You Give Good Love

by J. J. Murray

  Mr. Word blinked at the work order. “This is over forty bucks!” Mr. Word howled. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I’ve made a detailed list of your costs, Mr. Word,” Hope said, “and I informed you prior to each step what the costs—”

  “Do I at least get matching envelopes?” Mr. Word interrupted.

  “That will cost you eight dollars more,” Hope said. “Plus tax.”

  “Are you serious?” Mr. Word exploded. He looked at Dylan, who began placing Buffalo Boss bags on the counter. “Can you believe this shit?”

  Dylan looked at the work order. “Works out to eighty cents a copy.” He peered at the résumé. “Looks good. Not bad on this nice paper for only eighty cents a copy. You’d pay much more uptown.” He smiled at Mr. Word. “And you can always deduct it as a business expense, right?”

  Mr. Word growled. “She’s robbing me, I tell you.” He pulled two twenties and two dollar bills from his wallet. “I won’t need the envelopes. Keep the change.”

  “I can’t do that,” Hope said, making and putting the change into his meaty hand along with the receipt. “I hope you get the job, Mr. Word.” Not.

  Mr. Word dropped the change on the counter and stormed outside. A minute later, Hope heard him arguing with a meter maid. A few moments later, Mr. Word returned to collect his change, going outside and putting the coins in the meter. He still received a ticket.

  Serves you right, Mr. Word, Hope thought. Your résumé just got much more expensive.

  Dylan took several boxes from the bags and arranged them near the ficus plant. “I hope all your customers aren’t like him.”

  “A lot of them are,” Hope said. Smells good. Smells spicy, too.

  And then they ate.

  And ate.

  Hope polished off twelve wings dipped in various tasty sauces in less than ten minutes, wiping her hands and lips on napkins often and sucking down most of her water.

  “You were hungry,” Dylan said, only six empty chicken bones in front of him.

  “I skipped breakfast.” And dinner and lunch and breakfast yesterday. Did I eat dinner Monday night? I think I fell asleep as soon as I got home. When did I eat last? I had some crackers on Sunday afternoon. I need more crackers. They were going stale.

  Dylan dabbed a napkin at his lips. “Not bad, though, huh?”

  Hope nodded and sipped more water through her straw, the cat in her stomach purring. He has sauce on his cheek. Do I tell him? I barely know the man, but if he walks out of here and sees his reflection, he’ll think I’m mean because I didn’t tell him. Hope sighed. “You have some sauce . . .” She pointed at her own cheek.

  Dylan wiped both of his cheeks. “Sure they weren’t freckles?”

  “It was sauce.” Freckles don’t dribble down one’s face like that, and if they do, you need to see a doctor.

  “When I was a kid, they would have been freckles.” He tapped a finger on his cheek. “I am Irish to the core. I used to have some red in my hair, too.” He reached behind his head and flopped long shanks of hair toward his shoulders. “It may be time for a haircut.”

  It’s actually kind of sexy. “Do you ever wear it in a ponytail?” Lunch is officially over, but now I’ve gone and asked him a question. What’s wrong with me?

  “Most of the time.” Dylan took a sip from his Pepsi. “Forgive me, Hope. I have not properly introduced myself. My full name is Dylan Riordan Healy. Dylan means ‘flash of lightning, faithful and loyal.’ ”

  He was back in a flash, and he faithfully brought me my food. “Dylan” works.

  “Riordan means ‘poet of the king,’ ” Dylan said.

  “Riordan” does not work.

  “And Healy means ‘ingenious and artistic.’ ” Dylan smiled.

  Dylan Riordan Healy is the most poorly named man on planet earth, Hope thought.

  Dylan picked up another wing, dipping it into the F.I.T.H. sauce. “I don’t think my mother thought I’d grow up to be a faithful, loyal, ingenious, artistic poet when she named me.” He took a bite, quickly washing it down with the rest of his Pepsi. “It’s hot! Wow! There is a definite fire in the hole.”

  “I’ll get you some water,” Hope said, knowing it probably wouldn’t help, and took his cup to the washroom. As she filled his cup, she looked in the mirror. He’s not bad looking at all. She squinted at her face. I wonder what he looks like under that hoodie. I also wonder where he learned to eat. His beard stubble must like hot wing sauce.

