November 5th, 2009
Jules sat at his new desk arranging papers and straightening pencils. He could not stand clutter. Or, rather, he could not stand the idea that a wayward something should make its way into his space. He was meticulous in fact, if not by nature, and a profession in numbers suited him just fine. Numbers had rules. Unlike humans, the natural laws of numbers could not be broken. One plus one would always equal two, and so on, and so forth. When she breezed in, it was all he could do to keep counting.
Two plus two is four. Four plus four is eight. Eight plus eight is sixteen.
Her plaited curls bounced around her deeply mocha face. Umber eyes examined him with a mixture of curiosity and contempt.
Sixteen plus sixteen is thirty-two. Thirty-two plus thirty-two is sixty-four.
“You’re not Bailey.”
“No. No I am not.” He stood and held out a hand. “Jules. Jules Quenton.” Cautiously, she slid her palm along his.
“Dani Wintermark. Tell me, Jules Jules Quenton, do you repeat yourself for emphasis or from nerves?” He laughed weakly.
“A bit of both, actually.” His Bs were slightly over-pronounced, almost stutter-like, but his speech rolled along smoothly. He withdrew his hand from its overlong embrace.
Sixty-four plus sixty-four is one-twenty-eight. One-twenty-eight plus one-twenty-eight is two-fifty-six.
“You must be Summer-Lynn’s replacement.” She stiffened visibly. The contempt began to overcome her earlier curiosity.
“Not yet. I have been nominated, though. Her transfer won’t go through until Thursday.” He nodded, ignoring the ire in her voice. “Where’s Bailey?” He repositioned a pencil. Counting was getting him nowhere, so he concentrated on carefully crafting his sentences.
“It would appear, Ms. Wintermark, that your little display with Ms. Powers last Friday resulted in the canning of one Mr. Bankston.” Dani’s tone suddenly shifted to very nearly excited.
“He’s gone?” She smiled, but only for a moment. “I suppose that makes you and I associates, then.”
“It would appear so.” Perhaps he would request a transfer. Jules didn’t know if he could work with her in this proximity.
“Well, at least I can go home and tell Augusta that I played nice and the moron is gone. You’re more educated than he was I hope.” The last comment was rhetorical, but it was the first part of her statement which drew his notice. Glancing down at her hand confirmed it.
“You are, ah, married, then?” She played with the simple band encircling her finger.
“Two years. We’ve been together for five.” A mixture of relief and mild disappointment ran through him.
“Well,” she continued after an awkward moment of silence, “I probably need to get back to Summer.” He nodded again, as both an agreement and a silent farewell.
When she was gone, he breathed again, not realizing he had been holding back. Jules had been watching her and avoiding her at the same time since his second day on the job. She was not the most beautiful woman in the world, he supposed, but there was something about her that had grabbed him. And that, as his father would have very simply stated, was wrong. A woman had no right pulling at a man’s unconscious insides like that. A man had no right feeling the way he felt every time he looked at her. He did not know what exactly the feeling was, but it was very, very far from comfortable. If he had just found a nice man and settled down, he might be thinking about raising a son instead of worrying about his next encounter with a woman. But, he had been a loner in college and had never been much for the dating scene. It was go to class, study hard, go to bed, graduate, go to work, read the paper, go to bed. That was the story of his life, laid out in seven neat punctuations.
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