“So I’m wondering,” he says, “I’m wondering if you want to go out sometime? Like to lunch maybe? Or dinner.”
“Oh,” she says, setting the two cups down in front of him. “Um, well…”
“Or we could get a drink after work maybe.”
She looks up at him and pushes the keys on the register. “That’s $3. 25.” This time he is certain she is blushing.
He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and hands her four dollar bills. The register rings open and she fishes out three quarters.
“I guess,” she says finally. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Great. Tonight? After work tonight?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to where her gaze is leveled. His time is up. The man behind him already has his wallet out and two dollar bills in his hand, ready to order and pay in one motion.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Great. See you then.”
“Lids are over there” is all she says.
“Can I help you?” she is asking the impatient man with the two dollars.
Henry turns and backs out the door because his hands are full and because it affords him one more look at her. She is looking at him, too, and pinpricks of energy stab his skin. When she smiles at him—however quick it may have been—he feels himself becoming aroused.
His light-headedness might be because he is hungry and the first sip of coffee on an empty stomach does from time to time make him a little nauseated. Or it might be because he has a date with Cathy Nicholas. He cannot be sure which.
“Nice face,” Tom says, reaching for his drink.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look weird is all. So what’s the game plan here?”
Henry deflates as he looks inside at what is promising to be a lost cause.
“I don’t know. There’s got to be something else we can do.”
Tom shakes his head and ventures another sip of black coffee. “Not your problem-o.”
Henry imagines Cathy watching him. Admiring him from a distance—across the street maybe? No, he thinks, she’s closer. She can hear us. And once again he says the sort of thing he usually shies away from. Which is to say he speaks his mind.
“You know what? It is my problem,” he says to Geigan. “I work here, man. This is my job.”
Funny, he thinks, funny how Geigan does not seem to notice the change. He does not seem to mind being challenged. Huh.
“Yeah, well, I got a job, too, man, but if the whole place burned down tomorrow I’d walk away, find myself another job easy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy.”
“’Course it is. See, that’s the difference between you and me, Powell. My job’s just that…a job. Your job’s…”
“What? What’s my job?” Henry faces Tom.
“It’s your life, man,” Tom says. He shrugs and turns to walk away. “You’ve got to get a life, Powell.”
Henry watches him go. “You get a life,” he mutters.
He goes back into the store to think of some new way to get rid of what is now an old smell.
After an hour of letting the fans do their work, Henry goes to the back of the store and turns one off, unplugs it and coils the cord. He carries it back to the store room and then closes the heavy emergency door, testing it, pushing against it to make sure it is locked back into place. Then he turns the middle fan off and stows it, eventually moving up to the double front doors and closing them. After the noise of the fans the silence is more powerful.
At ten-oh-two Mr. Beardsley walks in, sniffing the air.
Henry watches him and finds himself anxious about Mr. Beardsley’s reaction.
“Good morning,” he says. He knows this is what Mr. Beardsley likes to hear and on a morning like this one figures he may as well give his boss a break.
“Good morning,” Mr. Beardsley says. “It’s not so bad. I thought it would be worse but it’s not so bad.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad at all,” Henry says after exhaling.
“This we can deal with. I’ve got a professional cleaning crew coming in at eleven so that should do the trick.”
“Good.”
“Any calls?” Mr. Beardsley asks.
“Nope.”
“I’ll be in the back for now,” he says.
Henry looks around and tries to think of something to do that will take his mind off the clock, which appears to have stopped altogether it is moving so slowly. He pulls yesterday’s paper out from the shelf underneath the counter and scans it for anything he has not already read. It cheers him up to think the job classifieds are already separated out, taken home for study. Henry feels disloyal circling things while at work. Lunch hour is fair game but at the counter he could be spotted. He thumbs through the remaining paper. This takes about seven minutes from the day which, because of the date with Cathy, is now like an abacus: beads pushing time from one side to the other. He stands and takes a fistful of change from his pocket, separating out a quarter for the news box on the sidewalk a few steps from the store.
Today’s newspaper is not much different from yesterday’s. Except that an extra second has been added to the calendar year. And leaded gas is now officially banned in the United States. More fighting over Karen Ann Quinlan and whether or not she should be allowed to die. Sixteen minutes slide across the abacus. Henry wonders how on earth Billy Joel could land Christie Brinkley. Music is power, he tells himself, noting that she appears to tower over her new husband in the wedding photo the paper has printed. He thinks of Geigan, his mullet and slightly pockmarked face, and figures that even though he is not Billy Joel, he acts like he is and so will probably land someone beautiful.
The cleaning crew arrives and as he is helping move racks out of the way he is aware that this will take up time.
“We can take it from here,” says the man with “george” in script on an oval over his heart, the G lower case.
“I’ll be over here if you need me,” Henry says.
“They’re here?” Mr. Beardsley says, checking his watch on his way to the front. “Why didn’t you come get me? How long have they been here? Hi, how are you? I’m Ned Beardsley.” He extends his hand to lower-case george.
