by Gail Sattler
Doreen’s fingers flew over the keyboard as she finished the last strains of Mendelssohn’s triumphant exiting “Wedding March” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The new bride and groom assembled in the parking lot with all their guests, exchanging greetings and congratulations. Echoes of cheers and laughter from the happy crowd outside drifted through the empty church building. Nothing filled her with joy like a summer wedding.
Gathering up her sheets of music, Doreen tucked everything neatly into a file folder, ready for the next wedding, closed up the piano, and stored the folder in the bench.
Between her busy activities and obligations, she had not made it home until late every evening this week, and had not spoken to Edwin since they met a few days ago, but he had left a message on her answering machine Friday night with his address, phone number, and directions to his house. Thankfully, this time he was much more coherent than the first cryptic message he left.
Careful to avoid anyone she knew, Doreen slipped out the back door and carefully unfolded the paper with the directions to Edwin’s house. As it turned out, the church was only five minutes from his house, which meant she was going to be half an hour early. She hoped he was ready.
❧
Edwin rifled irritably through his closet, trying to decide what to wear. What would Doreen be wearing? If she was playing for a wedding, how would she be dressed? He shuddered inwardly as strains of the “Wedding March” drifted through his mind. Never in a million years.
He thought of Sister Mary and her nun’s habit, compared the image to Doreen as he had last seen her in jeans and a sweatshirt, and shook his head. Even though Doreen would not be wearing a nun’s habit, she would probably still wear something subtle and old-fashioned, somber background material. Plain colored and dull. He didn’t own anything that would complement dull.
He pushed aside another shirt, then changed his mind and pulled it off the hanger anyway. It was his favorite shirt, and he was going to wear it. A nice cheerful blue, it matched the great silk tie with Bugs Bunny on it that would cheer up any dark and drab outfit or duo.
With the tie tucked underneath his collar, Edwin craned his neck to start fastening the buttons of his shirt. The doorbell rang. Dozer jumped off the bed and bounded to the front door, barking all the way on his mad run through the hall and down the stairs. His nails clicked and scraped on the linoleum as he stumbled on the slick surface, followed by the usual thump as he slid into the door. One day that dog will learn to slow down.
Edwin checked his watch, running through a mental checklist of who it could be. Doreen wasn’t due for half an hour. Did he owe the paperboy money already? Grumbling under his breath, he grabbed his wallet from atop the dresser and jogged to the door. Dozer jumped up and down, pawing the front door, barking with great vigor. After a few mad scrambles, Edwin finally managed to get a grip on his collar, pulled him back with one hand, and opened the door with the other.
“Hey, you little brat, aren’t you kinda early?” he chided the boy as the door opened. Every time the kid came to collect, Edwin enjoyed giving him a rough time, just as the kid enjoyed teasing him back. “Didn’t I just. . . ?” Edwin gasped and blushed ten shades of red. “Doreen!”
He squeezed Dozer’s collar tighter as the dog continued to bark and pull. He blinked twice, unable to believe his eyes. Instead of background basic black, Doreen wore a slim-fitting pink dress, showing all her feminine curves to good advantage. Her skirt fluttered in the breeze against slender but shapely legs, ending with a pretty pair of pink high-heeled shoes the same color as the dress. He trailed his gaze up the length of her and back to her face, but before he could say anything, his breath caught.
The other times he had seen her, her hair had been loose, with untidy waves barely brushing her shoulders. Today, her ordinary brown hair had been transformed into a graceful swept-up style, loosely pinned with a few wisps cascading down, framing her face in such a way that it took every bit of self control he possessed not to run his fingers in it, brush it back, and kiss those cute little freckles across the bridge of her nose. Either that, or kiss off the luscious cranberry lipstick that adorned her soft, pouty lips. He tightened his grip on Dozer, gulped, and stared.
