TWOShe didn't need any extra spending money.
That was Veronica's main thought as she waited in line at the bank; the thought that looped and re-looped in her mind as she looked blankly at the license plate of the customer before her. She had more than enough cash at home for girls' night (when it could be had) with Christine, and plenty of extra funds for a trip to the theatre. She didn't need any extra groceries right now either.
Essentially, she had zero need for twenty extra dollars lying around the house.
But… she had a strong interest to see that dashing teller Chris was lucky enough to have deposit her paycheck. She wanted to see him up close and personal and had a mind to finagle answers out of a few questions she had too. This was the third time in the past week and half that she'd come into the bank to feign the need to withdraw some extra cash and the past two times when she got to the front of the line, some other teller was available, making her also feign remembering a very important appointment and leaving. When Mr. Streeter (that uppity Mercedes and Employee of the Month) hailed her the last time, she couldn't leave fast enough. The customer behind her must have been left wondering if she'd suddenly had premonition of a house fire.
Today things were looking up for her, so long as that truck stopped yammering like so to Mr. Dashing Silver Sedan, Veronica thought. She wasn't ashamed to admit she cursed under her breath, hoping that now some other teller wouldn't finish and call her up where again she'd have to pull escapism. If she did that one more time she was thinking the chances of someone tattling on her odd behavior would circulate to someone she didn't want to meet anytime soon. Oh, but joy! She watched joyfully as the truck left. Veronica took her chances now and glided over to his desk before he could even call anyone up.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Beaumont." she greeted, smiling sweet. "And how are you today?" Her entrance had been so quiet that he hadn't even realized she was there and looked up in momentary shock from moving some paperwork. Whatever shock there was though dissolved to his inherent brand of politeness. He smiled at the white Chevy.
"Good afternoon to you as well, Ma'am. I'm just fine; yourself?"
She could've been knocked over with a feather seeing him so near; his paint, his chrome, and those gorgeous blue eyes that Chris didn't even mention. With all of that and his nice, wide whitewalls, Veronica could agree without a doubt he was a positively arresting man.
"I'm doing very well now." she replied. "Thank you for asking."
"My pleasure. Is there anything I can help you with today?"
"Oh, if only you knew," she teased, but before the confusion in his (gorgeous) blue eyes could metamorphose into words she hastily added, "I need some extra spending money." She passed her account information across the surface of his desk.
"That I can assist you with," he assured. "How much?"
"Twenty. Small bills, please." She flashed him an appreciative smile. If she didn't act now, she knew there'd never be a chance and she surely wanted to spend as much time chatting this dream-machine up as that truck had. "Your paint is dazzling, by the way."
He looked up from his work, caught off-guard. "Oh, well, thank you."
"I was tempted to say it is 'pretty' but I don't know any guy that likes having that word applied to him." Veronica laughed at this. So did he.
"It doesn't bother me. I'm not really one of those who get ticked off easy." He passed her the unneeded twenty dollars. She thanked him and hastily thought up whatever could keep the conversation rolling.
"So, are you new here, Mr. Beaumont?" she inquired. "Can't say I've seen you before."
"I've been here a few months now but just recently had my shift changed."
"You like it?" she asked. She sure hoped so and that he planned on sticking around.
"It works for me." he said with that smooth smile she was already dazzled by.
"Well," she replied. "you surely work well for it too." Throwing him a wink to drive home the words, she turned to go. "Thanks again, Mr. Beaumont." She could've talked longer, but didn't want to wear out her welcome in a single visit.
. . . .
"Chris, oh my Ford, that man is a dream on tires."
Veronica got together with her friend ASAP and couldn't even close the door before her mouth fell open. Christine sat in the entryway, already fully confused by her friend's bustling appearance and the words she'd spoken.
"Veronica… I don't know what's going on." she admitted, shutting the door. The white Chevy positively glowed, paint hue aside.
"The bank teller, Harlan Beaumont. I had a feeling he would look good up close but nothing prepared me for the actual meeting. He's simply beautiful with his pearled-silver paint and brightwork. And his eyes! They're so blue. What a good-looking man." She looked at the dark Ford, incredulous. "How can you be so passé?!"
"Veronica! I don't swoon over a man I only saw for about ten minutes, if that!" she countered.
