Why I Love Singlehood: (22 page)

I pulled away as if burned. “OK, sure. I’m sorry.”

“S’OK.” It was unnerving seeing Norman so lackluster.

“No really, I am. You’re a gem, Norm-o. This just confirms my suspicions,” I said. “The girl’s as dumb as a post.”

Norman guffawed. “Thanks.” He then opened his mouth as if to say something else, but reconsidered and closed it again. “We still on for the meeting?”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at the clock behind us. “Susanna will be in soon.”

Norman nodded as his stomach gave a feral growl. “Sorry,” he said as he rubbed it absently. “I forgot to eat breakfast this morning…and dinner last night, come to think of it.”

“So eat something!” I waved a hand at the tray of wraps in the case.

He made a face. “Don’t really feel like it.”

I left him standing at the counter, bypassed the kitchen, and went straight to the office. I picked up the phone, tapped the number for Minerva’s cell, and waited while it rang.

“Hey,” she answered. “I’m on my way in, what’s up?”

“Can you do me a huge favor and stop off for a can of tuna first?”

“Like, tuna-fish tuna?”

“Yeah. Maybe two cans.”

“Please tell me this isn’t for a cookie recipe. Whatever it is, Eva, no matter how good it looks, I’m telling you right now—”

“Good God, Min, what do you take me for? I’m not
that
bad…”

“Are you forgetting the ‘Breakfast Burrito Cookie’ fiasco?”

“There was a problem with that recipe. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Yeah, yeah, doomed from the start. So you said. You had
bacon
in there, for crissakes. So why tuna?”

“It’s for Norman.”

I could almost see her raising an eyebrow. “What, is he having some sort of craving or something? ’Cause if so, he should get his iron levels checked. Or better yet, just get a multivitamin or something.”

“It’s his almond biscotti,” I cut in, knowing she’d understand.

“Oh,” she answered. “Everything OK?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I replied. “So when can you get here?”

“With tuna? About fifteen.”

“Perfect. Bring the receipt, and I’ll see you then.”

I had a double batch of caramel swirl brownies in the oven by the time she got there, and I managed to procure the tuna while Neil was distracting Norman with funny tales from the nine-to-five world.

By the time Susanna came in, I had two tuna melts (minus the mayo) sizzling on the stove.

“OK.” Norman froze just inside the kitchen, as if stopped by the wall of salty-scented frying butter. “I’m ready for the meeting now, if you want.” His eyes turned to the sandwiches. “Are you making tuna melts?”

“Well I can’t very well have you fainting in front of the clientele, can I?”

He nodded in agreement. “Bad for business.” Hesitating for a moment, he crossed the kitchen to return the hug I had given him earlier. “Thanks, Eva. Really.”

He took a bite, and any signs of stress—be it from hunger or heartbreak—left his face. “I still don’t know why you don’t do tuna-salad stuffed pitas,” he said upon swallowing. “They’d sell just fine.”

“Because mayonnaise is disgusting and I won’t go near it with a ten-foot pole.”

He laughed. “What is it with you and your food phobias?”

“It’s not a
phobia
.”

“You don’t like coffee, you treat mayonnaise like it’s fungal…”

“Tell me there’s no food you won’t eat.”

“Not without a little ketchup, no.”

I laughed, encouraged by his returning humor, but I don’t think I’d ever looked forward to a weekly meeting so much. I was glad for the opportunity to be able to overtly study him and look for signs, for any reason at all, to give the Samurai a piece of my mind.

21

I Spill My Beans

NORMAN SEEMED GLAD
to be able to fully dedicate his attention to something unyielding, like our agenda.

Actually, it was more of a glorified to-do list than an agenda. We always met once a week to go over all business pertaining to The Grounds. Usually, the meetings were routine: reviewing inventory, making sure bills were paid on time, considering new suppliers or products if any came our way, et cetera. But lately the meetings were about bringing more money into the business. Most days, with the exception of holidays and the occasional torrential downpour or tornado warning, we were slammin’ busy. Since opening, The Grounds was finally breaking even rather than operating at a loss. Our intake went right back into salaries and benefits for Norman, Susanna, the revolving door of seasonal part-timers, and me; making sure the place was up to health code and green standards; and, within the past year, updating the coffee machines and kitchen equipment.

To increase revenue, Norman came up with the idea to make T-shirts that said
I spill my beans at The Grounds
. Minerva had a friend who was a design student from her undergraduate NCLA days, and we commissioned her to design the T-shirt in exchange for three months of free coffee. She created a cup spilling coffee beans over a saucer, and The Grounds’s name along with the slogan in both men’s and women’s styles—taupe scoop neck and cap sleeves for women, and basic tee for the guys. We gave freebies to all the Originals and Regulars, twenty percent off for six-month regulars (“new Regulars,” we called them), and the rest sold for fifteen bucks a pop. They went like hotcakes. Baseball caps followed at ten bucks a pop. Pretty soon we had requests for different colors and other merchandise: decals, mugs, tote bags, the kinds of things a sizable donation to National Public Radio would get you. We even started selling them through The Grounds’s Web site.

But I still wasn’t satisfied, so this afternoon I consulted with Norman in our little closet of a back office.

“What are the options?” he asked.

I took in a breath. “Well, one is to extend the business hours at least one night a week.”

The thought of staying even later made me shudder with dread; I already spent twelve-hour days here at least once a week, and it was becoming clear that little in my life was non-café-related.

“Or we could expand the café and reduce the size of the reading room,” I said. “Most days we’re bursting at the seams as it is.”

“That could work,” said Norman. “But that’s going to take a lot more capital, not to mention we’d probably have to close for the expansion—knock out the wall that divides the café and the reading room, for starters.”

