The Cobbler Part II: Lord Preserve Me and My Faint Heart

After leaving the store with a successful flirtation feather in my cap, I called Sprinkle on the way home. My recap was long and glowing, but she was only interested in one thing. A name. She tried to goad my memory. I was pretty certain his first name began with a B and the last name began with an M. Brendan Monocle. Brent McGrady. Bo Metcalf. I had no idea, and so Sprinkle’s considerable Internet PI skills went unused unfortunately.

I polled everyone I knew about how long to wait before going back and whether or not to just give the Cobbler my number or ask for his. The general consensus was that it was much easier to just include my number in with some sweets. One dissenting voice cautioned that if a guy was actually interested, he would ask for my number and to just give the sweets alone and see what he did. But it was one among a chorus saying, “Go for it, Buttercup! You got this girl.”

So a week later, at the end of one of my shifts, I baked a gorgeous orange-blueberry scone, wrapped it up nice and masculine, and wrote a card with some help: "Enjoy the scone! Next time, give me a call and we'll share one over coffee. -Buttercup Harding, my-dig-its"

With my heart in my throat and my bestie, Sprinkle, on standby in case I threw up out of nerves all over my crush when he let me down gently, I was ready to deliver my scone, complete with my number. On advice from my brother, I left my insoles for returning in the car. (The Cobbler was right: the Keens had broken in nicely. Not leather stocking nicely, but enough not to be hobbled with pain.) Brother suggested that returning the merchandise might send mixed messages, and if I was going to go through with this, I might as well commit. 

I do a walk by, and he's not there. I do another lap. Totally not there.

Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to drive all the way to the mall for no reason. I go out to the car and switch my scone for the insoles, go back in, and make the return. I call Sprinkle on my way back out to the car, filling her in on the disappointment. I would just have to come back the next morning to give it to him I tell her as I slide into my car and CRUNCH. 

I had sat on the scone. I sat on my baked heart.

The box and card were totally crumpled, but the scone was fine. At the first sound of destruction, I had jumped back out of the car like my bottom was on fire, so I guess that saved the baked good. I determined to buy a new box and just take it to him again in the morning. I was pretty sure he worked Mondays. [Not at all stalkerish to know a stranger’s schedule because you visit him at work so often—unsolicited.]

Monday morning dawned bright and brisk. I had forgotten to buy a new box for the scone. And what if it was stale? I hadn’t even bothered storing it correctly when I got home. This really worried me. I couldn’t give him a stale symbol of my affection.

After staring at the scone, willing it to give me some sign of freshness, I finally pinched off a corner to taste. The problem with this is twofold: 1) a tiny taste cannot convey freshness or staleness, and 2) IT WAS TOTALLY OBVIOUSLY MISSING A CORNER. So, I had to eat it all. It wasn’t stale. It was delicious.

Luckily my 3:00 am to 11:00 am bakery job meant that even on my day off I woke well before the mall opened. And, in the end, I think the scone debacle was a godsend because if I hadn’t had to bake something else that morning, I would have probably had some sort of mental episode from having to wait without any distractions.

I decided to make bite-sized chocolate chip cookies that are delicious—no lie. And, because they’re so tiny, the recipe makes about a million. So I dumped 5 dozen tiny cookies into a brown paper bag (like a lunch bag) and tied it with twine (so manly), and after a lot of mental back and forth, decided not to include my number.

The drive to the mall was torture. I was sweating profusely. My face was flushed, and as I walked through Dillard’s, several of the sales associates gave me worried looks. I probably looked like an alcoholic or substance abuser of some kind, which, as I emerged from Dillard’s into the open walkway of the mall, I realized they must be pretty used to on a Monday because it was filled with meth heads. You know their meth heads because of all the teeth they don’t have. There is also something in the air of how they carry themselves and wear their acid washed jeans.

Of course, it’s also possible that the sales associates now recognized me from my frequent visits and were concerned that I was going to have my heart broken by that rakish shoes salesman. Or there was a mall rumor about me being a stalker.

