Chapter 6
EJ
Once I knew you I never wanted to know anyone else.
~ Leo Christopher
I do another pull-up, lifting my torso so my chest hits the bar. My body might be going through the motions in the fire station workout room, but my mind is elsewhere.
It’s been four days since I took Angie out for dinner.
Four days since she said I could take her out again.
Four days since that kiss.
I was perfectly content to kiss her cheek.
I meant it when I told her we can go at her pace.
And then she surprised me by tapping the gas pedal.
But now? Radio silence. And I know better than to push her. I just have to wait.
Weber and Truck are doing a sit-up competition on the mats, switching to jackknives.
“So, you took Angie to Grant’s?” Truck asks me.
He already knows I did. All the guys do since they grilled me about it yesterday when we were all back on shift.
“Yes. I took her to Grant’s.”
“And she got steak.”
“We both did.”
“And she laughed at your jokes.”
“I didn’t tell any jokes.”
Truck sits up, pausing his workout.
“Ehhhhng, ehhhhng, ehhhhng!” He makes a buzzer sound, like I just bombed out on a game show. “Flop number one. Remember, Champ said you need to make her laugh.”
“She laughed. I just didn’t tell jokes.”
“Huh.”
“And when you drove her home?” Weber asks.
“Why are we discussing this?” I ask.
“Mostly boredom,” Truck admits. “But also, curiosity.”
I shake my head. “I walked her up to the porch.”
“And you kissed her goodnight?” Truck asks.
“Not something I’m discussing.” I’ve already told him I don’t kiss and tell.
“So you didn’t kiss her goodnight?” he prods.
I do another set of pull-ups, completely ignoring his interrogation.
“But she did say you could take her out again?” Truck asks.
He knows she did.
“Yes. She said I could take her out again.”
“But then she hasn’t given you an actual date as to when that could happen,” Truck unhelpfully points out. “And she hasn’t called or texted.”
“She’s a single mom with a full-time job.”
Truck nods. “Well, time will tell.”
“Tell what, exactly?” I ask, taking his bait.
“Whether she meant that offer of a second date or not.”
She meant it. At least I think she meant it.
No. She did. She definitely meant it.
“Yeah,” I say. “Time will tell.”
Thankfully, the bell rings through the station.
Jeanie’s voice follows the bell. “Dispatch here. We’ve got a situation on Main Street.”
I grab my handheld and push the call button. “EJ here, Jeanie. What’s the situation?”
“Well, I guess Gladys is having her own personal parade down Main.”
“Her own … ?”
“She’s on her mobility scooter in the middle of the road. Traffic’s starting to back up.”
“Did you call the police?” I ask.
“I’m at the station, EJ—working the front desk. I’m married to the chief. All’s I have to do is turn my head and shout, ‘Hunny!’” She pauses. “He was called.”
I’m pretty sure this is not how it’s done in Columbus or Cincinnati. But we are what we are.
“Right. Well, did the police get called out? Are they on scene?”
“They’re there already. Gladys won’t budge.”
“Okay,” I say. “We’re on it. We’ll be right there.”
Weber, Truck and I quickly pull station pants on over our workout shorts, step into our boots, grab our radios.
“I’ll drive!” I say, running toward my pickup.
“I call shotgun!” Truck says.
I grab the dash light out of my glove box and speed toward Main Street.
About a block before we hit downtown, the backup of cars comes into view. The sound of horns and shouts carries through the open windows of my pickup truck.
I turn off onto a side street.
“We’ll have to hoof it from here,” I say, putting the truck into park.
We jog past a line of cars backed up the whole block.
When we get to the movie theater, I spot her—Gladys, puttering down the middle of the road on her mobility scooter. A bag of groceries propped under her chin.
“She can’t be going over five miles an hour,” Weber assesses.
“Five?” Truck says. “I guess it’s three tops.”
I approach Gladys.
People are honking and shouting. Fritz is about to get out of his car. I wave at him to stay put.
“We’ll get this handled. Stay in your car, Fritz.”
“I’ve got to get to work!” he shouts.
“Hang tight,” Weber tells him.
Chief Gene of the police department, Jeanie’s husband, is there, along with Jesse, one of the officers.
Jesse’s got his pad out.
“Looks like Jesse’s about to issue her a ticket,” I say.
I step over toward Gladys.
Jesse’s rattling off infractions like he’s a caller at an auction. “... impeding the flow of traffic, failure to use the right side of the roadway, operating a pedestrian device in a roadway when the sidewalk is available, creating a traffic hazard …”
“Are you gonna throw the book at me, Jesse?” Gladys asks, still rolling along at the pace of a snail on Sunday.
“It’s my job, Miss Gladys. All you have to do is move to the sidewalk so the good people of Bordeaux can pass through here.”
