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“Except I’m hard-wired for short-term jobs and you’re Mr. Stable. You have a career and a degree and special expertise. You shouldn’t leap from job to job like I do.”
“You have expertise, too.” Nathan scooted closer and leaned toward her. “Your problem is obvious. The jobs you take aren’t challenging. If you had a job that used your creativity and skills, you’d want to stay.”
“That has nothing to do with it. What happens is that I—”
“You just need to make a commitment to a place. If you decided to stay and work through things—”
“Hold it,” she said, lifting her hand. “What you’re doing is ‘deflection’ and it’s the oldest trick in the therapy book. We’re focusing on you, Nathan. Not me.”
“First, tell me if I’m right.”
“Nathan.”
He gave her that stubborn look. Why hold out if it helped?
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t like work that kept me interested for a longer time. I did enjoy the travel agency, until that problem with the tours to no-toilet land.”
“So, instead of working things out, you decided you were bored.” He moved even closer, holding her with his eyes.
“But I was bored. And it wasn’t that creative.”
“So what about your creative jobs—the jewelry business?”
“It started out fine, but then I had tons of orders and it was one long assembly line. Completely dull. I—damn. You’re doing it again. Scoot back there.” Away from her. “I’m the therapist. You’re the client.”
He moved back with reluctance.
“So, you say you’re finished here,” she continued. “How did you come to that conclusion?” She held his gaze and managed to keep her therapy focus, too.
He seemed to be having an internal struggle. Probably with whether or not to tell her the truth.
“What are you feeling right now?” she asked. “This minute.”
He stared a moment longer and then the word just slipped out. “Empty.” His shoulders sagged, signaling he’d decided to be honest. “When I come home, I’m just…there. My house is comfortable and I have everything I need here, but I still feel…”
“Empty?” But she could see in his eyes that what he meant was lonely.
He saw that she understood and that seemed to scare him, because he folded his arms and began to babble about being able to run Cactus Confections in his sleep and how startup companies were so challenging, and on and on. As he talked, his expression was flat, his eyes dead. This could go on for hours, with Nathan pretending he was worried about his career, when it was really his heart that hurt. She decided to cut to the chase. “What about the rest of your life?”
“The rest of my life?” His gaze shot to her.
“Yeah. Tell me what happened with your girlfriend.” She wasn’t being nosy. This was therapy.
“There’s not much to tell. It was mutual. We got along well, but there was no fire. We were just passing time with each other.” He swallowed hard, then looked past her, lost in emotion.
There was more to it than that. “And does the breakup have something to do with your decision to leave?”
His eyes shot to her, then he looked away, then back. “In a way, I guess. When I start over in California I hope I’ll meet someone. I want love in my life.”
“Tell me more about this someone,” she said, swallowing. The question made her nervous. “What will she be like? How do you see her?”
“You really want to know?”
She nodded.
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, so close she leaned back. “She’ll be someone with fire in her soul, who’ll make me think and make me laugh. Someone I can’t wait to come home to so I can see her face, hear her voice, find out how she’s been while we were apart…You know what I mean?”
Yes, oh, yes. She swallowed and fought to maintain her therapist composure. She forced her words to come out calmly. “It sounds like having someone special in your life is very important to you.”
“Yeah. My life feels empty without her.” His eyes flared with emotion. For a second, she thought he was talking straight to her. My life feels empty without you. But that couldn’t be. How vain of her to think he was talking about her. That had been so long ago. They’d been kids. Or at least she had been.
She felt herself redden. She had to say something therapeutic, but she couldn’t come up with anything.
“Don’t you feel that way?” he asked her, still leaning close.
“Of course.”
“But you probably have your pick of men.” His eyes dug into her.
She sighed. “Not really. I’ve been on my own lately. Dating gets routine.”
“I know what you mean.”
“It’s like riding around the rotating restaurant at the top of the Hyatt hotel—how many times can you look out at the same landmarks?”
