The Promise of Lace

by Lilith Duvalier

  I followed Dieter back to the bar.

  “So… what’s up?” I asked.

  Very smooth, Roxanne. ‘What’s up’. You are a conversational wizard.

  But he grinned. “I wanted to apologize for the other day. Some bigwig who plays golf with the president of the company was bitching about how his wife was really pissed because the sales people were really pushy with her at a store somewhere in like… I don’t know. Tennessee or something. So now because some rich bitch who could afford to shop in an actual nice place wasn’t perfectly happy everyone’s on red alert. Corporate’s got secret shopper and all kinds of stuff going on. We were all told to be careful. Especially me. You know. A guy in this job?”

  “Nice,” I scoffed. “Paying people to spy on retail workers. You guys don’t put up with nearly enough crap.”

  “Right?” He chuckled. “It’s a bummer. The only thing I like about this job is making people feel better when they come in and now, apparently, I can’t.” He shrugged, the movement just a little awkward. “Anyway. I’ve felt bad about being so rude to you all week. Let me make it up to you. What’s your drink?”

  Normally I would have just blown it off. Told him it was fine, that he didn’t have to apologize for protecting his job. But this was a signal that even I could read, incompetent and out of practice as I was.

  “Rum and coke, please.”

  He waved at the bartender. “Jerry? Rum and Coke for the lady?”

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  “Absolutely. So… I bemoaned my job, what do you do?”

  I smiled and chuckled to give myself a little time before I answered. I was very conscious of how I talked about my job. I was finally at a point in my life where I really loved what I did, and it was easy to let myself get swept away and just keep talking about the differences between types of software and brushes and printers forever and ever until the people around me actually dropped dead of boredom.

  So I started with just my basic spiel. Mentioned my new project and how I was getting pretty excited about it.

  But Dieter asked questions and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. He made cute jokes back and forth with me. By the time I was talking about my first terrible job I had managed to give Hailey a discreet signal that I was doing just fine. It consisted of turning my body so my back was to my friends, waving energetically to get their attention, and then giving them a thumbs-up. They seemed to get the message. Hailey came over, invented an imaginary appointment that she and Noah had to get to in the morning, and they hugged me goodbye.

  I let Dieter buy me another drink. “So. What about you?” I asked. “How did you wind up where you are?”

  “Selling overpriced underwear?” He scoffed. I shrugged. I wasn’t totally sure how to reply to that. I didn’t want to insult him.

  “I needed a job as quickly as possible, so I went to the mall, picked up an application from every store that would give me one, went to the coffee place, spent three hours filling them all out and handed them back in. Got a couple interviews, but the lingerie place was the only one offering enough money to make it worth it because they needed a guy to haul around boxes in the back, and someone had just quit. I was there for maybe a week, when the guy who used to do that job came back. There were some politics going on. Long story short—he got his job back, but they couldn’t fire me, so they offered me a sales floor position, but let me keep my backroom wage. It’s a thrilling tale of how a straight guy got what can, with very little contention, be called a girl’s job,” he smirked.

  I nodded, figuring that was a safe enough move. It was the best way of 1) not seeming like I was judging his job and 2) not letting on that I was excited that we had official word that he was straight. “What did you go to school for?”

  “Biology,” Dieter said. “But I didn’t finish. ”

  I took a deep draft from my rum and coke, not sure how to respond to that. Dropping out of college and ending up in retail was the fate that my friends and I had all threatened each other with whenever a test or a deadline was looming and we weren’t prepared for it. But Dieter didn’t need to know that.

  And despite myself, I heard Carla’s voice in my head from months and months ago back when we were still talking: “You could pick up guys, good guys, all the time and you always throw them away for stupid little reasons.”

  Isaiah had been a big enough and a completely justifiable reason. A couple of the guys since then I had dumped or never called back because I just genuinely didn’t like them, but there were a couple in there that maybe had been rash decisions. I could admit that. A few guys I had let fall by the wayside because they were just a little too complicated, or had too much baggage for me to bother with. Not when I had my own stuff to deal with first.

  The fact that Dieter hadn’t finished college didn’t have any bearing on his dateability. He was cute and charming and what the hell did I care what sort of money he made? What sort of Stepford Bitch was I?

  “And I’ve kind of been hanging out ever since. I figure why spend tens of thousands of dollars on an education if I don’t know what I’m going to do with it?”

  “Do you ever think about going back?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  “Sure. Yeah,” he said. “Just… gotta find my reason to be there first. You know?”

  “Maybe something artistic,” I suggested, mostly just thinking out loud. I quickly grinned at him and followed up with, “Since you seem to have such an eye for color,” in a light tone so that he wouldn’t think I was getting preachy.

  He laughed, a deep, sincere and very attractive chuckle. “And shape. And line. There’s a lot more to underwear than you think.”

  I was feeling warm and oddly comfortable, despite the nagging feeling that I could all too easily screw this conversation up.

  “But enough of the basic, boring stuff. I have an important question.”

  I bit my lip. I wasn’t far enough out of the dating game to just assume that he was about to ask me to come home with him. Not after one conversation, even such a pleasant one. This was Minnesota, not Jersey Shore or Sex in the City.

