by Maria Geraci
● See comments from bullet point number one. Same goes for Connie.
● Last but not least, your waiting room magazines suck. Dr. Fred understood that nervous patients need mindless distractions such as People and Cosmo. And the big plasma-screen TV that you’re now raffling off? That needs to go back in the waiting room. Who are you to decide “we” are watching too much television?
Sincerely,
Your ex-patient,
Grace O’Bryan
P.S. Like I said, you did do a good job on my tooth, so once again, thank you for that and for staying late to accommodate me.
There. That ought to do it. She folded the sheet in half and dropped it into the box on the counter.
Melanie handed Grace her receipt. “It looks like you had a lot to say. Dr. Joe personally reads each and every one of those surveys. He really tries to respond to his patients’ needs.”
“Well, that’s great,” Grace said. She walked out to the parking lot and clicked the unlock button on her automatic car door opener. There was no reason to feel guilty about the things she’d written. She’d paid to get her tooth fixed. It wasn’t as if Dr. Joe and his staff had stayed late to do her a personal favor. Plus, she’d given him his perfect tens, hadn’t she?
So maybe he wouldn’t be crazy about her comments in the free text section, but he deserved to know why she wasn’t coming back. As the manager of a business herself, she understood the value of customer relations. It was important to know why a customer wasn’t satisfied. Otherwise, how could you fix the problem?
6
My Good Opinion, Once Lost, Is Probably Lost Forever
“What looks good?” Ellen asked, despite the fact she always ordered the same thing whenever they went to Luigi’s, which was every Wednesday at noon.
The food wasn’t great, but it was inexpensive and the service was quick. Plus it was centrally located so no one had to drive too far from work, which was especially convenient today because it was raining. And not just cats and dogs. It was raining lizards, frogs, and anything else that could creep out from the nearest palmetto bush. Daytona Beach was about to get its first serious cold front of the season. Pasta, in Grace’s opinion, was an excellent comfort food to counteract the foul weather.
“I only have an hour tops,” said Sarah. “I need to meet with my drapery lady this afternoon. The Dragon wants her house done by the holidays.”
“Who is this dragon-woman?” Penny asked, fidgeting in her seat. If she got desperate enough she just might brave the rain to go outside and smoke the cigarette she was obviously craving.
“My newest client. Just moved here from south Florida. Lots of bucks but not a lot of taste.”
“Well, don’t run off before we get a chance to iron out the details of our new club.” Grace plucked a hot crispy breadstick from the basket. The food at Luigi’s might be so-so, but the breadsticks were excellent. “If I ever get stranded on a desert island, I want an unlimited amount of breadsticks from Luigi’s. And chocolate ice cream.” Although how she’d keep the ice cream from melting on a desert island, Grace had no idea. So she’d better not get stranded on one.
“My friend Janine definitely wants to join, and there are at least three other faculty members at the college who are interested,” Ellen said.
“I thought this boyfriend club was a joke,” Sarah said. “We aren’t really going through with it, are we?”
“Of course we are,” Grace said. “It’s going to empower us!”
“At Grace’s request, I’ve started our own private Yahoo! group,” Ellen continued. “I’ll take notes at each of the meetings and place them under the file section. That way we can resource our reviews.”
Penny froze midway to stuffing a breadstick in her mouth. “Reviews?”
Ellen reached into her bag to pull out the familiar yellow legal pad. She flipped through a few pages until she got to the one she wanted. “We only have two so far, but they’re both doozies. See?” She passed the legal pad around the table.
“Why does it have ‘Peter Pan’ in caps next to Felix’s name?” Sarah asked.
“That was my idea,” Grace said. “Since this was originally a book club, I thought it might be fun to give the guys we review an equivalent in the literary world. Felix Barberi is charming, egotistical, and childlike. Classic Peter Pan.”
“Only, Peter Pan is likeable,” Penny said. “And he didn’t cheat on Wendy.”
