2
“Y ou did what?!” Elion questioned. He’d heard exactly what Clara said, but he was hoping that she would follow up with “just kidding” or “it’s a joke” the second time around.
However, as she nibbled on her lower lip, a sign that she was nervous, he knew she was not joking. He couldn’t fathom what made her do it, and a large part of him didn’t want to know.
“Look, I know you’re upset, but I figured it couldn’t hurt,” she responded. “You said you didn’t have time for dating, and this takes a bit of the guesswork out of it.”
“Clara, you submitted an application for me to be someone’s husband. That’s beyond dating,” he told her. Elion failed to see how his niece didn’t realize this wasn’t a good idea.
He knew that she was young and impulsive, and while she’d been nagging him now and then about going on dates, he hadn’t thought that she would take it into her hands and do something like this.
Signing him up for a regular dating site was one thing; yes, he’d still be upset about it.
However, signing him up for a marriage site was in a league of its own in the reckless department for Clara.
Clara sighed. “It isn’t like they match you with someone, and you have to marry them right away. There is a dating process. It’s twelve weeks, and the dates are set up by and through the site. In week six, there is a weekend trip, and the last date is a week long vacation. That’s when you decide.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Elion questioned. “Who knows whether or not they want to get married in three months?”
“People have gotten married a lot sooner than that, and you don’t have to marry at the end of the time frame.
Both parties can walk away. Besides, they give you date options that the two of you can choose from to help you get to know one another,” Clara responded, and Elion knew she was trying to pitch the idea to him, make him think she’d done him a favor.
“That isn’t the point, Clara.”
“If you’re worried about the information I submitted, I didn’t make anything up and just put things about you.”
“I don’t care, Clara. You shouldn’t have done that. My love life is none of your business.”
“You mean your lack thereof, and fine. You probably won’t get any matches anyway,” she mumbled before standing and walking out of his art room.
Elion leaned against the table, rubbing his temple.
The whole situation had managed to give him a headache in under ten minutes.
He knew that Clara had meant well, but it wasn’t her place, and the fact that he’d told her, on several occasions, that he didn’t have time to date didn’t mean that she was supposed to take it into her own hands.
She was more than likely correct, though.
He doubted he’d get any matches, so he wasn’t going to worry about it.
Elion gave the sculpture he’d just finished a once over.
He’d need to do some buffing and smoothing, but he was satisfied with how it came out, especially since he’d been following someone else’s request. He’d asked them to give him three weeks, but he’d been able to do it in a little over two.
So, he’d get it ready to ship out once he put the finishing touches on it.
Exiting his workroom and going to the kitchen, Elion opened the refrigerator. He hadn’t eaten since that morning and figured he’d make himself a sandwich. He grabbed all the ingredients he needed and a bottle of water.
After making sandwiches and putting everything away, Elion grabbed his plate and took it into the living room. Turning the television on, he left it on whatever channel it was and began to eat his lunch, albeit a late one since it was almost four in the afternoon.
When he finished, he planned on attempting to start the first piece of his next collection. His team was still bugging him about it, even though Clara had been doing an excellent job of putting the next meeting off by telling them he was working on commissioned pieces, which wasn’t a lie.
However, he’d only had one exhibit so far, and Elion liked to do at least four a year—one each quarter, along with some unrelated collection pieces that he sold to private parties.
Doing exhibits several times a year was how he remained relevant, kept his name out there, and garnered new clients.
That was important, considering that was where his income came from, and it allowed him to live a pretty comfortable life while doing what he loved.
Once Elion finished eating, he turned the television off and took his plate and bottle into the kitchen. He threw his bottle into the recycling before washing his plate and putting it on the rack to dry.
Returning to his workroom, he sat at his drafting table, staring at the blank page before him.
He picked up his pencil and twirled it between his fingers for several minutes, staring at the large, white piece of paper.
It was a canvas, there for him to allow his creativity to flow, and he was stuck.
Tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the table, he contemplated, willed a design, a creation, a theme to come to him, but he knew that if he forced it, it would be terrible.
So, with a sigh, he stood, deciding that he was going to find a book on his shelf that he hadn’t started yet and see if it helped clear his mind and inspire him.
O lani looked at the request she’d gotten from a business in town.
They needed four people to work their production line starting in a week.
She hadn’t worked with this particular company before and decided to give them a call.
She always liked to sit down with new clients and go over their possible needs and her company’s rate.
Dialing the phone number at the bottom of the email, she asked for Heather, the sender, and was transferred to the other woman.
“This is Heather.”
“Hey, Heather. This is Olani Morgan with Dedicated Temp Services. I received a staffing request from you.”
“Yes, Ms. Morgan. What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to know when a good time would be to come and talk to you. Whenever I receive a request from a new client, I like to have a face-to-face and find out any staffing needs you may have, along with qualifications you’d like them to have, the rate, etcetera.”
“Of course. I completely understand. I can meet with you tomorrow afternoon if that works for you. At two-thirty.”
Olani entered the appointment into her calendar: “Tomorrow at two-thirty is perfect. I’ll see you then. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“You as well, Ms. Morgan.”
