"It's a sweet deal, that's why. She won't have to compete against us for business, and she can go do something else with her time, invest the money. She does okay, but our sources show she hasn't got a lot of savings. This would provide that, some freedom and some security."
"Seems to me she has lots of freedom," Pearce said under his breath.
"What? Did you say something?"
"No, no, go on." Pearce said, but didn't mean.
The meeting droned on for another hour, mostly he thought so that his father could show that he owned them on Saturday too. What was that his dad had said about freedom for the Cynderella gal? He sure felt like he didn't have any.
Once the meeting was finally over they stood and began to clear out. Pearce glanced at the page he had been mindlessly drawing on during the meeting. It was covered in pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. He tore the page off, and crumpled it up. Then he paused. He un-crumpled it and folded it carefully and stuck in in his blazer pocket. He didn't know why exactly.
*******
CYNDI
Cyndi called Gooch from the parking lot. "I'm not going in, I changed my mind."
It was the eve of her first Tinder date and she was already sorry and she hadn't even gotten inside yet. She had picked him for terrible reasons really. Like for instance he hadn't said anything offensive right off the bat. Which wasn't a resounding endorsement, but it was less common than she would have guessed. There had been no mention of sex play involving cotton candy, which one guy had suggested. He hadn't said anything about piercings in unspeakable places, so he was in. Terrible reasoning.
"Why aren't you going in?"
"It was a mistake, I'm not cut out for this."
"For dating? It's hard to get anywhere if you don't date. I mean unless you want to join a cult and be a sister-wife or something."
"No, this meeting strangers out and then..."
"Everyone is a stranger until you meet them. Go inside, have fun. Call me when it's over."
"Okay," Cyndi sighed. "Fine. Just, fine..."
"You'll do great, it's going to be fun. Look, I'll send you a bail out text in 25 minutes, if it's awful you'll have a way out, and if not, I'll talk to you later."
Cyndi breathed a small sigh of relief, it was a lifeline anyway, if not a whole life boat. "Great, thank you," she said, and she straightened her skirt, checked her lipstick in the flip down mirror on her visor and headed inside.
She sat at the bar and ordered her apple-tini and scanned the crowd. None of the men at the bar looked familiar, but then who knew what picture the guy was using. She checked her watch, she was a few minutes early anyway.
She kept her eye on the door, and spotted him before he saw her. He looked a lot like his picture, to her relief. A point in his favor.
She caught his eye as he approached the bar and he said "Cyndi?"
"Yes, Poe, did I get that right? As in Edgar Allen?"
"Yep," he laughed, "mom was a librarian. What can I say?"
Well, she thought, librarian is normal, maybe his mom was pretty normal? That's good, right? Normal parents, normal men?
They chatted quietly for a while. Cyndi relaxed and then her phone binged. It was her bailout text and she texted back that things were fine.
"Was that your bailout text?"
"What?" Cyndi asked, she could feel the blush in her cheeks.
"I always like to at least get past the bailout text. I don't blame you, men don't have the market cornered on weird you know? Some of the women I've been with are a little crackers. You get used to it," he paused, "shall we have dinner?"
"Sure, I'd like that, thank you."
As they walked to their table Cyndi noted his clothing, nice shoes, no white socks, his pants fell at the right length, he had a nice butt. So far, so good.
"I'm Ally, I'll be your waitress this evening, may I start you with an appetizer?"
"We'll have the clams casino, as a starter, then the braised lamb shanks for dinner."
Cyndi was so startled she didn't know what to say. Clams and lamb? At the same meal? And how did he know whether she liked them or not?
"Um, I'm not sure," she started to interrupt.
"Well, I am, I've been here before, and those are their best two dishes. The chef and I are friends from way back, you'll enjoy it."
"But clams and then..." she started, but he interrupted her again.
"No, it's exactly right, you'll see."
And from there, the date just went downhill. He told her about his sports career, starting with Little League and up through high school, where he sat on the bench for all of senior year. His love of snakes and spiders and his collections of photos of them. She was certain that the only thing creepier than photos would be specimens, and she was half waiting for him to pull one out of his pocket.
When it came time for dessert, Poe offered to split a piece of cake with her "We have to watch our figures don't we?"
