Pinch Me: A Romantic St. Patrick’s Day Story Read online

“That’s not what I was talking about,” he says, nodding toward the St. Pat’s display.

  “No?”

  “No, I meant… you’re running out of Lucky Cat food back there.”

  “Shoot,” I say, looking around for the inventory list so I can mark it down. By the time I find it… he’s already gone.

  I primp a little for work the next night. Take some extra time with my hair, worry over which blouse to wear, which panties are the sexiest but least slutty, then I remember the god awful ugly Minute Mart work apron that’s going to ruin everything and just hang it all.

  He comes in right on time, same track pants, different pullover – he must buy them in bulk – no ski cap this time, his hair freshly washed and framing his blushing face. “Hi Grace,” he says, meekly, before disappearing down Aisle 3.

  “Hi,” I say, trying – and failing – to sound all aloof.

  “Only two left,” he announces, bringing his can up to the register, dollar bill at the ready.

  “I’ve got them on order,” I say, wishing I could magically just hand him a case and impress him in all kinds of new and exciting ways. “How’s your stray?”

  He shrugs, our eyes meeting before his flick quietly away. “Finicky,” he says.

  “Yeah, how’s that?”

  “Well, I was a little lazy tonight, thought I’d skip the trip up here and opened up a can of tuna instead. And… nothing doing.”

  “Really?” I say, my heart doing a little pitter pat to think I almost didn’t see him tonight. “I thought cats couldn’t resist tuna.”

  “This one can,” he says.

  I smile. “Maybe you just spoiled him with all the Lucky Cat this week.”

  “Must be,” he chuckles, taking his change.

  He turns at the door, smiling. “Happy St. Patrick’s Day Eve,” he says although, technically, it’s already the big day.

  “You too,” I brighten anyway. “Got any big plans?”

  He shakes his head. Looks around, then down at the can in his hand. “You’re looking at it,” he says, then turns around and slips out the door before I can remember to ask if he’ll be coming in again.

  That’s when I start to panic. What if… what if he just stops coming in? What if he finds some other convenience store cashier to buy his Lucky Cat from? I hyperventilate a little – just a little! – picturing me working there the rest of my life, an old maid who never gets married because the one who got away never came back!

  Then, driving into work the next night, I hatch a plan so boringly devious that it will settle, once and for all, The Question of Toby Tweed.

  My boss just shakes her head when I ask to get off a little early for St. Patrick’s Day.

  “What for?” she huffs, frumpled and gray and wedged into her broom closet size office just across from the stacks of extra soda bottles and the empty mop bucket. “So you can go to some big party with the other cool kids? Drink green beer and wear a ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ shirt, huh?”

  I blink, because… psychic, much? But she hasn’t even glanced up from this week’s schedule to see that, yes, in fact, I am wearing my favorite “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” T-shirt under my Technicolor work apron.

  “Not really,” I say. “It’s just, there’s this customer, and he’s been feeding this stray cat…”

  Bingo. Her head whips up, like she’s just heard a gunshot, and her eyes narrow. I hide a smirk. I’d always figured Ms. Donavan for a cat lady. “That why you put in a request for, like, four cases of Lucky Cat for next week?”

  I blush and mumble and chuckle and murmur, all at the same time. “Kind of… yes.”

  She sighs, dragging the cheap bifocals from her nose and letting them dangle around her neck from a beaded chain. “That’s fine, Grace. I’m thinking of closing early tonight anyway.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, leaning back against the door jam, half out of relief, half out of shock that the truth actually worked!

  “I don’t want to deal with all those drunks in green face paint, you know?”

  I nod and, finally, she smirks. “Go, shoo,” she says, just as I’m glancing down at my watch. “Go have fun. And get lucky.”

  “What’s that?” I chuckle. Cat lady, yes. But I never really took Ms. Donavan for a dirty-birdy!

  She snorts, shaking her head, all kinds of blushing. “I meant ‘be lucky,’” she corrects herself quickly. “Isn’t that what St. Patrick’s Day is all about?”

