The Perfect Blend

by Allie Pleiter

  I think I expected him launch into a speech about how I need my parents’ backing. “Maggie Black,” he says softly instead, “you continue to surprise me.”

  “I’m a wimp,” I blurt out over my own breathlessness, “what’s so surprising about that?”

  Will smiles. “Because you seem to me be the kind of person who’d be shouting about Higher Grounds on street corners.”

  I feel the blood rush up to my face. “Not this.” I hadn’t even realized until just this moment what a confession that is. I’m suddenly acutely aware—intimately, completely aware—that Will is the only man on Earth who knows my dream.

  As if reading my thoughts-or the dumbstruck look that must be on my face-Will leans in and says, “Maggie, how many people know about Higher Grounds?”

  I feel like the answer will take us down a path neither of us will be able to stop. Part of me is ready to go there, while another part of me is scared to death. “Not counting class? Me, Diane, God—” I hesitate what feels like two hours before I finish “—and you.”

  Will stares into my eyes. “I’m honored,” he says and the tone of his voice washes over me. Physically. I mean it. A million sensations hit me in those words.

  Without meaning to, maybe without even being able to help it, we just crossed a line. The line. It’s not a line in the sand that corporate policies draw like a touch or a remark. Those are external things. You can go back on those. Apologize for inappropriate banker-client relations and so on.

  But us, we can’t go back from here. I think we both know it, we can’t fool ourselves into thinking we can anymore. I’ll never be able to close back up the piece of me that he’s opened. He’ll always own it. And I know, in a way I can’t even begin to explain, that he’ll always honor it. Cherish it, even, although that’s such a dorky word. My heart does something that I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

  And, for better or worse, I know I don’t want to stop it.

  Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, I’ve just fallen for my banker. Hard. What on earth do I do now?

  I don’t remember how we got out of the teahouse. But when we stood on the riverbank, watching the sun splash a pastel palette on the water, I knew he was wrestling with all of it. And so I cherished it: his honor, his integrity, his caution. I waited for him to turn to me, because I knew he had to be the one to turn first. And because I knew, no matter how long it took, that he would.

  When he did, the universe ground to a halt. You read about that stuff, about the whole world boiling down to one moment where your heart spills open. That moment where it’s not about how cute he looks or some external attribute but it goes infinitely deeper into something you can’t even fit into words. You hope it might happen to you, but there’s always some part of you that thinks those things are only for other people. Other, worthier, blessed people who have less ordinary lives.

  I feel Will’s hands wrap themselves around my shoulders. Slowly, deliberately, like a declaration. “I shouldn’t,” he whispers.

  “I know,” I whisper back, barely audible.

  His kiss is so tender, so filled with everything it’s cost him, that I nearly weep. To be worth that to someone. What more extraordinary thing is there?

  I think of the agony of the tea, unfurling into the heat. We share an exquisite moment of unfurling tenderness. Of careful, costly, revelation. Of admitting what we’d both known for weeks. The unbearable bliss of unfolding my heart after a dried and crumpled season.

  Who knew love was like tea?

  Who knew I was in love?

  I am startled and, then again, not surprised at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Yikes

  “Tea? Just making cups of tea?”

  I throw Diane a look. She rang my doorbell at eight-thirty this morning, dying to know how things turned out. I made her coffee while she grilled me for all the details. “It’s not so much what’s in the cups as how it all flows together.”

  “Oh, it’s flowing together, all right, I can see that. But tea? Sounds weak.” She hoists her hand with her little finger extended. “Pinky out and all.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you saw what I saw last night. Every woman in the place was swooning over the guys who were serving them tea. Not a poking pinky in sight, either, mind you. I tell you, these Chinese are onto something.”

  “They must be if he kissed you. He kissed you, Maggie. Wait, what is the word the British use for it? I saw it in a movie once… Snogged. Maggie Black is snogging her banker. That’s front-page news.”

  “You wouldn’t!” I threaten her with a teaspoon.

  She smiles. “You know I wouldn’t.” She puts down her coffee and leans in. “Wow, was it wonderful?”

  I’m sure my face just gained two shades of pink. “I think it was ten minutes before I could even breathe.” I take a deep breath. “I’m in love with him, Di.”

  Diane brings her feet up to curl on my couch. “I figured that out two weeks ago.” She smiles warmly. “Glad you caught on. So now what?”

  I lean back, my hands covering my face. “I don’t know. This is so complicated on so many fronts. Bank…family…”

  “So what did he say when you told him?”

  I wince. “I haven’t told him, yet.”

  She gives me a long look letting me know just what she thinks of the wisdom of my silence.

  “Well, I haven’t found the right moment. Oh, why did God make romance wacko? First I can’t find a decent guy for years, then I fall for the most complicated man and relationship you can imagine.” I squint my eyes shut. “God should know better. We’re just human. We can’t handle anything this complicated.”

  I feel Diane pat my head in true nurse bedside manner. “This, from a girl who can make twenty-seven different drinks from an ounce of tiny roasted beans.”

