Nothing But Time On My Hands

Disclaimer: Not even monopoly money is crossing my palm in this endeavor, perhaps next time.

Thanks as always to those who are willing to beta for me: Bluz, Deb and Deb, Jaime, Katie, Luisa, Melody and Ruth. Still hoping this is in alpha order.

Nothing But Time On My Hands
Chapter 9
By Alfonsina

Saturday morning I was more than a little nervous about spending the day with Woody. I mean we got along well and lately we've spent a lot of time together, but this was all day.

Usually we were together for no more than the four-hour burst and then parted ways. I would pretend not to be bored on a stakeout and he would pretend not to notice just how bored I was. It was a good system and it worked.

I had decided to go with the French braid look again, and the blouse with camisole from the other night. I finished the outfit with a well-worn pair of jeans and flats. There was nothing overly formal about the store and I figured that this was casual enough to fit in, but dressy enough to look nice. Sometimes a little lace underneath my clothes added to my self-confidence, and I had a feeling I was going to need a little help to get through the day.

When Woody picked me up, he looked very un-Woody like. It was the first time I'd seen him in 'civies'. Normally he was in Rangeman black or something very similar style wise.

This morning he had on a pair of jeans that had once been blue but were so pale that they were now off-white and so well worn that the fabric was almost nonexistent in places like his rear and his knees. When he turned around I could see bright red boxers periodically peeking through as his rear end moved, it was kind of 'now you see me, now you don't'. It was actually mesmerizing, I could probably watch that show all day long..

The rest of the get up was standard for a regular guy. The long sleeved t-shirt was, of course, skintight and a brilliant royal purple. The shoes were Birkenstock sandals. Around his neck he had a leather strap with a pouch attached; I had no idea what to make of the pouch.

"Looking good this morning, Steph," he said. "Ready for breakfast?" He was chipper and he was happy. Crap. When he wasn't hung-over, he was a morning person; this could make breakfast a very long and difficult experience.

"Sure," I said, "wherever you want to go." Then I remembered Woody at the Good Earth and began to pray that breakfast wasn't going to consist of turkey bacon, faux-eggs, and soymilk on the side.

"Real food, I promise," he said.

I was thinking out loud again or my face had given me away? It didn't matter either way. I was relieved to hear the food would be 'real'. Hopefully it meant lots of blueberry syrup on waffles and real butter.

We pulled into a little place called the Ollie's Omelets. It was small, quaint and not very crowded. We were walked to a back table. It dawned on me that she hadn't brought any menus and there were none on the table.

"Trust me?" he asked.

"You're the boss today. Sure," I said with a smile but crossing my fingers under the table.

"Mary, the usual for two and a large pot of coffee," he said.

"Do you always order the 'usual'? What's gonna happen if you ever go someplace they don't know you?" I asked.

"I don't know. I tend to break a place in, find what I like and it becomes my 'usual' there. I'm pretty boring that way," he said.

Woody pulled out a slender notebook and pen from his back pocket. He opened it to a clean page and said, "Have you been thinking about what to do on dates?"

"No, not really. I told you I'm not great at relationships. I thought we'd kind of play things by ear."

The words had just come out of my mouth when the waitress came by with the carafe of coffee.

"Congratulations, you two," she said placing the mugs in front of us.

Oh God.

"Congratulations?" I asked. It was still early for me and I hadn't had my caffeine fix yet.

"We've been wondering when he was going to find a special someone," she said. "Looks like he finally has. Good for you, hon, he's a keeper."

I felt like I'd become a fish out of water as I looked at Woody. My mouth started to open and close but no sound came out. How was it that I got to be fodder for gossip even if I wasn't on my home turf?

"I thought we were going to hang out some, maybe go a couple of places together," I said. "Work on your skills so you could find a soulmate. Maybe you could pretend I was a girl and you could talk to me, practice that way."

I was panicking. Was he going to try to develop skills that exceeded friendship? I wasn't up for public displays of affection because there wasn't supposed to be affection. Plus I wasn't open to having 'sleep-overs' of any kind; that idea was way more than I bargained for. What exactly did he have in mind anyway?

"I was thinking things like picnics, movies, hiking, maybe even trips to the zoo or a museum," he said. "I'm not planning any weekend escapes, promise."

OK, so thinking out loud wasn't always a problem for me.

The food arrived and it looked like there was going to be enough to feed an army. We each had: huge omelets filled with cheese, mushrooms and ham, hash brown potatoes, English muffins, and a side of blueberry pancakes.

"Expecting company, Woody?" I asked. I can eat a lot, but this was excessive even for me.

"Nope, standard breakfast."

