Once Upon A Coffee

Part 3: Charade

As the brunette slid into the seat across the table, Dillon realized three things.  One, she wasn’t a waitress getting her flirt on.  Two, it was really hard to be annoyed at being interrupted by a beautiful girl.  Three, she completely thought he was somebody else.  

“I’m so glad I’m not the only one who believes in showing up early.”  Freed of the coffees, her hands darted briefly, like hummingbirds unsure where to land, before settling in her lap.

Dillon recognized nerves when he saw them.  He opened his mouth to tell her she’d made a mistake, then his eyes lit on the book she’d set between them.  The latest in The Iron Druid Chronicles.

“You’re a Kevin Hearne fan?” he asked.

Her eyes crinkled when she smiled, giving her a faintly feline look as she said, “Yes!  Have you read this one?”

Dillon quickly held up a hand.  “No.  Don’t say a word.  I’m three books behind in the series and have been rabidly avoiding spoilers.  I didn’t discover them until after I started grad school, so there’s not a lot of free time for reading.”

“No, I imagine not.  I confess, I’ve been a reading machine since I graduated two years ago.  I haven’t been able to get enough of all things commercial fiction.  I’m sure my English professors would have a heart attack that I’m reading something other than Faulkner.” 

“And yet, you were an English major?” he asked.

“Honestly, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  I like reading.  They don’t tell you when you sign up to major in English that what they do isn’t reading.  It’s analyzing texts—often by a bunch of dead white guys that haven’t been relevant in at least a century—to within an inch of their lives.” She shuddered theatrically and sipped at her coffee. “I’m pretty sure they make up at least half of all the hidden meanings.  I really don’t give a damn what the author supposedly meant by the curtains being blue.  Sometimes, the curtains are just blue.”  

Dillon grinned.  “Or the light at the end of the pier in Gatsby was just a green light.”

“Yes!”  She lifted her coffee in a gesture of agreement so enthusiastic, he expected it to slosh.  

“Why didn’t you switch majors?”

“Eh, I was already most of the way through.  The alternatives would’ve involved adding a bunch of stuff and graduating later.  I was ready to get out.  Though I do miss having time for a daily nap.”

“Naps are one of the greatest benefits of undergrad,” Dillon agreed.  “I’m pretty sure half the violence in the world would disappear if everybody had a daily nap.  I know I’d be much less inclined to murder my roommate if I got one.”

“I guess you don’t much have time for that between juggling classes and your assistantship.”

“Not so much, no.”  So whoever she was supposed to meet was also a grad student.  He really ought to say something.  But she looked so sweet as she absently played with the stem of the daisy, her attention focused on him.  He could at least keep her company while she waited for her real date to show up.  “So, what is it you do now with your English degree that doesn’t offer a chance for a daily siesta?”

“I’m the city recorder and personal assistant to the mayor.”

“City recorder.  That sounds all official.”

“I’m pretty sure I got the job because I can type accurately at over a hundred words per minute.  Writing all those papers in college had that side benefit.  Mostly I’m a gopher for whatever Sandra—Sandra Crawford is our mayor—needs me to do.”

“Do you like it?”

She shrugged.  “It keeps me busy.  And I’m usually in on whatever drama results from small town politics, which can be very entertaining.”

“Oh yeah?  Like what?”

“Like…”   She tipped her head in consideration and the sunlight from the window hit her hair, bringing out all the rich, warm undertones and making Dillon itch to touch it to see if it was as silky as it looked.  “Last month Leonard Culpepper—he’s the president of the local historical preservation society—went to war with Bernice Davies over her choice of paint color for the Victorian she’s been restoring.”

“What was wrong with the paint color?”

“Well, hot pink was definitely not historically accurate.  It went all the way to the City Council.”

“So what happened?”

“It turns out that Bernice is actually color blind.  She thought the color she’d picked out a kind of gray green.  Never crossed her mind that ‘razzle dazzle’ didn’t make much sense for a green.  They’ve been warned down at the hardware store not to let her pick out paint without assistance.”

“You like the small town life,” he said.  There was no question about it.  Her expression was one of comfort and satisfaction with her place in this tiny world.

“I do.  So many people grow up and they’re hell bound and determined to get away from where they grew up.  I was really happy to come back.  I like the fact that I run into my third grade teacher at the grocery store or my best friend’s parents at church on Sunday.  Roots are important.”

“I miss them.”  The words slipped out before he realized.  But hell, it was true.

“Where are you from?  Originally, I mean.”

“Little bitty town in East Texas called Rango.”

Her eyes crinkled again.  “Like the lizard in the movie?”

“Exactly like.  It’s ’bout this size.  Part of why I come over here once in a while is because Wishful reminds me of home.”

“What would you be doing if you were there now instead of in school?”

“Working at the feed and farm supply probably.  Running cattle on the side.”

“That’s a big jump from architecture.”

Ah ha, so his mysterious competition—and when had he started thinking of this girl’s real date as competition?—was from MSU.  

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed.  It was the truth, in a general sense.

“What do you do on a cattle ranch in the fall?”  As her bottle green eyes sparkled, Dillon could see she was imagining a Hollywood version of a dude ranch.

“This time of year, we’d be baling hay for winter.  Making sure the herd is up to date on immunizations and such.  It’s not glamorous by any means.  Most folks who raise cattle have other jobs too.  It’s hard to make a living at that on its own anymore.”

“My granddaddy raised dairy cattle forever, same as his daddy and granddaddy before him.  But they had to close the dairy, before I was born.  Now he farms.  Soy.  Corn.  Cotton.  It’s all a tough business these days.”  She paused to sip.  “So will you go home once you finish with grad school?”

Dillon shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Depends on how things unfold, I guess.  Where I wind up getting a job.  Whether it’s just me to think about or if I’m in a relationship when I finish.”  And where had that come from?  “Lots of unknown variables.  What about you?  Are you settled here for good?”

She smiled into her coffee and glanced back up at him through sooty lashes.  “I am until somebody worth leaving for catches my eye.”