It was a bright, sunny morning and Linda and I had decided to go to Panera before my first appointment at 10:00 am and her going to work at the department store, teaching people how to do makeup properly so it didn't look like makeup. She was fantastic at that and, also very valuable to me as she helped me at the studio about every minute that she wasn't working
We had been drinking coffee and munching on two cinnamon crunch bagels spread with honey-walnut cream cheese. We really enjoyed dropping in here every chance we got and just indulging ourselves with anything gooey and tasty. Now that the photography studio was humming, I could afford to do that more often and today was a little more special since I had been thinking about some things and wanted to discuss them with her since she was often (read that as usually) more logical, reasonable and down to earth than I was.
"You're thinking about something," she said, daintily licking some of the cream cheese that had dripped onto her fingers from the warm bagel. "And if you keep bringing me here, I'm going to get big and fat."
"As long as I'm not brain dead, I'm usually thinking about something, and fat isn't even a faint possibility with you," I replied, trying to temporarily deflect her question until I was totally ready. Now she was really looking at me.
"Clever answer, professor, but it ain't gonna work." She slid a foot closer to me on the bench seat. We always sat next to each other so we could both see the door. It was just something we'd always done. I guess we both had that Wild Bill Hickock syndrome, never wanting to sit with our back to the door. Unlike Bill though, we didn't have any gunslingers trying to get us so it was just something weird that we did due to our mutual curiosity. This morning though, it did let her get up close to me, and I knew she had no qualms about using her hand to her advantage, even in here, which would immediately loosen my tongue if not something else that I might be wearing. She leaned toward me and I felt her tongue touch my ear.
"Okay, okay, I give up." I tried to keep my voice down although it was hard to do with her tongue in my ear. I gathered myself and looked at her, a big mistake, as she was licking her lips as sensuously as she possible could and I could feel the pressure building in the brand-new pair of Levis I had put on this morning. "I've been thinking about some things."
"That's how this conversation started," she said very quietly, eyeing me again.
"Stop looking at me that way, please." I was fairly pleading with her now. She knew exactly how to torture me until she got her way, which was, basically, always.
"No problem," she replied, coyly, putting her hand on my thigh under the table.
I was wedged in the corner with nowhere to go. "Don't worry, you're going to hear it all. I rely on you so I have to tell you everything." She gave my leg a quick rub with that hand, then moved it.
"Let's get started then." She turned a little sideways so she was facing me, pulling her knee up on the bench. "Should I order more bagels? We still have plenty of cream cheese left." More decisions. That's why I was thinking so hard, because of the decisions that had to be made, and she was giving me one more to add to the load. Very perceptively she said, "Sorry, go ahead," and took my hand and gave it a gentle kiss. How had I survived all these years of my life without her?
"Well, you know that things are going great at the studio, and the money lately has been really good and I see no reason for that to change. All the high school things are really money makers. The senior pictures, the athletic team and individual pictures, the musicals and the plays. In fact, it's almost getting to be too much so I'm thinking of teaching a class at the school for wannabe photographers so that they can do some of the "event" photography that's really just for the year book and maybe a little advertising that they do for those events." I looked over at her and shrugged.
"I knew most of that and the classes sound perfect. Most days we have almost more than we can handle at the studio - I really don't know how you keep up."
Linda did all of the makeup around the studio and had cut back her hours at the store to keep up. I paid her for it of course, but the way she said "we" gave me kind of a warm feeling. It was "we" and she was way, way more than an employee based on what had happened in the recent past. But I couldn't let my mind wander to that or I'd really have a fight with my Levis.
"But that isn't all? she added with a little smile.
"Of course not. But that's the background for the next thing. You know the boudoir stuff, and other stuff as well, has gotten going pretty well, and it pays pretty well too."
"And it's fun," she said in a sexy whisper, giving me a jab on the shoulder.
"Yeah, that too." Geesh it was easy for her to distract me, without even trying. "Here's the dilemma. Do we keep doing it just the way we have been, just letting ladies wander in because a friend showed them pictures or talked to them, or do we go ahead and advertise? Maybe create a website with prices, galleries, etc.
