Through the Heart (8 page)

That was a question I couldn’t answer.

As a result, a whole hour could, and often did, go by without anyone coming into the store. Then it was just my boss and me.

It was tough for the first year that I worked there. There were times I thought I might go crazy, but sometime in the second year I realized I had started to enjoy it. It happened almost without my noticing. Nothing actually changed, but somehow what had once made me miserable, now I found I enjoyed. I loved the smell of coffee. I loved the hush that descended on the store when it was empty. And I loved the big plate-glass windows that faced the empty lot across the street where the Arby’s used to be before they tore it down a few years back. Beyond the empty lot there was the parking lot for the bowling alley, and beyond that I could see the wheat fields that surrounded the town, short and shorn, the stubble a pale dull tan. Every afternoon, when the sun dropped low enough in the sky, the rays streamed in over those fields, sparkling off the roofs of the cars parked for the afternoon bowling league, straight through those huge plate-glass windows.

I loved it, but the sun on those windows drove Neil crazy. He was always trying to get the glass perfectly, spotlessly, transparently clean. He was on medication for OCD, but it didn’t seem to be helping. He’d declare the windows clean in the morning, but once the afternoon sun hit, streaks and smudges suddenly appeared, like invisible writing illuminated under ultraviolet light. Neil seemed to think that if only he found the right product, that first wipe of the cloth could produce a pure arc of clarity.

It seemed like every week Neil would come in with some new cleaning solution. This week was no different. That morning Neil came in with yet another bag. He’d been up to Wichita over the weekend, to the Bed Bath & Beyond up there, because he read about a product called Perfect Glass. The label made the claim, “leaves glass looking perfect!” and he’d bought a special cloth that was designed specifically for glass cleaning, also guaranteed not to leave streaks.

He was certain it was going to work this time.

I was not so hopeful. But I didn’t mind. Trying to get those windows clean didn’t seem more ridiculous than anything else in my life. But by midday, before the sun got low enough to hit the widows, the clouds rolled in. Outside the window, the sky was an expanse of rolling bands of dark and light and dark and light, undulating into the distance as far as I could see.

Even without the sun, Neil couldn’t wait any longer. He gave me the bottle and the cloth and told me to get started. The fabric of the cloth felt strange: it was soft and should have felt nice, but it gripped the skin of my hands in a strange way that made my stomach a little queasy. I sprayed a fine mist on the clear glass and wiped it down. The cloth didn’t exactly absorb the liquid. It seemed to just smear it across the glass, but with enough rubbing, it eventually dried. I sprayed again and repeated the rubbing. Neil stood behind me the whole time, with his arms crossed, his head thrown back, and his eyes in an intense squint.

After a few minutes, he said, “I think it might be working. It’s definitely better. Don’t you think it’s better?’

“Yes. Sure,” I said.

“Are you just saying that, or do you really agree?” Neil asked.

“I’m just saying it. Neil, it’s not sunny. We can only see the streaks when it’s sunny.”

“But it could be working. It could be better. Don’t you think it could be?”

“Yes. Sure. It could be.”

“You’re not just saying that?” he asked, half-hopefully, half-suspiciously.

I opened my mouth to answer, but I was spared from more when the bell over the door jingled.

“Customer,” Neil said, unnecessarily. That was the thing with Neil. Almost everything he did was unnecessary.

I put down the cloth and the streak-free cleaner.

“Don’t leave that there,” Neil said. “What would that look like to customers?”

I thought that it would look like I was washing the windows, but I kept that thought to myself. I just turned back, picked up the cloth and the liquid, and stashed them behind the counter. The man was waiting for me by the time I got around behind the register.

Looking back, I can’t find any sense of recognition in that moment. There was no funny feeling, no premonition that this small slice of time, this ordinary Monday afternoon, would change the course of my life. And this man’s life. And the lives of everyone who was close to me.

