Careful Hearts: A Romantic Valentine’s Day Story Read online

Careful Hearts:

  A Valentine’s Day Story

  By Rusty Fischer, author of A Town Called Snowflake

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  Careful Hearts

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2014 by Rusty Fischer

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © babkin – Fotolia.com

  This work was previously released under the title “Snowflake Ink.”

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE short story edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar! Happy reading… and happy holidays!

  Enjoy!

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  Careful Hearts:

  A Valentine’s Day Story

  “Listen kid,” sighs the big-shouldered woman with the sweat running down her face. “I don’t wanna hear your sob stories. No offense, but I’ve got a few of my own, you dig?”

  I nod, sliding my carefully printed resume back away from her nervously fidgeting hands.

  “You drop out of college, you get kicked out—”

  “I withdrew,” I can’t help but interject, even if this is technically a job interview and that’s probably a big no-no.

  “Drop out, kicked out, withdrew out, either way kid, you were lucky enough to go to college in the first place. Me? I’ve been running this joint since I dropped out of high school and, frankly, I’m tired and could use a break, especially around the holidays. You want the job? You got it. Pay is room and board, plus all the tips you can make, all the free pizza you can eat and all the free soda you can drink. Deal?”

  “Really?” I ask, blinking twice in disbelief. “But… it didn’t sound like this interview was going so well, you know, just now?”

  The old woman sighs and says, “It wasn’t, kid, but you’re the first person who came in today without a rap sheet a mile long, understand? So, you want I should show you the room upstairs now, or you want to hop in and learn the ropes before we get really busy?”

  I look past the bulky woman standing behind the sales counter to a row of sooty pizza ovens hissing across from stacks and stacks of folded cardboard to-go boxes.

  There’s a tall, grungy guy in an apron shoving pizzas in and yanking them out of one of the hissing ovens, the woman behind the counter and, now, me.

  “Looks like you could use the help,” I offer, following her around the corner of the sales counter and into the tiny kitchen.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” she says in her gravelly voice. “Name’s Dotty, by the way, and this here lug is Lumpy. Get it? Pizza dough? Lumpy?”

  I nod but silently all the while I’m thinking, “Isn’t it batter that gets lumpy, not dough?”

  “Anyway,” Dotty continues without waiting for a reply, “Lumpy, meet the new kid, Reggie. Reggie, meet the old kid, Lumpy.”

  The tall guy shakes my hand briskly and when I pull it away, it’s covered in pizza dust. I take off my collar shirt and slip a dirty apron over the clean white T-shirt I’d thrown on underneath.

  Dotty makes quick work of showing me the ropes, and Lumpy seems fine with me inching in on his turf not too long after. It helps that I was working in a pizza joint in Greensboro when I left business school, and that the Snowflake Soda ‘N Slice is about half as big as that one was.

  “I knew you were a winner when you walked through the door kid,” Dotty says appreciatively when at last the lunch rush is over and she leads me up fourteen narrow stairs to the loft apartment that is part of my “salary.”

  It’s as narrow as the stairway, but brightly lit by a series of small but open windows lining three of the four walls.

  “This here’s a Murphy bed, kid,” she grunts, yanking a grimy single cot out of a dark paneled wall. “You ever seen one of these before?”

  “Only in an old Honeymooners episode,” I gasp, watching as dust bunnies fly through the air, trying to escape.

  She chuckles hoarsely, her smoker’s cough only interrupting six or seven times.

  “I knew I liked you, kid. Listen, there’s no fridge or oven or hot plate because, well, you live over a pizza parlor now and have the run of the joint after hours. Within reason, that is. There’s a sink and a toilet in there...”

  She points to a tiny room that isn’t just closet sized but from the looks of it was actually a working closet at some point. And not a walk-in closet, if you get my drift!

  “How about a shower?” I ask cautiously, because Dotty’s the type who looks like, if she doesn’t like your answer, she’d knock you back down the same stairs she just led you up.

  “Oh, aren’t we fancy?” she cackles good-naturedly, leading me back downstairs after I’ve had the nickel tour of my new home. “There’s a beach access right behind us. Get up before sunrise and you’ll have the place to yourself.”

  “Seriously?” I ask.

  “Seriously,” she grunts, taking off her apron to reveal a sauce stained, size XXL “Soda’s ‘n Slices” T-shirt circa 1972. “This ain’t the Ritz, kid, but if you hustle and stay out of trouble, you can really clean up. Or, at least, get out of trouble.”

  I sigh and thank her; again.

  She waves a wrinkled hand in front of her face and I add, “Seriously, Dotty, you really helped me out of a jam.”

  “Me? Helped you? Kid, this is the first Valentine’s Day I’ve had off in 12 years, so let’s just say we’re both doing each other a favor and call it a holiday miracle, all right?”

  She hands me the keys, gives me her cell phone number (which is probably totally fake) and, without another glance back over her burly shoulder, strides past the sales counter and straight out the front door.

  “Yeah,” Lumpy chuckles from behind me, voice high and soft at the same time. “Happy Valentine’s to you too, boss.”

