Minus the Blue

After serving the most persnickety customer in the world (and possibly the universe), Stella needed to catch a break. But the next man in line ordered a #17 minus the bacon, which was the actual point of the #17. It was a bacon sandwich. He said, “Minus the bacon,” plus some pedestrian cheese, minus the aioli, with a little mustard. She made the sandwich as he ordered because that was her job, but it didn’t stop her from eye rolling as she did so.

He thanked her in a way that made her squint at him to make sure he wasn’t taking the piss. But he seemed genuinely happy with his boring sandwich. She moved on to the customer behind him who was having an honest-to-god actual Dagwood sandwich, plus everything, which erased the bad taste in her mouth. God bless the Dagwood.

The next time the scruffy, dark-haired guy came in, he ordered the #38, minus the roast beef, plus the smear of spicy dijon, no pickle, and again, she found herself making some lame-ass cheese sandwich, which wouldn’t have registered to her except it was him again. She noticed his blue eyes this time. They were striking. And he had a way of half-smiling that she found charming in spite of herself.

He was wearing an olive-hued shirt. A gray sweater. He had the type of dark curly hair you might kind of want to tousle. But damn, his sandwich order. That was a flag.

She talked to her roommate about him on the day that he ordered a #27, minus the ham.

“What’s wrong with holding the ham?” Maggie asked.

“It’s a ham sandwich. Every sandwich he orders, he basically strips down to a nothing, nada, you could make it yourself in your mom’s kitchen.”

“Do you have a plain cheese sandwich on the menu?”

Stella thought about it for a moment. “Yes, we do. He hasn’t ordered that one yet. I guess if he holds the cheese, all he will want is the bread.” She was happy to make whatever a customer desired, but this was different, somehow. The way he'd order a # and then take everything away that made the number special. Just because the customer was always right didn’t mean the customer was always right.

That night, she and Maggie went to a new bar that had opened up down the street from their apartment. Maggie walked in and chose a seat right in the middle of the bar. Stella sat next to her, was about to order, and then realized who the bartender was.

It was hold the roast beef. It was ham with no ham.

She bit her lip and thought for a moment, and then she looked at the gourmet bar menu. Dark-haired and sky-eyed came toward her with no recognition. She thought that she must look different with her honey-comb curls out of the backwards baseball cap and some makeup on, a little blush a little gloss. She didn’t have the t-shirt she always wore that advertised the sandwich shop her family had owned for decades. She had on a sparkly dress.

She said, “I’d like the blue lemonade, minus the blue.”

“Excuse me?”

“You have a crushed-mint, blue Curaçao lemonade with the fresh cherries, right? Hold the blue. No cherries. Hate mint.”

“Then that’s just lemonade.”

She nodded and waited to see if he might figure her out. But he made the drink, and Maggie said to her in a stage whisper, “What the actual, Stella?” but she didn’t explain.

For the next drink, she tried again. “I’d like the Mai, minus the Tai.”

“Are you high?” he asked.

She shook her head. “What’s in a Mai Tai actually?”

He listed the ingredients in a way that let her know he’d done so before, and she chose two of them, and said please.

Maggie kicked her. “What’s going on?”

Stella said, “Maybe it’s going to take a third drink.”

She really tried hard this time. Was it going to be a white Russian without Vodka or coffee? Or a martini without gin, unshaken? She settled on a Bloody Mary, hold the tomato juice, when he finally said, “You do realize that I was playing with you.”

“What do you mean?”

He leaned over the counter towards her. “The customer in front of me was so awful, and I felt for you. I don’t know if you remember, but she had to look at each piece of meat before you put it on the bread, and she gave you grief for the cheese, asking if it was imported or the country of origin or what its mom’s name was or something insane, and she didn’t like the quality of the toasty-ness when you toasted her bun and made you toast another…”

“Oh, god. I do remember her.”

He said, “Your reaction was so priceless, and your eye roll so intriguing, I thought I’d be a little silly, just to lighten the mood, but you took me seriously, and I didn’t know what to do after that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I had to eat my plan, sad cheese sandwich. Not to say that it wasn’t delicious. But I made my bread. I had to rye in it.”

“How long have you been practicing that line?”

“A long time.

“So the next day, I tried again. I wanted to see if you’d ever notice.”

“Notice?” Stella asked.

“Me.”

“She did,” Maggie leaned in. “She noticed you. All she talked about was you…”

Stella elbowed her roommate in the ribs.

“I was going to ask for something really outrageous tomorrow,” he said.

“Like what?” Stella asked.

He said, “You want to go outside for a minute? And I’ll tell you?”

Stella nodded because she wasn’t really interested in a Mary with no bloody. She followed him through the bar to the alley. They stared at each other for a moment, sizing each other up, liking what they saw.

She said, “So what were you going to ask me for tomorrow?”

He said, “A kiss…”

And she said, “Minus the lips.”

“What?”

“No hands. No touching.”

They stood facing each other, and he took a step closer, and she felt his lips hover a sliver of space from hers. His hands were near her body but not on her. She wanted to grab him, push him back against the wall, feel every part of him. But she was willing to wait. They stood so close to one another, and she could imagine exactly what it would feel like when they finally connected.

He whispered, “What if I order off the menu?”

She narrowed her eyes and said, “Only if you hold everything.”

And he did.