A Man for Megan Page 3

  Elliot pulled himself up and hobbled to a chair. “I got your message and went over to your house—”

  “You went over to the house?”

  “Uh-huh.” Elliot rubbed his right temple. “When I saw no one was around, I remembered you had to work.”

  “No one was there?”

  Elliot continued to massage his head. “No. The only person around was Mrs. Schneider working in her garden. She wants to know why you’re climbing out of your bedroom window these days.” Elliot looked at her. “By the way, why are you climbing out of your bedroom window?”

  Megan laughed lightly. “The bedroom door sometimes swells when it’s hot. I couldn’t get it open. I was running late for work.” She shrugged and held her breath.

  Elliot leaned back, wincing. He shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. “Is that why you called the fire department?”

  “Who told you about that?”

  “Mrs. Schneider.”

  “Oh, right. No, I plugged in a crock pot I’d bought this morning at a yard sale, and it started to smoke, and I got scared, and—”

  “You’re still going to those yard sales? I told you, you don’t have to buy other people’s junk.”

  “It’s not junk.”

  Elliot raised his eyebrows.

  “Not usually,” Megan amended. “And a crock pot is great, especially if you work. You throw the stuff in it in the morning and, when you get home at night, you have a nice hot meal waiting for you.”

  “If you want a crock pot, I’ll buy you one.”

  “I was just trying to be economical.”

  “Haven’t I told you before not to worry about money? I’ll take care of all that.”

  “We’ve got to be realistic, Elliot. If the plant closes, we both lose our jobs.”

  “I said not to worry. I’ll take care of the finances. I’ve got it all figured out.”

  Megan eyed her husband-to-be. She knew he made a decent living, and he was a hard worker, just like her, but this cavalier attitude toward money wasn’t like Elliot. He was a conservative man in all matters.

  “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

  “No, it grows in banks where I’ve been putting every penny. So, the next time you want a crock pot, let me buy you a new one so we don’t have to call out the fire department. I’ll never hear the end of this one on poker night.”

  “There was a lot of smoke,” Megan defended herself.

  “I didn’t smell anything when I went in the house. By the way, you left the back door open. Again.”

  “You went in the house,” Megan said, “and everything was okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. The place is still standing.”

  “You didn’t see anything…unusual?”

  Elliot shrugged. “Everything looked like it always does. I couldn’t figure out what the big emergency was. Exactly why did you want me to bring my .38?”

  The crazy man must have left. Her house was fine. She was fine. Elliot was…semifine.

  “Megan?” He was waiting for her answer. “Besides the raging fire and the trapped door, did you have a wild man you wanted me to take down?”

  She laughed nervously. If only he knew how close he was to the truth. But if the man was gone, and the entire episode was over, she saw no reason to worry Elliot. She leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss where the skin had started to swell on his forehead. “I do seem to be overreacting to things lately. Must be prewedding jitters.”

  Elliot rubbed his lower back. “The wedding isn’t until next year.”

  “Can you believe I’m this excited already?” She massaged his nape. “Sorry about the surprise attack. How ‘bout I make it up to you tomorrow afternoon with a thick sirloin, medium rare?”

  Elliot’s disgruntled expression began to disappear.

  “With those little potatoes you roast?”

  “Mmm. And fresh corn on the cob.” Megan lightly stroked his hair. “Strawberry shortcake for dessert?”

  “With real whipped cream?”

  “Would I feed you anything else?” She was leaning over for a final kiss when she saw the crock pot on the counter.

  “Elliot, I brought the crock pot here.”

  He turned to the direction of her pointed finger.

  “Do you think it’d be all right if I threw it in the plant dumpster? They want ten dollars to dispose of it at the county dump.”

  “The prices they charge nowadays for garbage. A smart man could make a killing.” Elliot smiled as if the thought amused him. “I’m on my way out now. I’ll take it out back for you before I leave.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed him. He was smiling as she left the break room. She was smiling as she went down the stairs and back to work. It was going to be okay. The crazy man was gone. Elliot was going to take care of the crock pot. Everything was back to normal.

