by Niecey Roy
“Oh, okay,” he answered and hurried to the counter. He gave the customer a wide smile. “Welcome to Copy Masters, We Master You Faster!”
“William, save me the spiel. I called two days ago to have someone pick these fliers up and there they sat in the office when I came in this morning. Can you tell me why that is?” The woman demanded and set the fliers in question on the counter.
“I, uh, I’m really, um, not sure, Mrs. Mulberry,” William sputtered and Rach looked up, worried about the nervousness in his voice.
She started to get up to go to him for support, but Leah said, “And then he opened the car door for me and helped me inside.”
“As if you don’t know how to get in and out of a car. You’ve been doing it for years.” William would be fine. Sometimes dealing with things on one’s own was the best way to rise above adversity. When Mrs. Mulberry went in search of her cell phone ringing inside her purse, Rach gave William an encouraging thumbs-up and turned back to the project on her desk. She finished her first unblemished pamphlet of the day and in her excitement, cried out, “Yes!”
Only seventy-five to go. Hadn’t the company heard of the new “going green” trend? They could have saved time and money by distributing a PDF version to everyone’s e-mail and saved her the paper cut.
“Ouch.” She shoved the finger into her mouth and sucked the throbbing, miniscule wound. As luck would have it, she’d been hired the very week the binding machine had gone caput.
“Then he took me to an Italian restaurant and ordered for me,” Leah gushed, clippers buzzing in the background.
“These need to be done today,” Mrs. Mulberry said after silencing her phone.
“Of course.” William nodded emphatically.
She gave William another smile of encouragement but he still looked like he might pee his pants. Rach left him to it and finished another pamphlet. This time she didn’t yell in elation. It had already lost the excitement and now it was tedious work. “Wow, he ordered for you? That would have been annoying. As if you don’t know how to say ‘spaghetti, please’.”
“Then we shared dessert, a cheesecake. It was so romantic,” Leah finished. Despite her anxiety over Leah’s newly found love with a complete stranger, Rach smiled, picturing the happy grin on Leah’s face and the faraway look in her eyes. No question about it, she was a goner.
“I would have told him to get his own cheesecake. Those fancy restaurants never have big enough slices for one person, let alone two people,” Rach teased, stacking the fourth pamphlet on the small pile.
She looked up and found William and the customer staring at her as if she were committing customer service suicide. Who would have thought a copier service would be so demanding?
“I’ve got to go, there are people staring at me. I’ll have to call you later,” Rach whispered into the phone. Leah said goodbye and Rach snapped the phone shut. Hurrying to the counter, she tried a polite smile at the woman who once again stared right through her while she chomped on her gum. “Would you like me to help, William?”
He beamed at her. “Mrs. Mulberry would like these copies in color and folded in half. This will be a good training session for you.”
The woman gasped and looked like she might fall over. “I think not, young man. You know how important these flyers are. I’ll not have a—a beginner messing these up.”
William withered under her gaze and Rach bit back a reprimand. What was with this lady, anyway? Poor William looked like he would rather be swallowed up by a black hole than deal with Mrs. Mulberry.
Rach plastered on a smile and said cheerfully, “I run the machine very well, so you needn’t worry about a thing.”
Mrs. Mulberry attacked her gum. “I sure hope so. These need to be finished before noon; I still have to put mailing labels on them. I hope I am leaving this in good hands, William. Your employee had better not screw this up.”
Rach bit her tongue and picked the flier up off the counter. She read it out loud, “Welcome to our fundraiser.”
The woman worked for the local country club and at twenty dollars a plate anyone could attend a fundraiser for the survivors of the Midwest flooding.
“Yes,” Mrs. Mulberry snapped. “And I have people depending on me to get these out today.”
Not impressed by the woman’s aggressive behavior, Rach gave a small whistle. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?”
Oops, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. William’s eyes popped wide open.
The woman balked, snapping her mouth shut. Speechless.
Thankfully, the phone rang and Rach excused herself to answer it.
“We’ll get these done, don’t you worry, Mrs. Mulberry. They’ll be perfect and ready to pick up in a couple of hours,” William promised.
After the woman left, Rach turned to William. “Pleasant lady. Is she a frequent customer?”
His shoulders sagged and he nodded. “Yeah. She’s a real hard person to please.”
“We’ll get the fliers done, no biggie,” she assured him with a pat on his shoulder. Rach took the flier, on a mission to do her best. She swept her curls up into a messy ponytail and got to work, nursing the finger with the paper cut. A two-sided color copy folded in half—even a child could do it.
****
Apparently a child could have done a better job, so said Mrs. Mulberry when she’d returned at noon smelling of passion fruit gum and sporting the same unfriendly expression she’d left with earlier that afternoon. And not only were the fliers wrong, in her opinion Rach and William were the biggest imbeciles she’d ever met.
Rach could have sworn she’d pressed the double-sided button when she’d printed the fliers. She left the copier to do the five hundred copies and went to finish up the pamphlets. A sweet, little talkative nun from the Catholic Church had come in and Rach had gotten wrapped up in helping her pick out stationary for the church administration. When she went back to check on the fliers, there were one thousand one-sided copies sitting in the output tray. Five minutes ‘til the hour, William panicked and Rach was calming him down when Mrs. Mulberry arrived.