I made a beeline for the shoe store. He’s there. The Cobbler. He was helping a customer, but when I walked in he smiled and waved before attending to his customer’s requests. There was another sales associate there who looked exactly like the young long-haired drummer from the band Glen Hansard hires in Once. I expected when he opened his mouth that he would have an Irish brogue.

“Is there something you’re looking for?”

I had been lurking around the sales section, waiting for the Cobbler to wrap it up with the most indecisive male shopper ever. The Cobbler would occasionally look over with a smile or a wink (a wink! There are some people who think the wink is cheesy or weird. I personally love winks all the way from my delightedly flushed cheeks to my curled toes). This kept me hanging on despite all my nerves shouting, “Get out of here before you make a fool of yourself!” But no way, baby. I was committing to this foolhardiness.

“Nope,” I told the disappointingly American boy. “Just looking at the sales rack. Those Brooks?”

We talked shoe small talk until it became apparent that if I didn’t want to make a total ass out of myself, I would have to try some on. Not Irish Boy went to the back to check for my size, and the Cobbler came over to chat while his customer was walking around the store in yet another pair of shoes.

“Well. I’ve got bad news.”

“You do? What’s that? The number of meth addicts who shop at this mall?”

He blinked at me. “What?”

“Have you seen the people walking around?”

He looked out the store’s open doors just as Billy Jean and Billy Bob rounded the corner for the tenth time (I swear—I was keeping count while I was waiting).

“Yeah, I guess there are some pretty weird people here this time of day during the week.”

“Not a whole lot of teeth happening.”

He laughed. Hard. I beamed.

His customer asked for a different size or something, and the Not Irish Boy came back to tell me he didn’t have my size in the Brooks. So I thought screw it. I’ll come back later. I needed a curtain rod for the blackout curtains I had bought since I had to go to bed at 6 p.m. every night. Living. The. Dream. I’d just run down to some department stores, check out what they had going on, and come back in 30 minutes or something. Surely that would be enough time for the gentleman to make up his mind. There was no way in hell I was giving my bag full of cookies to the Cobbler in front of a customer. Dear Lord in heaven preserve me and my faint heart.

“You’re not leaving are you?”

I turned around at the door. “I’ll be back to chat. I have something else I need to do while I’m here.”

As I sashayed my way down to Penny’s, weaving in between tweakers, I glowed with womanly self-assurance. I mean, you can’t hear the wounded pleading in his voice—but it was there. That man was in love with me. This was going to be cake. I texted Sprinkle an updated while I dinked around. Bought a curtain rod. Tried on clothes I had no intention of buying. Browsed Claire’s because kids these days. Browsed Hot Topic because goths these days. Went back by the shoe store—and the customer was still there! It had to have been at least 30 minutes since I had left. I had waited 30 minutes in the store. And he had been there when I got there. Who knows how long he had been “shopping.” And this is not a big shoe store. Was he trying on every size in every shoe? What on earth?

I kept right on walking back to Dillard’s. Bought a blanket because when do you ever not need a soft blanket? And took all my purchases to my car. Having a mall crush is expensive, people. If for no other reason, don’t do it to preserve your folding money.

So at this point it had to have been at least almost an hour since I left the store. I walk by, and yes, the customer is gone. The Cobbler is sitting on the floor doing inventory. Not Irish Boy looks up and says, “Hey, Travis [aside: I actually don’t remember his name, but I know it absolutely did not start with a B], look who’s here.”

This causes my heart to lurch painfully. What did that mean? “Look who’s here?” Was that knowing tone because the Cobbler had thought I’d left and told this neo-hippy that he was bummed we hadn’t gotten to talk, that he loved me and wanted nothing more than to confess his love? Or did it mean, “Hey, look. Your stalker’s back”? What did the Dillard's sales associates know? What had their looks meant?!

[Next Tuesday will be the third and final installment of The Cobbler series where I might actually get somewhere with this guy...]