Something Missing_ A Novel - Matthew Dicks [58]
“Dandy,” Martin replied, once again pleased with his response. A girl can make a guy feel good, great, and even fabulous, but how often does a lady hear that her man is feeling dandy?
Not often, he guessed.
Jillian moved past Martin and on to a booth where a couple of blue-collar workers were in need of a refill. She deftly poured coffee into each cup without so much as a glance, offering a smile and whispering something that made the men laugh. Martin had always enjoyed watching Jillian work. She was good at her job, and he admired her for this. Competence and efficiency were two of the most admirable qualities a person could possess, and it seemed that Jillian possessed both in great measure.
She was not a bad-looking woman either. Working on her feet all day, navigating the narrow lanes of the diner, had kept her in excellent shape, with long thin legs and curves in all the right places. Her smile was accompanied by a dimple on each side, and her cheeks were gloriously freckled no matter what the season. In Martin’s mind, she couldn’t be more perfect.
As Jillian made her rounds, Martin took a cursory glance at the menu, though his order rarely changed. Scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, and wheat toast were his standard fare, though occasionally he would try a waffle or some blueberry pancakes if he needed a change of pace. A moment later Jillian had made it back to Martin with order pad in hand.
“The usual?” she asked, extracting the pen from behind her ear.
“Not today” he replied, suddenly changing his mind. “I’ve got some new business on my plate, and it’s put me in the mood for pancakes, I think. Blueberry.”
“What’s it now, honey? A Flowbee? A blender?”
“Nope,” he replied. “A martini set, if you can believe it. Directions on how to hang the glasses from the rack. Pretty hard to mess up, huh?”
When Martin had decided to turn his business into a full-time occupation, he was faced with the dilemma of explaining his source of income to people like Jim and Jillian. His mother had passed away and left him the home and some cash, but certainly not enough to retire upon. His decision to go full-time meant that he would be reducing his hours at Starbucks, just enough to retain his health insurance, so people would naturally be curious about how he was supporting himself without much of a job.
The answer came to Martin on the day that he unpacked his pick guns from their mailing container. As with all tools and appliances, the pick guns had come with a small instruction booklet explaining how to assemble and use the devices. After reading and rereading the instructions three times, it became clear to Martin that whoever had written the booklet lacked a fundamental understanding of English syntax. The instructions were virtually unintelligible, and Martin eventually turned to a website on pick guns for an explanation on how to operate the devices. After retrieving a clear and detailed explanation online and assembling the guns, Martin had decided to write to the author of the instruction booklet, in order to complain about the poor job that he or she had done. Throughout high school, Martin had been an excellent writer and the assistant editor of his school’s newspaper. He still considered himself a very good writer and had aspirations of one day making it a career, so whenever he encountered poor writing, it irritated him tremendously. I should have your job, he would think. I could do a better job than this.
But as Martin thumbed through the booklet in search of an author’s name, no name was to be found. It was difficult for Martin to imagine anyone writing something and not wanting attribution for the work, but considering the poor quality of the instruction booklet, he couldn’t blame the writer. It was nothing of which to be proud. Still, he wondered why the author’s name didn’t appear anywhere in the booklet.
In a file cabinet in his office, Martin had a folder containing the instruction booklets for all the appliances and tools that he owned, filed alphabetically by name. Partly out of curiosity (and perhaps