Free Hometown Legend by Jerry B. Jenkins Page B

her.”
    “For what?”
    “Well, yeah, okay. I wouldn’t mind being in love again.” I blushed, but Bev was too nice to tease me about it.
    “You act like you’re out of choices,” she said. “It’s not like she’s the only eligible woman in town.”
    “Yeah, but—”
    She sat forward and put her cup on my desk. “Yeah, but nothing, Boss. You haven’t even dated. Find yourself a—”
    “It’s not like people haven’t tried to set me up.”
    “You don’t need that. Women round here know you. They know your history, your character. Find yourself somebody your own age
     who won’t want to be out and about in twenty years when you’d rather sit on the front porch and read the paper.”
    “I hope that’s not me at sixty, Bev.”
    “I’m just saying …”
    Well, I had asked. I had thought she would be excited for me, tell me to go for it. Now what was I supposed to do? What if
     I showed up at church with Jacqui after getting Bev’s advice?
    “Thanks,” I said, with maybe not enough enthusiasm.
    “For nothing, eh?”
    “No, I appreciate it.”
    “Wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
    “No, but if I wasn’t prepared to think about it, I shouldn’t have asked.”
    She nodded. “You got another minute?”
    “Course.”
    “Still open to ideas to save the business, keep people on the payroll?”
    “Always,” I said. “You know that.”
    “You want to know what Lee Forest and the people on the line are saying? Most of it’s critical or crazy or at least impractical.
     But some of the old-timers have it in their heads that there might be another market segment we could compete in.”
    “Market segment?” I said. “Lee is using management lingo now?”
    She admitted he hadn’t used exactly that term. “But he and some of the others believe they can do more than make footballs.
     They’d be willing to learn new procedures and see part of the plant retooled.”
    “To do what?”
    “Manufacture baseball gloves.”
    I sat back. “I like that they’re thinking,” I said. “But think of the cost of new equipment, of training, not to mention trying
     to compete in a new market. How can I lay off dozens of people and then announce a new kind of operation a few months later?”
    “I’m just telling you what I’m hearing,” she said.
    “You know most of the companies with the ball glove accounts are having their manufacturing done overseas.”
    She shrugged. “What else is new?”
    “Better get me an appointment with Les.”
    “And his cronies? Those four with seniority tend to hang together.”
    “Sure.”
    She stood. “Well, I figure you’re on your way to school to ask for a date.”
    “What, you think I don’t take you seriously? Tell you what, I won’t do anything today, and that’ll give me the weekend to
     really think about it.”
    • • •
    I gotta admit Bev kept me from doing something stupid. I go to school, excited cause I’m gonna see Jacqui but kinda relieved
     I’ve decided not to make any bold move yet. I’m also thinking how much fun practice has been this week.
    So I get there a good half hour before my class and go to the copy center and trade smiles with Jacqui. She’s got my job finished
     and seems free to talk, so we shoot the breeze and I start thinking that if I
was
gonna get brave and ask her to join me at church Sunday, today would be the day. And then she up and says, “You know, Mr.
     Sawyer, I really like talking to you.”
    “I really like talking to you too,” I say.
    And she says, “It’s so good to have an older person to bounce things off of. I get a fresh perspective when I realize that
     someone like you has been through what I’m going through, only so many years ago.”
    My smile froze and I acted like I was glad I coulda been some help, but my cotton, how old did she think I was? It hit me
     that I had never told her. Either she thought I was another ten years older’n her or she thought ten years was plenty anyway.
     All of a