No, all I could remember was that I noticed the suit. It wasn’t his face or his eyes or his smile. It was the suit that struck me. Wearing a suit in town was not unheard of, but it was never a suit like this. The suits I saw around town were either black, for funerals, or mud brown, and usually paired with the unfortunate choice of a checked shirt and striped tie in even more unfortunate colors. But comparing the suits I usually saw with this one was like comparing a Volvo with a Lamborghini. The fabric of the suit was gray, with subtle lines that were actually tiny ridges in the cloth. And it had just the faintest sheen to it. He wore it with a pale blue shirt and a dark blue tie, also with the same little ridges in the fabric. It was very simple, but the kind of simple that cost more than a lot of people made in a month.

When I looked up from the suit to his face, I saw what I thought was the best-looking man I’d ever seen in person. He might almost have been too good-looking, with the plastic look of a magazine, but he was saved from that by the deep lines sloping across his forehead and bracketing his mouth.

I said, “Welcome to Starbox. What can I get you?”

The man squinted up at the board. At least he didn’t ask the same question everyone else did. Instead, he said, “Is this a Starbucks?”

“No, it’s Starbox,” I said.

“Ah, I understand,” he said. He paused. Then he shook his head and said, “Actually, I don’t understand at all. This has been a very strange day.”

“Maybe a coffee will help,” I suggested. Then I happened to look over his shoulder and catch sight of Neil mouthing something. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what he was trying to tell me.

I sighed and said, “Might I recommend our special drink of the month, pumpkin-spice latte?”

I hoped I put the right amount of lack of enthusiasm into my voice. The special drink was like drinking pureed pumpkin. Neil had gotten the name off the Starbucks Web site, but the recipe was his. And it was disgusting. But Neil thought it was a masterpiece, and he wanted me to recommend it to everyone that came into the store. So far, not one person had taken me up on it. Until now.

“If you think it’s good,” the man said, “I’ll try it.”

“Are you sure?” I said, trying to shake my head at him subtly so he would get the message, and Neil wouldn’t notice.

But it turned out that the man didn’t notice and Neil did. Neil was glaring at me as the man said, “Your recommendation is good enough for me.”

I turned around to make the pumpkin spice. I thought maybe if I added less of the pumpkin syrup, it might make it a little less disgusting, but when I tried to put just one pump in the cup, I turned to find Neil standing right behind me.

“Nora, it’s four squirts of the pumpkin syrup. How many times did I go over this?”

“I’m sorry, Neil,” I said, turning back and reluctantly putting three more pumps of the liquid in the cup.

“Do you want me to make the rest of it?” he said. “Or do you think you can get it right?”

“I can do it,” I assured him. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Neil said. “One squirt is not fine.”

I ignored him and went on making the drink. Neil went back around the counter, but I could feel him watching me, ready to pounce if I made another mistake in his recipe.

I finished the drink, fit a travel lid on the cup, and gave a silent prayer that the man wouldn’t try it until he was out of the store. Then I brought it over to the register where he was waiting and rang it up.

“That will be $3.82,” I said.

The man reached inside the jacket of the beautiful suit and brought out his wallet. He handed me a twenty, then picked up the drink, peeled back the plastic flap of the lid, and raised the cup to me, smiling, and took a sip.

Then his smile disappeared.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

He bravely summoned the smile back up. “Wonderful,” he said, as he put the cup carefully back down on the counter—as if it might leap up and bite him. “But maybe I could get a regular latte as well? Double shot, Venti, with skim.”

“Of course,” I said.

I packed the coffee grounds into the double espresso filter-cup, fit it into the machine, and ran it. Then I foamed the milk and poured it into the cup, put on the lid, and brought it back over to the counter. I added that drink to the tab and gave him his change from the twenty.

“Thank you,” he said, picking up his two drinks and heading to the door.

As soon as he turned to leave, that’s when I knew. The feeling was so strong and so eerie, I wondered if it was what Tammy felt when she held my palm and told me the future. I knew he was going to turn around before he did it.

