The Awkward Path to Getting Lucky

by Summer Heacock

I motion at him. “Why did you drag him back here, anyway?”

  Butter shrugs. “I don’t know. He was there. You said all hands on deck. I panicked.”

  I reach up and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Sure. Okay.” Looking back up at Ben, I say, “Actually, why were you still out there?”

  He tugs at his tie. “I, uh, well. I’m not really sure. It looked like a big deal, and you seemed nervous, and it felt wrong to just leave in the middle of it. Oh, and I was going to ask if you wanted to get pizza tonight, but things got weird and I forgot. So.”

  “Aww,” Butter says, stepping back. “That’s so sweet!”

  Shannon and Liz come rushing through the kitchen door. “That went horri—Ben!” Shannon trills.

  Ben winces and looks up at the ceiling. “Hi.”

  Under any other circumstances, I’d be laughing hysterically. I manage a faint grin. “Pizza sounds great. And you can absolutely run away now,” I say.

  Letting out a whoosh of air, he says, “Thank you.” He turns for the door, but stops short. “You’re okay, though?”

  “Aww,” Butter says again. I roll my eyes at her.

  I give him the most reassuring smile I can muster. “I’m fine. Lively day at the office. You know how it goes.”

  His lip twitches a bit. “Right.” He looks awkwardly at everyone, raises his eyebrows and says, “Yeah, so. Nice to see you all. I’m gonna just...” He points at the door and quickly disappears.

  Liz is pressed up against the blast-chiller, eyes wide, gaze bouncing between me and Shannon. Butter has her glitter brush out and is rolling it around in her hands, looking at it as though the secrets of the universe lie hidden in the bristles.

  Shannon is looking straight at me with one hand on the counter for support and the other on her hip. She looks somehow crestfallen and determined and exhausted all at once. She takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

  “Fuck,” she says.

  25

  Shannon has worn a trench behind the display counter from her constant pacing today. We finally had to kick her out of the kitchen when her infinite looping kept taking her past our stations and she’d bump into us as we worked.

  “Goodbye new employee, goodbye ever seeing my kids before bedtime. Goodbye Walt Disney World. Goodbye sanity,” she mutters to herself.

  “You’re maybe overreacting a little,” I offer.

  She gives me a look of malicious intent, and her phasers are definitely not set to stun.

  So, okay, the interaction with Mr. Peterson didn’t go particularly well. But it could have gone a lot worse. Maybe.

  We could have set him directly on fire or he could have punched us all in the face one by one.

  Butter and Liz are in the kitchen wrapping things up for the night, and Shannon is behind the counter, finally done with the pacing, putting the last of the register takings away. I’m mopping the front room so we can go the hell home.

  “It’s going to be fine,” I say to Shannon, dragging my mop across the floor in even swirls. “We are going to get everything sorted out perfectly before the big day and knock his damn socks off. This set a nice low bar for what he expects from us. Now when we go in all guns blazing, he won’t know what hit him.”

  “So you’re saying it’s a good thing we completely flopped this morning?”

  I pause to consider this. “You have to really want to see that as a potential silver lining, but sure. Let’s go with that.”

  Shannon doesn’t seem convinced, but I think there’s something to the theory. I resume mopping, my head swimming with thoughts of tiny ravens and buttercream nightmares when the sound of a gentle tapping on the glass of the front door rings out.

  I look up and see Ben standing on the other side. Smiling, I prop the mop against one of the armchairs in the seating area and go to unlock the door for him.

  “Hey,” I say, letting him through. “How was your day?’

  “Considerably more dull after I left here,” he replies with a wink. He waves a hello to Shannon at the register, who silently nods back, not to be disturbed whilst counting money. “But then, it always is. Butter isn’t going to drag me around by the tie again, is she?”

  Staring ominously toward the kitchen, I answer, “Anything can happen here, Cleary. Never let your guard down.”

  He straightens his tie and plasters a dramatic expression on his face. “I’ll never surrender.”