  “Tonight we’re covering personnel issues.” Will writes personnel on the whiteboard. “That’s more of a concern for some of you than for others, but we’re also going to talk about the personal cost of entrepreneurship.” He writes personal underneath the first word.

  Talk about your touchy subjects. The personal cost? How about my heart? Please tell me he had this on the syllabus before we kissed, that he didn’t add it as a response. I’m already feeling weird enough as it is, I don’t need to be second-guessing Will’s subconscious choice of lesson plans.

  “How many of you will have staff from the day you open?”

  About half the hands in class go up. Josh, our virtual-billionaire wannabe, if you remember, has his hand resolutely down. No surprise there. And really, would you want to work for cyber-guy? After you fit Josh and his whopping ego in his ready-to-launch success-garage, do you think there’d be room for anyone else? On the other hand, it might be entertaining; that man and his ego are their own one-man circus.

  “Payroll—and the resulting paperwork, not to mention the costs of salary and benefits, is one of the hardest challenges of a small business. You may love making teddy bears and dream of doing it full-time, but when a huge portion of your daily life is calculating Social Security and writing out dozens of checks, you’ll find it loses it’s charm. You may find that once you go full-time into the pasta-sauce business,” Will says, pointing to Jerry Davis, “you actually spend far less time cooking pasta sauce than you do now.” Jerry flinches. “Not that I’m aiming to scare you, but I do want you to understand that the passion that brought you here is going to be doing battle with the realities of business. It’s important to understand how much of a business person you want to be on a daily basis. For some of you, the solution to keeping your passion intact is to hire someone else to handle the day-to-day managerial operations.”

  Josh looks like he considers that a cop-out for the less gifted. Will eyes him. “I can hardly picture you standing in line to refill your postage meter, Mr. Mason.”

  “I’ll do it online, Grey. I’ll do everything online.”

  Will sits down on his desk. Ooo, big
point coming. “Including see your doctor, remember your mother’s birthday and keep a serious relationship going? Have you given any thought, Mr. Mason, to the health and wellness factors of running an intensive small business? Do you have any idea, for example, the number of marriages that fail to survive the opening of a restaurant? You may, in fact, be matching up lovers at the expense of your own love life. Or how about the number of heart attacks and ulcers suffered by software executives before their first IPO? Those numbers might wake you up faster than Miss Black’s darkest espresso.”

  Josh looks more startled than I do.

  “Again, Mr. Mason, I’m not saying your life is about to turn to rubbish. I’m just saying these are things you need to take into consideration before you decide you’ll handle it all on your own. It’s the most common entrepreneurial mistake—self-sufficiency. You’re far better off budgeting for as much outsourcing or staffing as you can handle in the early months. And recognizing that your life is going to be on hold for a while. I’d never advise anyone to start a business and start a family at the same time.”

  That wasn’t directed at me, was it? Will’s been looking like he’d swallowed something sour all night. When he handed back my budget worksheet, I got a B-with a Post-it note that said simply My Office After stuck on it, folded under so that only I could see it.

  He’s changed his mind. He’s going to tell me I’ll have to take the whole course over again with some other teacher. He’ll postpone my loan application. I’m doomed.

  No wait, it might not be like that. Will thought long and hard about everything, I know he did. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t go back once he’s made his mind up about something. Some guys just move out of the house when they fight with their dad, Will crossed an ocean. A little emotional complication isn’t going to give him cold feet.

  Is it?

  I’m not sure I heard a single word the rest of class. I just kept staring at that Post-it, filled with large, precise letters. It didn’t look like a meet-me note, it looked like a warning label.

  Oh, Father God, I sure hope You know what You’re doing here. You know I love him. I’ve prayed about this to You so much my head and heart are spinning. I’m trying to trust You, but can I just remind You of my current stress level here?

  My nerves are wound tight as I try to give the impression of walking calmly to Will’s office. Of course I’m not calm—I’m a wreck—but I can shoot for at least looking calm.

  “Come in.” He still has his teacher voice on.

  “What’s going on, Will?”

  Will motions for me to sit in the guest chair, then parks his hip on the corner of his desk. That’s like sitting on his desk, which can only mean something big is coming. I feel slightly ill. “Um…” Will runs his hands through his hair.

  “Will?” I gulp his name out, feeling like a giant hand has just clamped itself around my throat.

  “Look, I…the fact of the matter is…there’s something I should have told you earlier. Something you should see. It’s technically confidential, but in light of…things, I think I’d be making a far greater error by not telling you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  You’re telling me

  He’s married. He’s secretly second in line to the throne of England. The bank has announced a ban on further coffee-bar financing. He’s James Bond. I have no idea what’s coming. The look on his face is unreadable.

  “Alex Matthews was sacked yesterday.”

  Still in the dark. “Sacked? Who’s Alex Matthews? And what’s that got to do with anything?”

