forgot
her birthday. We'll surprise her this afternoon, before we all go home." She looked at her boss. "Can you set up the cake in the back of a van a few minutes before five?"
Mr. Farmer smiled, his pudgy features transformed with plea sure. "Back of the van. Got it. Good thinking, Cooper. You tell the others the plan. I'd better get out of here before Angela comes in. She's never been late a day in her life," he added with admiration. "And don't tell her you saw me."
As her boss scuttled off, Cooper couldn't help but wonder if her taciturn employer had a soft spot for Angela after all. He was acting more interested in pleasing the office manager than most bosses did. And why not? Cooper thought to herself. He's single. She's single. Perhaps her conspicuous flirting had finally penetrated his hermitlike defenses.
No more than two minutes later, Angela arrived in a cloud of heady perfume and a tight black skirt trimmed with a black ruffle. She wore a frilly, butter-yellow blouse and a necklace of bulbous white beads. Her platinum hair was puffed out even bigger than was customary and her long nails were as red and bright as a clown's nose. Her four-inch heels created a perky staccato as she sauntered to her place behind her desk. "Good morning, Cooper!" her voice sang out. "Gorgeous day, isn't it?" The penciled lines that formed her eyebrows rose up and down suggestively.
"Sure is. What's my first stop today?" Cooper asked as cheerfully as she would on any other morning, but gave no indication that the day was special for any reason.
Angela hesitated, searching Cooper's blank features. She then glanced down at her appointment book. "Short Pump Elementary. Broken copier and laminator."
"Ugh, I hate those laminating machines," Cooper complained. "More trouble than they're worth."
"Don't worry, darlin'." Angela smiled knowingly. "You should be done in time for lunch."
Cooper collected her toolbox and a set of van keys and was just about to exit the office when Angela blocked her path. "Where's Mr. Farmer?" she demanded. "He's never late."
"I'm not sure," Cooper stated. "He mentioned having some work to do off-site, but that's all he said. You know him, doesn't waste words."
Angela flipped through her appointment book. "I don't have any off-site meetings written down! Hrmph. I'll just get him on his cell." The determined click of her heels sounded across the floor as she returned to her desk and tucked the phone receiver under a lock of blond hair.
Hiding her grin, Cooper loaded her tools in the van and reached the elementary school in less than ten minutes despite heavy traffic on Broad Street. She parked in the back lot, gathered her toolbox, and signed the visitor's log in the front office. The secretary, who was grateful Cooper had arrived so quickly, led her to a vestibule outside the principal's office where the malfunctioning laminator and copier sat.
Cooper frowned. She had repaired this copier, a Toshiba e-Studio 28, several times before and knew that it was only a matter of time before the outdated and over-used machine finally collapsed. The mechanical dinosaur had been fitted with so many replacement parts that inside it resembled a student science-fair project. Cooper shook her head in sympathy. It was time for the copier to be scrapped, but she suspected the school lacked the funds to purchase a new one.
As she found working on spent machines rather depressing, Cooper decided to tackle the laminator first. She disliked dealing with the persnickety contraption that covered everything fed into its aperture with a slick, plastic coating, but she knew that the teachers at Short Pump Elementary had come to rely on the machine's abilities to create longer-lasting and reusable items for their classrooms. The last time Cooper had been called to fix the laminator, an agitated young teacher had found herself stuck in the middle of a massive project in which she was laminating the shapes of each of the fifty states. The machine started malfunctioning as it was fed North Dakota and refused to budge until Cooper arrived. She had had to disassemble the entire laminator and North Dakota had been destroyed in the pro cess, but the teacher had been so pleased that her favorite piece of equipment was fixed that she didn't seem to mind having to draw a replacement state.
After repairing the laminator this time around, Cooper began work on the tired copier in silence, coaxing belts, levers, knobs, and rollers into action for a little while longer. As her skilled hands worked their magic, she enjoyed hearing the laughter and delighted shrieks of children emanating from the playground. Echoes of a high-pitched song in praise of rainbows drifted down the wide halls and made Cooper smile. As she screwed the back panel onto the machine, an older woman holding the hand of a young boy with enormous brown eyes and a round face covered with freckles appeared next to the copier.