  “How’s SHE RUNNING, WANDA?” Megan said to the operator as she approached press twenty-one. “The last parts I measured were in size.”

  “Maybe the parts are running okay, but watch this.” The white-haired woman motioned Megan to come up onto the platform.

  Megan stepped up next to the woman and waited for the machine to finish its cycle.

  Wanda glanced at Megan. “You like Quality Control?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I bet it’s good to get off the presses. Although from what I hear, we might all be off the presses in another few weeks. Have you heard anything?”

  Megan shook her head.

  “I hope it’s just rumors.” The woman’s face puckered with worry. “I’ve been here thirty-seven years. I’ve got three years until retirement. If this place goes under, who’s going to want an old woman like me?”

  Megan patted the woman’s arm, the flesh her fingers touched as delicate as rice paper.

  “Well,” Wanda said, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Wanna hear a good one? They called the squad out today to rescue a woman from a hot crock pot. That’s almost as good as the time ol’ man Myers blew up his work shed with a smoke bomb trying to get rid of a gopher.”

  Megan was no longer smiling. Wanda, however, was still chuckling when the mold started to spread apart. Wanda opened the door, took out two long plastic cores and laid the parts on a lighted table behind her. “Now, watch,” she told Megan.

  As she reached in to remove two plastic runners from the left side of the mold, its large steel sides started to come together. Wanda pulled back her hand. The mold stopped in a halfway open position.

  “See that.” Wanda eyed Megan. “Last shift’s operator cut her knuckles on the push-out pins trying to get her hand out.”

  “The safety mechanism is failing,” Megan said. “Put your blue light on. We’re gonna have to shut her down.”

  “What’s the problem, girls?” the foreman bellowed above the noise as he came down the aisle.

  Megan motioned him over. “Frank, we’ve got to shut this press down. The mold is closing before the door is shut.”

  The foreman looked up at her. “That’s impossible.”

  Megan planted her feet on the platform. “Nothing’s impossible, Frank. What we’ve got here is a possible glitch in the safety switch.”

  The foreman shook his head. “A glitch.” He puffed a breath of disgust. “What we’ve got here is an order due to be shipped Monday morning to our biggest customer, and we’re already behind because your people put the last skid on hold. What do you want me to tell the plant manager when he comes in after the weekend and finds this order isn’t even halfway finished? Sorry,” he mimicked a female voice. “We had a glitch.

  “Get down from there, both of you. This machine is going to run or it’ll be my butt swinging from one of the mold hoists Monday morning.”

  “That I’d like to see,” Wanda whispered to Megan as the two women stepped down from the platform.

  Frank stepped up to the press as the mold began to open. “You two were probably gabbing, and one of you leaned on
the door, so, of course, the mold would start to close.”

  He removed the parts and threw them on the table. “I don’t know what you two are talking about.” He reached back in to remove the runners. “I don’t see any mold closing. Do you?” He looked over his shoulder at Megan, his expression bloated with sarcasm.

  She saw the flat, heavy sides begin to slowly close like two fighters coming out into the ring. She pointed. The walls of the mold continued their slow-motion meeting.

  Megan jumped up to the platform, her legs feeling clumsy and heavy. “Frank!” Even her scream seemed to have the slur of unreality. She pulled his arm, but she was too late. Three hundred tons of pressure closed on Frank’s hand. Megan looked into his eyes. His screams eclipsed her own.

  Still clutching his other hand, she frantically pushed the Mold Open button. Nothing happened. Wanda ran to call an ambulance. Others came running to the press. Frank was white. Sweat rolled down his face. He wouldn’t let go of Megan’s hand. “Help me,” he whispered.

  “Turn off the power,” Megan screamed.

  “We did. She’s not responding,” someone yelled.

  The back door of the press opened, and two men started to unscrew the mold.

  With her free hand, Megan found a frayed tissue in her jeans pocket and wiped Frank’s forehead and fleshy cheeks. “They’re taking apart the mold now. They’ll have you out of there in a jiffy.”

  “My hand.” Megan had to lean forward to hear the man’s faint words. “I can’t feel my hand.”

