“I—um, okay. Yeah, I could eat something.”
“I meant with me,” he said.
“Well then yes, for sure.”
"Cool, let me just change my shirt.” My heart fluttered up in my chest as I caught him swallowing another grin. He grabbed the tools he had been using and took them to his truck.
"Do I have time to go in and check my messages?" I said.
"Sure."
I went inside and did a quick clothes change into a less crafty-gardener looking shirt, and my eternally-hopeful-of-slimming jeans. I did a quick hair-fluff and teeth check in the mirror. Yeah, okay it is something my mother would do, but I really didn’t need to find out after the whole night that I had a piece of black pepper decorating one of my front incisors.
I went into the kitchen to check the voicemail on my home phone and Alex came in. He had a new shirt in hand.
"Do you mind if I change here?"
What a silly question.
"No, go ahead. The bathroom is right around the cor—" Before I could finish he peeled his shirt off and exposed a ripped six-pack and sculpted pecs.
"I'll be right back." He was obviously putting on a show, and I didn't mind having a front row seat.
After some near-hyperventilating I listened to my voicemail. The final message began in the middle of a conversation between two male voices. The voices stopped abruptly and then I just heard a faint breathing sound. It lasted for about ten seconds. It could’ve been a wrong number, yet I had a squiggly feeling in my “gills,” as Aunt Rosie liked to say. I couldn't tell why, but there was just something creepy about the mouth breather on the phone.
“Should we go?” Alex’s voice sounded from behind me.
I let out a little shriek and jumped.
"Not the reaction I was hoping for. Is anything wrong?"
He stood there in a black t-shirt with a slight v-neck. The fit was snug but not too tight. I hadn’t noticed before that he wore a darker pair of jeans which seemed to wear better on him than the first pair I saw him in, which I would have deemed impossible, were he not standing there in front of me in all his cute-ass glory.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing.” I said dreamily. I glanced up and saw Alex looking amused or pleased or a little of both. It didn’t matter which; I thought I would incinerate from embarrassment. I had to say something. “Where should we go?”
He grinned for another beat while looking at me with those addictive brown eyes. The pause was killing me but it was a pleasant pain.
"Are you in the mood for fancy shmancy, healthy, or good?"
"I'm definitely in the mood for good" I said.
"I know the perfect place. It's just downtown. My buddies at work all told me about it when I first moved here. It's called Skinny's."
"Skinny's is great. I've been going to Skinny's since he really was skinny. It'll be perfect." Actually, Skinny never had been skinny, but that little tidbit would’ve ruined my punch line.
We pulled up to Skinny's and found a little wedge in the corner of the oddly shaped parking lot. Alex had to drive his car up and over a small pile of dirt on the end to fit. I think it’s a requirement when you drive an old box on wheels to find parking lots that are blocked with piles of debris you can conquer.
“Pretty impressive car. What’s it called? I yelled over the engine before he turned it off.
“It, as you so callously call her, is an old International, a Scout. She’s been with me through everything, she’s a classic.”
“Yeah, but is she as indestructible as the Astro Van?”
“Ha, not even a close comparison,” he teased.
“We’ll just see about that. The Astro is nicknamed ‘Zombie Sue.’”
“Why?”
“Because she should be dead by now, yet she still runs strong. She’s undead. You can knock her around but she keeps on going.”
“Undead huh? Maybe we should get inside. Sounds like you’re getting delusional from hunger.”
All the booths around the perimeter of the room were occupied, as were three of the eight counter stools which held up precariously under the weight of their occupants, all of whom were wearing some variation of denim either in the form of coveralls or jackets. The men hovered over their food, arms encircling their plates like dogs protecting their bowls, their forks positioned in hand with thumbs pointed down as one would hold a shovel to one’s mouth.
Skinny’s was one of the best-kept local secrets—a great place with inexpensive prices. Housed in an unassuming plain tan brick building, it’s what the misinformed might call a dive. Neither the three hundred fifty pound Skinny nor his daughter, Elma were too concerned with updating the style of decor. The sentiment appeared to be the same when it came to scrubbing the walls. The cowboy print wallpaper and the mini jukeboxes at every table represented bygone days that Skinny didn’t want to forget.