  “She really hasn’t had a Valentine’s Day off in 12 years?” I ask as I slip back into my apron even as Lumpy slips (eagerly) out of his.

  “Me either, kid,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder with a large, soft hand. “So don’t screw it up, all right?”

  I shrug. “What’s the big deal about Valentine’s anyway?”

  “Spoken like a true bachelor,” he snorts, scratching one tattooed bicep with flour-dusted fingertips. “Usually I’m stuck here counting pepperoni while the missus calls me every 10 minutes begging to close up shop. It’ll be nice to take her out right and proper for a change, you know?”

  “Where you going?” I ask.

  “The VFW has a big dance every year.”

  I nod, thinking maybe I’m getting the better end of the deal here after all.

  “And Dotty? She doesn’t strike me as the romantic type.”

  He snorts, making himself a giant soda to go in one of the biggest Styrofoam cups I’ve ever seen. Literally. Ever.

  “She ain’t, but the Snowflake Senior Center has a huge Valentine’s Bingo Tournament every year and, well, if she ain’t exactly a fool for love, Dotty’s a big fool for Bingo.”

  He grabs a ball cap off a stainless steel hook hanging from an overhead shelf and sticks a fresh cigarette in his mouth.

  “That’s it?” I ask, looking up at his grinning, crooked teeth. “I’m working the night shift alone?”

  “Isn’t that what Dotty hired you for, kid?”

  “I suppose, but… isn’t there anything
else you want to show me?”

  He looks around the tiny kitchen, past the empty lettuce crates in the hall, to the grimy walk-in doors, up and down the towering stacks of pizza boxes, quickly past the ovens and right back to me.

  “The cold stuff’s in the fridge, the hot stuff goes in the ovens, and tell anybody who calls that we don’t deliver for the next 48-hours, so it’s pickup only. That should get rid of half the business, if not more. If you run out of anything, just sell cheese pizzas for half-price until closing time. Trust me, kid, everybody’s either out at some fancy dinner or whipping up something special for their sweetheart in their own kitchen, so… relax. Other than Christmas, this is the slowest night of the year.”

  I’m not so sure.

  Usually when someone says that, it turns out to be the exact opposite.

  Turns out, in this case, Lumpy’s actually right.

  I make a few pizzas for last-minute bachelors like me, sell a few sodas to giggling twenty-something’s who are on their way to their annual anti-Valentine’s Day party, but by 7 p.m. it’s pretty much dead. Not a phone call, not a walk-in, not even a nibble.

  Too bad I still have 5 hours to go!

  But at least there’s already a few dozen or so crumpled dollar bills in the plastic tip jar by the cash register (a few of them even five’s), so the shift hasn’t been completely for nothing.

  I sigh and set to work cleaning the walk-in doors and sponging off the grungy nozzles in the ancient soda machine, just to keep busy.

  I stack some boxes so they’re not about to tip over, then restack them a few inches away, but there’s only so much you can do in a tiny pizza joint like this one.

  I spend a lot of time leaning on the front counter, waiting for the cowbell over the front door to ring even though I can see no one coming from halfway down the street.

  I first notice the girl in the tattoo parlor next door about a little after seven.

  It’s called “Snowflake Ink.”

  I kind of like that; has a real ring to it.

  Our wide store windows face each other across a tiny little courtyard in the otherwise deserted Snowflake Seaside Shopping Center.

  Dusk has fallen and now, in the approaching darkness, a red neon sign in her window alternately flashes “Tattoo. Open. Tattoo. Open.”

  The store is about the same size as the pizza parlor, but twice as big looking because it only has two or three chairs, some mirrors on the walls and, you know, NO giant, baking pizza ovens or towering stacks of square white to-go boxes to clutter it all up.

  She moves around the store breezily, all legs and arms, a broom in one hand, a half-eaten and dangerously sharp candy cane in the other.

  She has iPod buds in her ear and seems to really like the music, whatever it is, in a kind of mellow, smiling but not really grinning while she sweeps kind of way.

  I take a sip of my second free soda of the hour and lean there watching her.

  She is tall and tight, with one of those cigarette and diet soda bodies.

  You know, not an ounce of fat on her.

  Her arms are long and strong and poking out of a red tank top that says “XOXO” in glittery rhinestones in the front.

  Underneath is another tank top, this one black.

  She has on snug yoga pants, black to match her short socks and high sneakers.

  She has tattoos, of course, but not as many as you might think considering her job description.

  There is a small red skull on one knotty bicep, and a wreath of barbed wire around one boney wrist.

  There is a blue and green tinted dragonfly on the side of one calf, and a broken heart just below her ear on the side closest to me, but not much more.

  At least, not where I can see them anyway.

  I’m staring at the dragonfly, wondering what it means, when I notice she’s stopped moving.

  Maybe even… for awhile now?

  And her right toe is kind of pointing in my direction, and her broom is kind of waving at me down near the floor.

  I look up to find her smiling, shaking her head as I bumble and blush and practically drop my half-full soda cup to the countertop I’m still leaning on.

  She loses the ear buds, leans the broom against the wall and stands in her open doorway.

  It’s got one of those black and white convenience store strips running from the floor to the ceiling.

