Page 60 of Pete and His Precious

“He’s been taking the girl to school, dropping her off, and then going and working out with his buddies. He comes back here, and goes up to his apartment to change and go to the farm. Sometimes he doesn’t come back before it’s time for him to change and pick her up from school. I think we ought to catch him on his way through, and make him go out to breakfast with us.”

“With us? How could that help anything?” Carrie asks, always unable to see the potential in anything. Although, she doesn’t have a problem admitting that she was wrong. Which is a redeeming quality.

“We’ll take him to the diner where Zoe works,” I say, my eyes going for each lady as I speak, gauging their reactions.

Phyllis is all in. Carrie is pretty close behind her. Tammy shakes her head.

“That’s not gonna work. She’s going to think he’s stalking, and it’s going to scare her away.”

“No. That’s why we’re going to. It’s going to look like he doesn’t have a choice. When, if things are going the way I hope they are, he wants nothing more than to be going to the diner, he just isn’t sure she wants him.”

“But how is that going to help?” Leslie asks, her brows hunkered down, her hands still.

“We are going to plant some ideas in his head.”

“What kind of ideas?” Carrie says, not in a way that says she’s not interested, just in a way that says she can’t wait to hear what they are.

“Kissing ideas. Girlfriend ideas. More kissing ideas,” I say, because I really don’t know. Kissing seems like a good idea to me, although I know it’s not the greatest basis to build a marriage on. Still, Pete is a solid guy, and I know he’s going to treat his wife well. If they start out by kissing, I guess that’s where they need to start. At least in my opinion. I can see some flaws in my logic, but I don’t let them bother me.

“I don’t see it working, but I’ll go along just to witness the fact that it doesn’t,” Tammy says, grumbling.

That’s actually a really positive endorsement from her. Normally she doesn’t capitulate that easily.

“So we need to watch for him?” Leslie says, jumping up from her stool, and tiptoeing over to the front window.

She looks kind of ridiculous. People our age shouldn’t tiptoe. Or, maybe we just shouldn’t tiptoe in public. Regardless, she’s at the window, bending over and looking. “I’ll let you guys know when he comes,” she calls back to the rest of us.

Like we couldn’t sit here and see out the window. But if that gives her something to do, and makes her feel important, I suppose I’m all for it.

That’s kind of what this is about. Everyone in our little group has some kind of issue. We’re getting older, more easily depressed, facing the last part of our lives, and wondering if we’ve done any good in the world. This makes us all feel better.

We get back to work, although Leslie stays at the window.

I could have told her she was going to be sitting there for at least a half an hour, because every day so far, it’s been right around ten o’clock when he walks in.

Sure enough, it’s 9:55 when Leslie says, “He’s here! He’s here! Everybody in your places!”

Since everyone’s in their places except for her, she’s the only one tiptoeing back to her place and sitting on her stool, putting her hands on the upholstery, like the glue is still wet.

She tiptoed. I shake my head. We’re going to have to have a talk about that. There’s just some things that aren’t decent, and that’s one of them.

We all look like we’ve been sitting here for hours when the door opens and Pete walks in.

He starts back along the side, nodding at us and saying, “Good morning, ladies,” as he continues to walk.

“Pete!” I say, holding a pair of scissors in one hand, with my other hand on fabric, making it look like I’m in the middle of something, when I really haven’t done anything for the last forty-five minutes since we started talking about Pete.

“Yeah?” he says, slowing but not entirely stopping.

“I was hoping you could come here and talk to us for a minute. I have a favor to ask of you.”

I haven’t asked a guy out in my entire life, and even though this is not technically a date, I’m probably not doing the best job. But, I believe in my cause, and that gives me boldness.

“Sure,” he says easily, starting over, and looking around at the various work the ladies are doing. “That’s a nice end table,” he says, pointing to the table Tammy is sanding.

“I found her lying along the road last week. It’s sad what people throw out nowadays,” she says, shaking her head.

I’m not sure if there’s a double meaning to those words or not, but Pete hasn’t thrown anything out. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, Pete is very interested in not throwing what he has with Zoe away. It might be Zoe that’s hanging back, but our chat at the diner today should tell us for sure.

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