Trevor Jackson, Luna Burkens and Thomas Gregor
"Can I help you with anything, sir?" The woman's clear voice rings out across the bookstore, and I instinctively jerk my head up, even though I haven't been able to see who's speaking to me for almost ten years now.
"Um, no, I'm fine," I tell the woman quietly in response, looking in what I hope is her direction. "I'm just listening to my book." I pull out the iPod in my pocket and show it to her, and add, with a big smile, before I turn away, "Thank you very much though."
I sigh quietly to myself when I hear her footsteps walking away from me, and, like I do every time I hear the woman's voice, I find myself wondering what she looks like. I've been blind since I was eighteen - my eyesight just completely failed over the course of a month, although my eyes never showed any signs of clouding - so I haven't been able to see anything for nearly ten years. However, to be honest, there hasn't been anything I've really missed seeing or want to see, except for the woman whose voice captivates me every time I hear it.
I think that she must be beautiful, to have a voice like that, and, in the few conversations I've had with her, she seems very intelligent and warm also. Even though I know that I will never have a chance with her, that she is undoubtedly with someone and wouldn't be interested in me even if she was single, I can't help but hope irrationally that eventually she will notice me and realize how much I truly care for her. The only flaw in my plan is that I don't even know her name, and she doesn't even know mine; I guess I have a lot of work to do if I'm going to make her fall in love with me.
The doorbell tinkles, and I don't even have to look up to know that it's my fiancé, Thomas; the scent of the incredibly expensive - but rather bad-smelling - cologne he always wears permeates the air around him so much that you can smell him before you can see him.
"Thomas, what do you want?" my sister Kacey asks him flatly. She hates Thomas, and I suppose she has reasons to; after all, he did blackmail Kacey's and my parents into making me marry him. I guess I have reasons to hate him too, but I have decided to try to have a positive outlook on the situation and make the best of what I've been given.
"Why are you so touchy Kacey?" he asks her dismissively, his eyes brushing over her with a contempt that suggests he considers himself better than her. "I'm just here to see my wonderful bride-to-be." He gives me a beaming smile that makes me feel like a prize rather than a person, then pulls me into a big kiss. I stand motionless, praying for it to end quickly, and have to stifle a sigh of relief when he finally pulls back.
"It's not like I'm here to see the books," he adds, contempt in his voice as he looks around the store with his nose in the air, and I ball my hands into fists and force myself to take a few deep breaths. It definitely wouldn't be good if I broke Thomas's nose.
"That reminds me, Luna: when we get married, I want you to get rid of all of this. I mean, it's not like you're going to need to work, so why would you keep this store? Might as well sell it and get rid of all these books." I hear Kacey's gasp of horror and rage, and, even though I'm very angry myself, I place a hand on Kacey's shoulder to stop her - and maybe myself as well - from hurting Thomas.
These books and this store have been Kacey's and my whole lives for nearly five years now, and neither one of us have any intentions of giving them up. Well, until Thomas announced he wanted us to give them up. Whatever Thomas wants, he gets; after all, it's his money paying for my parents' medical bills after they got into the huge car accident about a month ago. In fact, he demanded my hand in marriage as the first prize for taking care of my parents' expenses, and it's not like I could turn him down and leave my parents with over a hundred thousand dollars to be paid, a hundred thousand dollars that they don't have.
"Thomas, we're not giving up this store," Kacey snarls, and, as I feel her prepare to launch at Thomas, I quickly walk around behind her and grab her arms to stop her from hurting him.
However, Thomas, seeming unperturbed by Kacey's determination to kill him, just laughs and replies, "Oh, I think you will. If you want your parents' bills to be paid at least."
Instantly Kacey stops fighting and sighs, realizing that it's hopeless getting angry about something that's inevitable. "Alright, Thomas, we'll shut the bookstore down," she murmurs, dropping her gaze and walking away with her head hung low.
"Well I didn't think that you wouldn't," he says, his tone surprised. "I mean, you two are better daughters than that."
I feel a flood of rage wash over me and I ball my hands into fists again, telling myself that breaking Thomas's face would definitely make him stop paying for my parents' bills.
