Five Minutes Late (3 page)

Ellie nodded. “He’s an accountant.”

“An admirable career. And what’s this new system you’re talking about?”

“It’s more like a filter. I put together a list of what I want in a man. Non-negotiable things.”

“Really.” He didn’t look convinced.

She pulled a piece of paper from her purse and handed it to him.

Grandpa Frank nearly choked on the pastry as he read the title at the top. “The Perfect Man?”

Ellie nodded. “I know there’s no such thing.” She stared at the paper for a moment. “Maybe I should rename it. Anyway, I make sure they have most of these traits before we meet, then the rest I find out in person.”

“Wow.” He cleared his throat and pushed the empty plate away. “That’s … quite a list.”

“You always told me I deserved the best.”

“You do, but according to this list, the best does not have back hair.”

Ellie blinked.

Pickles!

Grandpa Frank had back hair.

“And what’s this … unibrow?” he continued. “Sounds like these are bad too …”

Double pickles!

He had one of those as well.
 

Ellie grabbed the list from Grandpa Frank’s hand and placed it back in her purse. “Okay, okay, maybe I need to remove one or two items.”

Grandpa Frank shrugged. “Things were so simple in my days. Your grandmother and I met at a malt shop in Anaheim. Have I told you this story?”

Ellie loved the sparkle in his blue eyes when he talked about his marriage. “Tell me again.”

“She served malts at the counter and
I
drank them.” He chuckled. “There was something special about her. I knew it the first time I’d laid eyes on her. Just one look and that was it. That summer I spent just about every single dime I had on malts, and I think I gained a few pounds too! But I felt comfortable with her and we chatted for hours about everything and nothing. I didn’t know what I was looking for, and I certainly didn’t have a list. It just felt right.”

“That’s so sweet, Grandpa.”

“And holy cow she could kiss like nobody’s business.”

“Grandpa …”

They both laughed.

“It will happen when the time is right, sweetie. And maybe with someone you least expect.” Ellie nodded. “How are things at the library?”

“God!” she groaned startling Grandpa Frank. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you. They narrowed down the candidates to me and another woman, Margaret Rossewood.”

“That’s great!”

“Well, yes and no. They’re stuck now. Half the board wants me, and the other half wants Margaret. I’ve met her and she’s an amazing person, smart too.”

“Can’t be smarter than you. Impossible.”

Ellie smiled. “Thanks. It’s not an IQ competition, though. They decided the job is going to go to the person who raises the most money for the fundraiser.”

Grandpa Frank scratched his chin and thought about it. “I guess there are worse ways to decide, like drawing a name from a hat. At least this way you can work as hard as you want for the job.”

“True. Julio came up with an idea to sell bricks that will go around the base of the oak tree in our courtyard. Donors will have their names engraved on the bricks. One hundred dollars for a brick.”

“What a wonderful idea.”

“Yeah, but I still need to ask people to donate, and you know how I feel about money. It brings out the worst in people.”

“And the
best
in people. Hang on, I’ll give you a good example.”

He left the kitchen and returned a minute later with his checkbook and a pen. “I’d like fifteen bricks please.”

Ellie put her hand to her mouth. That was fifteen hundred dollars. “No, no, no.”

“Why? Not enough?”

She laughed as her eyes began to tear up. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just …” She stood up and kissed Grandpa Frank on the cheek. “Thank you, you’re the best.”

He wrote the check and handed it to her. “You’re welcome. And if you’re up for a challenge, I have a way you can raise more money.”

Ellie narrowed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Grandpa Frank laughed. “How many dates do you have coming up with men from this dating website?”

Ellie had no idea where he was going with this. “Three. Why?”

“Perfect. I challenge you to get to a second date with one of them.”

Ellie cocked her head to the side. “What do my dates have to do with the fundraiser?”

“It’s simple. If you make it to a second date with the same man, I’ll buy another five bricks for the cause.”

Ellie’s mouth hung open. That was an extra five hundred dollars.

“What?” asked Grandpa Frank.

