Magic and the Modern Girl by Mindy Klasky Page B

cab as soon as I could—I figured it was worth it to pay the fare, just to escape with some of the skin on my palms still intact!”
    “Let me guess—Loverboy didn’t give you a kiss goodbye.”
    “I wasn’t about to test the waters. I’m sure he would have made me brush, floss and rinse with Listerine first!”
    “Another one bites the dust,” I said, draining my tea-and-lemonade in a sisterly affirmation of our sorrowful tossing on the dating seas. “I don’t know how you do it,” I said, shaking my head.
    “Hey,” Melissa said, as if she’d just thought of something brilliant. “I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
    “What?”
    “What would you think of…” She caught herself and looked away.
    “What?” I asked again.
    “It’s a stupid idea.” She was blushing. Melissa White was blushing. My strong-willed, straight-shooting best friend in all the world was blushing.
    “What?” I asked again, with enough force that the tattooed hipsters at the next table turned to stare.
    Melissa fiddled with the empty sugar packet she had used in preparing her coffee. “What would you think if I dated…” She swallowed hard, and I tried to imagine what she was thinking, what could be so terrible that she could not even complete her sentence. A prisoner from the local penitentiary? A married millionaire who wanted to trade his fortune for sexual favors? An admitted pervert who wanted her to dress up like Minnie Mouse but promised a ring on her finger and a wedding that she could invite her great-aunt Gertrude to attend?
    “What!” I exclaimed, pounding a fist on the table with enough force that the hipsters gave me dirty looks and moved to a different table.
    “A customer.”
    “A customer? Like from Cake Walk?”
    She nodded her head, but she refused to meet my eye.
    “You mean a paying patron? Someone who comes into your place of business and conducts a retail transaction like a totally normal human being? A man who has the good taste to recognize the best bakery in all of Washington, D.C., and who thinks to pay you the compliment of asking you out to dinner or a movie? That sort of customer?”
    “Well, when you say it like that…”
    “Is there some other way to say it?”
    “It’s just that it feels scummy. Sly. Like I met him under false pretenses or something. I hate to think that the only reason he’s been coming in for the past year is because he thinks he’ll get something on the side.”
    “For the past year! Melissa, you’re practically engaged to this guy already!”
    “I hardly know him.”
    “What’s his favorite coffee?”
    “Anything with caramel. He gets one every morning.”
    “What’s his favorite cookie?”
    “The Almond Brick Roads. He gets them in the afternoons.”
    “What’s his favorite cake?”
    “My grandmother’s Apple Cinnamon Cream. But he only gets that on special occasions.”
    “Where does he work?”
    “Down in the Harbor. He’s a lawyer.”
    “Well, that’s a major strike against him, I’ll admit,” I said dryly.
    “Do you think so?”
    “Hello! Melissa! You just described a dream man! What’s his name, and why didn’t you say yes, the instant he asked you out?”
    “Rob Peterson. And I just couldn’t. I don’t want to mix work with play. It seems cheap. Besides, if things don’t go well, I’ll lose a customer.”
    I gaped at her. All of her years of shopping around, all those First Dates from Hell, they’d melted her brain. Or maybe it was the fumes from all the hand gel she had absorbed the day before. “Melissa White, if you lose a single customer, the world will continue rotating on its axis. But if you pass up this chance—this chance to go out on a date with a perfectly normal guy, who has stopped by to see you at least twice a day for God knows how long…” I trailed off, running out of enough words, enough threats to make her see sense. I finally settled on “Please, Melissa. Just this once. Date a customer. Say