Suddenly I find myself desperate to get away from Thomas and his arrogance, and, spotting the man in the corner standing there and listening to his audiobook, I immediately run over to him, even though I talked to him a minute earlier.
He hears me coming and looks up, his green eyes fixed on my neck with a slightly unfocused look that they seem to always have. That and his continuous purchases of audiobooks have intrigued me for quite a while, so, since I’m frantic to make conversation and keep Thomas at bay, I say to him, “Excuse me, sir, I know it’s not my business, but I was just wondering why you always buy audiobooks. I mean, your eyes seem to work perfectly fine to me.”
Much to my surprise, a small, bitter smile crosses the man’s face and he replies, “I actually have been legally blind since I was eighteen. I had a rare condition, in which my eyesight completely failed in a month without any obvious damage to my eyes.”
“Oh,” I mutter, and the man smiles a true grin at that. His green eyes twinkle as he looks down at me, and I can’t help but notice how attractive he actually is. He’s tall, probably six-three, with a nice tan and spiky black hair just short enough that it doesn’t fall into his eyes. However, I immediately realize how stupid it is of me to be even slightly attracted to him, as Thomas is a very jealous man, and I quickly tell him, “Well, I’m sorry about asking.”
“Oh, no problem,” he replies, an amicable smile stretching from ear to ear. “I can’t blame you for asking, since you can’t tell I’m blind from my eyes.”
Our conversation then lapses into silence, and I search my brain desperately for something to talk about that will give me an excuse to stay away from Thomas.
However, the man does that for me, because, after a moment has passed, he says to me, his voice suddenly slightly intense, “You know, I’ve been coming to this store for almost three years, and, even though I’ve always wondered about it, I never did find out your name until today. Luna,” he murmurs, and I can hear the tone in voice that tells me he’s considering it. “I like it,” he says after a second, and nods his head and smiles down at me. “By the way, my name’s Trevor, Trevor Jackson.”
He holds his hand out to me and I accept it shyly as I respond quietly, taken aback by his compliment, “Well thank you, and it’s very nice to meet you Trevor.”
“Luna. I like it,” a mocking voice says behind me, and I whirl around to find a furious Thomas glaring at Trevor and me. “If you want to flirt with this pathetic blind guy, have fun, I just don’t want to be around to see it,” he tells me.
He then whips around and is about to storm out the store when I stop him with a dismayed cry of, “Wait!”
Instantly I freeze, not sure what I should say to Thomas. A new wave of anger at Thomas’s words washes over me at that exact moment, and, instead of apologizing and begging forgiveness like I was going to, I say to him coldly, “Take your ring with you too then,” and rip the engagement ring off my finger to throw it at him.
Thomas stands there for a few moments, completely stunned, until he recovers enough to say, his mouth hard with anger, “You and your parents will regret this.”
He turns and leaves without another word, and, before I can start asking myself how I could be so stupid as to do something like that, someone – undoubtedly Kacey – starts clapping loudly behind me. I am about to whip around and chew her out for congratulating me on losing the money to keep our parents alive when I hear someone next to me clapping quietly too.
Looking over in surprise, I find Trevor standing there and looking down at me with a small smile on his face. He apparently reads my shock and anger, because he stops clapping and says, “He was a jerk, and I think you deserve better than that.” I see the unsettling, intense look in his eyes and immediately look away, made uncomfortable by the emotion he’s directing onto me with his gaze.
“Well, if money is all you need,” Trevor begins, and I turn back around, perplexed by the tone of his voice, “I would be happy to pay your parents’ medical bills; I need to get rid of all this money I’m never going to use anyways.” A smile breaks out across his face as he beams down at me, and I’m completely and utterly stunned by his offer and the generosity it implies.
However, I don’t have time to reply, because he adds, “There is one condition though,” and my heart immediately drops. I haven’t had very good experiences with rich men giving out their money with conditions. When I don’t say anything, he keeps on talking.
“You go out to dinner with me tonight, just somewhere casual,” he finishes, his tone suddenly hopeful and apprehensive. “If you do that, you can have as much money as you want.”
