Not Your Average Nerd

Chapter Nine

It only took me... Well, that isn't important. It's here! It's here! That's what counts... :-)

Again, s'ank you all for reading! I hope this was good. Excuse me on rusty-ness. Let's give'er a shot

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9

 

            I was used to getting funny looks at work. Usually they belonged to the faces of women who seemed confused as to why someone like me (well, old-me) would be working at a complete feminine and fabulous boutique such as Frieda’s. The “typical” type of worker who’s seen folding clothes at Frieda’s is the typical bubbly college girl type with colorful makeup, tight clothes, a pretty face, and a smile bright enough to light up a room. You’ve been with me long enough to know that I had none of those things. The only thing that seemed to be bright on me was when my glasses would give off this strange glare under certain lightings. It certainly was different to receive strange looks from women who were shopping with their boyfriends and, well, their boyfriends were more focused on me than on what their girls were buying. Most people would have found it flattering, but I found it uncomfortable. Then again, most people were experienced with flirting… I had the romance skills of a rock.

            “What time do you get off of work?” An attractive guy who wore a fitted white V-neck and dark jeans asked me around six-thirty. He looked like he belonged in California rather than stuck in the middle of Texas.

            “Around nine,” I replied, oblivious to the many flirty messages (both verbal and nonverbal) he was sending to me. I continued to fold clothes.

            “Well, how about I come back around nine and we can go out for some dinner? Maybe go out for a few hours, have a couple of drinks, and then, you know, go from there.” Everything about the look he gave me shouted I-WANT-IN-YOUR-PANTS and, honestly, if it were anyone else besides me he probably would have gotten his wish. Instead of getting weak at the knees, hyperventilating a little, or babbling stupidly about how totally fun and great that sounded, I shrugged my shoulders and declined.

            “It sounds like an interesting offer,” I said, taking a little pause from my folding to look up. “But I have some pasta salad at home and plenty of text books that need my attention.” My appearance had taken a near-complete 360, but my personality was still the same.

 

            He ended up coming back to the store to pick Lauren up for, as she called it, “an unbelievable night that she’ll never remember in the morning.” Lauren hadn’t stopped talking about how excited she was to go out with James until she walked out of the door. The whole time she rambled on I could only think about how unfitting his name was. In my opinion he looked more like a Max, or a Seth… or something beach-boy-ish. James was too proper.

            Once again I worked until closing, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been the last week. My energy levels were so high I felt as if I were running on five cups of espresso. It was almost a shame that there wasn’t much to clean or tidy that night because I felt as if I could have cleaned the entire shop Marry Poppins style within an hour. That always seemed to happen to me, though. On those days when I felt dead on my feet there was always so much crap to clean, yet on those days when I felt good enough to run a marathon things were spotless.

            I rode home with my windows down I couldn’t help but sniff the air like some sort of… dog. There was some delicious scents that lingered in my nose that made my stomach growl. To my horror, as I pulled up to one of the many red lights in town, I noticed a steakhouse to my left. My stomach began gurgling and groaning. That’s not right, I thought, stepping on the gas. The smell of meat never turned my stomach on. Actually, I was used to it making me feel ill. I must be starving. But no matter how many times I reminded myself that I had a huge bowl of pasta waiting for me in my refrigerator, I couldn’t get an appetite.

            I wolfed down a pretty good sized bowl of pasta salad once I got home. Everything was up to my standards—the broccoli was crisp, the noodles were perfect, the sauce even had the perfect balance of tart and savory—but as I got ready for bed, my stomach seemed to beckon for something more. There were crackers in my cupboard and other little snacks in the shelves, but none of them seemed to be the key. My gut growled for the umpteenth time as I crawled into my sheets. Yet another Saturday night of arriving home from work and then headed straight off to bed. I’m pretty positive there are nuns out there who had more exciting nights than I did. As I began to drift off to sleep, my phone began to vibrate.

            “Hello?” I answered, not even bothering to check the caller ID.

            “What have I told you about answering the phone in English when I call?” My mother shouted into my ear through the phone. “Shit,” I mouthed.

            “Sorry.”