Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
T he Fresh Foods market was always busy at that hour. Located along the main road, it was a convenient spot for people to stop to pick up groceries on their way home from work. People like Janet. The bookstore where she worked was only a block down the street. And every Thursday, after her shift ended, she would stop at Fresh Foods to grab dinner.
“How do I look?” Gary seemed nervous. Probably because I was staring at him and frowning.
“You look great,” I said.
Getting here hadn’t been easy. And I’m not talking about the drive. I’m talking about convincing Gary. Naturally, he had been resistant at first. And last. And every moment in between. I started with the truth, telling Gary that Janet had a crush on him. I told him that Janet was single, and I thought the two of them would be a great fit, just leaving out the part about how Janet liking him had been twenty years ago, and the “single” was the filing status on her tax forms. No need to make things more complicated than they were already.
“I don’t know about this,” said Gary.
“That’s okay,” I told him. “Because I do.”
“You don’t think this is, I don’t know, desperate or something?” We were standing in the cheese section. Gary picked up a wedge of gorgonzola and grimaced.
“It’s not desperate,” I said. It was totally desperate. “We just want things to happen organically.”
“Maybe we should stand over in the organic section then,” Gary quipped.
I took the cheese out of his hand and put it back on the shelf. “This is serious.”
“Sorry. Of course.”
I stepped back to give Gary a better look. Per my instruction, he was wearing a nice green shirt, Janet’s favorite color, and a nice pair of khaki slacks. I felt I had to be specific because, with my luck, he would have shown up in paint stained cargo shorts and S.U.K.C. shirt.
“You sure I look okay?”
“You look great.”
I studied Gary a moment, like a museum patron assessing a piece of modern art, trying to decide if the art piece was the artist’s actual attempt to be brilliantly creative, or they were just messing with everyone as some kind of hoax. Gary shifted his weight back and forth on his feet.
“Hmm.”
“Hmm?”
I brushed an errant hair from his eyes and straightened his collar. “You clean up nice,” I said.
“I do?”
I nodded. “You look hot, actually.”
Gary tugged at his collar and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. “Well, I am sweating. I think I might have a fever.”
“The other kind of hot. The good kind of hot.” I gave Gary a wink. “Like a block of ghost pepper havarti.” Gary’s face turned from pink to red. “Now let’s go find some tortilla chips.”
“Why tortilla chips?”
“They’re Janet’s favorite food.”
Gary followed me to the snack aisle, where I found a bag of tortilla chips and added them to our cart. He eyed the bag doubtfully. “And what exactly is it we’re doing again?”
“Meeting Janet,” I explained. We had already been over it a million times.
“But she doesn’t know we’re meeting her?”
“Not yet. Now we need tofu.”
“Tofu?” Gary wrinkled his nose.
Fresh Foods had one of the largest vegan selections in the area, which is why it was Janet’s favorite place to shop. We found a shelf of tofu products next to the produce. There were tofu cubes. Tofu bricks. And tofu nuggets. It was as if we had died and gone to vegan tofu heaven, or as it was called by non-vegans, hell.
“What is it exactly? Tofu? It looks kind of squishy.”
I pulled a package of tofu from the shelf and read the back of the label. “Coagulated soy milk curds pressed into blocks of varying firmness.”
“Sounds amazing.”
I pointed at the tofu. “Add one of those to your cart.”
Gary made another face. “Does she prefer soft, firm, or extra firm?”
“I’ll let you do your own research on that one big guy.” I patted Gary on the back. “But since we’re trying to make a good impression here, I think you should go with the extra firm.”
Gary took a package of extra firm and placed it in the cart.
“Now on to the magazines.” We stopped the grocery cart in front of the magazine racks and started perusing the titles. “We need something …” I fished for the proper word. “Intellectual. Sophisticated. Refined.”
“Refined?”
“Show her how ... civilized you are.”
Gary gave me a funny look. “Like what?”
“I don’t know, something about engineering or science. We need to make her think you’re smart.”
“As opposed to …” Gary trailed off.
“You know, just a painter.”
