As Zach closed off his register, and skirted out from behind it, Sam gave him a tap on the shoulder.
“Oh… uh, yes?” the young man mumbled. It seemed clear that he was not interested in being bothered by a customer now that his break had begun.
“Uh, hi. Can I talk to you a minute?” Sam said, biting his lip nervously.
Just act natural, he told himself. You’ve done this kind of thing lots of times.
“Look, it’s my break – I can point you to someone else if you want, ma’am…”
“Oh, it’s not… I just—” Sam felt tongue-tied all of a sudden.
“My friend thinks you’re cute,” Katie interjected. “She wants to give you her number.”
Sam scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Uh… y-yeah.”
Wait. What is my number?
Zach’s eyes grew wide, as he seemed to really look at Sam for the first time. “You think I’m cute?”
“Uh… yeah, you could say that.”
You could say anything at all…
“But listen. I, uh, just got a new number and I haven’t memorised it yet. This might sound kind of forward, but do you want to get a coffee right now? You said you were on break, right?”
Zach’s lips curled into a smile. “Well, I’m not one to turn down coffee with…”
He continued to look her up and down. “A foxy lady such as yourself.”
“Aren’t you the charmer,” Sam forced out, and made a point of peering down at his name tag. “…Zachary.”
“Zach for short,” he said, extending a hand. “Zach Fernandez.”
Sam took his hand with a weak smile.
“I’m Yolanda Beckett,” he said, and immediately felt Katie pinch him on the arm.
“She means ‘Bennett,’” she corrected.
“Uh, yeah. Bennett.”
Katie let out a nervous giggle. “She’s never done anything like this before, I think the nerves are getting to her.”
Sam shrugged. “Must be it,” he said, sending Katie a grateful glance for the save.
A puzzled look passed over Zach’s face, before resolving back into the expression of a man who thought he was about to get lucky. Sam found himself flinching involuntarily at the look in his eyes.
“Okay, well I’ll leave you two to your date,” Katie said with a toothy grin towards Sam. “Break a leg.”
She cupped a hand to Sam’s ear. “I’ll tail you from a distance,” she whispered, before drawing back and flashing a smile at Zach.
She trotted away from them, and as Sam watched her disappear out of the sliding door, it dawned on him that his sister had stepped into Al’s role for this leap – and she was good at it.
* * *
“So what do you do, Yolanda?” asked Zach, gazing into Sam’s eyes through the rising steam of his coffee.
“What do I do?” Sam hesitated. What did Yolanda do? He knew almost nothing about her – and if he had known more information before, it was gone now. Did she have a job? Well, she had an apartment, so she must have had money. All Sam had was the notebook of rhymes.
“I’m a writer,” he said finally. “Or at least, I’d like to be.”
“A writer? Like an author, or journalist…?”
Sam chuckled. “Not quite. More like nursery rhymes.”
He produced the notebook. “Here’s some of the stuff I’ve written. I’d like to, I don’t know… turn it into children’s songs, or…”
Zach looked down at the notebook, and spent a minute or so reading, before looking up.
“These aren’t half bad,” he announced with a grin. “Kids love this kind of stuff.”
“You think so?” he leaned forward expectantly. “You don’t happen to know anyone who’d be able to come up with catchy tunes for them…?”
Zach looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hmm. No. Sorry.”
Sam’s eyes popped open. “…What? You don’t?”
Zach shrugged. “I’m no musician. Don’t know any musicians. Except this one regular I was on friendly terms with – played piano at Carnegie Hall, he said. But I think he just died. Happened on the street out there. Horrible accident…”
Sam gawked at him as he looked back down at the notebook, flipping through the pages.
“Hey, have you ever seen that kids show, ‘Sesame Street?’ I’m learning to make puppets like that. I really wanna work on that show.” He grinned up at Sam. “With these little rhymes, you could easily be a writer on it. We should team up!”
Sam’s face brightened as the words came out of Zach’s mouth.
“Yes, I’d love that!” he said.
“Imagine we had a showreel to send ‘em with my puppets reciting these poems. We could really make an impression!” He glanced down at his watch. “Aww, shucks, I’m due back at work.”
He handed Sam the notebook. “Can we continue this conversation another time?”
“Absolutely,” said Sam, feeling immeasurable relief. He pulled a pen from his bag and flipped the notebook to the back, sliding it back towards Zach. “Since I can’t give you my number, could you write yours?”
Zach penned the number beside his name. “I’m looking forward to hearing from you again,” he said as he handed it back, chugged the remainder of his coffee, and gave one final grin, before hurrying away.
Sam felt the tension in his shoulders release, as he sighed, smiling to the ceiling.
And then Katie was in Zach’s seat, an expectant look on her face. “So… how’d it go?”
“It went great! I think these two are gonna do good things together, though not quite in the way I’d expected.”
He peered down at the number in the notebook, before closing it up and putting it back in his purse. He felt a sense of accomplishment, of completion.
He took Katie’s hand. “Katie, you were incredible today. Thank you.”
Katie laced her fingers with his. “Does this mean you’re… leaping now, or whatever?”
“Yes,” Sam nodded. “Hopefully all of this will be undone before you know it. Goodbye, Katie. I love you.”
“I love you too, Sam…” Katie murmured, her eyes glistening with fresh tears.
Sam maintained eye contact as he waited the crackle that signified a leap… and nothing happened.
“Is something supposed to happen now?” Katie said, tilting her head.
“I thought so.”
Katie grimaced. “…Oh boy.”