by Erynn Mangum
I fidget, pulling at the red-and-white skirt I’m wearing. It’s knee length, and Jen paired it with a red fitted T-shirt and a dark denim jacket, so I look really cute, but I just don’t understand why I couldn’t be dressed up in my favorite brown cords and maybe that soft blue-green sweater I have.
Honestly, a skirt to go to the movie theater? Hudson’s only theater, Cinema 12, is far from a Hollywood premiere. The odds of some kid in the show before me not spilling a Coke on the seat so it’s all soaked and sticky are about as likely as me liking my blind date.
“He’s super nice,” Jen says for the seventeenth time. Jen looks the part of the adorable girlfriend in a white eyelet dress. Her hair is pulled back off her face in a headband.
Each time she says it, I see it as one more strike against this guy’s looks. I don’t want to be shallow, but please. All of us know that physical attraction is pretty important.
She glances at the clock again. “Okay. We can go.”
I nod dutifully and pick up my messenger bag. Inside is my wallet, ChapStick, and cell phone. The only thing I can imagine using tonight is my cell phone — to call Jack to come pull me out of this mess. There won’t be any kissing, so I don’t need the ChapStick. And I’d better not be paying, so there’s no use for the wallet. That’s Rule #1 in the dating manual for guys.
We climb in Jen’s car, and she heads toward Santiago’s, a local Mexican restaurant. The whole time I fret about sitting across from Travis at dinner while he’s on a date with my best friend.
Awkward!
We get to the crowded restaurant, park, and squeeze through the doorway littered with people.
“There he is,” Jen says, waving.
Travis seems even more good-looking than normal in a navy-and-gray button-down shirt that makes his eyes pop. He grins back at Jen, waving her over to where he is standing near the hostess booth. Note the singular he. There is not another guy with him.
“Hi, sweetie,” he says, lightly kissing Jen’s cheek.
She dimples.
I bite my tongue, stomach folding over painfully.
“Maya, glad you could make it.” Travis smiles at me, slightly yelling over the crowd noise.
He has to connect the dots eventually, right? Hudson? My name? I’m becoming convinced he has some kind of memory disorder.
“Thanks,” I say. I look around pointedly.
“Where’s Walker?” Jen asks loudly.
Walker. As in the Texas Ranger? That’s my date?
Travis leans his head toward the big sign reading “Baños.” “Nerves,” he says. He grins at me again. “Walker doesn’t get to meet pretty women very often.”
“Uh, why not?” I ask, trying not to flinch. Here it comes.
He’s allergic to oxygen and lives in a bubble.
He raises cows for a living. Came up to Hudson for good tap water.
He enjoys discussing the chemical makeup of commonly used substances.
“He’s a sailor on a crab boat in Alaska,” Travis says.
Well, it wasn’t my first guess but pretty darn close to the second. “Oh,” I say, blinking. Now, I’m imagining a huge, barrel-chested guy with a thick red beard and a stocking cap with one of those little fuzz balls attached to the top of it.
Remind me why I wore a skirt?
“He’s back in Hudson for the off-season. His family is out here.”
“Oh,” I say again.
Travis keeps talking. “I met him two years ago at my church. Neat guy. Cool testimony.”
“Oh.”
Travis is still grinning. “Here he is.” He waves his arm in the air. “Walker!”
Red-bearded barrel man not present. Solidly muscular, shorn dark hair, twinkling chocolate-brown eyes, and tanned man answers to the bad-TV-show name.
“Hi there,” he says, looking awkward and unsure of how to greet us. Handshake? Hug? High five?
I spare him the grief and hold out my hand. “Hi, I’m Maya.”
He looks relieved. And not just because he just came from the baño. “Walker. Nice to meet you.”
Jen gives him a handshake, too. “Jen.”
“Hi.” He’s built like a soccer player. Not too many muscles, not too tall, just average, and an all-around good-looking guy.
This guy has trouble meeting women?
Yeah, right. I glance around and find three ladies not-so-subtly staring at him right now.
“Clayton, party of four!” a harried hostess yells.
