Pages of a Day Ch. 01

[Prologue: Sandra and Marshall first meet at a bookstore, where they had blind dates with other people. In the middle of a lightning storm, their dates, Randall and Jessica, sense each other, drifting among the aisles, dressed to impress. And impress they do – each other. The attraction is obvious, even as Sandra and Marshall struggle to keep their attention. Randall finally takes the initiative by strolling over to kiss Jessica. They soon leave. Sandra and Marshall, humiliated, storm out, upset that they don't even get a chance with Randall and Jessica. As Jessica and Randall leave together, Sandra and Marshall commiserate outside, then come back in, dripping wet but gradually warming up and gaining their composure.]

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Sandra’s snug dress fit even tighter after the rainfall. She felt itchy and exposed, her carefully shaped hair a mess. The horrible scene with Jessica and Randall left her shaking. Imagine, Randall just strolled over and kissed Jessica, on the lips! In the philosophy section! What was Sandra, day-old lunch rolls? Their flirting made her heart sink, and that kiss applied a sledgehammer to her heart. She looked at Marshall, pouring a third pack of Sweet n’ Low into his mega-tall latte.

“Strange turn of events, yes?” he said. His immense hands dwarfed the cup. “Jessica, she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I guess I wasn’t uptown enough for her. We talked on the phone some, thought it’d be a good idea to meet. Guess not.”

“And what’s Randall’s story? He couldn’t keep his eyes off your date? What’s his problem with me? What’d I do wrong?” Her eyes teared. Rejection rarely fit into Sandra’s social expectations.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” said Marshall, brushing a lock of wet hair from his forehead. “Nothing wrong with me. Women, who knows?”

“Yeah, men. Who knows?” said Jessica.

She nibbled a biscotti. The coffee and food tasted wonderful. She felt herself drying off and calming down.

“Mind if I take out my contacts? My eyes feel a little tired,” she asked, reaching into her purse for her glasses.

“They’re your eyes. Do what feels comfortable.”

Sandra stowed her contacts in their plastic case, then was putting her glasses on when she shrieked, “Damn it!”

“What, what’s wrong?” asked Marshall. His shaggy eyebrows scrunched in concern.

“The lens just popped out of my glasses. I’m blind as a bat! Where’d the lens go? Oh no, everything’s going wrong today.”

“OK, OK, sit tight. Here, I see the lens, it just felt on the floor. Don’t move your feet.”

Marshall reached down to pick up the lens, which fell next to Sandra’s chair. Bent over, he lingered. Sandra’s legs floated before him, her skirt hiked high so he could see her silk-clad thighs. As he groped for the lens he followed the gliding taper of leg down to her high heels, ankle bracelet, and red-painted toenails. The sharp tang of toe-nail polish drifted into his nose. “Pretty,” he thought. For an instant he fantasized about resting his cheek on her freshly shaved legs, or running a finger up the inside of her thigh to caress her cunt. He next imagined Sandra's probable response, impaling his hand to the floor with her spike heel. Wait, he thought.

“OK, now, here we are, not cracked or chipped,” said Marshall. “Hand me the frames, please.”

“Sure, here,” said Sandra. A wave of tiredness rolled over her. Just one thing after another today, she thought.

“Ah, the problem emerges,” said Marshall, holding the chic metal frame before his eyes. “You’ve got a loose screw, the frame’s opening up. Good thing the screw’s still in, it’d be hard to find if it fell out here.”

“Let me put my contacts back in. I’ll get the glasses fixed tomorrow,” said Sandra. She reached in her purse for the contact case.

“Naah, wait a minute. Hang on,” said Marshall in a rumbling voice with an accent Jessica could not place.

Now it was Marshall’s turn to rummage, through his forest-green Lands’ End bag. “I know I’ve got it here somewhere. Bear with me. Found it.”

Squinting, Sandra saw Marshall open a kit, about the size of a paperback book, and extract the tiniest screwdriver she’d ever seen. He popped the lens in, held the frames shut, and with a few deft turns tightened the screw.

“Try,” he said, handing the glasses to Jessica.

She put them on. The store and Marshall snapped into focus.

“They fit perfectly! Thanks so much. Wow, you had just the right tool. Are you an optician or something?” asked Sandra.

Marshall looked genuinely puzzled. “Me, a guy that delivers babies? Hardly.”

Sandra stifled a laugh. He must think I asked if he’s an obstetrician, she thought. She was charmed. “But the tools . . .” she said.

“A guy’s got to be prepared. No, I fix things for a living.”