It certainly wasn't Elma's sweet disposition that kept people coming back. More likely than anything it was the giant fry-bread the size of a dinner platter and as thick as a steak, with homemade honey-butter slopped on top. The prices were from the same era as the wallpaper. People could go to Skinny's and get fed to full for about eight dollars including the sales tax and the tip for frowny Elma.
We found a seat in the alcove to the side of the main room. No one seats you at Skinny’s. You just look around for an open table. If there isn’t one, you stand there and look forlorn until someone stands up to leave. It doesn’t work to give people dirty looks if they sit there and gab after their meal is finished. They’ll just drink some water and ask for a refill of their glass for spite.
Luckily, a group had just vacated their table. No need to wait for a busser to clean it, there wasn't one. Just Elma when she got around to it. While we waited for Elma to arrive, I grabbed some paper napkins out of the table dispenser and wiped up the ketchup mess left by the last diners. Elma walked over, eyeballing Alex with a rarely seen pleasant expression on her rouged, hound dog-jowled face.
"Hey, handsome. I don't usually see you out of uniform. I like what I'm seein’." She put her hand on her ample hip and stood there, salivating. Alex smiled and nodded, not even blushing a little. Elma had been the hostess there for about thirty years, since she was a young teenager. She’s what you’d politely call heavyset for her five foot five frame. Her almost beehive hairdo hadn’t changed since she'd landed the job and even then she was wearing a style too old for her age.
Good thing I wasn't interested in Alex or I might have felt just a little jealous. Of course, even if I wanted to tell Elma I didn't like it, I wouldn't have. No one ever tempts making Elma angry after the Great Showdown of 1997. Elma banned Bobby Kremp after he told her his burger was cooked to medium-rare instead of medium-well. She reminded him that every burger at Skinny’s was cooked to Skinny’s version of done as she escorted him out with her press-on nails digging into his left ear. It was Bobby’s stupid fault, he knew better than to challenge Skinny’s cooking.
"Hey, gorgeous, good to see you too." Alex’s eyes sparkled when he said it. He sure knew how to throw on the charm. "My friend Quincy and I thought we'd grab a little dinner." He looked over at me and winked. Elma looked over at me and scowled with her shocking blue-painted eyelids. The black liquid eyeliner drawn out to her temples accentuated the crows feet that deepened with her scowl.
"Hello, Quincy. How's your mother?" She asked out of obligation, not actual interest. Elma grew up in the same neighborhood as my mom.
"Oh she's fine. She goes to DUP as usual."
"Good. Good to hear it. Tell her hello for me."
"I will, she'll be glad to hear from you."
“What’s DUP?” Alex interjected.
“Daughters of the Utah Pioneers,” I said.
“Oh.”
"Waddaya want to drink?" Elma asked, annoyed.
"I'll just have water." No need to run to the bathroom all night from caffeine overload.
"How about you, handsome?" Elma’s carnelian red-painted lips curled into a wicked smile and she gazed at him with come hither eyes.
"I’ll have a beer."
A tidal wave of silence washed over the inside of the restaurant. The sound of a lone fork dropping onto a plate echoed throughout the cafe. An elderly couple sitting at the table next to us posed frozen in mid-bite, staring in our direction; the woman looked like she had just seen a naked man run by. A young family sat on our other side. The mother covered her child's ears with her hands, like earmuffs. She looked horrified, and the father sneered.
Aside from the trendy restaurants or good old fashioned bars, there was nowhere in town where a person could order a beer without eliciting the same reaction as someone who punched an old lady right in the face in front of a crowd. Even then people would say, "I'm sure he had good reason to punch the widow Smith in the mouth," rather than accept someone ordering a beer out in the open on a weeknight. Being the levelheaded non-judgmental Jack Mormon that I thought I was, I tried not to look uncomfortable or surprised at the order. I don’t think I did very well.
“What?” Alex asked.
