“Boy, this is a small town!” I tried to recover from my last outburst. I should not be allowed to interact with the public until after my morning coffee! But seriously, why was he here? Out of all the men in this town who could’ve helped me, the universe sent me him! I didn’t exactly do a good job of avoiding him at work, and now we officially formed a relationship outside of Millstone’s!
Isaac, too, looked surprised to see me, and, to my surprise, he shifted around a little guiltily! “Sorry for the wake up call! If I knew it was you, I wouldn’t have made it so early!”
He brought up a really good question to me. “Why did you make it so early? You closed last night, you couldn’t have gotten a lot of sleep!”
“I would have lost sleep either way,” he explained. “Gryla scheduled a bunch of appointments with cutlery experts.”
“Cutlery experts?” I puzzled. “So, you were gonna spend the whole day looking at forks and spoons?”
“Basically!” He shuddered at the thought, and that made me laugh. “Gryla’s dad said one of his employees daughters needed a handyman, and since he knew I was looking for extra work, he recommended me for the job. Gryla didn’t seem too pleased about it, but…” He shrugged.
I wanted to laugh again, but something occurred to me… “Wait, my dad works for Gryla’s dad?”
“Ha, yeah, I guess so!” Isaac bemused.
Inwardly, I cringed. If I did anything to upset Gryla, I worried now that my dad’s job could be at stake! “Well, I suppose you would like to get started.”
“Only if you want your wall fixed,” Isaac kidded.
He always made me laugh or smile despite my mood! I really wished he wouldn’t since I was trying hard to crush this crush. I led him to the spot where I made the hole. “It’s over here behind this picture.”
Before I could take the frame off the wall, he stopped me by holding onto the frame. “What a beautiful picture!”
“Oh, thank you!” I said humbly. I didn’t tell him how much I wanted to get rid of it because of all the bad memories associated with it.
“No, really!” he went on. “The sunlight and the shadows are angled in just the right way to make that look like a painting! These rocks are interesting too! They look like they’re kissing!”
“They’re called Kissing Camels,” I informed him. “They’re part of the Garden of the Gods National Park. I shot that when I was living in Colorado.”
“You shot this?” he reacted incredulously.
“Well, yeah!” I really hoped that I wasn’t blushing. “Photography is my passion!” I picked up my phone and showed him a folder with some of my best work. In all of the recent craziness, I forgot all about it and enjoyed the excuse to talk about it.
“Wow, you’re really talented!” he complimented.
“Really? That means a lot to me!” I emoted. I meant that. Anyone who supports my dreams becomes an important person to me, and that made my heart sing! I suddenly became aware of how close he and I were, and to remove myself from temptation, I jerked myself away from him. “I gotta get ready for work. I hope you don’t mind…”
“No, not at all!” he obliged. “Do what you need to do.”
I actually to didn’t have to be at work for a while, but this handsome, kind, intelligent man who appreciated my art was alone with me in my house, and to keep his fiancee and her father happy, it was in my best interest to leave early. I did my best to stay in the back and avoid him, but eventually I ran out of excuses to stay in my bedroom. I made some coffee and poured myself a bowl of cereal, and then I beelined to the point of the couch farthest away from him. At that point, I really wished I bought a kitchen table, but I always ate there so I could watch TV. To my astonishment, Isaac was basically done! The spot in the wall stuck out a bit because it didn’t blend in with the old, peeling wallpaper, but otherwise, it looked great. I could help myself, “So, you can read, teach children, help the less fortunate, and do construction? Is there anything you’re not good at?”
Isaac laughed heartily. “Well, to be fair, I used to work in construction. I like doing it to help the less fortunate, or in this case, to earn extra cash, but other than that, I lost interest in it. I decided to follow my passion.” This made me blush, I know it! “Speaking of which…” This made my heart beat faster. He was getting closer and closer to me on the couch, and my body flooded with both excitement and panic. He held up my kissing camel photo and inquired, “Would you be willing to part with this?”
“Wait, what?” I didn’t know it was possible to get filled with relief and disappointment at the same time!
“I’ll understand if you can’t,” Isaac told me, “but I would be willing to take this as payment.”
“Sold!” I couldn’t believe it! Someone basically paid me for my work! I felt like a professional and so proud at that moment.
“Great!” He gave me a big, toothy grin. “Now I just gotta find somewhere to hide for the rest of the day!”
“You can pick up an extra shift at Millstone’s,” I joked.
“No, what if she decided to shop there?” He tried to make it sound like a joke, but I could detect a hint of truth in his voice. “Do you work tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I’m closing.”
“Me too!”
Great… I thought. A whole shift together with him would be wonderful for me, but it would come with dire consequences! “See you tomorrow then!”
“See you tomorrow!” He gave me another high five before he left.
I abandoned my cereal and began pacing. This visit just heightened my attraction to him! He was a good person outside of work, and he supported my passion! Plus, he looked really hot with that tool belt on! But, he would be married in less than a month! Gryla would kill me for ruining her wedding, and her dad could take it out on mine! A notion began to really take form now though. Was he actually happy with her? Whenever he talked about the wedding, he certainly didn’t seem very excited. Actually, I had proof he was taking steps to avoid participating in the planning of it. He hardly ever talked about Gryla. Actually, he talked about me more than her… That was too dangerous of a road to go down! What if I was wrong? Most guys don’t care about wedding details, and he was probably nervous for the actual day of. No, at this point, I would not give myself any permission to pursue this idea!