“What’s wrong with being a painter?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with being a painter. It’s just, if you were, I don’t know, like, say, a doctor, for example. You would have had to go through medical school, take on a certain degree of responsibility. Being a doctor implies intelligence. Being a doctor implies wealth.”
When I looked over at Gary, he had his arms folded. He didn’t look thrilled.
“Look, no offense, but being a painter, well, let’s call it a blank slate. We need to fill in the blanks. For Janet I mean.”
“You said Janet was single, right?”
“Yes. I did say that.”
“And you said she liked me.”
“I said that too.”
“Why don’t you just call her up and say hey, you and Gary should go on a date.”
“That would seem desperate.”
Gary waved at our surroundings. “And this isn’t?”
“Gary. We’ve been over this a hundred times.”
“I only counted ninety-seven.”
“Think of it like an open house.”
“An open house?”
“An open house. It’s a real estate analogy since I’m a real estate agent. You see, most people think the open house is about the house.”
“It’s not about the house?”
“No.”
“Even though it takes place in the house, which has been specifically opened, for the purpose of people going in to the open house.”
“Exactly. You get it now.” I’m not sure that he really did, but I continued anyway. “What the open house is really about is the prospective buyers. Seeing the house is just a lure. A decoy. The prospects think it’s about one thing, but really, it’s about something else entirely.”
“So what is it about, then?”
“Finding the right match for the real estate agent hosting the open house,” I said. “Assessing fit and interest of potential clients. If the buyer displays the right profile,” I pointed to the items in the grocery cart.
“Lactose intolerant vegan?”
“The agent digs a little deeper. How many bedrooms are you looking for? Do you want a pool? What’s your budget? That first meeting, the ‘open house’ if you will, that’s when both parties decide if the relationship should move forward. That crucial first meeting when buyer and seller decide if they’ll go all the way.”
“What kind of real estate agent are you again?”
“The kind that invests the time and energy to find the right match.”
“Seems like a lot of work.”
“Trust me Gary, I’m a professional. This is what I do.”
Gary and I continued looking over the magazines. “How about this one?” He held up a True Crime magazine with a feature story titled “Stalkers!”
I rolled my eyes. “Speaking of professional guidance, we should probably work on your write-up. You know, highlight your feature set. Tell buyers, in this case Janet, what makes you stand apart. What would you say is your best trait?”
Gary shrugged. “I don’t know, my personality?”
“It’s definitely not your personality.”
“Ouch.”
“Don’t take it personally. You just never want to say you have a good personality. In the dating world, personality is another word for loser. What else do you have?”
“I’m generous?”
“Generous means clingy.”
“Is attentive okay?”
“I’m afraid we’re moving into stalker territory now.”
“I think we’re already there.”
Gary pulled a copy of Architecture Today off the magazine rack and held it up for me to see. “What about this one?”
The cover featured a dream house, sleek and modern, with perfect landscaping and a mountain view. “Excellent choice,” I said. “Architects are totally sexy. All those bold angles and sexy curves. Architects are even better than doctors.”
Gary put the magazine in the cart.
I rearranged it so it wasn’t covering up the extra firm tofu. “You know I wanted to become an architect once.”
Gary pushed the cart down the aisle. “Why didn’t you then?”
“Algebra. Math and I never got along. That’s why I got into real estate and interior design. I love a good project. Nothing better than taking something boring and plain, and transforming it into something spectacular.”
Gary nodded. I still wasn’t sure he was buying any of it, but at least he was still playing along.
We were passing through the frozen food section, which sparked an idea. “Frozen dinners! We almost forgot about the frozen dinners. The frozen dinners are the most important part. It lets the woman know you’re single. She sees a pot roast or a jar of Béarnaise sauce and it’s all over.”
“By the way, how do you even know I’m single? How do you know I’m not already dating someone?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you told me that Janet was interested. How did you know I wasn’t already interested in someone else? I didn’t pull out any frozen dinners on the nature hike.”
“No, just granola bars. From your pants. Which was super appetizing, by the way.”
I tried to stall answering him by stacking half a dozen random frozen dinners in the cart. When Gary continued looking at me, waiting for an answer, I admitted, “Kyle told me. And he told me about his mom.”
