Connie's Cafe/Book Shop

Chapter 6 Choosing the Boy Friend

Tim felt excited as he mounted the stairs and rung Betty's door bell. It had been ages since he had taken a full lunch hour off work. He usually just sat in the shop and ate there with Connie but today he had arranged to meet Betty and Pat at Betty's apartment to try and move things along with 'Hunt the boyfriend' project or HTF as he had decided to code name it.

They had been trying to find someone all week but every avenue they tried nothing had come up. They were now going to spend the hour brainstorming to see what ideas they could come up with.

Pat was sitting down in an overstuffed armchair by the window when Tim walked through the door,

"Come on, come on" called Betty leading him across the room to sit opposite Pat, "We don't have all day!" Good to see Betty was her usual happy self!

"Now, does anyone have any other ideas."

They started to list off all their failures, which were many. They had tried countless chat rooms on the internet, dating sites and even local agencies. Nothing.

"There must be at least one eligible boy out there?" groaned Pat after twenty minutes of exhaustive conversation which wasn't getting them anywhere. "Maybe you two are just being too picky."

"Nonsense!" retorted Betty, "It has to be someone perfect or else Connie will just blank him as she does everyone"

"Have you ever thought there may be a reason for that?" Pat asked "We're going ahead as if this is something she really wants to do, but maybe she doesn't have a boyfriend because she doesn't want one!"

"Nonsense!" replied Betty again, "Of course she wants one! she's just too caught up in her shop and life, she doesn't realise that the clock is ticking and she needs to get a move on and find someone now before it's too late. Anyway," she added, "as I have already said, if she did have her heart broken in the past, now is a good time to fix it, you mark my words!"

"Why's that, because you say so!" Replied Pat gruffly.

"Come on you two, stop bickering" broke in Tim. "Listen it's almost time for me to head downstairs, we haven't really gotten anywhere. Let's just keep thinking about it and see if we can come up with an idea by tomorrow. Let's meet up again tomorrow lunch time and see what we have come up with."

They all stood up to leave, Tim's phone rang, he started answering as he walked to the door.

"Hello"

"Hi it's Amy, how are things, have you found anyone yet?"

Tim had spoken to Amy about hunting for a boyfriend for Connie, as she was a private investigator, she travelled around a lot and knew lots of people, but she hadn't come up with any suggestions.

"No, nothing yet" replied Tim, "I'm just heading back down to the shop now"

Why don't we meet for lunch tomorrow, meet me halfway, at that little Italian on the corner of Prince Street?"

"Ok by me, hang on let me check with the others"

"Pat, Betty, can you make lunch at the Italian's on Prince Street tomorrow? Amy can meet us there, I'll try and get extra time out the shop and let's get this sorted once and for all"

Pat and Betty readily agreed and they made arrangements to meet Amy at 12:30 the following day.

Pat headed across the hallway to his apartment, Tim went down to the shop and Betty closed her door.

............

"No of course I don't mind" answered Connie, "We're not that busy, I'm just a little surprised, normally you tell me you haven't anything to do at lunchtimes and you sit in with me, now all of a sudden you had to go out yesterday and now you're asking for a longer break today. I really don't mind, I'm just curious!"

"Curiosity killed the cat!" responded Tim, patting her nose.

"Get off!" laughed Connie, "Whatever, you can take off two hours if you like but you own me the time!"

"Done!" responded Tim.

........

Betty and Pat were the first two to arrive, Amy arrived a few moments later with Tim arriving just behind her. They took a quiet table in the corner and sat down. The waitress came up and they ordered a large bottle of water and one bottle of wine, decided on the pasta and lamb dish. As their drinks were served they got down to business.

"OK" started Amy, "fill me in, where are you up to."

They filled her in on all the sites they had visited and all the people they had seen at the agencies but explained that no one was any good. They played around with a few more ideas as they ate their lunch but couldn't think of anything. Amy then came up with the suggestion of taking her out for a girls' night out, they would visit various bars and she was sure they would find someone.

Just at the moment there was a loud crash and a small scream. They all turned to see what had happened. A man had unfortunately gotten up out of his chair just as the waitress, with a tray loaded with glasses, had walked by. They collided and the glasses had all fallen to the floor together with the tray and the unfortunate waitress!

No-one appeared to be hurt, the poor man looked as startled as the waitress he was helping up. He was very apologetic. He had lovely thick dark hair, amber eyes and smooth skin. As he straightened up he was quite a tall man, well built and well dressed. Tim looked him up and down, then turned to Amy who was also eyeing him up, they turned to Betty and Pat and Tim could see they were all thinking the same thing.

"Leave this to me" announced Amy getting up. "We've found our man!"