The Oldest Virgin In Oakdale

He had come to her for tutoring in their senior year of high school. Working nights at the same meat-packing plant that employed his father, Cole had faced challenges the other, more affluent students at Oakdale had known nothing about. There had been mornings when he was so tired he had barely stayed awake in class. By first-semester midterms, he’d realized he was in danger of failing his math and science classes, and that was when he approached Eleanor one day at the school lunch tables.

She had been sitting with her usual lunch mates, a small group of girls who, like her, excelled more scholastically than socially.

“I need a scholarship to college.” Cole had seemed brusque and straightforward.

Gazing up at him while he stood over their table, Eleanor had nearly choked on her tuna sandwich. He’d never spoken to her before. Few boys had. It wasn’t that she’d been unpopular, exactly. More like…invisible.

Blinking behind her glasses, Eleanor forgot to chew the bite of sandwich she’d taken. One of her friends elbowed her in the ribs, and she managed a dazed, “Huh?”

Cole stood with his hands in his pockets, blue workshirt open to reveal a white T that had been bleached one time too many.

“I need a scholarship,” he repeated. “But I’ve got to bring my math and science grades up.” His gaze remained fixed on Eleanor exclusively, but she could feel her friends holding their breath. “I can’t pay you, but Mr. Howell says he’ll give you extra credit toward final exams in physics. You want to be my tutor?”

Eleanor struggled to swallow. Tuna on white stuck to the roof of her mouth. Reaching for a carton of milk, she sucked up as much liquid as she could, gulped, then replaced the carton clumsily on her lunch tray. “Okay.” She gave a jerky nod.

It was without question the best “okay” she’d ever uttered.

A plaintive meow from Gus commanded Eleanor’s attention, and she set the yearbook gently on the floor. Curving her arms around the big orange cat, she murmured, “What do you think he’s been doing all these years, Gus?” Gus purred and used her chin to scratch his nose. Eleanor rested her cheek on his head and sighed.

Once upon a time, Cole had given her what no one else ever had—the chance to see herself as something special.

As long as she lived, she would never forget the day Cole set his pencil down during one of their study sessions, leaned an elbow on the desk and stared at her while she described in detail the function of stomata in plant respiration.

“Hey, Teach,” he’d murmured lazily, using the nickname he’d given her. Unabashed admiration shone in his eyes. “How come you know so much?”

Pressing her nose to Gus’s fur, Eleanor closed her eyes. Being admired by Cole Sullivan had been heavenly.

“Until I ruined it.”

Gus meowed, alerting Eleanor that she was holding him too tightly and that his patience regarding dinner had come to an end.

“Okay.” Standing with the cat in her arms, she walked to the kitchen, set Gus on the floor and spooned cashew chicken into his bowl. His tail twitched as he attacked his supper.

“I let my imagination get the best of me, Gus.” And there had been no end to her humiliation once that happened.

After that moment with Cole in the library, Eleanor had begun noticing things. The triumphant wink he gave her when he turned in his physics midterm, for example. Every glance, every smile started to seem profoundly personal. And Eleanor began to daydream in a way she never, ever had before.

She—straight-A, left-brained she—had become a closet romantic in less time than it took to say, “I think I love you.”

One afternoon, with fewer than three weeks before their senior prom, Eleanor found herself standing in front of Fortmeyer’s department store, somewhat dazed, as if she’d arrived by osmosis, staring at a window display of taffeta dresses.

Without any awareness of a conscious decision, she was inside the store, putting a deposit on the frosty lime-green dress with the little shoulder-strap bows.

“Gardenias would be the perfect complement to a dress this color,” the saleslady advised her. “Tell your date you want gardenias in your corsage.”My date. “Yes.” Beaming, Eleanor promised. “Yes, I will!”

Somehow at that moment, the fact that Cole hadn’t asked her to the prom didn’t seem like much of a hurdle.

She began dropping hints, subtle ones, she thought, about how hard they’d worked all year and didn’t they deserve a little fun?

Preoccupied with grades and final exams, Cole hadn’t paid much attention. When there was only a week left before the big night, Eleanor got worried. So, during one of their regular afternoon study sessions, she mustered her courage and broached the topic as directly as she dared.

“I was thinking about the prom.” Her gaze was riveted to the textbook in front of her. Her voice barely reached the decibel level of a whisper.

