Shield Cohort Ch. 03

"I'm Leonard? And Letje's my Penny?"

"She's your slender redheaded Penny."

"Mikey, I'll screw it up somehow. I just know it."

"I won't let you. You know what? I've always wanted to be a coach."

"I think I need more than a coach."

"I'll get you more. I'll build you a team. April and Brigid will help. Ollie's a Top Gun level wingman. We'll get you boxed off."

"I don't think even the Queer Eye team could get me squared away."

"Great idea! We'll start with Mitch!"

***

After work, Mikey drove Steve over to "Beans and Books." There were a few people getting coffee, and the Shield Cohort boys hung back until Mitch was alone. "Chuck-fucking Norris!" Mitch exclaimed, coming around the counter and embracing Mikey. "My badass boy! Sure as sweet Duckie was the better man for Andie, you took your time getting around to see me! You steal my little bohemian fag hag from me and then go all DB Cooper and bail out into oblivion!"

"Don't be mad, Mitch!"

"How can I be mad at you, Michael Skardowski? You're John Wayne and Bruce Wayne all rolled into one! But I still haven't seen you since Thanksgiving."

"I'm sorry, Mitch."

"You should be. Okay, enough busting your balls, what did you bring me?"

"Mitch, this is Steve from Shield."

"Hi," Steve held out his hand.

"Hello, Steve," Mitch gave him a firm handshake and a friendly smile. "Mikey, this is a straight boy. Besides getting him some coffee with a little pick-me-up in it, what do you want me to do with him?" Mitch went to the counter and began filling three very heavy earthenware mugs with some of his best java and the contents of the bottles he kept hidden under the counter "for special customers only."

He handed Mikey one of the mugs, and Mikey looked at the wall above the counter. In a glass case on the wall was a similar mug, a bit chipped and cracked. A dated placard beneath it read, "April Price: 5 foot even, 90 pounds (More like 95, lying little bitch) winner by first round TKO over Michael Skardowski: 6 foot 6, 255 pounds." Next to it was a bent-up old trash can lid painted with familiar red and white co-centric circles around a solid blue crest and white star. Mikey noticed that Steve was fascinated by the faux shield.

"You a big Captain America fan, Mitch?"

"Steve, for one day in October, I WAS Captain America! I took on the bad guys with help from the Wasp and Thor here."

"Mitch, Steve here is pretty shy, and he needs to impress a comely young maiden."

"Mikey...why is it that every straight person assumes that a gay man is a relationship, and style expert? I make coffee. I sell books."

"I'm guessing that he based the judgment on observation," Steve said. Mitch gave him a quizzical look and gestured for him to continue. "Well, you're sartorially resplendent. Just look at you."

"Mikey, your sins are forgiven. You have at last brought me an intelligent new person to speak to!" He put a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Steve, I like you better than him already. He was all meat and no potatoes. If you can find the way to toss compliments like that at your lady love, you're not going home alone. Tell me; tell me...who are we setting our cap for? I need to know. The hunter has to have the right camouflage for the game, right?"

"Her name is...Letje," the other two men were so drawn in by the way Steve spoke her name that they sighed right along with him.

"Oh, Letje Vander Voot! She's adorable! And a culinary genius. She went to some snazzy cooking school in Amsterdam for a year; she'll be the owner/operator of a posh little eatery before she's thirty. Plus, she comes in and tells me wonderful things about my coffee; always has two sugars! Stevie's baby likes it hot and sweet! We'll get you squared away, young hunter."

"Can I wear a cool shirt like yours?"

"You couldn't pull it off. We need just the right thing for you, for Triple V's and for...Letje. Mikey, tend the counter. Papa has work to do!"

Mikey settled in behind the counter as Mitch took Steve into the back and began to sketch outfits on an avatar from some website of a type Mikey had never even pondered. A favorite Etta James song came on over the sound system. Mikey raised his voice in his best Casey Kasem impersonation, "This Long Distance Dedication goes out to Sexy Steve in Wanowee, Wisconsin. Your time has come Steve!"