“True. Besides, I’ve always wanted to keep the setting small and intimate, to be open fewer hours than the chains and develop the very atmosphere and rapport we have with our clientele. Even though expanding the café would likely fit more people, more isn’t necessarily better.”

He nodded in agreement.

I groaned. “What do you think, Norman? What should we do?”

He was quiet, mulling over the puzzle. Then he sat up straight—I could almost see the light bulb appear over his head. “We could start hosting open mic nights and readings for local authors in the reading room. In fact, I don’t know why you’ve never considered it before, especially being so close to campus.”

“I didn’t think the space was big enough.”

“We could make it work. Just redo the reading room. No one’s ever in there, and it’s not really user-friendly. It could use a makeover.”

I raised my eyebrows at the word
makeover
.

He continued, “We can replace the chairs, add a couple more bookcases, more extension outlets for laptop hookups, fresh coat of paint…”

As Norman spoke, my mind’s eye sketched a floor plan of the reading room, mentally moving the old furniture out, sampling color swatches, taking before-and-after photos.

“…and it won’t cost much, especially if we get some of the Originals involved.”

The more he spoke, the wider my eyes opened, so much that I thought they might pop out. “You mean, like have a painting party or something?” I asked.

“Sure, why not? We can invest our time and energy without losing money or the intimacy.”

I sat there and looked at him, dumbstruck for a moment. His face turned into one of worry.

“No good?” he asked.

“Norman, you’re fabulous.”

Giving in to impulse, I jumped up, threw my arms around him, and hugged him, nearly knocking him over. He laughed and hugged me back.

“Wow,” he said, “got any more dilemmas that you need to bounce off me?”

“This is perfect! We’ll have another book drive—this time for
us
—and paint the bookcases, perhaps buy at least one more. Then we’ll get rid of the couches and anything else not nailed to the floor—come to think of it, we should pull up the industrial carpet, too—and then buy some secondhand comfy couches and chairs from Craigslist, paint, new rugs, and have a Grand Reopening, or something like that. We’ll put out punch and cookies and have a little party!”

I was talking a mile a minute.

“Breathe, Eva! Breathe!”

“A month, Norman—do you think we can get this up and running in a month?”

“I think we can do it in less time than that. Thirty-six hours tops if we close and get volunteers to help—I’m sure the gang would be willing to pitch in.”

I squealed with delight and hugged him again.

“Shall we keep this under wraps or make a formal announcement?” I asked.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to conceal this one, Eva. You’re positively glowing. If you walk into the café right now and say nothing, they’ll think we just had sex.”

“Good point,” I said, laughing. Then I added, “I gotta go tell Minerva!”
And Kenny
, to my surprise, popped into my thoughts next.

“And Scott,” Norman said more solemnly. “He’ll be in soon, no doubt.”

“Of course,” I said, deflated. “Let’s go out to dinner tonight after work and get the ball rolling on making plans for what we need to do and when.”

“Sounds great. Where shall we go?”

“Mike’s is always good,” I suggested.

“Cool. It’s a date—you know what I mean,” he quickly added.

I walked back into the café beaming. Sure enough, Dean asked, “Did you two just have sex back there, or what?”

Later that evening, as Norman and I split an entrée of mussels, we made plans for the upcoming makeover, each of us jotting notes in little memo books. When finished, we closed our notebooks, pushed our plates away, and took swigs from our beers. Our eyes locked for what was probably no more than a second; but it was the kind of second that felt much longer, and I kept my focus on him.

A former army brat (although you could never tell by looking at him) and only child, Norman had spent most of his childhood moving from place to place until his father transferred to Fort Bragg and stayed there until he retired. He attended NCLA on a scholarship, fell in love with the Carolina coast, and having had enough of suitcases and cardboard cartons, made Wilmington his permanent home.

I had liked Norman Bailey the moment he entered the construction trap that would eventually become my second home as well as his. He was laid back and amiable—well groomed to the point that I thought he might be gay—and shared my vision for The Grounds. It was like great jazz, Norman and me. We could finish each other’s sentences, anticipate what the other was going to say before a word was even uttered, work in rhythm, and not miss a beat. Being at The Grounds every day wouldn’t be half as fun without Norman there. If I was its heart, then he was the lungs.

Prior to his coming to work for me, he had managed the trendy independent bookstore in downtown Wilmington; thus, his freakish knowledge of all things literary matched my own. When I’d asked why he wanted to leave the bookstore, he’d replied, “They’ve gotten too snobby for their own good, and they can’t laugh at themselves anymore.” I later found out that he had lied; the owners fired Norman after he publically blasted a customer for calling a guest author “a hack” during the Q&A part of her reading because she was self-published.

“Hey, asshole,” Norman called out, diverting the attention away from the author, who had started to cry. “I’ll bet you can’t even write your name without having to spell-check it.” The audience of about thirty people applauded Norman. When the customer threatened him to “step outside,” it took two store employees to stop Norman as he unpinned his name tag and said, “Let’s go,” heading for the door without even batting an eye.

Oh yeah. I liked Norman.

And so did our customers. You could see it on their faces as he quickly memorized their names and orders, already knowing half of them from the bookstore (including the Originals). The girls from NCLA flirted with him just as much as he flirted with them, although he was only eight months younger than I. And despite his feigned womanizer persona, I could tell he was as monogamous as they came, and romantic to the hilt. He fell in love hard, and nursed his heart when it was broken.

It’s not that I never felt attracted to him, or that I never considered what it might be like to go out with him. But I just couldn’t picture us working as smoothly together otherwise, and I needed him as a manager more than a lover. And yes, occasionally we flirted with one another. How could anyone not flirt with Norman? One look at those puppy-dog eyes and you had the urge to give him a hug.