"Got a fridge at the store? I'm gonna need a doggie bag," I said.

At least now I didn't have to worry about what we were going to do for lunch.

Woody forgot about writing the dating list and ate like he hadn't seen food in days. It reminded me of the way teenaged boys eat when they are in a growth spurt. If I tried to keep up, I'd be a growing girl, but it would be out and not up.

xx

We arrived at Fairy Godmother's Closet about ten minutes before it was scheduled to open. Woody did what I could only assume was the opening routine: turn off the alarm, turn on the lights, open the safe in the back, get money for the register and finally turn on the stereo. All in all, it was pretty standard stuff. Then he did some kind of odd things. He took a tall, white candle from a box in the back and a stick of incense and a bottle of oil and placed them over by the register. He oiled the candle, lit both the candle and the incense, and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. When he opened his eyes, he smiled but said nothing about it to me.

Well that was different.

He traded me my doggie bag for a dusting cloth and a bottle of spray and had me dust the shelves like before. Not exciting and no conversation, but it was better than watching the Saturday morning cartoons, I guess.

I was about half way through one side of the first wall when he finally spoke.

"There is a something coming up in several weeks and it's pretty important to me," he said.

I stopped what I was doing so I could pay attention. It looked like it was serious stuff so I decided to stay quiet. I looked at him and nodded indicating that he should go on.

"It's a festival of sorts that's once a year," he said. "Since I've been in Trenton, I've always attended alone and just for the daytime stuff. This year I really want someone to go with me, and I wasn't sure how long we might hang out. If we haven't found someone for me to date, will you come?"

"Sure. I assume it's on a weekend. Are you sure you'll be off for it?" I asked. I usually didn't have to worry. I worked Monday, Wednesday and alternating Fridays for Ranger and the rest of the time I worked for Vinnie.

I couldn't see why he would get so anxious about it. It was several weeks away, surely we'd find a nice girl for Woody to date by then, even if she wasn't his soulmate.

"I go every year; Ranger knows about it. It's been on the schedule for months," he said.

"Just tell me where, when and the dress code and I'll go," I said. "Do you mind telling me about it?"

"Well it's going to be the first Saturday in May. I guess you could call it a May Day celebration except this one runs from day through evening. There'll be a bonfire when the sun goes down," he said. "Did you ever do anything for May Day when you were a kid?"

"The only May Day things we did when I was a kid was to put flowers on the doors of neighbors. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, Guilt and Grief used to have a May Pole dance for the younger girls," I said. "I'm sure they still do something."

"It'll be something like that, but there will be more stuff going on in the daytime. They'll have a May Pole, too. Other than that, there are lots of local artists and crafters, face painting for kids, some booths to buy food, and even some tables offering the standard psychic services."

"What are those?" I asked.

"Well, you do one now, palmistry. There's also Tarot, the I Ching, tealeaves, angel readings. You know, just pretty standard stuff. In the past when I've gone, I've usually read palms for a couple of hours," he said.

"Do you have to pay for these services?"

"I usually don't. At this fair everyone usually knows everyone else, so there is a lot of trading that goes on. I read someone's palm or their aura and they read my cards, no big deal."

"Am I good enough?"

"You will be. Hey, I forgot to give you heads up, but some of the guys are going to be coming by later so you can start to look at their palms."

Sounded good to me. I picked my rag back up and was getting ready to dust the next set of shelves when I heard the bell over the door tinkle, in walked Grandma Mazur and Louie Berkowitz.

"We're looking for Cary Grant," Louie Berkowitz said.

"There is no Cary Grant here," Woody said. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Edna, you said Cary Grant worked here. The guy working the counter doesn't know him," Louie said.

"That's him. That's Cary Grant," Grandma said.

Let the games begin.

"That's not Cary Grant, Grandma," I said. "You remember my friend Woody, right?"

Woody walked from behind the counter and whispered into my ear, "Forget to tell me something?"

"Kind of. Grandma and her friends all think you look like Cary Grant."

He looked at me puzzled.

"To look like Cary Grant is a big compliment in their book," I said into his ear.

"Steph, Cary Grant is dead and has been forever," Woody hissed at me.

"Well, they remember him from when he was alive, he was a sex symbol then." I didn't think he made for sexy worm food. "Grandma and her friend showed up at Rangeman the other day wanting your services," I said.

"Shit," he said quietly. "Paybacks can be a bitch, Stephanie."

"Grandma?" I asked. "What can we do for you and Mr. Berkowitz?"

"Louie here has volunteered to have his palms read by Studly. He wants me to have mine read too. We want to listen together in case we forget something important," Grandma said. "We want to see if we are compatible."