“Technically, Wendy is more mother figure than lover.” Ellen’s eyes glazed over like they did whenever they discussed a book.
“True,” said Grace. “I’ll have to give it some more thought.”
“What about Brandon? Who’s he?” Sarah asked.
“I haven’t got him matched up yet, but I’m thinking about it,” Grace said.
Ellen made a notation in her pad. “Back to the Yahoo! site. I sent out an invite to each of you, so don’t forget to check your e-mail. We’re going to have a meeting this Saturday. That’s okay, isn’t it?” she asked Grace. “I thought we’d keep meeting at the store like we’ve been doing.”
“But we just met last week,” protested Sarah.
“It’s just for this one time to get things rolling while the idea is still fresh in our heads, then we’ll meet once a month, like we did with the book club.”
“I think that’s a fabulous idea!” Grace said. “And afterward, we can go out for drinks.”
“I’m all for the drinks part,” Penny said.
“Me too,” said Sarah. “But why do we have to set up a Yahoo! site?”
“The Yahoo! site will enable us to access reviews twenty-four seven,” explained Ellen. “We’re providing our members with information that they otherwise might not be able to get until it’s too late.” The waiter came by to refill their breadstick basket. Ellen ordered the vegetarian lasagna; no surprise there. Grace hadn’t had time to look at the menu yet, although she had the thing memorized. The waiter jokingly asked if she just wanted breadsticks for lunch and Grace laughed.
“Hey! You got your tooth fixed.” Ellen leaned across the table. “Open up and let us see.”
Grace smiled big.
“Nice,” Sarah muttered, trying to look delicate while talking with her mouth full of breadstick and somehow succeeding.
“Dr. Fred does good work,” Ellen said.
“Dr. Fred retired last month. There’s a new dentist at Sunshine Smiles.” Grace took a sip of her diet Coke. “He hit on me Saturday night at the Wobbly Duck.”
Ellen looked confused. “Dr. Fred was at the Wobbly Duck?”
“No, dummy, his replacement, Dr. Joe. Apparently he and Brandon play on opposing rugby teams.”
Sarah started laughing.
“Shut up! He’s not like a normal dentist. He’s . . . well, he’s pretty hot.”
“Did Dr. Joe hit on you before or after you dumped the beer on Brandon’s lap?” Penny asked.
“Before. Besides, I already told you, that was an accident.”
“Maybe it was an accident for Grace. But I think Mal Genio knew exactly what was going on,” Penny said.
“Don’t you think talking about Grace like she has a split personality is a little creepy?” Ellen asked.
“Not as creepy as her talking to the alligator,” Penny said.
“You’re still talking to the alligator?” Ellen shook her head. “There are doctors who can help with that, you know.”
“I think it’s cute,” Sarah said. “I wish I had an alligator I could talk to.”
“Sorry,” said Grace. “Gator Claus is all mine.”
“So Dr. Fred’s replacement is a hot rugby player.” Ellen wiggled her jaw from side to side. “I think I feel a toothache coming on.”
“That must have been awkward,” Penny said. “Him working on your tooth after trying to pick you up at a bar.”
“Not for Dr. Joe. He acted like he’d never seen me before. But I know he recognized me. He gave an award-winning performance, that�
�s for sure.”
“So he’s a hot rugby player dentist creep,” Ellen said. “Who should we classify him as?”
“Technically, I’ve never gone out with him, so I don’t think we should do a review.”
“I guess that’s only fair,” Ellen reluctantly agreed.
“Seriously? I just don’t know about this whole boyfriend club,” Sarah said. “It smacks of disgruntlement.”
Ellen turned in her chair to give Sarah her full attention. “You of all people should be totally behind this. What if you’d known that Craig was a philandering two-timer? Would you still have married him? Would you even have gone out with him?”
Grace held her breath. She should have known the subject of Craig’s infidelity would come up. Wasn’t that the purpose of the club? To “out” the losers in the dating community?