Henry goes back to his paper and purposely does not check his watch so he can be pleasantly surprised later to see that there is not much time until Cathy.
That Live Aid would be the ticket to score, he thinks, reading the list of bands scheduled to appear. Philadelphia is not that far away and he contemplates calling Ticketmaster to see about cost. But then turns the page. Back to the Future is number one at the box office. He imagines Cathy sitting beside him at Main Street Cinema. Reaching into the tub of popcorn they are sharing. Smiling over at him during previews. Or better yet nodding after a preview saying “That looks good. We should see that one for sure.” She’d like Back to the Future, he thinks.
Soon, gloriously soon, it is lunchtime. Twelve noon. Henry Powell never eats lunch before twelve noon. Even if he is starving. Noon is the magic hour. After the final chime of the church bell down the street he stands, stretches and steps over the cords and big yellow-fabric-covered Slinky that snakes ominously out to the matching yellow van parked out front.
In the storeroom he pulls a Tupperware container out of the minifridge. A strip of masking tape with H. Powell written in black capital letters is peeling off the top and Henry reminds himself he must replace it. He always liked having his name on his uniform, his gym locker. In fact he was happy to note that the dry cleaners had stamped H. Powell into his laundered shirts, “H” and not simply “Powell” to distinguish him from “R” Powell, a scowling man who works at the bank and has a bad case of eczema.
The leftover Chinese food is cold and tasteless and Henry wishes for the millionth time that Mr. Beardsley would invest in one of those new microwaves everyone’s talking about. It occurs to Henry that he should get one for his apartment and then rave about it to Mr. Beardsley, who would hopefully be convinced of its usefulness.
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He finishes and puts the empty container on the top shelf of his locker, indicating it is to go home with him that day for cleaning. But then he remembers he is going out after work and it would not do to bring a smelly, dirty plastic lunch container out on a date. Bottom of the locker. To be moved to the top shelf tomorrow.
“’Sup?”
Henry, startled, turns to see Ramon shedding his baseball jacket in front of his locker next to Henry’s.
“What’s up?” Henry says.
Ramon tilts his head toward the front of the store. “What’s going on with Ned?”
“Oh, we got water in the store yesterday, er, two days ago. No, yesterday I think. Whatever. Whenever that storm was,” Henry says. “You should’ve seen it. It was pretty bad.”
“Glad I dodged that bullet.”
Henry closes his locker. “See you out there.”
George and the professional cleaners have gone and Mr. Beardsley is beaming at Henry.
“Look at that,” he says, but his facial expression is one of smelling, not looking, so Henry too inhales the artificially freshened—professionally freshened—air.
“Money well spent,” Mr. Beardsley continues.
The rest of the afternoon drips by. Henry busies himself with whatever tiny or not so small chores occur to Mr. Beardsley, who is aware of and pleased with Henry’s newfound industry.
At four-thirty Henry asks if it would be all right if he could run a quick errand and hurries home to check in early. He does not help his mother to bed at this hour (even though forty-five minutes later he would have) because he will be returning after his date. He leaves a note for his father in the off chance Edgar Powell comes home early. I’ll be back later tonight, Henry scribbles. He jumps in his car and drives back to Baxter’s so he can saunter over to Cup-a-Joe’s from there. He does not want to appear rushed.
At five-oh-one Henry closes his locker door after again noting the Tupperware and thinking he must remember to transfer it to the top shelf tomorrow.
“Well, I’m out of here,” he says to Mr. Beardsley. Careful to conceal his triumph in making it through a day that at first looked to stretch into infinity.
“Good night, Henry,” Mr. Beardsley says. “Thanks for your help with the water situation.”
“No problem. See you tomorrow.”
He has never been one to consider skipping but Henry now understands its allure. For he nearly skips up the street.
At Cup-a-Joe the sign in the door reads Closed but he shades his eyes and looks through the glass at Cathy, who is untying the half apron from around her waist. She looks up and sees him and waves. He watches her reach under the counter for her purse and, though he can’t hear her voice, he knows she is calling “good night” to the back of the café where an unseen boss is probably saying the same back. He is pleased to see that she has changed from her faded jeans to black stirrup pants. A sign that she is looking to impress him, he thinks.
“Hi,” she says once outside.
Be cool, he is telling himself. Be cool. “How’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” she says.
“I was thinking we could go to Sweetwater,” he says. Sweetwater, a bar hoping to be thought of as a music club, is in the next town over.
She shrugs and says, “Sounds good.” But the shrug makes him unsure of his choice.
“You want to go someplace else?”
“Sweetwater’s fine,” she says. “I’m parked over there.” She points to a silver Celica with a banged-in bumper.
“You want to just leave your car and I can drop you back by after?”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll just follow you.”
“You sure? Parking’s sometimes tough around there. Two spaces might be harder to find.”
“It’s all right, I’ll just follow you there.” She crosses the street.
“See you there,” he calls out.
