Cupid's Christmas Page 3

  The next morning, I found her bathrobe lying on the floor. After hanging in the same spot for over a year, it had fallen from the hook. I took that as a sign and finally called the woman from Mustard Seed.

  Last year I ran into Eleanor and couldn’t help remembering what good times we’d had some thirty years ago. One thing led to another and now, for the first time in almost nine years, I am truly happy. At one time I thought I’d never find anyone as special as Bethany, but Eleanor has her own kind of special. It’s the kind of special that has made me very happy, and I think it’s gonna make Lindsay happy too.

  Cupid…Trouble Starts

  Women like Lindsay make me appreciate the Eleanors of this world even more. Based on something that’s akin to a child’s imagination, Lindsay has created a set-in-stone image of what her ideal man will look like. Humans—they’re an impossible race! Some of them search for love the way they’d search for a suit, by size, color and cut…Lindsay is precisely that type!

  Now that she’s got an image of her perfect mate, she’s begun to study the face of every male she passes. She eyes them on her walk to work, she scrutinizes them when they walk into the bookstore, and yesterday evening she checked out two gay men who were folding their laundry in the basement of her apartment building.

  This foolishness continued day after day and by the end of the week she’d looked into more than a thousand faces. Not one had been right. Friday evening she returned home weary and disappointed.

  Walker greeted her with an apprehensive smile. “Got a registered letter for you,” he shuffled through the pile of envelopes and handed one to her. It was from The Chelsea Building Management Company.

  “Oh no,” Lindsay sighed, “Don’t tell me they’re raising the rent again…”

  Walker shook his head, “Worse,” he grumbled.

  “Worse?” Using her fingernail, she pried open the flap and began to read. “They’re kidding, right?”

  Walker shook his head again, “Afraid not. Everybody in the building got the same letter. Ain’t nobody happy.”

  “But is this even legal? Can they just decide to go condo without any input from the residents? Without a vote of some sort?”

  “They own the building, so I guess they can do as they see fit.”

  “It isn’t fair,” Lindsay moaned, “I don’t have this kind of money.”

  “Few do,” Walker echoed soulfully, “Very few.” He was thinking of his daughter Emily.

  Upstairs in her apartment, Lindsay reread the letter three times. Each time the words remained the same—no renewal of the lease blah, blah, blah condominium conversion to be effective December 1, 2011. Blah, blah, blah the purchase cost for your apartment (3A) is $265,000. 00 blah, blah, blah…the deadline date for declaration of intent to purchase is November 1, 2011.

  “I can’t believe this,” she sighed and flopped down on the sofa.

  A ring of gloom circled Lindsay and settled on her shoulders as she sat there counting up her losses. First Phillip and now her apartment. Lindsay imagined herself at the bottom of a well with no way to climb out. Buying the apartment was out of the question, she had barely enough money to plunk down a security deposit and pay for a mover.

  With a swell of sorrow rising in her throat, she telephoned Amanda and tearfully reread the letter.

  “I know, it stinks,” Amanda sympathized. “Chris got one also.”

  “Chris?”

  “Christopher Roberts he lives in your building.”

  “That’s the Chris you’ve been dating?”

  “Remember I met him the night you broke up with Phillip? I asked if you’d mind…”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember. I just didn’t realize he was the Chris you’ve been dating.”

  “It’s three months today. We’re going to Antonio’s to celebrate.”

  “Antonio’s…” Lindsay repeated. “Nice place.” I could hear the melancholy in her voice, but apparently Amanda didn’t because she chattered on and on about how wonderful Chris was.

  When Lindsay hung up the telephone, she sat there for almost ten minutes trying to recall exactly what Christopher looked like. They’d had four dates, nice dates. She remembered the way he’d held her arm as they crossed the street, how he’d brought flowers on their second date, how at the restaurant he’d waited until she was seated before he sat. Slowly it dawned on her that Christopher was most likely a man with principles. How sad, she thought, that she hadn’t then understood the importance of principles.

