Danny
“Delicious. Absolutely, delicious,” I say as I wipe up the last bit of homemade spicy ketchup from my plate with my last garlic sweet potato fry.
“Well, I’ll let Tack know you enjoyed it,” Vince says, taking my plate away. His deep voice has so much gravel in it you could drive across it in a blizzard. “I told him you were here, but we are slammed tonight so he can’t get out of the kitchen. He wanted me to tell you that he loves your dad’s butternut squash soup. It’s his new favorite.”
“Oh, is your dad a cook?” Prescott asks.
“Sort of,” I say quickly. “He loves working with food.” I don’t tell Prescott that when Tack says he likes my dad’s soup he means the new line of organic soups from Amore Foods Incorporated, part of the international food empire my family has built over multiple generations. Saying my dad loves working with food is an entirely accurate statement and I did see him cook an egg once. I’m not unaware that it is also entirely misleading. I don’t want Prescott to know about my family right away. It always makes things weird. I’ll tell him when the time is right. I quickly change the subject.
“What did Jules think of Strawberry Shortcake?”
“They love it,” Vince says.
“You cook too, Danny?” Prescott asks, assuming Vince is referring to some confection.
“Me? No, I use the oven for overflow storage of my Crocs. Strawberry Shortcake is a vintage doll. Her friends were Apple Dumplin’ and Huckleberry Pie. Tack’s kid is obsessed with them,” I say like it’s common knowledge, but Prescott gives me a blank stare. “Sorry, they were made in 1980 not 1880 so no reason you would know them. Vince, I’m afraid my colleague is more interested in the nineteenth century than the one we are currently living in.”
“Hey, don’t knock the nineteenth century,” Vince says gathering more plates. “Some of my favorite poets come out of the pastoral movement.” Prescott lets out a short laugh to acknowledge Vince’s retort.
“I sometimes forget that underneath all that muscle and business sense is the heart of a poet,” I say rolling my eyes and with a slight chortle. “Tell Jules I have my eyes open for a Purple Pie Man doll. They’re rare but I’ll find one.”
“I know you will. I’ll tell Jules and they’ll be thrilled. Oh, before I forget. Tack and I are having some people over for a potluck to recover from Winter Festival. It would be great if the two of you could join us. Anita and Toula will be there and Kevin and Evan. Let me know,” he says and heads back inside.
There is a short but deeply awkward silence once Vince leaves. Tonight’s dinner was really nice. I assumed that tomorrow we’d go back to our corners and come back out fighting as usual, but maybe we don’t have to.
“Tack is a great chef, but they go all out when they host in their home.” Of course Prescott will want to go. He’s new in town and doesn’t know that many people. I know we haven’t exactly gotten along but we got through opening day and since he’s new here he must want to meet everyone he can. I know I would.
“I don’t want to intrude. It was very nice of Vince to offer but...it’s not really my thing,” he says, moving his napkin from his lap and putting it on the table. “I should get going. It’s getting late and I have a lot to do at the shop tomorrow.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
“What’s what supposed to mean?”
“It’s not really my thing,” I say echoing his clench-assed response to the very warm invitation he was given. “Do you prefer to hang out more with people like you? Like that Worth? Is that more your speed?”
“Stop it. You don’t know him. You don’t know me for that matter,” he says. I can see the muscles tighten in his neck and jaw.
I can’t believe I was letting my guard down with this guy. “Do you only mingle with high society? Not enough prestige to slum it with a bunch of working queers in town? You know...” For a second I think about telling him the truth about my family. That their wealth and social position would make Worth’s look like dollar store merchandise on clearance. But I don’t want to win the argument that way. I don’t want Prescott to start treating me differently. Actually, that’s not true at all. I do want him to start treating me differently. I just don’t want him to do it because he thinks I come from money.
“It has nothing to do with that. You’re so quick to make judgments, aren’t you?”
“I call them as I see them,” I tell him.