I stare up at him in amazement, even more stunned by his condition than by his offer. All he wants is a date with me? I mean, I would go out on a date with him even if it wasn’t the condition to his offer.
It takes me less than a moment to recover, and I quickly reply, a smile breaking out across my face, “I’d love to.”
“Great,” he says exuberantly, his grin getting so big that I think it must hurt his cheeks, then tells me, “I’ll pick you up here at six then.”
“Alright,” I agree, happiness brimming up and overflowing inside me.
Trevor says, “Well, it was great actually meeting you, Luna, and I guess I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Yeah, it was great meeting you too, and I guess I’ll also see you in a few hours,” I answer, completely and utterly joyous at the turn of events. I dumped Thomas, found another person to pay for my parents’ bills and got a hot date all in five minutes. This really must be my lucky day.
“Well, goodbye for now,” Trevor tells me, then gives me one last smile and turns towards the door to leave.
“Goodbye,” I call after him, and he stops just outside the door to wave at me before he turns and walks away, whistling quietly, with a beaming smile on his face, as he does so.
Turning away from the doorframe where Trevor just stood, I look up at the clock on the wall and murmur to myself, “Six o’clock can’t come fast enough.”
After all, with all the great things that have happened to me in five minutes around Trevor, I can’t help but wonder and be hopeful for all the great things he’ll cause in an hour.
Lance Jackson, Tammy Borlior and Lea
"Lea, you need to go to sleep," I murmur, gently stroking her hair. "It's a big day tomorrow: the first day of second grade!" I can't help but smile when Lea groans and rolls over to bury her face in her pillow.
"But I don't want to go to sleep, and I don't want to go to school!" she says as she rolls back over and affixes me with her pleading gaze. Even though her chocolate-brown eyes are soft enough to melt almost any other person's heart, I've learned how to resist her puppy-dog eyes over the years and am not affected at all by them.
"Lea, you have to go sleep and you have to go to school," I reply, making my tone slightly stern so that she knows I mean business.
"But Mom-" she starts to protest, her voice high and whiny.
"No buts," I interject firmly. "Now go to sleep."
After giving me one last look, she rolls onto her stomach again and is fast asleep before I've even reached her door.
"Good night, Lea," I whisper, blowing her one last kiss before closing the door to her room and leaving her to sleep.
Walking out to the kitchen and sighing at how tired I feel, I make myself a cup of hot tea, grab my laptop from off the living room floor, and collapse into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Now to see if there's any cute twenty-nine-year-old man who loves kids and wouldn't mind being harassed by one," I murmur, almost shaking my head at the hopelessness of my proposition as I turn my computer on and fire up Internet Explorer. Most of the good twenty-nine-year-old men are already in relationships or married, and all of the good ones left aren't looking for anything long-term and aren't tolerant of kids. It makes me wonder if I should just take my profile off of all the online dating sites I'm on.
However, I know I won't get anywhere unless I keep on trying, so, with a sigh, I log into my favorite of the sites I'm registered on and begin to review all of the people the site has deemed as matches for me. Three of the first four I click on say they're looking for something short-term at the moment, and the one that doesn't say that is not at all attractive. I go through about twenty profiles and am about to give up for the night when something catches my eye.
"Lance Jackson, twenty-nine," I read aloud, whistling slightly when I see the profile picture. He's tall and tan, with very nice muscle tone, a great smile and short, slightly messy blonde hair. However, what I find the most attractive are his ice-blue eyes, which, even in the picture, seem to dance with kindness and intelligence.
"Wow," I exclaim quietly, my eyes glued to his picture. It's a few seconds before I can finally sum up the willpower to tear my gaze away and read the rest of his profile.
"Hey, my name's Lance. I'm twenty-nine, as you read earlier, and I have a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard. I teach at CU as a part-time college professor, but my main occupation is developing new medicines for the pharmaceutical company Merck. I live in Boulder, twenty minutes from the CU campus, and I have one incredibly stupid dog named Ranger and a goldfish named Nemo who happens to be smarter than the dog. I am an avid reader and a prospective fisherman, although I'm much better at hooking bushes than fish, and I love to be outdoors and just talk with people. I'm looking for a long-term relationship, hopefully someone I can be with for the rest of my life. I want to start a family - I love kids and pets, by the way - so, if I haven't scared you off yet, please send me a message so I can give you more reasons to be scared off. Thanks!"