She looked at the kit on the table, the tools neatly stored in their own compartments, each where it belonged and shining under the store’s lights. Sandra’s thoughts flashed to her mother’s sewing kit with its thimbles, threads, needles, and buttons, a source of amazement when she was a girl. She felt, again, in the presence of practical artistry.

“Can I see it?” she asked, a shy tone in her voice.

Marshall pushed it toward her. “Sure. Nothing mysterious about them, the same things you’ll find in any hardware store, just smaller,” he said. “And what do you do, ahhh, Sonia?”

She looked up. “Almost right. Sandra.”

“Sandra it is. Imprinted on my brain. What do you do, Sandra?”

She held a wrench, about the length of her middle finger, in her hand. While small, it was surprisingly heavy, not toy-like she expected.

“What do I do? I ask myself that sometimes. What do you think I do?” she asked.

“You like trick questions, I see,” he said, smiling faintly. “There’s the obvious answer, the wild answer, and the real answer. If I saw you tomorrow, in your work clothes, I’d have a better guess. Right now, I don’t think you’re in your business clothes. How am I doing so far?”

“So far so good. I wouldn’t dress like this for work.”

“That narrows the range of options. I have to say, you look great, just for the record.”

She smiled at him. “Why thank you. I wanted to look special.”

“I imagine you look a little special even when you’re not trying.”

“It depends on the day.”

“OK, then. You don’t dress to the nines at your job. That means you’re not a model, a fashion industry executive or, probably, in advertising or publishing. Or high-end retail. That eliminates the obvious answer. Could I see a hand?”

Sonia held out her elegant hand, with the pearl-tipped nails. Marshall cupped it in his larger hand, eyeing it rather clinically, but, she noticed, in no hurry to let go.

“And I seriously doubt you do blue-collar work. Your hands are too nice to be around slicers or machine-shop gear. That’s the wild answer.”

She smiled again. Her hand felt good nestled in his callused palm. He made no attempt to hold her hand, simply letting it rest in his. She reluctantly moved it back.

“So,” said Marshall. “We’ve knocked out the high- and low-end occupations.” He drummed his fingers. “That helps narrow down the choices. Look me directly in the eyes.”

Sandra was startled. This man, this not-quite stranger, had already wandered under her chair (where she sensed his gaze on her thighs, oh she could tell), held her hand, and now practically challenged her to a stare-down.

“OK,” she said.

“Just be Sandra, not a woman on a date. Not anything. Just be yourself.”

She emptied her mind of thoughts, and gazed at him. She forgot the smeary make-up, the chatter and music in the café, the work day, and simply looked into Marshall’s deep-set brown eyes.

Lovely hazel eyes, Marshall thought. He thought of the tears in those eyes outside, after Randall rejected her for Jessica. Anger, combined with an undeniable sense of gratitude, flashed through him. Her emotions were close to the surface, yet he sensed a calmness, a strength in those eyes. A smile played on his lips, as she held his gaze far longer than most people could. This was a woman accustomed to observation and truth.

“Whewww!” said Marshall. “OK. We can breathe again.”

“And your findings Dr. Freud?” she asked, wondering what he’d come up with.

“You’re a cop, a scientist, or a social worker,” he said. “You’ve got those eyes.”

“Very good, Marshall. You’re got the reasoning powers of a rabbi,” she said. Sandra waited just a bit to let the anticipation build, like a magician about to pull a dove from her sleeve.

“Well?” said Marshall, a bit impatiently. “How’d I do?”

“Don’t laugh. I’m a senior fraud investigator for an automobile insurance company, one of the biggest. I track down the bad guys who make your insurance rates go up.”

“So I was very close,” he smiled. “You’ve got such honest eyes, and you’re sensitive to what’s going on around you. A worthy mix of traits.”

They sipped their drinks and stayed quiet for a moment. Sandra sat up with a start. “Oh, Marshall, how rude of me. I never asked what it is you fix for a living, you with your tools.”

Now the smile came to his broad face. “You said don’t laugh, so now I’ll tell you, don’t laugh.”

“Why?”

“Because I fix cars for a living.”

Now Sandra chuckled. This could be fun. “Well, I hope I’m not investigating any of your best customers. That would be a tough way to start a new friendship.”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about. My customers never use insurance. I don’t do collision work. Maybe ‘fix’ isn’t the right word. Restore, that’s a better way to say it. People bring me cars and I make them look good. I get junk heaps that have been sitting in barns for 50 years, and a year later I’ve got them running. Some even win ribbons at shows. My customers can write the checks. They never bounce.”

“The checks don’t bounce, or customers?” asked Sandra with a wicked gleam in her eyes.

