He finds her where Beth said she’d be. Libbie.
It has to be her. Red hair. Beautiful to excess. He catches a glimpse of her profile and feels the first symptoms of paralysis. Can it be? The very girl from the wedding reception? The one who was immune to his animal charms? The beauty who was turned off by his goofy parrot shirt? The girl who has haunted his waking thoughts and sleeping dreams ever since—?
It is!
The woman he might have dared to approach if the bride had not swept him up and changed his day. Imagine. What would his life be in a normal relationship with a woman like this? Oh.
She’s changing one set of patterns for another among the dishes. Out is the floral painted in the bold primary colors. In are shades of purple and green.
He wants just a straight-on look at her face so he will know what might have been. Then he can vanish like the fog of her breath on a crystal goblet.
She senses him. Or maybe overhears Himself thinking aloud. She bolts upright and sees him seeing her, amber eyes bright enough to make birds sing and think it were not night.
That was an original thought—five hundred years ago.
“Were you looking for something in the informal dishware?”
Her smile screws his heart into a light socket and jolts his mouth open.
Beth was pretty but Libbie is beyond her.
Of all things the fragrance she’s wearing is Perversion and though its excess on Beth O’Neill made Guy snort he’s about to hyperventilate trying to inhale the minimalism of it on Libbie. He has to wonder Is she working a femme fatale Kavorka curse on him?
Her skin is unabashedly shiny and her features open to and undaunted by scrutiny. Her face tries to draw him closer so he can examine the detail in it. Like a museum painting of a woman that spares him the embarrassment of staring at her every hair in her eyebrow. Every lash is a fine master’s stroke painted with a one-bristle brush, a line leading his eye to hers keen all at once piercing and playful, silent eyes that speak volumes.
Where do you get this crap?
“Sir?”
“I’m sorry did you say something?”
“Yes. I asked if you were looking for dishware?”
“Sure. Those look nice.”
She holds up one of the splashy colored plates. “This floral is a nice buy. Contemporary and cheerful both. The pattern is discontinued so I can discount it fifty percent.” She puts on a concerned expression. “Of course supplies are limited.”
“I’ll take them . . . some. Of those.”
“How many settings did you want?”
“Settings?”
“Dishware comes in settings. Multiples of four. Four plates four saucers four cups soup bowls and so on. In this pattern one of the display dishes is broken. You could set a table for fifteen. Would that be enough?”
“No. I need for twenty. What about the purple and green splotches?”
“Oh the mauve and aquamarine wash pattern? I have plenty of those and all the accessory pieces.”
“Accessory pieces?”
“Service pieces. Gravy boat. Salt and pepper. Serving bowls and platters.” She holds up a platter.
She gives him a tiny doubting take. “But twenty settings?”
“No.”
She smiles.
“Make it twenty-four and all the service pieces. In the mauve. It’s a gift.”
“Oh?”
“For my mother.”
He doesn’t know why he’s setting her up.
Actually? Quoth the Brickman: You’re a born grifter kid.
No, it’s not a grift. He just wants to know. Could this woman love him for himself?
“I envy your mother,” she says. “I love this pattern.”
She goes into a closing and tells him about why this is a new exciting pattern and how the supply of settings is unlimited and much much more as they say in all the infomercials.
Deep into yes-mode he’s already sold and gazing into her gold-specked irises.
If this is not be the most beautiful face he’s ever seen it surely is the most compelling. Her eyes are sharp and eager. Her eyebrows dance ballet. Her complexion is as smooth as the burnished bronze of a baby’s butt he once caressed at a museum in direct violation of the sign: Please do not touch the sculpture which thus encouraged a thousand polishing caresses a day.
“Yes,” he says to himself. Only the most severe act of self-control keeps his hands from stroking Libbie’s fair and burnished cheek.
Not to mention the security cameras and the very real possibility of her calling the cops.
She purses her lip and raises an eyebrow.
Dude there’s a question hanging in the air.
“I’m sorry,” he says “I was distracted and didn’t hear what you said.”
He blushes. She blushes.
This has happened to her before.