  She returned to the counter and handed the cup to Dylan.

  “Thank you,” Dylan said, drinking several more gulps. “I think I’ll stick to the honey mustard from now on.” He smiled. “What’s your full name?”

  More vital statistics. Maybe he works for the census bureau. “Hope Elizabeth Warren.”

  “Hope Elizabeth,” Dylan said. “I like it. H-E-W. Hew. I always wanted a word for initials.”

  He’s so strange and yet so familiar, Hope thought. I must be familiar with strange.

  Dylan offered Hope some chili fries. “They’re not that spicy.”

  “I’m okay,” Hope said.

  A wide gray counter between them, Hope and Dylan stood not speaking for several lonely minutes, Hope cradling her cup, Dylan munching on his fries.

  What do I say? I say nothing all day and go home grumpy. A man fed me. I should at least say . . . “Thank you for lunch.”

  “You’re very welcome, Hope.” He blew out a breath behind him and fanned the air. “If mosquitoes were still flying, I would have killed a swarm just then.”

  Gross, and yet . . . he’s . . . nice. That’s what’s so familiar. I used to recognize “nice.” I need to keep this nice man talking. “Dylan, how exactly do you sell your greeting cards?”

  Dylan smiled. “Through my website. Odd Duck dot-biz. Orders come in, I run over here—I live over in Crown Heights, by the way.”

  We’re practically neighbors. Well, not really. He’s a couple miles away from my apartment.

  “You, my dear Hope, copy and fold the cards,” Dylan continued, “and I go to a PO.”

  Hope blinked.

  Dylan’s eyes popped. “The post office. Yeah, they sometimes get PO’d at me. All those different zip codes give them fits, and I don’t always band and stack my packages in numerical zip code order. Did you think I meant a probation officer?”

  Hope shook her head.

  “Well,” Dylan said with a sigh, “I had one of those once. A long time ago. When I was a kid. Having that kind of PO is no fun.”

  He’s a felon? Where are his tattoos? All American felons, rappers, and athletes are supposed to have them.

  “I am not a dangerous man, Hope,” Dylan said. “Really. Maybe I better explain.”

  Yes. Please do.

  “When I was twelve, I took a cab,” Dylan said.

  Hope nodded.

  “Um,” Dylan said, “I took a cab.”

  “You . . . stole a cab?” Hope asked.

  Dylan nodded. “It seemed a good thing to do at the time, but everything seems a good thing to do when you’re twelve.”

  Oh.

  “I saw an opportunity, and I took it,” he said. “The cab driver left his cab running right in front of me while he went into a bar on Pitkin Avenue. That’s down in Brownsville, where I grew up. I figured, well, I didn’t want the guy driving drunk, so I got in and drove off.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I was a bad little boy. I stole the cab so I could go for a joyride. But when a man waved me down a few blocks later, I stopped.”

  Is he pulling my leg? What’s this called, blarney? He does know how to tell a story, I’ll give him that.

  “The man got in, and I decided to make some money.” He smiled. “I picked up and dropped off seven fares that day, and I made thirty-five bucks in tips. I even put gas in the taxi. I would have been driving all night, but . . .”

  You had an accident.

  “The last time I have ever driven a cab was to an address . . . o
n Pitkin Avenue.” He smiled. “The address just happened to be right across the street from the bar where the driver went.” Dylan laughed. “That was embarrassing. A cop was standing there taking the driver’s statement. Evidently the driver had been drinking a long time before noticing his cab was gone, and there I was about fifty feet away from him. I’ll never forget the look on that cop’s face as I tried to slouch down in the seat.” Dylan sighed. “I knew I was caught, so I got out, crossed the street, and handed the driver the keys. I even gave him the fare money and what was left from my tips after I bought the gas. Then I told him I had gassed it up, told him it was idling rough, probably needed a new air filter, the shocks were bad—that sort of thing. I was so cocky. Then I turned to the cop and said, ‘I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?’ The cop nodded, handcuffed me, and took me away.” He shook his head. “It was probably the smartest dumb thing I ever did.”

  That made no sense.

  “I was arrested and charged with grand theft auto and truancy,” Dylan said. “I didn’t much like school back then. I used to skip school, but then I’d show up for wrestling practice.” He sighed. “The coach never knew.”