“Exactly,” he said.
She’d said the same thing to Nikki, but Nikki shrugged it off. She enjoyed the challenge of keeping things light with men more than Mariah did. “You start saying the same things,” she continued, “hearing the same lines, and pretty soon you just want to—”
“Find someone special,” he finished.
“I was going to say, ‘rent a good movie and eat some red licorice.”’
“Oh, sorry. So, you’ve given up on finding that person?”
“No, I’m just not looking now, I’m…” What was she doing? Holding her breath? Waiting for Mr. Perfect? Who probably didn’t exist anyway? She hadn’t felt sure of her feelings about a man since Nathan. And then she’d been a kid—clueless about love.
“You’re…?” Nathan prompted.
“I’m…” Nathan was the last person she should be talking about her love life with. “I’m late for work, that’s what I am,” she said, making a big show of looking at her watch. “I’ve got to go. I’m not even dressed.”
“When did you start worrying about being late for work?”
“I guess you’ve been a good influence on me. I think we’ve done enough for today anyway, don’t you?”
“Yes, actually. I think I’ve said enough.” He looked relieved to be off the hook.
She didn’t need more therapy time anyway. Nathan was lonely. And he was sublimating that loneliness, claiming it was career dissatisfaction. The obvious cure was a new woman. But Mariah wasn’t about to round up eligible singles. She did not want to be his dating service. Sleep with him yourself. She knew that’s what Nikki would advise her. That’ll clear the cobwebs from his psyche.
No way.
But you’re lonely, too.
Ouch. She hated when she was honest with herself. Turned out Nathan wasn’t the only person getting therapy here. Talking about his experience made her realize that the empty feeling she’d been carrying around for months—and trying to ignore—was loneliness. She wanted a special someone, too.
So, sleep with him.
Uh-uh. At best, that would be a short-term solution and, at worst, a heartbreaking disaster. Whatever Nathan felt for her was mostly the backwash of nostalgia. Even if it was more, she never stayed in relationships, and Nathan was the kind of guy who stayed and stayed. And stayed.
No. She had to find another way to cure Nathan’s loneliness besides sleeping with him. The sooner she did, the sooner she could leave everything about Copper Corners that bugged her—her parents, the candy factory and, most of all, Nathan.
Still pondering, she went home, took a shower and got dressed for work, choosing the most inappropriate thing she’d brought—a lime-green miniskirt and tank top.
“Good lord, Mariah. You’re not going to work in that,” her mother said, watching her dash from her bedroom to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
“It’ll be fine, Mother.”
Her mother tsked at her from the doorway. “Pardon me for saying this, dear, but the Salvation Army is for people who can’t afford clothes. Why don’t you spend some of the money I gave you on something new? Let’s go to Tucson and shop.”
“My clothes are fine,” she said, scrubbing her teeth.
Watching Mariah critically in the mirror, her mother lifted her hair off her neck. “Sergei could really work with this.”
“My hair’s fine.”
“You have split ends everywhere!”
“Didn’t you know? Split ends are all the rage.” She rinsed her mouth. When she raised up, her mother examined the size label on her blouse. “Mom…” she warned, but her mother patted the label in place, smiled and left.
“My clothes are fine!” she shouted down the hall. She had a terrible feeling it was too late. Meredith, the steamroller, had begun to chug into gear.
MARIAH PUSHED through Cactus Confections’ glass doors with a purpose. It was time for the next phase of her plan—getting banned from the premises. Lenore whistled at the sight of her. “What a hot tamale,” she said. “Louise, get out here and see this.” She turned back to Mariah. “Won’t Nathan be pleased?”
Oops. Maybe she should have gone with the baggy black jeans again, she thought as she headed for Nathan’s office. She’d meant to look inappropriate, not sexy.
“Late again,” Nathan said, not looking up.
“Sorry,” she chimed happily.
He looked up, then boggled. “You’re going to make men fall into the machinery dressed like that.”
