Gina Calanni - Dream Come True

“Now, hold on a second, you can’t pay for my meal.” I wave his money away. “I’m sorry about that. Here is my money for my lunch.” I give the cashier a ten-dollar bill and she hands me the change with a discerning look. Did she expect me to let him pay for my food? I only met him two shakes of a lamb’s tail ago.

I scan the cafeteria seating options and Brandon nods toward an empty table. I follow behind him, admiring his build; if thoughts were sins, I would be needing to do some serious penance right now. Brandon sits down at the white and metal table and I take the seat in front of him.

“So, do you always try and pay for strangers’ meals?” I raise an eyebrow at him as I take a bite of my salad. It’s crunchy, but for a salad this is a good thing. I can’t stand when my salad is wilted. What’s the point in eating rotten food?

“Sorry about that; I just usually pay if I’m with a lady.” Brandon shovels some mashed potatoes into his mouth. His eyes are inspecting my face, like I’m a map and he’s figuring out how to get from point A to point B.

I laugh. “But Brandon, you just met me a minute ago and we aren’t really together. I mean, we are together physically, but we’re classmates. Would you pay for all your female classmates’ food?”

The sides of Brandon’s mouth pull up and his teeth are showing: big, white, healthy teeth. My mama would declare that this man comes from good stock after eyeing those chompers.

“If we had walked in together like you and I did, then, yes, I would offer to pay. I’m sorry if that bothered you; it’s how I was raised.” Brandon winks at me.

I’m going to melt in my chair. And it is really tepid in here, reminds me of working at Dairy Queen; they always keep the temperature at seventy degrees so as to keep the ice cream from forming big puddles in the buckets. Nobody likes drippy ice cream.

“Well, that solves that, thank you. What position are you looking to be hired for after the training is up?”

“Not sure, that’s still up in the air. I want to try all of the positions so that I can really get a good feel for the organization. I know that when Richard Blue started the company, he worked every position and requires this of all of his executive staff.” He pauses and stares into my eyes, like he’s thinking about whether or not to share something with me. “I will be following in his path.” Brandon takes another large bite of his fried chicken.

I try and swallow all the information he’s given. He’s headed for the executive path? I know Blue Ribbon says they require all employees to go through the training program, but I didn’t think this applied to the executive staff.

“Where did you go to school?” I let my curiosity jump out from underneath me. I wish I could pull that question back in and try to say it softer… but too late, it’s already out there. I know he must have gone to school somewhere because there is no way he thinks he can be an executive for Blue Ribbon if he doesn’t have a degree. I know this because I had to have a degree in order to advance to the next level of product development, which is by no means equal to the executive level.

“East of here, how about you?” Brandon takes a big bite of his buttery roll. I wish I had grabbed a buttery roll, but that wasn’t an option with the salad, just those darn white flakey crackers, which probably aren’t meant for the salad but for the soup.

“I got my degree with Eagle Online.” I’m still proud of that degree. Of course, it’s only been a month since I finished all of my courses. I could have driven to the graduation ceremony but that would have cost a pretty penny. So I just watched the video presentation; they said they would read all the students’ names even if they weren’t there. And sure enough they read my name… wrong. Sarah, my name is not Sarah. It’s Sahara… I don’t understand how a college person would get the pronunciation wrong, as if they couldn’t read each letter. I suppose they read over what letters are there and autocorrect them in their brain.

Brandon nods at me. “Isn’t that the place that says: accreditation is just a word?”

I pull back my head for second. “I think that’s the saying, why?”

Brandon shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ve never met anyone who went there.”

I look at Brandon closely, trying to work out if he’s looking down on me, on account of his own fancy college education.

He catches my look and says, “I just didn’t know it was a real university.”

I nod. But I’m anything but agreeing with him or the situation. Shoot. What have I got myself into? Here I am in front of Mr. Blue-eyed Dreamboat and he swipes the carpet from beneath me. Is he saying that my degree isn’t real because it didn’t come from a college like his? All the hours I spent studying and the money I paid for it tells me everything I need to know. They have a TV commercial and everything. Maybe he is wrong or maybe he is just cynical; yeah, he is probably just a spoilsport. Given his looks and all he has, he’s probably never had to struggle and just views the world and regular people’s lives as a joke or something. That must be it.

“It’s, uh, my degree is in business. After the training program is up I’ll be a product development associate here at the creamery.” I raise my shoulders and let out a deep breath. “Of course, that’s if I pass… which is unlikely given I already messed up scooping ice cream.” No degree, from Eagle Online or otherwise, can make up for this morning’s embarrassment. I bat my eyelashes – I can’t believe I messed that one up. I bet Sally Jane would be laughing up a storm about it if she ever found out, which hopefully she won’t.

Brandon’s eyebrows wiggle together. “I’m sure you’ll pass. Don’t worry about Mr. Flints… he’s worked here for ages and likes to give the newbies a tough time. Especially, given… well, I wouldn’t mention Eagle Online in front of him.”

What the what? Now, I need to be hiding my degree and school from our instructor? I’m proud of getting my degree. I worked hard for it, and I’m still paying off the loan I had to take out. And now this rich kid who’s probably had an easy life is telling me I should be ashamed of what I’ve achieved? I should put him in his place, but my mama raised me better than that, so I keep my mouth shut.

But maybe he knows something I don’t. He seems to know a heck of a lot more about Blue Ribbon Creamery than I do, and he is on the executive path. I start to feel a chill down my spine like a bunch of night critters are making a meal out of me. I won’t let him see that he’s got to me, though. “Huh… how long you reckon Mr. Flints has worked here?”

Brandon casts his dreamy blues up to the ceiling, which is covered by bright fluorescent lights. I jerk my head back and blink. Ouch.

“Hmm, he must have worked here for at least twenty years, I remember… er, I think someone mentioned earlier that he had been here for a long time.” He nods. “Anyways, who really cares, right? This isn’t exactly the crème de la crème of factories… at least not given the owner.” He clears his throat.

“It’s the best creamery in the US… even if you count the place in Vermont.” Not that this matters. I need to focus his attention away from me and my degree at Eagle Online. “Twenty years, he must be nearing retirement then, right?” Please, let this be the case. Surely, if the deep dagger of a reality check that is piercing my side and causing spots behind my eyes brighter than a blue light special at K-Mart is trying to alert me to the fact that Brandon is right about my degree, then I have messed up bigger than the time I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the swirl ice-cream machine on my first day at Dairy Queen. It just kept spinning vanilla and chocolate swirls onto the floor and filling every container I held up until it finally ran out and our floor was covered in melted ice-cream mess. Dorothy almost tripped, which would have been her fourth worker’s comp claim in the past year, and I ended up in more hot water than the laundry mat on payday.