  A picture of Christopher finally came to mind and she compared it to the image she’d been carrying around. Luckily there were certain differences. He was a tad on the short side, and although his hair was light brown, it was definitely too long. And there was that thing about wearing loafers with no socks—her father would never do that. With a sigh of relief Lindsay let go of the tension that had been building. For a moment she thought perhaps she’d met her ideal man and somehow failed to recognize him.

  Anyway, she reasoned, Christopher wasn’t Christopher anymore. He was now Chris, Amanda’s Chris.

  I warned you this was going to happen, and it’s only the start of things to come. I’ve already explained, I can’t override Life Management events. That department has the last word on almost everything. They decide who wins and who loses, who stays and who goes. Unfortunately, a number of their decisions have fouled up my best matches. One flick of a finger from Life Management and a person’s life changes forever. It saddens me, but I can’t stop it from happening. All I can do is help people pick up the broken pieces and fall in love again.

  On Tuesday morning Lindsay went right back to what had become her routine—pick up a latte at Starbucks and walk to the Big Book Barn. She didn’t even glance at the faces of the males she passed because she was focused on the thought of finding an affordable apartment. She was in the midst of tallying up the price of new window shades when she pushed through the glass door and saw Sara McClusky dabbing her eyes with a balled up tissue. Lindsay bypassed the counter and walked over to Sara. “What’s wrong?”

  Sara stopped wiping her eyes, pulled another tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Instead of answering the question, she started sobbing again and waggled a finger toward Howard, the store manager. “Ask him,” she finally sniffled.

  “I will,” Lindsay said, and turned toward the counter where Howard was standing. He didn’t appear any too happy either. “What’s up with Sara?” she asked.

  Howard crooked the right side of his mouth the way he did when customers complained about a book costing less at some other store. “It’s not Sara, it’s everybody,” he grunted. “Pennington is closing the store.”

  “Closing the store? Why…”

  Howard shrugged, “He said the rent’s too high, so he didn’t renew the lease.”

  “What about us? What about our jobs?”

  Alfred Pennington owned five bookstores in the city. The Big Book Barn was the smallest and least profitable. “There are no jobs,” Howard said, “He’s closing the doors November thirtieth and giving everyone two weeks’ severance. That’s it.”

  “You mean we’re all out of a job? Even you?”

  Howard lowered his head and started to fumble with some invoices on the counter. “Well, not me,” he said, “Pennington found a spot for me at the Madison Avenue store.”

  “You’re kidding? Sara and I have been with the store for almost two years, you’ve been here six months, what about seniority?”

  Howard cleared his throat, “I discussed that with Pennington, but he needs a store manager and neither of you are qualified to—”

  “Qualified! I know more about this store than you do!”

  “The decision’s been made. November thirtieth is your last day.”

  Lindsay felt the fire starting in her toes, running up her legs, spreading to her arms and eventually bubbling into her mouth where it shot out in a barrage of angry words. “So, you’re manager material, huh? Well then, try manag
ing the store without us!” She grabbed the red-eyed Sara by the hand and started toward the door. “We quit!” she shouted back. Although Sara looked a bit doubtful, she tagged along saying nothing. With Sara trailing a full pace behind, Lindsay stomped across Second Avenue then slowed her pace.

  “What now?” Sara asked timidly.

  “Don’t worry, once Howard has a few hours of doing everything himself, he’ll be begging us to come back. He’ll insist Pennington find a spot for us in one of the other stores. Just wait.”

  The two girls walked north to Twenty-Fifth Street then turned and started toward Broadway. As they went, Sara continued to express her doubt that Howard was going to change his mind. “Even if he does,” she said, “What makes you think he can convince Pennington to find a spot for us in another store?”

