issue but because this is not what he had in mind. That tiny little voice in his head thinks this is not how I thought my life would go. But this only annoys him more so he shakes it out of his head, like a random piece of lint, picked off clothing, that won’t float off from a hand.
It occurs to him that the fans will create what Mother Nature cannot: a perfect crosswind. “Just give me a hand, will you?”
“Did you hear a word I’ve said?” Tom asks, following him to the backroom.
“I heard you,” Henry says, handing Tom a fan. Just drop it, he thinks. For God’s sake, drop it. “I’ve got an idea. Here. Take this one and set it up facing the street up toward the middle of the store. I’m going to plug this one in here so it can get it started from back here.” He has to yell over the whirring fan as he plugs it in.
Henry comes up to just past sportswear and pushes pants and jackets wider apart to accommodate the fan. “Here.”
“It’s not gonna reach,” Tom says. “Where’s your outlet? You got an extension cord?”
“Yeah, let me go get it.”
“This is stupid, man,” Tom calls out across the store to him. “I’m telling you.”
“Here.” Henry hands him one end and snakes the coil along the floor to the closest outlet.
The second fan starts, taking the ball passed off from a huffing Captain Fresh Air and carrying it to the gray cement end zone.
Henry checks his watch. It is eight-thirty so he has an hour and a half until he should start looking for Mr. Beardsley. He knows Mr. Beardsley will, in the end, not be late.
“I’m going on a coffee run,” he says to Tom, who is lighting a cigarette outside in front of the store. “What do you want?”
“Now you’re talking,” Tom says, inhaling. “Black. Large. Just how I like my women.” Which Henry knows is not true—he has never known Tom Geigan to date a black woman. What he does know is Tom Geigan adds this phrase—just how I like my women—to anything ending in an adjective. If a traffic jam is slow and snarling Tom would follow up with just how I like my women.
“I’ll be right back. Can you stay right in front here just in case?”
Tom nods but says, “In case of what?”
Henry walks over to Cup-a-Joe. This time it is empty. He hurries in when he sees a car pulling up out front.
“Hey,” he says to Cathy.
“Hey,” she says back. She pushes her hair behind her ears and smoothes her apron.
Is she blushing? I think she’s blushing, he thinks. She definitely smiled at me. Be cool. Be cool.
“Could I get two coffees to go?” Henry asks. “Large. Both black.”
While she is filling the first cup, pulling down the black knob on the tall round metal container behind the register, he has the opportunity to appreciate her backside, which, he realizes, is perfect in size. Her Levi’s are tight and faded. With her back to him he works up courage and is surprised at his ability to say out loud what only moments before he had wished he could say. This is an infrequent but welcome occurrence.
“So I’m wondering,” he says, “I’m wondering if you want to go out sometime? Like to lunch maybe? Or dinner.”
“Oh,” she says, setting the two cups down in front of him. “Um, well.”
“Or we could get a drink after work maybe.”
She looks up at him and pushes the keys on the register. “That’s $3.25.” This time he is certain she is blushing.
He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and hands her four dollar bills. The register rings open and she fishes out three quarters.
“I guess,” she says finally. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Great. Tonight? After work tonight?” he asks, looking over his shoulder to where her gaze is leveled. His time is up. The man behind him already has his wallet out and two dollar bills in his hand, ready to order and pay in one motion.
“Yeah, okay.”
“Great. See you then.”
“Lids are over there” is all she says.
“Can I help you?” she is asking the impatient man with the two dollars.
Henry turns and backs out the door because his hands are full and because it affords him one more look at her. She is looking at him, too, and pinpricks of energy stab his skin. When she smiles at him—however quick it may have been—he feels himself becoming aroused.
His light-headedness might be because he is hungry and the first sip of coffee on an empty stomach does from time to time make him a little nauseated. Or it might be because he has a date with Cathy Nicholas. He cannot be sure which.
“Nice face,” Tom says, reaching for his drink.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look weird is all. So what’s the game plan here?”
Henry deflates as he looks inside at what is promising to be a lost cause.
“I don’t know. There’s got to be something else we can do.”
Tom shakes his head and ventures another sip of black coffee. “Not your problem-o.”
Henry imagines Cathy watching him. Admiring him from a distance—across the street maybe? No, he thinks, she’s closer. She can hear us. And once again he says the sort of thing he usually shies away from. Which is to say he speaks his mind.
“You know what? It is my problem,” he says to Geigan. “I work here, man. This is my job.”
Funny, he thinks, funny how Geigan does not seem to notice the change. He does not seem to mind being challenged. Huh.
“Yeah, well, I got a job, too, man, but if the whole place burned down tomorrow I’d walk away, find myself another job easy.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that easy.”
“‘Course it is. See, that’s the difference between you and me, Powell. My job’s just that … a job. Your job’s …”
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