  Giggling, I grab my mop again. “Give me just a second to finish, and then we can go. I’m sure you’re very impressed by this glamorous view of me right now.”

  He cocks his head and studies me as I work. “You do make mopping far more enticing than I ever thought possible.”

  I don’t know whether to blush or roll my eyes, so I shake my head and keep working.

  “All right, Kat,” Shannon says, coming out from behind the counter. “I’m going to pack everything up and go take the deposits to the bank. Then I’m off. Butter’ll lock things down tonight. You good up here?”

  I swipe the mop across the last patch of floor and plop it back in the bucket. “Yes, ma’am. All clear. See you in the morning.”

  Shannon squints at the windows and says, “Wait, is that...?”

  Following her gaze, I see our front door opening again. In walks a sort of familiar-looking guy in his mid-thirties, wearing a rumpled suit. He’s got very dark hair piled back with way too much product, and he’s sporting a goatee.

  “Barry?” Shannon says. “What are you doing here? Are you supposed to meet Joe? I don’t think he’s planning on stopping in tonight.”

  Oh my god, Barry the Goatee. Definitely not going to him for therapy sex.

  “Hiya, Shannon,” Barry says with a toothy grin. “Actually, I am here to see this one.” He points at me, and an unfortunate expression freezes on my face.

  “Me? Why?”

  Shannon’s face passes through several emotions very quickly. She goes from her customer service smile to confusion to I’m-going-to-murder-my-husband-with-my-bare-hands in a blink. She rips her phone out of her apron and starts furiously punching buttons. I’m assuming Joe is on the receiving end of those clicks.

  “I heard from a little birdy,” Barry explains, his teeth gleaming, “that you’re in the market for a relationship that isn’t too serious. I meant to get your number at that Labor Day party last year, but I thought you were with that one guy. When Joe said you were looking for a casual thing, I knew I—”

  “Shannon!” I shriek.

  She has her phone to her ear and is screaming into it. “Joe!”

  “Uh...” Ben says from behind me.

  I whip around. “Wait, no. No, no, no. Really no, Ben. This is so not what it looks like.”

  Barry stands up a little straighter. “Who’s this guy?”

  Butter and Liz come running out of the back room and stand behind the counter. “What’s up, everyone?” Butter asks cautiously.

  Whirling around to face Barry the Goatee, I insist, “Look, I don’t care what you heard, but I am not looking for anything, least of all from you. Aside from that being the most offensive attempt at asking someone out I’ve ever heard, I’m just flat-out not interested.”

  “So...that’s a no?”

  “Hard pass, Barry. Hard pass. Not now. Not ever.”

  Barry grins again. “Feeling a little shy because I asked you in front of all these people? We could go get a drink and—”

  “Get the hell out of this store, or I swear to god I will bury you in the same shallow grave my husband is destined for tonight, you creepy little grease stain!” Shannon shouts, shoving her phone back into her apron.

  Bristling, he attempts to straighten his wrinkled jacket. “There’s no need to get personal about it. I’m just making sure she understa
nds the offer on the table here. Don’t be bringing your marital troubles in and making things more complicated.”

  Oh shit.

  A sound I’m pretty sure I’ve heard on Animal Planet right before an antelope dies erupts from Shannon as she lunges at Barry. It’s absolute chaos from there. I grab for Shannon. Ben grabs for us both. Butter and Liz run from behind the counter. I can’t tell if Shannon is trying to strangle Barry or just get him out the door, but I’m trying to pry her off him, and I think Ben is trying to separate the lot of us. Butter joins the mix, and then there are just arms and shouting sounds and bedlam everywhere.

  I don’t feel my feet hit it, but one of us knocks into the mop bucket and over it goes. A new wave of screaming echoes through the shop as the warm soapy water soaks most of us from the knees down.

  In a flash of long black hair, Butter slips on the now deathly slick linoleum and hits the floor with a thud. Liz stands a few feet away yelping, “Stop!”

