Musings Over Macchiatos
When Starbucks became the happening place I couldn't believe people would pay five dollars for a coffee. Now I've got a gold card and the barista (Sarah) already knows my name and order. So I'm waiting for my drink, pecking on my phone, when someone touches my shoulder and says, Natalie?
I turn around and there he is. Todd. Not the same Todd I once knew, of course. This one had a little more weight and a little less hair, but he was admittedly better looking than I'd hoped he'd be at this point. His eyes widen incredulously as he realizes that I am, in fact, Natalie. Oh my god! he gushed, How are you?
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Let me back up a little bit. When I was eighteen years old I worked at Outback Steakhouse in Covina, CA. My manager Steve went on vacation and while he was gone a manager-in-training from another city came to oversee our store. That manager-in-training was Todd. He was thirty-one, muscular, blond haired, blue eyed, and instantly the object of my affections. One day we we're casually talking and he asked about my pool skills.
I don't play, I told him.
What? You'd love it I'll teach you tonight at Rude Dogs?
I blushed. I can't get in. I wanted to cry from embarrassment. Why couldn't my parents have had me three years earlier?!
The owner's my cousin. Here, he handed me his phone, put your number in.
And so it began. He took me to the lake and we rode on his jet-skis. We went horseback riding on the beach. We had dinners at his sister's house. When my parents came in to eat in my section he picked up their tab. I didn't tell any of my coworkers because I didn't know exactly how he felt about me or our age difference. Todd became the manager at a store that was two hours away but that didn't slow things down for us. One night about ten of the Covina Outbackers went to a midnight movie and invited him to join since they hadn't seen him in weeks and missed him. We we're all outside waiting for him and when he showed up he shocked everyone (including me) by walking up and kissing me hello. Our friend Samantha spit her soda out on the sidewalk. And just like that, everyone knew.
Once September rolled around things began to slightly cool. I started school, his store got busy; life started to get in the way a little bit as life tends to do. But for all intents and purposes things we're still good. Though we weren't seeing each other often we would text throughout the day and it wasn't uncommon for flowers to be waiting for me at my job when I got there. So one day (a Wednesday- I have no idea why I remember that) I was walking up to my job when my coworker Larry came running out and met me in the parking lot. He hugged me and said, Baby I'm so sorry.
What?
What?
Why are you sorry? I asked, I clenched my teeth together in the weird way I can't help but do when I start to get nervous.
Oh god. Uhm just go read the board inside.
I hurried past him, utterly confused. When I walked into work all eyes we're on me as I darted to the announcement board by the back office. Tacked onto it was an email from the corporate office that read:
Congratulations to Redding Manager Todd Coleman*
on his wedding! We wish you a lifetime of happiness!
My coworkers had swarmed around me. They all kept saying they we're sorry and rubbing my shoulders. It didn't make sense. We we're texting yesterday! I turned to Larry and blinked back tears as I whispered, To who?
Steve let me go home early that day without me having to ask. There was no dramatic scene and I never tried to get ahold of Todd. I had lots of questions, of course, but what's the point of trying to talk to a married man? He sent me a long text that night. He had met her a month ago. She was thirty and related to him in a way that I couldn't. They just hit it off and they just thought it felt right. I wanted to vomit. I never replied. I cried myself to sleep for weeks, thinking about them on their honeymoon, thinking about him calling her Babe or holding her hand or hugging her parents. I swore to myself that I wouldn't pick up the phone for him. He never ended up calling.
And now ten years later he's touching my shoulder and asking me how I am. And even though I was no longer in love with him and my wounds had healed I was suddenly overcome with a competitive desire to win. At life. I wanted him to feel like I was doing better than he was, and that he'd made the wrong choice and in that sense I was suddenly eighteen again. Well, I'm no longer in a place where I want to strangle you? Too mean. Despite it all that was one of the best summers of my life? Too nice. Luckily not two seconds had passed before Chad the barista/savior called out my name.
I'm good! I said as if I we're talking to a friend. I grabbed my drink and was already walking away as I said, It was good seeing you! I never looked back.
*Last name changed to protect the (semi-)innocent.
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