***

Steve listened to the lyrics:

At last, my love has come along

My lonely days are over

And life is like a song

Oh, yeah, at last

The skies above are blue

My heart was wrapped up in clovers

The night I looked at you

I found a dream that I could speak to

A dream that I can call my own

I found a thrill to rest my cheek to

A thrill that I have never known

Oh, yeah when you smile, you smile

Oh, and then the spell was cast

And here we are in heaven

For you are mine

At last

Mikey was proving a good friend, and Mitch was everything Mikey had described him to be and more: Profanely sweet, smart and unceasingly confident. Within ten minutes, they had mail ordered five different outfits for Steve, with rush delivery. "This one," said Mitch. "This is the one that seals the deal. These slacks will accent your firm behind; our little ginger doll won't be able to help but notice. And when you sidle up to the bar at Triple V's, this shirt will make her little nipples pop right off!" Steve wasn't quite as certain. "Trust me, Steven. I might be gay, but I've had many female conquests—of a sort. I've helped more straight men get lucky than free beer and jello shots combined!"

"Did you ever—I mean before you knew you were gay?"

"No. Your Mitch has always known who he is. Have to admit that I hated being me for a while, but I had friends who saw me through. My cousin Bobby...he was a rock. Helped me tell the family, even."

"He gay, too?"

"Bobby? Heavens to Elvis no! He was a Charlie Sheen class pussyhound before he got married. Now he's a good boy. A one-woman man."

"That's all I want to be."

"If I didn't believe that, I'd never let you near sweet little Letje. Now, about those shoes!"

Steve walked into Triple V's about a week later. His wingman, Ollie, was already in position, one seat removed from Letje and playing the quiz game. They both had decided to use their flex schedule options to get a weekday afternoon off, and Gretchen had made sure she was behind the bar that afternoon. Steve shook a few snowflakes off his head and folded his new leather jacket over his arm. His eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the lower light, but he was pretty sure Letje was looking to see who walked in. He took off his sunglasses and ran his hand back through his hair, just like Brigid had shown him. When he could focus clearly, he saw that Letje smiled slightly. She had recognized him as the door closed against the bright backlight of a winter afternoon. But all too soon, she turned shyly away.

Steve walked to the middle of the bar and dropped the coat over the back of a chair. Gretchen greeted him with a smile and a peck on the cheek.

"What'll it be, Steve?" she said as she had in rehearsal.

"Johnny Walker Black, straight." Steve tried to lean casually against the bar, but his elbow slipped off and he had to straighten up quickly. He glanced quickly down the bar, but Ollie had Letje distracted and she didn't notice. The stunning blonde Gretchen poured him the drink and slid it toward him.

"Sip it slowly!" she whispered. Then she spoke aloud, "On the house for helping me out the other night." She winked to let him know that Letje was listening in.

"Guy was being a jerk. Just glad I was there." He brought the glass up to his mouth and took a strong pull. His eyes bulged and he jerked his head a bit.

"Lip still sore?" she improvised. "Guy got a lucky shot in. Only one, though."

"We're off the script!" Steve whispered urgently.

"Go with it! We talked about maybe needing to ad-lib...Oh, Steve, you don't need to whisper about it. You're so modest!"

"Nobody likes a braggart, Gretchen." Gretchen smiled and nodded slightly.

"Is that, Steve?" Ollie called out. "Just the man I needed. Get your ass down here!" Steve shrugged as if to excuse himself for abandoning Gretchen. He strode over to stand behind the seat between Ollie and Letje. "I'm trying to play the LOST category, and I'm the one who's completely lost." Steve leaned over the stool to reach the controller. He looked in the mirror behind the bar and caught Letje leaning back slightly to look at his backside in his tight tan slacks. Mitch WAS a fucking genius!

"'You All Everybody'" he said confidently as he punched in the letter C and answered the question about the fictional Driveshaft's big hit song. "Horace Goodbody; B," he said as he leaned back and let Ollie punch in the answer about the Dharma Compound's leader. He turned a little toward Letje and flashed a smile he hoped wasn't too goofy. It also allowed her to see the front of his shirt. Black with a white hand pressed against a round porthole. Across the palm it read, "Not Penny's Boat!"

"God in de hemel! I love your shirt!"

"Everybody loves Des and Pen. He's the Odysseus of our time!"

"Exactly! It's the most romantic thing ever. If they ever kill off either of them, I'm going to..."

"...stop watching the show. Yep, I know what you mean."

Steve tried to see if Mitch's prediction about Letje's nipples was true, but her loose-fitting shirt didn't allow for much of a look at her small breasts. He thought maybe if he craned his neck a bit, he could see down the opening.

