by B. E. Baker
His voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t think of anyone I know named Manning.
“I don't mind,” I say. “What time will work for you?”
“Is eight o'clock too late?” he asks.
I scramble through the paperwork on my desk until I find the right nomination page. “That should be fine. Is your address still 236 Sunset Cove?”
“It sure is. I'll see you then.”
I hang up my phone and force myself to work for the next few hours, drafting the nomination letter, updating guidelines and rules, revising the call for volunteers and call for nomination forms, and contacting churches and other clubs to ask for both nominations and sponsor families. I should've done it all in less than two hours, but glancing at the clock every two minutes slows me down.
I never should've agreed to go to lunch with this guy today. What was I thinking? At least I'm meeting him at the restaurant, so if it goes terribly, I can fake an emergency and bail. I squat down and practically crawl past Foster's office, ignoring Heather's giggling. I'd rather Heather think I'm a coward than have to interact with Mr. Perfect and listen to him highlight all my many flaws again. Once a year is more than enough for that.
I pull up in the parking lot of La Madeleine's and cut the engine. My hands still grip the steering wheel. Am I wasting my time here? Maybe I should skip this whole thing and head for my office to get ready for my three o'clock audit meeting.
Not that I need to prepare. And my stomach's growling. I force myself to let go of the steering wheel, climb out of my car, and walk into the restaurant.
Luke's sitting on a bench just inside the door in faded jeans and a dark blue tee shirt that clings to his chest muscles, reading a book. An honest to goodness book, not something on his iPad, e-reader, or phone. Before he notices I'm here, I glance at the title. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I can't quite contain my giggle.
He glances up at me and grins, his light eyes connecting with mine. Beautiful white teeth and dimples. He took more than his share from the genetic lottery. He tucks his book into a black bag and stands up, slinging it over his shoulder. “You came. I might have been a little worried. I don't usually have to work so hard to convince someone to spend time with me.”
I can see why.
“I hope you're hungry,” I say, “because I'm starving, and it's bad first date etiquette if you eat less than me.”
“I'm always hungry. Ravenous, actually, so you can eat whatever you want without fear.”
“Good word,” I say. “This is a modified buffet so you can get whatever a hungry wolf might want.”
He mock growls. “Perfect. I have a tendency to bite whatever's close when I've waited too long to eat.”
I pick a quiche, a salad, and a bowl of fruit, but he loads his plate up with pasta, fruit, a salad, and both a chicken and mushroom friand.
“I had no idea wolves liked lettuce,” I say while the cashier rings us up.
“I make an exception when strawberries or poppy seed dressing are involved.” He hands the cashier a credit card before I can stop him. “My treat, I insist. I know you're an impressive boss lady, but I'm kind of old fashioned like that.”
“Thanks, but for future reference, I don't mind paying.”
“Neither do I. How's this? As long as I'm begging you to make time for me, you let me pay. Once you realize what a catch I am and start begging me for a date, then I'll let you pick up the tab a few times.”
Luke follows me to a table near the window, and we put our food down. I place my plate, my glass and my utensils on the table and put my tray above the trash cans to make room on the table. Luke's already eating when I return, so I dive in too. I alternate between a bite of quiche, a bite of salad, and a bite of fruit.
“What do you do for a living?” he asks.
“I'm—”
“Wait, actually, don't tell me. I bet I can guess.”
This should be good. “Sure, what do you think I do?”
“You're either a wedding planner or an accountant,” he says.
My jaw drops. “You can't know that.”
“You've sliced each item into perfectly even pieces, and you're switching from salad to that egg pie and then to fruit, evenly dividing all of it. That kind of precision means you're a perfectionist. Your impeccably clean slacks and button down shirt tell me you're not an artist. And you have a purse that more closely resembles a trendy briefcase.”
I glare at him. “I'm an accountant.”
He smirks. “What do you think I do?”
“You're fit, and you have a black bag. You're free for lunch, and you ate at a steakhouse last night, but probably not for work. You were wearing a polo shirt, and you met someone who didn't seem like a frequent flyer at the steakhouse.”
He flexes his arms. “You think I'm fit, huh?”
I roll my eyes. “And confident, so I'm going with . . . You own a gym.”
He pulls out a pen and draws on a napkin, first a few lines that form a hangman's post and noose. Then a head. “You've got the body, arms, legs, and if I'm feeling generous fingers and toes, before you die.” He puts his hands around his neck and pretends to choke.
“Really?”
“I didn't make up the rules, lady. You look like you need a little encouragement, and that first guess was way off.”
I wrack my brain. He was reading Percy Jackson while he waited. Could he have been reading it for work? “You're in publishing?”
He shakes his head and draws a torso. “Even further away. You can do better than that.”
I look at his hands. Calloused and worn. “You do something with your hands.”
He draws an arm.
“That wasn't even a job,” I protest. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“You were fishing for information. Rules are rules.”
I frown. “Carpenter? Artist?”