Cyndi stared at him in stunned silence. Had he just made a weight reference, on the first (and what would definitely be the only) date? She was already feeling vaguely ill from the dinner and appetizer combination but he didn't know that, surely she deserved her own piece of cake after this, "No, I don't think so, but thank you."
"Oh, I insist, the chocolate cake here is to die for, and I know how you girls are about chocolate."
"How us girls are?" Could this be any worse? Yes, she knew it could have been so she just focused on getting the hell out of there.
"I have to be at work early tomorrow, so if you don't mind, I'm going to have to decline. In fact I think I need to be going now."
He looked at his watch, "Oh, it's early, stick around."
"No, really, I don't think so."
"I brought my cuffs," he whispered, leaning forward and almost dragging his tie through his dirty plate.
"HUH?" she gasped.
"My cuffs I brought them, you girls like that BSMD stuff, right?"
"I think you mean BDSM, and no, no I don't think I do."
"Oh, well," he sighed, "let me see, your half of the check..."
Cyndi had practically stopped listening at this point, this was too much. Dutch? Really?
"Here," she said as she threw down some bills on the table, "this will more than cover my half, thanks, have a good night."
"I'll call you!" he shouted cheerily after her.
"Don't bother," she whispered under her breath as she hurried to her car. Pulling out her phone she texted Gooch right away, 'Never again for dinner, only for coffee. Worst date ever. Get out the ice cream.'
Gooch laughed until her sides shook as Cyndi described her date.
"It's not funny you know, I'm never doing this again!"
"Yes you are, you know you will. You have to kiss a lot of frogs.." she dissolved in laughter again.
"Okay fine," Cyndi said "but I am done with dinner dates. To think I shaved my legs for that. I'll never get that time back you know?"
"Save it for your book, girl."
"I'm not writing a book, thanks."
"Well, maybe you should consider it, that was hilarious."
"Coffee, just coffee and a well planned escape route from now on."
"Good, great actually. Give me your phone, we're going to do this again."
"NO! Not tonight!"
"Yep," said Gooch digging in Cyndi's bag for her phone. "Gotta get right back on that horse, c'mon, let's get swiping."
Twenty-five minutes later, Gooch held the phone up in the air like the Lion King holding Simba, "We've got a winner here! You're going to love this one, just you wait and see."
"I'm not getting married, so shut up and stop telling me how much I'm going to love this guy," Cyndi said to her best friend.
"No, fine, you're not. You're getting coffee. I've got it all set up."
"You messaged pretending to be me?!"
"Were you going to do it?"
"NO, no I was not!"
"Well then, of course I did. Som
eone had to."
"No one had to, I...oh never mind. Fine, what have you done?"
"Coffee, at CoffeeLlama, tomorrow at four."
"Four, why four?"
"So you can segue into dinner, of course."
"I'm not having dinner with him. The last guy had handcuffs!"
"Eh, not such a big deal. He didn't put them on you, right? Whatever you say, this is the guy, I'm telling you."
"Being easy isn't as easy as I thought it would be."
"You just haven't had a lot of practice, it gets uh, well, you know, easier."
"Bold words there Gooch, bold words."
Coffee tomorrow at 4, she wasn't really interested, but what did she have to lose except an hour of her time? She might as well do that as watch TV re-runs.
In the meantime she was back at Park Place today, complete with her basket of pumpkin muffins. Kind of theme-y she figured, but worth it. She finished Mrs. Entwhistle's apartment in record time and sat and shared a muffin with her.
As she stepped into the elevator she tried to tell herself that she just wanted to get to the penthouse because she enjoyed it so much, and she hoped she could have a little spare time to look out the windows. But she was lying to herself, that feeling of butterflies in the pit of her stomach was the start of a crush. Which was crazy.
So, did she have a crush on the apartment? The owner (sight unseen), the what? The view?
Thinking about it made her head hurt, she leaned her forehead against the cool metal walls of the elevator car. It stopped softly at the top floor and the doors slid open.
Cyndi stepped out and crossed to the door where she used the keycard to open it. As soon as she was inside the butterfly feeling vanished and it was replaced by a sense of peace. As if she were home.
Shaking her head to dismiss that bit of craziness she went to the kitchen where she deposited the muffins on the counter.
