11
E lion sat across the table from Clara. He’d brought her to one of her favorite restaurants.
He’d used her finishing her paper for one of her finals as an excuse to do so.
She’d finished a week and a half before it was due to be submitted, and he knew she was relieved to have it completed.
Now, she could focus on studying for her other finals that were coming up next week.
It was a Tuesday evening, and the restaurant was filled with people who came for happy hour and the food. They had their drinks and were waiting for their food. He was listening to Clara tell him about plans she had for the summer and which weeks she would be gone to visit her mother and siblings.
“It looks like you’ve been able to work on a new sculpture. I take that to mean you’ve gotten over your creative block for the most part,” Clara stated after pausing in conversation to take a drink of her lemonade.
“I have,” Elion responded. “I’ve finished two pieces.”
Clara got excited. “Are they for the next exhibit, or are they singular pieces for bidding?”
When Elion finished the first piece, his plan was to add it to his website for collectors to bid on.
However, that changed with the completion of the second piece.
He hadn’t done it on purpose, but the pieces were of the same style, and he decided he would continue in that fashion for his next exhibit sale.
“They’re for the next exhibit.”
“Do you know how many pieces will be in this collection?”
Elion shrugged. “I have no idea.”
When their food arrived, the two continued to converse as they ate. Clara informed Elion of some things she wanted to implement once she graduated after her upcoming fall semester regarding planning his exhibits and promoting them when she took over.
Elion listened to her ideas, and he admitted they were good ones.
He just didn’t know if he was going to allow her to take on so much.
He knew that she wanted to, and she was confident that she could do it, but Elion had a team for a reason.
While most of them went through Clara, he knew her taking on the planning and promoting would be a lot.
Clara was an intelligent young woman, and she did a great job at staying on top of his schedule, guest teaching, which he only did once or twice a year, and keeping up with pieces for auction, the winners, and making sure they got packaged and shipped on time.
Elion would give her the opportunity to try since that was what she wanted to do, and they would go from there after she graduated.
When they were finished with the main course, they ordered dessert. While they were waiting, he pulled a slim jewelry box from his pocket. He held it out across the table to Clara. His niece looked at it for a few seconds before taking it.
Elion watched her open it, and Clara smiled at the charm bracelet inside. There were only three charms on it, which were her initials. He’d seen her looking at it on her laptop a few weeks ago when they’d been eating lunch together at home.
“This is pretty Uncle Elion. Thank you, but what’s it for?”
He leaned back in his seat. It wasn’t that he didn’t buy Clara things now and then; he tended to save more expensive things for her birthday or Christmas.
He’d paid quite a bit for the bracelet he knew she’d probably been saving for.
Even though he knew that she could afford it at any point with what she made, Clara had always been wise with her money.
“You minding my business has worked out for me. So, this is a thank you.”
“Me minding your business?” Clara questioned, confused for only a second before realization dawned on her. “You went on a date with your match!” she stated excitedly.
Elion found himself chuckling at how excited his niece seemed by his dating life. He wouldn’t put it past her to have been trying to figure out how to get him to do so since she’d started college. He hadn’t dated in the past two and half years before Olani, choosing to focus on his craft.
“Tell me about her. Tell me about your date,” Clara stated.
“She’s intelligent, fun to be around, easy to talk to. She’s absolutely gorgeous, inside and out. I feel like we have a good connection, and we’re both willing to try new things together.”
Clara smiled at him. “You sound like you really like her.” She paused for a moment. “Wait, how many dates have you gone on?”
“We’ve been dating for a little over a month. This week makes five weeks.”
“Five weeks? How did I not see this?” Their server returned with their dessert, and they thanked him before Clara picked the conversation back up. “Is that where you were going a couple of weeks ago when you said you were going into town?”
“It is,” Elion responded.
Clara shook her head, taking a bite of her cake. “I can’t believe how sneaky you’ve been. So, five weeks. If I remember correctly, then next week, you’re supposed to take a trip, right?” Elion nodded. “Do you know where you’re going?
“We’ll decide by this weekend.”
Elion expected Clara to ask him more questions, but she didn’t. They ate their desserts, and Clara placed her bracelet in her purse while they waited for their check.
Once they paid and were back in the car, they headed home.
His conversation with Clara had been easy.
Though, he hadn’t expected her to intrude too much.