“You could staple the pages together and save some trees,” Rach suggested. It sounded like a great idea. She pasted on a big fake smile, hoping to charm the woman with some optimism.
No such luck. Mrs. Mulberry gawked. Turning her fury on William, he cringed like a baby kitten in the eye of a snarling bulldog.
“How could you let this happen? Are you daft?!” Mrs. Mulberry raged. Rach narrowed her eyes and nudged him to the side to take the heat. His face had gone from pale to shades of crimson her own redhead genes would have trouble matching. Beside Rach, William gripped the counter so hard his knuckles turned white.
“It’s okay, William, just breathe,” Rach soothed, patting him on his bony back.
If he didn’t remember to suck in air soon, she’d be performing CPR.
“I think you’re taking this a little bit to the extreme,” Rach reasoned, her patience waning.
“Do you have any idea what this does to my deadline? I can’t believe I entrusted these fliers to you! I don’t know how you people run a business—it’s unacceptable!”
William’s parents made their entrance and Mrs. Mulberry found a new target. A good thing, because poor William was almost comatose.
“Mr. Thompson, if I had known you left important projects for trainees and your son, who apparently hasn’t a wink of common sense in his head, I would have taken my business to Happy Printing around the corner. Look at this,” she demanded, waving two of the copies that should have been on one sheet under the man’s nose. “This is a disgrace. How can someone screw up a double-sided copy?”
How indeed, Rach pondered as she sidled to her workstation, but William caught her on the move. He looked like he might throw up any second. Rach mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and he shrugged in response.
Mr. Thompson—a spitting image of William, minus the metal grille—glanced nervously at Rach while
his very unhappy customer did her best to degrade his mentality. His cheeks were the same shade of red as William’s and by his skittering glances everywhere but Mrs. Mulberry, he suffered the same confrontational issues as his son. Mrs. Thompson, sensing both her son’s and her husband’s angst, stepped in to handle the tense situation.
The pretty, slim brunette assured Mrs. Mulberry the copies would be finished, for free, in less than twenty minutes.
“It had better be,” Mrs. Mulberry warned and stormed out.
All eyes turned to Rach.
“I am so sorry,” she apologized and swung her purse over her shoulder. “This was all my fault. I feel horrible about it. I’m just going to go now—I don’t think I’m a good fit for this business. Thank you so, so much for giving me a chance, though.” She walked quickly to the door before she changed her mind. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else who doesn’t cause so much…trouble. Feel free to stick my check in the mail.”
Rach snuck a wink at William before slipping on her sunglasses. The attention perked him up a bit, making her feel a little better for the stress she’d caused him. His parents didn’t try and stop her—not a big surprise after the scene with Mrs. Mulberry.
William raised his hand in a weak wave and she gave him one last smile then bolted. Rach hit the first gas station on the way home. With a cherry slushy in hand, she considered her situation. She wasn’t bitter, but elated. She couldn’t imagine having to deal with another customer like Mrs. Mulberry.
What she needed now was to move on to something her mom could brag about. Rach needed a challenge and not of the copy machine sort. At one time in her life, that something had been social work.
Sitting in the gas station parking lot, the memory of the day Health and Human Services called to offer her the job came flooding back. The celebration had been a pan of her mom’s lasagna, homemade garlic bread and a German chocolate cake with coconut frosting. After years of college and studying her butt off, Rach’s goal had been achieved.
And she’d been good at it. One mistake—did she need to torture herself because of it? Was it possible the real mistake had been in quitting social work?
Rach shook her head. After coming-to in an ambulance with the memory of two frightened children cowering in a corner of the room, the decision to leave had come easy enough. If those children had been hurt worse than the bruises on their faces...
No, she wasn’t ready to return. Maybe she never would be. She still had two months before her leave of absence was over. For right now, she needed to find out if there was something else out there.
She reached for the newspaper on the chair beside her and shuffled through the pages for the classifieds. Keeping an eye on the clock so she wouldn’t be late for the meatloaf and action movie marathon at her parents’ house, Rach searched for a new job.
Chapter Eight
The next week Rach spent her time scanning classifieds, calling every staffing agency in a hundred mile radius, and crossing her fingers that something amazing would fall out of the sky and make her dreams come true.
Nothing ever did.
Having just left another unsuccessful interview for a position she had no experience in and a job offer she wouldn’t dare hold her breath for, she was all dressed up with nowhere to work. So at Leah’s urgent request, Rach was on her way to The Martini Bar where she hoped to drown her working-man blues—or rather, non-working-man blues—in an extra dirty martini. Or two or three...
Every night that week Leah had been on a date with Rick, and though Rach was happy for her, she also missed her friend. When Leah did call, the conversation was Rick this and Rick that and their promising future—blah, blah, blah.
Duran Duran’s “Hungry like the Wolf” played softly on the speakers and the hum of conversation and laughter filled the two-story brownstone. Soft, yellow light from wall sconces cast shadows, creating privacy for tables and booths made of scarred wood. A spiral staircase of black iron in the corner made its way to the second floor, which was narrow and crawled around three walls of the room, wide enough for booths and space for waitresses to deliver drinks and food. Black iron railing provided a barrier of safety and a view of the first floor below.