Cole, on the other hand, sounded almost offhand as he replied, “So was I.”

For a moment Eleanor didn’t move, could barely think. “You were?”

“Yeah.” Hands clasped behind his head, he leaned back in his chair. His eyes narrowed, and a smile appeared. “What kinds of flowers do girls like, Teach?”

“Flowers?”

As if it had grown hummingbird wings, Eleanor’s heart fluttered against her rib cage. It was happening! Not the way she’d planned—in the library courtyard, underneath the elm tree—but it was happening!

“Gardenias,” she said, anticipation singing in her veins. She would pay the balance on her beloved dress that afternoon.

“Gardenias,” Cole murmured. “Hmm. They’re white, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” She nodded happily. “With waxy petals. They’re subtropical of the genus Gardenia…”

Ohh! Eleanor cringed the moment the words left her lips. This was not the time for a botany lesson! “They smell nice,” she concluded, frowning when a new thought occurred. “Gardenias may be expensive, though. Carnations would be just as nice.”

“No problem.” Cole shrugged. Raising his arms, he stretched, pulling his T-shirt taut across his chest. “I’ve been saving money lately. You’ve fed me so many Oreos, I haven’t had to buy lunch for weeks.”

Eleanor blushed. She packed the icing-filled cookies in her lunch bag and brought them to the library on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays not because she liked them—chocolate gave her a headache—but because she knew Cole had a particular fondness for them. Lifting her shoulders, she murmured, “You like Oreos.”

“Yeah, I do. So,” he gazed up at the ceiling, “gardenias, hmm? Okay.”

Lowering his arms and leaning forward, he leaned over his textbook. “I hope you’re right, Teach. Because Sue Ann Corning strikes me as the type of girl who needs a lot of color.”

Eleanor’s smile froze. “Sue Ann Corning?” Her lips barely moved.

Cole nodded. “I asked her yesterday.” Glancing up, he grinned. “She said yes right away.”

Eleanor felt the sudden urge to guzzle air.

Sue Ann Corning? Sue Ann, who filed her nails in U.S. History class?Sue Ann? The same girl who’d flunked algebra two years running because she forgot what time the class started?

“You’re going to the prom with Sue Ann Corning.” It was a dazed statement, rather than a question. Sue Ann had earned quite a reputation in four years at Oakdale, but not for studying.

“Last week you said you thought we worked too hard, that we needed more fun. Remember?” Cole’s grin broadened. “I can’t think of anything more fun than a date with Sue Ann.”

Eleanor felt the rest of her congeal right along with her smile.

One moment—that’s all it took for her dream to thud to earth like a hunted duck. Cole enjoyed her company, sure…when passing midterms was the goal. When he wanted a date, he didn’t give her a second thought.

Frustration burned in her belly. For the first time since the start of their friendship, Eleanor felt as invisible in Cole’s eyes as she did with the other boys in their class. Except this was worse.

Well, the next time Cole Sullivan wanted to impress a scholarship committee, he could ask Sue Ann Corning to explain the difference between molecular and population genetics!

Hot with unshed tears, Eleanor’s eyes narrowed. For once in her life she didn’t stop to think. Picking up her copy of Neutrons in Motion, she flung the slim volume at him. Fortunately his reflexes were sharp, and the book glanced off his chin.

“Hey!” Putting a hand to his jaw, he stared at Eleanor in disbelief. “For crying out loud, Teach! What are you trying to do, kill me or something?”

“Sorry, I must have slipped. I was aiming at your thick skull!”

Quickly Eleanor gathered her belongings and fled to the door. Through glasses fogged with tears, she gave him a last look. “And don’t call me ‘Teach’!”

With the vehement command ringing in the air, she ran from the library.

Seated on a bar stool in her kitchen, Eleanor crossed her arms on the counter and buried her face in them. “I can’t believe I said that!” She raised her head slightly to peer at her cat. “You may find this hard to believe, Gus, but Mama was a little awkward in high school.”

Gus may have missed the irony in that revelation, but Eleanor couldn’t. Twelve years later she still felt like a blithering ninny around attractive men. Sighing, she sat up, rummaged in the bag from Yee’s and pulled out an egg roll, submerging it morosely in a container of plum sauce.

Her relationship with Cole never had regained its footing after that day. She’d commanded herself to forget about him, to view the experience as an opportunity for learning. And she supposed she had learned a few things—like never to confuse fantasy with reality. Or respect with romance.

