The Perfect Blend

by Allie Pleiter

  It’s not the homework assignment.

  It’s the assigner.

  I’m not freaking out at three little words, I’m freaking out at the prospect of seeing Will Grey in the classroom again. At seeing him all suited up and tutorial. I’ve seen a sliver of the man out of his work mode and I don’t know how to deal with him in a purely work setting anymore.

  Slow down, Maggie, be careful. You don’t know nearly enough about the kind of man Will Grey is to be thinking this way.

  Let’s try logic. Let’s turn Will’s assignment on its ear. Imagine, if you will, that God just gave me a sheet of paper and asked me to list the ten qualities I’d want in a guy. My ideal customer, as it were. The list would go something like this:

  Godly

  Energetic

  Daring

  Adventurous

  Visionary

  Handsome

  Artistic

  Unconventional

  Romantic

  Caffeinated

  Okay, the last one’s not really a priority, but you get my drift. Do you see reserved Will Grey in there anywhere? I don’t. I see the opposite of Will Grey. Come on, the man’s barely caffeinated—and that was the least of my priorities.

  So why am I still sitting at my kitchen table at 9:30 p.m., staring at an unfinished assignment sheet, eating the last of my coffee ice cream?

  That’s it. I’ve got to get out of here. Go take a walk or something. Shake off this weird paralysis that has suddenly taken hold. I grab a sweater, some big sunglasses to cover my injuries—even though it’s dusk, stuff twenty dollars into my pocket and head out the door.

  I turn the corner and slam, headfirst, into Will Grey. Ouch! Why must every encounter with this man be so painful? “You! Oww. Why does your shoulder have to be right where my forehead is?” I wobble a bit and my glasses fall off.

  “Miss Black!” Will gasps, grabbing my shoulder to catch me. “Oh, you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you? You weren’t off to find the nearest hospital?” The man’s state of alarm looks odd on him. He’s usually such an in-control kind of guy.

  “I’m…okay…I think.” I touch my forehead and blink my eyes a bit. The world spun out of focus for a few seconds and I might have added a new bruise to my already stunning collection, but for the most part I think I’m okay.

  Will takes his hand off my shoulder. I hadn’t realized it was still there. Okay, I had, but let’s not talk about that at the moment. “You weren’t in class.”

  “Uh…yes, I know.”

  “I was worried something might have happened to you. You should have people checking up on you, you know. Head injuries can develop complications a few days later.”

  Develop complications? Oh, I think we can safely say we’ve developed complications. I walked out of the house four minutes ago to escape my problems, not slam headlong into them.

  A sudden, terrorizing thought strikes me. “You didn’t tell the class what happened, did you? You didn’t explain why I wasn’t there?”

  Will blinks at me. “I don’t know why you weren’t there. Which is why I’m here. But, no, I found it best to leave the telling to you. Or, the not telling. You don’t owe your classmates any explanation.”

  “Oh, good.” I say, leaning up against the wall. I’m surprised at how relieved I am to hear that.

  “But,” says Will, leaning up on the wall beside me, “you do owe me an explanation.” He crosses his hands over his chest and looks me over. “You’re obviously well enough to be up and about. Why weren’t you in class?”

  Got any ideas how to answer that one? I stall for time. “I just sort of…panicked, I suppose.” Then the answer comes to me. “It was that assignment. That’s a mean trick to play on someone like me. You can’t just boil a life’s passion down to three words like that. It’s impossible. I’ve been working on that nasty thing for hours, but the paper’s still empty. Not that I don’t have words. I’ve got a list of thirty-seven words taped to my refrigerator. I just can’t boil it down to only three.”

  Will unfolds his arms. “Now do you see what I mean?”

  “Okay, fine, you were right. But that’s what I pay you for. You’re the teacher, it’s your job to be right. Right?”

  Will shakes his head, as if his proper British brain just doesn’t know what to do with me. He freezes, one hand in the air, eyes squinted shut, and you can just see the guy think. Or count to ten to calm down. I’m not sure which until he pops his eyes open and starts to undo his tie. “Have you eaten?”