"Wow," I say again, re-reading his personal description multiple times before finally deciding that I must not be hallucinating. "He's... perfect." Lance Jackson is the exactly the guy I've been looking for. He's my age, attractive, intelligent, outdoorsy and loves kids - he even shares my sense of humor!
Immediately I snap out of my thoughts and, with shaking fingers, begin to type up a message to Lance.
"Hi Lance,
My name is Tammy Borlior, and I'm a twenty-nine-year-old single mother living in downtown Boulder. I read your profile and saw that we share many common interests and goals in terms of a relationship, so I was wondering if you would perhaps like to meet face-to-face sometime.
Sincerely,
Tammy Borlior"
I check over the message quickly for any grammatical or spelling errors before sending it, then take a deep breath and sit back and wait, as it says he's logged in right now. Even though I know that it will probably be a while before I hear back from him, despite the fact that he's online right now, I can't help but tap my fingers on the table anxiously and refresh the page every few seconds. Much to my surprise, a minute hasn't gone by before it says that I have a new message from Lance Jackson. Clicking on the notification hopefully and apprehensively, I almost burst out singing and dancing when I read the reply.
"Tammy,
I would love to meet you face-to-face sometime, as you sound like a very lovely woman. Actually, I had been partially stalking your profile for about a week but was never able to work up the courage to send you a message until you messaged me. I am volunteering at a school tomorrow, but I would love to take you out for coffee on Tuesday or any other day this week.
Thank you very much for messaging me and I hope I haven't scared you away yet,
Lance"
I sit in stunned silence, reading and re-reading the message over and over to make sure that I'm not dreaming or fantasizing. After about the fifth time through, I force myself to snap out of the trance I'm in and, with shaking fingers, type a reply back.
"Lance,
I would love to go out for coffee with you; thank you very much for offering. Whenever you would like to go out is fine, as I am unemployed at the moment and don't have anything on my schedule besides getting my daughter to and from school every day. Please just message me on here or contact me at 720-587-8945 so that we can set a definite time for coffee.
Thanks, and no, you haven't scared me away yet at all,
Tammy"
Taking a deep breath, I click send on the message and then log out of the website and close my computer down, thinking that I might jinx my date with Lance if I spend any more time on that website. Blindly I rise to my feet, still stunned by today's earlier events, and stumble into bed with my thoughts full of Lance Jackson, leaving my cup of tea forgotten on the kitchen table.
Glancing at the clock and almost panicking, I down my mug of coffee so quickly that I burn my throat, hastily brush my teeth, and race towards my garage and the Mercedes waiting in it. I'm running fifteen minutes late for volunteering at the elementary school down the street, and the school starts - which means I have to be there - in five minutes. Fortunately there aren't that many cops in this part of town, and my Mercedes is a very fast car, so, if I don't encounter that much traffic and speed some, I should make it in time.
I jump into my car, press the button on the garage door opener, and start the ignition. Once the garage door is up enough for me to exit without scraping the paint off of the top of my car, I quickly back out into the street, and press the button on the garage door opener again to make the garage door close.
Shifting gears and partially slamming the gas pedal, I take off down the street and cast a nervous glance at my watch. Seven fifty-six, the hands read; that means I have four minutes to get there.
I soon encounter a small backup but make my way out with little time lost by weaving in and out of cars, and pull smoothly into the parking lot of the elementary school to park in a spot relatively close to the school entrance and look down at my watch again to see that it's seven fifty-eight.
"Made it with two minutes to spare," I murmur triumphantly, then take the keys out of the ignition, exit the car and lock it using the button on the keys.
Turning towards the school, I take a few steps forward, looking around at all of the parents and children flocking towards the doors with me, when I see a familiar face and freeze.