If she was truly smart, she would stay home tomorrow night. She could swing by the bookstore on her way home from work, pick up a copy of Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives, eat leftover Chinese food and go to bed early.

“That’s what I ought to do.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tight.

It wasn’t what she was going to do.

She’d acted like such a fool in her office today, stuttering and dropping things…

“I can’t let that be his last impression of me,” she muttered, crumbling the egg roll between her tense fingers. “The man probably thinks I still have a crush on him.”

She glanced at Gus, who gazed back critically.

“Don’t look at me like that. I just want to close the door once and for all on an up note. I’m entitled to some dignity.”

Bending, she scooped Gus into her arms. “This may be hard to grasp from your perspective, but at some point, Gus, a person has to decide whether she’s going to spend her whole life clucking like a chicken or roaring like a lion.”

Gus meowed. Like a cat.

“Very funny.”

Eleanor decided to roar. Like a woman.

Unfortunately, by 6:00 p.m. the following evening, there was a whole lot of clucking going on.

In half an hour Cole would arrive at the clinic to pick up Sadie and to take Eleanor out to dinner, and Eleanor knew she couldn’t face it.

So by 6:05 p.m. she’d talked herself out of the decision she’d made last night and into a new one. “I’m not going.”

Ten minutes later, having completed her rounds in the kennel, she gathered her things and walked to the reception area.

“I’m leaving, Chloe,” she told her assistant, striving for nonchalance while her heart beat hurry, hurry, hurry. “Mr. Sullivan will be here in—” unnecessarily, she checked her watch “—about fifteen minutes or so to pick up Sadie. I’d like you to bring her out to him and give him the postsurgical spiel.” Eleanor dug through her purse for her keys, avoiding eye contact with her perceptive receptionist. Palming her duties off on others was not her habit. “Sadie’s doing well, so she’ll just need to rest tonight, et cetera. Well, you know the routine, so I won’t worry about it. Okay. Goodbye.”

Pitching a bland smile in Chloe’s general direction, she headed for the door. “Oh! Also,” she added in a poorly feigned afterthought, “would you tell Mr. Sullivan I’m very sorry, but I can’t make it tonight, after all? Something came up. Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

“Hold it!” Chloe bounded around the front desk, planting her petite figure squarely in Eleanor’s path. “What? What are you saying? You have a date with that…that hunk tonight?”

“Mr. Sullivan and I had plans, yes, but they were tentative, and—”

Chloe’s jaw fell. “You couldn’t possibly be telling me you’re not going!”

“Chloe,” Eleanor searched her meager experience for the best way to handle this. “Chloe, I don’t have time to explain.” According to her wristwatch, it was only ten minutes to liftoff; she had to jettison this mission while there was still time. “Just tell Mr. Sullivan that I forgot I had other plans.”

Chloe closed her eyes, shook her head and tapped her ear as if she was certain she’d lost her hearing. “I must have misunderstood. A man who is living proof of a loving God asks you out and you have—” she drew quotation marks in the air “—‘other plans’? No.” Pressing her peach-tinted lips firmly together, she wagged her head. “I don’t think so.”

Eleanor spoke as coolly as she could, given her urgency to flee. “I have other plans. They slipped my mind yesterday.”

“Today is Wednesday,” Chloe argued. “Wednesdays are only egg foo yung night at Yee’s. You can miss egg foo yung.”

Eleanor’s face grew hot. This is what comes from getting chummy with your employees. “I have other other plans tonight.”

Chloe eyed her doubtfully. “Cancel them.”

“No. Now I’m going. Just give him the message.”

“But—”

“Good night, Chloe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ignoring Chloe’s plea to discuss this further, Eleanor escaped the building and hopped into her Toyota.

When she arrived home forty minutes later, she was carrying a bag from Yee’s Chinese Takeout, which she virtually slammed onto the kitchen counter. Gus leaped up, enthusiastically sniffed the bag, then hissed.

“Szechwan eggplant,” Eleanor informed him grumpily. “You need a change.”

Her mood was turning darker by the minute. Mr. Yee had greeted her tonight in his customary manner—with a big smile and a booming, “Hello, egg foo yung!” He never called her by name, anymore; he simply referred to her as the daily special.

“I’m in a rut.”