  “You’re gonna be all right, Frank.” She stretched her arm across his shoulders, supporting his body weight. “You’re gonna be all right.” She mopped his forehead, the back of his neck. “You’re gonna be all right.”

  He looked at her and, with a shock of recognition, Megan saw agony and desperation dilating his pupils, turning his face into a grotesque caricature. She’d seen this mask before: on her mother’s face right before she died in Megan’s arms, in the nightmares that now woke Megan from a fevered sleep. She wanted to look away. She stared him straight in the eye, willing strength into her words. “You’re gonna be all right.”

  His lips, thin with pain, parted, releasing shallow breaths. His eyes looked at her and said she was lying, then rolled back into his head, showing only the whites of surrender. His body slumped, its weight sending Megan a step backward.

  “Help me,” she cried. She braced her back and knees to hold up the heavy man. “Oh my God, I wish this hadn’t happened,” she said, half prayer, half plea, unable to look anymore at the face deformed with pain.

  The weight of the body was suddenly gone. She looked to see if someone had taken the man from her arms and saw only Wanda, hands on her hips, who said, “See that.”

  Frank was gone. The mold was stopped, half closed.

  “Last shift’s—” Wanda began.

  “Operator cut her knuckles on the push-out pins trying to get her hand out,” Megan finished in a remote voice.

  “That’s right. Did Arnold tell you that?”

  Megan shook her head, blinking slowly as she stared at Wanda, then the machine. She waited for Frank’s yell.

  As if on cue, he came down the aisle. “What’s the problem, girls?”

  Megan needed a deep breath. “We’ve got to shut her down. The mold is closing before the door is shut.”

  The breath she took stuck midway up her throat as she waited to see if he would agree with her or not, not sure which answer frightened her the most.

  “Shut her down then. I’ll have maintenance look at her. Wanda, help out on twenty-two until we get something else running. I’ll go put the heats on thirty-five.”

  Megan stared at Frank’s retreating back in disbelief. Her gaze lifted and, just above Frank’s rounded shoulders, she saw the face of the man from her kitchen, the face that had been in her dreams. The man slowly raised three fingers and waggled them in a wave. Then, he folded a finger over, leaving only two extended, angled like a V for victory.

  She walked toward him, not knowing whether she should be terrified or thrilled, only knowing she had to go to him.

  “You’re for real,” she said, her voice echoing the amazement she felt filling out her face.

  The man looked up from a casual inspection of his cuticles. “How do you think Oprah lost all that weight… twice?”

  He was glad when he saw her bottom lip slip from beneath her teeth and curl against its top mate. It was an uncertain smile, but a smile nonetheless, better than the fright that had come into her features when the fat man was hurt.

  He hadn’t tried to stop her when she’d sneaked out of the house. He’d let her run away and had followed in another form, knowing she would run faster until she was ready to believe.

  But, as he had watched her these last three minutes and seen the emotions shifting across her face like the changing shadows in clouds, he had longed to see that small smile once more. Now, it had come bravely, denying the confusion remaining in the rest of her expression. He smiled back.

  “You’re teasing me.” The voice was unsure, but the tiny smile stayed.

  “Yes, I am,” he admitted. “But I am for real…in a manner of speaking.”

  “You saved that man’s hand,” she said, awe now hushing her voice.

  “No, you saved that man’s hand,” he said, correcting her.

  She stayed silent as if trying to understand what had happened. Her gaze moved past his shoulder. Her features were still, allowing him to study the slope of her forehead, the identical heart-shaped halves of her nostrils, the skin that rivaled the silk of royal robes. Her gaze came back to him with barely a movement of her head. Yet her curls bobbed as if happy just to frame this woman’s face, to brush the soft rounds of her cheeks.

  He’d seen goddesses and all of the great human beauties, but, something about this face stirred him like no other.

  Her features broke once more with a curious smile. “I’ve two wishes left?”