"Oh, thank goodness!" The woman beamed at Cooper. "Is it ready to go?"
Cooper cast a solemn glance at the machine. "For now. It may even make it to the end of the school year, but I can't promise anything."
"Is it sick?" the little boy asked, his small face creasing in concern.
Unsure of what to say, Cooper looked to the teacher for help.
"Just old, Brandon. It's tired and would like a rest. Kind of like me! Now, let's run off these tulip templates so that we can finish our April Showers, May Flowers board, shall we?"
Brandon nodded, staring at Cooper as she put away her tools.
As his teacher released his hand in order to make copies, the boy edged closer to Cooper, walking on his tiptoes as though not to agitate the ailing copier. "Why do you have two different color eyes?" he whispered loudly.
After a brief hesitation, Cooper bent down and allowed the boy to look at her eyes. "I had an accident," she told him gently. "And I got a new green eye to replace the blue one I lost. See?" She pointed at the dazzling emerald iris.
"Cool!" The boy was clearly impressed. "You're like the Bionic Woman. Like a robot!"
"Brandon!" The teacher turned from the machine. "Hush now. You come over here and press the green start button for me. Can you find the green button?"
Brandon was too short to see the keypad, so his teacher lifted him into the air. As soon as he had pressed the appropriate button and the copier shuddered to life again, the boy returned his focus to Cooper.
"I didn't know girls used tools," Brandon stated as he pointed at Cooper's toolbox. "I'm going to tell my mommy that she can learn to fix stuff. She always makes Daddy do everything. Does your husband fix stuff too?"
The teacher put her arm around her pupil and flashed Cooper an apologetic grin. "Sorry. You know kindergartners. They'll say anything that pops in their heads. No filtering system whatsoever."
Cooper smiled. "That's okay. Bye, Brandon."
She snapped her tool case closed and brushed off the knees of her work pants. As she stood, Brandon broke free from his teacher's arm and seated himself on top of Cooper's toolbox. "Are you somebody's mommy?"
Cooper shook her head. "Not yet, but I hope to be someday." She gazed fondly at the boy's freckled nose and many dimples, but just as suddenly as he had sat down, he sprang up and returned to his teacher's side.
Back in the front office, Cooper signed out in the visitors' log and asked the secretary if they had budgeted for a new copier for the following school year.
"I don't think so," the woman said anxiously. "We were hoping that one would survive one more year."
"It won't last that long. You've got six months tops." Cooper repeatedly smoothed the paperwork attached to her clipboard. "It's given everything it's got. Next time I come back, I'll have to piece it together with duct tape."
The woman sighed. "If only we got a fraction of the bud get the government spends on frivolities," she began and then stopped herself. "Thanks for letting me know. How about the laminator?"
"Oh, that's fine. Temperamental, but it's good to go for a few more years or so," Cooper replied.
"That's how most folks would describe me!" The secretary laughed and led Cooper out.
As planned, the Make It Work! employees ordered a takeout lunch from Five Guys Burgers and Fries. In the break room, an expectant Angela nibbled on a grilled cheese while watching Ben pack away a mammoth bacon cheeseburger and a mountain of Cajun fries. Cooper and Stuart each had a cheeseburger with extra pickles but shared an order of fries, as one serving was copious enough to fill both of their stomachs.
"I thought you were trying to gain muscle weight, Ben," Angela teased. "That kind of lunch will only give you a spare tire and a heart attack sometime down the road."
Ben ripped off a chunk of his burger with his front teeth and then, with exaggerated gusto, shoved four fries in his mouth at once. Cooper and Angela exchanged worried glances. Ben seemed to have become more and more moody over the past two months. It was getting to the point that no one knew how to have a conversation with him anymore.
"Hey, what's with you, man?" Stuart asked while drowning a French fry in a paper cup filled with catsup. "You've been, like, all bummed out lately. What gives?"
