Operation Mail-Order Bride (8 page)

I felt a warm rush of pleasure at this news. “Thanks for telling me. As for the schedule, whatever works out is fine for now. I hope I won’t have to work any more eight-day weeks, though.”

“Not a chance.” She stood up and prepared to leave. “The only reason I was able to let that happen was because your days were split across two pay periods. In the future, I would have to work a shift myself rather than let you go over forty hours. The owner absolutely will not pay overtime.”

This was welcome news, as was the fact that I would be paid the following Monday. I was going to make it without falling behind on my rent or utility bills. I had gotten this job in the nick of time.

It was easy to deal with the new routine: five nights a week of simple, honest work, a few hours at church and spending time with the friends I was making there, and at last, free time to spend on my favorite, long-neglected pastime: art. On slow mornings, I could use the interior of the doughnut shop as a basis for still life drawings, or I could surreptitiously do portraits of early customers as they sat over coffee and newspapers. No one seemed to notice me drawing, so no one complained.

I was doing so the next Thursday morning when David arrived and took a stool. The double-take I did on seeing him out of his baker’s whites distracted me and I didn’t slide the sketchpad out of sight quickly enough.

“You’re an artist?” David asked. I nodded nervously. “May I see?” He held out his hand. I handed it over, relieved that I was too honest to use company time for my own pursuits until all my work was done.

“Coffee?” I started toward the Bunn-o-Matic as he began to page through the book.

“Um … no, thank you.”

I stood awkwardly on my side of the counter and studied him as he went through my work.

David was one of those men who get better-looking the longer you know them. When I met him, my attention was drawn by the large, Gallic nose and the tapered jawline that ended in a pointed chin. After spending some time with him, I found his curly black hair and hooded brown eyes more and more attractive, and there was something about his hands and lean, muscular arms that made me catch my breath.

“You’re pretty good,” he announced, closing the sketchpad and sliding it across the counter. “Why aren’t you studying at the university?”

“Money.”

He nodded and folded his arms on the counter, looking as if he was settling in for a long talk.

“And scholarships for art majors are rare, I’ve heard. I’ve been to a lot of the exhibits at the Art College. Every senior has to put together a show before earning a degree in Fine Arts, you know, so every spring there’s a show every weekend. They usually serve coffee and snacks and it’s a great cheap date on a Sunday afternoon…. Anyway,” he colored a little, possibly at the astonished expression I was wearing, “these drawings of yours are better than a lot of the stuff I’ve seen hanging in the college gallery.”

“Thank you. Are you sure you don’t want coffee?” I gestured toward the pot.

“Yes, I am. I only came in to ask you a question.”

“Okay.” I clasped my hands and waited, wondering what was on his mind.

“Now that I’ve been paid, where would you like to have dinner tonight?”

I was thunderstruck. Although David had been talking to me more and more as we became better acquainted, I was unaware that he had any interest in me other than as a co-worker and possible friend, since we seemed to have similar interests and attitudes. Moreover, I had not been paying close attention to my appearance on the job. The pink smock clashed with my auburn hair and the complexion that accompanied it, and I had not had the time or money to research ways of using makeup to compensate for the unfortunate effect it had on my looks.

“Well …” I gave his question serious thought. The restaurant Blair and I had frequented most often was Kelly’s, and after my last visit I had not returned and didn’t want to anytime soon. “I haven’t lived here long enough to have any favorites. Let’s go someplace that you like, as long as it isn’t Kelly’s.”

He nodded. “Do you like Italian food?”

“I not only like it, I make a few Italian dishes very well, according to those I’ve fed them to.”

“We’ll go to Luciano’s. May I pick you up at seven?” I nodded. “I’ll need directions on how to get to your place.”

I scribbled the address and directions on a napkin, then he left. I finished my shift bemused and a little excited. Still confused about what he saw in me, I was pleased that he seemed to like me. What pleased me most was the fact that he didn’t seem to be making overt efforts to charm me or win me over. He was simply being himself, and he was attracted by some quality I displayed when I was simply being myself.

Luciano’s was elegant but lively, especially for a weeknight. We were led to a table a comfortable distance from a grand piano which was, as yet, unmanned, and left alone to study our menus.

“Do you know what’s good here?” I asked David.

He grinned. “It’s better if I tell you what’s bad.” He motioned me close and continued in a whisper, “the ravioli. No one likes it. I have this from multiple sources.”

I chuckled and was about to ask what he was planning to order when I spotted exactly what I wanted:
ziti ai quattro formaggi,
described as pasta with a four-cheese sauce. I told David so, and as he read the item to himself, his nose wrinkled.

“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

“No, it just sounds like what I’m in the mood for.”

We ordered, and soon our salads and a basket of warm breadsticks and rolls arrived. I reveled in the fresh greens and vegetables dressed in a made-from-scratch honey vinaigrette, watching David enjoy his bowl with its bleu cheese dressing.

“May I taste your dressing?” I asked. “I would have ordered that, but I decided four cheeses were enough for one meal.”

He shoved his salad near so I could spear a dressed leaf and taste it.

“Mmm! Do you want to try mine?”

He did, and ate a couple of bites. We looked at each other, smiled, and said simultaneously, “They’re both good!”

While eating, we began to quiz each other on our families and backgrounds. He had one brother and one sister and was the baby. I was the oldest child with two sisters and a brother. His father was a clerk in a menswear store; mine was a welder. Both our mothers had stayed at home as long as any of their children were still small. Now, mine worked as secretary in the local elementary school office and his was a waitress at a country club.

