Etude: An umbrella, a feather duster, and a book, Part 4/5

A continuation. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. 

“Yep, these and one other that we don’t carry. Didn’t like that one.” She was irritated by his surprise. Just another dude, underestimating the girl on the staff. She fought the urge to roll her eyes, and her Customer Smile slipped a bit at the corners.  

He recovered himself, clearing his throat. He forgot about asking her out for a few moments. “That’s great. I’ve been hoping to find someone who can answer some specific questions. None of the rest of the staff have used them.” 

She relaxed a little. Ok, maybe he wasn’t underestimating the girl. “Well, it’s a pretty specialized piece of software. What sort of scanning do you want to do?” She felt that impostery twang of anxiety that snuck up on her sometimes, worried that she didn’t really know anything that he’d want to know. His questions were specific, the questions of someone with some first-hand knowledge of similar programs, but they were all pragmatic. She was able to give firm, clear answers.  

The manager stood up at some point, stretching his shoulders. He watched them for a moment before sighing and once more settling in to the paperwork.  

“If you don’t mind my asking, in what capacity have you used this software,” he asked. He looked up at her and was struck by the blueness of her eyes, made somehow more vivid by the tired redness surrounding them. Remembering his mission, his heart started to beat faster again.  

“I also work as an editorial assistant for a professor on campus. He is compiling an edition of previously published essays.  I could retype them all myself, including footnotes, or figure out a way to scan them in. Truth be told, I might as well type the footnotes myself. The resolution on the scanners I use isn’t good enough for the OCR to sort those out.” He was looking at her intently. She shifted her weight back onto her heels, a bit flustered by the intensity of his look, but unwilling to offend him with a full step backwards. His eyes were very blue.  

“Two jobs? That must keep you pretty busy.”

She shrugged, still trying to maintain the smile. “A little.”

He looked down at the package. Words were failing him now. “I-I, um, hadn’t thought about the scanning resolution. I have to check my scanner.” 

She turned and put a package back on the shelf. He still held one in his hand, the one that she preferred. “So what do you think? Want to take that one home and give it a whirl? Or think about it some more?”  

Businessy. He almost had the words in his mouth, but it was no good. Asking her out now was too—odd. Incongruous. “Um, you know, yes. I think I’ll try this one.” He looked at the price for the first time. A bit more than he had wanted to spend, but he thought he might lose face now if he backed out. He wanted to appear confident to her.  

Tomorrow, an ending…