Set out to greet her were a bunch of very ripe bananas, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder and baking soda, a loaf pan and a note.
Cynderella, I figured if I left everything out for banana bread, then you'd have to clean it all up. And you might as well bake as you put it all in the away, right? I'd love to come home to the smell of banana bread tonight. Here's hoping you'll take pity on a poor hapless bachelor and make this one small wish come true.
Pearce
Cyndi smiled as she read the note. She was pretty sure some part of her should be offended, but she wasn't. She had been bringing him baked goods after all, so he wasn't putting her in a mold she hadn't already put herself in.
She hesitated for just a moment, then set the oven to pre-heat. This was going to be kind of fun. Cyndi opened the tall, wooden, window fronted cabinets and pulled out a mixer and bowl. Then she picked through the drawers until she had a rubber spatula and some measuring cups. The drawers slid open like a dream, so smooth. Not like at her place where she had to yank. Everything matched and appeared almost completely unused.
The kitchen had a perfect triangle for cooking, between the fridge, the sink and the ovens. She was in her element.
She hummed to herself as she gave the batter a final stir and set the timer on her phone. She set about cleaning the kitchen and wiping down the counters then moved to the other rooms.
Before she knew it the bread was done, she set it out to cool and finished cleaning his place. She wiped down the leather furniture in the living room and vacuumed. In the bedroom she freshened the sheets, amazing cotton and so super soft, and then she did the bathrooms. She looked longingly at the shower, after baking, and cleaning two places she could use some cleaning up she was sure.
But that would be crazy, that's all she'd need, him finding her here. So she tucked some stray wisps of hair behind her ears, and settled for splashing cold water on her arms and face.
In the kitchen she set the muffins and the freshly baked bread together on the island and left a note that said simply: Enjoy.
Back in the elevator she leaned her head on the cool surface again and thought about her upcoming date. She'd really sooner stay home and bake something, listen to some music, drink some wine. This was it, she wasn't cut out to be easy, or have flings, she was just going to have to let Gooch know the experiment was a bust.
But first, she had to have a cup of coffee with a stranger.
****
PEARCE
Pearce got home and smelled it right away, the banana bread. It conjured up visions of his childhood, not that his mother had known what to do in the kitchen, but his Nana had been a fine baker. It was from her that he learned to love breads, cookies, cakes and pastries. They had shared toast with home made jam and coffee on Saturday mornings.
His father hadn't been home all that much, and mom had her hands full with him, and the other kids and society stuff. So, Nana had stepped in and cared for them, and she made it clear that she enjoyed it. And enjoyed him.
All that from the smell of banana bread, Pearce thought to himself that maybe that was a little too much introspection and he should head back to see Dr. Hadley of the funny pills and the 50 minute hour.
What he really needed was a partner, he knew that. Someone to come home to, a reason to be here. He never felt like it was really home. Except for maybe right now. No, definitely right now.
****
CYNDI
"Are you all ready for your date?" Gooch was on the phone.
"Gooch, what are you, my mother? Yes, of course."
"I don't think moms get their kids ready for dates."
"I wouldn't know."
"Yeah, me either, actually. I can bet your step-monster didn't get you ready for them though."
"No, no she did not. She got her daughters ready though, shopping, picked their clothes, did their hair."
Gooch paused, "That was really mean of her," she said shaking her head.
"Eh, I didn't have any dates anyway. So, if she had offered, there wouldn't have been anything for her to do. It's fine, she is who she is."
"A meanie?"
Cyndi laughed, "Yeah, kind of. I mean she made my dad happy, he just couldn't have known how she'd devote herself to, well not to being mean to me exactly, but to ignoring me. It was as if I didn't exist. And the girls took her lead, and so I felt invisible."
"Can you hear me hugging you right now?"
"Thanks, Gooch. That's one of the cool things about being a grown-up, you get to pick your friends and make them be your chosen family."
"Awww, thanks kid. Now get out there and make me proud."
"Yes ma'am!"
CoffeeLlama was in the next block but Cyndi pulled over and parked as soon as she saw a space. As proud as she was of her company she didn't really feel the need to lead with a pumpkin coach car.
Tinderella Page 3