Noodles, Pt. 1 (Genre Creatives Challenge: Romance)

     Victoria had one goal:  finish editing her article on the city council's traffic-rerouting plan.  As usual, she didn't notice how late it was getting or how hungry she was.  She  barely even noticed that it was getting dark until Ed Delphino came into the office and flicked on the overhead lights.

     "Step away from that keyboard, Nichols," Ed said.  He grinned.  "Seriously, I'm worried about your lack of a social life."

     "I like my lack of a social life," Victoria said.  "I like going home exhausted every night."

     "But even you have to eat," Ed said, leaning against Victoria's desk.  "Why don't you let me take you out for a burger, my treat."

     She smiled.  "I'm sorry, but I already have dinner plans," she said.  "I promised Aunt Ota I'd bring her the noodles she likes from the Szechuan place."

     Ed frowned.  "You know, Victoria, sometimes I think that you don't even have an Aunt Ota.  I think you made her up just because you're too polite to tell me you don't want to go out with me."

     Victoria saved the file she was working on and began shutting her computer down.  "Come by the bookstore some time and I'll introduce you to Aunt Ota," she said.  "And don't take it personally, please.  I'm just not in a place in my life where I can date anybody right now.  Believe me, Ed, if I wanted to tell you to go to hell, I would." 

     He thought for a moment, sighed, and then said, "Okay, Vic, I understand.  I felt the same way after my divorce.  I hope you change your mind soon.  Until then, at least let me walk you to your car."

     "No, thanks," she said, as charmingly as she knew how.  "Good night, Ed."

     Ed got the message.  He said goodnight and wandered off down the hall.

     Victoria got her coat.  She called the night security guard, Stan, and had Stan walk her to her car.  She knew that it made no more sense to trust Stan than it did to trust Ed, so just in case, she kept one hand on the pepper spray inside her coat pocket. 

     Ed was probably a sweet guy, she told herself, but there were just some things he would never understand about her.  Such as how her ex-husband's abuse had made her afraid and mistrustful.  Ed didn't even know that Victoria had ever been married; when she left Justin, she'd had to leave every trace of her old life behind.  The truth was, she loved her job at the Times more than anything, simply because it allowed her to be an anonymous, but productive, cog in a big machine.  Being Victoria Nichols- formerly Victoria Andrews- was just too painful sometimes.

     The employees at the Szechuan restaurant didn't have to ask Victoria what she wanted.  They simply greeted her, then disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing minutes later with two carryout containers of Aunt Ota's favorite noodles, in a white plastic bag with "Thank You" written on it in red letters.  As she took it, Victoria echoed its sentiments. 

     Victoria parked in her usual space behind The World Is Quiet Here and went to the back door.  Her aunt's bookstore had been closed for an hour now, but Victoria let herself in with her key.  "Hello?" she called as she walked through the stock room to the front.  "Aunt Ota?"

     She usually found Ota stretched out on the cushy pink sofa in the reading corner, either totalling receipts or engrossed in a volume from the bookstore's copious stacks.  Today, though, the sofa was empty.  Victoria set the noodles down on the coffee table and looked through the stacks.  "Aunt Ota?" she called again.

     "Victoria?"

     Victoria was startled.  That wasn't Aunt Ota, but her business partner, Henri.  His deep, French-accented voice echoed through the shelves upon shelves of books.

     "Oh, Henri!" Victoria said, trying hard to disguise the fact that her entire body was shaking.  "You scared me.  Where are you?"

     "Up here," he said.  "The mezzanine, at the writing desk."

     She stepped clear of the shelves and looked up.  She saw Henri's back, hunched over a pile of papers.  He stood, pushed in his chair, and came to the railing of the mezzanine. 

     "I brought Aunt Ota her noodles," Victoria called up to him.

     "She's not here," Henri said.  "She went out with her friend Esme, do you remember?"

     Victoria's face flushed.  Aunt Ota was her lifeline, the one who took her in, the only person she could truly trust.  Victoria could scarcely believe she could have forgotten such an important detail about Aunt Ota- her once-a-month dinners with Esme. 

     How self-centered of me, Victoria thought.  How stupid.  And now I'm alone with Henri.

     Henri was familiar to Victoria; when Ota was working, Henri was working, too.  When Victoria had first met Henri- tall, dark-haired, with a salt-and-pepper beard and black eyelashes that made Victoria jealous- she thought that he and Ota were sweethearts.  Henri was many years younger than Ota, of course.  He was forty-five, and Ota (the sister of Victoria's grandmother) was in her late 60s.  He was French, so perhaps it didn't matter.  But no, Henri and Ota were only friends. 

     Victoria knew that Henri was from Orleans.  He was widowed young, raised his only son alone, and followed the now-grown boy to the United States when the boy moved in with an American girl.  Henri had an infant granddaughter.  That, and that he wrote for the local French-language newspaper, was all that Victoria knew about him.  Being alone in the bookstore with him filled her with a strange, uncertain feeling.

     But not fear.