Leah sat tucked into Rick’s side at a round table at the back of the first floor, their chairs pulled snug together. Her gaze was captivated by Rick and whatever he was saying, completely oblivious to the world around her. Rach considered gagging to get her attention.
Love existed and she believed in it. While growing up, it had thrived between her parents, and their marriage of twenty-nine years was still going strong. Mostly it was the green-eyed monster causing her resentment for anything kissy. With all the chaos in her life, she didn’t care to put any effort into finding a relationship. The possibility of a crappy relationship at this juncture in her life would not bolster her ego.
Rach waved over a waitress and ordered a martini then turned back to the couple at the table. Dropping her purse into an empty chair, she sat down across from them and said, “Four dates in a row, huh?”
Leah beamed at her from across the table. “Rach, this is Rick Larsen. Rick, this is my best friend, Rachel Bennett.”
The man was clearly smitten with her best friend. It was written all over his face and defined by the puppy dog eyes and wide grin. She smiled at him, relieved the attraction wasn’t one-sided. “It’s nice to meet you again.”
“You, too. I’ve heard so much about you,” he answered with an easy smile, squeezing Leah in closer to his side. Any closer and she’d be on his lap. He reached out to shake Rach’s hand with his free one.
“I’ve met you already, remember? My first vision of you was of your tongue down Leah’s throat,” Rach teased.
He blushed and Leah said, “Oh, stop.”
“Okay, okay, but I’ve been dying to say that for a week now,” Rach laughed. The waitress returned with her drink and Rach picked it up to take a sip. Extra dirty, extra olives, perfect. She smiled and sat back in her chair, feeling better than she had all week. At least she was out of the house. She turned to Rick and said, “I’m really glad you don’t pick your nose, and Leah says you’re not a dumbass.”
Rick chuckled and leaned down to kiss Leah on the forehead. She was tiny next to him—he was as tall as his brother, but less thick with muscle. “I try not to be—a dumbass, that is. I’m not saying I never am, though.”
Rach eyed him thoughtfully and nodded. “Well, you must be all right. If you were a cheese ball bachelor you wouldn’t have admitted something like that. How long have you been a realtor?”
“About seven years. My uncle was in the business so I had a good mentor getting started. I enjoy it.” He smiled at Rach, but his eyes were for Leah as his hand idly rubbed her arm. .
“So seven years, and I assume college…that puts you about our age, then?” Rach asked.
Leah perked up. “That’s why he looked familiar. He was a grade ahead of us and went to the high school on the north side of town. We started talking about high school and we even know some of the same people. We must have seen each other back then. It’s so amazing we recognized each other after all these years!”
“That’s great.” Rach smiled and swirled her olive spear around in the martini. She patted Rick on the hand he rested on the table next to his drink and said, “I’m happy for you both.”
And she was. Leah had never been so taken with any of the guys she’d dated in the past. But tonight, Rach was a third wheel. It didn’t happen often because in the past, relationships for Rach and Leah didn’t last long. And usually any relationship they’d been in they’d still made time for girls’ nights. The difference with this new relationship was evident.
“So what’s your brother do?” she asked, thinking about the college-in-pajamas option.
“Sells cars,” Rick answered, distracted by a piece of Leah’s hair which he swept behind her ear. Rach tilted her head. Car salesman? Selling cars and he could afford a big house
in a new subdivision? She’d expected him to be the president of a bank or maybe a franchise owner, not a shady car salesman. She sniffed and turned to hail the waitress.
Her eyes were met with the breathtaking sight of a pair of slacks hugging a very nice butt. She followed the muscles under a form fitting collared shirt, all the way up to broad shoulders and thick neck of an athlete. The man turned and her eyes hovered for a moment on a full-lipped smile. Too bad Angry Hot Guy was the owner of the hot butt and sexy smile.
Slithering toward him was a gorgeous brunette in dangerously high heels, wearing an expensive gray dress belted at the waist. She draped her curvaceous body against the much longer length of Craig’s in a hug too intimate for public. His large arms wrapped around the woman’s slim body in an easy hug.
Rach groaned and hunched low over the table to hiss at Leah, “You invited the enemy?”
Leah giggled and rolled her eyes. “You are so silly sometimes. He’s not the enemy, he’s Rick’s brother.”
“Depends on one’s perspective,” Rach muttered, crossing stubborn arms over her chest. Leah ignored her moody frown. “I can’t believe you invited him. Because of him I’m driving a car that sounds like a freight train.”
Rick gazed over her head, his lips tugged up at the corners. “Funny, I’m pretty sure he’s thinking the same thing right now.”
Even with drawn brows and disgruntled expression he was attractive. The fact did not improve her mood. It was too bad the woman hadn’t taken him to the opposite side of the room.
Without a greeting, he sat down in the only empty chair at the table which happened to be the resting place for her purse. She snatched it out from under him just in time and clutched it to her lap.
He ignored her get-lost glare and turned a slow, sexy smile on Leah. “Hey, pretty lady.”