She gives a wry smile. “I asked for the order. You said yes and I said really? Now just to confirm. Would you like me to write an order for a service for twenty-four plus complete accessory service? Or would you like to continue shopping before you decide?”
“I’ll take it all.”
She begins blinking bright and fast.
“Really?”
“Mom entertains a lot.”
Her face lights up into a smile. If Marty is right about working her way through law school she’s going to charm a thousand juries with that face.
She processes the transaction, and he pays in mint twenties spending in a stroke more than a third of his cash windfall. He applies for a Nordstrom credit card besides.
He stuffs the receipt into his pocket and walks away. No woman has ever had this effect on him. So this is how women feel around him. But now he must sadly go. So sad that he will never see her again—yet full of joy that he saw her at all.
Crikey Mate. Joy is not what you’re full of.
She calls after him. “Sir?”
He turns to her, hearing the yearning chords of violins that may not be coming from the Muzak.
“Your tableware?” she says.
Tableware? He slaps his forehead. “Oh, the dishes?”
“I’ll get a stockperson to bring them out from the storeroom and help you to your car.”
“Yes of course.” He shakes the fog of her from his brain.
He wanders away. He tries to remember his way out of the store although he’s already lost his way to the elevator.
She’s laughing at you you know.
“Ah well,” he says to Himself. “It was worth it.”
Minutes later a pimpled kid bursts out of the storeroom wheeling a hand truck stacked with boxes to his shoulder.
“Lotsa dishes,” he says once he’s in the freight elevator with Guy.
“Big family.”
“More like a army.”
Guy gives him a look.
The kid puts a sock in it.
Outside Guy points to the sidewalk. “Just leave them here on the curb.”
Near the rally point of a spot o’ gum.
The stock boy doesn’t want to ask but— “You sure?”
“I’ll hail a cab,” Guy says.
“Want I should hang and hump them into the cab?”
He has to ask but he wants you to say . . .
“No thanks.”
The kid is thinking about putting on a display of insisting because he’s been told to be legendarily helpful.
“Get lost.” Guy holds out a twenty-dollar bill formed into a rain gutter.
The kid snags it. “Wow. Thanks guy.”
“Live another day.” Guy blinks. The kid is gone.
So that’s what the Poof! thingie looks like from the poofer’s POV.
Guy looks down for the green gum sludge. He sees a scrap of paper with his name on it. He knows who it’s from.
“Crap.”
He picks it up.
“Crap-crap-crap-crap-crap-crap-crap.”
All the nice people on the sidewalk are scattering at this scowling rant of the nicely dressed street slug and all his new boxes to sleep in tonight.
Better act happy. In case Amazing Amy’s watching you from afar.
Guy smiles wide and pumps a fist with the note in it. “Amy!”
On the note is an address. With a time to appear this very evening. With four exclamation points and a smiley face. Plus holes in the note where the exclamation points and eyes of the smiley face poked through the paper.
Trademark of the stalker.
Many stalkers ago. Beginning with Sister Mary Mary and the poke-holes by all the D’s and F’s on his report card.
Hand to his brow he stares up the street leaning on his cases of dishes looking as if he’s looking to hail a cab. All the while trying to spot Amy the psycho meter maid. Seeing only one woman’s beautiful face in his mind’s eye.
He pulls his phone to summon an Uber, but . . .
A tiny honk. A car double-parks at the curb beside him.
Just thinking about it brings Uber?
The very face in his mind’s eye morphs to his literal eyes. Libbie Custer in auburn hair appears over the car from the driver’s side.
" . . . to make birds sing and think it were not night" is a rough approximation of "That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. . . . That birds would sing and think it were not night." Romeo speaks these lines in the so-called balcony scene, when, hiding in the Capulet orchard after the feast, he sees Juliet leaning out of a high window (2.1. 44–64) —That's just one example of a borrowed line.
Just a reminder of my earlier disclosure in Episode 1. I've incorporated some classical quotes into the narrative because Guy, our main character, is well read and borrows from the poets. Several instances occur in this episode, including a lovely line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. All these quotes will appear at the end of the novel in a bibliography. For your pleasure and my defense against the slightest notion of unfair use. Enjoy.