Budding Crisis

"Well, of all the nerve." Sharon banged the telephone down on the cash register counter. "Well, shit!" she added.

"What was that all about?" the shop assistant, Maggie, said, looking up from the other end of the counter, where she was polishing glass vases with a tea towel.

"That was Roger Bailey."

"Why does that ring a bell?" Maggie said. "Oh, isn't that the guy you've said you've run into a couple of times. A real cute guy."

"Yes, that's him. He just had the nerve to ask me out."

"When?"

"Tonight."

"And . . . the problem with that is . . .?" Maggie left that hanging. Just that morning Sharon had asked her if she knew a guy named Roger Bailey and had proceeded to say he was real cute.

"He had the nerve to tell me he'd just gotten into town and an old friend of mine I'd gone to Atlantic City beach with had told him he should look me up when he got here."

"And I still don't see what the problem with that is."

"He said he didn't remember her name. He was just fishing and taking a chance I'd gone to the beach at Atlantic City. The nerve of him. I know what he wants."

"You're not making any sense, girl," Maggie said. "But I know you're rattled or I guess you have a right to be addled." She gave a little snort of appreciation for her clever turn of the phrase and went back to polishing the glassware. "But I still don't see what your problem is," she spoke to a glass vase, "Just this morning you were practically scheming about how you could meet the guy. You did go to Atlantic City, didn't you?"

"Yeah, and I remember who I saw there. This guy can't remember who told him to look me up."

"Can I go back to noting that you're not making a lick of sense?" Maggie said.

"You wouldn't understand. And I don't have time for this. Tom Stafford is going to cut out my liver if I don't find the supplies we need in the next three days. This is a hell of a time in the year to be brought up short in product."

She wanted to change the subject and she sure as hell didn't want to do any more explaining about Roger Bailey. Yes, this morning she wanted him. But that was before he called. She knew why he'd called her out of the blue like that. And she knew he'd gotten her name and number from Phil—who had probably lied to him, bragged all about a nonevent. Well, if Roger Bailey was that sort of guy, she didn't want to have anything to do with him.

"You're blushing, girl," Maggie called out, breaking into Sharon's private snit. "You're thinking you blew it by not saying you'd go out with that guy, aren't you? And you're thinking of him and what the two of you can do together."

"Am not. And pay attention to what you're doing. If you break that glassware, we'll really be in for it."

"If you don't make those calls and get your crisis settled, we won't be needing this glassware," Maggie retorted.

The words from both were a little testy, but they weren't showing angry faces and were used to bantering about this.

I probably should just tell her, Sharon thought. But I don't need another person laughing at me. Maggie probably would be bringing it back up to needle me about for months.

Her mind went to the first time she'd seen Roger Bailey—the previous Friday when she'd gone down to the Toms River boardwalk for a hot dog at noon. She kept her blush as she remembered the catsup and mustard that had squirted out of the end of that damn thing and how she had marched right off to the public restrooms. She was standing over a sink, having taken her sweater off to scrub at the stain and standing there just in her bra, and only then had realized that she'd walked into the men's room rather than the ladies.

It had been the clearing of a throat in a very deep register off to the side that had made her turn her head and realize that there was a young guy bellying into a line of urinals. He was grinning at her.

He was still grinning at her when she'd fled the men's room, sweater in hand, and he'd followed her to the door, his hand on the zipper of his open fly.

And that's the first time she'd seen Roger Bailey, approaching the men's room, his jaw dropped.

The worst thing is that he was probably the best looking man she'd seen in months—certainly better looking than the guys she'd been dating.

"Miss, I'd like to place an order for Valentine's Day."

The voice of the old man standing in front of her at the counter, brought Sharon out of her painful reverie.

"Um, sure. Just tell me what you'd like."

"This number A18 in the catalogue here, I think. You can have it ready that morning?"

"Um, yes, sure, just fill this form out and that will be $36.87. Cash or credit?"

All the time she was writing the order up she was praying that they could get the supplies in that were necessary to fill this order. And there would be many more orders like this over the next three days. If they failed to fill the orders, there likely would be nobody shopping here or next Valentine's Day, which was the shop's Christmas, Easter, and the whole family's birthdays rolled into one in terms of annual sales.

