Patience and Perseverance

She sat at her computer in a little ice cream shop in the small town where she lived just like she did almost every other day. Like any young woman with an internet connection, she had Facebook up to keep in touch with friends and to provide some entertainment aside from the fun of people watching. The other tab she had open was for a hot springs resort a few hours to the south. Normally she had no interest in resorts or spas or anything that she might consider “fancy shmancy.” She was a small town girl to the core. Jean skirts, tank tops, campfires and the great outdoors were enough for her. Why pay hundreds of dollars a night for a room in a big hotel or better yet a “private cottage” when a tent under the stars did just as well? Yet here she was, investigating the layout and FAQ of a resort and discovering to her horror that there did in fact exist a dress code! Dressing up was optional it said but jeans were discouraged and sneakers were not allowed.

“Humph” she huffed to herself and looked around the store for support. The owner was a short and lean man from Tonga who over the weeks she had come to know fairly well. How a Tongan ended up in a tiny hick town in British Columbia, Canada was a mystery she could not leave unsolved and so she could now pretty much recite Lee's history from memory including the year he immigrated and how old he had been when he met his wife.

“Lee!” she cried out and jumped from her seat near the door to talk with him as he cleaned up the back counter. “How am I supposed to go to such a nice place? I don't know how to be fancy!”

“You know how my daughters learned to do their makeup?” he asked with a smile and familiar and musical accent. “They watched YouTube videos! What were you doing when you should have been learning about makeup?”

The sparkle in his eye gave him away but still she answered “I was outside playing street hockey!”

Lee chuckled to himself and joked “well better learn now if you're going out on a nice dinner date, you're off to the big city now kid!”

“Gah!” She turned away with a mirthful laugh and looked back at her computer screen. The page before her described how every resort guest would also be issued a wrist band for the duration of their stay so they would have access to all the spring fed mineral pools kept at varying temperatures for either relaxation or any athletic endeavours.

“Guess I need to buy a nice pair of sandals and maybe a cheap summer dress” she said to herself and wondered how she'd afford to do just that over the next few weeks. One way or another she would figure it out. Her resume was done, minus adding the phone numbers of her listed contacts and she was on a mission to find another job and do it soon; her dogs depended on it because dog food didn't come cheap these days!

As her eyes wandered over the page with pictures of the accommodations there was one thought that foretold maybe, just maybe this whole resort thing would be not only worth it but a whole lot of fun and that thought was Dean.

The story of Dean was far too long and complicated for her to even give a proper nutshell when people asked her to explain. She had met him a little over a year ago when she worked at the Subway in town. He would come in every single day for a week and then disappear. She found out later that this was because he was working a seven on, seven off schedule up at the gold mine. For his week of work he stayed at a small apartment near one of the two rivers that wound its way around the town and he would get the same sub every day and then sit outside in his car to eat half of it before heading off for a twelve hour shift as a technician.