“No you don’t. You call them as you want to see them. You don’t listen. You have no idea why I don’t want to go.”
“I heard every word you said,” I say. Prescott grabs the check off the table and pulls out a credit card. I take out my credit card and say, “I’m paying. I suggested dinner.” I take his credit card off the bill and place it to the side.
I go to pick up the bill again but instead of grabbing the check I grab his hand. He looks up immediately. My hand is on top of his. I don’t move it. I can’t. A feeling so intense shoots through me I think I’m frozen. I want to rub my fingers over his smooth knuckles and gently move my fingers around to the palm of his hand and feel the softness of his skin. His beautiful eyes have such a sharp focus on mine I wonder if he somehow knows what I’m thinking. Does my face show my curiosity in finding out more about the man under the overly starched shirt? What would it be like to rip the Brooks Brothers off him and find out what makes his pocket watch tick? How can I even think that when I dislike this guy so intensely? I sharply pull my hand away.
“I asked you to dinner,” I say again, and stand up. I put my credit card back in my wallet and pull out enough cash to cover the dinner, a generous tip and maybe even a night in one of the newly opened rooms here at the inn. I put the money on the table. “You’re right. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you at the shop. Good night.” I turn away from the table and walk away from him, feeling my heart beat faster and faster.
Chapter Seven
Danny
“You will not believe what I heard this morning,” I say walking into the store. Prescott already has the potbelly roaring so a wave of dry warmth embraces me softly. With Winter Festival at least a week behind us and the bulk of the tourists long gone, New Hope is back to its usual winter calm barring my recent alarm over a troubling bit of news.
Prescott is carrying a small porcelain teacup in his hand. “Would you like some green tea?” he asks. I can never tell if he is being simply polite or trying for nice. There’s a difference. Cordial might be the best word to describe how we’ve been acting since our ill-fated dinner at The Hideaway.
“No thanks,” I say remembering that the last time I accepted a cup of tea from him it tasted like boiled dirt. “You won’t believe what’s happening down the street,” I repeat and shove my hand into my pocket and pull out the notice I ripped off the telephone pole on my way to the shop. “Look at this!”
He looks it over and then hands it back to me. “Looks like they are doing some construction. So what?”
“It’s demolition. They’re tearing down the First Bank of Bucks building.”
Prescott shrugs. “I repeat, so what? Who even uses a drive-through anymore? I never thought that building fit in here. It’s so different from everything else in town.” He wriggles his nose.
“Ugh,” I say, verbally punctuating how I feel inside. The bank is beautiful. It was built in the midsixties and I’m sure it was a modern marvel when it was constructed. “How could you say that building doesn’t fit in here? This is New Hope, for crying out loud.”
Prescott puts the papers he’s working on at his desk in a drawer and closes it firmly. “That’s precisely my point. This is New Hope. Look out the window. What do you see?”
I humor him, walk over to the bow window on my side of the shop and turn my head from side to side. I see gorgeous painted ladies with porches that swing out to greet the sidewalk, the stone f
armhouse that is now The Hideaway down the street and the wintery barren cherry trees that stand in front of Toula’s bookshop. “Main Street is adorable. What’s your point?”
“It’s adorable because it’s cohesive. There’s a certain aesthetic.” He walks to a shelf where he has the ugliest, grayest collection of metal cups and candle holders I’ve ever seen. “All of the pieces in my pewter collection are from the Cunningham Studio. And when I get my hands on that elusive pear-shaped tankard it will be complete. It’s more valuable as a set than it is as individual pieces because everything fits together.”
“I hate matchy-matchy. And fitting together is not what makes this town great. New Hope is a place where all different people come to be a part of something. It’s about diversity and inclusivity at its core. It’s the fact that a building like the bank can stand next to all the old crap that you like.”
“Oh, so it’s okay to speak maliciously of things I like but heaven forbid anyone say a bad word about that eyesore.”
