“Yes, I did a good job keeping her away.”
He gave me a perplexed look.
“Dalton’s not my boyfriend,” I said. “We’ve only had two dates, and that surly man who just left is his butler.”
“I’d like a butler,” my father said, as casually as if he’d been commenting on his desire for a grilled cheese sandwich.
I continued, “What I mean by mentioning the butler is, he’s a fancy actor, and I’m a fat girl who manages a bookstore, and there’s no dating book that covers this kind of a situation. I may see him again, but I shall not be referring to him as my boyfriend.”
My father winced and stared up at the light fixture over the display window again. “You really should replace that whole fixture. I’ve got an extra one I can bring by.”
It was so exactly like my father to evade a thorny question and obsess over something involving math instead.
I’d barely had a sip of my morning mocha, and was already exhausted from telling men no, so I said, “Sure. Bring the new light fixture over any time.”
~
For the rest of the day, I basked in the warm glow of the pretty flower bouquet and all it implied. The arrangement came from Gabriella’s, which was the most expensive florist in town. Most of our weekday customers are women, and there wasn’t one who didn’t close her eyes and deeply smell the flowers with a beatific smile on her face.
The phone rang a few times, but not with Dalton on the other end of the line. Closing time came and went, and I kept finding tasks to keep me there well into the evening.
Why hadn’t I written my personal phone number on the business card? Because I was stupid, that’s why.
I was, and continue to be, very stupid—stupid in the way that only girls who score well on academic papers can be stupid.
How stupid? When I tell you about the thing I did when I was fifteen, you may just write me off as worthless.
I can’t think about that too much, though, or it makes me depressed, and not the kind of mild depressed that I can shake off with a laugh, like the way I feel when I see a wireless network named “Cankles.” (I enjoy browsing around and seeing creative wireless network names like “I can hear you having sex” and “Derps” and “Click here for drug-resistant scabies,” but the term “Cankles” isn’t funny if you have them.)
An hour after closing time, the lights were still on and people had ceased to wander in browsing, so there was no reason for me to stick around waiting for the phone to ring.
Unless… I was changing out a light fixture.
My father had dropped a new one by, and I sent a quick text message to Gordon Junior to make sure I had his permission.
He texted back: Knock yourself out, Petra.
I frowned at my phone screen. Why did he sound like he was making fun of me whenever he used my name, either in conversation or in text like this? He was a nice enough guy, but he had a tendency to come off condescending.
I shrugged it off and got to work, first turning off the breaker for that strip of lights. Growing up, my father felt it was important for me to master basic home repair, so I learned from my mother how to make biscuits with bacon drippings, and learned from my father how to change a light fixture, how to snake a clogged sink, and how to hide out in the garage before dinner to avoid being asked to help make biscuits.
Instead of standing on a stool, which I’d been doing the day Dalton Deangelo literally knocked me off my feet, I used the stepladder, even though the nasty creak the aluminum thing made when you opened it caused my skin to crawl.
With my arms held high over my head, the pressure on my olive green button-down shirt caused one of my buttons to pop off. Annoyed and sweating from holding the fixture up while fiddling with the plastic connectors, I said a few choice words, then pulled shut the decorative curtain across the display window and took my shirt off completely.
As I dropped my shirt to the floor, I stared over at the yellow telephone, which was an old-fashioned, heavy thing that hung on the wall.
Ring, damn it.
As if that ever worked.
I looked down at my peaches, perkily packed into my hot pink bra. There was some serious hotness at the bookstore that evening, and a certain hunky actor was missing out on a good time.
I climbed back up the stepladder and finished installing the light fixture, then screwed in the new bulbs. My hot night was just jammed full of screwing! First all the screws, now the bulbs. I giggled at my joke, and when I flipped the breaker on the old electrical panel, I jumped up and clapped for joy that the light worked.
What I didn’t know, and wouldn’t find out for a few days, was that someone was watching me. Not just watching, but photographing.
In my haste and irritation, I’d neglected to close the curtain on the other window, and anyone passing by on the sidewalk would be able to see me traipsing around in my brown trousers and a hot pink bra.
When I was done tidying up, I grabbed my purse and took one last baleful look at the silent telephone. I’d stayed another half hour, sewing the button back onto my shirt using the emergency sewing kit from the office.
The yellow body of the telephone seemed a touch grimy, and I considered cleaning it.
The phone rang.
That’s weird, I thought. Now I’m having auditory hallucinations.
It rang again, so I answered the phone, curious where this break with reality was going. By now it was half past eight, and I was so hungry, I could have eaten raw kale, no dressing.
“Good evening, Peachtree Books.”
A low chuckle. “Is it a good evening?”
“That depends on who this is and why you’re calling.”
“You hurt poor Vern’s feelings.”
I smiled and wrapped the long, curly phone cord around myself as I twirled in excitement.
“Poor Vern,” I said.
“You hungry?”
“No.” My stomach growled. “Yes.”
“Is this spaghetti place any good? I’m standing out front, reading the menu. They have a Forest Folk platter that’s free if you eat the whole thing, but I don’t know if I’m quite that hungry.”
“You’re at DeNirro’s?”
“You tell me.”
DeNirro’s was across the street from the bookstore. I twirled again to free myself from the twisty phone cord, made my way to the display window, pulled open the curtain, and peeked out.
There was a handsome, dark-haired young man, standing across the street, waving at me. He almost looked like a regular person at this distance.