  “Did they take you into custody?” Hope asked.

  “They did,” Dylan said. “Though the judge took into account my age and seemed happy that I gave back the money, he nailed me. I already had a few other charges on my record. Trespassing, vandalism, a dozen truancy charges. Several elementary schools had already kicked me out, mainly for forging notes to get out of class. I was not a very nice lad or a very smart criminal.” He nodded. “I was mean. I ended up spending all of my teenage years as property of the state of New York. Yet those were some of the best years of my life.”

  “How were they the best?” Hope asked.

  “When I was locked up, I had to go to school,” Dylan said. “I was a captive audience, and I found out I was smarter than I looked. I got my GED at sixteen. Then I went into independent living and started volunteering at Kinderstuff down the street from here to complete my community service.”

  Kinderstuff? I walk by that day care center every day.

  “I liked it so much I went and got my associate’s degree in early childhood education from Brooklyn College,” Dylan said, “and the very same Kinderstuff hired me as a teacher. I have been there ever since. Fifteen years next May.”

  Mr. Odd Duck with the long sexy hair and juicy laugh plays “Duck, Duck, Goose” for a living?

  “It is the best job in the world,” Dylan said. “I love the kids, and they seem to tolerate me. I took today off so I could catch up on my card orders and pay a few bills.” He shook his head. “That’s not entirely true. I can always catch up on weekends.” He stared into Hope’s eyes. “I don’t really know why I took today off, actually.”

  I’m glad you did. Hope blinked. Where did that thought come from?

  “Now I don’t plan on staying at Kinderstuff for the rest of my life, Hope,” Dylan said. “One day, I plan on owning and running my own arts center just for kids, and we’ll have art all day. I plan to call it ‘Art for Kids’ Sake.’ I’ll need a big space, of course, and I’ve been saving like crazy.” He laughed. “I’m rambling again, aren’t I?”

  “It’s okay,” Hope said.

  “I’m getting to be as talkative as my students,” Dylan said. “I have a blast working with them, especially during art from three to five. You should take a break and come down to see us in action. Do you get breaks?”

  This lunch hour is turning into one. “Not really.”

  “Maybe you could just sneak off then,” he said.

  “This place keeps me busy,” Hope said. What a boring thing to say!

  “Oh, the kids love doing art,” Dylan said. “Their parents? Not so much. We’re messy. Great art should be messy, don’t you think?” He looked at his pants. “I don’t own a single pair of pants that doesn’t have some kind of paint or stain on it.” He started bagging his leftovers. “Hope Elizabeth Warren, I would love it if you could drop in sometime and meet the kids.” He smiled and sighed. “I know I have taken up too much of your time. Thank you for sharing your lunch with me.”

  You haven’t taken up too much of my time! That’s all I have! “Dylan, tell me more about the children.”

  Dylan held up his hands. “Do you have some hand sanitizer?”

  Hope grabbed a jug of hand sanitizer from under the counter. “We go through a lot of this stuff around here.”

  Dylan squirted some on his hands and rubbed them together. “The kids are so much fun, and they are so little! I’m always afraid I’ll step on them. And they ask the craziest questions, and so many questions. They’re question machines.”

  I like how his eyes light up, and they seem to glow more whenever he talks about the children. Have my eyes ever lit up or glowed like that?

  “And Ni-Ni—I mean, Aniya—that girl is the worst!” Dylan said. “She’s five now and refuses to be called Ni-Ni. I swear Aniya plays twenty questions with me every day.” He sighed. “And she has leukemia, yet she never stops smiling.” He looked up. “She wears baseball caps. Chemo, you know. She had hair as thick as yours only a few months ago.”

  That’s so sad! So tragique!

  “But Aniya doesn’t let it get her down,” Dylan said. “She never complains. She’s . . . she’s like a sunrise, you know? She brightens everyone’s day.”

  A child like a sunrise.

  “She needs a bone marrow transplant soon. Neither of her parents matched.” Dylan sighed. “I went in to the hospital to see if maybe I matched, but I’m a little too Irish for Aniya Pierre-Louis. She’s Haitian.”

  At least he tried.

  “She has the cutest accent, too,” Dylan said. “I wish you could meet her.”

  “I will,” Hope said before she could stop the words from escaping her lips. “I mean, I’d like to meet her. Sometime.”

