"Nah. I stopped by and asked how much it'd cost to hold the place reserved for me and a lady friend tonight." He stops at a private booth off to one side, as if this table was chosen exclusively for us, and gestures for me to take a seat.
I slide in and give him a curious look as he sits across from me. "How did you know I'd say yes?"
He shrugs his big shoulders and pulls off his trucker cap, tossing it onto the booth bench beside him, then runs his hand through equally shaggy dark hair. "I didn't."
So he just threw this money down in the hopes that I'd go out with him? Something else occurs to me . . . "Wait. Were you going to go to dinner with any realtor?" I've suddenly gone from bewildered but flattered to confused.
"Nah, I went there looking for you."
"For me?" I blink. "Why me?"
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. I don't realize what I'm looking at until he pushes it toward me and I see my own face on it. It's one of the Three Jacks marketing flyers. There I am, in the same suit I'm wearing today-one of my five expensive work suits, since I can't afford more-with a serene smile on my face. I know this photo. It's the one Farah hates because they put me in it instead of her. It's the one where I felt like a ridiculous idiot to be standing with the partners when I am clearly not, but was tapped because I was the "cute blonde girl in the office." Since then, I've seen the awkward photo at bus stops, on benches, at the ends of restaurant tables, and in newspaper flyers. It's clear he picked this up from somewhere.
And it's clear from how many times it's been folded that it's been carried around a lot.
I don't know what to say.
I stare at the picture for a moment, trying to think. I'm spared an immediate response when the waitress comes over, a gorgeous brunette with a perfect figure and even more perfect hair and makeup. She beams at the two of us and then gives Mr. Price a very come-hither look that is shockingly blatant.
He doesn't even look at her. His gaze is entirely focused on me.
"Would you two like to see the wine list?" she asks, her voice husky and seductive. Her hand goes to her hip and her breasts thrust out. It'd be cartoonish if it wasn't happening right in front of me. One thing's for sure-she definitely knows who he is and she wants herself a piece of this big, dirty beard.
I feel like I've been dropped into bizarro land in the last hour.
"Would you?" he asks me.
"Would I what?"
He hasn't even glanced in her direction, his attention a hundred percent on me. "Wine list?"
"Or shall I get the sommelier for you?" She leans even closer to Mr. Price's side of the table. Any closer and she's practically going to slide in next to him. I can feel myself frowning. To her, it's like I don't even exist. Jesus.
I do know how to order wine, though. It's one of the things I've crammed for in my long list of business etiquette miscellany that I've prepped for. White wine with fish, a rosato for chicken, and a petite sirah for steak. Mr. Price definitely looks like a steak guy to me. "Petite sirah?" I suggest.
He glances at the waitress for the first time, and the look on his face grows cold when he sees how close she's leaning in.
She straightens. "We do have a lovely sirah from Israel?"
"Sounds wonderful. Thank you." All I know about sirah is that it's pretty dark compared to the rosé boxed wine I normally drink, but it's also what is considered "appropriate" so I roll with it. It's not about me as much as it is image. So much of this business is image and how you present yourself.
I look down at the crumpled picture of myself. Speaking of images . . .
The waitress moves away, and when she's gone, I hand the picture back to him. "I'm afraid I still don't understand."
"I went to your office looking for you," he says in a slow, easy drawl. "I want to fix my image."
Maybe I'm just not understanding. I give my head a little shake. "What's wrong with your image?"
His eyes light up and he gives me a devastating smile, like I've just said the best thing possible. "You are real sweet, you know that?"
I can feel myself blushing at his approval. I didn't mean it quite like that, but I don't correct him, either.
"Well," he says when I remain silent, and strokes his crazy beard. "You know how I made my money?"
"Actually, I have no clue." I clasp my hands on the edge of the table. "I don't know anything about you other than you made a bunch of creepy plans to go out to dinner with me before you even met me and you're carrying around a picture of me like a stalker. And somehow in here, I'm hoping you still want to buy a house because otherwise I should probably go."
He laughs, throwing his head back.
The waitress returns with the wine, uncorks the bottle, and pours two glasses for us. She looks at us patiently, and I take my glass. At this point we're supposed to sniff it to admire the bouquet and swirl it and some other fancy stuff.
Mr. Price just takes his drink and downs the whole thing, making a sound of approval as he puts his glass down.
The waitress's body language becomes stiff. "Did you like it, Mr. Price?"
"Tastes like piss," he says in a genial voice. "But I don't have much of a cultured palate."
She giggles like he's said something utterly charming instead of insulting the wine. I give mine a quick sniff and swirl and then taste it. God, it's strong. But I nod and thank her as if it tastes just fine and she refills Mr. Price's glass and then sets the bottle down.
"Now, where was I?" he asks, picking up the bottle of wine. He pours a bit more into his glass, since the waitress only gave him a taste, and then pours even more into my glass. "That's better. Anyhow, I'm not exactly a cultured man."
I give him a half smile.
"But you wanna know why I'm coming to you, don't you?"
"The thought has crossed my mind about a hundred times in the last hour."
"Then I should get all of the introductory shit out of the way, right? Tell you all about me since you didn't Google it and trusted me?" There's a gleam in his eye, and the way he strokes his beard? He seems mighty pleased at that thought. Like me trusting him was a pleasant surprise he can't quite get over.
"Grew up dirt poor. Dad was a roughneck, and my mother was . . . well, not rightly sure what she was. Most days she worked in a grocery store. Least she did until she up and left." He shrugs. "Then I had a revolving door of stepmothers and stepbrothers."
This sounds . . . awful. And awfully close to my own terrible story. Thing is, I'm not sure if he's telling me this to try and slap me with my own past or if there's somewhere he's going with it . . . so I remain silent, sipping my wine.
"When I looked old enough to be eighteen, a buddy of mine got a job out on a rig out in West Texas. Roughnecking. Got me a job out there, too, and I became a worm. Dad didn't like it, but he didn't have a choice."
"A worm?" I ask. I shouldn't interrupt, but I'm curious. "What does that mean?"
"It means the new guy on the rig. Low man on the totem pole. You get all the shitty jobs and you got to learn them, fast." He grins and drums his fingers on the table, and as he does, I notice he's missing one. "Sometimes you don't learn 'em fast enough."
The smile he's giving me is charming, but I still want to know how I factor in to all this.
He shrugs. "I'm getting to the point, trust me. Anyhow, I did that for a while and the driller took me under his wing. Wanted to teach me the biz. It's good money if you can work fast, smart, and hard. And money was something I needed. He taught me dowsing, too."
"Dowsing?" I don't know any of this.
"You know." He picks up his butter knife and mine, and then waves them back and forth. "You use metal rods to find the oil. Anyhow, I got real good at it. Had bosses at other rigs paying me to come dowse on their land for a nice fee. Saved that money up and bought some nice hunting land for me and my brothers. I got drunk and did a little dowsing on my new property, and the rods practically jumped out of my hands. So I got a buddy of mine-" He pauses, strokes his beard, and then shakes his head. "-Ex-buddy Bates to sell me an old outdated rig. I paid through the nose for it, had it put on my land, fixed it up, had my brothers help me drill, and then boom." He spreads his hands. "Spindletop two point oh."
I give him a blank but polite look. "Is that good?"
His brows go up. "You ain't heard of Spindletop?"
"No?"
"Biggest oil strike in the US. Hundred thousand barrels a day."
"That's . . . good, right? It sounds good." I grimace and reach for my wine again. "I'm afraid I don't know a thing about oil, Mr. Price."