Claire was almost halfway through, at that delicious place where she felt compelled to go on reading yet didn’t want the book to end. She felt herself looking forward to her modest evening, her little dinner, a special dessert (she would have the pie) and her book as company.
She sighed. She often wanted to read on the ferry but if she was with Tina – and she almost always was – it was impossible without offending her. That was one of the reasons she carried her knitting. Tina teased her, but it was something to do while Tina nattered on.
Claire finished the statistics, hit the print button and gathered up her belongings while the document rolled into the waiting basket. She was just putting on her new coat – a light green one that she thought complemented her eyes – when Mr Wonderful, Mr Michael Wonderful Wainwright himself, stepped into the room. It was a jolt because no matter how good he looked in her daydreams he was so much better in reality. He was slightly taller than Claire, his posture perfect, his chest broad and taut through his dress shirt. Mr Wonderful’s light blond hair was shiny in the fluorescent light of the office. As he surveyed the room with his hazel-colored eyes he almost looked through her. Claire froze then reminded herself to continue putting her arm into the sleeve of her coat. ‘Where’s Joan?’ he asked.
‘Joan’s left for the day,’ she told him, sounding more calm than she felt. She was afraid she’d begun to blush. She looked away from him, down at her bag. She picked it up and placed it carefully on her chair. Something to do. Keep busy and her eyes to herself. She also had to change into her sneakers but was embarrassed to do it in front of him.
She figured he’d leave then, but was startled by a loud thumping noise. She looked up to see Mr Wonderful had hit Joan’s desk with a thick document. ‘Shit!’ he said. Then he turned back to her and smiled. His smile was devastating, if not sincere. As irresistible as a frozen Mars bar in July and probably just as bad for her. ‘You don’t know where the Worthington numbers are, do you, Karen?’
‘Yes,’ she said. She went to the printer bin and held out the still-warm pages. ‘They’re here. And it’s Claire.’
‘Claire?’ he asked and looked down at the report in her hands as if she was talking about the document.
‘My name,’ she said. ‘Not Karen. It’s Claire.’
He reached for the print-out then looked into her face as he took the pages from her. ‘Of course. Claire,’ he said. ‘I was so panicked over this damn thing that I forgot. Excuse me.’ The closest Michael Wainwright had come to panic, Claire thought, was probably the day he feared he wouldn’t get into the right eating club at Yale. She just nodded and went back to her desk expecting him to go.
She picked up her tote bag, took out her sneakers and was about to sit down to put them on when she realized Mr Wonderful was still there. He was paging through the stats, then he looked right up at her. One of the shoes slipped out of Claire’s hand and bounced on the floor.
‘Look, Ka – uh, Claire,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘I already know I’ve made a couple of mistakes in this thing. We’re meeting on it tomorrow morning and I’ll look like a total fuck-up if I don’t have it right.’ He paused. She was afraid to reach for her dropped shoe so she just stood there, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Michael Wainwright walked over to her, bent gracefully to the floor and, with the report in one hand and her sneaker in the other, offered her the shoe with a princely flourish. She reached for it and he, as if in return for the favor, raised his eyebrows in a faux pleading look. ‘Do you think you could stay just a little while longer and make a couple of corrections for me?’
Of course. Some prince. But her hand actually tingled, holding the old sneaker that his hand had touched. She told herself she was a very foolish girl, then nodded her head because her neck seemed to work, though her tongue didn’t.
‘You will?’ he said in a voice that sounded less than surprised. ‘That’s great.’ He turned and shuffled a few pages, scribbling with a red pen. Claire struggled out of her coat and stowed her purse – along with the errant shoe – under her desk. She glanced up at the clock. It was already five-forty and she doubted she’d be out by six but she wouldn’t forget Joan’s directive about the car service. Claire wondered if it had gotten a lot colder, and how often the buses from the ferry ran after seven.
‘Hey,’ Michael Wainwright said. ‘Take a look.’ She stood beside him and looked at the papers spread in front of her. ‘Here are my corrections,’ he said, pointing to more than a dozen pages slashed with red. ‘And could you check my tabulations and change this to a bar chart?’ To her concern the changes looked like the kind of statistical work which was painstakingly slow to correct. And if she changed the layout of the chart, it would need reformatting. And that would probably alter the pagination of the rest of the report. Then she’d have to page preview the entire thing before she printed it out, just to be sure there were no widows or orphans.
‘Can you do it?’ he asked, and it was, of course, impossible to say no. Unfortunately it was equally impossible to say yes, since she couldn’t speak. She was close enough to him to smell his scent – some kind of soap and perhaps just a hint of a clean cologne as well as something that smelled like … like fresh starch. How, she wondered, could he still smell fresh at six o’clock? He was pointing to one of the changes and she noticed that his cuff was whiter even than the printer paper. Yeah. And her sneakers smelled. ‘Will it take long?’ he asked, interrupting her self-loathing.
Claire shook her head and then managed to find her tongue. ‘About two hours, I think,’ she told him.
‘Great!’ he said. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’ He gathered up the pile of papers and handed them to her. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait in my office. And let me buy you dinner.’
Not counting the time Claire spent nearly fainting, then the dance she did around the room, it still took her a little longer to finish the Worthington revisions than it should have because she kept forgetting formatting codes and her fingers trembled for a long while after Michael Wainwright left the room. She also couldn’t stop herself from imagining what it would be like sitting across from that face for an hour. Would he ask her questions about herself or talk about his own life? What in the world would she say? Somehow she doubted he was interested in the kitchner stitch. Perhaps, she thought, Cinderella would get to go to the ball. Of course, she told herself, Michael Wainwright wasn’t interested in her, but even if the shoe didn’t fit she could wear it for one night.
She was hungry and tired by the time she was through, but she was also elated by the prospect of dinner with Mr Wonderful. She proofread the pages twice just to be sure that there wasn’t a single typo then printed the final draft out on high rag content bond. Ready to run it in to him she stopped her frantic activity, uncertain for a moment. Should she put on her coat and meet him ready to go out to eat, or just bring the document over then go back for her things? Perhaps she should call him. She knew his extension number was just one digit different than Tina’s, so she took a deep breath, sat down and dialed. He answered on the first ring. ‘It’s … it’s Claire,’ she said. ‘I’m finished.’
‘Terrific. Do you mind bringing it to my office?’
‘Not at all,’ Claire said and heard how stiff it sounded. ‘Sure,’ she added. ‘Right away.’
She emptied her bulky bag of her knitting, her sneakers, her book and her muffler. She put on her new green coat, smoothed it and checked the pocket for tissue since she was starting to get the sniffles. Then she quickly ran a brush through her hair and wished she’d remembered her lip gloss. But she was flushed with exhilaration, and as she glanced at herself in the mirror hidden behind the supply closet door, she was actually pleased with what she saw. She regretted not having the silk scarf she’d bought to go with the coat but it had been far too cold this morning to wear that. Oh well. Her muffler would do.
She