  “Trust me,” Lindsay replied, and kept right on walking. It was not yet ten-thirty when she declared it time for lunch. As soon as they settled into the booth, she checked to make sure her cell phone was turned on. She was still confident Howard would be calling within the next two hours. “You’ll see,” she assured Sara. They ordered sandwiches and began to wait. After an hour had passed, Lindsay pulled the cell phone from her purse and laid it on the table. “I want to be sure to hear the ring,” she said, but, of course, there was no ring—not that hour or the hour that followed or the hour after that.

  “Maybe we ought to go back,” Sara said. “If Howard really needs help, he might be willing to let us keep our jobs.”

  “And then what?” Lindsay replied. “In two months, we’re out of a job again. Is it worth it to go groveling for a measly month or two?”

  Sara hesitated for a moment, then stammered, “Well, maybe.”

  “He’ll call. Just give it time.”

  Two full days passed with no call from Howard. Sara then went back to the store and found two young men behind the counter. “You work here?” she asked. The taller one nodded.

  “Since when?”

  “Yesterday,” he answered. “Right now the job’s temporary, but I’m hoping it will become permanent.”

  “It won’t,” Sara replied, then she turned and walked out. Moments later she telephoned Lindsay. “Howard’s not going to call,” she said. “He’s got two temps working at the store.”

  “Impossible,” Lindsay gasped. “How could he…” the realization that she had no job and was about to lose her apartment settled in her stomach like cream that had soured. “I can’t believe it…” she moaned, “What are we going to do?”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and then Sara suggested she might go to Florida to stay with her sister. “I suppose I could get a job waitressing,” she said flatly.

  Every human on earth has to endure Life Management events—it’s not the event that destroys a human, it’s the way they react to it. I know Lindsay is miserable right now, and I’m not insensitive to the situation. But if she hadn’t flown off the handle and walked out of the store, she would have been standing at the register when the engineer I had lined up walked in. He would have asked for a book on the construction of the Lincoln Tunnel then she would have taken him to the research section and spent twenty minutes helping him find the book. If things went according to plan, they would have both reacted to the spark. Later that evening over dinner and a bottle of pinot grigio—POW! Of course, with Lindsay, things seldom go as planned which is a big part of the problem.

  For the next three weeks Lindsay spent every waking hour searching for a job. At the end of that time the only thing she had was a notepad of scratched off listings—and the knowledge that her resume was pitifully inadequate and her qualifications limited. She’d come to New York with thoughts of becoming a journalist, and then one day a novelist, but she’d done none of that.

  Instead she’d taken a job at a magazine where there was no reporting, there was only making coffee and answering phones. Several times she’d asked to write an article, but a bulbous-nosed editor peered across the rim of his glasses and said, “Sweetie, we only use professional stuff.” After six months of rejections she’d moved on to become an Administrative Assistant to one of the many vice presidents at a marine insurance firm. There she had little to do but answer an occasional telephone call and make up lies about her boss being tied up at a meeting. Her boss, a man who often returned from lunch smelling of whiskey, was eventually fired, and Lindsay’s job disappeared. From there she’d gone to the Big Book Barn, and well, you already know how that ended.

  When for five days straight there were no new job listings, Lindsay grew frantic and began telephoning her friends. Amanda said she knew of no openings in her store or anywhere else. “But Amanda, you work for Saks,” Lindsay said, “Don’t they hire extra help for the holidays?”

  “Those temps were hired a month ago,” Amanda replied, “the training class is over.”

  “Training? I don’t need training. I’ve worked in retail for three years. I know how to work with customers. I’m ready to…”

  “Oh Saks would never hire anyone who hasn’t gone through our training program. I mean, it is Saks Fifth Avenue…”

  Lindsay suddenly found herself disliking her best friend. After an abrupt goodbye, she hung up the telephone.

  Her next call was to Sara. Hopefully she’d had better luck in finding a job and could suggest something. First Lindsay dialed Sara’s home number, but a recording answered and said the number had been disconnected. She then called Sara’s cell. It rang three times and when Sara answered it was in an almost bubbly voice. “Hey there girlfriend,” she said.

