Better Late Than Never
Faith was running late again. She grabbed her portfolio, purse, and rushed down the hall, barely catching the elevator door before it closed. The mirrored wall within was her last chance to check her rushed makeup. Mind whirling with thoughts about the busy day ahead, Faith straightened herself hurriedly as she ascended from the 22nd floor of her high-rise condo. She anxiously shoved her portfolio deep in her vintage bag before checking her cell phone for the time again.
The doors popped open with a ding, and Faith hurried through the lobby. Slightly acknowledging the doorman’s ‘Good Morning Ms. Davis’ with a quick wave, she dashed out the front doors to the waiting rideshare.
“Hey,” she said, a little breathless, climbing in the back seat where she’d have more room to work.
“Morning.” The middle-aged rideshare driver looked over his shoulder, and an appreciative, interested smile touched his lips. He watched her unabashedly through the rearview as she adjusted her skirt, pulling it further down over her caramel legs.
Faith tamped down the urge to roll her eyes. She pushed her cat-eyed glasses up on the bridge of her nose and shifted her attention to digging through her purse. She heard him sigh in disappointment. Although she wasn’t the flashy type, she was the girl next door. Pretty with a slim build and wholesome look. For whatever reason, men took an interest in her more often than not, but, she wasn’t looking for that sort of attention. At least, not today.
“Nice weather we’re having,” he said as he pressed the button on his mounted cell phone to start her drive and pulled out into traffic.
“Mm-hmm.” Nope, she wasn’t going to make small talk. Faith pulled her portfolio out and dug around for a pen. She nearly gave up when her fingers wrapped around one at the bottom.
Triumphant, Faith pulled out the pen and turned past the pages full of printed notes and scribbled a beginning for her article on a fresh sheet of paper, but it was more like scratching indents on the pages. “Darn.” No ink. Shoving the pen back in her purse, she pulled out her phone, the time showing big and bold on her screen. She suppressed the moan rising in her throat and opened the note app only to have it dawn on her that her stylus went missing last week, and she hadn’t replaced it yet. “Double darn,” she mumbled, shuffling through her papers.
The driver continued down the bustling street, stopping in heavy traffic to gaze over at the sign written in chalk sitting on the adjacent sidewalk.
“I don’t get it, what do heroes have to do with sandwiches?” the driver said, shaking his head.
Faith looked up in time to see a sandwich shop’s sign that read: Create Your Own Hero. “It’s a play on words . . . you know what, never mind.”
She could feel the rideshare driver gazing at her again in the rearview mirror, but ignored him, instead, diving back into her purse in search of a working pen, an idea formulating in her mind.
“I don’t understand why all these new spots have to try and be all fancy, just put the menu on the sign.
If I’m hungry, I won’t be taking time to decipher a riddle. I’m just going straight for the chicken sandwich; you know what I’m sayin’?”
He continued down the road making small talk. Faith just wanted her backup pen. Finally, she found it! She started scribbling in a flash on the blank page in her portfolio.
“Ma’am? Hello, ma’am, this is your stop.”
Faith jerked upright, glancing from the driver to the modern high-rise office building. “Oh, thanks.”
She scrambled to put her phone in her bag as the car came to a halt spilling her purse’s contents on the floor.
“Great!”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. You should let me make it up to you and take you to that fancy sandwich shop sometime.”
“No, thank you. Have a nice day,” she said in reply, struggling to get all her belongings and jump out of the car while keeping her skirt down from his prying eyes.
You have got to be kidding, she thought. Ain’t nobody got time for that! Not today.
Once she was out of the car, the driver rolled his eyes and drove off. The moment he did, she realized that she had left her portfolio on the seat, but it was too late by then.
“Hey, wait, Heeeyyyyyy!” she yelled and ran after the driver to no avail. Her heels were not suited for the chase.
“Great, just friggin great,” she said aloud, disappointed and frustrated. She looked at her phone again; it was 10 past the hour.
She looked up at the building again. Its beautiful modern accents mixed with that timeless Atlanta style made it stand out in the best possible way. However, the dread of what was waiting for her once she made it to the office today gave her a heavy feeling in her gut, so she couldn’t appreciate its beauty.
Once on the eighteenth floor, Faith nervously smiled at the receptionist who gave her a knowing yet sympathetic look as she breezed by. As Faith made her way down the workstations’ corridor, she held her breath, wishing she were invisible. She avoided eye contact as her co-workers gave her the “mhmm, you’re late again” face as she passed.
The office was in a constant bustle, the soft conversations of co-workers, the whir of the archaic copy machine, and the clickety-clack of keyboards camouflaging the sound of her heels on the floor. She rounded the corner toward her work area hesitantly and exhaled, no boss in sight. She hustled across the room, around the first row of desks, and plopped down at her desk.
Hand on the mouse, she sighed and relaxed for half a heartbeat to see the computer was still on. With a few clicks, she was in her word processing program and typed ‘Create Your Own Hero: How to Create The Love You Deserve.’ Her hands stopped, no more words formulating in her mind, and the flashing cursor blinked, expectant.
“Faith!”
She stiffened and turned in time to see her balding, overweight, and continuously frowning boss leaning toward her.
“Hey, Mr. Maddox—” the sight and smell of him made her consider resigning daily. He always wore entirely too much aftershave. And he could give Jabba the Hut a run for the money in the chubby department. It wouldn’t be so bad if he bought his clothes in a size somewhere near the neighborhood of his waistline’s circumference and if he weren’t an absolute jerk.