  “And what is your important question?” I asked him.

  “If you absolutely, inescapably had to choose,” he asked, his grin wide and showing off his white teeth. “Would you rather lose and arm or a leg?”

  I laughed out loud. An entirely unflattering hiccup/chirp noise. “This is your important question?”

  “Extremely important,” he said, bowing his head in mock seriousness.

  I looked into the ice swirling in my drink and laughed again. “I think I’d choose to lose a leg, but because I’d rather lose a foot than a hand. Actually I’d rather lose a foot than lose a thumb.”

  He laughed. “Excellent answer. Well reasoned.”

  “What about you?” I countered. He wagged a finger at me.

  “No repeats.” He took a gulp from his glass, still smiling hugely. “You have to come up with your own.”

  I crossed and uncrossed my legs. Drank the slightly coke-flavored ice water at the bottom of my glass. Thought hard. Came up with the perfect one.

  “Do you want my phone number?”

  He laughed again, a huge, hearty guffaw that made a couple of women on the other side of him jump at the noise.

  I held my half smile rigidly, as though holding a pose for a camera. He absolutely did not seem like the kind of guy who would laugh like this and mean it cruelly, but it was still a somewhat alarming laugh. His eyes lit up and he reached up to tug at his shirtsleeve, which just made it snap a little further up his arm. This close I could see that the dark blue and green on his arm created little flowers.

  Odd tattoo for a guy, I thought.

  “Good follow up question,” he said, wiggling his phone out of incredibly tight jeans. “Yes. I would love to have your phone number.”

  I gave it to him and he turned the screen to show me that he’d spelled my name right. He’d also typed
a little smiley face behind it. That gave me a warm feeling that started in my stomach and bloomed outward.

  He pressed ‘call’ and I dug my phone out of my purse. He laughed when it turned out that we both had the same cellphone case: a translucent green plastic shell that I had picked out because the iPhone white gave it the same pretty green as leaves fresh out of the bud. I thought it was appropriate for spring. I saved the number, then quickly hid my phone back in my purse before he could see the truly sociopathic number of texts that I’d gotten from Hailey.

  “What about you?” I asked, snapping my purse shut. “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

  He sighed. “I would never normally piggyback on a previous question this way—it is against all of the official rules—but I have to open the store tomorrow and it’s almost midnight.” He set his hand over mine. “Can I walk you to your car?”

  I nodded, slung my purse over my shoulder and felt a thrill spike through me as he took my hand in his large, strong, and now dry one. I wondered if maybe I should try to peg down an actual date, time, activity and all, but it seemed more in keeping with the spirit of a totally random meeting to just let the cards keep falling where they may.

  I clicked my unlock button, and he brought me to the door of my slightly shabby, but still totally functional Saturn Ion. We stood by the side of my car and I wondered for a moment if he would kiss me.

  “I used to have a car like this,” he said.

  “Used to?”

  “Yeah. My mom parked it on the wrong side of the street during a show emergency. Plow dragged it nearly five blocks before a wheel caught someone’s mail box and flipped it upside down.”

  I covered my mouth, trying to keep myself from laughing, but he was chuckling too.

  “At least it didn’t smash anyone else’s car. It dropped right into an empty section of the road. A better parallel park than I ever managed.”

  I couldn’t stifle my laugh that time, but he echoed me.

  “Well,” he said, once we’d calmed down a little. “This was a lovely evening.”

  He took a step toward me and I licked my lips in anticipation. He lifted my hand, which was still sitting loosely in his, up to his lips and pressed them to the sensitive skin at the back of my hand.

  My stomach graduated from butterflies to full-on somersaults.

  “I’m so glad that I ran into you, tonight, Roxanne.”

  “You too,” I managed. He turned and went off to his own car. I collapsed, shivering, into my driver’s seat. I told myself the shivers were because I was underdressed for a cool spring night, but part of it was definitely Dieter.

  It was silly, girly, and immature and I was totally okay with that. I hadn’t had this type of feeling after a first encounter with a guy in such a long time that I had forgotten how exciting it could be.

  Chapter Five

  I was stone cold asleep when Dieter texted me in the morning, inquiring which foods I would ban if I had the power. I answered “mushrooms” before I was even fully awake. I hated the idea of eating actual rot, but people kept putting sauce on it and putting it in with real food, like pasta or stir-fry. We exchanged a couple more questions back and forth, before he asked me if he could take me out that night. We set up a time and a restaurant and then he had to get back to work.

  I finally went through my enormous backlist of texts from Hailey, which, true to form were almost a stream of consciousness report on what she and Noah had been doing while I was talking to Dieter. Like finishing my fries and talking about his ass.

  I had been planning to sleep in, work for a few hours, then convince myself that I deserved an afternoon off. The dark side of working from home is that there is always something you should be doing and you have to really force yourself to believe that you can have some time off.

  I had only been planning to take half the day off, but with the promise of a nice evening ahead of me I decided that I deserved an entire day off. I hadn’t taken one in weeks.

