“He can’t get his puck out of the net,” someone yelled from the back, causing an uproar in the packed room. Benny turned to see a man with wind-burned cheeks, the sure sign of an outdoor worker. He was about 5’6” and built like someone who makes his living in construction, lifting steel beams for his coworkers to put chains under them. But it was not him, the remark had come from farther back.
Benny tried again but couldn’t find his thing. The guy at the next urinal peeked at his dilemma, drip-shook his dick before zipping up. He wore a three piece suit and a sympathetic smile.
“Get out the tweezers,” came from the back. This was followed by another clamor throughout the crowd. The tweezers comment sounded like the same voice. Embarrassed, Benny zipped up and stepped aside to make room for the beam lifter.
Hockey fans are a mixed crowd, some coming from work in their three piece suits and others in casual dress, sneakers and sweat shirts. ‘Sneakers and a sweat shirt,’ that’s what Hollie had suggested when she invited him to go with her. “Go home and change, wear something casual, we’ll meet in front of the stadium at 7:30, gate 12, okay?”
And that’s what he had done, stopping by his place to covert his appearance from junior office worker to designer casual. He had even showered and changed his underwear. As Hollie had said, “We have plenty of time, I need to eat with Terry so he knows he still has a mommie, Tom’s out of town.”
She was curious when he got back to his seat. “What took so long?” she wanted to know, leaning near him to whisper as if their seat mates would be even remotely interested in the conversation. The crowd had its eyes on the ice below, and the face off.
“You know how those lines are?” he whispered back. She was still leaning close, soft, looking at him, as if riveted by the news that lines at the men’s room were long between periods. Her hand swished a strand of strawberry blond hair back in place. She was always doing that.
Benny and Hollie had two things in common; they worked at the same company and had gotten their jobs through nepotism. Her husband was also in the insurance business at a competitor a few blocks away. Through his contacts, he had made it possible for her to be selected for a job in claims. Ben’s uncle, hearing that he was having no luck with his job search, arranged for him to be hired in the legal department.
“You’re just what they need down there,” referring to the legal department being on the fifth floor while his own office was ‘upstairs.’ Ben’s father winced at the idea, “I kept telling him a liberal arts degree would make him the last to find work. What can he possibly offer legal?”
“Nonsense, he’ll do fine. They need a smart young person to maintain the case files pending litigation, he’ll be a perfect fit.” countered his uncle. Then to Ben, “don’t give them your mother’s maiden name and if we meet in the hall you don’t know me, okay?
They had worked in the same company for three months before they met face to face although they had spoken on the phone from the beginning.
“Can we meet for coffee or something? I’ll bring the file.” Ben had asked.
“Don’t you dare bring the file,” she had warned him.
He rose when she came in the door, recognizing her by the pink sweater she had told him she would be wearing. The sweater accented her rosy cheeks and the unruly hair that always seemed to flop down, covering one of her eyes. She came his way, seeming to know it was him by the way he was watching her move through the crowded coffee shop.
“Let me see the file, no coffee for me, I can’t be gone long” she said as soon as they were seated, not saying why she didn’t want to be seen with him. Her boss had forbid her from it, saying, ‘don’t hold their hands, once we send a claims file to legal it’s all theirs, we’re finished with it.’ Besides, her husband worked just down the street, he could come in and see her with this young man.
She spent the next 10 minutes giving Ben the background on the case, relating conversations she had with the woman who was filing the claim and supplying background on why the claim was being rejected. She advised that he should send form letter 343, then she was gone.
Ben was mystified. She seemed nervous, distant, not what he had expected from the friendly telephone voice he had become accustomed to. ‘Perhaps she had been turned off by his youth? or worse, his appearance?’
The next time they spoke on the `phone it was her usual casual tone that greeted him as if they were the best of friends. “What are you doing for lunch?” she wanted to know.
They met for lunch at a diner seven blocks from the office and it became their favorite spot. Meetings were always at her suggestion, she never took him up on his offers. “Tom’s out of town,” she commented on one occasion. Another time she mentioned that her boss was out sick that day. Ben put it together, she didn’t want to be seen with him. Their luncheons were always arranged by her, at the out of the way location.
“What did you do last night? do you have a girlfriend? you never said,” she asked one morning. He also noticed that it was she who initiated the telephone calls. As a rule, she did not take his calls, letting them go to voicemail.
Happy to be in her company, Benny let her call the shots. He liked being with her, watching her eyes when she said something funny or when she got serious. He loved the way they twinkled when she laughed and how they misted when she revealed something personal. “Did you get lucky last night? I did,” she would say, her green eyes twinkling, then glistening. She even told him why she insisted that they meet at the diner instead of one of the more fashionable places near the office. “My boss has something against legal, I don’t know what it is but he doesn’t want me to help you.”
Benny had not taken the job seriously, viewing it as a temporary source of income until something more permanent came along. When he complained to Hollie about the monotony of keeping the files up to date she sympathized with him. “Hang in there, something will come your way,” she smiled.
“I’m an old lady, way too old for you,” she would say kiddingly, pushing half of her cheesecake his way. “I’m so old I have to watch what I eat.”
“You’re perfect and not too old at all,” he would say, wanting to add, ‘for me,’ but not, taking the cheesecake. She would smile, watching him scoop up the last crumbs.
“Don’t call me anymore,” she said one day at lunch.
“Why?” he asked incredulously. They had been friends for about two years and had shared their deepest secrets. He thought he knew her well.
“They’ve got a new system that tracks you’re calls,” she whispered, looking around the diner for any sign of co-workers. “I’m not suppose to talk to you, remember?”
It was her idea to meet once a week. “Never on the same day of the week and not at the same times, I’ll work out a schedule,” she said as she left that day. He was to wait five minutes before going back to work. The calendar arrived in an inter-office envelope the next day. He folded the paper and placed it in his wallet.