“How nice of you to join us. Do you plan on making the deadline this time?” Mr. Maddox asked, sarcastic as usual.
Faith rolled back a few inches from her desk, spun completely around to face him, plastering a feigned look of regret on her face. “Sorry, I’m late … you know Atlanta traffic,” she laughed, but it sounded pathetic even to her own ears. “And, oh, yes. I’m on it, I promise. I just need two hours.”
“One.”
Cringing, she asked, “One and a half?”
Mr. Maddox’s eyebrows raised, and so did his voice. “Forty-five minutes.”
“Mr. Maddox, look, I really need—”
“Forty-five minutes, Faith!”
Out of the corner of Faith’s eye, she saw Denise sidle up, and she cheered internally. Denise was her girl. They went back like car seats and were high school and college friends long before landing jobs at the Golden Gazette.
“Oh, Mr. Maddox, come on. Cut her some slack,” Denise urged, batting her eyelashes at him and using that full-figured, curvy self of hers to do the real talking. Everybody knew Mr. Maddox had a thing for Denise, and she used it every chance she got.
Faith watched Mr. Maddox’s slow-motion reaction from his glance at Denise’s ample cleavage to the beginnings of a smile, adding depth to the wrinkles on his craggy face. Without a backward glance at Faith, he started walking away, but over his shoulder, he called, in a no-argument-allowed kind of way, “One hour and that’s final!”
Faith grinned at Denise while responding to him. “Thank you, sir! I’m on it!”
“You better be!” No one in the office missed a beat, everyone being used to Mr. Maddox’s ever-booming voice echoing around the place.
“Bestie to the rescue again …. You can thank me later.”
Denise’s smile was more of a smirk as she leaned her hip against the short divider wall of the open cubicle.
“Girl, one day, you gotta show me how to do that,” said Faith.
Denise pretended to examine her nails before rolling her hand over and flicking her fingers out flat. “It’s a gift. Besides, you gotta crawl before you can walk!” She stared at Faith with that classic look that only she could give, a mélange of sass and devilish cheekiness, “You ain’t ready, move girl!” Denise playfully pushed Faith out of the chair and sat down at her workstation, staring at the screen. “Riveting title. So, really, this is all you’ve got so far?”
Faith sat back on the windowsill and crossed her arms. “I know, pathetic, right?”
“What happened the notes you took yesterday in your portfolio?” asked Denise.
“Don’t ask… I left it in the Uber, and I honestly had scrapped most of it anyway,” replied Faith. “Seriously… you’d lose your head if it weren’t attached,” said Denise rolling her eyes and continuing to stare at the blinking cursor.
“Honestly, my head is the problem. It isn’t in it. I can’t stop thinking about James. That’s why I’m late.
I could barely sleep last night.” She raised her hand, emphasizing her next words. “Everything has to be perfect tonight.”
“I get that you’re into him,” said Denise, absently while typing on Faith’s computer, “But you’re tripping, girl. Besides, what do you even know about this guy?”
Faith stared at her friend’s profile and pursed her lips. “I don’t know how to explain it; I just think he may be the one.”
Denise’s fingers stilled on the keyboard. “You said that about the last guy. Hell,” she glanced up with that look, the one that told Faith in no uncertain terms she needed to listen good, “you said that about the last three guys.” She shook her head and started typing again.
Faith, unable to risk eye contact and knowing Denise was right, turned to stare out the window over her beautiful city.
“Look, Faith,” Denise tried again, her tone softer, “I just want you to be careful. I know you want to fall in love, but instead, you keep falling for the wrong guy ….” she paused, and Faith thought she was done but flinched when Denise said, “Stop settling!”
She knew Denise was right, but even watching the movement of ant-sized individuals far below and the cars zooming down the road, aware of how all those people didn’t care one wit about her love life, Faith still couldn’t stamp out the desire that kept welling up from deep down.
“I know you have been looking forward to this big date tonight with James, but are you sure about him? Guys that seem too good to be true, usually are,” asserted Denise. She was the more level-headed one of the two; she was absolutely not buying that this James
character was “the one.” Something about him just felt off, and she had a feeling that Faith would soon be taking an unexpected descent from cloud nine.“It’s not that I want to fall in love …. I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s a man out there designed for me … I don’t know how to explain it, but I can feel him.” Faith clasped her hands and pressed them to her belly for a second before resting her palms on the windowsill. “I know he’s out there, and for some reason, we just keep missing each other.”
Faith slid her finger along the window frame base, a thin layer of dust clinging harshly against the metal. “And it’s funny; I can’t tell you what he looks like or what color he is. I can’t tell you what he sounds like or what he’ll be wearing, all I can tell you is that he exists … and all the things that people find quirky about me, all my imperfections, he will love.” Faith stood tall and focused on her faint reflection in the glass. “He will love everything about me. I won’t have to change anything for him, and he won’t have to change anything for me.”
Faith noticed the tapping of keys had ceased behind her, but her mind was looking into that golden future where her heart was whole, and the man she loved wasn’t just a feeling deep in her bones. She wasn’t sure when he would come along, and if she was honest with herself, she wasn’t quite sure James was ‘the one’ any more than the last few winers and diners, but what she did know is although her clock was ticking, it was better late than never whenever Mr. Right decided to arrive.