"Steph, do you want to give it a try?" Woody asked.

"Will you help me if I get stuck?" I asked.

"I can do that," he said.

We went to a small table at the back of the store that was curtained off for privacy. For the moment, Woody kept the curtains open so he could keep an eye on the store. I started with Grandma and found the obvious long lifeline, even temper and the fact that she thought she hid her emotions, but in actuality she couldn't. Oh yeah and Grandma couldn't keep a secret, hers or anybody else's. No kidding.

I couldn't see anything about her love line or her 'desires' as she was calling them. When it was time to read Louie's I had very little luck. Woody took over and read Louie's hand and tried to show me some things. Just as Louie's hand was getting interesting, someone came into the shop. For privacy, Woody pulled the curtain.

"Steph, can you get that? I'll be right out if you need me," he said.

"Sure."

I went to the front of the store and spotted a very plainly dressed woman with an artist's portfolio.

"Welcome to Fairy Godmother's Closet," I began.

She asked, "Hi. I've been meaning to come in for a long time. I feel drawn here. But today is the only time it's felt right to come in. Is the owner here?"

"I'm sorry, he's not here today. I can get his son if you'd like. Maybe he can help you?"

"I keep feeling that I need to leave sample of my work," she said handing over a business card and a hand rendered drawing on greeting card stock. "I think my art would be a good fit in this store."

Before I could say anything else, she left.

"Everything OK out there?" Woody called.

"Just fine. Somebody dropped a sample off for your dad," I said as I walked back to the consultation area.

I joined the group and heard that Louie was someone who held back on everything: trust, money and affection.

"Does that mean he can hold back on his orgasm, too?" Grandma asked.

I noticed Louie looking at the ground. Seemed that Louie already knew the answer and wasn't sure he wanted to have it confirmed.

Woody shook his head and said that things people do emotionally and mentally don't always coincide with what happens physically. Who knew Woody was the master of tact?

"See, told ya it wasn't you," Louie said to Grandma.

"It was worth a shot," Grandma said. "Louie and I are gonna get out of here and see if we can find some 'stiff stuff' at the Treasure Pleasure to use after the Bingo game next Tuesday. Louie has promised to take extra vitamin E to see if that helps."

Oh God. I looked at the ground and then at Woody.

"See you later Mrs. Mazur, Mr. Berkowitz," Woody said as he ushered them out the door. "Where does she get them?" he asked. "Has she always been like this?"

"She was a wonderful grandmother when I was growing up. She didn't go wild until after my grandfather died. It's like she let go of all of her inhibitions and then told us all about losing them," I said. "I never need to have kids, I've got Grandma."

"Well, don't let your inhibitions control your life. Sometimes it's good to let your hair down," Woody said.

True.

"How many more men does your grandmother know?" he asked.

"I have no idea. It's going to make my life interesting until we get her a regular 'honey' as she calls them," I said. "Preferably one who can still drive and lives in his own home."

xx

A three or four hours later and the store was dusted, neatened and about as good as I was going to get it.

Woody called the Good Earth and ordered lunch, two of the 'usuals'. I didn't think I was going to ever need to eat again, but by the time he went to pick it up, my appetite had returned.

Woody was walking back through the door when he said, "Hey Steph, I'm gonna need to get you turned on for some fun stuff this afternoon. It won't take me long, you're almost there already."

To Woody's credit, his arms were full and he hadn't been looking around when he started to talk. Sometimes Woody was more like me than I wanted to think; which explains why Woody didn't notice that Tank and Lula were in the store.

"See I told ya," Lula said to Tank in a stage whisper.

"You two kids want to be alone?" Tank asked winking at Woody. "We can leave at any time."

Fudge.

"Hey Tank, Lula," Woody said. "Steph, anything happen while I was gone?"

He had left the building as 'Woody', friend and Rangeman. He'd returned from his errand as 'Oblivious Boy' also known as Woodrow Walker. He obviously didn't know what he'd just said or how it sounded. How the hell was I going to live that down?

"Tank and Lula are here," I said. I took him by the elbow and said directly into his ear, "What exactly are you talking about 'turning me on' and that I'm 'almost there already'? Because I'm not liking how this is sounding."

"Sorry about that," he said in a plain speaking voice that carried through the entire store, just in case some one else was there. "By 'turning on' I meant I want to get your grounded and centered so that things you see and possibly hear or feel will be accurate. It isn't something I've done with you before because you were learning the fundamentals. You 'turn on' before you work to increase your accuracy."

I looked at Lula and thought, 'See, told ya so.' Instead I said nothing, not a peep, not a single word.