Even with her initially overstepping a boundary and signing him up for a marriage dating site, she didn’t tend to push very often, and Elion was grateful for that.
O lani sat at her desk, making sure the contract she would be sending over first thing in the morning detailed everything she and the client discussed, and the figures were easy to find.
She also had to get everything together for a meeting with another potential client.
Her meeting with the hiring manager of Milo’s, a production company that made candles, crayons, adhesives, and other wax-based products, had gone well.
She’d been able to get an exclusive two-year contract with them to start, and Olani was happy with that outcome. She was sure that in the two years they worked together, they would find her service second to none, and she’d be able to place several people in jobs with the company.
Another company she hoped to staff was a call center scheduled to open in a couple of months.
She had a meeting set with the general, hiring, and payroll managers on Thursday morning to discuss their needs and how she could help them.
Olani was hoping for another exclusive contract but knew that with them just starting, they may want to shop around.
She would be fine with that if she could still get them to utilize her staffing company.
Her employees had been gone for about two hours.
The first and third Tuesdays of the month were always days she stayed late at the office.
Typically, it was ensuring that all the people she’d placed in positions had their timesheets turned in.
They were paid every other Thursday, and while the deadline to have all timecards turned in was Tuesday by six in the evening, she would have some now and then forget to submit them.
Olani hated any of their checks to be short, so she would reach out to make sure they got turned in before checks were processed the following morning.
Once Olani finished working, she shut everything down, grabbed her purse, and went to the front door.
She set the alarm, reaching into her purse to grip her taser as she exited.
Her office was in the business district, and it was a safe part of town, but leaving in the evening, one could never be sure about any place.
She slid into her car and pulled out of the parking lot. It was a little after eight, and she stopped to pick up some tacos from one of her favorite spots and headed home.
When she entered, she dropped her purse onto the table by the door and went into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. She sat on her couch, turning on the television. It was on Investigation Discovery from the night before, and Olani left it there.
She watched as spouses killed off one another as she ate her tacos.
It never ceased to amaze her what little things could cause these people to snap.
It amazed her even more that they could want to kill someone they’d spent so many years with and claimed to love at one point.
Olani’s way of thinking is if you fell out of love, and you’d done what you could to make it work, and it hadn’t, divorce was a far easier solution than murder and jail time.
When she finished her food, she threw her trash away, double-checked that her front door was locked, grabbed her purse, and entered her en suite, placing her purse on the dresser as she passed. She turned on the shower, stripped out of her clothes, and brushed her teeth as it heated up.
Once she was finished with her shower, she dried off, rubbing body butter into her skin before dressing in a pair of panties and a T-shirt. She grabbed her phone from her purse and placed it on her bedside table as she picked up the book she’d been reading last night.
Olani made it through one chapter before her phone began to ring. She glanced at the screen before putting her bookmark back into her book and setting it aside.
“Hello,” she answered, bringing the phone to her ear.
“Hey, Sweetheart,” Elion greeted. “How was your day?”
“It was good. I got an exclusive contract with the production company I was telling you about, and they’ll be signing tomorrow.”
“Congratulations. I told you they wouldn’t make the mistake of going with anyone else.”
Olani smiled to herself, recalling him telling her that when they’d gone on their date to the wine vineyard. “How was your day?” she questioned.
“It was uneventful. I sketched out a sculpture, took Clara to dinner, and told her we were dating. She was excited, to say the least.”
“Did she tell you, “I told you so,” since she’s technically the reason we’re dating?”
She listened to Elion chuckle. “Surprisingly, she didn’t.”
“How did the sketch come out?”
“I need to add some finishing touches to it before I start the sculpture, but I’m pleased with it.”
“You know, I still haven’t seen any of your work,” she stated.
She knew she could look him up and find his pieces and any exhibits he’d done that were covered by some form of media or press, but she hadn’t. Olani would rather wait until he was comfortable with her to show her himself.
“We’ll have to remedy that. When this collection is finished, I’ll give you a private showing.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
They spoke for another half hour before saying their goodbyes. She would see him tomorrow for the human art exhibit they were going to, and she was looking forward to it.
Putting her phone on the charger, she turned out her light before slipping down in bed. She would be going in a little earlier tomorrow to make sure any last-minute timecards were processed before the eight o’clock morning cut-off time.