  My foot hits what I have to assume is pure soap, and my left leg juts out independent from the rest of my body. Ben gets an arm around my waist as I fall, but the momentum is too much, or the floor is too slippery, because he goes right down with me.

  The sound of tires screeching to a halt outside causes us all to freeze. Did someone call the police?

  I glance up and see Joe climbing out of his car looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him—or anyone else—look.

  He stomps across the sidewalk, throws open the shop door so hard I’m genuinely surprised the glass doesn’t shatter and, without saying a word, grabs Barry by the scruff of his neck. Joe turns, dragging Barry behind him, and is right back out the door.

  Shannon stands panting, her fingers still curled into claws. Liz is behind us, her hands clasped over her face in horror. Butter, Ben and I are all lying motionless in the puddle on the floor.

  We watch as Joe jerks Barry to the sidewalk and releases him, getting right up in his face, jabbing a finger under his nose. Joe might work in a bank, but by the look of him, he’d be better suited as the bouncer of a nightclub. I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated how exactly how enormous the man truly is. He’s well over six feet tall with a shaved head and a beard that probably makes him look terrifying to other people.

  I’ve known him forever, so under normal circumstances, while I’ve always been aware he’s a big dude, it’s hard to find him menacing when I’ve seen him playing princess tea party with his daughter.

  But watching him shred into Barry, I can’t see how I ever missed his essence of ferociousness. Rabid bears would be less frightening.

  A moment later, tail lodged firmly between his legs, Barry turns and flees. Joe stretches out his neck, tugs down the sleeves of his suit jacket and calmly makes his way back into the store.

  The little bells that tinkle when the door opens sound wildly inappropriate in this context.

  “Everybody all right?” he says, looking down at the bunch of us on the floor. Butter is closest, so he reaches down and carefully helps her up. Her feet dart out a few times, but she manages to hold steady.

  He comes over as Ben and I try wriggling ourselves up.

  “You’re Ben, right?” Joe asks.

  Ben, eyes comically wide, says, “I’m—yeah?” as if he’s suddenly unsure.

  “I’m Joe. Shannon’s husband. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard really great things. Sorry about all of this.” He sticks his hand out, and Ben looks to both me and Shannon with blatant confusion before shaking it.

  “It’s, um, yeah. Great to meet you, too.”

  Joe takes me by the elbow and helps me the rest of the way up. I latch onto one of the armchairs to maintain my balance, and Ben clings to my wrist for good measure.

  “Kat,” Joe continues. “I’m really sorry about this, and I’ll take care of it. I promise I will find a way to make that up to you. It really was a misunderstanding, but I’ll have to call you later and explain.” He turns to address Shannon. “I’ve got to go get the kids from the sitter, and I’ll grab dinner on the way home and meet you there. You can kill me after the kids go to bed. Kat can come, too, if she wants. Do we still need milk? I can pick it up.”

  “Goddamn right you’ll pick up the milk,” Shannon mutters.

  He walks over, bends down and gives her a quick kiss on the lips, which she reciprocates, and quickly walks back out of the shop. We all watch in silence as he climbs into his car, starts the engine and drives away.

  The only sounds around us are the surreal splats of water droplets from our clothes hitting the floor.

  “Guys,” Ben says finally, “what the hell just happened?”

  26

  “Thanks for driving me,” I say, awkwardly poking at Ben’s dashboard. “I’m not sure they would have let me on the bus with soap dripping from my jeans.”

  “It’s no problem,” he says, his eyes a little too focused on the road.

  I can’t handle the tension and blurt out, “Okay, so how mad are you right now?”

  Keeping one hand on the wheel, he uses the other to rub his forehead. “I’m not mad, Kat. Just a little confused.”

  “I am absolutely not looking to date Barry,” I say with a shudder. “And I know that looked really weird, but I swear I had nothing to do with him being there.”

  Ben shakes his head. “It’s fine, Kat. We’ve never had a discussion of... I don’t even know what to call it. Sex therapy exclusivity? It’s none of my business.”

