Being without Charlene was harder than Ben ever imagined. He could hardly concentrate on his job. His boss was always yelling at him for making silly mistakes, like putting too much mayonnaise in the potato salad or not giving a visitor the obligatory pickle with their soup and sandwich.
When he became too depressed to work, he would try to concentrate on Val. She was certainly a prize, but he thought she mentioned she was married. What was her husband’s name? Jesse. He had a feeling she wasn’t with him anymore, since she said she was living with family. Perhaps he was the one who stood her up though? He should have looked at her left hand, but at the time, he was too busy concentrating on other parts of her body. Even though a relationship with her was next to impossible, he could always fantasize. Besides, she might be his new boss. She would be better than Janet, who was old and cranky. He wasn’t expecting a phone call from her though. She seemed more like a boutique girl to him. He’d probably be stuck in the hospital cafeteria forever, until he turned into an old, cranky male version of his boss.
When he drove home from work, he was exhausted.
“Hi, Ben,” Colleen said. She was sitting on the sofa, doing her needlework and watching TV. “How was your day?”
“Awful,” Ben replied.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, I just want to go to bed.”
“Oh, before you do that, I want to tell you, Val called.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she had a job for you. Her phone number is on the fridge.”
“Great!” Ben said. He ran to the fridge, grabbed the piece of paper with Val’s phone number and dialed it.
“Hello?” Val said on the other end.
“Hi, it’s Ben. I got your message.”
“Are you interested in working for me?”
“Yes, very.”
“Would you like to go out somewhere and discuss it?”
“Sure. Where would you like to go?”
“Hmm…how about a good Chinese place?”
“Dragon Bay is a pretty good place to eat.”
“Where’s that?”
“Oceanside Court in Alameda. It’s about halfway between my house and yours. Do you need directions?”
“No, I have a good map. I should be able to find it. Do you want to meet me there in a couple of hours?”
“All right.”
He listened to the Beatles new album Help! while he got ready to go out and meet Val. The traffic was amazingly light for a Saturday and he was at the restaurant about forty minutes later. Once there and seated, he ordered a drink using his fake ID and a bowl of wonton soup. He finished the drink and ordered another one. Twenty minutes later, he was on his fourth drink. He was feeling tipsy and was wondering if Val had second thoughts. Then she entered the restaurant, wearing a paisley mini-dress, large hoop earrings and cranberry colored stiletto heels.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Val said. “I was chatting with my family and I lost track of time.”
“That’s all right,” Ben replied. He noticed his voice sounded slurred.
“You must be so mad at me.”
“Not at all,” Ben replied. He took another gulp of his drink.
Val smiled. “When I was on the phone with your mother, she told me your girlfriend’s parents made her break it off with you. That must be awful.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Some people are so old fashioned. Maybe you and your girlfriend can get back together when you’re all older.”
“That won’t be happening. I found out last week that she just got married.”
Val put her left hand on his. She wasn’t wearing any rings. “Oh…I’m so sorry. You must be heartbroken.”
“I’ll live,” Ben replied.
“If it makes you feel better, something like that happened to me. I was jilted at the altar.”
“I think that’s worse.”
“That’s how I met Jesse.”
“Really?”
“He was the best man at the wedding.”
“And you got married to him?”
“Yep. The year after that.”
“Lucky guy.”
“He didn’t think so.”
“No?”
“Well, I wasn’t able to have children. Jesse…he comes from a wealthy family and he needed a boy to carry on the family business. He was okay with my problem the first couple of years, but after that, both he and his family were getting mighty impatient with me.”
“So he dumped you? Because of that?”
“Basically. He had a little girlfriend on the side for quite a while. When she got pregnant, he brought her home and told me to pack up my things and get out.”
“What a jerk!”
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
“So you’re not married anymore?”
“Nope. I’ve been officially divorced as of two months ago. That’s why I decided to move out here. Jesse and his family, they’re high profile in my little old town, and they’re always being mentioned in the paper and on the streets. I was getting sick of hearing about him, and being stared at and whispered about. I like being in a big city anyway, so I’d figure it would be a fresh start for me.”
The waiter came up to them and took their order. They both decided to go with the pu pu platter.
“So you know all about me,” Val said. “What’s your story? Anything else besides Charlene?”
“Charlene was my first girlfriend,” Ben said. “I wasn’t really interested in anyone else before she came along.”
“Have you lived here all your life?”
“No, my sister and I came here two years ago from Alaska.”
“It must have been hard to leave.”
Ben shrugged. “We didn’t have much choice in the matter.” He really didn’t want to elaborate too much on his past. The present was messy enough.
Val seemed to pick up on this and changed the subject. “Do you want to hear my proposal?”
“Sure.”
Their pu pu platter arrived. Val told him her idea for the business as the ice blue flame in the middle of the platter fluttered.
“Well, I decided to go open a restaurant. I don’t know what kind of food I’d serve. I’m not really into cooking, as I told you before, so I figured it would be best to let you design the menu.”
Ben was very surprised to hear that.
“I got a thing for decorating, so I’ll design the inside of the restaurant. Now, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this to see if this is a good idea. Jesse gave me enough money from the divorce that I could probably buy two empty storefronts, or maybe one real big storefront. I was going to open a boutique and have it attached to the restaurant, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Ben said.
“See, that way, when the restaurant gets busy, all the people that are waiting can look around the boutique.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Ben replied. “What kind of things were you planning to sell?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Girly stuff, like makeup, clothes and jewelry.”
“You might want to sell some things that appeal to guys too and maybe kids. While the ladies are looking around, they would be awfully bored.”
“Hmm…” Val said, “You’re right. I don’t know very much about what men like to shop for. You’ll have to help me out on that one.”
“Well, guys…most of them don’t like shopping period. We’ve got to have something that just about everyone likes.”
“What could that be?” Val asked.
Ben looked at the man sitting at the table next to theirs. After being seated, he started reading the book he had with him. It was the newest Ian Fleming novel, The Man with the Golden Gun.
“I know! Books!”
“Books?” Val replied. She frowned and looked a little perplexed.
“But it’s perfect. You just s
tock the shelves with all different kinds of books, like romance novels in one section, westerns in another. You can have kids’ books and even some magazines. It’ll keep everyone busy.”
“You got a good point there,” Val said.
“Look, people will come to your restaurant because they know they won’t be just standing around twittling their thumbs like they are at other places.”
“Okay, I’m going to go with that. Now, I’d like to ask you what you think of the name I’ve picked out.”
“What is it?”
“Valben.”
“Why is my name in it?”
“Well…since you’re going to be a big part of the restaurant, I decided to put your name into the title.”
Ben didn’t know what to say. He was going to have a restaurant named after him!
“Uh…thank you.” He hoped he wasn’t blushing.
“You’re welcome,” Val said giggling. She finished off a crab Rangoon. “So, you’ll be the brains, I’ll be the money. How does that sound?”
“It sounds fantastic! I’m in!”
“We got a deal, then?”
They shook hands, then ate the rest of the pu pu platter. For the first time, Ben knew where his future was leading him and it was nowhere but up.
Chapter 31: September 6, 1966
What They Left Behind Page 30