“Ooh, he’s a rebel too,” Elma said. “I love a man with a wild side.” She fanned herself with her order pad and exited toward the kitchen.
“What’s she talking about? What did I do?”
“Nothing. You did nothing wrong.” I said.
“Then why did you just have that look on your face?”
“Okay, this might sound weird, but people don’t usually consume a lot of beer in this town, especially not in restaurants or really in public, at all.”
“That’s not true. Plenty of people at the Ranch Hand Bar were drinking beer in public the other night.”
“Keep your voice down, do you want to attract an angry mob?” I said.
“Quincy, what in the hell are you talking about?” Great, now he was cursing and drinking in front of people.
“I guess it must be pretty confusing. People just aren’t accustomed to seeing someone
not
in a bar drinking alcoholic beverages.”
“What’s wrong with drinking a beer?”
“Nothing. There is nothing wrong with drinking a beer. Just not around the Mormons.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize…is it considered a sin or something?”
“Well, technically no, it’s not a sin, it’s just…we’ll just say it’s frowned upon.”
“Huh. It’s a little confusing to figure this culture out. Last month a bunch of us from the station went out to celebrate a guy getting married and I know that some of those guys are Mormon. They drank beer.”
“I know. It’s confusing.” Oh please, couldn’t something get me out of this conversation? He had gone out with a bunch of hypocrites but it wasn’t my place to say. Besides, I was feeling confused about the whole religion and culture thing myself. It made my insides squirm just thinking about the subject or anything related to it.
“Here we are. One water and one Budweiser.” Blessed Elma. She put the drinks on the table then beamed as she took Alex’s food order then switched to her normal scowl as she took mine.
After she left, we conversed as we waited for our food to arrive. Alex tried to steer the conversation toward getting-to-know-you-type topics, which I wanted to avoid. No matter how tempting it was to get to know Alex, it would probably require reciprocity. And that would eventually lead to dredging up my past, and then probably talking about the future. Neither of the two topics were anything I wanted to contemplate on an empty stomach. Or a full stomach. Or any stomach.
My focus in life at the moment had to be keeping the flower shop going. I failed in competition after my short stint as a beauty pageant queen was derailed due to getting married. The marriage helped me to fail at getting a degree too, since my duty was to husband and home only. I wasn’t even close to succeeding at being a good Mormon, especially in my mother’s eyes. The only thing I had going for me was the business that my aunt started, and currently it was struggling, too. I couldn’t let her down, and all of my attention needed to be directed at the shop, where I had a glimmering little hope of finally doing something right. Alex was not going to become an entry on my list of non-achievements.
But he looked so fantastic. His body was an embarrassment of masculinity packaged within perfect skin. While I pondered that skin, and the scruff that had developed on the face end of it, I thought back to his moment of undress in my house. Unfortunately, the replay of that scene led me to think about the voice mail hang-up I’d heard just before Alex had come in from the other room.
The message still nagged in the back of my mind. I had no reason to believe it was anything, except for the fact I had been feeling nervous and creeped out a lot lately. It wasn’t normal for me to feel that way, at least since I got over the fear of the Housewarming Gifts.
I wanted to tell Alex about the phone call, but I didn’t want him to feel like I was asking for anything else from him. If I shared my fears, he would react as the protective cop, or worse yet, he would feel like I needed a man to lean on. Although, thinking of leaning on him in the literal sense made for a great visual.
“Quincy, everything okay?”
“Everything’s great. Why?”
“You seem distracted.”
“I’m sorry. I started thinking about work. It’s hard to leave the shop behind.” A good all-purpose excuse for everything.
“I’m having a hard time getting a read on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re this tall, beautiful woman. You seem intelligent and confident. I just wonder why you’re not with someone. You told me you’ve been married before, how long ago was that?”
“Not long enough to want to do it again.”
“That good, huh?”
“Let’s talk about something else. I’d like to forget that era in my life. What about you? Have you ever been married?”
“For about two seconds. I was young and dumb and it didn’t help that I was in Europe, married to an Italian girl. It’s probably best we don’t talk about that either. There’s some complicated legal stuff.”