  Taken aback, Lindsay stuttered for a moment then asked, “Is this Sara? Sara McClusky?”

  “Of course it’s me,” Sara laughed.

  The loud music, the laughter in her voice, this simply wasn’t the Sara that Lindsay knew. “Are you at a party?” she asked.

  “Indeed I am,” Sara shouted. “This is definitely a par-tee.”

  “Sara? Are you okay? Is there anything…”

  “Everything’s fine.” Sara laughed, “I’m at my sister’s in Tampa.”

  “Florida?”

  “That’s where Tampa is.”

  “You left New York? What about work?”

  She laughed again, this time it was more of a chuckle. “In case you’ve forgotten, I didn’t have a job…remember? You quit for both of us.”

  “But, I thought you’d find…” The truth was Lindsay didn’t know what she thought.

  Sara stepped away from the music, found a quiet spot, and then they talked.

  Lindsay told her of the trouble she’d had finding a job and apologized again for having dragged Sara from the Big Book Barn. “I’d no idea it was this hard to find a job…” she sighed.

  Sara reassured Lindsay that she had no second thoughts about leaving as they had. “It was the best thing that could have happened,” she said, “The truth is I had no life in New York. I was a guppy swimming with sharks. The best I could ever hope for was to avoid being eaten alive.”

  “I never really saw it that way,” Lindsay said.

  “Neither did I. But once I got past the no-job thing, I learned to move on, get some fun out of life.”

  “Move on?” Lindsay echoed.

  “Yeah, can you believe it’s me saying this?”

  Lindsay had to admit it was hard to believe.

  “It’s like I learned to breathe all over again,” Sara said. She then went on to tell about how she’d found a great job hostessing at a beachfront restaurant.

  When they hung up, Lindsay sat there wishing she too had a sister in Florida.

  I guess by now you’ve surmised trouble is on the horizon. Lindsay isn’t the only one at risk. Unless I do something to change the course of events, Eleanor and John will be torn apart. And yes, Lindsay will never find her perfect match.

  That evening, long after most people had eaten dinner and cleared the dishes from the table, I watched Lindsay walk three blocks to the Golden Dragon, buy a p
int of pork fried rice and carry it home. She dumped the rice into a bowl, flicked on the television and plopped down on the sofa. From where Lindsay sat, she could view the apartment in its entirety, except for the bathroom. To her left an archway into a kitchen barely big enough to turn around, to the right a bedroom alcove—not a real bedroom, just an alcove large enough for a bed and a very small dresser.

  Lindsay sat there thinking back on all that had happened. Piece by piece she was losing herself and everything she loved. First it was her Mom, then Phillip, then the apartment, then her job, now even Sara was gone.

  She thought about Sara and the happiness that bubbled through her voice. She pictured blue skies and palm trees waving in the breeze. And for a brief moment she even pictured a handsome life guard with a toasted body and hair the color of a noonday sun.

  As she emptied the bowl she thought about the bedroom she’d slept in growing up—it was nearly as large as the apartment. She thought about the dining room, with its mahogany table and chairs filled with Mom, Dad, Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Frank. As she thought about those things it seemed that both she and the apartment were growing smaller and smaller.

  When she went to bed that night, I could tell a loneliness bigger than any Lindsay had ever known had settled into her heart. She pulled the blankets over her head and began to cry.

  Cupid’s Gremlins

  At one time this was a simple job—arrange for two humans to meet on a stroll through the park, or at a party, even at work—but with every century it becomes increasingly more complex. Now, not only do I have to deal with cross-country relocations, I’m plagued with online dating sites. The idea of a computer doing my job is virtually laughable. I can look ahead a thousand centuries and promise you that long after computers are obsolete, I will still be arranging perfect matches. Granted, the computer has its uses, as you will soon see, but finding love is not one of them.