As it turns out, since she is in her car before he is in his, he ends up following her there. Henry is not so disappointed that she is not riding with him but really he is relieved not to have to make conversation in the car. Then again he pictures them laughing by the time they got to Sweetwater—climbing out of the car mid-laugh, the way he sees so many couples on dates. The shared jokes. The intimacy of even the shortest of rides. Screw it, he thinks. Screw it, we’d just have run out of things to talk about. This way is much better, he is satisfied at the thought.
“Hey,” he greets her inside the bar. Tuesday nights are women-drink-half-price nights and he worries that she will assume they are there, at that particular place, for that particular reason.
“How about over here?” He motions to a small, round table for two.
She drapes her coat on the back of her chair before sitting down. “This is nice,” she says, looking around. “I’ve never been here before.”
He tries to remember whether this place has table service or if customers are expected to order up at the bar.
“What do you want to drink? I’ll go up and order,” he says.
“What? Oh. Um, a glass of wine I guess.”
“White or red?”
“Ah, white, please. Thanks.”
Up at the bar he orders a chardonnay and a merlot, because it is what he remembers his father always ordering. Truth is he is more of a beer drinker.
“I’ll bring them over,” the cocktail waitress says after he has paid the bartender.
“They’re bringing it over,” he tells her when he pulls his chair back out. It makes an ugly scraping sound that startles her.
“So how long have you been working at the coffee place?” he asks.
“I don’t know…a year maybe?”
“A year, huh?”
“Longest year of my life.” This is loud enough for him to hear but she is really muttering to herself.
“You don’t like it there?” he asks, leaning forward to hear her.
“I hate it there,” she says, in a tone that suggests surprise that there is an alternative.
“Are you looking for something else? Another job, I mean?”
“Yeah. Hell, yeah,” she says.
“Where are you looking?” he asks. “Actually—oh!—I hear Transitions is about to lay someone off. Just don’t say I told you about it. My friend works there.”
Transitions is an ironically named women’s clothing store in the same block as Baxter’s. Ironic because the only transition it seems to be making is one from prosperity to bankruptcy. Henry’s friend there, Amy, is really an acquaintance he occasionally sees out in the back alley that runs behind their stores, when they are both breaking down cardboard boxes so they do not take up too much room in their Dumpsters. For months they called out hello to each other and then met more formally in line at the post office. Amy is a woman about his mother’s age and he has always felt sorry for her without really knowing why.
“Ugh.” Cathy’s lip is curled up when she says this but Henry does not see it as a sign of disgust but rather an opportunity to see her perfect teeth. “Actually, I’m trying to get a temp job at this ad agency in the city. A foot in the door, you know? Plus even if that didn’t work out permanently at least once I’m there it’ll be easier to hear about other stuff.”
Henry finds himself wishing she would stop looking around the bar—it makes it seem as if she is talking to herself. It makes him feel like the date has not yet begun. He wonders if maybe he should bring over a bowl of pretzels from the bar so she can focus on that, and then, perhaps, him.
Finally, she looks straight at him. “How is it working at Baxter’s?”
“Fine,” he says. To keep her attention he adds, “But…you know…I’m not always going to be working there, either. But whatever. I’m always looking.”
“What’re you looking for?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. He does not want to talk about the classifieds because it will look as if he is copying her job search. He looks around, hoping he’ll see a frie
nd who can see him out on this date.
But it is a slow night at Sweetwater and he recognizes no one.
“Where were you before the coffee place?” he asks.
“What? Oh, um, around. I worked in Norton for a couple of years. After school.”
“Where’d you go to school?”
“Buckton,” she says. “Where’d you go?”
He had meant high school, not college.
“Um, I’m on leave from Westerfield. Just for a little while.”
“Really?” He notices her brighten at the significance of the name. Westerfield always elicits this response and he is aware she now thinks of him as pedigreed. Most graduates, Henry has noticed, mention it in the first minutes of conversation for this very reason. But he feels as if he is misrepresenting himself and hurries to change the subject.
“Where’d you grow up?” he asks.
Before she can answer, the waitress places square napkins down in front of each of them followed by their wine.
“Cheers,” he says, offering his glass to clink. She takes a sip of her drink.
After a few silent sips he says, “This is great,” and she nods and smiles as she looks into her wineglass.
“Where’d you say you’re from?” he asks, two sips later.
“Oh. I’m from Rhode Island. Where’re you from?”
“Here,” he says. “I grew up here, actually. My brother moved away a few years ago but I’m still here.” He does not know why he has offered this.
“Where’d your brother go?”
“Oregon,” he says. “Portland area. He’s supposedly got this really great house right on the river. I haven’t been out to see him.”
She nods and takes another sip of her drink. She touches her hair when she notices him staring at it. “What?” she asks, pushing it behind her ears.
“Nothing,” he takes a sip of his drink and looks down. “You’ve got nice hair.”
“I do?” She sits up straighter in her chair but looks down, as if memorizing his compliment.