“The checks. What the customers do in the back seat isn’t my concern unless they want me to remove some stains. Then, yeah, I’m concerned. Well, more amused. But, yeah, I suspect my customers do some bouncing in the back seat. Front seat, too. I’ve cleaned dried gunk off the roof, for goodness’ sake.”

“Somebody was having a very good time,” said Sandra. She couldn’t believe the turn of conversation.

“A good time and a bad aim. The two can go together.”

“My line of business is a lot less, shall we say, genteel. People run all kinds of scams to get insurance money. You wouldn’t believe how organized and sneaky they are. Criminal rings clip drivers, then get crooked doctors to pad medical insurance bills, chop shops to say the cars are more damaged than they really are. My job is to find them and stop them.”

“I know the types. I despise them. Dishonest jerks. Give everybody in the car industry a bad name. And you’re right, insurance rates are going through the roof.”

“I’d like to think of other things hitting the roof,” said Sandra. She blushed so deeply Marshall looked startled.

“You must not make many friends in your line of work, Sandra.”

“If I wanted to make friends through work, I’d do something else. I like being an investigator. I find things that are wrong and make them right. Like you, Marshall. You take things that are broken and make them beautiful. Or, at least usable.”

The conversation lulled. The lightning still flashed, but the drumming rain outside the bookstore ended, leaving the streetlights haloed in moist air.

Marshall sat with a thought, a phrase, threading through his mind. Finally, he decided. “So, Sandra, is this the start of a new friendship? A good start, even?”

“A very good start. But it’s getting late and I have an 8:30 a.m. meeting downtown. Could you walk me to my car? I just parked around the corner.”

“With pleasure. I always wondered what kind of car an insurance fraud investigator would drive.”

She laughed in a throaty way that lodged somewhere deep in Marshall’s mind, something he would remember that night. “Oh, I’m very boring. A Subaru wagon, very safe and practical. And what does a car guy drive? Not a Subaru wagon, I imagine.”

“Come on and I’ll show you.”

Marshall held the store’s door open, nodding slightly in a very old-world manner as she stepped by him. Something about him, old world, that part moved her closer to the man, thought Sandra, smiling.

For his part, Marshall inhaled slowly as she passed. Like a boat, Sandra threw off a wave of aroma that washed Marshall. He trembled, a man almost capsized in the wake of a woman’s corona of attraction, at the moment equal parts perfume, rainwater and, well, Marshall kept teasing apart the strands of her power.

They walked easily down the street. A thin stream of people drifted out of cafes and galleries now that the rain had ended. Puddles reflected grey clouds and violet patches of the late-summer sunset. Sandra felt relaxed in the setting. One than one storm had passed in the past hour.

Marshall steered them around a corner on to a quiet side street lined with thick-trunked trees. The street traffic died away. “Here we go,” he said. “My wheels.”

They stood beside a car that Sandra instantly recognized from her childhood. “I can’t believe it! Marshall, you drive this? It’s adorable. I haven’t seen one of these in 30 years. My Aunt Rochelle drove one in the 1960s, the first car I ever saw with power windows.”

“You know your cars, Sandra. Nobody’s going to beat you in an automotive trivia contest. Yep, 1965 Thunderbird, power windows, leather interior, a great car, just a few years before Ford made it big and dumb.”

The car was a sparkling dark blue, and, peering through the window, Sandra saw the deep leather seats and a walnut-rimmed steering wheel. “I overhauled the interior and made that steering wheel myself, one of my specialties. The one thing I didn’t do was the stereo system – I leave the electronics to other guys who really know that field.”

They heard a low whistle. Turning, a young man with lank, rain-flattened hair and a denim jacket emerged from somewhere, perhaps he’d been lurking behind a tree. “Man, that is one nice car,” he said. “Really a piece of work. Yours, man?” he asked, resting a hand on the hood.

“Yeah, it’s mine and I’d appreciate it if you kept your hands off the hood. Not good for the paint,” said Marshall. Sandra detected an edge in his voice. The man moved his hand. “Sure, man, not a problem. Lemme get a look at this baby. I love cars.”

He moved, in silent steps, around them but once out of their sight he lunged. With practiced quickness an arm swooped around Sandra’s neck and his other hand pulled a pistol out of his jacket pocket.

“So nice a car I’ve got to have it. Keys, man, now, and you’re done with me. Give me the keys, don’t look, and everything’s cool. Call your insurance company and you’ll get a nice penny for this. Hell, you could buy a Porsche if you’ve got it insured right. Keys, now.”