  You know, the kind that tells you how big the robber is on his way out?

  It says she’s 5’ 8”, but she’s kind of slouching there and not standing up straight, so she’s probably more like 5’ 10”.

  When I’m still leaning across the counter a full minute later she signals me to join her.

  I come around the counter, open the door and lean against it to keep it open.

  I notice the same strip and find the numbers 5’ 11” staring me in the eye.

  “There’s a doorjamb, you know?” she says, pointing to her feet.

  I look down and see a little rubber stopper wedged under the door so it stays open.

  I look to my own door and see a similar one.

  I wedge it in and say, “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” she says.

  Her voice is a little deep, a little husky, maybe to match her rich black pigtails and dark maroon lip gloss.

  “Dotty usually wedges it open when the weather is nice like this, or we’re both working late.”

  “You’re working tonight?” I ask, voice cracking a bit.

  “Looks like it,” she says, trying not to sound sarcastic and failing, just a little. “So, she finally found some sucker to work Valentine’s Day for her, huh?”

  “Looks like it,” I say back.

  She nods and starts to, but doesn’t say, “Touché.”

  She leans against the open door, folding those long arms over her small chest.

  After an awkward pause that really isn’t all that awkward, actually, I say, “Does it usually get busy on Valentine’s?”

  “Who, for me? Or for you?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Me? No. You? Double no.”

  I shrug. “Wonder why Dotty keeps it open then?”

  She looks me up and down in my interview khaki slacks and now greasy white T-shirt. “Same reason I stay open, I suppose. Every dollar counts.”

  “You stay open?” I ask, standing up a little taller now. “It’s… your… store?”

  “Gee, don’t sound so shocked. You know, they actually let women own businesses now. It’s something new they’re trying…”

  “No, it’s just… you’re so young.”

  “Hmmm, nice save. I think.”

  “I mean it. You’re just so… together. I guess I’m just jealous.”

  “Together?” she snorts, uncrossing her arms and then crossing them again. “You’re the first person to call me that in, I dunno, ever? And what’s to be jealous of? We’re both standing in empty doorways on Valentine’s Day, watching nothing happen together.”

  “Yeah, but… you’re standing in your own doorway.”

  “Correction, I’m standing in the bank’s doorway!”

  “Okay, well, at least you’re not sleeping above the bank’s doorway.”

  “Think again,” she smirks, jerking one thumb upward.

  I crane my neck out of the doorway and look over her blinking neon storefront.

  There, in eight tiny windows just like mine, are eight lacy white curtains currently tickling in the offshore breeze.

  “So, we’re neighbors?” I smile back.

  “Looks like it.”

  I chuckle as she turns to reach for the broom.

  “You hungry?” I ask, if only to keep her talking to me.

  Other than Dotty, and the lady in Administration who signed my paperwork last week, she’s the first real, live girl I’ve talked to in ages.

  She stops reaching for the broom and turns around, her heels squeaking on her polished linoleum floor. “I thought you’
d never ask!”

  There are two waist-high counters bolted to the walls under the picture windows facing the street.

  Dusty little read heart lights blink on and off above our heads as I dole out paper plates and napkins and plastic forks and knives from a stack by the takeout order pads.

  “Thirsty?” I ask, cup already waiting under the soda nozzles.

  “I’d kill for a cherry soda,” she gushes, crossing long legs as she sits on a wooden stool. “I’ve been jonesing for some caffeine all afternoon.”

  I pour us both one and bring them over, sitting across from her as we wait for the thin crust vegetarian pizza to finish baking.

  “I’m Tori, by the way,” she says, extending a pale hand.

  It’s cold and papery when I shake it. “I’m Reggie.”

  She smells like cinnamon, not the coffee topper but the oil.

  Up close like this, under the pizza parlor lights, her tattoos are bigger and more vibrant.

  So are her big, brown eyes.

  I nod at them – the tattoos, that is, not her eyes – and say, “Do they mean stuff?”

  She snorts and shrugs in a way that doesn’t sound pretty, but actually is.

  “Naw,” she sighs before taking another massive swig off her soda. “I just think they look good is all.”

  “Not even that one?” I ask, pointing to, but not touching, the broken heart beneath her ear.

  “Observant, aren’t we?” she smiles, big and bright with crooked teeth that still manage to look pretty sexy amidst those puffy lips and the maroon lip gloss that covers them. It makes her look softer, that smile; slightly less tough. Not that the toughness isn’t growing on me by now. “It used to, once upon a time. But now I’m kind of sad I got it.”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, the guy who broke my heart and dumped me in this little seaside town? He actually kinda saved my life”

  “How’s that?”

  She sighs, shaking her head softly so that her pigtails dance. “It’s a long story, Reggie.”

  I get up to refill her empty soda cup and say, “I’ve got all night, Tori.”

  She chuckles and doesn’t wait until I sit down again to dig in: “So, once upon a time, I drop out of school and run away from home with the man of my dreams. Or so I think. We’re on our way to New York, and I’m going to be a big time artist and illustrate children’s books and he’s going to form a band and be the lead guitarist and we’ll both be heroin chic and make millions of dollars, right? Only, just across the South Carolina