Working

“How did it go?” Linda asked me when I joined her bright and early Tuesday morning.

“Hmm?” I frowned; I was still half asleep despite being up for almost two hours already. “How did what go?” Before I left work the day before, I had filled Linda in on what had happened over the weekend with Jordan and I had told her about having to work with Josh for Cassie’s school show.

“The house hunting!” She exclaimed with a laugh. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

I sighed. “No.”

After a couple hours of house hunting, Jordan, my nieces and I crawled up into Jordan’s truck without having found something even close to what we were looking for.

“That last one was nice,” Cassie attempted but when I glanced back at her, she shrugged. “I’m just trying to help.”

“No worries,” Jordan sighed, then with a tired smile on his face; he turned to me and said, “Do you know what I feel like right now?”

Shaking my head, I told him I hadn’t a clue. “But,” I gave him a hopeful look. “Going home sounds great if you ask me.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, going home sounds great but –”

We waited but he didn’t finish his statement, so I asked him.

“I feel like having a BBQ.”

“A BBQ?” I raised a brow. “Jordan it’s the middle of winter.” I motioned outside the windshield to the snow covered grounds. “There’s snow everywhere and it’s below 0 – it’s too cold.”

“Nonsense,” he righted himself in his seat and started his truck. “It’s never too cold to BBQ and that’s what I feel like having.” Slipping the truck into drive, he merged into traffic while informing me that we would have to stop at the store to pick up some steaks and wieners. “Oh,” he grinned at me. “Can you make that….” He snapped his fingers as if the words were on the tip of his tongue and that would make them jump out of his mouth. “You know, the stuff with the peppers, onions –”

“Mang,” Cassie piped up. “That’s what we call it Uncle Jordy.”

“Ahhh, yes,” he looked at me. “What do you say?”

I was too tired to really argue with him and just mentioning BBQ was making my tummy growl. “Sounds good Jordy.”

“You didn’t find anything?” Linda sounded just as disappointed as I was the night before. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing at all.” I confirmed. “We must’ve looked at five or six houses but they all were lacking.” I shrugged. “I don’t know, am I being too picky? Wanting a house that ‘speaks’ to me? One that is everything I want – one that I can see Jordan and I raising a family in.”

“Of course not,” she reassured me. “It’s only natural. I’m sure that you’ll find it.”

“I hope so, Jordan already put his house on the market and there’s been a few serious inquires just yesterday alone!”

As we talked in detail about the houses Jordan and I looked at the day before, Linda and I walked the department to see if there was anything that needed our immediate attention. There was nothing – as usual – Sara had worked the night before.

“Sara’s awesome,” Linda exclaimed as we returned to the horseshoe. “I love coming in after she has worked.” I agreed completely with Linda, Sara was wonderful; I never had anything to worry about when she was working.

“Have you talked to her lately?”

“Briefly, this morning, she seemed to be in a bug hurry to leave though.”

“Running off to see Tanner was she?” Linda chuckled. “She’s so cute when she gushes about him, I just wish they would get together already – he seems like a nice boy.”

I just had time to nod before a customer came up to us and that started the continuous stream of customers for the next couple hours. I was so wrapped up in my work that I was really surprised when Cheryl, the department manager of Electronics, showed up at my side. “It’s lunchtime Anna.”

Since I became department manager, Cheryl, Jamie (Pets department manager) and I have always had lunch together since we all had the same scheduled lunchtime. It was nice because it gave me a chance to make a few new ‘friends’ and catch up on the gossip around work and town.

“Just give me a minute; I need to finish ordering this for a customer.”

Cheryl told me she’d see me in the lunchroom before she disappeared again. A minute later, I finished with the order and as I stood up, I called out to Linda. “I’m going for lunch.” She came around the corner as I dropped my gun and printer on the horseshoe counter.

“No problem,” she told me after I gave her a couple things I wished for her to do while I was on lunch. “Enjoy,” she called after me.

I planned on it. I had leftover pork steak, mang and potato in my lunch.
But as we all know, sometimes life has other plans for you.

I was walking along by the car/booster seat displays, making a list in my head of the seats I would need to stock when I got back from lunch when I came up solid against someone.

Lifting my head, I opened my mouth to apologize for not watching where I was going but that’s not what came out of me at all.

“What are you doing here?”