The Secret Lives of Dresses Read Online Free PDF Page B

respond—not that she knew what to say—the waitress swooped in with their plates, giving Gary the hamburger with something that looked suspiciously like a wink. She put the Reuben in front of Dora like an afterthought. Gary let her walk away before switching the plates.
    “I think you made the better choice,” he said. His sandwich was oozing Russian dressing and sauerkraut. He took a bite, and winced as dressing dripped onto his shirt. Dora laughed.
    “Hey! Laughing at your new boss is not a good career move.” Gary grinned, and swiped a French fry from Dora’s plate.
    “So you want my letter of resignation? Already?” Dora smiled back at him. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so at home with a person. With a male person. A male person whose last name she didn’t know.
    “I wouldn’t even know how to address it,” she said. “Dear Mr. . . .?”
    “If I don’t tell you my last name, you can never quit! This works out great. It’s like ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ in reverse.” Gary stole another one of Dora’s fries to mop up the Russian dressing on his plate.
    “No, really. You must have another name, you’re not famous enough to have only one.”
    “Ouch. Okay, it’s Dudas. And whatever joke you can make out of it, I already heard. In the third grade.”
    “All right, Mr. Dudas.” She smiled across the table at him.
    “C’mon, it’s Gary.” He looked at her a bit too long, and there was a tone in his voice that gave her a little shiver.
    The waitress came back for their empty plates, and dropped the check on the table. Gary covered it with a couple of bills, standing to go.
    “Don’t you want a receipt?” Dora asked. “So the coffee shop can reimburse you?”
    “You are really gunning for employee of the month, you know? I see a very shiny plaque in your future.” Gary waved the waitress over.
    Dora scooted out of the booth. “I’ll be right back.” As she turned the corner to the ladies’ room she saw the waitress laughing at something Gary must have said.
    When she came out, Gary was hanging over the hostess station, still chatting with their waitress.
    “Dora! Thanks again for everything tonight. I’m so glad I found you. You’re a miracle worker, possibly even a miracle. . . . So I’ll see you in the morning? Not too early. Maybe ten?”
    “Um, sure.” Dora stood there maybe a second too long, wondering why Gary was saying goodbye now, lingering in the restaurant. Then the waitress tossed her hair and smiled again, a deliberate smile, focused to a pinpoint, directed squarely at Gary.
    “See ya,” Dora said, and stumbled out.
    Dora had been stumbling around Gary ever since. She was always off-balance with him. Just last week she had been sitting on the counter in the coffee shop (in a blatant violation of health-department policy), swinging her legs and talking to Amy, who at that point was just called “the New Girl.” Nobody at the shop bothered to learn a new hire’s name until they’d been there three weeks. It was a tradition. You were either the New Girl or the New Guy, and Gary had even (on Dora’s suggestion) made name tags with those sobriquets. It was one good way to sort people out; if the New Girl got huffy at wearing a New Girl name tag, you could be sure she wasn’t going to work out in the long run. The ones who relinquished their New Girl name tags reluctantly after the three-week period were the ones that turned out to be the most fun to work with.
    Amy had been loading the coffee machine, and Dora had been sitting on the opposite counter in part to stop herself from taking over. Amy had to learn, and if learning involved getting up to your elbows in wet grounds because you didn’t seat the filter right, well, that was all part of the process.
    “So—where are you from?” she asked Amy. Being able to answer customers while fiddling with the machines was a necessary skill. Since the shop was nearly empty, Dora had to step in and