He draws another arm and a leg. “By traditional rules, it's one more guess until game over.” He draws a line across his throat.
Oh, come on. “Fine, you're an installation artist.”
He draws the last leg slowly, almost mournfully. “At least we had that one, epically good first date. Do you give up?”
I sigh. “I thought I had fingers and toes.”
“Maybe I'm not feeling generous.”
“You did just pay for my huge lunch.”
“True. I think that tapped me out. Since I won and you lost, you owe me some kind of forfeit.”
I roll my eyes. “What did you have in mind?”
“Lunch again tomorrow?” He grins.
“I'm not sure I can commit to anything like that until I know what you do. What if you're an assassin, or a funeral home director?”
He opens his mouth in mock horror. “I am a funeral home director.”
I shake my head. “You'd smell like formaldehyde, so obviously that's not it.”
“Umm, that's my embalmer. All I do is wear drab suits and pretend to care about all the families who are grieving.”
“It's an act? You don't really care?”
He shrugs. “You can't care about the whole world.”
“Wow, I guess not, but the people you see just lost a loved one.”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh fine, I'm not a funeral home director. I'm a beautician.”
“Oh please.”
“What?” He runs his hand through his hair. “Why couldn't I be a beautician?”
“I'm not even going to respond to that.”
He grins. “Fine, I'm not a beautician, either.”
Thank goodness. “Give me a clue, then. What's the worst part of your job?”
He taps his bottom lip, and I can’t help myself from staring at how full it is. He is way, way too good looking for me.
“I get asked to help people with things around their house for free all the time.”
My eyes widen. “You're a plumber?”
He shakes his head. “Warmer, though.”
“Yo
u're a cable guy?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“An electrician?”
“Bingo.” He grins and my heart drops. No one should have such a beautiful smile.
“How could an electrician afford dinner at Bentleys last night?”
“My, my,” he says, “aren't you a snob? As it happens, I'm excellent at what I do. I'm the master electrician on the new Citibank building.”
“Interesting.”
“Is that impressive enough to justify a second date?”
“You make me sound like a gold digger. I just wanted to make sure you weren't a stripper or something.”
“You think I could be a stripper?” His eyebrows rise.
I blush. “No, I'm not saying I thought you were. I meant, I wanted to verify you weren't something embarrassing, like a con man.”
He frowns. “I'm feeling like your past few first dates weren't so great. Besides, if I was a con man, I wouldn't own up to it, would I?”
I guess not. “Maybe I need to test your claim before I can agree to a second date. I've got a closet light that went out. If you're really an electrician, you can fix it. And this isn't me asking you for an annoying favor. I'm just doing my due diligence.”
“Did you already try replacing the light bulb?”
“Cheeky,” I say. “I'm not an absolute moron. Of course I checked that.”
He grins. “I'll fix your light if you'll help me with a little something.”
“What's that?”
“I haven't paid taxes in nine years, and the IRS gets more persistent every year.”
I bolt upright in my chair. “Are you kidding right now? That's not good news. Nine years?”
He places his hand over mine, and my heart races even faster. “You should see your face! Mary, calm down, it was a joke. Do you really have a closet light that's not working?”
I nod my head, numbly.
He snorts. “I totally thought you were kidding, too. And I'd be happy to help you with a closet light. Wouldn't even take me half an hour. I might fix it in five minutes with a wire nut.”
“So.” I clear my throat while my heart decelerates. “You do pay your taxes?”
“I'm sensing this would be a deal breaker,” he says.
“Uh,” I sigh. “Yeah, it would, which probably makes me seem a little uptight. If you had any idea how often clients walk through my door who haven't paid in years.” I shake my head.
“You must really care about your job.” He takes his last bite of pasta.
I look from my empty plate to his. He ate three entrees. Holy cow. “I love my job, but each of those people's lives are in jeopardy when they let things go that far. It's nerve-wracking. I don't know how people like that even function.”
“You work at a tax firm, then?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah, filing returns. But now I've got this big wrench I have to deal with.”
He tilts his head sideways. “Like what? I'm pretty handy with wrenches. Maybe I can help.”
I glance around the restaurant. I don't see anyone else I know, and it's not like an electrician and I would run in the same circles anyway. “I was at Bentleys last night because my boss is moving to London to revamp things there, and they needed to talk to me about it.”
He places both his hands on the table, palms down. “But you aren't moving?”
I shake my head. “My boss went to Oxford for undergrad and she's married to a Brit. She's familiar with their complicated tax code, and their culture, so she's the ideal candidate to bring our American firm's first European office up to speed.”
“How does that affect you?”
I shrug. “She's been my mentor from before I even graduated from college. She brought me out for my first internship, so obviously I'll miss her. Maybe that's why they're offering me her job, now that she's leaving. They want me to head up the entire office.”
“Isn't that wonderful?” he asks. “A big promotion, right?”
I nod. “It pays a lot more, that's for sure, but I don't know.”
