Like You Read About (6 page)

Daniel didn’t growl, though he wanted to, and Steve, Mike and Joe just sat there staring at Raj mentally placing odds on how long Raj had left to live.  Daniel was one of those old
-fashioned guys, and he did not like it when anyone talked shit about the women at work, or any women for that matter, as the only boy with six sisters he’d had being gentlemanly beaten into him at a young age.

“I’m going to let that one slide on account of you having low blood
-sugar, or maybe a stroke for breakfast.  She was collecting the copies that were left behind and we were just talking about winter break so shut your pie hole, or I will make it so you don’t have a hole for pie.” He hoped he sounded calm and level headed when he spewed all that out because what Raj didn’t know, what no one but him knew, and even he didn’t know until ten minutes ago, was that the shy bean counter might actually be interested in making time with him. Before lunch, he opened his personal email and had a reply to his dating ad. He hadn’t even realized it was still up, he created it one night about six months ago when he was kinda drunk; feeling lonely and sitting on the couch in his boxers watching TV while his cat Lancelot played on the carpet with a crumpled up piece of paper.

Cora, sent him a reply, what the fuck was he going to do about that?

“I didn’t mean anything crude by it, but you have to have noticed that she’s all curvy in that hot way now that she’s lost all that weight, red hair, quite the rack, a man could rest his head on those for days,” Raj said with a mouth half full of sandwich.

Seriously, did he have a death wish today?  Dan didn’t want to kill Raj, but he was pretty sure the other guys would help him hide the body
if he did.

“She was always good looking, being overweight doesn’t automatically make you ugly the same way being skinny doesn’t automatically make you attractive, take y
our bony ass for example.” Daniel tried his best to sound nonchalant.  He had always thought she was pretty, but again that was his gentlemanly thing, all women were beautiful in their own way.  Besides, with her red hair, emerald eyes and a smattering of freckles she was the quintessential bonnie Irish lass.  He hadn’t really thought of asking her out because he hadn’t thought of any woman at work that way, for him that made a person automatically off limits, but perhaps he needed to revisit that policy.

“All I’m sayi
ng is that you live like a monk.  You’re a reasonable looking dude, you have a job, health insurance and you own a house, plus you have no felony convictions; so that makes you seriously desirable to the fairer sex. Plus, I read an article somewhere online that said women were more likely to date a man if he had a pet, especially a cat.”  And with that Raj dug back into his lunch.

Joe started talking about last night’s game and his little redheaded bean counter faded from everyone’s mind as they all
boisterously went on about Tom Brady and what an amazing game he had the night before.  Cora may have faded from everyone else’s mind, but not Daniel’s, he needed to decide what to do.  She sent him that email this morning as well, thanking him for the candy, was she trying to feel him out?  Nah, she wasn’t calculating like that, she was just gracious, she probably had a box of thank you notes at home that she hand wrote whenever she received a gift, she just seemed like that kind of woman, a little old-fashioned, just like him.

Lunchtime ended and then men all went their separate ways to fix what needed fixing or to code what needed coding.  Dan went to his office
and closed the door. One of the perks of being head of IT and having sensitive server data in your control was that you weren’t relegated to a cube. He called his sister Maria; she would know what to do.  He wouldn’t normally take care of personal business at work, but he knew he could catch her now while the kids were napping.

He leaned back in his chair, put his f
eet up and opened the email with Cora’s ad response while he waited for Maria to answer.

“It’s
one in the afternoon, is somebody dead, or did you get arrested?” she said in a hushed tone, her kids were light sleepers, a poodle could fart two blocks away and those kids would wake up.

“Neither, I need some advice from my favorite sister
, and since she didn’t answer the phone I called you,” he chuckled.  Maria and Daniel were twins and as such they shared something neither shared with their other siblings, no it wasn’t a birthdate because oddly enough five of the seven Santagata kids had the same birthday, apparently their parents had a set day of the year to have sex, he shuddered at the thought. 

“It’s about a girl
,” it came out rushed, but he just had to say it, no dragging it out.

“What is this
seventh grade and you want me to ask Lisa Riccio if she likes you?   ‘Cause we tried that Danny and she turned you down for that grunge kid who played in that crappy garage band.” She was trying not to laugh, besides not wanting to wake up the terrible twosome, she knew it wasn’t easy for him to have made this call. “Sorry, tell me about her. What’s the situation?”

“So six months ago, before I decided to buy the house I was home and lonely, kinda drunk and watching
TV and I decided to put a personal ad on an online dating site.  I had quite honestly forgotten all about it, even though I was still apparently paying them fifteen dollars a month, I really need to actually read my Visa bill, anyway, someone answered it last night.  Someone I know.”

“Was it
Lisa Riccio?” She was trying so hard to stifle the laugh, he was really twisted up about this, and he was never twisted up about a girl. Hell, half the aunts in Falmouth thought he was gay, a man his age living alone with a cat.

“No smartass, besides I think
Lisa’s doing time for solicitation, but back to the actual important information.  It’s a woman I work with. She’s smart, funny, pretty, doesn’t work in my department, and doesn’t have any supervisory links to me so we wouldn’t break the company fraternization policy.  She’s in accounting, smart as a whip, a little bit of a geek and has a weakness for sugar free strawberry candies.” She could hear the smile in his voice as he talked about her.

“So
what’s the problem, is she a drug addict? The boss’s daughter? Moonlights as a stripper?” Maria knew about the work thing, but that was a long time ago, and that woman was an idiot anyhow, Danny was young and blinded by a pair of big tits that put out.