I hated working without him there! The terrible way the store got run consumed my entire thoughts at that time. I ran out of cash in my drawer, again, and as I waited for change to give to a customer at the register, the line grew long and no other cashier was around to help me. Claudia finally came over, but instead of bringing me some change, she lectured me about Pine Pass sales! Later, I had a customer who found a pair of mismatched shoes, so I paged the shoe department. It took fifteen minutes to get someone to answer and even longer for the worker there to find the shoe! When it was time for my break, after I had to scream that I needed to go to the bathroom now or I’d pee my pants (a lie), Claudia begrudgingly came over to give me a break. She gave me a death glare, but at least after working that line by herself, she finally realized that the registers needed change!
In the last hour of the day, I had a customer walk in with the air of a celebrity who constantly got pestered by paparazzi but secretly loved it. We had a lot of clients who came from money, but she made it obvious that she was wealthy. Her clothes probably costed more money than I made in a month! I knew that they must’ve been tailor-made for her because they only enhanced her already perfect figure. Her whole body was flawless, even her face! Her makeup looked like a professional prepped her for a photo shoot. And even though her hair was pulled back, everyone could tell she spent hundreds to keep it fluffy, blonde, and flawless. I expected her to act really snobby, but she surprised me with her sincere geniality. “Excuse me, can you tell me if you have this item in another store?”
She showed me a picture of an exquisite flatware set from our website. I answered honestly, “I wish I could, but I can’t even locate stuff in this store!”
“Wow, really?” she reacted perplexedly. “Your managers didn’t train you how to do that?”
“They barely gave me training on the registers!” I gushed. I always loved a chance to vent with customers who were actually listening to me.
“Ugh, that’s awful! This store really is run terribly! I was in the houseware section for an hour and no one helped me! I mean, your website said it was stocked in the store, but I couldn’t find it anywhere!” she ranted. “The houseware section is a total mess, by the way!”
“Is it as bad as our shoe department?” I laughed.
“No, but that would be hard to top! I’ve seen junkyards more organized than that!” she also laughed. She seemed like a cool person, and just when I thought I had made a new friend, she had to say, “I wouldn’t even bother with this place if it weren’t for my fiance’s discount!”
A fiancee shopping for cutlery, it couldn’t be… “Would you happen to be Gryla?”
“How did you know?” she inquired.
“I… work with Isaac.” I don’t know why I felt like I was lying. I did work with Isaac! I just didn’t tell her about any other deeper layers to our relationship. In addition to all of the other reasons that letting her know I felt more than friendship for him being a bad idea, with her standing before me now, she struck me as the type of person who would definitely lash out if threatened. If she found out, she would get insanely jealous and make Isaac quit. I couldn’t let him lose his job, and, more selfishly, I would miss him so much! Less selfishly, and most importantly, I couldn’t let this crush take away my dad’s job! I actually hoped now to remain as anonymous as possible with her just to be on the safe side!
“Oh, duh!” she responded to my last statement. “Oh hey, what’s your name?”
So much for remaining anonymous! At that moment, I realized she was basically the barrier in keeping me from pursuing Isaac romantically, and I grew an intense grudgefor her. She was so perfect, why would he want me when he can have her? But, was she so perfect? I wondered. Maybe she had been faking her niceness with me this whole time, why would he want someone like that? Plus, Isaac was very intelligent, and she had just asked me for my name while I was wearing a badge with my name in bold letters on it! I sarcastically told her, “Santa!”
“Hi, Santa, nice to meet you!” She offered to shake hands, but she held her hand in that same limp fish way that Miss Allsburg did! I despised that handshake! I unwillingly complied because I had to maintain an air of civility, especially at work. She then remarked, “Well, I got a lot of comparison shopping to do. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon!”
As I watched her leave, the resentment I had for her only grew. I couldn’t believe I had actually thought she was a cool person at first! Now she just seemed pretentious. She wasn’t so perfect looking like I had thought either, it was all fake! I’d have loved to see if she could maintain her looks if she suddenly became poor! I knew some of this came from my jealousy, but wouldn’t wouldn’t envy her? She was beautiful, rich, and had an amazing fiance, none of which she deserved! Especially Isaac, that was unforgivable! I don’t know if I would have liked her if she didn’t have her claws sunk into the man I had deep feelings for, but I couldn’t help but hate her now! I didn’t understand what Isaac even saw in her! He was really down to earth, kind, smart… and she was so opposite! I know opposites attract, but not polar opposites! Did she put on an act just to reel him in? Somehow, she got him to propose to her! Did he fall for her looks? He seemed so much deeper than that! I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing at work at this point, I just had to get to the bottom of this! I didn’t want to become the other woman, but now I believed that she was totally wrong for him! Nothing else had changed though; he was still engaged and my dad’s job was still at stake. Heck, I still didn’t even know if he had feelings for me or not! But, I decided I had to spend more time with Isaac because I needed answers! If he wasn’t in love with her, even if he didn’t end up with me at the end, I would have to intervene! So, no more guilt trips, I had to spend more time with him so I could explore this issue further!
My Stories 