  I grabbed my neglected yoga mat out of my closet and went to an easy class at the studio down the street. Had a salad. Spent an absolutely asinine amount of time picking out clothes with my music turned up a little too loud. Had another light lunch because a salad is not, strictly speaking, an actual meal.

  Dieter and I were meeting at a vintage themed place down the street. Not exactly full on Happy Days diner style, just cute and retro. Classic Rock, but no jukebox, which pretty much summed up the atmosphere as well. It was close enough that, despite the light rain, I didn’t mind walking in heels, and I could tell it had paid off when I noticed the way I caught Dieter’s eye as I walked toward him in my three inch heels, knee length sea foam green dress, and little jean jacket.

  His jaw slackened, just a touch, and his gaze started at my feet and traveled upward. His smile widened as he went.

  No wonder he was good at his job. He sure as Hell knew how to make a woman feel beautiful.

  He hugged me when I finally reached him, letting his fingertips trail down my arm in a way that gave me the chills and taking my hand gently in his own.

  “You are absolutely stunning,” he said quietly. I bit my lip and smoothed my dress down a little bit.

  “Thank you. You’re looking pretty sharp yourself.”

  It was charming how much he’d dressed up to take me out to dinner at a relatively casual place. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt with an open collar, a light gray vest, very tight jeans and red sneakers. It was a little Justin-Timberlake-meets-Ellen-Degeneres, but he had the body to make it work.

  He tugged me into the restaurant. The hostess sat us near the window and lit the candle between us. She shot me a wink that I took to be congratulatory. I was having a nice dinner with a freaking gorgeous guy. He dressed well and had a nice smile and pretty eyes. I was clearly doing something right.

  I sipped my water out of the deep glasses that had been sitting at the table when we sat down. I felt a little self-conscious because Dieter was still smiling at me and a little nervous because I could not think of a topic of conversation.

  I grabbed my menu as a cover, but it turned out there was no reason to worry.

  “So, what’s your favorite book?” he asked. I laughed a delivered a much practiced speech about why Les Miserables is the best book ever written. He responded with his own speech about Fahrenheit 451.

  The longer we talked the easier it got. Our drinks came and we chatted about our siblings. When our food came he set his foot against mine and we talked about all the places we’d like to visit while I traced the tip of my toe from his ankle to his calf.

  He started clearing his throat a lot as I touched him under the table. I couldn’t stop smiling. He smirked at me when I suggested splitting a desert and I slid the point of my toe over the arch of his foot until he squirmed and ordered us a slice of cherry pie and coconut ice-cream. Rain splashed against the windows and the topic turned to current events.

  It turned out that he was smart and passionate on top of his nice body and handsome face.

  A few hours ago, dancing around my place to some band I hadn’t actually listened to since college, I’d been vaguely hoping that he’d kiss me, and now I was hoping it would be a little more than that.

  I excused myself after I’d finished my half of the ice cream. I “went to powder my nose” and popped a piece of wintermint gum in my mouth as soon as I was out of sight. Then I used the facilities, spit out the gum and returned, minty fresh, to the table, just as Dieter tucked his card into the little leather folder and handed it off to our waitress.

  I faltered a little. I had intended to pay. I knew what minimum wage was and hadn’t expected him to just take the check.

  Oh, well. I’d pay next time.

  And then I noticed that it wasn’t raining anymore so much as deluging.

  “Uh-oh,” I chuckled, slipping back into my seat. “Looks like we’ve got a little more time to kill.” I grinned widely and slid my feet forward, ready to g
o back to teasing him. The way it made him flush and squirm was a turn on. But my feet didn’t meet anything. He’d tucked his feet under his chair, out of my reach.

  He chuckled. “Mhmnn, my turn.” He held his hand out to me palm facing upwards and flexed his fingers. “Give me your hand.”

  I grinned and obliged.

  He gently placed my hand on the tabletop, knuckles down. He traced his fingertip lightly over the fleshy part of my palm, the part just underneath my fingers.

  I tried very, very hard to stay as still as I could. It tickled, but it was more than just a sensation across my hand. He was looking in my eyes while he did it, a half-smile hanging expectantly. He knew he could turn me on like this as much as I’d known exactly why the soft graze of my toe across his skin made him gulp his water. It was a soft touch that promised more, but it was small and ostensibly innocent enough to be executed while surrounded by people in a packed restaurant.

  He swept his finger suddenly across the sensitive middle of my palm. I gasped and clenched my hand tightly around his finger.

  “Maybe we should get another drink and wait out the rain,” he suggested. His voice was quiet, but intense.

  It made me gulp before I replied, “It’s starting to slack off. Give it another couple minutes to wind down and we could walk back to my place for that drink.”

  I slid my fist off his finger, more suggestively than necessary, but I wanted the message to be clear. It had been a while for me, and I liked this guy, and I still probably wouldn’t sleep with him on the first date, but wow did I want to fool around. I set my hand back down on the table and Dieter went back to tracing the lines of my palm while I sipped my ice water until the downpour weakened back to a drizzle.

  “Alright, better hurry before it kicks up again.”

  I slipped my hand into Dieter’s. He spun around when we were outside the door so his back was toward me. He crouched down.

  “Come on,” he said. “Too many puddles for those shoes.”