Travis raises his hand. “Here!” he says, as if she were taking attendance.
“Follow me, please.” She leads us through the crowded restaurant and leaves us at a four-person booth with menus and a promise that our server will be right over.
Travis and Jen take one side of the booth. Probably so they can hold hands under the table, which makes my stomach tighten even more than it already is. That leaves me and Mr. Alaska on the other side.
He slides in first, and I follow, sitting a good distance away, right across from Jen.
“Uh, so what’s good here?” Walker stutters, picking up his menu.
“The shrimp fajitas are unbelievable,” Travis answers him.
“So are the fish tacos,” Jen quickly adds.
Now I just stare at both of them. “Didn’t you say he works on a fishing boat?” I ask Travis.
“Yeah,” Walker answers. “I’m, um, not sure I want seafood after some of those eighteen-hour shifts.” He grimaces. “Plus, uh, outside of Alaska, the freshness deteriorates rapidly.”
“I’d go with the chicken burrito,” I say to him.
“Uh, okay.” He closes his menu and stares silently at his hands, which are clasped on the table.
Travis and Jen are too busy giggling over something on the menu, heads tucked together all close and intimate, to realize that my side of the table has fallen quieter than the Bering Sea at dawn.
“So, Walker,” I begin, attempting to at least start a conversation, “did you grow up here?”
“Um, no.”
The end.
I frown at him. Suddenly — good-looking or not — I’m realizing why this guy doesn’t meet too many girls.
Most girls, myself included, generally like to talk to our dates. As shallow as I am, looks don’t matter that much.
“Me, either,” I say. “I grew up in San Diego.”
“Oh.”
“What do you do when you’re not fishing?” Second attempt.
He glances quickly at me and then looks back at his hands. “My friend and I run an online computer-help agency. We freelance for big software companies.”
Ah. Add computer geek to the mix.
He goes back to the study of his thumbs, and I brush a curl that is boinging in front of my left eye away from my face. Since when did “he’s a super nice guy” become code for “he’s beautiful but doesn’t talk”? Jen obviously does not know The Code very well.
I would have definitely preferred an unattractive but friendly date.
Note to self: Do not be shallow.
Travis now has his arm around Jen’s shoulders. “So, Walker, how was the catch this year?” he asks in his classic easygoing way.
“Good.” Walker nods. “Decent at least. Enough to pay for another winter in Hudson.”
“That’s great.” Travis grins.
Travis Clayton always had a great smile.
I catch myself and turn back to Walker, Alaskan Fisher.
“You just catch crab, right? Anything else?”
“Occasionally we catch some salmon, but that’s not a good sign,” Walker says, warming up just a bit.
“Why?” Keep him talking. This has become my evening’s motto.
“You can’t get even half the revenue for salmon that you can for crab,” he explains. “And since most of the guys don’t have a winter job, they need to have a good crab season.”
Jen shakes her head. “I can’t imagine working only one season out of the year.”
Walker just nods. “Yep.”
Travis and Jen go back to talking about something they had apparently been discussing in a previous conversation.
Our server finally appears. “Sorry about the wait, guys,” he says. “What can I get you to drink?”
Waters all around, until he gets to me. “Do you have any coffee?” I ask.
He subtly glances at Walker, who is staring at his hands again, at the space between us, and then at me. Then he grins. “Yeah, we’ve got a great selection of espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos. Can I interest you in a Mexican latte?”
“Yes, you can,” I say, nodding enthusiastically.
“I’ll have that right out.”
Five minutes of silence later, and he brings out a huge steaming mug of something sweet, cinnamony, and creamy. “Oh,” I sigh, like Alvin the Chipmunk when he gets his new harmonica from Mrs. Claus. “Thank you.”
The server is so nice that he doesn’t even laugh at me — just smirks, looks at my date, and then smirks again. “You’re welcome.” Apparently, he’s been on the receiving end of a “Happiest Couple on Earth” syndrome as well.
“Gosh, Maya, you can drink all that?” Walker asks.
“Walker, I can put down coffee with the best of them.”