Olani hung up the phone, double-checking that she saved the appointment and pressing sync to make sure it also transferred to her phone.
She checked a few more emails before she got ready to leave for the day.
She and one of her employees typically worked seven in the morning to four in the afternoon since they had some clients who worked the same hours.
The rest of her employees worked from eight to five.
After checking her emails, she packed her things for the day, said goodbye to her employees, and headed out to her car. She placed her bag in the backseat before sliding behind the wheel and putting her phone on her car dock.
Pulling out of the parking lot, she headed towards the supermarket. She and Xola were having dinner together that evening at her place, and she wanted to grab a few things she needed before stopping at the liquor store on her way home.
Once she’d made both of her stops, she pulled into the driveway, and grabbed her shopping, phone, and bag from the backseat before checking her mailbox and heading inside.
Olani locked the door behind her and entered the kitchen to put everything away and marinate the pork chops she planned to make. They only needed to sit for an hour and a half. She and Xola weren’t having dinner until eight, so she had three hours before her cousin would arrive.
She put the wine into her wine fridge and then went to her bedroom to change.
She put on a pair of shorts and a tank top, slipped her feet into a pair of socks, and sat down to watch the latest episode she’d recorded.
She’d gotten hooked on this soap opera about a year ago and always recorded the episodes since they came on while she was at work.
Once the episode was over, she glanced at her laptop.
She hadn’t checked to see if she’d received any submissions on the website she created.
Olani had been planning to give it a week but convinced herself to give it more time than that.
She’d paid for a month’s worth of advertising.
So, she figured she would check it two weeks in.
She decided to wait until later that evening after she and Xola had dinner.
Having her cousin there for support would be beneficial.
Olani decided to start on dinner since the pork chops only needed about fifteen more minutes to marinate. She gathered everything she needed from the refrigerator and cabinets, turned some music on, and started cooking.
There was a knock on the door, and Olani looked over to see it was almost seven forty-five.
She’d just pulled the rolls from the oven.
She didn’t bother answering the door since Xola had a key.
They each had one to the other’s place but never used it unless they knew the other was coming over or they were house-sitting while one was out of town.
“Hey, Lani.” Xola greeted as she entered the house, closing the door behind her.
“Hey, Xo,” Olani responded, turning off the oven. “You’re just in time as always. The food is ready.”
The two of them made their plates, and Olani took out a bottle of wine for them to drink. They sat at her table and talked about work and Xola’s date for the upcoming weekend.
“So, any prospects from your site yet?” Xola questioned after they were both done eating and sitting on the couch with their second glasses of wine.
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked it yet. I was waiting for you to come over.”
“Well,” Xola started, getting up from the couch. Olani watched her cousin grab her laptop before returning to the couch and handing it to her. “Let’s look.”
Olani placed her wine glass on the coffee table and opened her laptop.
She logged into the admin side and was shocked that she’d received over twenty-five survey submissions.
She hadn’t known she’d get that many submissions in general, let alone in two weeks.
She’d been specific in her advertising and had targeted a sixty-mile radius.
So that many people within sixty miles in such a short time was mind-boggling to her.
However, she wasn’t naive enough to suspect that some, if not most, weren’t just hoaxes—people who’d filled them out just for the hell of it.
“That’s quite the number of submissions,” Xola stated as she leaned over to see.
They begin to open the submissions, just like Olani thought the first eight were filled with nonsense. She got to the ninth one and read it over. He seemed like a nice man and consented to the background check. However, they didn’t share any of the same hobbies.
She continued to move on, reading through them.
When she came to the sixteenth, she put the submission to the side.
They had a few things in common, and she figured there wouldn’t be any harm in sending her survey to him once she’d run his background.
When she opened the nineteenth, she was about to place it in the trash bin again because they had nothing in common.
“He sounds interesting,” Xola spoke. “And he likes ice skating and going to plays.”
Olani stuck her tongue in her cheek to keep from laughing. Xola enjoyed going to plays as often as she could and would drag Olani along any time she could get her to go. Her cousin also enjoyed ice skating.
“You know you can always complete a survey and send it to him,” she said, placing the man’s submission into the archive folder.
“I…don’t know about all that.”
Olani continued, opening the others. She came across two more that she saved for later once their background checks were done.
When she came to her last one, she wasn’t sure what she had expected.
The others she’d sat aside had answered the questions.
However, she didn’t think they had been this honest.
He was an artist by profession, a sculptor, and was honest that he found it hard to date with the number of commissions and showings he had each year.
They had several things in common, but it was the space where it asked what their favorite hobby was, and he’d stated trying new things.
That had resonated with Olani because she was the same way.
She always liked to try new things at least once, and he’d been the only one to submit that answer.
Olani placed him in the yes folder and added his information to the list she’d started for background checks.
“Well, it seems like you have a few prospects.”
“We’ll see how many remain once the background checks come back,” Olani responded, closing her laptop and placing it aside. She picked up her glass of wine and took another sip.
Maybe this hadn’t been a terrible idea if at least one of the men she’d set aside was dateable.