“Should I go home and change?” she asked innocently.
“Forget it. You’re already two hours and twelve minutes late. Take a look at this printout.” He turned a bound thickness of computer paper to face the guest chair across from his desk.
She made a cross with her fingers and held it out, as if warding off the undead. “Anything but numbers.”
“Look, Mariah. If we’re going to do this, you’ve got to work with me here. Pay attention and make an effort.”
“Okay,” she said, “but don’t think I’d even consider staying.”
“Right,” he said.
“Just so we’re clear.” Then she smiled. “All right. Tell me everything I need to know.” So I can mess things up.
Nathan showed her the computer printout and explained the operations of Cactus Confections—the production calendar, hiring policies, the business plan, profit projections, equipment maintenance schedules, payroll, bookkeeping, on and on.
She did her best to act disinterested and confused, but she was annoyed to find it interesting. It wasn’t because of the way Nathan explained it, either, because every time he looked at her—or her cleavage—he lost his thought and she had to remind him what he was saying.
She was mostly pleased that it all made sense. She did have some expertise—Nathan was right about that. She’d seen the inside workings of a small ice cream store, and built her jewelry business and the kiddie party company, so she understood profit and loss and building a customer base.
She hid all that from Nathan, though, with stupid questions. She was soon delighted to see him grit his teeth whenever she interrupted him with an inane query.
“No, we don’t have our own trucks, Mariah. That’s why we use a distributor, remember?” He tapped the product list. “We count on our distributors to get product out fast and fresh. ‘Homegrown, handmade and fresh to you from Arizona’s desert,’ is our slogan. Stale product means lost accounts. And every account we have is critical.”
“Critical?”
“Yes. This is a specialty market.”
“What’s your advertising budget like?” Whoops. A sensible question.
“Good question,” he said, surprised. His gaze zipped to her face—after a little side trip to her cleavage. “You’ve hit on a problem. Let me introduce you to our marketing man, Bernie Longfellow, and that’ll explain everything.”
“I remember Bernie. He used to pretend to steal my nose.”
“You’ll probably recognize the suit he’s wearing from back then, too.” Nathan led her to a tiny office next to the entrance to the factory floor. He tapped on the door, then opened it.
Bernie was in the act of peeling an invoice off his cheek. He’d apparently been napping at his desk when Nathan knocked. He looked the same, except his hair was now white, instead of streaked with gray. “Hey, there,” he said, blinking rapidly.
“Bernie, Bernie,” Nathan said affectionately. “You’ve gotta quit partying ’til dawn. Say hello to Mariah.”
“Well, look at you, all grown up.” He stood to shake her hand, smiling fondly.
She blushed, feeling twelve all over again.
“I heard you were coming to work for us.”
She resisted the urge to explain his error and just smiled.
“Why don’t you tell Mariah a little about our marketing plan, Bernie?”
“Marketing plan? Now, let me see…Where did I put that?” He pretended to pat the surface of his desk. Mariah noticed he didn’t even have a computer on his desk. “Ah, here it is.” He picked up an index-card box and delivered it to her like a present. “Our customers,” he said, grinning broadly. “And the plan?” He tapped his skull. “All up here.”
“Bernie’s an old-style marketer,” Nathan explained.
“Marketer, my ass. Pardon the language. I’m a salesman. I don’t need no phony-baloney title. I’m in sales. Life is sales. And sales is personality. And relationships. I’ve got good steady customers who know me and trust me. That’s how it works.”
“I see,” Mariah said. She flipped through the dog-eared cards and saw that in addition to order dates and amounts, the cards contained wives’ birthdays and reminders to ask about how kids’ weddings had gone. “Impressive,” she said, handing him back the box. “Have you had any luck with the new coffee-houses and gourmet grocery stores? Seems to me I’ve seen some obscure products there—Australian rock candy and Native-American flat breads. I bet our candies would fit right in.”