“It will stunt your growth.” He suddenly gasps and looks down at the top of my head, which is a little creepy. “When did you start drinking coffee?”
Way before I started working at Cool Beans. Which was about four years ago. “Around four years ago,” I say, aiming for the positive side. “I work at a coffee shop.”
“That has to be it,” he says, like he just discovered radium.
“Actually, I stopped growing in the eighth grade.” And my Mimi was shorter than a fourth grader in heels, but Walker doesn’t need to know that.
“Hmm. Calcium deficient?” he wonders aloud, still looking me up and down.
I hate Jen.
I grab our server’s apron. “Could I get a refill?”
Eleven forty-five p.m. Jen and I walk into our dark, cold apartment, and I gather Calvin up in my arms.
“Hi, baby,” I croon. “It’s just you and me forever, okay?”
Calvin is okay with this. He gives my right cheek and ear a good make-out session.
“Maya, you never know until you try, right?” Jen says, excusing my inexcusable date.
“Jen, you are not allowed to set me up on a blind date ever again.”
“Oh, good grief,” Jen says, kicking off her shoes. “He was cute! And you got a free dinner and a free movie. And movies aren’t cheap anymore.”
“Well,” I concede. I fall on the couch, pulling off my heels.
“What time are you working tomorrow?” Jen asks.
“Noon to close. Why?”
She grins. “Want to have one of our infamous Mitchell and Davis movie extravaganzas?”
“Yay!” I say, bouncing off the couch and running to change. Jen’s halfway to her room. You can only have movie extravaganzas in pajama pants. No skirts allowed. And you always have to have some form of chocolate.
I yank off my skirt, shirt, and jacket and pull on a pair of blue flannel pants with clouds all over them and a white long-sleeved T-shirt. I try to pull my hair back into a ponytail, but it’s not cooperating with me, so I leave it down and curling in weird corkscrew curls like a more scattered version of Shirley Temple.
Calvin is whirling around my heels the whole time in a happy puppy dance. “Roo! Roo!” he yodels excitedly. Calvin loves movie extravaganzas.
“Hurry up, slowpoke!” Jen yells from the living room. I half-hop, half-trip out of my room, pulling on a pair of fuzzy pink socks.
“I’m sorry. Someone made me dress for my date in multiple layers,” I grumble, falling on the couch. Then I’m happy again.
“What are we watching?”
“Want to watch Runaway Bride since you rented it for tonight anyway?” Jen’s wearing her faded red, silky long-sleeved pajama set. Her hair is piled on her head, and she’s posed in front of the TV, holding the rental DVD.
“Yay!”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she grins. “Ice cream?”
“Pie?” I say at the same time.
She nods. “Both. We’ve been working out.”
“What about natural dirt foods?” I ask, eyes wide.
She waves a hand while putting the DVD in. “Who cares? It’s a girls’ movie night, and you cannot have natural foods during one of those.”
I like Jen a lot.
Forty minutes later, we’re both snuggled under fleece blankets on the couch, watching Julia Roberts try on a backpack for her mountain-climbing honeymoon. I lick the apple pie with melted vanilla ice cream off my spoon. Canned apple pie filling, instant Pillsbury crust — it’s like God wanted us to have high cholesterol.
“I do not want to climb a mountain for my honeymoon,” Jen says, scraping the bowl.
“Me neither.”
“I want to go to a spa or a resort or something,” she continues.
I frown at the TV. “I want to do something in the snow. Winter is the most romantic time of the whole year!” I throw up my hands in happiness and rain down a sprinkling of apple filling on Calvin at my feet, who yips and then starts licking himself.
“Oops.”
“You get vacuum duty.”
“I bequeath it to Calvin.”
Jen smiles. “I’ve always liked summer,” she says softly and wistfully. “Everything is green, and the flowers have all bloomed.”
“The whole ‘June bride’ type of thing?”
“Yeah.”
I shake my head. “Summer’s hot.”
“That means a strapless dress.”
“And a bathing-suit tan,” I say.
She starts gnawing on her lip. “Good point.”