"Did this Robert guy leave a number so that you can call him back and claim to have had a brain fart when you told him no?"

Maggie was at her elbow. Obviously all the glassware had now been polished up.

"His name was Roger. Isn't it time for your lunch break?" Sharon hissed.

"Any time you say I can go to lunch is time for my lunch break, girl," Maggie said, with a big grin as she turned and headed for the shop door. "See you in thirty. Hope you have the crisis solved by the time I come back—the one about this Ralph guy, I mean." She was laughing was she disappeared in the direction of the boardwalk.

"You don't understand," Sharon called after her, talking to herself more than Maggie, as she knew Maggie was out of hearing distance.

It wasn't just the sweater incident. That wasn't the last time she'd encountered the Roger dreamboat. Just the next night, Saturday night, she'd gone to Phil's house to watch the Knicks and Celtics NBA game and for beer and pizza. She'd had a rough week—and Saturday—trying to line up their supplies for Valentine's Day before the shop owner, Tom, came back and found out the crisis they were in by not having gotten their orders in sooner.

Half way through the game, she gone up the stairs to Phil's room, fallen on his bed, and was out like a light.

When she woke up it was morning, and Phil, tousled hair on all—but probably not any more tousled than hers was—was staked out in his armchair, in his underwear, with a blanket haphazardly half covering him.

He woke as, startled awake, she sat up on the edge of the bed. The movement had been too rapid, though, and she'd had too many beers the night before, so she let out a moan and had to sit there, waiting for the room to come into focus.

"I didn't. You didn't. We didn't . . ." she mumbled at him. It's not that she never had. She just never had with Phil and had no intention of doing it with Phil. He was a nice guy and all—and had a bod that most women gladly would open their legs to—but they weren't anywhere close . . . although he'd made clear he wanted to and had been wining and dining her to build up to it. She had no idea whether she would go with that buildup. And she certainly had no plans last night to . . .

"Didn't lay a hand on you. I like my women to have some memory of what we did. You were half asleep when you came over. You obviously needed the sleep."

"Crisis at work," she muttered. "Sorry. Thanks for the use of the bed, though."

That was all fine and dandy—except when she exited his room, her clothes rumpled and her head looking like a tossed salad and not helped a bit by Phil standing in his doorway in his underwear and casually leaning against the doorframe, there was the jaw-dropped dreamboat she'd almost run into outside the boardwalk men's room. He was walking up the stairs—just in sleeping shorts. And it didn't help that he made Phil look like a toad.

His jaw dropped. It remained dropped, when, as he turned to the side to let Sharon rush by down the stairs, Phil, completely unembarrassed and, of course, providing no satisfactory explanation, introduced the dreamboat with, "Hi, Roger. Sharon, this is Roger Bailey, the new roomy in the house."

If that hadn't been bad enough, before Sharon had reached the front door, he called out, "Nice score last night, wasn't it?"

She had no doubt that Phil wouldn't have bothered to tell Roger that he was talking about the point spread in favor of either the Knicks or the Celtics on TV the previous evening. How the hell would she have known? She left the game half way through.

"But, all shit down the toilet," she muttered. She'd call Phil to beg him to straighten that misunderstanding up, but he'd probably screw that, Roger wouldn't believe him—and she wasn't speaking to Phil anyway. She reached for her vendor list.

Later that evening, as she was preparing for a double date with Phil, she finally got around to checking her voice mail.

"Hi, Sharon. This is me, Kate Staley. Remember the Atlantic City trips? Well, I met a real cute guy here who is moving to Toms River, he said. Said he didn't know anyone there. Thought I'd give you firsties on him. He's really worth the effort. A real sweet guy. So, I gave him your name and telephone number. I hope that's OK?"

"Shit," Sharon said, as she clicked off. She was way past wanting to hear any more voice mails like that for a while. "Shit, shit, shit," as she heard Phil's car horn sound down on the street and reached for her jacket.

* * * *

Sharon didn't think she'd ever been so both angry and frustrated as she sat there, her eyes boring livid holes into the back of Roger Bailey's head.

It hadn't been Phil's car horn that sounded down in the street. It had been Roger Bailey's car horn. Phil had neglected to tell her who they were double dating with. It was with the new roomie in Phil's group house, Roger. And the dyed-blonde bimbo floozy who serviced any of the guys in the group house who wanted it, Cindy Sue Turner, had been dragged along as Roger's date. The word "dragged" fit, because Cindy Sue seemed three sheets to the wind before Sharon had been the last of the four-some to be picked up.