  “If you count ice cream as dinner, yes.”

  “I was more thinking along the lines of actual food.”

  “Well, then, I suppose no.”

  “Right then. Let’s go get your massive list, and we’ll discuss tonight’s lesson over a sandwich.”

  You gotta love the way this guy speaks. American guys would say, “let’s go grab a burger,” but no, we’re “discussing over a sandwich.”

  I start walking back to my door. “You English and your sandwiches.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “You know,” I’m laughing as I turn my key in the lock. “Sandwich.” I broaden out the A in sorry attempt at British. “Cucumber, Earl of, that sort of thing. It’s just so funny.”

  “I hardly see the humor in eating a sandwich.” Will follows me up the stairs.

  “I know and that’s what makes it so funny.” I unlock my apartment door, “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” I snag the list off my fridge, pretend I’m not really checking my hair in the mirror, snag an even bigger pair of sunglasses even though it’s dark now and head back to the front door. “List in hand. Let’s go have a sandwich.”

  “Perhaps I should have a hamburger now. Or fried chicken. Something less British.” He’s got the same expression my brothers have before they launch into a load of teasing.

  “Oh, no, I’d like a sandwich.” I put on my glasses even though it makes things so dim I have to squint and squinting hurts a bit. I make my way down the stairs, holding the railing tight because I can’t really see the stair edge with these glasses on. At the bottom, I turn to find him standing halfway down the stairs, staring. “What?”

  “You know, I suggested a sandwich because I thought it might be less complicated than going for a coffee.”

  “Coffee’s not complicated.” I give him a let’s-go gesture and he comes down the last of the stairs to hold the entrance door open for me. Great. It’s even darker outside now, so I have even less of an excuse to be wearing sunglasses. “Coffee’s the most basic thing in the world,” I continue, happy to have a safe topic of conversation on which to park my nervous energy. “It’s complex, but not complicated. There’s a difference. Roasting fine Kenyan coffee beans is complex. You, you’re complicated.”

  “Complicated, am I?” From behind the protection of my enormous shades, I risk a glance at his face. I thought I’d find the glowering teacher who’s stared me down in class. That’s not who I see at all. I see a surprised, somewhat intrigued man with a disarming glint in his eyes. There’s a word for the way he looks, but I can’t quite think of it. A spark behind his eyes that makes you want to spar with him because you know it will be so much fun. I should back down, apologize, pretend I meant to say something different, but his demeanor (or is it mine?) just won’t let me.

  “Highly,” I reply, enjoying this.

  “Well, one certainly can’t resist an explanation for that. Will I be sorry if I ask exactly how it is that I am complicated? Or don’t I want to know?”

  Come on, there’s not a woman on the planet who could resist an open door like that. I place my right hand in front of my face as if spreading out a marquis. “William Grey III. Banker. Three-piece suit. Files with typed labels. A dozen freshly sharpened pencils lined up on his desk. Efficient. Organized. Driven.”

  Grey looks a little disturbed to know I saw the dozen lined-up pencils, but seems to be enjoying my description.

  We turn the corner
and I raise my left hand, creating another marquis. “Will Grey. Rugged. Gets dirty for a good cause. Competitive. Heroic. Captain of the guard. Capable, I’m guessing, of very good pranks in school. But never caught.”

  One look at Grey and I know I’ve nailed it. I’m good that way. Intuitive. That’s important in the coffee business. You’ve got to know how much cream is too much, how much sugar is not enough. When the woman who says to only put a “smidge” of whipped cream on her latte really means for you to pile it on.

  Will chuckles. “Once,” he says, looking at me sideways. “I was caught only once.”

  “And what did little Willy Grey do to get caught at boarding school?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “And just how do you know that the incident in question was at boarding school?”