"Yeah, I see. Does mama send her tender high school senior to a photographer who photographs women, in their undies, who knows, maybe even naked. Eeeekkk. Does Mr. school administrator keep using a photographer who may get the cheerleaders photos mixed with some big boobed braless ladies? Know what I think? I think you let it go. If you advertise, and suddenly that gets bigger, and say you keep all the school business, you're going to have to hire another photographer to help out, and you're getting into a bigger business. Is that what you want? Or, just like you say, you could end up shooting only the boudoir stuff when the rest of your business crashes in around you." She paused and I could tell it was her turn to think. "If you keep doing it on the side like you are now, people may find out about it, some people anyway, and there may be whispers and rumors but I'm guessing nothing else will happen. If you "advertise", then there's evidence to convict you. I vote to just keep going like we are, but it's up to you, of course." She settled back and gave me a smirky smile.
Just like I said before, she's so reasonable and so logical she's hard to argue with . . . but very nice to have helping you out. "You're right, of course, like always," I ventured, giving her a big smile and a squeeze of her hand. I don't need to be a big business."
"Is that all you've been thinking about?" She was often way too perceptive, or maybe I was just too easy to read. Probably both.
I took a deep breath. The first part had been easy really. The next was a little harder, just because of how I am, and it shouldn't be at all. "Now that we've decided on that, let's continue a little with part of the idea. Remember a while ago when you said we should turn my little apartment there in the studio into a frilly, well, kind of a boudoir for those shoots?" I paused here on purpose, waiting for her.
"And I suggested that you move in with me?" Her face was suddenly beaming.
"You sure did."
"And you're going to do it?" She'd actually scooted a little closer to me so that her knee was against my leg and I could tell her breathing had changed a little.
"Sort of," I added, to a quick frown from her. "I was thinking, with things going so well, and the future looking kind of rosy, that we could settle some things between us." A nervous little cough from me and now her face had a really puzzled look - she certainly wasn't used to me talking like this. But neither was I. "Instead of me moving in with you I was thinking of something a little more permanent." I cleared my throat. "I'd like to buy a house and you move in with me and, well . . . " My voice left me with a fumbling stammer, but I think I was very easy to read, particularly by her and her response filled in what I hadn't said.
Her eyes were wide and she leaned in toward me, her eyes holding mine and I couldn't have looked away even if I'd wanted to. "Are you saying what I just heard you, in your very unique and Larry-esque way say, with what you didn't quite say but what I think you meant?" She took a huge deep breath, and I was sure I could see a tear in her eye. She took my hand in both of hers and squeezed. Another deep breath. "Did you just propose to me?"
I hadn't really thought of it in that word, but the idea was surely what I had been thinking. I was never good with words, particularly with Linda, who I had come to adore without measure, and couldn't imagine living even part of my life without her anymore. So, I guess I knew the answer to her question. "I think I did. At least that's what I meant and I want."
"But you were afraid to ask?"
"Terrified," I said simply. And as I watched her face, she looked away from me and I could swear her cheeks were turning pink. That didn't seem right until I also turned, and just a few feet from our table was Peggy, and I can never remember her married name, so she's always Peggy Lambert to me. And what was she doing here?
"Hi guys," she said, a huge smile on her face. "Just stopped in to get a coffee and doughnut and who should I find but two of my favorite people." She looked from Linda to me and then back to Linda. "Am I interrupting something?"
Linda squeezed my hands again and turned to Peggy. She took a deep breath. "He just proposed to me," she gushed out to Peggy's eyes opening wider and wider.
"Oh-my-gosh," Peggy exclaimed. "And you said yes?" she questioned, looking at Linda. There was a pause.
"Not yet, but I'm saying it right now." Again, that look and that tear in the eye. "Yes," she said quietly with another hand squeeze as Peggy leaned across the table and gave her a huge hug. And I was next with a hug from Peggy as well.
"I think I was there to hear the first I love you as well, wasn't I?" Now that comment from Peggy brought about the reddest checks I'd ever seen on Linda, even though she blushed very easily.
"Yes, you did, and that was quite a day."
"But speaking of that day, let me share a little . . . " she trailed off just a bit and giggled, "about what sluts Lana and I have become. When our husbands go off on a business trip, we've each discovered that we get out the video from that day, and we have a little private session. That's why I have such a supply of little devices." Now, after her confessional, it was time for Peggy's face to glow just a little. And I could see that Linda was learning a lot from this lady.
"Anyway, I was going to get ahold of you very soon and I sure hadn't expected to find you here, even though this is where everything got started as I remember." I smiled and nodded. "But this may not be the best time given the, ummm, tenderness of the situation today."