  “I hope so,” I murmur, slipping out of my apron and into the little lime green yoga jacket I wore into work. “Thanks, Ms. Donavan,” I add, reaching for a Minute Mart bag from under the register. “And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”

  I hustle out the door, into the mild March night, walking south, in the direction I’ve seen Toby coming from every night this week. My skin feels vaguely prickly, my pulse heightened. I never do stuff like this. Daring, sexy, risky stuff where I could look totally stupid and get shut down before I even start.

  Shoot, I can’t remember the last time I’ve chased a guy, period. Not that I’m some man eater or temptress, just lazy I guess. My last boyfriend was a classmate, and the one before that was best friends with my old college roommate. I barely had to take five steps to run into either of them. I guess you could say I’m better at networking than dating, since finding a guy that way is pretty easy; staying with them is the hard part.

  After a few months, I dunno, it always goes south. They get tired of listening to me drone on about my graduate studies, and I get tired of pretending to like football and draft beer and superhero movies.

  But Toby seems… different. Shy, aloof, mysterious, sexy… and he feeds stray cats!

  I hustle, because if I meet him too far along his walk it will ruin everything. I mean, just handing over the bag won’t do me any good. It’s only going to work if we open it together, in his general vicinity. Otherwise, well, I’ll have no choice but to hand it over, and where will that leave me? Still not knowing anything more about him that I do right now.

  I’m edging toward the Commons now, a kind of artsy, business, café, bustling center of town where cheap apartment buildings rub shoulders with snooty art galleries and jewelry stores and a large common green sits smack in the middle of it all. There’s a band shell there where, most weekends, somebody or other is playing live music.

  There’s a party going on tonight, there have been flyers around all week, for St. Paddy’s Day. The closer I get, the more I can smell sauerkraut and corned beef and tap beer and hear the strains of fiddle and bow as a Celtic band warms up in the bandstand.

  I smile. The neighborhood suits him. There are three or four apartment buildings, shabby but charming, with curved metal railings on the balconies and white lights strung around the pool areas and quiet, tree lined parking lots.

  I have no idea where he lives but, that’s the whole point.

  I pace a little up and down the sidewalk, the plastic bag crinkling in my hand, until I hear scuffling and a rusty gate hinge creaking – midnight, right on time.

  I see his tousled brown curls peeking out from beneath his a navy blue ski cap, ducking beneath a string of white lights, as he shoves his hands in his track pants pockets and starts toward me.

  He’s not really looking where he’s going, kind of muttering to himself, and before he can run me over I say, “Oh. Uh… hi?”

  He pauses, looks up and then… smiles. And the smile tells me everything. Everything I was afraid might happen that won’t, and everything I hoped would happen that might.

  “Grace?” he asks, cocking his head to make the form of a human question mark. “What… what are you doing here?”

  “Oh, me? I… I was just heading to the party, you know, in the Commons.”

  He smiles, nodding, at a loss, looking maybe a little hurt like I wasn’t coming to stalk him which, obviously, I am!

  “But,” I add, before he can slink away, “I’m glad I found you.” I hold up the bag. “I was kind of hoping to s
ee your cat and—”

  “Fanta,” he interrupts.

  “What?”

  “I call her Fanta,” he explains.

  “Oh boy,” I say, biting my lower lip. “You named her already?”

  He shrugs, and even in the soft glow of the white Christmas lights I can see him blushing faintly. “Kinda,” he admits.

  “Fanta,” I repeat. “I like that. Anyway,” I hold up the bag again. “I brought along some Lucky Cat, on the off chance, you know, she was wandering around.”

  “You did?” I can’t tell if his voice sounds suspicious of my story which, now that I’m saying it out loud, does sound kind of lame, or if he’s just surprised, period.

  “Yeah,” I lie, feeling bad, but also sneaky and excited and kinda hopeful and playfully and even a little… sexy. “Is that… where you were headed right now? To the store?”

  He ducks his head and blushes. “Yeah, I… it’s kind of my nightly routine.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  He looks up and reaches for the gate. “She’s right back here, if you want to help me feed her.”

  “Really?” I ask, following him into the courtyard. It’s small and rustic, about six apartments around a