  “You are mad!” I yelp. “I’m not out there recruiting dudes by the dozen, Ben! I don’t understand what happened with Barry the Goatee just now, but that wasn’t my call, man.”

  Taking in a slow breath, he says, “You really don’t have to explain yourself. I know how important your deadline is to you. I mean, you’re down to twelve days, and I know we haven’t had much success. It’s not—”

  A frustrated, guttural noise escapes me. “Ben. Oh my god. That was not an act of therapy desperation! I do not want to do therapy with Barry the freaking Goatee. I’m not looking to do therapy with anyone else, thank you very much.”

  Ben brakes for a stoplight and turns to stare at me. “Really?”

  I awkwardly brush at my jeans. “Yes. Really. I like you. Shut up.”

  One corner of his mouth pulls up, seemingly without his permission, and he turns his attention back to the road as the light turns green. “Oh.”

  We drive in silence, and he appears to be contemplating the situation at hand.

  While he deliberates, I’ll just be over here dying of acute mortification.

  I’m going to kill Joe. I don’t know what he did, but I think I will be justified in his murder, assuming Shannon doesn’t get to him first.

  My dry spell has reached the point where spouses are diving in to throw solutions at it.

  Icky solutions, but the point stands.

  And my deadline is inching closer every minute. Twelve days. Twelve tiny days to slay the dragon. I make an unfortunate squeaking sound.

  “What was that?” Ben asks as we enter my neighborhood.

  I twist in my seat, and my hands clench the seat belt across my chest. “Let’s try again tonight. Third time’s the charm?”

  Making a moderately exasperated noise, he replies, “Kat, come on. That’s not what I meant. You don’t have to prove anything to me. I would never want that.”

  “I know that. It’s just...twelve days,” I whimper. “I’ve only got twelve days left! Where the hell did the last few weeks go?”

  His hand flies back to his forehead. “Are you sure you’re even in a place to try tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  He gives me a side-eyed look. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m still wearing mop-water clothes that are becoming surprisingly stiff as they
dry.”

  Hearing him say that out loud makes the discomfort fly right into focus. He’s not wrong. My jeans are starting to feel a bit cardboard-like. And the soap is making my skin sticky and unpleasantly itchy.

  “Okay, fair point,” I say. “What about this? We kind of screwed up dinner plans, and yes, we are both a little gross right now. How about we break for an hour or so, get cleaned up and then pretend the last half hour never happened?”

  We pull up to my apartment complex, getting an impressively good parking spot on the street. He puts the car in Park and stares at me silently for a moment. He takes in a long, controlled breath and lets it out just as slowly. I’m all but bouncing with anticipation in my seat.

  “You really want to try tonight?”

  “Very much. Yep.”

  I swear I see him shake his head ever so slightly, but he says, “If that’s what you want to do, we can give it a shot.”

  “Great!” I trill, and clap him on the arm. “All right, I’m going to go shower because seriously, mop water, ew. And I’ll call you in about an hour when we’re both ready to meet up again?”

  He nods once. “Sounds good.”

  Emboldened by the new goal, I hop out of the car and wave a gleeful goodbye as I prance down the sidewalk to my building.

  Before I can even get my key in the lobby door, my phone rings in my pocket. I pull it out and answer without looking at the screen as I struggle to get the door open. “Hello?”

  It’s Joe. “Hey, Kat,” he says.

  “You are dead to me, I hope you know.”

  I can hear his contrition through the phone even before he speaks. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I swear I didn’t tell him anything about what you’ve got going on right now.”

  “Then how did this little scenario in the shop come about, Joe?”

  “I was talking to him the other day about how you might be looking for a casual relationship right now. A no commitment kind of thing. I knew he was into you from that barbecue we had last year, and I wasn’t thinking. Then Shannon told me about you and that Ben guy, and I didn’t think to say anything to Barry about it. But in my defense, I didn’t think he was going to do that.”