The Promise of Lace (3 page)

“He’s good at his job,” Hailey huffed out an incredibly
exasperated breath. “That doesn’t make him gay. He doesn’t have a gay vibe.”

“Gay vibe?”
I asked.

“You know what I mean,” Hailey groaned. “Sometimes you can
tell. And he was smiling at you in a totally not gay way and you should pursue
this line of inquiry.

“Pursue this line of inquiry?” I repeated. “I don’t think
that’s what that phrase means.”

“Whatever. We should go back to that store. You need that
purple nightie desperately.”

“To do what with?”
I challenged.

“To just get because you obviously wanted
it and you never get anything for yourself.
You can splurge on something just
because you liked it. It won’t kill you. I promise. And Dieter has exquisite
taste. I’ve already offered my testimonial.” Hailey raised an eyebrow at me in
challenge.

“The idea of maybe taking it out for a test drive has… you
know cropped up.” I admitted.

“Cropped up?”

“Yeah… you know… subconsciously,” I said. I wasn’t as
willing as Hailey was to traumatize poor defenseless waiters and I could see
the poor boy coming back with our eggs. “I don’t know. Even if he is straight, isn't
there something a little
off
about a
straight guy who works in a lingerie store? Don’t you expect him to be some
sort of STD-riddled Lothario or… doll master? Spending all day dressing up
women in sexy outfits? It’s a little like the dark side of Henry Higgins isn’t
it?”

“I don’t know. He seems like he’s mostly a salesman.
Besides.
It’s just a shitty retail job and I think he’s
pretty young, like 22 or 23. He’s probably just stuck there while he looks for
something else.”

“Good. Now I’m
cradle
robbing
at a lingerie store.”

“Shut up. If twenty-three is too young for us then we really
are getting old. You should go for it,” Hailey said. “I might even have to
concoct a plan to force you to go for it.”

“And what is your plan?”
“I’m not going to just tell you and surrender my tactical advantage like that,”
Hailey rolled her eyes. “What kind of crap plan would that be?”

The rest of brunch passed without incident. Well, unusual
incident. Hailey, like she always did, had too many bottomless mimosas and Noah
had to come get her. He did this cheerfully. He parked at the end of the lot,
which was completely full, ran over, scooped Hailey off the curb as though
saving her from drowning then saluted me before bridal carrying Hailey back to
the car while she giggled and pretended to try to get down.

“Gotta love the big lug,” I laughed, watching as Noah tried
to maneuver getting Hailey into the car without setting her down. He managed
it, but must have bumped her head in the process. I saw her elbow him as he
bent to kiss it. He waved at me and dropped into the driver’s seat.

I went home.
Worked on some mock ups.
Threw in some laundry.
Called a few clients and had a
few people agree to give me their emails so I could send
them
samples.
Worked a little late to make up for my morning off.

I curled up on the couch with a cup of Hazelnut Latte, the
kind that’s made out of the powder that comes in a little tin, and the book I’d
been reading, Kerouac’s
On The Road
.
I’d thought it seemed interesting. I’d tried to get Haley to read it too so we
could talk about it, but she had flat out refused. She said she could give a
damn about books that old fogies thought were shocking and to let her know if I
wanted to read something that at least had a mystery or a good sex scene in it.

I put on a little music and sank down into my couch.

One chapter in, I was daydreaming more than I was reading.
Imagining someone here with me.
Reading the book on his way
to his job and coming home to talk to me about it.
Drinking
sugary crap coffee mixer with me.
Being another sound
in my empty apartment.

I sighed, wriggled further down into my couch, set the book
on the coffee table and flipped on the TV.

I had just realized that I was totally going to let Hailey
put her diabolical plan to hook me up with a guy who could very easily be gay
into motion, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself.

Chapter Three

“Fantastic,” I sighed, as the three of us came to a stop a
few storefronts down from the lingerie store.

I stopped. Noah was sneaking for no reason and bumped into
me. Hailey tripped into him and accidentally whacked him loudly on the ass with
one of her Macy’s bags.

We were basically the stooges.

“So now we are
stalking
Dieter. That is just
fan-freaking-tastic
.”

“We are not stalking,” Hailey insisted. “We have a totally
legitimate reason to be here. We have done legitimate shopping elsewhere in the
mall. We are going into the establishment where he works for a legitimate
reason. Our sole purpose is to exchange money for goods. We don’t even know if
he works today.”

“I bet that’s what everyone who is eventually brought up for
stalking says to themselves at first,” I huffed. “We’ve been at the mall since
it opened, and taking shifts to walk past every hour to see if he’s working.
We’re pathetic.”

“Is he there?” Noah asked. “I want to see this guy. Is he
handsomer than me?”

“Of course not, baby,” Hailey answered at the same time I
gave Noah and mockingly apologetic expression and nodded ‘yes’.

Hailey put her hands on her hips. “For every Happily-Ever-After
in history there’s some fairy godmother out there who had to bust her fucking
hump to get it done. So shut the fuck up and go talk to that handsome man,” she
declared in a tone that brooked absolutely no argument. “And when this works, you
come back out here and you buy me a soft pretzel.
Capisce?”

“You’re scary when you have an espresso shot. Has anyone
ever told you that?” I countered.

“She really is,” Noah agreed.

“Go!” Hailey ordered, jabbing her finger toward the store.

I turned around and headed for the lingerie store, where we
had just seen Dieter behind the counter. I was trying to tell myself that I was
totally cool and collected about this. I had not brought along a backup team
like some fucking junior high kid who could not talk to a boy without a
cootie-protection screen made up of her friends. I had not spent my entire day
being jostled by blond suburb girls on the off chance that Dieter might be
working.