  “I will tell Miss Aniya all about you tomorrow,” Dylan said. “And once I do, she will ask about you until either my ears bleed from her asking or you show up.” He nodded. “I hope you will show up. I happen to like my ears.”

  “Sometime,” Hope said again.

  “Maybe Aniya and I can take a field trip up here one day to meet you,” Dylan said. “We’ll bring you lunch and eat it right here on the counter. She’d like that. Oh, only if it’s okay with you.”

  Another free meal? “It’s . . . it’s fine,” Hope said.

  “Is tomorrow too soon?” Dylan asked.

  Is Christmas coming too soon? “No,” Hope said.

  “I don’t mean to rush you into meeting her,” Dylan said. “It’s just that Aniya spends a lot of time in hospitals. She’s pretty healthy now, though.”

  “It’s okay,” Hope said. “I look forward to meeting her.”

  Dylan smiled. “Great.” He grinned. “Great! Maybe tomorrow or Friday then. I’ll have to work something out with her parents and the lead teacher, but we will make this happen.”

  I don’t want this conversation to end. Why is that? I’m normally bored into a coma on Wednesdays, but now my heart is actually beating. It has to be his voice. It has life in it. It has laughter in it. It has music in it.

  Sometimes I am too romantique for my own good.

  “Dylan, how does your card company work? I mean, what do you charge? Do you break even?” It is customary to let someone answer the first question before asking the second. Why did I ask him three?

  “I’m pretty reasonable compared to the standard Hallmark cards,” Dylan said. “I charge three bucks a card plus shipping, and for ten or more cards I charge two-fifty per card and give free shipping. I make about a buck-fifty on each card when you take out all the expenses and postage. I net anywhere from fifteen bucks to seven-fifty a week.”

  Seven-fifty? “You make that much?”

  “I only make that kind of money during the holidays,” Dylan said. “The best week I ever had was mid-November a couple years ago. Fifteen hundred bucks. I sold a tho
usand ‘Skinny Santa’ cards. Do you remember that one? It’s still one of my best-sellers.”

  Hope nodded. How could I forget? On the front is a stick figure Santa. Inside it says, “Santa might be thin this year, but I hope your Christmas is fat.” He made fifteen hundred dollars in one week from that weak card. Why?

  “It’s funny what people like and don’t like,” Dylan said. “The ones I think people will buy like crazy sit there gathering cyberspace dust while the ones that don’t even thrill me get snapped up. It’s a funny business.”

  Cyberspace dust? Hope pulled a Sharpie from a drawer and started doodling on a napkin. She drew a stick figure woman with dreadlocks, adding some huge, dark glasses and a frown.

  “Hey, I like that,” Dylan said. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  Hope nodded.

  “Except it’s missing your eyes,” Dylan said. “Why the dark glasses?”

  So he has been looking at my eyes. “It makes her more generic,” Hope said.

  “And more universally appealing,” Dylan said. “I like that.”

  Hope spun her doodle around. “A souvenir for you.”

  Dylan held up the napkin. “Thank you.” He smiled. “I will put it proudly on my refrigerator.” He stared at the drawing for several, long moments.

  What’s he doing?

  He looked up. “You know, I think this is more than a souvenir, Hope. Could I make a copy of this?”

  Hope shrugged, took the napkin from his hand, pulled a copy key counter from a drawer, and walked over to the self-serve copier up front. She inserted the copy key counter and made a quick copy, handing the copy and the napkin to Dylan. “I’ll pay the dime,” she said, leaning against the copier.

  Here I am posing in front of him so he can look at the rest of me up close. I am so out of practice being a flirteur. True flirts do not pose beside copy machines, but I really don’t have much of a choice.

  Dylan smiled at the copy and the napkin. “Hope, I don’t believe in coincidence, do you?”

  Hope looked at her hands. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “I believe everything happens for a reason, even the bad things,” Dylan said. “I mean, I practically arrested myself to get out of my house.” He leaned on the copier, his hip mere inches from Hope’s. “I come from the proverbial broken home. Mother on drugs, father nowhere, one brother in jail and still in jail, one brother dead and buried. Getting myself arrested probably saved my life, you know. I took that cab for a reason even though I didn’t know the reason at the time. You understand?”