Cars continue to honk.
Someone shouts, “Get out of the road, Gladys!”
She ignores them. Or maybe she can’t hear them. It’s hard to tell.
“The sidewalk cracks make me wobble,” Gladys says. “They resurfaced Main and it’s smooth as butter. I like it better.”
“Well, this isn’t a matter of what you like,” Jesse says. Then he adds, “ma’am,” for good measure.
“Jesse Heinz. I have known you since you were born. You don’t get to write me up for driving home down Main Street.”
“You need to move to the sidewalk, Miss Gladys.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “You need to move out of my way. Have you seen those cracks? They’re bigger than the line down my plumber’s backside, and trust me, he needs to get some pants that fit so I don’t have that knowledge. There’s some things you can’t unsee once you see them.”
I chuckle, but cough into my hand to cover it.
“Gladys,” I say.
“Oh, hi there, EJ,” she beams over at me.
I’m strolling slowly along with her and Jesse and Chief Gene and my two crewmates. We’re walking slower than normal, but we have to move to keep up with her.
“Hi,” I say. “If you look around, you’ll see traffic is backed up in both directions waiting for you to move along.
She pauses, looking over her shoulder and then down the road ahead. “Well, look at that. Isn’t that nice, them waiting on me.”
“I don’t think they have a choice,” Truck says.
“We really need you to move out of the street,” I say.
“And I will. When I reach my street, I’ll turn down it.”
“We need you to get up on the sidewalk,” I clarify.
“I just told Jesse here, I can’t ride on that sidewalk. It’s dangerous. I might tip. And then what would you do?”
I look around at the other men, unsure what to say or do.
“I’m sure it’s not so bad,” I say. “Look at all the people walking along safely right now.”
The sidewalk’s not crowded. Nothing around here usually is except our festivals and the line to get into the weekly half-price movie at Movies on Main.
Gladys tsks at me. “Ask Marlene. She tipped right there last year.” Gladys points over to a spot on the sidewalk as if it’s the exact location.
“She laid in the petunias for twenty minutes before someone stopped to help her up. I am not ending up in the flower bed like a yard ornament for all the town to admire.”
Truck’s laugh is quickly cut off when Gladys glares at him. She points her finger in his direction. “This thing weighs more than my belated husband, Ernie, God rest his soul. If I go over, you boys would need a crane to lift me. You think there’s a traffic hold-up now?”
We’re all speechless. I glance around at the crew and officers and get nothing but shrugs.
“But now that you’re here,” Gladys says to me with a wide smile in my direction. She’s still inching forward while the crowd continues to shout and honk. “I heard a piece of news. Did you and Angie go out to eat at Grant’s on Friday?”
Heat rises up from the neckline of my station T-Shirt.
“Yes, ma’am. I took her to dinner.”
An idea dawns on me.
“If you’d like the details, I’d love to tell you all about it. Just come on out of traffic and onto the sidewalk. I’ll walk you home.”
“You’d walk me home?” she asks.
“I most certainly will.”
“So you’ll make sure I don’t tip?”
“Exactly.”
“And you’ll tell me all about your date?”
Truck laughs quietly from behind me.
The price we pay in a small town. Gossip is gold. And being the first to hear it from the source? Well, that makes you a momentary millionaire.
“I’ll tell you details no one knows.”
“Ooooh. Well, as long as you’re walking with me …”
I toss my keys to Weber. “Meet me in front of Gladys’.”
“I want to walk with you,” Truck practically whines.
“Nope,” I say firmly. “This is between Gladys and me.”
“I’ll be by later this week,” Truck says to Gladys. “You can spill all the tea to me then.”
“You come on by,” she tells him. Then she looks up at me and whispers in a raspy voice loud enough to carry half a block. “Don’t you worry, I won’t tell him the juicy parts.”
Jesse puts away his pad. He and the chief head to their patrol car. Truck and Weber walk back to my pickup. I escort Gladys to the curb where she rolls up the slope of the sidewalk at the intersection. Cars start to move.
I walk Gladys home, telling her about my date with Angie. I don’t tell her anything after the moment I pulled up to drop Angie off at her home. I don’t tell her we haven’t talked in four days. I’m well aware that everything I say will be town news by sundown. So, I’m careful.
Gladys makes it safely home and Main Street resumes its normal flow.
Truck and Weber pick me up out front of Gladys’ home. The rest of our shift is uneventful.
On the way home, I pass the Ox Cart Flower Mart. My truck slows to a stop before my idea has fully formed. I’m waiting on Angie. That doesn’t mean I can’t take action to show her she’s on my mind.
I step inside the shop, looking around in a daze.
“May I help you, EJ?” Jayme asks.
“I’m uh …” I scratch my head. “I’d like some flowers.”
