1 Chapter 1
“My secret admirer strikes again,” Jim said under his breath as he read the note.
Like the ones before it, it had shown up on Saturday morning, tacked to the bulletin board by the front door of Bannock’s, the restaurant where Jim worked three days a week. The board was there for people who wanted to announce they were having a yard sale, did dog-sitting or handyman work, were advertising an upcoming event, play or concert, or anything else they thought the customers might be interested in. As always, the note was in a sealed envelope with his name, Jim Foster, printed on the outside—without capitalization.
Mazie, one of the waitresses, had spotted the first one. She’d given it Jim, smirking as she did, “Does one of our customers have a secret crush on you?”
“God, I hope not,” he’d replied before opening the envelope to take out the note. It said, hand-printed, all in lower case, ‘your smile makes my day’. “Okay, that’s just weird.”
He’d shown it to Mazie, who grinned. “I was right. Now you just have to figure out who she is. Or he, though that doesn’t sound like something a man would write.”
“Good luck with that. We get a million customers a day, half of them regulars.”
She laughed. “Hardly a million, though some mornings it feels it. Whoever wrote that is right, though, you do have a great smile.”
“Maybe this is from you?” he’d teased.
“Sweetie, if I was interested in you, I’d come right out and say so. Of course, my husband might not like that idea, so…”
They’d laughed, Jim had crumpled up the note, tossing it in the trash basket before getting back to work.
He’d thought that was the end of it until a week later when a second note appeared—again on Saturday morning. The way his schedule was—Saturday through Monday at the restaurant from six until two, to accommodate his primary job with the Onyx Repertory Theater—he figured it had to have been pinned to the board either Friday before closing, or right after they opened on Saturday.
It said—again printed all in lower case—i like the way you smile at everyone as if they were personal friends. it makes me happy.
“Another one?” Mazie asked with a grin. “It wasn’t there yesterday when I left. But I took off a bit early for a dentist appointment.”
“Yeah, another one.” He’d crumpled the note, dropping it in the trash with a shake of his head.
“Another what?” Tom, one of the other waiters had asked.
“Someone’s leaving love notes for Jim,” Mazie replied. “Pinned to the bulletin board.”
“No kidding? Any idea who?” Tom asked Jim.
“No clue, but I wish they’d stop. It’s embarrassing, and kind of creepy.”
“Some chick is too shy to come out and say she’s interested,” Tom said. “This is definitely a chick thing.”
“So she leaves anonymous notes? That’s not going to get her anywhere, even if I was in the market for a girlfriend. Which both of you know I’m not.”
Tom had laughed, smacking Jim’s shoulder. “Someday you’re going to break down and find the right person, fall in love, and end up quitting so you can get a real job that’ll support both of you, and your assorted pets.”
“As if,” Jim had replied. “I’m destined to be a waiter ‘til the day I die—or someone discovers that I’m really ama talented designer and hires me to work for a big city theater.”
“That’ll happen,” Mazie had told him, giving him a hug. “Right now, though…”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ve got a room full of hungry people waiting for us to take their orders.”
* * * *
The most recent note said, ‘you make people feel special when you serve them with that smile of yours. it’s what makes youspecial.’
Jim put it back in the envelope, stuffing it in his pocket. It was the fifth one he’d gotten in just over five weeks—all of them showing up on Saturday mornings. He’d saved the last three. Not because he cherished them. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. It worried him that some girl, or woman, seemed to have fixated on him. Tom and Mazie are right, it has to be a female. No man would pull something like this. He supposed that wasn’t necessarily true. A man could be too shy to come on to him personally, he guessed. Either way, he’d decided to keep the most recent notes, in case whoever was leaving them intended on escalating things—and not in a good way. If that happened, he’d at least have some evidence to show the police.