Sarah’s face went pale. “We’re not doing a file or whatever you call it on Craig.”
“But—”
“Read my lips, Ellen. I’m not discussing Craig in this boyfriend club. Not now. Not ever. Frankly, I’m not sure that I even want to be a part of it, to tell you the truth.”
“Okay, okay, I didn’t mean to upset you. Whatever you want. We never have to mention Craig at all. But you have to come. You just have to, or it won’t be the same.” Ellen looked to Grace for support.
“Sarah, if you don’t want us to do the club, then just say so and we won’t. Not if it makes you this uncomfortable,” Grace said. And she meant it. No amount of empowerment was worth alienating Sarah from their group.
The three of them watched as Sarah struggled to come up with an answer.
“All right,” Sarah said finally. “We can do the club and I’ll come to the meetings. But Craig is off limits. Got it?”
“Sure! No problem. You’ll see, Sarah, it’s going to be great.” Grace’s cell phone went off. She decided to ignore it and let it go to voice mail.
Ten seconds later, Penny’s phone rang.
“Sure, Mr. O. We’ll be right there.” Penny snapped her phone shut. “Your dad needs us back at work. He says . . . He said the shop is about to flood!”
Grace and Penny had driven together to the restaurant, so they zipped back to Florida Charlie’s in Grace’s car. Ellen and Sarah stayed to pay the bill and have the food boxed up, but they were probably only minutes behind. The second they’d heard something was wrong at the store, they’d insisted on following to see what they could do to help. The front parking lot to the store was empty and the Closed sign was displayed on the door.
“What’s going on?” Grace asked, her heart thumping wildly. “Is anyone hurt?”
Mami was closing out the registers. Abuela held Gator Claus’s Santa hat in her hand. Both of them looked too calm for any real disaster to be occurring.
“This costume is getting old. I think the alligator needs a new Christmas look,” Abuela said, pointing to the loose pom-pom on the hat. “What do you think, Gracielita? Should I make the alligator into an elf?”
“What? An elf? No, Abuela, leave the alligator the way he is.”
Grace did a quick survey of her surroundings. Things looked perfectly fine to her, until she spotted her father in the Hemingway corner.
Water dripped from the ceiling down into a large plastic bucket. The bookshelves that had previously made a faux wall were now pushed alongside the real wall. Other than her parents and Abuela, the place was empty.
“Where are the cashiers? And Marty?” Penny asked. “He’s supposed to be cleaning out the stockroom.”
“I closed the store and sent everyone home when we discovered the leak,” Pop said. “Good thing your mother and I decided to stop by today.”
“Pop, please tell me you didn’t move those bookshelves yourself.”
“It was either that or let the water ruin the books.”
“What about your back?”
“What about my back? I’m strong as a bull! You’re beginning to sound just like your mother.”
Grace took a second to think. The leak was a setback, no doubt about it. But it wasn’t the disaster she’d been expecting. “Okay, the situation isn’t so bad. We don’t even have to close the store. I can rig up some sort of a barrier here until the roof gets fixed.”
“That’s a no-go, Tomato. For one thing, we can’t have customers getting rained on. Florida Charlie’s has an image to live up to. Folks drive down on their vacation, see our billboards and get all excited about the store. Word of mouth is what made us what we are, and if we aren’t one hundred percent, then we shouldn’t open.” He winked at her. “This will be a good opportunity to get that alligator tooth display done up right.”
Grace grit her teeth. Pop wasn’t going to be satisfied until the alligator tooth was done up in a gold-encrusted shrine. She studied the leak in the ceiling. “Pen, can you check the back storeroom and see if we have more buckets?”
Penny came back a couple of minutes later with a large plastic tub. “This might be better than a bucket.”
“Good choice,” Grace said, swapping out the tub for the nearly full bucket. If the rain didn’t stop soon, this was going to be an exhausting process.