Dinner at a pizzeria, where the two guys talked NFL football and Cindy Sue made eyes at a guy tossing cylinders of pizza dough to please her and Sharon kept pulling at the hem of the too-short minidress she unwisely had decided to wear. And then it was the movies—an action adventure, of course, that had no plot as far as Sharon could see, but had enough bare-chested muscle to give her a little buzz—and, as a result, Phil took more leeway in the placement of his hands in the darkened theater than he'd managed ever before.

Throughout dinner, Roger had looked embarrassed and wasn't making eye contact with Sharon. She, embarrassed as well, assumed he was thinking that she was as loose as Cindy Sue, but was the property of Phil. God knows what Phil had told the guys in the house that he and she had done, Sharon mused.

And then it was to a house on the Toms River ocean beach front that Phil knew was empty and for sale. Here there was a driveway running by the side of the house where Roger's car could park in the shadows of the house and they'd been facing the ocean surf close enough to hear it with the windows of the car down and to be dazzled by the moon reflecting off the surface of the water when they weren't doing anything else.

Roger and Cindy Sue were in the front seat and Phil and Sharon in the back, and if Sharon had been so angry at what was going on in the front seat, she probably wouldn't have let Phil get to third, let allow steaming right by first and second all by herself.

It was when Cindy Sue's head disappeared from the above the back of the passenger seat and Roger laid he head back on the driver's seat head rest and sighed that Sharon lost it. Phil already had one arm around her in the center of the backseat and the other hand high up and inside her thigh, meeting no physical resistance as short as her minidress was, when Sharon gave in to "what the hell" and "he thinks I'm a slut" anyway instincts.

She'd show that judgmental Roger Bailey, not matter what a dreamboat he was, she thought. And then she proceeded to do so.

No one could be more surprised than Phil, when Sharon turned toward him and then threw a leg over his lap and was in his lap, facing him. She shrugged out of the shoulders of the minidress, sending the material down to her waist and reached around and unbuckled her bra, slipping it off her arms and tossing it to the side.

Phil moaned loudly as she pushed his face into her cleavage. She hoped to hell that Roger, in the front seat, with Cindy Sue's head in his lap, was hearing that moan well. Sharon knew for a fact that her tits were a whole lot nicer than Cindy Sue's were—and they were naturally hers to boot.

Sharon's instinct was to pause when she felt how hard Phil's erection was against her as she straddled his lap, but she was pissed and it wasn't like she'd never done this before and hadn't considered the possibility of doing it with Phil. And there were those thoughts of those hunky superhero actors in the movie they had just seen. Phil's T-shirt was off his chest now, and he muscled bod was very nice too as they kissed and her nipples hardened against the steel of his pecs. She didn't know who slipped her panties off or unzipped his shorts, but before she knew it, he was fumbling around with a condom and then was inside her and she was riding his cock.

She wished she had eyes in the back of her head. She wanted to know if Roger was watching Phil and her through the rear-view mirror as Cindy Sue gave him head.

She sure hoped so. That would show him for being so judgmental. Bet he was sorry he wasn't the one in the backseat.

She possibly might have felt better about the evening if Phil had at least given her the hint of an orgasm, but, a she had surmised all along, Phil was a dud—at least as far as she was concerned; he seemed to have a good, climatic time himself. His cry that he was coming—and then that he had—certainly put paid to any half decent impression she might have rebuilt with Roger. Assuming that she hadn't know that Roger was getting his from Cindy Sue in the front seat at the same time.

* * * *

She was so intent standing on the sidewalk and pretending the display in the shop window needed attention so she'd had some relief from worrying about the shortfall of supplies coming in from vendors that she didn't see him come up from behind her and stepped on his toes.

"Oh," she exclaimed when she turned and saw Roger Bailey standing there, looking sheepish.

"Hi . . . Sharon," he said, clearing his throat between the words. "Here . . . these are for you."

"These? For me?" she asked, trying not to laugh. "Flowers?"

"I know, corny, right?" he said in a tone of voice that indicated he only now realized that it was, in fact, corny.