“She is none of those things
; the problem is we work together. What happens if things don’t work out? It could be awkward, and I’d hate for her to feel awkward about anything.” He already wanted to keep her safe from everything, he was halfway gone and he didn’t even know it.

“Danny, if you never take a chance you and that fat
, cranky, half blind cat are going to rattle around alone in that house forever. Go for it, trade some emails, have a nice nonthreatening cup of coffee. See if anything clicks and if it does take her on an actual date, you remember what those are right?  If you do, can you remind Rocco, because since we had the twins I think he’s forgotten.”  Maria always knew the right thing to say, calling her was the right thing to do.

“O
kay, I’ll keep you posted on operation bonnie lass,” he chuckled.

“Her name
’s Bonnie?” Maria asked fishing for more details to gossip with her sisters about.

“No, her name isn’t Bonnie and I’m not going to tell you her name
. I don’t need you looking on the company website and harassing her by phone and email.  Bonnie lass because she’s a sweet Irish girl, red hair, green eyes, freckles, the whole nine.” He actually made a dreamy sigh at that last part, what the hell was wrong with him? 

“Irish?
Ma’s going to have a cow, but if Sophia can convert and marry that nice Rabbi, Ma can deal with Irish, especially since she’s probably Catholic.”

“Goodbye Maria, I’m hanging up, and not a word to the rest of the coven, I mean it,” he lovingly referred to his sisters as a group of witches, yup, lovingly.

He hung up the phone, opened his office door and decided to make the rounds. Well, everywhere but Cora’s area, he needed to think on that one, decide the right approach.

Chapter 7

“It’s been three
days, he’s not going to respond. That’s okay, I’m not upset about it, I knew he wasn’t going to anyway,” Cora was chain eating M&Ms on a cold park bench outside with Kaelyn.

“First of all, give me the candy
.” She held out her hand and did that come here motion, grabbing them away, “Secondly, you didn’t answer the ad the first day you saw it, you thought about it, decided what you wanted to do. You need to let him think, don’t jump to any conclusions just yet.”

“O
kay, Okay, now give me back my candy, bitch,” Cora said through clenched teeth.

“Nope, the baby needs these more than you do,”
Kaelyn tossed that comment out there, like the sky is blue, or the apples are delicious.

Cora squeezed her friend, “Again?  You know birth control is legal,
right?”  She was happy for them, although she felt that twinge of sadness she felt whenever she found out any of her friends were pregnant.

“We actually were using birth control
. Tommy obviously has super sperm, he’s quite proud of himself,” she gloated, just a little, wifely pride and all.

“Will you come back to work this time?”
God she hoped so, this place would be much less tolerable without Kaelyn.

“Probably, don’t know yet, we only found out yesterday
. No plans for anything yet, just sore boobs and exhaustion.”

“O
kay, break time is over, let’s get back to work mama.” Hooking her arm through Kaelyn’s, they walked across the parking lot and back in to building A.

At
a quarter to five, the numbers on Cora’s spreadsheets were starting to swim. She closed down her accounting program and decided to check her personal email.  Maybe he’d replied since she’s left home this morning. She was trying to be good today and not check obsessively like the last two days.

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date, Wednesday, January 16, 2008 1:45 p.m.

Subject: Possibilities

Cora,

I’m not sure where to start, so I’ll start here, you’ve hit two things on the head, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and no harm, no foul.  I will say your reply came as quite a surprise
. I created that ad a while ago and have as of yet received only one response, yours.  It was a pleasant surprise. I am flattered that you might think of me in that way.  After the meeting last week, when we were talking and you mentioned my beard and you smiled at me something felt, well, there was just something, but I had been painting the new house so I figured I might just be high on paint fumes
.
 

Your responses
to my questions were very witty. I always knew you were sharp, but color me even more impressed, that color is currently hidden under the blush I still sport whenever I think about you complimenting the beard, if I’d known that’s what it would take to get a pretty girl to notice me I would have gotten lazy years ago.

I’ve
also had one serious relationship. It was with a co-worker at my previous job, which is why it took me a couple of days to respond.  I hope you didn’t think I wasn’t interested, because I am, but I needed to stew on it and get the sage advice of my twin sister, who boxed my ears, called me a bonehead and told me to grow a pair.

I’m interested in getting to know more about Cora besides her love of strawberry candies, her Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figure collection, and her penchant
for singing in her cube when she thinks no one is listening.

So
, here’s what I propose, let’s trade some emails, be pen pals of a sort, learn about each other a little more. Maybe get coffee, and see how we feel about possibilities, because bonnie lass, I’m as open to them as you are, so what do you say?

Daniel

“Holy fucking shit.” Cora sat slack jawed staring at her monitor.

Kaelyn
didn’t even bother with a chat session if Cora was cursing, aloud, at work, she needed to walk over. “What’s up; is everything okay?”

Cora got out of her seat, plopped the little pixie in it and turned her to face the monitor.

“Sweet merciful Zeus, Cora, this is… well this is fucking fantastic, but I will neither gloat, nor say I told you so, I’ll just think it.” She swiveled and smugly looked up at her friend.

“Please go stand at the printer and pick this up for me
. I need a hard copy of this, because quite frankly I can’t believe it’s real and Gwennie knocked my printer off my desk a couple of weeks ago and it shattered and I haven’t replaced it,” her eyes pleading.

Kaelyn
pretended great effort, “Fine, fine, fine, make the pregnant woman do all the work.”

“You’re like
twenty-eight seconds pregnant I think the spec will be able to take a ten foot walk.” And with that, she waited until Kaelyn was next to the printer and hit ‘print’.