Silent Moments

I did my job and gave him his uniform (beige pants, light-blue collared shirt, navy sweater vest), showed him where everything was, and taught him to organize the book and toy shelves, fold and hang the clothes, dress the mannequins, and work the cash register.

It was noon by the time we slowed down, and we hadn’t spoken about anything other than the job once.

The weather was really getting bad now—the street had disappeared behind a curtain of rain that was streaming down almost horizontally, and the winds were ripping up the occasional signpost and sapling.

“So much for a lunch break,” Stephen said, coming to stand beside me at the window.

I shied away. I tried to tell myself that it was because I hated my height being noticeable (though, really, who could miss it?), and at my skyscraper six-feet, I had a good five inches on this guy. But it didn’t work—I was moving because if I didn’t, there would be a repeat of the last time we’d met. And that would so not be cool.

“There’s a fridge in the back. I always keep a few things around in case I can’t leave.”

I motioned for him to follow me into the miniscule “staff-lounge”. It wasn’t much of a lounge, and there wasn’t much of a staff (the only other people who ever worked at Tiny Tots being Mrs. Sawyer and my boyfriend Carl, who were both on vacation in the Keys), but I was proud of my closet. And its gourmet-stocked kitchenette.

As I piled the containers of tuna salad, penne, devilled eggs, and chicken curry on the table, I watched one of his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. "A few things?"

"I like to cook," I replied in a "so-sue-me" tone. "You can pick whatever. There's a microwave behind you."

He turned to look for it, clearly not believing me, and made some weird noise half-way between a chuckle and a "hmm". He picked up the chicken curry, asked me what it was (which earned an odd look and a sixty second analysis of all the ingredients), and then turned away again to nuke it.

I switched on the radio, fiddled with it for a while to find a station that hadn't been knocked out by the storm, and then heated up my pasta. I love pasta. It deserves to be a food group in its own right. In fact, if I were making my own food groups, there would be three of them: pasta, soup and salad, and chocolate. That's all anyone needs in their life. But I digress.

The radio station was fuzzy, but we sat in the lounge and ate lunch while listening silently. My leg jiggled the whole time. It does that when I’m nervous. And trust me—I was nervous about being alone in an enclosed space with this guy.

The hurricane watch had turned into a warning, and power lines were being torn down left and right. They were predicting gale-force winds long into the night, and demanding that people not leave their homes or businesses unless it was an emergency.

Well that was just perfect. Here I was stuck in a store, with a guy whose name (he thought) I had known for about five and a half hours (when really I hadn’t been able to get rid of his name or face or… other qualities… for almost eight months). And we were most likely trapped for the night.

I'd say this could be classified as an emergency.