Doreen smiled in greeting, but was met with silence. Edwin remained bent at the waist, holding Dozer down as the dog struggled to free himself, barking nonstop. Instead of inviting her in, he stood in the doorway, red-faced with his mouth hanging open, not moving, staring up at her, his eyes wide and bright.
At first, Dozer’s attempts to appear ferocious held her attention, but a flash of color caught her eye. The unknotted tie, draped loosely around Edwin’s neck, swayed in the opening of his unbuttoned shirt, drawing her gaze to the center of his chest. She probably could have counted the hairs there on one hand, but what really drew her attention was the slight tensing and flexing of his muscles as he struggled to hold back the straining dog.
Far from a muscle-bound beachbum, he appeared. . .endearingly average. The thought occurred to her that she was probably in better condition than he was. At least she ran and exercised with the dogs every day. Until now, the question of what he did for a living had not occurred to her. Obviously it was not a physical job.
She averted her gaze, staring purposely straight into his eyes. “Did you. . .uh,” she stammered. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been called a brat, but you’re right, I guess I am kind of early. Shall I come back later?” She backed up a step, hugging her purse in front of her, prepared to return to her van parked on the street.
“No!” he exclaimed, his face developing a deeper shade of red. “Uh, no,” he mumbled in a quieter tone. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I thought you were the paperboy. You look. . .nice. Please come in.”
Edwin muttered something under his breath that Doreen couldn’t understand and pulled the dog backward. As soon as she stepped inside, he pushed the dog roughly to the side, then clutched his shirt closed in front of him. “I’m not quite ready, as if you couldn’t tell.”
The second Edwin stepped away, Dozer moved into action, but this time, she was prepared. Using her knee, she blocked him from jumping up onto her dress. “Down!” she commanded, but Dozer appeared to be preparing himself to jump again. Dropping her purse on the floor, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pushed down, forcing him to be still. The dog whined, then sat quietly.
Edwin whistled between his teeth. “Not bad. I guess I’m going to have to train him a little better.” Edwin answered her firm scowl with a silly grin.
“That wouldn’t be a bad idea.” She let the dog go, never breaking eye contact with him. Dozer hunched down, flopped onto the floor, then rolled over onto his back with all four feet sticking up in the air. She waved her hand over him. “Look at his submissive posture. This dog is just begging to be trained.”
Edwin looked down at his dog, then back at her, and shuffled his feet. “He may look kind of pathetic, but he’s really a good dog.” He looked down at his handful of shirt, released it, then used his hand to smooth out the small wrinkle he had made. “Excuse me, why don’t you have a seat in the living room, and I’ll be right back.”
When she moved to kick off her shoes, Dozer wagged his tail, returned upright, then followed as Edwin directed her to the couch to wait. He flipped the television on and handed her the remote control, then disappeared up the stairs. Dozer padded over to her and laid his head in her lap. Gently, she petted him as he rubbed his snout on her knee.
❧
“Sorry about that,” Edwin said quietly as he reentered the living room, this time fully presentable in a tweed sport coat and a conservative, solid-color tie. With his hair combed and neatly in place, he looked much older than he had on their previous meetings.
“Please, don’t apologize. I didn’t know what else to do with that extra half an hour, so I took my chances and decided to be early.” Wasn’t he wearing a Bugs Bunny tie before?
He paused in front of the mirror over
the fireplace to straighten the knot on his tie. “You look very nice. I didn’t expect you to be wearing something so, uh, bright.”
“Bright?” Doreen looked down to evaluate the color of her dress. She had not considered this dress bright. If he didn’t like the color, then she supposed it was a good thing she had not worn her first choice, which was a vivid purple. “I was at a wedding, not a funeral. What did you think I was going to wear?”
“Never mind.” Edwin glanced at his watch. “It’s a little early for our reservation. Can I get you a drink before we go?”
“Sure. A glass of water would be great.”
Water? That wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Edwin sauntered into the kitchen and returned with a glass of cold ice water.
“Nice wedding?” he asked as she accepted the glass from him.