"Tammy Borlior?" I murmur in shock, my gaze glued to the beautiful, red-haired woman with a little girl hanging on her arm. After a second of studying her carefully, I'm sure that it's her, and am immediately filled with a resolve to go talk to her.
Coming up behind her, I take a step that places me right next to her and look over to ask her, smiling slightly, "Are you Tammy Borlior?"
The befuddlement in her shocking green eyes is soon replaced by realization and shock, and she questions in reply, "Lance Jackson?"
"That's me," I respond, nodding my head slightly in confirmation. "It's so nice to meet you." I hold my hand out to her, and she immediately accepts and shakes it.
"It's great to meet you too," she echoes, a smile of her own spreading across her face and enhancing her beauty. Turning to the little girl hanging onto her, Tammy says her, "Lea, why don't you go find some friends to play with?"
"Ok Mommy," the little girl agrees happily, then lets go of Tammy and runs off into the crowd of children gathering in the front lawn.
Tammy turns back to me and says, her grin getting even bigger, "When you said you were volunteering at a school, I had no idea you meant this one."
"Well, I live right up the street." I make an absentminded gesture in what I hope is the direction of my house, because I can't bring myself to look away from Tammy's beautiful eyes to see what I'm actually doing.
"Really? Lea and I live three blocks that way too." I feel myself drowning in her eyes, and absentmindedly think that this is certainly the best way to drown.
"That means you probably live right across the street from, in which case I'll have to come over and visit sometime." The sharp, piercing sound of the bell that signifies the start of school shatters the reverie that I was in, and I immediately remember that I should be in there with the children too.
Tammy seems to realize this as well, because she says with a smile, "That would be nice. Well, I won't keep you from your volunteer work much longer, and just contact me so we can figure out the details of going for coffee together. Goodbye!" She gives me a friendly wave and turns away from me to leave.
"Wait!" I call after her, desperate to not lose her so quickly. When she turns back around, I suggest, "Why don't you come volunteer with me, if you have nothing else to do? It's rather enjoyable, and the kids aren't that bratty."
Her smile returns at the last comment, and she steps forward to stand beside me again and respond, "That sounds nice."
I then return her smile with a comment of, "Alright, cool," and step forward to reach the door first and hold it open for her, finding myself completely blinded by her beauty again.
"Thank you very much for inviting me to volunteer with you; that was fun," Tammy tells me with a smile as we walk out of the school together.
"You're quite welcome, although I didn't invite you for the children's sakes," I reply, and I know I've said the right thing when her smile gets even bigger at my brazen attempt at flattering her. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't think I can wait till tomorrow to see her again, and, as I hold the door open for her, I ask her, "Tammy, would you and Lea do me the honor coming over to my house for dinner tonight?" When I see that she's skeptical, I quickly add, "I have huge kitchen that hardly ever gets used - in fact, I don't think I even know what all of the buttons on the stove do - so this would give me an excuse to learn." I accompany my words with my most winning smile, and am relieved and elated when her expression changes to one of happiness, because that means she's going to say yes. My mind then begins to go into overdrive thinking about what I should make for dinner, as, while I might not completely know to work the stove, I am a very good cook and take pride in the dishes I make.
"Alright, that sounds great. We'll come over at six, if that's ok." She gives me another grin, and I idly think, as I feel my heart pound in my chest, that she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
"I'll pick you up at six, if that's ok," I counter. Picking her and Lea up is the gentlemanly thing to do, after all, and I want to show off my Mercedes, as it is a very nice car.
"Six it is then," Tammy agrees. She then hears Lea calling for her and turns back to me apologetically "Motherhood calls," she says with a regretful smile,and gives me a friendly wave accompanied with an amicable, "Goodbye!" before turning back to Lea.
As I watch Tammy walk with Lea to their Suburban, I tell myself quietly, "Don't let this one get away, Lance. She really is a needle in a haystack world," then watch Tammy for a moment longer before turning away and walking towards my own car.
“Mark” {Real name: Grunge}
“Joseph” {Real name: Wiley}
“Chase” {Real name: Pumpkin}
“Max” {Real name: Robo}
“The Old Lady” {Real name: Aura}
“Mrs. Hitler” {Real name: Kiera}
