like one of my high school teachers trying to motivate me.”
“Did you ever wonder why you needed motivation?”
He lost his smile. “Despite what you’ve been told and what you see, my life isn’t, nor has it been, a bowl of cherries,” he countered.
“Neither has mine, but wallowing in self-pity doesn’t help.”
“Oh, brother.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Mercy,” he pleaded with his hands up. I laughed at his histrionics. That brought a smile back to his face. “How about I give you a ride home, at least?”
“Oh, I’m shopping first. Mrs. Addison is taking me.”
“Naomi Addison?” He smirked. “She’s twice your age. What is she going to know about the things a young woman like you needs?”
“Don’t you respect the wisdom of older people?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You’re different, all right.” He didn’t make it seem like a compliment. It rang like a complaint.
“Why do you say that?” I asked. Was there something now so immediately obvious about me?
“Let’s just say you seem older than you are and leave it at that.”
“Whatever.”
“Well, how about dinner one night this week?”
“I signed up for your aunt’s bed, breakfast, and dinner package.”
“Well, you don’t have to eat there every night, do you?” he asked, his frustration building.
I sat back, looking at him and then at his father’s closed office door. “Does your father approve of your taking out employees?”
“What? I don’t think he has much to say about it,” he replied.
“I just thought there might be a company rule.”
“Well, there’s not.”
Just at that moment, Ken Dolan opened his office door and paused on his way out to look at me and then at Liam, his eyes accusing him of wasting time. “You doing that bid research today with Michael or not?” he asked him.
“Yeah, I’m going. I was hoping for something more exciting, but that didn’t pan out,” he said, looking at me.
“I’m sorry that keeping this company solvent and successful isn’t exciting enough for you.”
“What’s more thrilling than a new toilet?” Liam said dryly.
“If the business is so uninteresting for you, you could have remained in college. I got you into the best school.”
“Right. It’s all my fault. It’s always been all my fault.”
Ken shook his head softly and paused at my desk. “I’m meeting John Langerfield at his office and will be at lunch with him, too. I don’t anticipate being back before the end of the day. You have my cell-phone number if you need something quickly.”
“Yes, Mr. Dolan.”
“Oh,” Liam said as his father turned to leave. “Lorelei was concerned that you might have a company rule against either of us asking an employee on a date.”
“What? Either of us? Why would I ask—”
“I mean me,” Liam said. “Or the executive branch of the company.”
Ken looked at me. “I think she’s old enough and smart enough to know whom and whom not to go out with,” he said, and left.
“So?” Liam said. “Are you smart enough?”
“You mean if I said no, I wouldn’t be?”
“Oh, jeez,” he cried, raising his hands toward the ceiling again. “Do I have to beg?”
“Let’s just say that for now, at least, I’m not looking for a relationship, Liam.”
“That’s not the signal I’m getting,” he retorted.
“Maybe you’re seeing what you want to see. I’d like to settle in, get the lay of the land, so to speak.”
“You mean shop around a little,” he said, with sarcasm dripping from the corners of his mouth. “I heard about the parade that went through here this
morning. My aunt calls it kicking the tires first before buying.”
“I’m not kicking any tires. I don’t know the kinds of girls you’re used to, but I’m not shopping for a new boyfriend, and I did nothing to encourage anyone here.”
“Yeah, sure,” he muttered. “Then I guess my father just reinforced my reputation as a loser, and that’s turned you off to me.”
“That’s not it.”
“Right.”
“Look, Liam, I was with someone before I came here. I thought he was a responsible, considerate, and stable young man, but he finally clearly demonstrated that he was more interested in a good time for the moment than in any planning for the future. There is nothing a girl with half a brain should resent more than feeling like someone’s good time. Too many men I’ve met think we’re some sort of video game they can click on and off whenever they have a mind to do so. Those who don’t mind get what they deserve. I’m not one of them, and my disappointment in love set me back. I need time to catch my breath.”
My imaginary revelation caught him completely off guard. The sadness and sincerity in my voice quickly wiped away his disdain and self-pity. He shook his head, impressed. “I don’t know any girl your age or even ten years older who thinks like you do. Most of the girls I know are just the opposite.”
“They’ll regret it when they wake up one day alone and realize life is a lot shorter than they thought.”
“How old did you say you were?”
“I didn’t say. Besides, it’s not the years you put in; it’s what you put into those years.”
“What’s that, something you heard my great-aunt Amelia say? Don’t get her started on Ben Franklin quotes.”
“No, it was something my father once said,” I told him, “but like most people, he didn’t follow his own advice.”
“Okay, okay.” He put up his hands like someone surrendering and started to back away. “I know when to go into a strategic retreat. Lately, that’s all I’ve been doing.”
