Love and Old Books…Part 3

I shower and get ready to go and pick up Valerie for breakfast. I’m nervous as I scrub really hard and stuff to get cleaned up and a bit more shampoo because I use head and shoulders I’m exposed to enough stuff working in the shop or outside that dry scalp is a problem sometimes.

I mean is this a date?

Should I be date nervous?

Do you wear cologne to a date that’s breakfast?

Okay that one I’m going with…no.

Okay I’m going with my deodorant being actually enough and I use an underarm stick and a spray. I use a trick one of my friends taught me and that’s a little shot spray of anti-persperant spray on you hands like just a little helps prevent sweaty hands.

Clothes are next and I really don’t have a huge wardrobe. Work clothes, ugly relaxing clothes…sweat’s, old clothes, red-neck knee length cut offs that guy stuff when we’re not planning on working on something where we need to be covered up. Then there winter stuff and some gifts and a few date clothes.

I hope I’m doing this right…

T-shirt but a plain grey one with no logos and my jean jacket it’s really old and all soft and supple and it’s still fresh from the drycleaners so I know it’s clean. Pants, a dark navy blue pair of pants and these are cotton like cargo pants just without the tons of pockets. I’m not a fan of nylon-polyester stuff like dress pants or slacks they’re uncomfortable and I only have them for my business or funeral suits. But I’m not wearing jeans…I have my denim jacket that’s enough really I’m not a Marlboro commercial.

And shoes not sneakers, not fancy dress shoes just a comfortable walking around pair of shoes. My dad had told me that shoes are important that if you don’t own some real shoes then it reflects on you…like mostly you’re not ready to be a grown up yet.

And I’ve read women do look at a guy’s footwear to check out what kind of guy he might be.

I’m not sure how that works but I’ve found that dad seemed to be right. Dress shoes are over the top unless you’re doing something that needs the whole outfit…and sneakers kind of say that you’re not really going to take this seriously.

No idea if that’s right but it’s been a good guideline.

I’m glad that my car is clean. I’ll admit to being one of those do it yourself carwash guys. I like a clean car just like I like my garage to be neat too.

I’m not a neat freak just sometimes I’m a neat freak.

I drive to the bookstore and she’s just locking the doors and I have to admit from here the view is really something. She’s in scrubs too which is a surprise but they offer a really great view of her shape and I bite my lip a little as I get out and go over to open the car door.

Yeah nervous, and she’s really pretty.

She come’s over leather jacket on over her scrubs and purse in hand and she smiles up at me. “Hey, morning.”

“Hey back. What’s with the scrubs?”

“I’m a nurse.”

“Oh, I thought you ran a used bookstore.”

“That too but selling books just doesn’t pay all of the bills so I have to have a second job.”

“Oh so where do you nurse at the hospital or someplace else.”

“I work over at Bishops Square.”

“I don’t know where or what that is.”

“It’s a mix of assisted living and nursing home.”

“Oh cool.”

“Sometimes, sad sometimes but mostly a little yorky and a little annoying.”

“Yorky?”

“Yeah like kinda makes you want to York sometimes.”

“Eww…I thought we were going to breakfast.”

“Sorry you’re going out with a nurse disgusting stuff’s sort of normal for us.”

“Like on TV with the coroner eating and stuff.”

“Sort of but that’s more a myth than anything.”

“Really?”

“Autopsies are like lab work more than anything else so they have to be pretty strict.”

“And now we’re talking about dead bodies…”

She bursts out laughing. “It’s got to be low blood sugar. Quick feed me before I get worse!”

I’m laughing and she get’s into my car and I close the door and go around and get in.

“So where too?”

“Frank’s place. You know that one?”

“Yeah the little diner out by the highway just off of the industrial park.”

“That’s the one.”

I take us there and I’m kind of happy that it’s where we’re going. I weld so I pick up a lot of my stuff down here and I’ve been here a few times since coming home. I’ve been here when I was younger too. Frank’s is one of those old school diners that the truckers like and the guys that work the places in the industrial part all go and eat at.