Doreen smiled and nodded politely. “Yes. It was a couple from my church getting married this time, but sometimes it’s people who would never step foot in a church except for the day they get married, wanting to seal their vows before God. I especially like that.”
“I suppose.” Edwin shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window at her van. He didn’t want to go out to a high-class establishment in that monstrosity. The large van itself wasn’t bad, but the picture of the dog on the side and the vivid, foot-high lettering had to go. How could he ask her tactfully to let him drive, and take his car?
“Do you go to church, Edwin?”
“Huh? Yeah, sometimes.” Maybe I could hide her keys. Does she have them already tucked away in her purse? Maybe if I hid her purse…
Her voice interrupted his little scheme. “Sometimes?” she asked.
“I usually go to church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve with my parents. And of course, Mother’s Day. Every once in a while I’ll go if there’s something special happening.” If he couldn’t steal her keys, maybe he could let the air out of one of her tires. He had a compressor in the garage, and could reinflate it easily for her to go home.
“Something special?”
Special? What were they talking about again? “Oh, if a friend’s baby is christened, you know, that kind of stuff.” The van was parked on the street. How can I get to it in time to do anything?
“Maybe we should go, Edwin.”
“Sure.” He glanced furtively at her purse, which she now held firmly in her hands. He sighed in defeat, then tried to decide which was more important: the pleasure of her company or their mode of transportation. His plan was to have a pleasant evening with Doreen. He would make the best of it. He tried to make himself feel better by reminding himself that her van was air-conditioned, while his car was not.
After he locked the front door, he turned to walk down the sidewalk to Doreen’s van, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her waiting in his driveway beside the passenger door of his car.
She wiggled the door handle. “It’s locked.”
He sagged in relief, and tried to contain his smile. He knew he should feel ashamed of himself for all his planning and scheming, but to admit to it would only leave a bad impression.
Fishing his keys back out of his pocket, he unlocked the door and opened it with a flourish. As the door swung wide, a wave of heat blasted out from the car, the slight updraft causing the stray wisps of hair he’d been dying to touch to float for a second. He rolled the window down for her as she sat down, then closed the door.
The fan blew at the same time as he started the engine, blasting another wave of hot air in their faces. Doreen fanned herself with her hand, then turned to him with a sheepish expression. “I guess I’m not used to this; the van is air-conditioned.”
Edwin bit his tongue, clamped his lips together, and nodded. “I guess I forgot to open up the car this afternoon. It will cool off quickly as soon as we start moving.” He backed out of the driveway, and once they were moving forward, accelerated quickly to create enough of a breeze to cool the car’s interior to a more comfortable temperature.
“I leave the air-conditioning on for the dogs between stops. I can’t leave the animals in a closed vehicle, because each pickup can take up to ten minutes. They would suffocate. And I must admit, it sure is nice to get back into the cool van.”
He smiled, feeling even more ashamed of himself. “I’ll bet.”
“You didn’t tell me where we’re going. Am I dressed appropriately?”
She was dressed more than appropriately. “It’s a surprise. I wanted to impress you.”
Her eyebrow twitched at the information he hadn’t meant to divulge, but thankfully, she didn’t comment.
The line at the entrance to the restaurant seemed daunting, making Edwin grateful for his foresight in making a reservation.
When Doreen requested coffee instead of a cocktail, Edwin frowned, and discontentedly ordered the same. As soon as the waiter was out of earshot, he lowered his menu to the table as Doreen quietly read hers, looking absolutely adorable as she tried to make up her mind. Despite the fact that the evening had only just begun, he wanted to ask her out again. “You could have ordered something stronger than coffee, you know. And I hope you’re not going to embarrass me by ordering the cheapest thing on the menu.”
She shook her head, but didn’t look up as she used her finger to trace something down the page. “Oh, I don’t drink. Don’t take it personally.” She lowered the menu, folded her hands on it, then grinned at him. “But if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll order the most expensive thing on the menu, and request extra garlic bread, heavy on the garlic.”