The feeling of dissatisfaction with her circumstances was unlike her. She was twenty-eight, owned her own town home and had a wonderful career. She had a frequent-diner punch card at Yee’s and a cat that liked egg rolls. What more did she need? Even with all the badgering her parents and Chloe had been doing about her social life, Eleanor hadn’t been discontent—until the day before yesterday. Already, Cole Sullivan’s reappearance in her life was wreaking havoc with her peace of mind.

“I’m grateful I didn’t go out with him tonight. I definitely am,” she told Gus, who had settled atop the heat vent. “You and I are going to have a terrific evening, Guster Buster. We’re going to get out of this rut, and we don’t have to prove anything to anyone in order to do it. I can’t wait to try that spicy eggplant, and after dinner we can tune in to the sci-fi channel. That’ll be a change, won’t it? See? Already this is good. It’s a good evening.”

Eleanor kept up a running commentary as she unpacked the dinner from Yee’s. One whiff made her eyes water.

Mr. Yee had frowned heavily when she said she wanted the eggplant dish. “No.” He’d shaken his head, waving a hand emphatically. “Too spicy for you.”

That was all it had taken for Eleanor to insist, “The hotter the better, Mr. Yee.” Carrying her tray to the coffee table in the living room, Eleanor was about to sit down when the doorbell rang. Who— she wondered, then winced. “Mrs. Grilley.” Shaking her head, she crossed the living room. The elderly woman had slipped her mind until that moment.

Florence Grilley was her eighty-three-year-old neighbor, whose King Charles spaniel, Pearlie, suffered from ear mites. Eleanor had promised to make a house call earlier this week. She readily agreed to her neighbor’s frequent requests because she knew that, in part, Mrs. Grilley simply needed the company.

Opening the door with an apologetic smile, Eleanor exclaimed, “You must think I’m the most absentminded person in the world—”

“The thought had crossed my mind.”

Eleanor froze in surprise.

Cole Sullivan stood in her doorway, dressed in a fawn sport jacket, straw-colored shirt and pants. His wavy hair had been trimmed since yesterday, falling in thick waves, neat enough for a boardroom, but enticing enough to tempt a woman’s fingers to comb through it.

Never had he looked more wonderful.

Never had she felt more awkward. “What are you doing here?”

Cole gazed at her with pointed irony. “I think that’s my line.”

Chapter Three

Glancing at his watch, Cole arched a brow. “We had an appointment at six-thirty.”

Relaxed, as if he didn’t mind at all conducting this discussion in Eleanor’s doorway, he leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “I haven’t been stood up in years.”

“I told Chloe to tell you—”

“Ah, yes, the ‘prior engagement.’ Did you know Chloe’s neck itches when she lies?”

He reached out a hand. Eleanor stood rooted to the threshold as his index and middle fingers grazed her just below the jaw.

“Right there,” he said, folding his arms again. “Copious scratching.” He shrugged. “It’s a dead giveaway.”

His tone and words were pleasantly ironic, but his kaleidoscopic eyes darkened from Pacific blue to stormy gunmetal gray.

Eleanor cleared her suddenly dry throat. “I asked Chloe to tell you I forgot I had a previous engagement, because I do.” The aroma of Szechuan eggplant called her a liar. “Did,” she amended awkwardly. “I had plans, but…now I don’t.”

She should probably wash her mouth out with soap. She hadn’t lied since the third grade when she broke her father’s favorite petri dish and told him the dog did it.

“My plans were canceled,” she ended in a small voice.

“Yours, too?” Cole glanced toward the living room. “Mind if I come in, then?”

He straightened away from the door frame and walked past her without waiting for a reply. Stopping a few paces into the room, he made a brief study of Eleanor’s small home.

When his gaze found the coffee table, where her solitary meal awaited her, she blushed.

Cole turned to regard her, noting the heightened color in her cheeks, the way she fiddled with a pearl button at the top of her sweater. He felt a measure of satisfaction in her discomfort—unchivalrous, he knew, but he wasn’t used to being stood up. He didn’t like it.

Worse, he had not been stood up by just any woman, but by Eleanor Lippert.

A lot had changed in the dozen years he’d been away from Oakdale, superficial changes like the landscape around Quinn Park and new businesses along California Street. Other things appeared to be exactly the same, and he found himself wanting, fairly or not, for Eleanor Lippert to be one of those things.