At this point, an earlier disagreement between the conspirators re-emerged. Steve had wanted Ollie to stick around and help him out should there be any complications. Ollie had insisted that this would be the time for him to bail. Ollie had reluctantly agreed to Steve's demands. But in the heat of the moment, Ollie followed his own instincts and became Barney Stinson from HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER. He declared, "Ha-ave you met Steve!" He steered Steve into the stool next to Letje and quickly walked away.

Both parties sat straight up on their stools and stared silently ahead. Steve took another long pull of his scotch, and as it burned its way down his throat he was left quite unable to speak for a moment. "I'm Letje," she said softly just as Steve was certain he was about to hear crickets begin to chirp. He nodded and pointed in Ollie's direction to indicate that Ollie had already stated Steve's name. "Steve, right."

He glanced around for a moment, seeking something, anything on which he'd be able to focus a conversation. He saw the order sheets in front of her. "A gross gross?" he said.

"What?"

"You ordered a gross gross in column two. That's 20,736."

"Holy shit! What a mess that would have been! Even in Dutch country we couldn't move that many potatoes. My uncle is picky about how I spend his money. You just saved me from a boatload of trouble!"

"Not Penny's boatload...of trouble."

"Right," she smiled at him.

"Wouldn't want to get you in Dutch, with Vander Voot."

"Right, he'd talk to me like a Dutch uncle!" Her big blue eyes met his. They were so deep and soulful, and every little freckle on her creamy skin was a work of art. Steve was smitten, but he wasn't going to let himself panic.

He heard Mikey's coaching in his mind. "When you most want to crawl back into your shell, that's the time to cowboy up and go for it. That's when you tell her how beautiful she is. That's when you stop being clever and just say what you feel."

"You look like Charlotte Staples Lewis!" he said very quickly.

Her eyes flew open wide. "The archaeologist on LOST?"

"Yep, but your eyes are even prettier, and hers are just fine. I mean hers are better than just fine, but yours are better...than that." He held his breath.

She blushed and looked down. "You're kind of a Daniel Faraday yourself. Without the beard, but you have that same gentle intelligence in your face."

"Well, Daniel was in love with Charlotte, you know." Dammit! "Love?" "Love?" Had he said that word aloud? And he was talking about two dead characters on a TV show! Letje was subtly wiping her palms on the front of her apron and breathing a little bit roughly. He kept his promise to Mikey and soldiered ahead. "Letje..." he said.

"Yes..." she slowly looked up at him and her deep breaths made her petite chest rise and fall. Her eyes met his again.

"Don't get carried away," April had advised him. "Focus on the Christmas party."

"There's this Christmas party for work and I'm doing a show for it, and my friends think it will be kind of a big deal for me. A chance for me to get noticed by the bigwigs at Shield, you know? And I would probably make an even better impression on them if I had a beautiful date—you know, a woman like you. No, no that's not right. I don't care about the bigwigs. I would enjoy the party more if I was with a beautiful girl like you. No, no not a beautiful girl LIKE you. A beautiful girl who IS you!"

There was a single tear running down her sweet cheek, and more welling up in her eyes. "You called me beautiful more times in one invitation than everyone has in every other moment in my life combined. I would really like to go to that party with you!" She wiped her eyes with a bar napkin.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Great...Um can I have your number?" He got out his cell phone, the one that never seemed to ring. She shook her head and smiled. She wrote her number on his palm with a black Sharpie marker from her apron. He swelled slightly at her touch. He turned to Ollie and Gretchen and smiled. He turned back to Letje to say goodbye. She kissed him lightly on the cheek and went quickly back into the kitchen. He looked at his palm, and immediately punched the number into his phone before his sweat washed it away. He walked out the door and into the bright winter afternoon. He paused to look back into the window and saw Letje running out from the kitchen and into her tall cousin's arms. The two girls hopped about excitedly and did not see Ollie clap his hands together and glance toward the heavens in grateful celebration.

Steve walked the mile home on a December Wisconsin afternoon. He didn't even realize he had left his jacket, keys and car at Triple V's until he tried to open his apartment door. He wondered how he could retrieve the jacket without looking like a fool, but his wingman pulled up to the curb and tooted the horn. "I guess you'll need a ride back to get your own car," Steve said to Ollie.

"That's the plan, Sexy Steve!"

Mikey had been right. Ollie really was TOP GUN material. "YOU!" Steve did his best Iceman impersonation. "You can be my wingman anytime."

"Bullshit!" Ollie gave his best toothy Maverick grin. "You can be mine!"