He couldn’t for the life of him remember what he was going to say. “You don’t have to go that far,” he mumbled and picked up his menu again, hiding his face behind it. Upon the waiter’s return, he picked the first thing that looked good, and settled back in his chair.
“You must have had a busy week. I don’t know how many times I phoned, but you were never home. I finally gave up, but I hated to leave a message on an answering machine to invite a lady on a date.”
“Oh, it was just a normal week, except for the wedding rehearsal, and the actual ceremony today.”
“At least you can relax and sleep in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday.”
“I know. The day to sleep in.”
“I have to get up earlier on Sunday than any other day, because I play for both services.”
“Oh. Then can you relax when you get home?”
“Well, usually I go out for lunch after church, and by the time I get home, its almost supper time.”
“You can relax after supper?” Judging from the expression on her face, he doubted it.
“No, I go back to church to play for the evening service.”
Did he dare ask? “You’re probably busy Sunday night too, aren’t you?”
Doreen smiled as he stared at her in utter disbelief.
“Sunday night, I check all my supplies and kennels and things to get ready for Monday’s dog run.”
Edwin lifted his hands in the air for a brief second. “I give up!”
❧
Edwin watched Doreen’s big, ugly van round the corner and disappear as he stood in the driveway. He couldn’t remember the last time he had had such a good time with a woman. In fact, if he were honest with himself, he’d never had such a good time with a woman.
As the night had progressed, he had found himself loosening up more and more, and by the end of dinner, he had completely opened up. Toward the end of the evening, he’d even broken down and confessed his fear that she was going to drive them to the restaurant in her big, ugly van. Not only had she sympathized and agreed that the van was ugly, but she had laughed at his schemes to make it temporarily inoperable. He still couldn’t believe it. She’d laughed. The only downside to the evening was her evasive maneuvers when he tried to ask her out for a second date. That was, until they got back to his house.
After a very pleasant dinner, Doreen had agreed to come in for coffee, and after the usual greeting at the door
, he had not given Dozer a second thought. That had been his mistake.
Instead of throwing the dog outside, he had been so enchanted with Doreen that he had forgotten about Dozer and the doting way the dog had become attached to her. While no one was watching, his idiot dog reappeared with a soggy wet rawhide chew, thunked his front paws on her knees as she sat on the couch, then dropped the slimy hulk onto Doreen’s lap, leaving a disgusting wet mark on her nice dress.
At the time, Edwin thought he would die, but Doreen surprised him by laughing as she threw Dozer’s treasure into the backyard, pointedly closing the door after him when he ran outside to fetch it. Then she had continued their conversation as if nothing had happened.
They had sat and talked until almost midnight, until she reminded him that she had to get up early in the morning, and had to leave. And tomorrow she was busy from morning to nightfall. Sunday promised to be a long and lonely day.
❧
Doreen turned the key in the lock to open her front door. Without caring where they landed, Doreen kicked off her shoes as soon as she stepped inside, and let a huge yawn escape. She was pleasantly surprised to have thoroughly enjoyed herself with Edwin. “Man, I am just dog tired.” She couldn’t even smile at her own joke, Gretchen did not seem to appreciate it, either. After wearing high heels all day, her feet ached. She wiggled her stiff toes and slipped her feet into her soft, fuzzy slippers.
Today had been a busy day, topping off a busy week. Despite the fact that she really didn’t know Edwin, she couldn’t remember the last time she had enjoyed herself so much. She fought it, but she couldn’t help but respond to Edwin’s sense of humor. Even when he wasn’t outright joking, she had to smile at his playful attitude. Even though he didn’t have a serious bone in his whole body, she still enjoyed his company.
Nevertheless, she hadn’t wanted to discover that they shared many common interests, and liked the same books and movies. All evening, she had deftly avoided pointed hints to see her again socially. But just when she thought he got the message, he asked if she would add Bulldozer to her client list.