English is a wonderful language. I now knew three meanings to the phrase 'turned on'. In the 60s it was part of the drug culture. It had a definite sexual connotation that I understood all too well. Now it had one for my palmistry, too. Probably there were more meanings, probably I didn't want to know what those meanings were.

Lula had been wandering the items on the shelves until she reached the candle section. Most of the candles were pretty non-descript and came in some pretty colors, a few in multiple colors. Some of them had interesting shapes: pyramids, squares, oblong, stars. And then there were the ones that came out of very specific molds. I had blushed when I dusted the ones shaped like breasts and vaginas. I bit my lip when I dusted the last set, the phallic shaped candles. If it wasn't so embarrassing, it would have been funny.

"Sugar, did you see this?" Lula asked Tank. She had a royal-blue, erect, wax phallus in her hand.

"Gives a new meaning to 'blue balls' doesn't it?" Tank said.

Each color was a specific size, must have been a reason for it but I didn't really want to know what it was. By this time, Woody had joined Lula and Tank looking at the candles. I didn't join them. I'd seen it all when I'd dusted earlier.

She commented on the size, shape, color and girth of all of them until she got to the bright green one.

"This here green one, reminds me of someone," she started to say.

The green one was huge. It was bigger than anything I'd ever experienced in an up close and personal anyway. It was so large it looked like it would be a painful experience, if it were real.

I couldn't help it, I was embarrassed, but my mouth overrode my common sense, "You mean the one that must have been based on a mold of the Jolly Green Giant?"

Silence. Well I thought it was funny.

"That's not it," Lula said looking at Tank. "It's almost as big as yours is Sugar."

I should probably just die now and get it over with. Lula had more in common with Grandma Mazur than I ever would have guessed. I was getting too much information from too many places about too many people.

"What do people do with these other than the obvious?" she asked Woody.

When was the hole in the ground going to open up and swallow me? Please, let it be soon.

"Besides light them? There's all kinds of magick people can use them for, or they can just put them on the shelves to embarrass visitors," he said.

Thank God he didn't get any more involved in his explanation. I didn't really want to know what Lula had in mind and I was starting to be afraid of what Woody might come up with on his own.

"I should probably buy me a box of these to remind me of you," she said to Tank, "for when you have to go out of town."

Woody looked at her and said, "They're fifteen dollars each, are you sure you want to buy twenty of them right now?"

Tank must have felt flattered because he indicated he was going to pay for two boxes of them.

"We only have five in stock right now. I'll mold some for you and drop them to you at work," Woody said to Tank.

"Nah, drop them off at the bonds office when they are ready," Tank said.

Woody wrote an order and told Tank he could pay when the candles were delivered.

When they finally left, Woody had me sit at the little consultation table. "I didn't realize you'd embarrass so easily," he said. "It's actually kind of a nice change. Thing is, a lot of the people who shop in this store are very open about every aspect of their lives including sex. They assume everyone else is too. I don't embarrass when other people want or need to talk about the details of their lives. I just make it a point not to give up the details of the private side of my life."

Good to know.

Because Lula and Tank had been in the store when he got back, we didn't eat right away. Earlier in the day I had been convinced I'd probably never need to eat again, but as soon as the bag was opened my mouth began to water and the appetite was back. The food was no longer hot, but it was warm enough to still be excellent.

After we ate, I did the general tidy, since that seemed to be my job at the store. Woody got behind me and ushered me back to my chair at the table. I had no idea what he was up to, but I was willing to become water and let the experience take me anywhere it wanted to.

"Now, I want for you to sit quietly for just a minute with your eyes closed. I want you to put your hands into mine and just let the energy flow," he said. "Feel how the current of energy is flowing from your body into to mine and down into the earth. You should also feel a return of the energy from the earth to me and finally back to you. This will help to add your intuition into your readings."

I closed my eyes and rested my hands in his. It felt nice, calm and gentle.

"How do you feel now?" he asked after a couple of minutes.

"OK I guess," I said.

"Not good enough then. Steph, I want to put my forehead against yours see if that makes the connection stronger, better. Close your eyes."

He did and everything felt like it got amplified and quickly. I felt more at peace than I could ever remember.

"And now?" he asked after about another minute.

"Peaceful but very alert. There's a kind of buzzy feeling behind my ears that I don't remember ever feeling before," I said as I opened my eyes.

"You are now officially turned on," he said.

The words hadn't even gotten out of his mouth when someone else entered the store. It was Brett.

"Feeling turned on, Steph?" he asked with a wink. "Maybe I can help you with that?"

A/N: Turning on with a couple of Merry Men wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Thanks for reading and reviewing. I promise Ranger will have a big spot in the next installment. Besos, Alf.