"Oh, stop being so serious and cut loose, Chris! Enjoy what's around you and take advantage of the permission to appreciate. You need to have that man do business for you for often. He's an absolute dream to look at, smiles like an actor, and is so polite. I told him he was gorgeous too. He's as sweet as sweet and deserves to hear it. I am not ashamed either."
This was too much for Christine to take in. "You flirted with him? You have to be joking me. Please." Veronica shook her shiny white hood.
"I sure am not. When he told me being at the bank worked for him, I told him he sure worked well for it, too. And I winked, in case he didn't understand the unsaid statement of the 1st Bank of Aurora hiring only the most handsome men in the city."
Christine's shocked expression hadn't changed. "Ronnie… you are the most brazen woman I know." The Chevy just smiled knowingly. Their talk resumed in the small living room, not immediately before the black stove but nearby.
"Chris, I see no need to hold back the things I believe in and see fit to share. Call it brazen if you want to, but that teller is handsome and all I said was the honest truth." Her friend looked at her.
"I couldn't do that… It seems wrong when conducting business." she said. "He's just employed to do his work and what must it be like to suddenly have a lady swoon over him?" Veronica laughed.
"Honey," she replied, grinning. "There's not one man that doesn't like being complimented to some degree. There's a big difference though when it comes to this. Some men are egotistical hard-hoods that think they're more amazing than they are, which is one of the biggest annoyances. They think they deserve all these compliments and all it does is enhance their ego, which already makes them enough of a bore to deal with. My sister knew a guy like this and I wanted to give him a piece of my mind once or twice, but there's no changing that kind of character. Then there are the men who are as sweet as sugar and keep themselves straight. When complimenting them, or 'flirting,' as you think I was doing, all you say is the honest truth because there's no folly in it. His silver paint is dazzling. Do you agree or not, Chris? Honest answer."
The Ford Deluxe knew she was caught and knew her expression likely told the truth before her words could. "Alright, alright. Yes. It is dazzling."
"There. Now you ought to say it to him next. You need to be freer and 'flirt' more, Christine. Give compliments where they are due. And let me tell you, Mr. Beaumont is one source where they are due. You could say a lot more about him than that farm truck you dated a while back." Christine faintly glared.
"Frank was a nice guy." she countered. Veronica shrugged.
"He was, but you need to start learning to broaden your horizons. A farm truck is fine, but you were too pretty for him. You two looked like the odd couple."
"I'm not pretty,"
"Sure you are. You've got nice curves and shiny chrome and just as shiny paint. You're pretty, Chris. Don't argue with me on that. You should try being with a guy who really suits you."
"Right," the Ford sighed, not sold. "Like a farm truck."
"Shush," Veronica said. "Anyhow, did you get a gander at what sort of car Mr. Beaumont is? I nearly died."
"What?" Christine inquired. Her friend's brown eyes turned starry.
"A Cadillac; one of the most elite types around. Doesn't that just make him all the handsomer?"
. . . .
Bart was worse than he'd ever been.
Christine knew this from the very moment Camilla and her snobbish husband took their leave that Saturday for their "Couple's Afternoon," as the Ford had come to think of it. They always returned home, fully presenting where they'd been. Willis, her husband, smelled like more than one beer and Camilla was giddy and overly-animated from the effects of several cocktails. She usually was in a sprightly mood after these dates but sometimes she was crosser at who she referred to out-of-doors as simply "The Babysitter."
But Bart's mood was awful and Carl wasn't too much better. Spoiled rotten, they threw tantrums over whatever irked them, behavior that wasn't attractive for any age, but less so for two kids who weren't mere infants. They certainly could have a better grip on themselves than they did.
"Get me a can of flavored oil," Bart demanded. Had Christine been willing to overstep her boundaries, she would not have done this chore without first making sure the brat said "please" with his request, but knew this was useless.
"Yes Bart," she said and with a sigh retreated to the kitchen, riffled through the cooler and grabbed the first one she saw. "There you are." She presented it to the sour-looking kid. He looked at it, critically.
"This is grape. I don't like grape. I want a different one." In short notice, Christine did so. Bart studied it again. "Cherry. That's much better."
"Of course," Christine muttered and parked nearby to supervise them. She appreciated the bonus Camilla had given her; she appreciated having the job, but being around two spoiled kids whose mother did nothing but pander to drove her more and more crazy all the time, regardless of it only being twice a week she had to deal with them. Every time she left, she went home foolishly hoping there'd be some magic spell cast upon the whole family to make them more pleasant, but it had never happened.