And, if he wasn’t working, it still wasn’t a total waste of
my day. I had gotten a few things done. Bought a new pair of sneakers to
replace my poor ripped, worn out, and beloved purple Converse. I had replaced
my battered shoulder bag with a nice leather briefcase and hardly felt bad
about spending the money. I had been carrying around an old canvas messenger
bag forever. The huge hole in the corner had widened to the point where
important things were likely to fall out, and I’d been explicitly saving for a
nicer bag. It was a business expense. I had even saved the receipt, making this
whole stupid mall-stalking portion of the plan, to use Hailey’s term,
legitimate
.

I approached the lingerie store, pausing outside and
pretending to admire the huge posters of mostly-naked women in the windows. I
did my best to use my peripheral vision to spot Dieter. He was behind the
counter, looking bored.

I took a deep breath, which evidently I needed in order to
go talk to an attractive man, because I was some sort of ridiculous teenager.

He smiled at me as I walked up to him. It was warm, but
restrained. Not exactly the saucy grin that he had given Hailey and
I
last week. It made me nervous. Maybe he’d realized that we
had been trying to pin down his whereabouts since nine in the morning.

“Hi, I was in here last week and I tried something on and
thought I’d come back to get it. It was purple, sort of,” I set my fingertips
to my collar and traced the shape of the neckline over my blouse.

“I remember. I’ll go get it for you.” He rapped his knuckles
on the desk before he disappeared.

He remembered.

Sigh.

I mocked myself for the little tickle of butterflies in my
stomach caused by a salesman being a good salesman and then moved on to mocking
myself for pre-emptively buying a nightie when I was single, and my only
potential prospect was a slightly too young cutie who did, upon further
reflection, seem to be a little
too into
lingerie.

Dieter returned, the shining plum fabric dripping from his
hands. I watched the way he crossed the floor, with sharp, controlled steps,
nearly a march. He walked like he should be carrying a flag.

I indulged in a brief fantasy of him in uniform,
then
banished it as he actually ducked around the counter
and started scanning the sales tags.

He was business-like and efficient about the whole thing,
taking my card and giving me the receipt to sign with a polite little smile,
and I left with the purchase and a coupon for an upcoming sale and felt
disappointed about it, which was just stupid.

What had I been expecting him to do? Cry out that he had
been waiting for me to return and could not quell his desire for me? That we
must away to the dressing room post-haste for an up-against-the-wall-fuck with
the tags still on the nightie?

A fantasy about being fucked up against the wall in a public
place was a sure sign I had been watching too much porn.

I sighed, adjusted the bag on my arm so that the jute
handles weren’t rubbing into the crook of my elbow and walked back out to the
main hallway of the lingerie store.

Noah and Hailey were playing cool, but trying way too hard.
Maybe Dieter had been a little cold to me because there was so clearly
something weird about a woman’s friends waiting outside the store for her to
buy something and then hovering at the entrance as though they were expecting a
debriefing when she came back out.

“Let’s move,” I said, pointing a finger like I was gesturing
us all
to
some predetermined destination instead of
making sure that we did this far away from where Dieter could see us. I’d had
more than enough humiliation for one day.

“What happened? You were gone like two minutes. You didn’t
even flirt!” Hailey moaned. “I didn’t devote my entire fucking day to this just
so you could blow it!”

“I didn’t blow it. There was nothing to blow. He was like,
ice cold professional. He didn’t say any of the stuff he usually says, he was
just like, ‘Ah, yes, here is your revealing undergarment. Please leave’.
 
There was no flirting to be done. It was
brutal.”

“He wasn’t even friendly?”

“For just a guy doing his job? Yeah he was totally friendly.
Compared to usual? No.
Not at all.”
Something occurred
to me. “Wait. You guys weren’t just out here staring at him were you?”

“No!” Noah said. “We just walked past. We were looking at
the map to see where Wilson Leather got moved. It’s not like we had our faces
pressed up against the glass or anything.”

“Well. Whatever,” I sighed. “I’m tired. This blew. I’ve got
work that needs doing. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Hey, come on, let’s at least go grab some lunch.” Noah set
his hand over my shoulder.

I sighed and shrugged it off. “I’m just going to go home and
do some work. I’ve got a few mock ups to finish up. Some phone calls I should
make.”

“Come on, we can sti—” Hailey started.

“Guys—I have to work today. Come back to me with the next
stage of the plan. I've already blown my whole morning.”

Hailey let it go. Noah looked like he was going to argue,
but I saw him jump. Hailey had kicked him.

“Alright.
I’ll let you know when I’ve got a stage
two in the works.”

“Sounds good.
Later.”

I was mad at myself for being disappointed. I had a crush.
So what? I had things to do and it was just stupid to be going full high school
nuts over some muscular hunk. Then I wondered if maybe Hailey was only doing
this to live vicariously through me. She’d been dating the same guy for nearly ten
years. She was engaged. She had just been complaining about being slightly
bored, if utterly content.

Then I felt bad again for doubting my friend’s intentions. I
dropped down into my car and heaved out a deep breath. This wasn’t getting me
anywhere. Less thinking, more working. That was the ticket.

When I got home I took all the things out of my old bag,
threw away the random receipts, dumped out all the change and pens, and
carefully tucked all my things into my new bag. I chucked the nightie and the
makeup into my wardrobe, pulled out my computer and got to work.