“I hope your attempting that new leaf is not going to stop now,” I said. “I meant what I said. You should do what’s right and important to do for yourself and not as part of some illusion you design to seduce the new girl.”
He just stood there staring at me so hard that I thought he could see something really different in me, something that made me clearly a daughter of darkness.
“What?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to make of you. You look like a stick of dynamite but act like a ballpoint pen. Discovering the real you is going to be a challenge.”
“Maybe the effort to find out will do you some good. Things that come too easy usually lose their value quicker,” I said, and turned back to the work I had on the computer. I knew he was still looking at me, but when I looked, he was gone. Romantically, maybe for good.
My lunch with the other women at Dolan’s Plumbing Supply was as I had anticipated. They were friendly
but mostly full of curiosity, women Ava liked to call “pokey” because they poked their noses into everything.
One woman, Helen Carter, voiced what they were all thinking, maybe after talking about me with Michele. “I was very surprised Mr. Dolan would hire someone as young as you for the position. I don’t know any businessman as serious as he is when it comes to running a company. He puts a great value on experience. You must have done or said something very impressive. What experience have you had as a personal secretary? Were you just recommended by Mr. Dolan’s aunt, Amelia Winston?”
They all paused to hear my answer. “My father always said that quality is far more important than quantity.”
They waited to see if I would add anything, but I just bit into my sandwich, and they started talking about something else. Inevitably, the conversation turned back to me, however. They wanted to know more about my personal life. Instinctively, I knew that they would be more inclined to be on my side if they felt sorry for me, especially if they knew the story I had concocted for Mrs. Winston and Mrs. McGruder, so I told it in an abbreviated form. Nevertheless, I had their rapt attention.
“So, you’re really a young lady on your own,” Clara Weintraub said, and all their heads were nodding, or I should say bobbing, in agreement and sympathy.
“I’m afraid so. I was lucky to find Mrs. Winston’s place, and one thing led to another, which is how I came to be here. Sometimes you can be just lucky. It’s not my usual history, as you can now understand, but
when good fortune shines on you, you should turn your face right into it. My father used to . . . it was something he once said.”
“Of course, dear. You just call on any of us if you need anything, anything at all, including advice,” Helen Carter said.
“Men,” Clara Weintraub followed, practically spitting the word. “You take your time with that,” she warned, even waving her right forefinger at me. “Don’t let anyone, especially here, take advantage of you. Most of the young men here live from paycheck to paycheck and think saving for a rainy day simply means buying an umbrella.”
Heads bobbed.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” I said, smiling at them. “For now, I’m wearing a No Trespassing sign around my neck.”
That got them all laughing. They followed me out, chuckling and hugging me with warm welcomes. When I paused in the hallway, I saw that Liam had returned and was looking our way. Although he smiled, he shook his head with disappointment and went quickly into his office.
Exactly at the end of my workday, Naomi Addison arrived, as she had promised. She looked dressed to go to a fancy restaurant and not for shopping in a mall. I could see that she had gone to her stylist and had her roots highlighted and her hair done in a new style that made her more attractive. It also looked as if she’d had her makeup done by a professional.
Naomi was a full-figured woman who babied her
complexion and, from what I understood, had a personal trainer. What she was wearing accentuated her attractive features. Her dark blue jacket was semifitted, lined, and below the hip in length. The shoulders were slightly extended, and it had long sleeves. Her matching skirt, also semifitted, was straight, lined, and below mid-knee. She wore a silver beaded necklace with matching earrings. In short, she was a perfectly put-together package.
Ava would call her “dressed to hook.”
“Am I early?” she asked.
“No, I was just finishing up,” I said. “You look very nice, Naomi.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes went to Mr. Dolan’s closed door. “Is he in? I’d like to say hello. We’ve known each other a long time.”
“No,” I said. “He had a lunch meeting in Boston today and hasn’t yet returned.”
“Oh,” she said, deflating like a punctured balloon mannequin of herself. She even seemed to turn a little pale with the disappointment. “What time did he say he would return?”
“He didn’t say a time, but he didn’t think he would be back before the end of the day.”
“Oh. Well, don’t rush. We have plenty of time,” she said. “I know Chet McKinney. He’s still in sales, right?”
“Yes, I met him today,” I said. “Among others,” I muttered, too low for her to hear.
“I’ll just go say hello.”
“He might be gone. They close about now.”
“I’ll check,” she insisted, and left.
I knew she was just looking to kill time in the hope that Ken Dolan would return before we left. A moment later, one of the younger salesmen in the appliances section stopped in. He had introduced himself earlier, during the parade. I sensed that they had all taken bets on whom I would favor the most. His name was Bobby Potter, and I thought he was in his mid-twenties at most, because he still had that just-out-of-high-school look, sweet, still innocent and optimistic.