“Eyesore!” I shout, my volume greater than I had planned. I flip the sign on the front door from Closed to Open and walk back to my desk. “I’ll have you know I consider that bank to be one of the most beautiful buildings in town.”
Prescott laughs. “You would,” he says, and he rolls his eyes.
“Listen here you pompous little prince...” I start in on him and he’s ready for the sparring. He comes right back at me and we are full on yelling at each other and in each other’s faces when the front door opens and we both freeze.
“Oh, no. Did we catch you in the middle of something?”
Two trim women wearing yoga pants enter the store. They both have tightly pulled back ponytails. One woman has curly blond hair and the other’s is straight brown.
“The sign said Open, so we just came on in. We hope that’s okay?” the woman with the brunette ponytail says.
“Absolutely, ladies,” I say smiling and grateful for the distraction.
“We are happy to have you in our establishment,” Prescott says stiffly. I’m beginning to notice how tense he is when a customer pops in. Once he gets started talking about one of his objects he’s a different person, all color and light, but he’s always a bit awkward in the beginning.
“My uncle has a birthday coming up,” the blond one says. She walks over to a small silver pill box on Prescott’s side. It’s simple, small and boring. “Tell me about this?” she asks holding it out to me.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” I say, turning toward Prescott.
He jumps in. “That is actually a snuff box. It was used by sea captains who sailed from Nantucket. They kept various recreational, shall we say, vices in...” As soon as he starts talking about the thingamajig his voice is smooth and inviting. The slight tremble from his greeting has vanished.
“Oh. My god. Is that a Nyform troll?” the other woman asks leaping toward a shelf on my side. She gets within inches of the doll but clearly knows enough not to grab something so valuable.
“Why yes, it is,” I say. “Amazing. Right? I love these little guys. This one is very special.”
“My anniversary with my wife is coming up and she would totally flip if I brought home a Nyform troll. Do you have any idea how rare those things are?”
“I do,” I say with a sly smile. I look over at Prescott who is deep in conversation with the other customer. He gets this intense look when he’s explaining the history of one of his pieces. His face gets all serene but very focused. I wonder if this is what he looks like when he is having sex. For a second I get lost in the thought of unbuckling his khakis...
“Do you have any more trolls?” the customer asks.
“Yes, of course,” I say turning my attention back to her. I walk over to the shelf where I display the trolls, but I can’t help but keep an eye on Prescott. I’ve tried everything I can to either stop hating him or stop lusting after him. How can someone so infuriating also be so sexy?
Prescott
“Mars?” the customer holding the cylindrical telescope says, examining it carefully. He’s looked at multiple items from tear bottles to candle sticks but the small brass object used for finding the Red Planet has captured his attention. Customers are often surprised to find out the Victorians were not so different from us.
“Around 1877 Giovanni Schiaparelli believed he had spotted artificial waterways on the planet. He used his telescope to spy on the Martians. Ideas about extraterrestrial life were very popular and like so many things at the time they were linked to technological advances. Improvements in optics made it possible for people to get a better look at the heavens. It was taken very seriously and people often left money in their will for plans to make contact with aliens.”
“Absolutely fascinating. I’ll take it,” the older gentleman says and I feel a short burst of pride knowing I was able to use my knowledge to convince him. I carefully wrap the telescope and thank him for his purchase as he leaves.
Danny was busy on his side of the shop all morning long. After the yoga women came in a group of seniors on their way to a matinee at the Playhouse marveled over some pieces of his that seemed completely mundane to me. I think they were prizes from the bottom of a box of Cracker Jack or some other such thing that most people usually throw away. Still, to hear Danny talk about them you would think they belonged in the Smithsonian. He can talk to anyone about anything. While my conversations are limited to the merchandise at hand, Danny has this ability to open up to total strangers about almost any topic, from the tonsillectomy he had as a child to the fourteen reasons he no longer eats licorice. And the people involved in his conversations listen to every word and then open up to him about their gall bladder surgery or why they don’t eat salmon. It’s a raw openness that’s impossible to avoid. He was gabbing with a customer today while I was eating lunch at my desk and pretending to be deep in research. I overheard every word of his explanation and I even stole a few glances at him when he wasn’t looking.
