LITMIR.BIZ

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date sick and her cousin out of town?” Ms. Stark’s shoulders twisted, then settled.

      Jonas pressed lips together. His surmise concluded she teased, but he couldn’t be certain. He hadn’t known her to date any area guy. Of course, she’d probably thumb nose at the hodgepodge of rustic bachelors. Growing up a farm boy before graduating from urban Evermore Community College, he re-polished farm-boy image to help bolster rural Sheriff-election campaigning.

      “Sorry,” she said. “Shouldn’t be so forward. It’s not Sadie Hawkins.” A coy smile edged from mouth corners. A waggled tongue slowly moistened center of upper lip.

      The multiplying apprehension her question created inside him subsided when, unprompted, Ms. Stark arose to announce she couldn’t allow frozen grocery purchases to thaw in car trunk. He hoped sigh of relief hadn’t been noticeable before he swiveled chair from desk.

      With a hand on office doorknob, she suggested he’d enjoy the St. Patrick’s Day party even if he made but a cameo appearance to shake hands with voters. Her parting words were twofold: She’d toast his health at the fest; and, who knew what regrets he’d have if he stayed home?

      Two

      Noel’s arm trembled, right hand raised and cupped, aligned knuckles poised in midair. Casting fear aside, he rapped the door’s brass doorknocker twice. Hinges creaked; the door, encouraged by the second bolder knock, inched backward from its frame. Invisible through door crack, spice aroma, perhaps oregano, bombarded nostrils. He didn’t know, grandma would. He should leave.

      “C’mon in,” a familiar voice said from within. “Dinner’s ready except for extra garlic bread.”

      Melanie Stark’s house, next to a park, had been easy for Noel to find. As a youngster, he’d chased rabbits, often with a BB gun, through the adjacent woods. This westside Kanosh land since cleared for homes. Noel parked on a wide concrete apron that connected the house to a rear detached, extra-wide two-car garage. He stepped into a white sanctuary of cabinets, sink, and appliances. Wheat-colored curtains framed the eat-in kitchen table and side-by-side triple windows.

      “I’m glad you came. Let me take your jacket.”

      Noel searched brain for conversation. “Saw the fireplace, you grill much?” He’d marveled at the four-foot wide cooking grate of the huge masonry fireplace erected between the house and garage at the driveway’s concrete edge. Two flues emerged from the single chimney.

      “When it’s warmer.”

      Noel shrugged off a denim jacket. Ms. Stark hung it on a white peg inside the door. He breathed a sigh of relief that choosing a light blue dress shirt and khaki pants meant he hadn’t underdressed. He flinched when Ms. Stark, dressed in a clinging, fully buttoned white blouse tucked into black slacks, brushed his left arm with her right elbow.

      “I’m delighted you’re here. Guess I’m repeating myself.”

      He shifted leg weight from right to left. “Thank you ... Ms. Stark.”

      “Please, please call me Melanie. We’re not at work.” She bustled between the sink and stovetop. “Would you like red or white wine?”

      The lace-edged skirt trim of a folded blue and white apron laid exposed across a chair back as the neck ties dangled. Tongue-tied, he rested right hand on the apron. Plates on the kitchen table set for two elbow-to-elbow diners. A dangling, twitching hand rubbed left thigh. He didn’t know why he decided to come. He telephoned Dino, who pressed him to go. Afraid of others’ ridicule, he’d kept the invitation to himself. From the side, he watched her bend forward to remove the slender, elongated garlic bread sticks from the oven inside rack. With oven-mitted hand, she gently placed each on a cookie sheet spanning two burners. The spaghetti sauce smell told him it must be in the right rear burner pot. If the preparation consumed her attention, he could remain silent.

      He tilted head sideways, unable to avoid the heat generated by steaming hot, draining spaghetti strands in a colander on the table. A handkerchief cleared steam-fogged eyeglasses. If he concentrated harder on food sights and smells, twitching fingers wouldn’t broadcast the fear of being in her house. What did she expect? When her hand grabbed a cabernet sauvignon bottle, he realized he hadn’t answered the former wine question.

      “Follow me,” she commanded.

      His foreman barked orders in an identical tone. Obey or suffer the consequences. Noel shortened forward steps lest he bump into swaying female hips before they reached the first floor living room he’d eyed from the kitchen. Soft beige living room carpet cushioned loafer footsteps where a vaulted ceiling dwarfed an upright white piano. To the left beyond the Baldwin without displayed sheet music, he perceived a separate dining room. Before Melanie shut the door, he glimpsed stationary bike, computer equipment piled high on a wood table. His peek, through an open archway, into a family room discovered a flat-screen TV mounted on the far wall. Below it, high-stacked electronic gear aroused a deeply hidden envy bone.

      “Join me on the sofa.” She pointed; he complied. “We’ll enjoy a glass before eating.”

      Melanie’s right hand picked up a Kitchenaid corkscrew by its triangular top and loose unengaged wings clinked. With the tilted wine bottle nestled between seated thighs, the hard metal tool point angled sideways between the rounded glass circumference before straightening and twisting in its initial penetration of the soft cork. Melanie, revolution by revolution, controlled the insertion. Deeper and deeper, the invading screw became one with the cork. The external force of eight fingers clamped the corkscrew’s upraised and spread wings against its shaft. A tug, stronger pull, and final twist generated the pop, or release of adhesion, that signaled success.

      Noel felt a sensuous bead of sweat tickle his neck’s nape.

      Melanie reached for two glasses on an end table, handed one to Noel, and poured. He clicked full wineglass bowl to hers offering a verbal “good health” toast. A tongue on a moistened lip relayed the wrong signal. Ms. Stark’s stretched blouse buttons shifted his gaze toward the middle of the room, not at host. On the coffee table a picture of Ms. Stark with another woman, arms encircled each other’s waists. Straight blonde hair and lithe figure of the unrecognized female contrasted sharply with Stark’s darker curly hair and midsection bulging above a tightened belt.

      Sofa cushion contact widened Ms. Stark’s upper thighs. Feeling heat building behind both facial cheeks, he gazed toward the safety offered by straight-ahead, eyeballs elevated to the far wall landscape painting. He thought it depicted a foreign country, perhaps Germany or France.

      “I’m happy for this opportunity.” Melanie lifted half-filled glass, and twisted torso toward him. “I don’t like to talk shop when entertaining, but I’ve one question I didn’t ask this morning in the warehouse. You’ll pardon me won’t you?”

      From a sideways perspective, he thought he saw dual eyelashes flutter casting a wavy cheek shadow. “Guess so.” Two shallow breaths and he coughed, almost choked, on her perfume. He assumed it had to be expensive, imported, or both. It definitely wasn’t subtle.

      Her right palm brushed his shoulder only to land mid-thigh. “Can you tell me if the union voted to strike when they met yesterday morning?” Extended fingertips slid along his thigh to rest at the knee, the touch hardly strong enough to compress khaki fabric to skin.

      He shouldn’t have come. What had he expected? They, the guys, were right. You couldn’t trust any “suit.” He swirled a sip of wine to think. It wouldn’t be unusual for one of the guys to slip, break a promised confidence and divulge union meeting information. “Yes, they did.” He jerked shoulders backward. “You can’t say I said that.”

      Noel recalled Dino instructed all attendees to keep the vote secret. However, the more he thought, how was he different that other members being overheard in bars or spouses whispering to relatives. He relaxed shoulders; a smooth double wine sip flowed from glass lip to bathe molars.

      “You can trust me, Noel.” She splayed fingers across his knee, advancing six inches toward

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