I toss her one of Calvin’s toys, much to his dismay. “Here,” I offer. “Have a chew toy; save your lip.”
“Funny.”
CHAPTER NINE
I pop the lid on a lady’s latte and pass it across the counter. “Here you go, ma’am.”
“Thanks.”
She takes it and settles into one of the squishy chairs, pulling a novel out of her purse. Today is another cloudy, stormy day, and Cool Beans is packed.
Jack is in the back, whistling, while he pulls another batch of our infamous blazzberry scones — that’s blueberry and raspberry — from the freezer. Apparently, he left Polly with his apartment-complex office, and the owners were supposed to pick the bird up at two o’clock today. It’s nearly four, so Jack has officially been birdless for two hours.
Thus the annoying, nonstop whistling. Earlier, I heard him making up a song about “No more parrots in his ’partment.”
It was disturbing.
“Hi there,” I say to a nicely aged man in his sixties. “What can I get you?”
He pulls out his wallet. “Just a coffee, missy. And a chocolate-chip cookie, please.”
I tell him the amount, while grabbing the cookie and drink for him. “Here you go.”
“Thanks,” goes the man. Ping goes the tip jar.
Yay! goes me.
Jack comes from the back, wiping his hands on his apron, still whistling.
“Wait, is that the victory theme from The Mighty Ducks?” I ask.
“Yup.” He grins happily at me. “Fitting, don’t you think? It’s a happy song. About … poultry.”
“It’s not about poultry.”
“Sure it is. It’s about the Mighty Ducks. Ducks are poultry.”
“No, it’s about winning.” I shake my head. “And besides, even if ducks are, parrots aren’t poultry. You eat poultry.”
“True, but Polly barely escaped that fate.”
He’s smiling, so I know he’s kidding, but I glare at him. “Meany.”
“I wouldn’t have eaten him. But after a week and a half of listening to him talk, Canis was about to rip him beak to tail,” Jack says.
Canis is a m
ix of Labrador and pointer. He should have the words “bird dog” tattooed into his hide. I’m actually amazed Polly lived this whole time.
“Is Canis ready to be the only pet in your life again?”
“You’d better believe it.” Jack sighs. “I can’t wait. No birdseed everywhere, no more screams, silent nights …”
“Christmas already, Jack?” Alisha says, walking up to the counter. “And here I thought Maya was the Christmas freak.”
I giggle.
Alisha grins, looking around. “Looks busy. That’s good,” she says.
“It’s a cold day. Everyone wants lattes,” I say.
“Speaking of which,” Alisha begins, “Jackie, will you make me a cinnamon latte while Maya gets me the totals?”
“Sure thing, Alisha,” Jack says, starting on her drink.
She leaves, latte in hand, a few minutes later. “See you later, guys.”
“Bye,” I say, turning back to Jack. “So, I went on a blind date last night.”
He’s right in the middle of sipping from his straight-up black coffee, so he ends up choking. “With whom?” he says, hacking.
“Some guy who scored an eight on the good-looking scale and a two on the personality scale.” I sigh. “Half the time, we just sat there. Staring at our food. Fiddling with our enchiladas.”
“Sorry.” He starts laughing.
“It’s not funny, Jack.”
He clears his throat to stop the laugh. “Why did he not have a personality?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. He just didn’t. Apparently, he isn’t around women much.”
“He said that?” Jack takes a lady’s order, and I start making her three to-go coffees.
“No, Travis did.” I say this in a small voice while he’s talking to the lady. “Anyway, change of subject, Zach is moving to town tomorrow.”
“Thanks. Here’s your change and your coffees,” Jack says to the lady, handing her the drinks in a cardboard carrier.
She dumps her change in the tip jar. “Thank you!”
Jack turns back to me the moment she leaves. “Wait, what?”
“He’s moving here tomorrow. I’m supposed to go to Mom and Dad’s right after church so I can help them.”
“No, Travis was at your blind date?” He’s frowning.
I twist a rag around in my hands. “Well, it was kind of a double date and a blind date.”