And I was right. In the very next second, he turned back. And it seemed clear to me that the feeling and his turning around went together, but which came first was a chicken-or-egg dilemma I had no way of solving. Did I have the feeling because he was going to turn around, or did the feeling cause him to turn? All I know is that he did turn around and come back to the counter. He put his drinks down and looked at me.

“I wanted to ask you a crazy question,” he said.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I wanted to ask if you would come have a cup of coffee with me,” he said.

“I . . .” I started to answer and stalled there. I wanted to say yes, but all my brain came up with were the reasons I couldn’t. I was working, he was too good-looking, and he was obviously from out of town so what was the point? Those were just the top three. You wouldn’t believe how many went through my mind in the space of a split second.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s not that—”

And that was when Neil came up beside me.

“Is there a problem here?” Neil asked.

“No, no problem,” the man said. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

The other thing about Neil was that he might give his employees a hard time, but he was fiercely protective of us. He didn’t follow the policy that the customer is always right—he followed the policy that the person who worked for him, and who he knew and trusted, was to be defended at all costs, which was nice when there was a problem but could be embarrassing in a situation like this, where he got aggressive for no reason.

“I know you’re not going to try to tell me that my employee wasn’t friendly,” Neil said.

“No, of course not,” the man said.

Neil said sternly, “We serve coffee here. And lemon loaf. That’s it.”

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.” The man looked at me and repeated it again. “I’m very sorry.” Then he turned around to leave for the second time.

“Your drinks,” Neil said.

“Right,” the man turned back, picked up his drinks, and walked back toward the door, but when he got to it, he couldn’t actually open it because he had a cup in both hands.

I did it without thinking. “Wait,” I said. “I’ll help you with that.” I hurried around the counter and crossed to the door to open it for him—and then I slipped out the door after the man and closed it behind me.

“I would love to have a cup of coffee with you,” I said. “But could you wait for me for just a minute? I need to go tell my boss I’m leaving.”

The man gave me a strange look, but all he said was, “Sure. I’ll be right here.”

“Okay. Great. Thanks. I’ll be right back,” I said, and turned around and went back in the store.

“What was that about?” Neil demanded as I came back inside.

“Neil,” I said. “I want to ask you a favor.”

Neil looked at me. Then he looked past me through the plate-glass windows at the man, still standing there on the sidewalk with the two drinks, one in each hand. And then Neil surprised me.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Just do me one favor, okay? Don’t go to Joe’s.”

“Okay, I won’t,” I said as I slipped back out the door.

The man was still standing on the sidewalk, waiting for me. “My car is just over here,” he said.

He led the way down the street to where a convertible BMW (with a rental license plate I noticed) was parked, with the top down. He clicked open the locks and turned around. “Will you hold this?” he asked. He handed me one of the drinks, then turned to open the car door for me.

I got in, and he went around the other side to the driver’s seat.

“Will you be cold with the top down?” he asked.

“No, it’s beautiful out,” I said. And it was, despite the clouds. It was one of those Indian summer days when the breeze off the plains still smelled like summer and cut grass and heat.

He put the cup he was holding in the cup holder between us, and I did the same.

He held out his hand.

“I’m Timothy,” he said.

“Nora,” I said, holding out mine.

He took my hand for a moment, then let go.

“So, Nora, tell me where should we go in this town of yours?” he asked.

“We’re just going a couple of blocks,” I said.

“All right.”

He started the car and pulled out slowly into the street. As we passed by the store I glanced over, and there was Neil at the plate-glass window, with his rag and his bottle of 100-percent-guaranteed no-streak glass cleaner. I saw him lift the bottle and spray, then lift his arm to wipe the special cloth across the glass. Suddenly the sun burst through the clouds, lighting up all the streaks and dust that clung to the glass. Then Neil swept the cloth across the glass, and he left behind a rainbow arc of pristine, transparent glass.