I like it because it’s not a Tim Horton’s or a Starbucks. I mostly hate anything that’s a chain kind of place. Yeah I still use them sometimes but chain places have killed more really great Mom and Pop places than I like. They’re just as bad as those big box stores.

It’s pretty packed here so I park on the other side and get out to get her door.

“You don’t have to do that Ryan.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“Oh yes you do?”

“I’m not going to be one of those guys.”

“Those guy’s?”

“You know the guys that just pull up and honk the horn. No way am I going to be one of those guys that I never could stand back in high school.”

“It’s not that bad Ryan.”

“Oh yes it is, see he gets away with that short cut he’ll get away with slacking off on other stuff…and usually will.”

“I’m just lucky that I get to go out, it’s not exactly a small town and people know about my past.”

“So…bad criminal record huh?” I smile as I open the door.

She blinks a minute and then she grins. “Yeah I was the queen of weed in high-school.”

“I must have went to school across the river because I smoked a lot of it back in high school.”

She looks at me. “Really you don’t seen the type?”

“I was a kid back then and thought it was cool, but a drug addict brother kind of pulled me out of it.”

“Oh?…..thanks.” I’m taking her jacket as we get a booth.

“Me and my friends would get something nearly everyday but my brother had no brakes he get some and he’d keep going until he owed money to the dealers then he’d cut out for awhile and the dealers came for me.”

“Ow, shit that sucks.”

“Yeah…and at first I took it too, I was kind of scared of what they’d do until they beat me up one time when there was nothing for them to take. After that it was…that’s it?”

“Getting beat up’s usually enough Ryan.”

“I’ve never been the skinny or even built athletic kid Val, what you see has pretty much been me all my life only I was actually a bit rounder then.”

“Okay…yeah kids can suck. Trust me I know all about that.”

I smile at her because yeah in the stuff she’s been through she’s been there too. I nod and we both take coffee’s. I take a sip…really decent coffee here, not fancy just good.

“Fat kids can’t really run so you best learn how to fight.”

“I was never good at fighting. Just never was part of me.” She sips hers and I can just imagine what she must have gone through on her end.

“Well I’m not going to say I was good at being a violent guy but I was used to being beat up and until then I took the abuse they dished out over my brother’s crap and once I figured that out I didn’t take it anymore.”

“You weren’t scared of them making things worse?”

“Not here, not with guys like that.”

“Huh?”

“They’ll beat you up, take your stuff and all that but they won’t kill you they won’t even hurt you enough to put you into the hospital they don’t want the cops involved over a debt that’s really not yours.”

“So…?”

“Like most bullies I stood up to them took my stuff back and found out that there were a couple of other guys he owed that didn’t come looking because it’s not on me to pay for what he did. The guys that ripped me off were pretty much the small fry little assholes and I got left alone.”

“Sounds rough.”

“Oh it was…I’d stopped all of that after I graduated but it stuck. I was violent and into drugs and my brother had his reputation and It just left me with that reputation.”

“I never knew. I mean you hear stuff but to hear it firsthand it’s different.”

I shrug. “Actually it’s not something I really talk about much. I’m really not that guy.”

Valerie smiles at me and it’s a really nice smile too. “You never were Ryan you were just a guy dumped into a situation you just did your best with.”

I blush. “Thanks Val, no one’s ever said that to me before.”

“Well I know a bit about not being the person that everyone thinks you are.”

I smile and she smiles back. It’s that just smiling at each other moment you read about in some romantic stories but you know it’s more than that. Just being out with someone that you can talk too, that gets you is amazing. Add in talking all night and then her smiling at you because…well I don’t know why really but she’s smiling at Me like a girl smiles at a guy she likes.

Yeah…I’ll take that.

Valerie actually makes me want to smile.

We both order the corned beef hash for breakfast which was kind of cool because we both said it at the same time. Now here in the Maritimes it’s tinned corned beef so it’s nothing like ordering thins in say Montreal.

No this is like a cured pressed ground meat that’s not really like anything else. It breaks down when you heat it but it’s not paste like it’s entirely it’s own thing. I guess if you broke canned ham up it’d be close to the texture but not the taste. The rest if cooked potatoes and some onion on the flat top and it’s mixed until the canned corn beef coats everything then they leave it on until it gets this crust on there.