***

Steve had his head held high as he walked into the ballroom with Letje on his arm. He tried to play it cool, but he couldn't help smiling. Brigid and April had told him how they talked her into wearing a tight-fitting spaghetti strap dress. Letje, long uncomfortable about her rail-thin form, had protested that she was too skinny to go with the form-fitting green sequined number. She was a smart girl, but Steve saw she was totally wrong about the way she would look. He had always thought she was beautiful, but with the dress and her gorgeous red hair up on top of her head, she became a creature of elegance. "Guys are checking you out!" he whispered to her. He wasn't exaggerating.

"Why?" she asked, "Do I stand out? I told Gretchen I had no idea what to wear to this kind of thing!"

"You stand out," he said, "as the very picture of slender grace."

"Don't tease me!"

"I wouldn't even know how to tease a beautiful girl!" He escorted her across the crowded room to a table near the stage. He and his friends had preferred seating since Steve was going to run his show after dinner.

"These are all the bigwigs!" Letje said as she looked around at the tables in their section. She smiled at him. "Wow! This is the crowd that lives out on Frerik Road. I ran a paper route out there when I was little. Big bucks." She squeezed his upper arm for support as she realized she was going to be hobnobbing with hoi polloi.

Steve saw Mikey's jaw drop a bit as he took in Letje. The big man gave a light backhand to Ollie's triceps and Ollie turned. A smile lit up his whole face, "Hubba-hubba!" he said. Letje blushed and looked up at Steve. He laughed softly.

"I'm with the girl who gets a hubba-hubba!" Steve thought.

April and Brigid looked up as well.

"I told ya, Apricot," Brigid said.

"I told YOU. Put a girl with her body into a tight dress and the dress automatically becomes 'a slinky little number.'"

"Slinky." Steve liked that. Dinner was absolutely delightful, but Steve barely touched his food. Letje asked if he was nervous about the presentation. He was far too wrapped up in the feelings he had for his gorgeous date to be nervous about his little show. The butterflies her every little smile and glance gave him were keeping him from being able to do more than pick at his meal. But he pretended that it was the presentation that had him flustered. "If she knew how fast and hard I am falling for her, she'd probably make a mad dash for the exit!" he thought.

When time came for his big moment, Letje gave him a peck on the cheek and a squeeze of his hand. It was like a supercharger to his soul. "My friends," he said as he took the microphone. "This is a tribute to Christmas—or whichever winter holiday you choose to celebrate—to our lovely little town of Wanowee and to the men and women who make Shield a vital and thriving force in our nation's economy." He turned and gave a nod to the President's Table and with a deep breath clicked the mouse.

The ballroom went dark for a moment and then as Laura Sullivan's mellow version of "Simple Gifts" gently caressed the ear, Steve's slide show of gorgeous winter photographs of Wanowee lit up the screen. Many members of the audience saw the town in a whole new way, much as Steve had begun to see it since he found Letje. Their "boring little town" became a place of magical Old World charm and warmth. As the strains of the heartfelt Shaker hymn faded, the almost obligatory guitar-rock of Trans-Siberian Orchestra filled the room. While the screen flashed a series of candids he had taken at Shield, the Christmas light show began. The lights were just a grander version of what he had done in underwriting, but the addition of the photos made everyone from Shield feel like they were part of the show. When the TSO number ended, Steve set a series of final video clips (well edited to give the appearance of a tracking shot) to "Open Door," by Bragh Adair—a beautiful Celtic track Brigid had recommended. The piece looked as if it started in the center of the building and pulled back through the offices and down the driveway to the snow-covered boulder with the company's giant shield attached. At the final fade, Steve was taken aback by the roar of approval from the room. The ballroom's lights came up to reveal that Steve was the recipient of a heartfelt standing ovation.

He walked off the stage and into an ardent embrace from Letje. His friends soon joined in, wrapping their arms around the two of them and forcing them tightly together. "This," he thought, "must be what a great day feels like!"

For the rest of the evening, Steve got congratulatory handshakes from co-workers and executives he didn't even know. Everything was going so well that he barely even had time to do the thing he considered most important, lavish attention on his lovely Letje. She remained at his side, introducing herself over and over again and glad-handing strangers. Steve even noticed that she managed to adroitly handle Mr. Vander Zanden when the drunken Senior VP got a little "handsy." All this couldn't have been easy for someone as shy as her, and Steve admired her all the more for it. She was not going to place demands on him and spoil his big night. He was as happy as he'd ever been.