The bell on the front door chimed, signaling a customer.
“Sorry, we’re closed,” Grace heard her mother say. After a minute or so, Abuela called out. “Gracielita! Come quick.”
Now what?
Grace, Penny, and her father all ran to the front of the store to find her mother holding a vase with what looked like at least a dozen red roses. “These were just delivered for you.” Mami thrust the vase in Grace’s hands.
“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone,” Pop said. “Who’s the lucky fella?”
“And why haven’t we met him yet?” Mami added.
“I told you,” Abuela said. “It’s the man I saw in my dreams. He’s the one who sent them!”
Ellen and Sarah chose that exact moment to walk through the door.
“I thought the place was under water,” Ellen said, sounding put out to discover it wasn’t as bad as they’d first thought.
“Forget about the roof. Look what Grace just got.” Penny counted each rose one by one under her breath. “Eighteen long-stemmed roses. From Benson’s!”
Benson’s was a seriously overpriced flower shop located on the beach. Grace had never gotten anything from Benson’s before.
“Why eighteen? Why not a dozen?” Ellen asked. “Does it mean something?” Everyone turned to look at her. “You know how different flowers signify different things? Like yellow roses mean friendship. Everyone knows red means romance, but what does the eighteen mean?”
“That he’s not cheap?” Penny said.
“How about we find out who the he in question is?” Sarah asked.
Grace pulled the card from the plastic holder and read to herself.
Grace,
I know I can never make up for my reprehensible behavior Saturday night, but I wanted you to know how sorry I am. You’re a terrific girl and I’ll always regret that I blew it with you.
Brandon
“So?” Penny asked. “Who are the roses from?”
“Brandon Farrell.”
“How romantic!” Abuela said. “He must really like you, Gracielita.”
Sarah didn’t say anything. Not that Sarah had to say anything for Grace to know what she was thinking. It was obvious Sarah was impressed. But Sarah hadn’t been there Saturday night. Brandon Farrell’s bad behavior couldn’t be wiped out by a few expensive flowers. Especially ones with thorns.
“It’s no big deal,” Grace said, mostly for her parents’ and Abuela’s benefit. “I went out with him and he has a lot of money. He probably sends roses to all his dates.”
“Yeah, but why eighteen?” Ellen asked again.
Grace shoved the note inside the pocket of her khaki pants. “Will you stop with the eighteen already? Not everything has to have a hidden meaning.”
Penny pulled out her BlackBerry. “I’ll start loo
king up numbers to roofing companies.”
Grace threw Penny a smile, grateful for the change in subject. She patted her father on the back. “Pop, why don’t you and Mami take Abuela home? Penny and I will stay here and come up with a plan.” She could see by the expression on his face that he wanted to stay and help. “You made me manager so you wouldn’t have to worry about stuff like this. I have it under control.”
“Grace is right, Charlie. Let her handle this,” said Mami. “Remember your blood pressure!”
Pop looked like he was about to bust an artery. “Okay, but I’m just a phone call away if you need me. And don’t forget to double check the lock on the doors when you close up.” Pop always told Grace to double check the locks. It was a habit he couldn’t seem to grow out of. Grace was used to it so she just nodded.
Mami shuffled Pop and Abuela out the door but not before Grace could grab the Santa hat from Abuela’s hand. “I think the hat looks fine the way it is. Maybe you can make the alligator something new for Valentine’s Day,” Grace suggested. She’d never been crazy about the Cupid costume Gator Claus was forced to wear. It looked too . . . feminine. And Gator Claus was definitely all male.
“There’s a roofer who can come out tomorrow. That is, if it’s not raining,” Penny said, punching numbers into her BlackBerry. “I’ll call a few more companies so we can get more estimates.”
“Thanks, Pen.” What would Grace do without Penny? “And when you’re finished with that, call up all the employees and tell them that tomorrow we’ll be open for business as usual.”
