[Prologue: Sandra and Marshall first meet at a bookstore, where they had blind dates with other people. In the middle of a lightning storm, their dates, Randall and Jessica, sense each other, drifting among the aisles, dressed to impress. And impress they do – each other. The attraction is obvious, even as Sandra and Marshall struggle to keep their attention. Randall finally takes the initiative by strolling over to kiss Jessica. They soon leave. Sandra and Marshall, humiliated, storm out, upset that they don't even get a chance with Randall and Jessica. As Jessica and Randall leave together, Sandra and Marshall commiserate outside, then come back in, dripping wet but gradually warming up and gaining their composure.]
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Sandra’s snug dress fit even tighter after the rainfall. She felt itchy and exposed, her carefully shaped hair a mess. The horrible scene with Jessica and Randall left her shaking. Imagine, Randall just strolled over and kissed Jessica, on the lips! In the philosophy section! What was Sandra, day-old lunch rolls? Their flirting made her heart sink, and that kiss applied a sledgehammer to her heart. She looked at Marshall, pouring a third pack of Sweet n’ Low into his mega-tall latte.
“Strange turn of events, yes?” he said. His immense hands dwarfed the cup. “Jessica, she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. I guess I wasn’t uptown enough for her. We talked on the phone some, thought it’d be a good idea to meet. Guess not.”
“And what’s Randall’s story? He couldn’t keep his eyes off your date? What’s his problem with me? What’d I do wrong?” Her eyes teared. Rejection rarely fit into Sandra’s social expectations.
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” said Marshall, brushing a lock of wet hair from his forehead. “Nothing wrong with me. Women, who knows?”
“Yeah, men. Who knows?” said Jessica.
She nibbled a biscotti. The coffee and food tasted wonderful. She felt herself drying off and calming down.
“Mind if I take out my contacts? My eyes feel a little tired,” she asked, reaching into her purse for her glasses.
“They’re your eyes. Do what feels comfortable.”
Sandra stowed her contacts in their plastic case, then was putting her glasses on when she shrieked, “Damn it!”
“What, what’s wrong?” asked Marshall. His shaggy eyebrows scrunched in concern.
“The lens just popped out of my glasses. I’m blind as a bat! Where’d the lens go? Oh no, everything’s going wrong today.”
“OK, OK, sit tight. Here, I see the lens, it just felt on the floor. Don’t move your feet.”
Marshall reached down to pick up the lens, which fell next to Sandra’s chair. Bent over, he lingered. Sandra’s legs floated before him, her skirt hiked high so he could see her silk-clad thighs. As he groped for the lens he followed the gliding taper of leg down to her high heels, ankle bracelet, and red-painted toenails. The sharp tang of toe-nail polish drifted into his nose. “Pretty,” he thought. For an instant he fantasized about resting his cheek on her freshly shaved legs, or running a finger up the inside of her thigh to caress her cunt. He next imagined Sandra's probable response, impaling his hand to the floor with her spike heel. Wait, he thought.
“OK, now, here we are, not cracked or chipped,” said Marshall. “Hand me the frames, please.”
“Sure, here,” said Sandra. A wave of tiredness rolled over her. Just one thing after another today, she thought.
“Ah, the problem emerges,” said Marshall, holding the chic metal frame before his eyes. “You’ve got a loose screw, the frame’s opening up. Good thing the screw’s still in, it’d be hard to find if it fell out here.”
“Let me put my contacts back in. I’ll get the glasses fixed tomorrow,” said Sandra. She reached in her purse for the contact case.
“Naah, wait a minute. Hang on,” said Marshall in a rumbling voice with an accent Jessica could not place.
Now it was Marshall’s turn to rummage, through his forest-green Lands’ End bag. “I know I’ve got it here somewhere. Bear with me. Found it.”
Squinting, Sandra saw Marshall open a kit, about the size of a paperback book, and extract the tiniest screwdriver she’d ever seen. He popped the lens in, held the frames shut, and with a few deft turns tightened the screw.
“Try,” he said, handing the glasses to Jessica.
She put them on. The store and Marshall snapped into focus.
“They fit perfectly! Thanks so much. Wow, you had just the right tool. Are you an optician or something?” asked Sandra.
Marshall looked genuinely puzzled. “Me, a guy that delivers babies? Hardly.”
Sandra stifled a laugh. He must think I asked if he’s an obstetrician, she thought. She was charmed. “But the tools . . .” she said.
“A guy’s got to be prepared. No, I fix things for a living.”
She looked at the kit on the table, the tools neatly stored in their own compartments, each where it belonged and shining under the store’s lights. Sandra’s thoughts flashed to her mother’s sewing kit with its thimbles, threads, needles, and buttons, a source of amazement when she was a girl. She felt, again, in the presence of practical artistry.
“Can I see it?” she asked, a shy tone in her voice.
Marshall pushed it toward her. “Sure. Nothing mysterious about them, the same things you’ll find in any hardware store, just smaller,” he said. “And what do you do, ahhh, Sonia?”
She looked up. “Almost right. Sandra.”
“Sandra it is. Imprinted on my brain. What do you do, Sandra?”
She held a wrench, about the length of her middle finger, in her hand. While small, it was surprisingly heavy, not toy-like she expected.
“What do I do? I ask myself that sometimes. What do you think I do?” she asked.
“You like trick questions, I see,” he said, smiling faintly. “There’s the obvious answer, the wild answer, and the real answer. If I saw you tomorrow, in your work clothes, I’d have a better guess. Right now, I don’t think you’re in your business clothes. How am I doing so far?”
“So far so good. I wouldn’t dress like this for work.”
“That narrows the range of options. I have to say, you look great, just for the record.”
