“Sure.”
Julie went to see her customer again. The woman was having highlights put in, and her head was covered in a perforated plastic cap. Assorted strands of hair, sticking through the holes in the cap, were coated in purple slime. Julie checked the color, turned the dryer on low, buying an extra couple of minutes, and went out front again.
“All right,” she said, walking toward the door, “I’m ready.”
Richard followed her outside. The door swung shut behind them, the bell jingling again.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
Richard shrugged. “Nothing important, really. I just wanted to have you all to myself for a minute.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not at all.”
“But why?”
“Gee,” he said, playing innocent, “I’m not really sure.”
“I found your card,” she said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know I didn’t. But I wanted to.”
“Is that why you called the salon this morning? To see if I got it?”
“No. I just wanted to hear your voice. Good memories, you know?”
“Already?”
“I was charmed.”
Julie looked up at him, thinking, Flattery is such a nice way to start the day. After a moment, Richard began to tug at his watchband.
“But actually, besides wanting to see you, there is another reason I came by.”
“Oh, I get it. Now that I’m all buttered up, the truth comes out, huh?”
He laughed. “Sort of. The truth is I wanted to see if you’d like to go out again this Saturday.”
Saturday, Julie remembered with a pang, was supposed to be dinner at Emma’s with Henry and Mike.
“I’d love to, but I can’t. A couple of friends invited me over to their house. Can we go on Friday instead? Or maybe sometime during the week?”
Richard shook his head. “I wish I could, but I’m going to Cleveland this evening and I won’t be back until Saturday. And I just found out today that I might be out of town again the following weekend. It’s not set in stone, but odds are I’ll have to go.” He paused. “Are you sure you can’t make it?”
“I really can’t,” she said, playing out the words, wishing she didn’t have to say them. “They’re good friends. I can’t blow them off at the last minute.”
For an instant, an unreadable expression crossed Richard’s face, but just as quickly as it had come, it was gone. “Okay,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, hoping he knew she meant it.
“Don’t worry about it.” He seemed to look into the distance before focusing on Julie again. “Look, these things happen. It’s no big deal. But you won’t mind if I give you a call in a couple of weeks? When I get back, I mean? Maybe we could arrange something then.”
A couple of weeks?
“Well, hold on,” Julie said. “You could always come to the dinner with me. I’m sure my friends wouldn’t mind.”
Richard shook his head. “No. They’re your friends, and I’m not real good at meeting new people. I never have been-shy, I guess-and I don’t want you to have to change your plans.” He smiled before nodding toward the salon. “Listen, you made me promise not to keep you, and I’m the kind of guy who keeps his word. Besides, I’ve got to get back to work, too.” He smiled again. “You look great, by the way.”
As he turned to leave and before she could stop herself, Julie called out, “Wait!”
Richard stopped. “Yes?”
They’d understand, wouldn’t they? she thought.
“Well, if you’re not going to be in town next week, maybe I can change my plans. I’ll talk to Emma. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“I don’t want you to have to break your date.”
“It’s not that big of a deal. . . . We get together all the time.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
He met her eyes, staring as if he were seeing her for the first time. “That’s great . . . ,” he said, and before she realized what was happening, he leaned in and kissed her.
Not hard, not too long, but a kiss nonetheless.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Before she could think of anything to say, Richard turned and started down the sidewalk. All Julie could do was watch him go.
The Guardian
“Did he just kiss her?” Mike asked, his mouth hanging open.
Earlier, he’d been standing near the open bay of the garage when he’d seen Richard walking up the street. He’d watched Richard walk in alone, he’d watched Julie and Richard walk out together, and Henry had walked up just as Richard was leaning in to kiss Julie.
“That’s what it looked like to me,” Henry answered.
“They don’t even know each other.”
“They do now.”
“Thanks, Henry. You’re making me feel a whole lot better.”
“Do you want me to lie to you instead?”
“Right now, I think I would,” Mike mumbled.
“All right,” Henry said, thinking about it. “That fella sure is ugly.”
At Henry’s comment, Mike put his head in his hands.
The Guardian
Once inside, Julie went back to her client.
“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” the woman complained as she lowered her magazine.
Julie checked the color on a few strands of hair. “Sorry about that, but I was watching the clock. It looks like you’ve still got a couple of minutes. Unless you want it this dark.”
“I think it should be lighter, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
The woman went on about the exact color she desired. Though Julie knew she was speaking, she wasn’t concentrating on what the woman was saying. Instead, she was thinking about Richard and what had just happened outside the door.
He’d kissed her.
It wasn’t a big deal, of course, not in the grand scheme of things. Yet for some reason, she couldn’t stop thinking about it, nor did she know exactly how she felt. The way it happened had been so . . . so . . . so what?
Forward? Surprising?
Julie went to the sink in search of the right shampoo, still trying to figure it out, when Mabel walked up.
“Did I just see what I thought I saw?” she asked. “Did you just kiss him?”
“Actually, he kissed me.”
“You don’t look too happy about it.”
“I’m not sure whether ‘happy’ is the word to describe it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Julie said. “It just seemed . . .” She trailed off, still looking for the right word.
“Unexpected?” Mabel offered.
Julie thought about that. Though it was forward, it wasn’t as if he’d gone too far with it. And she did find him attractive, she did agree to go out with him, so she wasn’t sure if “surprise” was the right word. At the same time, she also knew that if he’d done it after their date next Saturday, she probably wouldn’t have been questioning it at all. Next Saturday, she might have been insulted if he hadn’t tried to kiss her.