He had not returned to Oakdale for pleasure or because he’d had a sudden urge to stroll down memory lane. He was not a sentimental man.

Moodily Cole gazed at Eleanor, who looked hopelessly awkward, then glanced again at the food laid out on the coffee table. Plowing a hand through his hair, he shook his head. Maybe she’d had a prior engagement, after all.

“I’m interrupting your dinner.” The words emerged more gruff than graceful.

“How did you find out where I live?”

Cole tried not to wince visibly. Eleanor hadn’t given him her home phone number, let alone her address. Arriving uninvited, he’d invaded her privacy as well as her home. He could have retreated at that point; he probably should have. Instead he felt his lips curve into a smile. Easily—a little too easily—he shifted to the slick charm he used to persuade boards of directors across the continental U.S.

“I coerced it out of your assistant. She was very reluctant,” he assured, then paused, musing. “There are two ways we can handle this. One, I can apologize for barging in here, leave and get something to eat on my own…”

Ducking her head, Eleanor mumbled the response she knew he was waiting for. “What’s the second way?”

Cole felt his muscles relax. “You always did like multiple choice, Teach. The second way involves a bit more participation on your part. I still apologize, of course, but then you take pity on me, pull another plate out and invite me to share your Chinese food.”

“Where’s Sadie?”

“Sadie? I dropped her at home on my way here.”

“Oh.” Eleanor nudged her glasses. “Does she have a soft, clean place to rest? I don’t think I’d leave her unattended so soon.”

Cole grinned.

Eleanor blushed, unsure of whether she was being a responsible vet or simply stalling for time.

“There’s a housekeeper in residence,” Cole informed her. “Jasmine loves dogs. Sadie’s being looked after.”

Jasmine, the housekeeper? Eleanor blinked. Cole had changed in more ways than one over the years.

It had been common knowledge when they were kids that Cole lived in “Butcher’s Row,” a distressed area of company-owned housing for the employees of Orly’s Meat Packing and their families. There’d been terrible stories circulated about Butcher’s Row, the kind kids told to distance themselves from their less fortunate peers. The most enthusiastically whispered rumor was that if you spent a night in Butcher’s Row, you could hear the haunted moo’s of deceased cattle. Or worse, that everyone who lived in the row smelled like raw meat.

No one had ever taunted Cole, though, with such gibes. By tacit agreement, the young people with whom he attended school each day either forgot or overlooked the fact that he returned to The Row each night. And yet to Eleanor even this had seemed somehow discourteous. Ignoring the situation had made it impossible to help when his clothes clearly had suffered one washing too many or when he’d appeared exhausted again after working the graveyard shift at Orly’s on a school night.

It was hard to reconcile the memory of that boy with the man who stood before her today. Cole had clearly become a man of substance, someone who had seen and, no doubt, sampled the world well beyond Oakdale.

Silently she studied his broad frame, clothed beautifully in a suit that must have been tailored especially for him.

It was all too easy to imagine the contemporary Cole Sullivan hiring some gorgeous young woman, some Jasmine, to putter around his kitchen. Jasmine. Right. Eleanor might be naive, but she wasn’t born yesterday. No one had to tell her that women named Jasmine had a lot more on their minds than ridding the world of dust bunnies.

“Okay, stop frowning, Eleanor.” Cole sighed. “If you’re that concerned, I’ll go back and check on her.”

“Why?” Unable to help herself, she scowled. “Doesn’t Jazz-min like to be alone?”

Cole shook his head. “Jasmine? I was talking about Sadie. And you’re the one who’s worried.”

Eleanor grimaced. Sadie! Of course. She shook her head. This was no good, no good at all. Barely two days back in his company and already she was on the fast track toward making a fool of herself.

“Still the most responsible woman in Oakdale,” Cole observed quietly, mistaking her frown for concern. “Some things do stay the same.” His voice was soft, almost inaudible, and the lines on his forehead gave way to fine crinkles around his light eyes.

Eleanor’s scowl deepened. He made her sound like Miss Crumrine, the Oakdale High librarian: tidy, constant, prim.

“I’m not responsible,” she protested in a tight grumble.

Cole quirked a brow. He said nothing, but his lips began to curve. He didn’t believe her.

Eleanor bristled. Did he think she was so predictable? That he could walk away twelve years ago and return to find her unchanged?