Marshall stepped ahead and turned around. Sandra’s eyes were wide with fear, the gun jammed into her ribs. Again, as in the bookstore, rage roiled his calm exterior at the thought of anybody threatening this woman. He reached into his pocket.

“You got the keys. Stay cool. It’s just a car. I can get another. No arguments from me,” said Marshall. Through his haze of anger did he really see Sandra winking at him? What’d that mean?

“Give me the keys and start down the block. Don’t look back if you know what’s good for you. I’ve got friends watching you right now and a wrong move is really gonna hurt. Trust me.”

“Oh, I do,” said Marshall. “Just leave the lady alone.”

“She’s mighty pretty. Maybe she’d like a ride. You want a ride, lady?” Again, the wink. “I can show you more fun than this moke ever can.”

“Take the keys, leave the girl, please,” said Marshall. “She has done nothing to you.” His voice was harder, the unplaceable accent tighter and more pronounced. Under stress, layers of Western civility sloughed off him like dead skin from a coiling snake.

“That’s right, she ain’t done nothing to me, yet,” he said, leering.

“Here. I’m giving you the key, nice and easy.”

“Unlock the door, first. I’m not gonna goof around with the locks.”

Marshall moved to the side of the door, key out. Sandra and the thief saw his hand shaking as he tried to get the key into the door. “Damnation!” he said as he dropped the key.

Sandra felt the man’s body shift as his eyes and attention followed the keys to the ground. The pressure against her ribs eased enough so she could tell the barrel’s side, rather than its point, rested against her.

She inhaled, blinked slowly. Now.

Marshall was picking up the keys when a flurry and movement caught his eyes. Where a fearful Sandra stood with a man’s arm around her neck, he now saw the man’s arm with the gun held in front of her while the rest of the man flew over her shoulder. Before Marshall could sort out the scene Sandra had flipped the man, wrenched the gun from his hand, and pinned him to the ground with his arm twisted behind his back.

“Big man, aren’t you, not so big when you’re on the ground, huh, Wayne?” said Sandra, panting. “You wanted to have fun with me? You like me knee on your neck? That what you had in mind, Wayne?”

“You know this punk?” said Marshall. The edge in his voice softened but was still noticeable.

“Wayne Gregory, 21, did a year in juvenile hall for car theft. Moving up to carjacking now, Wayne, you weren’t happy being a juvenile loser, now you’re gunning for adult time? Dumb, dumb, dumb,” said Sandra. She sounded energized and totally in her element.

“The gun’s not loaded, I wasn’t going to do nothing. Let me go. I’m sorry,” he whined, hair dragging in a mud puddle.

“Marshall, could you get the cell phone from my purse? Call 911.”

“No, please, I’m really sorry, lady, I don’t want to do adult time.” The man sounded younger and no longer so tough.

Marshall picked up the slim black-leather purse, which had fallen to the ground. Nice leather, he thought as he undid the clasp, good workmanship. Sandra clearly knew how to buy quality accessories, but he had noticed that from the first, the understated earrings and the simple gold ankle bracelet.

He opened the purse. That terra incognita for men, ever present, never quite understood, joked about and also feared. “Cell phone, cell phone, where art thou?” he asked quietly. Cosmetics, address book, brush, Certs, checkbook, pack of Kleenex; his fingers brushed against several tampons and he swooned. Hers. Such intimacy, even unintentional, stirred him. The slim packages next to his hand gave him a secret, guilty thrill. Hers, he thought again. Maybe Sandra didn't find the topic sexy at all, but the sheer womanly mystery intrigued and at times aroused him. He could be detached about such matters – but not always. He glanced at Sandra, still sassing the totally deflated thief prostrate on the ground. She looked up, smiling at him. He smiled back and pulled the phone from the purse. Intimacy, yes, unintentional – perhaps not.

Two police cruisers rolled up, lights flashing but sirens off. In a half hour the officers had taken statements, snapped photos, cuffed Wayne, and shoved him into the back seat for a ride to central booking. Sandra and Marshall were left alone on an again quiet street, beside the deep blue Thunderbird.

“Will the surprises ever end this evening?” asked Sandra. “We’re dumped by our dates, get soaked, meet each other, almost get killed by a thief I recognize. What else could happen?”

Marshall looked thoughtful. They strolled down the street, swathed in the shadows of early evening. The rain storm left the air clear and crisp, so that evening sounds – the low murmur of traffic from the nearby avenue, music from the cafes, shy conversation of new lovers – carried through the air and mixed in a lulling evening melody.

“What else do we want to have happen? Certain events notwithstanding, we have some say in the course of our lives,” said Marshall.