“Money isn't everything.”
“People who have plenty of money say that.”
He shrugs. “I'm an electrician.”
“True.” I nod. “More money makes things easier, but I just don't know.”
“If you'd appreciate the raise, what's the problem?”
“First of all, I love what I do. I like the simple expediency of taking pieces and plugging them in, and I like helping people. The smile on someone's face when I tell them I've gotten them an extra thousand or sometimes even just an extra couple hundred dollars. The relief when someone's put off filing for years and we work through it all, and set up a payment plan they can manage. The clear-cut sense of accomplishment when I wade through a gosh awful box of receipts and notes and form them into piles, or when I hand a client their complicated business return that's tied up with a bow.”
“So turn it down,” he says. “It may be a tired cliché propagated by the rich to make poor people feel better, but it’s still true. Money really isn't everything.”
“The head of the company says if I turn this down, it won't be offered again. And I have no idea what kind of boss they might hire instead of me. What if he or she is horrible? I could probably still do a few returns as the Office President, plus I'd be a partner in the firm, which has a lot of benefits. I'd even get control over new offices, and policies, and I'd be the final say in recruitment. We could finally hire the same number of women as men.”
“Maybe you should take it, then.” He points at the dessert counter. “Would a cookie help you feel better about this terrible dilemma? Your job loves you so much they want to promote you, but you're not sure if you will like being super fancy, and getting way more money.”
I lean back in the chair. “Cookies always help.”
“I knew you were my kind of girl.”
I tap my fingers on the table. “But I haven't even told you the hard part. I run a charity that I absolutely love, and my job right now is intense for most of the spring, and again in the early fall, but summer is low key, and I almost have the holidays off. If I take the promotion, I won't get holidays off anymore, and I can't run the charity anymore. Also, if it's not bad enough that I'd miss out on doing something I love, the head of the non-profit told me if I leave, the program ends.”
He exhales. “Well, if you don't care about the money, and you like your job, and you love this charity, I think it's pretty clear you should turn it down. Pray for a good boss, and if you get a bad one, keep to your office and think bad thoughts about him or her.”
“How about that dessert,” I say. “Because I think you're right, and anyone who finds out what I'm going to do is going to think I'm an idiot.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You just made your decision, that fast? I'm surprised you have that much confidence in the opinions of a stranger.”
I stand up and point at the dessert counter. “I didn't decide because of you. I've been thinking the same thing all day. My reasons for taking the job are: money, pride, and convenience. Those don't outweigh my reasons for turning it down. Doing what I love at work and on my time off matters more than having a padded bank account. After all, I have enough money for whatever I need. I should be content with that.”
We cross the room and I peer into the rows and rows of gorgeous French sweets. Éclairs, madeleines, coconut cookies, fruit tarts of several varieties. I point at a strawberry tart, and Luke orders a blueberry muffin and a strawberry napoleon.
“For what it's worth, I think contentment's an underrated value,” Luke says as he pays the cashier.
“What do you mean?” I sit down with my strawberry tart and take a bite.
“Finding joy in what you already have goes a long way toward making the world a better place. If you're always wishing you had something better, you'll never be happy with the present.”
“So right now, if I was regretting my dessert choice?”
He gri
ns. “I'd say you could trade straight across for either of mine.”
“I already took a bite of this one.”
Luke shrugs. “I've always lived dangerously. I'll brave your cooties.”
I eye my options. A blueberry muffin with raw sugar on top, and a perfectly layered napoleon with custard, berries, pastry dough, and a sugared topping with almonds. “That strawberry napoleon looks amazing.”
He jabs it with his fork, cutting off a perfect sized bite, then he passes it to me.
“You aren't going to insist on feeding me?”
“Did we fall back into 1954 and I missed it? You're capable of feeding yourself. I'd never patronize you that way.”
His napoleon is way better than my tart. I slide my plate across the table, and he hands me his. “I'd just like it noted for the record, that I won.”
I cough. “I'm sorry, you won what?”
“Well, first I guessed your job on the first try.”
“You said wedding planner.”
“Wedding planner, or accountant.”
I roll my eyes.
“And, obviously I picked the best dessert.”
“Wait, so you picked the best dessert, and I took it. What happens when I win?” I ask.
He takes a bite of my strawberry tart. “You can keep it.”
“So lemme get this straight, in the interest of establishing clear dating rules. If I win, I keep my dessert.”
He nods.
“If you win, I get to take the dessert you won with?” I raise one eyebrow.
He smiles. “That's how my parents always did it.”
“Did?”
He looks down at the sad strawberry tart, one bite missing. “Mum passed away two years ago.”
“I'm so sorry,” I say.
“Dad's not doing so well with it, either. He's lonely. The doctors say he can't die of a broken heart, but he's doing his best to prove them wrong.”
“Does he live in Australia?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “He and mum moved out here seven years ago. I wonder sometimes if that's part of the problem. They wanted to be closer to me, but they both missed their friends in Perth.”