Janet Evanovich: The Rocky Road to Romance

The waitress brought a soda for Daisy and a beer for Steve. It was the second time she’d made reference to her lack of time, Steve thought, sipping his beer. He hoped it wasn’t a boyfriend that was keeping her so busy. That would complicate his plans.

“I suppose graduate school is pretty demanding,” he said. “Doesn’t leave much time for cooking and socializing?” He congratulated himself on being so slick.

“I think I must not be very good at managing my time. I never seem to have enough of it.”

“Maybe I can help. I’m good at time management. You can tell me what you do every day, and I’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong.”

“I don’t know-”

“For instance, what time do you get up in the morning?”

“I get up at five.”

Steve took that under consideration. The last time he saw five o’clock was four years ago when there was a fire in the basement of his apartment building. “Why do you get up so early?”

“I deliver papers. It takes me two hours to go through my route. It’s a terrific job for people still in school because you get it over with first thing in the morning.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then after the papers are delivered I go home and change into my crossing-guard uniform-”

Steve blinked. “You’re a crossing guard, too?”

“Only in the morning. Last year a little girl was hurt in my neighborhood because they didn’t have enough crossing guards to cover all the busy intersections.”

“So you volunteered,” Steve said.

“It’s really fun. The kids are great. During the regular school year I work at the high school and then at eight o’clock I go over to Elm and Center streets to cross the grade-school kids. Summer school is only in session at the high school right now, so I’m done at eight o’clock.”

“Gee, what do you do with all that spare time?”

“I used to jog for an hour and then get to work on school stuff, but now that I’m the traffic reporter I’ll have to leave for the station at somewhere around eight-fifteen to eight-thirty.”

She held her hand up. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the traffic job will be too much for me to handle with all my other commitments, but you’re wrong. You see, it actually will make things much easier for me. I used to wait tables during dinner and moonlight as a cab driver. I think I can give up those jobs now.”

“Cab driver?”

“Actually, I’m terrible. I get lost all the time.

Traffic reporting is a snap compared to cab driving.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You have any other jobs?”

“No. Well, yes, if you count the internship?”

“What internship?”

“It’s part of my doctorate program. I do some recreational counseling at a nursing home.”

“You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

It had been more statement than question, and it took her by surprise. “No. How’d you know that?”

“Lucky guess.”

Her eyes widened when the waitress brought what looked like a taco mountain and plunked it down in front of her. “So what do you think?” she asked. “What am I doing wrong?”

“You’re overcommitted.”

She scooped up a glob of refried beans and taco sauce with a piece of tostado shell. “I’ve been thinking of giving up the paper route.”

Good choice, he thought. The paper route would put a major crimp in his style. It would greatly restrict the early-morning activities he had planned for Daisy. “Definitely. The paper route should go.”

They ate in silence for a while until a woman came over to the table and stared at Daisy. “Excuse me, but are you Daisy Adams, author of Bones for Bowser? I recognize you from your author photo.”

“Yup. That’s me,” Daisy said with a smile.

“I wouldn’t miss your show for anything!” the woman said. “I made your chicken-guts recipe for my dog Sparky, and he just loved it. Do you suppose I could have your autograph?”

“Of course. And I’m glad Sparky liked the recipe.” Daisy scrawled her name on the woman’s napkin.

The waitress sidled up beside the woman. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you really Daisy Adams? Did you do the traffic report today?”

Daisy nodded. “I’m filling in for Frank Menken.”

“Well, let me tell you, you were wonderful,” the waitress said. “It was the first time I could make anything out of that traffic report. I never knew what that Menken fella was saying. Everything was always so fast and technical. Now when you told us there was an accident by the gas station with the green-and-yellow trim and the tubs of red geraniums by the gas pumps I knew exactly where you meant.”

Steve remembered the broadcast, too. That was when he’d sent his secretary out to buy more aspirin.

The waitress patted Daisy’s hand. “The dessert’s on me, honey. You just have whatever you want.”

“Vanilla ice cream,” Daisy said. “I need something cool after this taco extravaganza.”

The waitress hurried back with a twelve-scoop bowl of vanilla ice cream smothered in strawberries and whipped cream. “We don’t often have celebrities here,” she said. “This is a real pleasure.”

Twenty minutes later the ice cream had been greatly reduced, and what was left was almost completely melted. Steve and Daisy listlessly stared at the carnage.

“I can’t eat any more,” Daisy said. “I’m getting sick.”

Steve let one more spoonful slide down his throat. He had mixed feelings about Daisy’s celebrity status. As a businessman he knew he should be loving it. As a newsman he felt a little offended. And as her future lover, he didn’t like it at all. He was surprised at that last revelation. He’d never felt possessive about a woman before. It was a lot easier being a modern man when you weren’t in lust, he concluded.

He paid the bill and escorted Daisy from the restaurant. When they reached the car there were three pieces of paper attached to his windshield wipers. “Junk mail,” he said, removing the notes and instantly crumpling them.

“Don’t you want to see what they say?”

“They’re phone numbers of women I don’t know. It’s the car. Women feel compelled to leave their phone numbers on it.”

“How odd.”

“Yeah. Sometimes it gets even odder.”

The ride home was quiet, giving Daisy time to think about the notes impaled on Steve’s windshield wipers. It wasn’t the car that drew women, she thought. It was Steve.

Most likely those women had seen him park or perhaps drive down the street. Not only was he drop-dead handsome, but he radiated sexual attraction. It was almost impossible to sit across from him and keep her mind on things like ice cream and radio broadcasts. Watching him eat had been torture. He had a great mouth, she’d decided. Nice full lips but not at all feminine. Probably he was a terrific kisser, probably she wouldn’t mind test-driving his lips. She gave herself a mental head slap. Daisy, Daisy, Daisy! What are you thinking?

She was a quiet overachiever who was going to spend the rest of her life counseling senior citizens. Steve Crow would find her boring beyond belief. And she was sure she’d find him overwhelming. Steve Crow belonged with a hot pink, hot-pants type of woman. Daisy ran more to well-washed denim. Besides that, he was her boss.

It was dark when Steve parked in front of Daisy’s town house. The subdivision wasn’t exactly run-down, but it wasn’t spiffy either, he decided. The houses were small, mostly brick and he guessed about twenty years old. It was a modest neighborhood with small front yards overrun with azaleas and impatiens. Maple trees shaded slightly neglected lawns. Roots snaked beneath sidewalks, causing them to shift and crack. It would be a childless neighborhood, Steve thought, inhabited by singles, newlyweds, and seniors. Families required more space, more yard. Families lived in the nearby subdivisions of colonial houses that had spread like a heat rash through Northern Virginia.