“He told you about his mom?” Gary looked surprised. Shocked, actually.
“Kyle told me everything. You know, I’m just trying to help here. Help you. Help Janet. I thought you two would be great together, but, you know, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Gary took a moment to consider everything I’d been telling him. “I suppose I’ve got to get back out there at some point, right?” He rubbed at the finger where his ring used to be. I don’t think he knew he was doing it. For a fraction of a second, a hint of doubt almost snuck its way into my brain but I squashed it immediately.
“Let’s go find a nice bottle of wine,” I said before Gary could change his mind. I headed for the wine shelves near the back of the store, Gary pushing the cart behind me.
* * *
Once we got to the wine section, we took a few moments to survey the shelves. I grabbed a random bottle. The label said it was a French Syrah. I wasn’t a wine expert, but it seemed like it could work.
“Now with this we accomplish three objectives,” I explained. “First, it’s expensive, so she’ll think you have good taste. Second, it’s French, which suggests romance. Third, if this blows up in our faces, you and I can go back to Aunt Catherine’s house and get tanked.”
I caught a flash of something in Gary’s eyes when I said the part about him and me going back to Aunt Catherine’s house and sharing a bottle of wine. I figured he must have thought the idea that something like that would ever possibly happen was completely ludicrous. Which it was, of course. Absolutely ridiculous.
I held up the bottle. “So, what do you think?”
“I’m more of a beer guy.”
“Really? What a coincidence. I’m more of a beer gal.”
The beer cooler was right next to the wine shelves. Gary pointed to it. “Stouts or lagers?”
“Neither,” I said. “I’m a sour girl all the way.”
Mischief danced in Gary’s eyes. He pulled a six-pack from the cooler, then placed it in the cart. “So what would you think if you saw this in here?”
I recognized the packaging immediately. It was from one of the local breweries, FoxPaw Brewing. The beer was aptly named SourPaw. “I would think you have superb taste. That’s one of my favorites.”
“So you’ve been to FoxPaw?”
“I know the head brewer, Mike,” I said. “I go there all the time.”
FoxPaw Brewing was on the way home from the real estate office. Me and some of the other agents would go there after closing a big deal. They had a great beer selection, terrific truffle tater tots, trivia nights, even karaoke.
Gary said, “We should go sometime.”
“We?” Gary had caught me off guard. “By we you mean you and Janet. Right?”
He hesitated before answering. “Right. By ‘we’ I meant me and Janet. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” I agreed.
I took the six-pack of SourPaw out of the grocery cart and put the wine in the cart instead. “Janet will be here soon,” I said. I did a quick review of the grocery cart to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Tofu, check. Tortilla chips, check. Frozen dinners, wine, and architecture magazine. Check, check, and check. “We should get into position.”
“If you say so.” Gary’s hands gripped the cart like he was holding on to one of those Coast Guard sea rescue ladders they drop from a helicopter. Hovering over a school of hungry sharks.
“You’ve go this,” I said, trying to sound confident for both of us.
Gary positioned his cart near the front entrance so he could spot Janet when she arrived. I took my position near the cheese. The trap had been laid. The snare had been set. When Janet arrived, she would see Gary standing there with his cart. The plan was to let her recognize him, then make the first move. They would start talking, laugh about old times, then nature would take its course.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
After thirty minutes, I abandoned my cheese post and returned to Gary, hiding behind a floor display of acid reflux pills.
“Are you sure she’s coming?” Gary was still death clutching the grocery cart. His knuckles were ghost white.
I checked my watch. Janet should have gotten off work over thirty minutes ago. “I’ll text her.”
MARY:
hey, u still at work?
JANET:
book signing
stuck here till 10
why?
MARY:
nvmnd
Touché universe. Touché. After everything we had done to prepare, Janet wasn’t coming.
“Time to move to Plan B,” I announced.
“Plan B? What’s Plan B?”
I did not know what Plan B was. “Plan B is, well, Plan B is even better than Plan A.”
Gary asked, “If Plan B was better than Plan A, why didn’t we just start with Plan B to begin with?”
Because I’m making this up as I go.