Sometimes I wish I was more like that, able to say whatever I’m thinking or feeling. Why couldn’t I have told Danny last week at dinner that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to the party at Vince and Tack’s, it was more that the thought of socializing with a bunch of strangers who were already his friends gave me so much discomfort that I couldn’t say yes. Maybe a small town isn’t the place for me. Maybe I should have stayed in the city where I don’t have to worry as much about getting caught in social situations that make me unsure of myself. In Philadelphia I didn’t feel pressure to extend my relationships beyond the professional level.
I wanted to tell Danny all of that. I had a feeling this curious mixture of cruise director, children’s television host and Sexiest Bear of the Year would actually understand. But he had to go and insult me and pick a fight. It’s infuriating. How dare he assume that I think I’m too good for his friends? Even though my work brings me in contact with some people who might think that way, I do not. You can love fine art and still be a person who believes in equality and justice. He just made assumptions about me and it pushed my buttons.
Still, there are other buttons he’s also pushing. When he put his hand over mine at the restaurant last week I felt something electric pass through me. I fantasized about ripping off his ugly Hawaiian print shirt, putting on a more tasteful one, and then ripping that off. I was grateful he walked out of the inn when he did because I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I went home and couldn’t stop fantasizing about him. I lay in bed and started running through inventory stats and then the image of his furry forearm would appear or that big hearty laugh. I’ve never met anyone with so much joie de vivre. His energy is generally like that experiment with the Mentos and two-liter bottle of Coke. He just sort of explodes whenever something catches his attention.
Danny comes in from the pantry talking on his cell phone. “They are planning to demolish it. We have to save this buil
ding. The Bank of Bucks is too important. Talk soon.” He puts his phone back in his pocket.
“Have you become a preservationist in the span of a day?” I ask.
“I care about beautiful things just as much as you do. I happen to not have such a narrow view of what makes something worth saving.”
Usually he makes a jab and it just rolls right off me but sometimes he says something that stings a bit more than it should. Am I really narrow-minded? Do I have a limited sense of what makes something beautiful? “I doubt there is anything you can do about the demolition anyway,” I say.
“We’ll see about that,” he says opening a notebook and jotting something down. “You’d be surprised how much a community can do when it pulls together.”
“But that bank isn’t even historical,” I say.
He closes his notebook and walks over to me. “I’m not sure who taught you that history is something that happened only over a hundred years ago, but the fact is history is happening now.”
He wants a debate about history. Bring it. “That may be, but you think history extends only as far back as your childhood. You’re only willing to honor history when it’s a part of your memory.”
Danny walks over to the front door and flips the sign to Closed. “Grab your blazer. We’re going on an educational field trip.”
“Now?” I ask. There are a few more hours until we are officially closed.
“Of course, now. I’d say there is no time like the present but I’m sure you would say that 1850 or 1903 were equally as good as the present so I’ll just say, ‘let’s go.’ There’s always an afternoon lull anyway.” He walks over to the door and holds it open and I can’t help but follow him on this adventure. I don’t have any choice. He smiles at me triumphantly as I throw on my blazer and wrap a Burberry scarf around my neck and begin to put on my gloves. Danny really does have a radiant smile, all warmth and confidence. I walk past him and since I sense a bit of flirtation in his request I make sure my arm brushes against his chest. The sensation is thrilling. It feels like taking a risk, but the payoff was seeing Danny respond with an expression of excitement tinged with confusion. I’m a little confused myself but only to the extent that I can’t figure out which of us is the Mentos and which is the bottle of soda.
The Beautiful Things Shoppe Page 5