“You’re a romantic!” I said, then wished I hadn’t. That was probably being a little forward with my boss.
If he thought so, he didn’t show it. He nodded thoughtfully, then said, “Maybe I am. I don’t know that I’ve ever found the perfect bookstore, but I have one in my head, the kind of place where you browse for hours. You stumble upon a book you never would have known to search for online, and it ends up becoming your new favorite book and favorite author. You sit in a cozy nook and read for a while until you know you have to take it home, but you can’t wait to read more, so you buy the book and then get a cup of coffee and read even more, still sitting in the store.”
“And outside it’s raining, so it’s the perfect day to spend the whole afternoon in a bookstore,” I said wistfully. I’d had the same fantasy before I actually went to work in a bookstore.
He turned to me. “How did you know about the rain?”
“It’s always raining when I imagine myself in a bookstore. Unless it’s near Christmas. Then it’s snowing.”
“Maybe I should add weather control to my business plan,” he said. “If I could make it rain or snow on cue, I might get a lot more customers.”
There was something about what he’d said that gave me the strangest feeling of déjà vu, like I could imagine him making it snow, and the image was so vivid that it was like a memory. I glanced at him to find that he was looking at me, a little crease forming between his eyes from his quizzical expression. I got the impression that he’d imagined the same thing.
Then both of us shook it off. “Thanks for coming along today,” he said briskly. “I think we agreed on our top three choices, so now we’ll see what kind of proposals they offer us. Next we’ll tackle the bakery items.”
“I think the ones we’re getting wouldn’t be so bad if we got them fresh.”
“But it might be worthwhile to shake them up by considering other vendors. Then we might start getting fresher stuff.” We reached the store, and he stopped at the door to say, “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good time tonight.”
“Tonight?” I asked, then I remembered my date with Josh. “Oh, yeah, right, dinner. And I’d better get going or I’ll be late. See you tomorrow.” I hurried away before I’d be tempted to tell him my plans had fallen through and I’d love to have dinner with him.
As I rushed to dinner, I hoped seeing Josh would remind me of why I wanted to be there. But when I saw him, the anticipated frisson didn’t materialize. It was like he was nothing more to me than a random stranger who happened to arrive at the restaurant at the same time I did. I supposed he was cute enough—not a heartthrob, but was I the kind of girl who could expect to land a heartthrob? He was essentially the male version of me, the boy next door who probably got the “you’re such a nice guy and good friend, like a brother” speech a lot. That made us the perfect match. I knew he’d be reliable and would never stray. What more could I really want?
I had to work up a delighted smile as I approached him in the restaurant foyer. To help with the effort, I thought back to when we first met, but the memory was hazy. How had we met? Come to think of it, I could barely remember spending time with him. There were vague images, like a dream or something I’d watched on TV. They didn’t feel real. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d frozen instead of greeting him with any enthusiasm. He crossed the gap between us, kissed me dutifully and said, “Mmm, you smell like coffee.”
I raised my arm to sniff my sleeve. “Do I? Ugh. It probably permeates my whole body. Believe it or not, after today, I’m not sure I want to go near another cup of coffee ever again.”
“No, it’s good,” he said with a laugh. “I like the smell of coffee. Rough day slaving over the coffeepot and espresso machine?”
“No, not really,” I had to admit. “My new boss dragged me with him to evaluate new coffee vendors, and that meant tasting a lot of coffee. I didn’t know there were so many kinds, and that’s not even getting into the fancy flavors.” I made it sound like a chore, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had that much fun. I just didn’t want to tell my boyfriend that, and then I felt weird for wanting to hide that from him. “The new owner wants to really upgrade our coffee shop, and the first thing that needs to change is the coffee.”
“It is nasty.”
I bristled at that. It was one thing for me to say it, but I rather resented him saying that about my work. It was irrational, I knew, but I couldn’t help it. “I may not sleep for a week after all the coffee I had today,” I said, forcing myself not to frown, and then I realized I was quoting Owen’s quip.