“I’m not paying you to hang out with the customers. Get back to work!”
William was offended. “You take two minutes off and she’s down your throat, while everybody else stands around doing next to nothing all day.”
“Thank you!” said Joy as she began to rise. “But they’ve been here since they were teenagers. I came to work here as a teenager too. I was sixteen. Only they’ve been here for decades longer than me. She cut them plenty slack.”
“Too much if you ask me.”
“Me too! But what do I know?”
William studied her. “Since you were a teenager, hun? How old are you now?”
“Twenty-five. Or I will be in two weeks. I’m getting old.”
“Old? Stop it. I have shoes older than you.”
Joy grinned. “Quit lying. Nobody keeps shoes for no twenty-five years.”
William couldn’t help but smile. “It’s a metaphor, Joy.”
“It’s a bad one.”
He laughed. “Okay, I agree. But you’re hardly old.”
“But you, on the other hand is . . . how old?”
William didn’t answer.
“I can guess you know.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“Fortyish?”
“Didn’t your manager tell you to get back to work?”
She laughed. He was a nice guy! Then she thought about Helen’s request. “I don’t see a ring so I also guess you aren’t married.”
“You got that right.”
“You sound like you’re divorced.”
“You got that right.”
“Any children?”
William nearly choked. He fought not to show the anxiety that had suddenly come over him. “No,” he said. “No children.” It wasn’t that he had forgotten his beloved little Kaitlyn, but he found it to be easier not to have to explain.
It worked because Joy didn’t pick up on his anxiety. She gathered up his plate and glass. “Alrighty then,” she said. “I’ll go get your ticket, Old Man.”
William smiled as Joy left his side.
And he couldn’t stop watching her as she left his sight.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was such a breath of fresh air around him. It would be nice to have that around him more.
More? That kid? He didn’t date any woman younger than thirty-five. And never wanted to either. Now he was talking about having her around more? Was he nuts? Where didthatcome from?
But as he put his reading glasses back in the pouch and then in his coat pocket, he wondered if he could help her or hurt her with the suggestion going through his head. She was a small-town girl. Chicago with all its allures could contaminate her. But stuck in this place for the rest of her life like her sorry-ass coworkers could contaminate her more.