"I'm just hungry." Ben offered an unconvincing smile and then amended his answer. "It's my wife. I'm worried about her, but I don't want to bring her problems to this table. There's not enough room, so let's change the subject, okay?"
"So," Angela said a bit too brightly and turned her assessing gaze away from Ben. "Where's Mr. Farmer? Off pickin' up a Chippendale dancer for my surprise?"
Her coworkers smirked.
"Now,
that
would be interesting!" Stuart snorted. "Can you see our boss driving over here with a stripper? Trying to make small talk?"
"I could see it happening if the stripper read
Popular Mechanics
," Ben quipped, displaying traits of his old self. "The two of them could talk about nanopro cessors as the dancer slathered himself with oil."
Angela checked her watch. "There's only five minutes left on our lunch break, so y'all have
got
to have some-thin' goin' on. And I admit, I really don't know what it is this year."
Cooper got up from the table in the employee kitchen and threw out her trash. "All we've got going on is work. I'm off to service the medical center's machines. Got lenses to clean and toner to change. See you guys."
"See you!" Stuart called back as he scooted the rest of the fries closer.
Angela opened her mouth to speak, but her red lips, still well covered in lipstick despite her having eaten an entire grilled cheese sandwich, closed again into a tight frown.
She's the one who wanted to be surprised
, Cooper thought and hoped that Angela's day-long anguish would be quickly alleviated by the late-afternoon celebration.
Cooper had little time to worry about Angela as she serviced fax machines and copiers in a beehive of doctor's offices. Everywhere she went she seemed to meet the curious gaze of one adorable child after another. She couldn't recall a workday in which she had encountered half a dozen kids who only seemed interested in watching her go about her job.
She was so preoccupied with repairs that she was almost late to Angela's party. As prearranged, Stuart, Ben, and Mr. Farmer prepared Angela's birthday surprise in the back of one of the company vans. Cooper screeched into a parking space and joined them, slightly out of breath.
"Tell me what you think." Her boss led her over to another van, which was pulled beneath the shade of a blooming pear tree. Soft, white petals drifted through the air and created a fragrant carpet on top of the warm asphalt. Mr. Farmer had opened both of the rear doors and tied pink balloons to the handles. Inside, on a pink vinyl tablecloth, he had put Angela's one-of-a-kind cake and an enormous bouquet of pink roses on display. Several fat fuchsia candles burned on either side of the cake and Cooper caught a cotton candy scent.
"Mr. Farmer, that cake is amazing!" Cooper exclaimed after poking her head inside the van. The large sheet cake was covered with a photo of Marilyn Monroe as she appeared in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
. Wearing a pink satin dress, pink satin gloves, and chunky diamond necklace, this Marilyn had been given Angela's face. It was beautifully done and impossible to tell where Angela ended and Marilyn began. The photo image, created using edible icing, or so Mr. Farmer assured them, was framed with dozens and dozens of miniature pink roses. It was truly a work of art.
"How can we cut that?" Stuart looked worried. "It would be, like, gross, to eat a piece of Angela's face." He eyed the cake hungrily. "Still, I could polish off a few of those roses." He clapped their boss on the back. "Good work, Mr. Farmer. I only got her an old lunch box."
"I got her a teddy bear dressed like Marilyn." Ben held out the charming bear dressed in a white pleated gown and frowned. " 'Course my wife accused me of cheating on her when she saw this thing in my car, so Angela better like it."
Mr. Farmer shifted uncomfortably. "Ah...what did you get her?" he asked Cooper.
"Some Lucite bracelets from West End Antiques Mall. I just told the saleslady that my friend liked vintage jewelry and she picked them out for me." Cooper heard the noise of Angela's heels coming down the hall. "Here she comes, guys. Let's hide."
Ben and Mr. Farmer ducked behind one of the van's doors. Cooper hid a few feet away, her back pressed against the side of the van.
"Hey, Angela!" Stuart called frantically and gestured for Angela to come closer. "I backed into a car with my van! What am I gonna do? I'm in huge trouble, right?"
Angela's face creased in motherly concern as she hurried over. "Are you okay, Stuart? Because that's all that really matters."
"
I