“Well, that’s a good thing. If you wanted a loaf of bread, I’d have to send you elsewhere.” She laughs lightly. “What’s the occasion?”
“The occasion?”
“Someone’s birthday? An apology? Condolences?”
“Oh. Well. Just …” What do I say?
“Thinking of you?” Jayme supplies.
“Yes.” I blow out a breath. “Thinking of you.”
She smiles.
I stuff my hands in my pockets.
“Lucky woman,” she says offhandedly.
“Who said it was a …”
She laughs a full laugh and I realize what I just said and laugh along with her. “Yeah. It’s a woman.”
“I didn’t think you were getting these for Truck.”
“You’d be right about that,” I assure her. “I’m trying not to think about him most days at this time of evening.”
“How about yellow and pink roses with some wildflowers?”
“That sounds pretty,” I tell her. “I’ve never bought a woman flowers.” I look around the shop. “Well, I had to get a corsage for prom. But I think my mom got that for me.”
“I imagine she did. Most moms do that for their sons.”
Jayme gets busy, walking through the shop, plucking flowers from buckets and placing them on a table just behind the counter. She cuts the stems and wraps them in brown paper. Then she stuffs a packet of some sort in with the flowers.
“That’s flower food. Angie …” she smiles softly. “The woman you’re giving these to will know what to do with that. I’m sure she has vases at home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Most women have vases—sitting empty—in their homes. It’s like we’re just waiting for someone to buy us flowers so we can fill them.”
“Really?”
She shrugs. “Yeah. That’s why I bring flowers home sometimes for Shannon and for myself.”
“That’s sweet.” I don’t know why, but I ask her, “Any other pointers?”
“About women?”
“Yeah. I’m in over my head.”
“You’re a good man, EJ. Just be yourself. Women might seem complicated. What we really want is to be able to trust someone and rely on them. Not all of us, of course. I’ve decided I’m going to be a cat lady—or a dog lady. That part I’ll figure out down the road. But I don’t need a man.”
“You can buy your own flowers,” I say.
“Exactly. I’ve got my friends. I don’t need a man.”
“I don’t think Angie needs me,” I tell Jayme. “I just want her to want me.”
“Well, good luck with that,” she says, sincerely. “In my experience, flowers never seem to hurt a man’s cause.”
She sets the bouquet on the counter and I pay her.
Then I grab it, hopping back into my truck and driving over to the Dippity Do.
It’s always a gamble as to whether Angie will be at work by the time I’m off.
Some days she wraps up work early and leaves to be with the boys if she doesn’t have any appointments.
Today, it seems, I’m in luck.
I walk into the salon, carrying the bouquet.
Laura’s head lifts first. Angie’s focused on the woman in her chair.
She snips the chunk of hair she’s holding taut between her fingers and then her head turns and she sees me.
Her smile blooms, spreading quickly—all the way to her eyes.
I smile back at her.
She looks down at the flowers in my arms and her brow scrunches.
I approach her station. “Hi, Angie.”
“Hi, EJ.”
Her customer, Glenda, smiles at me. “Well hello, EJ.”
“Glenda.” I nod at her.
“I came to ask you a favor,” I say to Angie.
Knowing she might resist me giving her flowers, I came up with a plan on the drive over from the flower mart.
“A favor?” her eyes drift to the bouquet again.
“Yes. A favor.” I hold the bouquet out. “Could you keep these for me?”
“You brought me flowers?” she asks, her arms crossing over her chest.
“I brought flowers.” I agree. Then I say, “You’re going to take them—as a favor to me.”
She narrows her eyes.
“Does that mean I brought them for you?” I ask. “That’s entirely up to you.”
“Isn’t that just the sweetest?” Glenda says.
Angie smiles. “As a favor.”
“I’ll need you to put them in water. And there’s a packet of food. Jayme said you’d know what to do with it.”
“I do,” Angie says, her arms dropping from their crossed position.
“Well, that’s a relief. They’re way too pretty to die an early death.”
She laughs softly and extends her hand. I give her the bouquet. Our fingers brush and I feel the contact like air rushing into my lungs after holding my breath far too long.
“Thank you, EJ,” she says. “And, Saturday.”
The word sounds foreign at first. I’m so befuddled.
I didn’t anticipate how I’d feel seeing her in person again for the first time since our night out—the first time since we kissed.
“Saturday?” I ask.
She smiles, waiting for me to catch up.
“Oh! Saturday.” She is saying I can take her out Saturday, isn’t she?
She keeps smiling.
I smile back. “Okay. Saturday. Good. Great. I’ll see you then.”
“See you, EJ,” Angie says, her eyes holding my gaze. She turns back to her customer.
I pivot and walk out of the salon with a smile that won’t quit plastered on my face.