  I point to his finger. “The ring. The attitude. Plus, I read enough to know that all proper English lads get into mischief at boarding school. Besides, I imagine after you got caught the first time, you made very sure you were never caught again.”

  Will stares at me. “You’re rather frightening, you know. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “My three brothers tell me all the time.”

  Will’s eyes pop. “Three. Brothers. Well, that certainly explains it.”

  Now it’s my turn to stare. “Explains what?”

  “You are, without a doubt, the feistiest person I have ever met.”

  I can’t resist. “Will I be sorry to ask why?” I mimic his earlier response. “Or don’t I want to know?”

  Will grins, pulls open the restaurant door, and says, “Yes, I’m quite sure now coffee would have been less complicated. Even with you.”

  I don’t even want to get into what happened in the pit of my stomach when he said you. Let’s just say it was complex. Determined to keep off that particular subject, I redirect the conversation. “We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about what you did in boarding school.”

  “No, I was talking about you and why you missed class. You steered the conversation away from that subject and onto the topic of my childhood misadventures.” Will points toward an open booth near the window. “And don’t think you’ll get away with it. I’ll be happy to recount the terrible fate of Madam Fraser’s liberated rabbits after we’ve covered the topic of Maggie Black’s ideal customer impression.”

  A spindly, underfed college student sulks over and plants a pair of menus onto the table. Unable to read anything in these glasses, I pull them off and begin looking for the dessert page. He’s about to launch into his rendition of today’s specials when he gets a clear look at my face. My face, which I’ve forgotten I’ve just unveiled. “Whoa, lady, duck next time, okay? Man, what hit you?” he says, cringing right down to his snake tattoo and rock concert T-shirt.

  All right people:

  1) I’m too young to be called “lady” by college students.

  2) Reminders of my current appearance are unwanted.

  3) It was entirely unnecessary for his lordship to butt in and growl, “That’s clearly none of your concern” in such an intimidating high-and-mighty accent that our server backs away without so much as pouring us a cup of coffee.

  I slam my hands onto my hips. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  “What an appalling thing to say. He’s supposed to be serving you, not insulting you.”

  Did he hear me at all? Testosterone-based hearing loss? Hello? “And who said you’re supposed to be protecting me? I could have handled Mr. Tactful just fine on my own. You just said yourself how feisty I am.” I put my sunglasses back on.

  “I’m not being protective. He was rude. You could have been an army general and I would have responded the same way.”

  I don’t believe that for a minute. “You would not,” I counter in my best little-sister-fights-back tone. Suddenly all the overblown fussing I’ve received in the past week boils up inside my independent head. “You’re coddling me because I’m a girl. Because I got this,” I say, pointing to my face, “turning in one of your assignments and because…because…because you’ve got all that genteel British stuff running around in your veins and you can’t help it. And it’s annoying. Got it? Annoying. This is America, where women kick butt on a regular basis and the guys can handle it.”

  The power banker comes roaring out of his features. He jabs a finger at the server “You,” he commands, snapping the server to attention. “Coffee, black, two sugars,” He says pointing to my place setting. “Tea, with milk and one sugar, very hot,” he says, pointing to himself. “You,” he says, glaring at me so hard I gulp, “have thirty seconds to take those ludicrous glasses off and narrow your list down to ten words starting now.”

  “You can’t…”

  “Twenty-eight, twenty-seven…”

  Unfair, obnoxious, boorish, egotistical…

  Chapter Nine

  Two scarier thoughts

  “He didn’t!”

  I’m sitting in my sister Cathy’s kitchen after work Monday, looking at photos of Charlie in his toad costume and relating the events of my sandwich with Will. “He did. I swear I thought he was going to whip out a sword and defend my honor or something.”

  “Guys like that still exist?”

