Wasted Beauty Read Online Free PDF Page B

to work. Frank alternates between gruff verging on rude and exceeding politeness, as if he isn’t sure how he should act. Reba sees that Frank is more complex than she first thought. And he isn’t all that old. Not even forty.
    Frank has developed minty breath. And despite his apparent testiness, he’s always full of pep. Reba is drawn to this energy. Frank seems to be a person who has taken control of his life. She watches him more carefully, noticing the way he dresses, the way he chews his food.
    Frank gives Reba lots of room, never bosses her around. He respects her. One day he visits her window and asks for her advice about the correct way to change the paper in his adding machine. That’s when she notices his breath. And his cleanliness. He’s a bachelor and yet he’s always spic and span.
    The afternoon of Van Pelt’s visit, Frank asks Reba to stay and help him sort out some old files he wants moved to the main office in Albany. He’ll pay her overtime. While they work, he neither speaks to nor looks at her. Reba likes spending time like this, side by side, in unspoken companionship. In the fading light outside, the cicadas begin to whir.
    Frank gives Reba money for dinner from the Italian place four doors down the mini-mall. While waiting for the take-out meal, she contemplates the framed photos of the Colosseum and the Forum on the walls of the restaurant. Reba wonders what it would be like to go to Italy. She’s pretty sure no one who works in the pizza place has ever been there. Does Frank wonder about things like that? It’s hard to tell what he thinks. Obviously he thinks about something.
    When she returns with the food, Frank tells her it’s his treat. She figures that’s fair. The food comes in round aluminum pans. Pried open, some of the rust-colored sauce sticks to the underside of the circular lid. The garlic bread steams when the foil is unwrapped. They eat in silence until Reba asks him, “Worried about work?”
    As if roused from a catnap, Frank blinks and knits his thick eyebrows. “No. Not work.”
    “You’re thinking about something.”
    Frank swabs sauce with a piece of bread, looks up at Reba with his flat eyes. “I was thinking about you.” He places the piece of bread in his mouth and swallows it whole.
    “Me?”
    “I was thinking that you’re a good person. In your heart, you’re kind. You’re loving. More than most people. Your eyes are kind, your smile, your hands.”
    “My hands?”
    “You’re very gentle. Like your mother was. Your mother was very beautiful. And gentle. Like you.”
    “I never think about myself that way. I’m just me.” Reba examines her hands. They’re just hands. If anything they’re too long and skinny.
    Frank pushes on. “Maybe you can’t tell because it’s just the way you are. Me, I have a hard time being a nice person. Inside, I feel like a nice person, but I don’t think people see me that way. It’s not easy for me. Being a boss and all. It’s…it’s a struggle.”
    “But I can see that. In you. I think.”
    “People don’t like me. I know it.” Frank picks a crumb of garlic bread off his pants and hurls it into the now empty bank lobby.
    “That’s not true.”
    As if thwarted by an insurmountable roadblock, Frank hunches over his food and resumes eating. Reba collects her rubbish and shoves it into a large clear plastic sack of shredded documents.
    It’s almost nine o’clock by the time they’ve sorted out the heaps of slips and receipts. As Frank locks up and sets the alarms, he mentions he’s going to drive out by the old canal to scout the height of the water, since he was hoping to go fishing this weekend. Reba asks, “Mind if I go with you?”
    When they get to the banks of the canal, Frank switches off the engine. He says nothing more about how gentle Reba is or how people don’t like him. He hooks an arm around her shoulders, pulls her toward him and presses his mouth against hers.
    For almost five minutes,