  Will pulls a sheet of paper from a file. “Fired. Alex Matthews was one of the other loan officers from this bank. And he was sacked for suspicion of harassment. Sexual harassment. Of a client.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I don’t know that Alex did anything. That’s the worst of it. He’s denying everything, but the client is pressing charges. There’s doubt on both sides and no one knows who to believe. Alex is a good fellow. He’s engaged to be married, even. The bank’s simply sacked him under the pressure of the lawsuit.”

  “They can do that?”

  “It’s so early no one really knows. Alex is trying to find a good attorney but the damage is done, as you can imagine.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “It’s far more than that.”

  I’m such an idiot, I don’t even put the pieces together until just this second. “Will,” I say looking straight at him, “I’m not going to sue you for kissing me. Hey, another six minutes and I would have kissed you first. I came after you, remember?”

  Will shoots me a keep-your-voice-down glare. “Things have been boiling up around Alex for weeks. Everyone is very nervous. Now can you at least understand why I’ve been—” he pinches the bridge of his nose, searching for the right word “—treading so carefully?”

  “No one’s harassing anybody here. We’re both adults. Sure, it’s a little nerve-racking, but it’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t have to affect us.”

  Will looks straight at me. “It does, Maggie. It already has. This could be the end of your loan.”

  “Why? How?”

  “If we stay…involved…I’m going to have to move your loan to another officer. I can’t stay on your file if I’m…emotionally biased.”

  On some level, I think I knew that. But now, the way Will looks, the way I now feel, it seems the worst of news. “How bad is that? They just put someone else in charge of my application, right?” My words slow down as I say them, the implications of having someone else on my application dawning on me. I could get anyone. I could get someone who won’t even give me serious consideration.

  “There are—were only three loan officers at this bank. Alex, myself and Stephen Markham. Stephen Markham happens to be the last person on earth I’d want to review your loan.”

  “Oh.” Actually, I think that was more of a gulp than a reply.

  “Think about it, Maggie. If I have to transfer your loan to another officer because I’ve got to admit to an emotional attachment to you—and I’ll have to admit to an emotional attachment to you if we keep on—the bank is going to have fits in light of what’s going on with Alex.” Will gets up and starts pacing the room. “It was uphill enough if you got Alex, but he was a good fellow. Now, the managers will be all over me given what’s happening with Alex and it’ll hand Markham every reason to turn down your loan without even reading it. And no one will blink an eye. They’ll all be glad to be rid of a sticky wicket. You won’t stand a chance.”

  I stopped paying attention after “if we keep on.” If. As in we might not. “What do you mean if?” I gasp out.

  “If?”

  “You said ‘if we keep on.’ Like there’s a chance we won’t. Like you’ve already decided. It took me eight weeks, hours of prayer, an overdose of caffeine and the biggest risk I can think of to get to on. Now you just switch to if as if it means nothing?”

  Will stops pacing. “What did you just say?”

  I’m not making any sense, am I? I blow out a breath. “You’re saying you want to stop us because it’ll mean a risk to the loan.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Sure you did. You said we’ll have to stop seeing each other or else you’ll have to drop yourself off my loan.”

  “I said ‘if.’ If as in yet to be determined. As in we have to talk about what to do.”

  Talk about what to do? Who’s lord hero protective man kidding? I can see it in his eyes—he’s already decided what he thinks we should do. He’s going to call it off between us so he can get my loan to approval.

  Out of nowhere, I hear Diane’s words to me a few weeks ago. What if what God wants for you is to meet Will? Have you ever considered that Higher Grounds might just only be His way of introducing you?

  That puts me in a full-blown panic. “Talk?” I bark back at Will. “You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”

  “It’s too much o
f a risk.” Will’s voice is filled with finality.

  “Don’t you think that I should be the one to decide that?”

  Will throws the memo down on his desk. “We are talking. But I’m supposed to be advising you. That’s my job.”

  “There’s a mile of difference between advising me and telling me what to do. Deciding for me.” His kiss tilted the world off its axis. Now Will wants to go and pretend nothing happened between us? How could it be so easy for him?

  “I’m doing this because I care about what happens to you.” He’s trying so hard to keep his voice down he’s practically grinding the words out through clenched teeth. “Can’t you see that?”

  “Then care about what happens to us. Why on earth would you make me choose between you and Higher Grounds if there was a way I didn’t have to? Even if it was a harder way?”

  “Hard? You don’t stand a chance with Markham.”

  “You don’t know that.” I fire back. “I convinced you, didn’t I? I’ll just find a way to convince this Markham guy.”

  “Look, we shouldn’t see each other while your loan is being processed. But that’s not forever. Maybe a few months after your loan is approved…”

  I don’t want to wait months for this man. It took me long enough to figure out I was in love with him. I’m the least patient person I know—especially once I know what it is I want. And that’s the point here, isn’t it? What I want? In that moment, with a wash of clarity, I know what I want to do.

  “I want to take my chances with Markham. With you.”

  “Maggie…”

  “I know it’s risky. But don’t you see?” I sit on the edge of his desk, getting as close as I dare under the circumstances. “We can do this. God is probably planning on us doing this. Sure, there are new hurdles, but think of it this way—once you’re off my file as my loan officer, you can help me more. Coach me.”