  “I know. You’d think the male species would have left the I-must-protect-the-fairer-sex mind-set behind a couple of decades ago. I told him this is America, where the women can hold their own, thank you very…”

  I stop mid-sentence because of the look on Cathy’s face. She’s not sharing my distaste for Will Grey’s overprotective tendencies. Rather, she has that dreamy-eyed fairy-tale look she usually gets when talking about her husband. “No. No, Cathy, it’s not a good thing. You’re not hearing me. I don’t like what he did.” I over-enunciate the last sentence because she doesn’t seem to be registering my meaning.

  “Well, it was a bit over the top. It’s not like the waiter called you a hag or anything.”

  “My point exactly. If a thug with a knife comes up to me demanding my jewelry, then I don’t mind a little protection from someone bigger than me. But a tactless waiter? Please. I don’t need anyone coming to my rescue over bad manners.”

  “Oh, yes, we all know all about how Maggie Bootstraps gets by just fine on her own.”

  I hate it when she calls me that. Dad calls me that when he wants to get all fatherly on me, when he doesn’t like the way I do something and he thinks he should come in and save the day and I won’t let him. Something about pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. Which, by the way, is a good thing. Independence is a good thing. The kind of concept strong enough, say, to found a country on. The United States, for example. No monarchs allowed here, mister, we value the self-sufficiency of every hardworking American. Opportunity. Enterprise. So stop trying to protect me and just give me my loan!

  Cathy touches my forehead, conducting a maternal assessment. “Speaking of doing fine, did you have Diane check that out? You didn’t need more stitches or anything?” Her eyebrows furrow together as she stares at my remaining collection of bandages and Steri-Strips.

  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that question this week, I wouldn’t need a small-business loan. “Yes,” I moan, “I’m fine. Will had them X-ray me twice, even, just to be sure.

  “Sounds like a nice guy, this Will.” She smiles as she rearranges the photos on the table. “And you said he asked you to say grace over dinner? Sounds really nice.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t do that. I’ve had enough of it from Diane. He’s…” I stumble, realizing I can’t tell Cathy who he is. I’m not ready to tell my family I’ve gone out in search of a loan to open a business. Oh, great, Cathy’s taking my pause as a sign of hidden emotion. Like Will’s some kind of secret crush. “Look, I take a class with him, that’s all. We were working on a paper together and I was bringing it to him when I got hit. He’s just being nice because he’s totally guilty.”

  “Y
ep,” she says, looking like she didn’t believe a word I just said. “Whatever you say.”

  “Don’t do that!” Lord, could I have a different family please? Just for the next seven weeks? There are four other kids—no one would even miss me.

  “Fine. Change of subject. Are you coming to the mission potluck Wednesday? Charlie’s choir is singing.”

  “Can’t,” I say, happy for the first time in months to have a reason to miss a family outing. “I’ve got a class.”

  “What kind of class is this, anyway?”

  I am not ready to talk about this. Even with Cathy. She may be the first to know when the time is right, but that’s not now. “A class.” I reply, imbuing the words with all the and-we’re-not-going-to-talk-about-it tone I can muster. “I’ve got to get going—it’s Diane and my night at the Closet.” Every other Monday Diane and I volunteer at the church’s clothing ministry, sorting used clothing to give to families who have hit hard times. It’s a great deal: we catch up and do good at the same time. “Tell Charlie I think he was adorable and he can be the toad in my pond any day.”

  As quickly as family courtesy will allow, I gather up my stuff and head for the door. As she’s letting me out, Cathy drops the all-too-intuitive-big-sister bomb. “Mags,” she says, catching my elbow.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t pretend you hate it so much. It’s nice having someone watch over you.”

  I gape at her for a stunned moment, mumble goodbye and take her front stairs at a run.

  I hate big families. Too many people who are way too familiar with you.

  Later that night, Diane stares at me over a large purple sweatshirt. “You really told him off like that? Was that a smart idea? Given who he is and all?”

  I tie a pair of knee socks together in a vigorous knot. “I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly, I was so…I don’t know, agitated…that it just sort of jumped out of me. I hate it when people coddle me. He was just the last straw of coddling in a very suffocating week. I apologized…twice…but I don’t know.”