My dad’s second favorite breakfast. Here you get it with a white pepper gravy on English muffins then they add the corned beef and then a poached egg on top with a runny yolk.

Seriously good.

And aside from the white pepper gravy here at Franks you can get this in just about every good diner from St. Johns to Digby.

It’s also very cool to eat with a girl that doesn’t shy away from eating. I’m trying to do the healthy stuff too but I still like to actually eat. And y’know nothing kind of makes you feel more self conscious than someone with you just sort of picking at your food.

The only thing that she does that gets me is the ketchup, the swimming in ketchup…kind of eating with ketchup.

I finish eating and have a second cup of coffee and she finishes and has one too but asks for it to go.

“Can I drop you off to work?”

“That’d be great It’d save the cost of a cab.”

“You don’t drive huh?” I get her jacket and hold it open for her to slip into getting another smile from her.

“Can’t afford it between upkeep, insurance and the price of gas.”

“I can get that, it’s expensive sometimes.”

“With the shop payments it’s too much for me.”

I pay as she gets her coffee ad she looks at me. “We could’ve gone dutch.”

“I’d rather have paid. Makes me feel good.”

“Really?” She asks as we head out and smiles at me again as I hold the door.

“Yeah, I can admit to feeling good when I get to do that. It’s like a guy thing.”

“A guy thing?”

“Yeah like I imagine there’s things that are kinda just girl things.”

“Well sort of gender’s pretty complicated really.”

“I’m pretty simple Val, I get this little high, this you did good feeling as a guy because of doing stuff like that.”

She gets into the car and I close her door and then get in. “Where to?”

She gives me directions and I drive and she drinks her coffee and she finally says. “There are a few things that say that, that do that for me.”

“Like?”

“Getting my hair done. I know typical right? But the way it feels for the whole deal going in and the environment it just feels female to me in a way I never really got.”

“I can see that, I mean to have the world say that you’re one way when you’re so not the person they think you are inside has to suck.”

“Suck’s kinda mild actually.”

“Sorry, I don’t really know the words for it. But I think anything that lets you feel like the person you are inside is great.”

“Yeah…beside having someone wash your hair rocks.”

“Actually yeah having someone was your head is pretty awesome.”

She nods grinning. “Yep it’s more the whole thing for me and stuff but there’s other stuff too that just kind of hits me with those really female defining moments. I mean there was a whole lot more when I was transitioning but there’s still stuff even now.”

“Like?”

“Fresh lipstick, that brand new tube feeling. Nice underwear, there’s something just so female about something slinky that’s new. And wearing a pretty dress. I’ll never not feel pretty and girly while wearing a dress.”

“I’d like to see all of that actually. The dress the make up…”

“Me in my underwear?”

“Actually yes but I’ll willing to wait.”

“Good because if we ever get to that I’ll want something new.”

It’s kind of sweet, it’s teasing each other but not and there’s that flirting element but not at the same time.

Lots of eye contact, well as much as I dare while driving.

I pull into her work and get out and open the car door for her and we’re getting a few looks from some nurses outside who are having a smoke while drinking their coffee.

Valerie looks at me and she closes the car door with a bump of her butt and she smiles. “I had the best night Ryan, really the best night in a long time.”

“It was for me too even if it was mostly online.”

“Don’t care.”

“Me neither.”

“Ryan?”

“Yes?”

“There’s something I know that makes me feel so right inside y’know.”

Okay…I’m not that slow on the uptake and really I’ve wanted to anyways now I can.

“I know.” I step up to her and I tilt her chin up with my thumb and I kiss her.

I kiss her long enough all the ones outside stop what they’re doing to watch us. I kiss her because I really, really want to…she wraps her arms around my neck before we’re done and that makes me feel really, really good.

She breaks the kiss and starts to head inside. “Call me?”

“Definitely!”

I watch her go and I lean on the car and just smiling.

I don’t think I knew how to smile like this.

Damn…

I’ve never wiped at my eyes before like this either.