It never would.
As the two kids played and bickered among each other, Christine decided to read a little of the paperback she'd brought along. She never got too absorbed in it and would always look up to make sure things were still civil. Today the two brothers seemed content (to whatever degree, that is) to remain in that one room and play with their construction set and push their metal dump truck about the tufted rug. When their playacting got rather noisy, Christine set her book aside and simply watched them. She wished she was somewhere else. Bart noticed the paperback first.
His eyes zeroed in on the pretty blue car on the front flanked by one that Christine had come to realized looked faintly like the bank teller Veronica was so in awe of. He wasn't silver though. "That a love story?" the tot asked.
"It is, yes." she replied. "It's just something I like to read."
"You don't look like that lady." he said in a voice oddly critical for a child. "Her paint isn't strange."
Christine had heard this before. From the kids, from Camilla, and even once from Willis. She knew herself how the undecided hue that went from dark blue to black depending on the light was odd. She didn't think she was pretty no matter Veronica's opinion. But that day she was tired of the attitude the spoiled kids weekly threw upon her.
She addressed him in a way that she never had used before, firm but not harsh; stern but not strict. "Please don't criticize me. I know how I look – I've seen myself since I was a little girl. It's not kind to point it out."
He threw a fit. She expected that. Beneath the small triumph she felt though at finally playing the role of an adult was underlying fear. Something would happen.
When Camilla and Willis came home later (her husband always retreated instantly to one of the various rooms of the house; disinterested as he was in child care and babysitters), Bart raced first to his mother, planting himself right before her big sparkling grille. Christine knew what would happen. He would construe whatever had elapsed to play the victim. He was young but he had learned that game. She silently sat in the hallway, waiting.
"Mom! She yelled at me! I was just saying something to her and she got real mad and said something really, really rude to me! She made me cry!" he wailed, putting out some fake-tears for the effect. The Ford sat there, feeling a chill in the room the descended on only her as Camilla's blunt green eyes landed on her.
"Is that right, baby?" she addressed her son, but her attention was only on Christine. "Well, I'll talk to her. We can't have that happening." She smoothly pulled away from her sons and paused before the darker car. Her Duesenberg looks were arresting but her manners were only icy when faced with a matter she felt wronged her precious offspring. "Come with me please, Miss Winter."
The two women joined in what Camilla firmly referred to as "The Parlor." Christine didn't argue over it, not knowing what that was to begin with to determine if this small room passed for it. Camilla's eyes never strayed from the Ford as she arranged herself in a suitable park and she only spoke after a heavy silence lapsed. "So," she began, crisp. "Bart tells me that you yelled at him. Really, when I hired you, I am pretty sure I went over the rules of conduct around my boys, and yelling at them wasn't permissible behavior. There's nothing either of them could've done to warrant such an attitude from you. Making a poor child cry? I'm sorry, Christine, but that is unacceptable."
Christine was aware that Camilla desired an apology, but for once she wasn't willing to give it. She wasn't sorry. How could she be over simply defending herself which was something she so rarely did? The slanting glare over Camilla's eyes deepened when "The Babysitter" had nothing to say.
"How do I know you wouldn't do this again? How do I know it wouldn't progress to you possibly forcing them both into a room and punishing them needlessly for 'time-out?' I do not know, Christine. Because of this, I am compelled to tell you that you are fired." She straightened; wordlessly telling the meeting was over. "Wait outside, please. I will cut your last paycheck now."
. . . .
Christine went straight home, forgoing the trip to the bank she usually took after receiving her pay. She was jobless now. She didn't know where to start seeking anything else. Two months remained before Christmas, and by the way things were now it wasn't looking to be a very happy holiday. Was it really worth defending herself against children who'd never change to simply lose her job? Of course it wasn't, she told herself. She defended herself against something she already knew: Her paint color was strange. Was it a holdover from a distant relative of her mother or from the father she never knew?
She looked at the worn paperback that had become the "beginning of the end" that day, artfully decorated on the cover with a car who would never be a Ford – Deluxe or otherwise. Tears stung at her eyes as opened the door of the blazing wood stove. Without another look, she threw the book into the flames.