"No, I actually think it's . . . sweet . . . but . . ."

"But?" he asked, prepared to be crushed.

"This is where I work. A flower shop."

"Oh."

"But . . . sorry, it's still cute. And I certainly need the flowers."

"I . . . thought. Well, we seem to be in embarrassing situations every time we meet . . ."

We? she thought. I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's been caught with her panties down each time. But she wasn't about to say that out loud.

". . . and I thought maybe we could start again and do it right. I still want to go out with you."

"Surely Cindy Sue has you fully occupied. You two were really going at it last night."

"Me and Cindy Sue? Going at it?" He laughed nervously. "Cindy Sue passed out and keeled over on me in the car. I was doing everything I could just to pretend like I wasn't even there. I mean, I'm glad you were enjoying yourself in the backseat . . . but my fantasy was . . . is . . . a bit different for you."

Was he blushing at being that direct? Yes, it appears he was.

It was Sharon's turn, flustered at what to say to that, although it did make her tingle, to say. "Oh . . . well. Maybe we can talk about this later. Right at the moment, I'm up the river and looking for a paddle."

"Excuse me?"

"I work in this flower shop and the owner is away but will be back tomorrow."

"And so?"

"And so, he will be expecting to see this place stuffed with flowers—we certainly have enough orders to fill. And the day after that is Valentine's Day. I order our supplies—our flowers—and somehow I screwed up and our orders didn't get in before other shops had snarfed them all up. And now I don't think there's a flower left unspoken for in New Jersey."

"Oh, so, if you got that crisis solved, maybe you'd go out with me?"

"If I got that solved, I'd do anything you want." Immediately regretting that, though, she gave a nervous laugh and he joined her—his laugh just as forced as hers.

"And I guess these flowers won't help much," he said, extending the hand holding the bouquet he'd brought.

"Sure, they'll help. They're the nicest thing that's happened to me today," she said, giving him a wan smile and taking the flowers. Was it evil of her, she thought, to already be thinking what price to put on them before putting them on display? But, no, mentally slapping her bad angel, any customer wanting these flowers would have to pry them out of her dead claws.

"Well, then, happy early Valentine's Day," he said. "I guess I should leave you to work on your problem and call back after Valentine's Day."

"Yes, I guess so," she said, the regret evidence in her voice. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be a grouch. I hope to be in a better mode after the 14th, if I still have a job."

"Well, then," he said. He already was backing off. Then he turned and disappeared around the corner.

"Shit," Sharon muttered under her breath.

* * * *

"It's a beer truck."

"Yes, but the important point is that it's a refrigerator truck." Roger had come into the florist shop later that afternoon and coaxed Sharon out on the sidewalk to see something.

"OK, it's a refrigerator truck. A truck to haul beer," Sharon answered, her voice flat and still quizzical. She didn't really have time for this. She had made nearly thirty phone calls and was still batting zero on getting an augmented supply of flowers in the shop by Valentine's Day.

"Yep, it would keep beer cold, but there isn't any beer in it."

"So? Look, Roger, it's great seeing you again, but I have a whole lot—"

"It doesn't have in any beer in it to make room for other things that need cold storage—like flowers."

"But I don't have flowers that need cold storage. I have more than enough cold storage for the flowers I have on hand. That's the problem."

"I found you a large order of flowers. Nearly all the way to Philadelphia. But we have to pick them up ourselves. This afternoon. So, I borrowed this truck."

"You found flowers?"

"You wanna go with me to pick them up? I've paid for them already."

"I don't know if we can afford—"

"Look, it's pretty simple, Sharon. You need flowers; I got you flowers. You pay me what your boss would think they're worth when you see them. I'll swallow the rest. All I want out of it is for you to say 'yes' to a date. Deal?"

"And you want to fuck me on this date, right? Like Phil in the backseat of your car—not like in his bedroom in the house the other day. We didn't do anything then. We . . ." She ran down at that point. What she and Phil had done in the backseat of Roger's car trumped all of the nonhappenings before it. If she wasn't confused and on edge, she wouldn't have blurted this out, she was sure. That she did so was because it was her idea of a date with Roger. She'd been dreaming of him fucking her for days.

"We'd do whatever you wanted to do on the date," he answered, keeping his voice calm.