“You’re serious?”

“You bet! I want you to be happy, Ellie, and you’re never going to be if you don’t give these guys a decent chance. It’s hard to get to know someone over just one date.”

“You haven’t met some of these guys. It’s like they’re from another planet.”
 

Ellie was up for the challenge, though. Three possible second dates meant a potential fifteen hundred dollars closer to getting the promotion. Not to mention, the possibility of meeting a great guy in the process.

Still. Easier said than done.

    
An hour later, Ellie waited in front of the giant pine tree near the post office, where she agreed to meet her date, Richard. She checked her watch as he walked up.
 

    
Right on time. Good.

    
But her smile faded—along with her hopes for an extra five hundred dollar donation from Grandpa Frank—after he uttered three little words.

    
“Hi, I’m Dick.”

    
Ellie blinked and tapped her fingers on the side of her leg. “What happened to Richard? Not too many people can say they have the same name as former President Nixon.”
 

“His friends and family called him Dick.”

Great. Ten seconds into her date and she already had a dilemma. Could she see herself introducing this guy to people in the future as Dick? Without laughing?
 

Ellie searched for another angle. “Richard is very masculine.”

His left eye fluttered like a moth stuck in her front porch light. “I prefer Dick.”

Pickles!

If the male-organ-name-change thing wasn’t bad enough, the guy was wearing polyester pants a size or two too small, putting his marbles and Dick Junior on display for the world to see.
 

“My father’s a Dick too,” he continued.

The conversation reminded Ellie of a bachelorette party. She was tempted to ask him how long they were going to talk about dick.

“Traditions are sacred in my family, as you can tell,” he said.
 

“I think traditions are lovely. Well, except my brother’s. He thought it would be funny to give me a wedgie every year on my birthday.”

“Boys will be boys.”
 

“Actually … he still does it.”

Dick blinked.
 

Great.
 

No sense of humor.
 

Strike one!
 

Ellie had recently implemented the Three-Strikes Law on her dates; she’d give the guy three chances to screw up or display a quality she didn’t like. She didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings, but you had to draw the line somewhere. Her last relationship—with Vlad—turned into a nightmare. There were signs at the beginning, and she chose to ignore them. Never again.

Dick pointed to the other side of the street. “Let’s cross.” He grabbed Ellie’s hand and pulled her sideways toward Rafael’s Steakhouse. She had considered giving him another strike for his manhandling until she was hit by the aroma drifting over from Rafael’s.

She inhaled deeply and smiled. “Something smells wonderful.”

“Aqua Velva.”

Clueless. And he wore the same aftershave as Grandpa Frank. Great. At least he had excellent taste in food. Rafael’s had amazing tri-tip sandwiches and cheesecake.
 

Dick made a sharp turn to the right, passing right by the front door of Rafael’s. Where the heck was he going? Ellie’s eyes opened wide as they got closer to the building on the corner.
 

No, he wouldn’t. Please. Please. God no.

Her heart rate sped up.

A first date was supposed to be romantic—well, in her opinion. Surely he wouldn’t …
 

Dick reached for the handle, swung the door open, and waved Ellie through, like he was welcoming her to the White House.
 

Pickles!

She paused at the front door. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Not at all, they have the best wings in the world.”

Wings. Right.
 

Ellie knew any guy who came to this place was most likely a breast man.

“Welcome to Hooters,” said the hostess. “Two?”

Dick nodded. “Yes, please.”

The woman—or more accurate, scantily clad girl—grabbed two menus and gestured for them to follow. “Right this way.”

As they followed the hostess, Ellie glanced around the restaurant at the countless monitors showing sporting events and the fine wood detail of the bar and ceiling.
 

“The wings are why I always come back,” said Dick.

“Right.” Ellie eyed the waitresses in their short shorts and low-cut blouses, with their cups that overfloweth. As the waitress took their drink orders, Ellie found her thoughts wandering just a tad.

I can fit half of the waitress’s left boob in my purse.

