As I said it, I couldn’t help but wonder when she managed to have any time for fun. Which meant she probably wasn’t dating anyone, though I didn’t know why I even cared. There wasn’t much fun to be had in Cherry Falls anyway, as far as I could tell. At least not yet.
“You’re a genius! Just have the shop make more money! Gee, I don’t know why I never thought of that before!” She rolled her eyes.
“No, really. If you’d just consider remodeling a few things and marketing it a little differently...this population boom could work to your advantage.”
She opened the menu on the table back up, ignoring my advice. “The breakfast platter is good and we serve it all day. The chicken and waffles are popular this time of day. And of course, I always recommend the fried chicken meal.” She rattled off food recommendations with the enthusiasm of a half-dead turtle.
“If this is how you talk to customers, no wonder you need both jobs,” I quipped.
“No, I save this attitude just for you,” she replied with a snarky smile.
“I’ll wait to order. My business partners are coming to join me anyway. But, seriously. Think about what I said. Work smarter, not harder.”
Her body stiffened and I could practically see flames flare up in her eyes. I had obviously crossed some kind of line.
“You have some nerve to come in here and try to lecture me about how to work,” she seethed. Her voice was deep and scary, but still somehow carried a volume to it that had everyone in the restaurant staring at us. “You know nothing about hard work. You just swindle people out of their lifelong dreams to line your own pockets. I wouldn’t expect some rich spoiled snob like you to know anything about working for what you want in life.”
Before I could form my rebuttal, she had turned to storm off to the kitchen. I noticed the other customers staring at me and chuckling to themselves, which made my cheeks turn bright red. This was not the kind of scene I needed to help build rapport in the community. Worse than that, I couldn’t remember the last time a woman, or anyone for that matter, made me blush and squirm.
She couldn’t have been more wrong about me, of course. I started out working dead-end jobs like every other broke kid in my neighborhood. I just quickly realized that the only thing that seemed to set us apart from the people we worked for didn’t seem to have anything to do with hard work at all. It was about a certain attitude and wit. And of course, it was about being smart and knowing numbers...knowing how to solve a puzzle quickly and on the spot, or how to sit back and strategize about your next move.
Knowing she was wrong did make me feel a little better, even if there was nothing I could do to make her understand that. And a few sips of cold water did wonders for my pounding heart and red cheeks. But as I sat there waiting for the rest of the guys, my eyes drifted over to Delilah’s boutique across the street. It wasn’t to my taste, but it was charming.
But what was more intriguing was the display in the garbage can out front. Right there on top for everyone to see sat the overflowing gift basket that had been delivered to all of the businesses. She had completely rejected it. Some of the other shopkeepers had called to thank me or left cards at my office. But not her. No, Delilah had to throw hers in the trash...and very publicly at that.
I looked over to the kitchen, hoping to spot her. There she was, huddled in a corner with a few other waitresses, and judging by the way her eyes burned into me...it was obvious what they were whispering about. My suspicions were right. Delilah was going to be big trouble for my goal to win over the community.
5
Delilah
My heart sounded like a war drum thumping as I stomped away from Nick’s table. The nerve of that guy to suggest that I was just not working the right way, according to him. My only flaw was running my business with integrity, heart, and soul. Things he wouldn’t know anything about.
“That sounded bad,” Lizzy said, biting her lip as I joined them in the kitchen.
They had watched me go off on Nick Ransom and quickly gathered to greet me behind the counter as I stormed off. They barely bothered hiding what we were talking about as they stared at him sitting alone in the booth.
“But holy hell is he hot,” Angel added, also biting her lip, but for entirely different reasons, as she stared at Nick. “You said he came by the shop, but you failed to mention what he looked like.”
“How can you care about how hot he is!?” I fumed, hating that I couldn’t even deny that much. “He’s a monster! Don’t you guys see what his stupid little realty company is about to do to this city!?”
They did their best to collect themselves and focus on what actually mattered. But as they tried to take their eyes off of him, three more hot guys in expensive suits came filing into the diner. Time seemed to slow for every woman in the place as they swaggered in and joined Nick at his table. One of them I recognized as Ben from the other day in the shop. The other two were new, but they had the same cocky-rich-guy air about them.
“They can do whatever they want to the town and me too while they’re at it,” Lizzy exhaled with a desperate whimper to her voice.
“Mmm-hmm,” Angel moaned. “Whatever is about to change in Cherry Falls...I might be okay with it if it brings more guys like that around.”
They were both growing agitated that I wouldn’t join in with them on their salivating. I wasn’t blind. I could see that they were all hot, especially Nick. They dressed well and smelled nice. They had striking, chiseled features and big bulging muscles. But it all meant nothing to me if they were also assholes who had their greedy little hands wrapped around my shop.
“Come on, Del,” Angel prodded. “Times are hard, yes. But surely we can have a little fun with it at least. They’re certainly a lot better to look at than Dale and Grant over there.”
The three of us looked over to two of the only young, eligible bachelors left in the city. But how eligible they were was questionable if you had standards...or a brain...or eyes. Grant worked for the hardware store and didn’t have a single interesting thing to say beyond chatting about the weather or the best nails to use for any particular job. He had kissed me once in grade school before age had been so unkind to him. Dale and I went on a few dates in college, but now his teeth were stained from tobacco chew and his hands were all torn up from factory work. It might have been tolerable if he wasn’t as dull as a doorknob.
So...no, there were not eligible men around Cherry Falls. And that might have been just about the only thing we were missing. But if we ended up with other people we loved and thriving businesses at the end of the day, wasn’t that more than enough?
“It won’t matter how many hordes of hot guys come in if we don’t have jobs and can’t afford to live here anymore,” I argued, shuttering at the sight of Dale and Grant.
“So, the three of us will settle into my aunt’s old run-down shack outside the city,” Lizzy insisted. “And we’ll come into the city on weekends for dates until we convince one of the rich hunks to marry us.”
Even Angel had to roll her eyes at that one. “You’re a real independent woman, Liz. But she does have a point...sort of. I know I can’t remember the last time there were any decent dating prospects around.”