  He awoke, returning to the reality that she was the master, and he, the servant. He thought how his father had been seduced by a mortal. Now he saw before him, stronger than his own infinite powers, the magic that was woman. Was she a sorceress? A siren sent by Ishtar in a final challenge? Was the goddess of games laughing at him now as she looked down from the immortal regions? He renounced the fright and fascination founded by the mere exploration of this woman’s face. His attraction flared into anger, and he renewed his desire to be done with the curse and this wretched world.

  “Yes,” he said. “State your desires. I’ll fulfill your every fantasy and be gone before the dawn breaks.”

  As he spoke, a woman with a bosom pushed up high came alongside the couple. She looked at him now with eyes unblinking. Her mouth was open, the bottom lip hanging low.

  “Megan, Arnold’s looking for you,” she said. Her gaze stayed on the man. “I didn’t know they were hiring anyone new,” she said to him.

  “I don’t work here. I just came by to give Megan a hand.” He smiled at his master.

  “You two are friends?” The blonde turned a curious expression toward Megan.

  “Actually I’m her—”

  “Pen pal,” Megan blurted.

  The other woman continued to look questionably at her.

  “Kitty, this is…is…” Megan stuttered. “My pen pal…Gen…Gino from… from Italy,” she finished saying in a flourish of inspiration.

  “Italy?” both Kitty and the newly christened Gino said at the same time.

  “You speak English perfectly,” Kitty noted. “You don’t even have an accent.” She looked at Megan for an answer. Gino looked at Megan, too, waiting for her reply.

  Megan forced a light laugh. “I didn’t mean Italy Italy.”

  Kitty’s expression only became more confused. “What did you mean then?”

  “Yes, what did you mean then?” Gino echoed, his enjoyment evident on his face.

  “I meant…Little Italy…in New York City. Yes.”
She patted him on the back. “Gino is an American, born and raised in the good ol’ U.S.A. Aren’t you, Gino?”

  He looked down at Megan. His presence definitely was a problem to her. Perhaps the bigger the problem, the quicker she would be to get rid of him. Besides, he despised the name Gino. “Whatever you say, Master,” he answered sweetly.

  Kitty’s heavily colored eyelids flew up. “Did you just call her Master?”

  Megan laughed nervously. “Megan. He said Megan.” She shot him a warning look. “I’ll see you after work, Gino. At home.”

  He debated, then decided he’d pushed her far enough for the moment. “I’ll be waiting,” he said, then winked.

  Actually he’d be closer than she thought. Without the crock pot, he had to stay within five hundred feet of her at all times. But he’d explain that to her later.

  “Goodbye, Kitty.” He took the blonde’s hand, kissing it softly on the knuckles.

  “Goodbye…” He lifted Megan’s hand, letting a smile play out before his lips touched her flesh. One kiss and the word was out before he could stop it. “Master.”

  “He did call you Master. I heard him,” he heard the blonde insist as he walked away.

  Megan joined the goddesses above in cursing him. “Megan. He said Megan. It probably sounded different because of his Italian accent.”

  “He doesn’t have an Italian accent. He doesn’t even have a New York accent, for goodness’ sake. Where’s he really from, Megs?”

  Megan wished she knew the answer to that question. She watched the man’s retreating figure. A glance around showed her she was not the only one who stared. The man moved through the plant as if he were a sultan crossing the common marketplace. Conversations stopped and heads shifted his way.

  As if by magic.

  Was he for real or not? He had turned back time and healed Frank’s hand. She had seen it. She had experienced it. She could think of no other explanation than he was what he’d told her. But…

  Megan had never believed in fairy tales. She’d scoffed at Santa Claus, rolled her eyes at the idea of the Easter Bunny. The only Angel she’d ever known was a biker chick with a leather bra.

  No, while other girls were tucking their teeth under their pillows for the Tooth Fairy or wishing on a full moon, waiting for Prince Charming, Megan was watching for the new landlord, trying to think of a good reason the rent was overdue so her mother and her wouldn’t have to move one more time. But the time would always come. There would be another run-down room, a new job for her mother, which never lasted, a new school for Megan with new faces staring at her and her ill-fitting clothes. After a while, Megan didn’t even try to learn the other children’s names because it didn’t matter. She’d be gone sooner or later.