So why did it feel as if he’d just crossed a barrier without asking her permission first?
Julie shrugged. “I guess that’s it.”
Mabel studied her for a moment. “Well, I’d say that means he had just as good of a time as you did,” she said. “Though I’m not really all that surprised. He’s obviously giving you the full-court press.”
Julie nodded slowly. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“He also left a card on my porch. I found it this morning.”
Mabel raised her eyebrows.
“You think it’s too much?” Julie asked. “Considering I just met him?”
“Not necessarily.”
“But it might be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He might be the kind of guy who knows what he wants, and when he finds it, he goes after it with gusto. I’ve met lots of men like that. They have their appeal. And you are quite the catch, you know.”
Julie smiled.
“Or then again,” Mabel said with an elaborate shrug, “he might be bonkers.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No problem. But either way, all I can say is welcome back to the wonderful world of dating. Like I tell everyone, it’s never boring, is it?”
The Guardian
It had been a long time since Richard laughed aloud, and in the confines of his car, the sound seemed louder than it was.
He gets jealous, Julie had said about her dog. As if she honestly believed he was human. Cute.
Their evening together had been wonderful. He’d enjoyed her company, of course, but what he’d come to admire most was her resilience. Her life had been hard, and most people would have been marked by bitterness or anger, but he’d seen no traces of that on their date.
She was also lovely. The way she’d smiled at him with almost childlike excitement and the look of struggle as she’d debated whether to break her plans with her friends . . . he felt as if he could watch her for hours and never grow tired of it.
I had a good time on Saturday night, she had said.
He was almost certain that she had, but he’d had to see her today to make sure. The mind can do funny things on the day after a date, he knew. The questions, the worries, the concerns . . . Should he have done this, should he have said that? Yesterday, he’d recalled the date in detail, remembering Julie’s expressions and trying to discern any hidden subtexts in her statements suggesting that he’d done something wrong. He’d stayed awake, unable to sleep, until he’d finally had to write a note and drop it off for her to find in the morning.
But he need not have worried. They’d both had a good time-no, a great time. Ridiculous to have even considered that he might have been wrong about it.
His cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID.
Blansen from work. The foreman, no doubt offering more bad news about the schedule, about falling behind, about cost overruns. Delays. Blansen always had bad news. The bearer of bad tidings. Depressing, that one. Said he cared about his men, but what he really meant was that he didn’t want them to work hard.
Instead of answering, he summoned Julie’s image again. It had to have been fate, he thought, meeting her the way he had. There were a thousand other places he could have been that morning. He wasn’t due for another haircut for a couple of weeks, but he’d pushed through the door of the salon as if guided by an unknown force. Fate.
The cell phone rang again.
Yes, the date had gone well, but there was one thing. Today, toward the end. . . .
Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed her. It wasn’t as if he’d planned to kiss her, but he’d been so elated when she broke her plans in order to see him again . . . it just happened. A surprise for both of them. But was it too much, too soon?
Yes, he decided, it probably was, and he regretted it. There wasn’t any rush here. It would be better to take it easy the next time he saw her. Give her a little space, let her come to her own conclusions about him, without pressure. Naturally.
The cell phone rang a third time, but he continued to ignore it. In the back of his mind, he replayed the scene again.
Very cute.
Five
The Guardian
On Saturday night over dinner, Richard stared across the table at Julie, a faint smile playing over his lips.
“What are you smiling at?” Julie asked.
Richard seemed to come back to her, a sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry. I was just daydreaming there for a second.”
“Am I that boring?”
“Not at all. I’m just glad you were able to come out with me tonight.” Bringing up his napkin to dab at the corner of his mouth, he met her eyes. “Have I told you how lovely you look this evening?”
“About a dozen times.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No. Call me strange, but I sort of like life on the pedestal.”
Richard laughed. “I’ll do my best to keep you there.”
They were at Pagini’s, a cozy restaurant in Morehead City that smelled of fresh spice and drawn butter, the kind of place where the servers wore black and white and dinner was often cooked tableside. A bottle of Chardonnay sat in an ice bucket next to the table; the waiter had poured two glasses, and they glowed yellow in the soft light. He’d shown up at the door dressed in a linen jacket, holding a bouquet of roses and smelling faintly of cologne.
“So tell me about your week,” he said. “What exciting things happened while I was gone?”
“You mean at work?”
“Work, life, whatever. I want to know it all.”
“I should probably be asking you that question.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she said, “my life’s not all that exciting. I work in a beauty salon in a small southern town, remember?” She spoke with good, brisk humor, as if to ward off sympathy. “Besides, I just realized that I don’t know much about you.”
“Sure you do.”
“Not really. You haven’t told me much about yourself yet. I don’t even know what you do exactly.”
“I think I told you I’m a consultant, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t go into a lot of detail.”
“That’s because my job is boring.”
She pretended to look skeptical, and Richard thought for a moment. “Okay . . . what I do . . .” He paused. “Well, just think of me as the guy who, working behind the scenes, makes sure the bridge doesn’t collapse.”
“That’s not boring.”
“That’s just a fancy way of saying I work with numbers all day. When it gets right down to it, I’m what most people would consider a nerd.”