This was going to be more difficult than she thought—she needed to focus.
 

Dick cleared his throat. “We’d like separate checks please.”

 
The waitress looked over to Ellie. “Umm … Okay.”

Dick turned to Ellie as well. “Naturally, I assumed you’d want to go Dutch. Equality for women … and all that.”

“How noble of you,” said the waitress, frowning at Ellie.

Ellie forced a smile at the waitress before she walked away.

Strike two!

Dick pulled out a receipt book and calculator. “Speaking of splitting things evenly, I need to do some quick calculations before we get to the courting.”
 

“Courting?”
 

“Absolutely.”
 

The things Ellie had to endure to find a man. Ever since her two best friends got married and moved away last year, she felt more pressure than ever to find someone to settle down with. With no parents in the picture, and a brother who lived in Wyoming, to say Ellie’s social life took a big hit would be an understatement. The only people she’d been hanging out with recently were Julio and Grandpa Frank. They were great—wonderful, actually—but she wanted more.
 

Dick smiled and slid on his reading glasses. “Okie dokey, I put forty dollars’ worth of gasoline in my car to come here this evening. Based on the eighty miles each way I’ll drive, never exceeding the speed limit, calculating traffic and construction delays, and a car that gets exactly twenty-point-seven miles per gallon …” He punched in some numbers on his calculator. “I expect to use thirty-two dollars of said gasoline, which means
your
share would be sixteen dollars.”

Ellie stared at him and waited for the laugh that never came.

He was serious.
 

Do it for the promotion. Do it for the promotion. Do it for the promotion.

Dick smacked himself on the forehead. “Almost forgot, I’m going to have to pay six dollars to cross back over the Golden Gate Bridge tonight to get home. Your half of six is three, plus the sixteen you owe me for the gas, for a grand total of—”

“Nineteen dollars. Let’s just round it up to twenty. Do you accept cash?”

Dick slapped his thighs with the palms of his hands as his left eye fluttered. “You are
wonder
ful.
I love your enthusiasm. And getting the money out of the way will make it less awkward later on when we, you know, say good night. Unless we end up saying good morning!” Dick winked and wrote her a receipt for the twenty dollars, asking for her signature at the bottom. “Press hard.”

Strike three!
 

Five bricks—five hundred dollars—down the drain.

“Excuse me, Dick.” Ellie handed him the pen and receipt. “I just need to freshen up a bit.” She grabbed her purse and stood up to leave. “Be back in a jiffy.”

“Of course, of course. Well, don’t take too long. I want to tell you about some great investments with IRAs that will just knock your socks off.”

“I can’t wait.” She forced another smile as her body shivered, anxious to escape. “Neither can my socks.”
 

Ellie walked through the tables toward the lobby, knocking over a fake indoor plant in the process. She righted the plant, pushed the front door open, and tripped over the welcome mat, falling straight into the crotch of a teenage boy in a stinky soccer uniform. The boy smiled.

Ellie wiped her face. “Sorry.”

She popped back up, brushed off her hands, and waited for a group of people walking by so they could shield her as she passed by the window in front of Dick. She took a quick glance through the window to see if Dick had a clue as to what was going on, but he was busy cleaning his calculator.

As Ellie walked to her car, she thought of the losers she’d gone out with recently. Men she’d found through online dating. They seemed fine on their profiles. But you learn so much more about a person when you meet them face-to-face and they show their true selves. Especially when they open their mouths.
 

On paper, Dick was a ten. In person, a big fat goose egg. Okay, maybe that was harsh. He was on time, so she had to give him credit for that.
 

Ellie laughed. “A night with Dick and hooters.” She scooted behind several people at the intersection and waited with them for the light to change. It was just after six and the traffic was extra crazy today, for some reason. As she waited, she couldn’t help but notice the broad shoulders and nice butt of the man in front of her. She leaned to the side to see what his face looked like. Very nice. Handsome. He had smooth olive skin and short black hair. Italian or Greek. Maybe Spanish. And possibly stupid.