We both had thought about going to college, but neither of us had made grades high enough to earn scholarships. In both families, the finances were such that it was work through college or don’t go at all.

“So, if you do go to college, will you study painting or sculpture?” he asked, twining linguine around the meatball on his fork.

“No, I wouldn’t. I love making art for art’s sake, but I’m also practical. I’ve been in printing and publishing for a long time, and a step up from what I already do in that line would be a degree in Graphic Design.”

“I’m not familiar with that.”

“Graphic designers are responsible for the way every piece of printed material you’ve ever seen looks. Somebody has to figure out how to arrange the text and the pictures on every single page. Those somebodies are Graphic Designers. Some people specialize in illustration, or designing new typefaces…. There are lots of things you can do.”

“Haven’t you already done that kind of thing anyway, in the course of putting out those catalogs and newsletters?”

“Sure, but I don’t get the credit or the paycheck that comes with the degree.”

“Ah ha! So this is all about money!”

“No, not
all
,” I laughed, wagging a breadstick at him, “but it is about being compensated for what your work is worth.”

He agreed that that was an important factor. “There’s probably no better way to get through life than to find out what kind of work you’re really good at
—the kind of work you like so much it’s not work for you at all—then to get whatever training or certification you need so you can be well paid for doing it.”

“Exactly! What’s your life’s work, David? Do you know yet?”

“Pretty much. I’m good with electronics and machinery. That’s what I want to work with, when I find the right job. I may want to go to college eventually to expand on those skills. Meanwhile I fix machines at the shop all the time, keep my car in good condition….”

“Any job prospects right now?” I turned my
attention to my pasta so the feeling of impending loss that swept over me wouldn’t show on my face.
What is wrong with me?
I wondered, chasing sauce with speared ziti.
I barely know this guy. I shouldn’t be dreading his departure at this point.

“Not any good ones.” He paused and waited until he caught my eye. “You’re not going to spill the beans that I’m looking, are you?”

“Not as long as you stay mum that I’m still looking for my kind of job.”

We kept talking through the rest of the meal and coffee. By the time he took me home, we had arranged to explore the hiking trails in the big state park not far outside town the next time we both had the same night off.

As spring progressed, we worked together with increasing respect and affection, and we spent more and more of our time off together. Our hike was such a success that we repeated it until we knew the trails in the park by heart. We talked of hiking in wilderness areas more distant, and even of backpacking if we could ever get enough time off and save enough to buy proper equipment. David treated me to those “great cheap dates” in the art college gallery almost every Sunday afternoon.

Spending time with David was such a contrast with my time spent with Blair that it was like comparing day with night. I relaxed with David, confidant that he wasn’t sneering at my limited education and my minimum-wage job. He believed, as I did, that whatever someone hired you to do was worth doing to the best of your ability, no matter how trivial it might seem. Thus, he took pride in turning out huge batches of light, airy doughnuts several nights a week, and I took pride in the next step: filling and decorating them, then arranging them attractively in the baskets and in the display cases. I also took pride in keeping the customer area of the store spotless and welcoming. Our rewards came in the form of an increase in sales on the third shift and a small raise for me. Although this improvement in the job was gratifying, it did not change my dreams or plans. I still studied the classifieds daily, looking for an opening in a printing or publishing company. Weeks passed, and there was nothing.

The rhythm of business in our middle-sized college town was largely dependent on the university schedule. I was surprised when spring break at the university diminished even further the minuscule traffic on my shift. On weeknights the handful of customers, which usually included a few insomniac students, dropped to one or two. I expressed concern about the drop in sales to the manager one Saturday morning. She waved my worry away.

“It’s always this way during breaks and holidays. Don’t worry, Cassie, it’ll pick up again as soon as classes resume.”

I was taking advantage of the lighter workload to work on a colored-pencil rendering of a brightly-lit music store across the street when a familiar voice interrupted.

“Thanks a lot, Cassie!” It was Blair, standing just inside the doorway, hands in pockets.

I put my pencil box and sketchpad away and approached him. He did not look as if he had been doing well at all. He was pale and unshaven. Dark circles rimmed his eyes.

“Nice to see you, too. What’s going on, Blair?”

He compressed his lips at my gibe, then yanked his hands from his pockets and began waving them about agitatedly.

“You’ve got me on the outs with one of my oldest friends, that’s what.” He balled one hand into a fist and was shaking the other index finger at me admonishingly. “I should have known someone like you couldn’t be discreet. You had to go blab to Rose about
the way I treated you. Now she and Trent are both mad at me. When we got together at the beginning of break in Albuquerque, she unloaded on me. The worst thing is, she did it in front of Amelia. Now
she
won’t speak to me.”

So that was it. The dumper was now a dumpee and he didn’t like it.

“Blair, I swear to you, I went easy on you when I told Rose about our breakup. In no way did I badmouth you.”

“I don’t believe you!”

I shrugged. “Just because you don’t believe me doesn’t mean I’m lying.”

Blair stepped closer and I began to feel alarm. He was shaking with emotion—possibly rage.

“You bitch. You were always so smug, pointing out every little slip I made. I guess it’s the only way you can feel good about yourself—you with your nickel-and-dime jobs, your little drawings … you wouldn’t know an intellectual challenge if it bit you!”

“Did your orals go badly? Are you on academic probation?”

He jerked as if I had smacked him. His lip curled in a snarl.

“That’s… that’s
….” He dropped his hands and suddenly looked crushed. “Amelia and I were having problems. I … I let my studying slide and…. If she’s gone for good, I don’t know what I’ll do, Cassie.”