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“What about you, Just Jet? Do we get what we see with you?”
Just for your information, I wasn’t a virgin and totally unlucky in love. I had a boyfriend all through high school, and three since then, all long term.
All boring.
All predictable.
All wanting more but not knowing how to get it.
All just like me.
That said, obviously, I’d had guys flirt with me. It was rare, but it happened. I just couldn’t believe Eddie was doing it, or at least it seemed like it.
“Chavez, for fuck’s sake, quit flirtin’. Christ, you flirt with anything in a skirt.” Tex said (explaining the flirting). “She’s tryin’ to work and you’re embarrassin’ her. Can’t you see her blush?”
At that, my hands slipped on the cups, they went flying in the air, bonking on my head, arms, hands, all over Tex, and they fell everywhere.
I bent down immediately to hide and to pick up the cups.
Eddie came around the counter to help. He crouched down and said, “Didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
I looked up. His smile had dimmed to a grin and his eyes looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on it but it, too, made my insides feel funny. I couldn’t help but think he felt sorry for me, but his eyes weren’t exactly saying that, though I didn’t know what theyweresaying.
I was mortified, and maybe a little pissed off at Tex, and one look at my face wiped away his grin.
“Youdidn’t embarrass me.” It came out kind of snappish, which wasn’t intentional, more self-defense. Maybe I was trying to convince myself, I don’t know.
He handed me the cups and looked at me closely, no smile or even a hint of grin in evidence. I avoided his eyes, avoided him (as best I could with him helping me pick up the cups). When we were done, I got up fast, so fast I made myself dizzy and had to step back or fall over. Eddie’s hand came out to steady me and I jerked my arm away, as if his touch would burn.
That’s when I saw his brows draw together and I stepped around him, giving him as much room as possible. I walked as fast as I could into the acres of bookshelves in the back and hid there until I was certain he was gone.
* * *
That was the first time I was an idiot around Eddie, but not the last.
* * *
Weeks passed, and I got to know the people at Fortnum’s.
It was a laugh riot working there. Everyone was hilarious and nice, and you could tell they cared a lot about each other.
It was comfortable and stress free (except for Eddie, of course). You made your own hours, and I started to relax, except when Eddie came around. Anytime Eddie was there (and he was beginning to stop around more often) I stiffened up, shut my mouth, and most of the time, hid in the back.
Lee and Indy had a party about a month after I started and they invited me.
Of course, I thought I couldn’t go. My shift at Smithie’s started at seven and the party started at seven thirty.
Mom was beside herself. She made me go, said I could “just pop by” and tell Smithie I’d be a little late (something he was used to, part of why I drove him nuts).
See, even before Mom had her stroke, she and her best friend Trixie wanted me to find a life and find a man (these were synonymous to Mom and Trixie by the way). Both of them kept going on about how pretty I was, I just didn’t know it. How I didn’t have any confidence. How I just needed to brighten myself up a bit. They’d been saying that for years, but then again, everyone said it, even Lottie.
“Sistah,” Lottie would say, “you are shit-hot. Even without any makeup on and your hair pulled back in that stupid ponytail. Look in the fuckin’ mirror every once in a while, would you?”
Then again, Lottie loved me. So did Trixie and Mom.
Trixie, who’s got a license for doing hair, nails, facials, everything, kept trying to give me highlights like Lottie’s. “Don’t hide your light under a bushel, or in your case, hide that thick, shiny hair in a ponytail. I’m sick of those ponytails! Every day, it’s a ponytail! Enough with the ponytails!” Trixie would say (Trixie was a bit dramatic).
She and Mom kept trying to take me shopping for clothes that “fit a bit better” (they meant tighter, which also meant I mainly wore tight jeans and fitted T-shirts and sweaters), tried to get me to go with the girls to parties and out to the bars. They even suggested speed dating once.
