Copyright © 2007 Lisa Greer. All rights reserved.

The lunch was like any other lunch at Wang Ho's–tangy beef with green beans and hot and sour soup–until we got the orange slices and fortune cookies that always came with the check. I waited for Luke to bite the end off his cookie, like he always does, and then pull out the tiny, white slip of paper. He did, grinning and tossing the fortune toward me.

"This sounds more like yours than mine."

"You will have a happy month." I read it and crumpled it up. "Not so far..."

I broke my cookie in half as was my custom and tugged the paper out, scraping my long nails against the cookie and shivering with disgust.

I smirked at the cliché, but still, I quickly shoved the slip of paper into my plain, brown purse. I could feel heat rising in my cheeks. That happened to me way too often as a fair-skinned blonde.

"C'mon; what did yours say, Cupie?" Luke asked with raised eyebrows. I rolled my eyes. I would let him get away with it this time. It was always tough to get mad at him: I told all my girlfriends who had gotten out of this one stop light town–the ones who had never seen him–that he looked how I would imagine Michael, the Archangel, to look: wavy black hair, fair complexion and impossibly full lips. Not to mention his lean but strong body. Yes, he could get away with calling me Cupie.

Cupie was my hated nickname–referring to my round face and figure and the cowlick in the middle of my bangs. And my chubby thighs. Only my father and Luke could get away with calling me Cupie. My father because he had given me the name before he had left my mother and me on a balmy spring day in March when I was twelve (I was now thirty-three), and Luke because I loved him. Once Luke found out about it, the name stuck–five years into our relationship full of passion and doldrums and phases unnamed between the two extremes. After all, Cupie is much more interesting than my real name: Ruth.

"It said many happy days are coming." The lie slipped right out. I knew I had to lie about it instinctively, but I had no idea why it should matter. I just knew that it did. But why? It was a stupid, hackneyed line anyway and on a fortune cookie for God's sake.

"Good for you. I'm sure it's true." Luke touched my hand as he pulled his lanky frame from the small chair. "I gotta get back to the grind. Are we still on for a movie tonight? Whatever you pick–as long as it's not Super Bad."

I laughed as we walked out of the restaurant, feeling more relief at not showing him my fortune than I could understand.

"Xiexie." Ming, our usual waitress, a slight Mandarin Chinese girl with fringe bangs and impossibly long, black hair waved and smiled. I wondered how she would spend her evening when she finally got off work.

I was done with my half day of work at Grenning Travel Agency in the quaint, southern town of Vineville for this Thursday, so I turned my battered, green Ford Focus toward home. Home was a charming, pink house with white shutters. The previous owner had a penchant for pink and had gone all out. The price was right; the pink could stay until I had time to get it repainted. So far, I was going on six years in the house; I think pink was growing on me.

I walked in, threw my purse down on the couch and put on a kettle of orange pekoe tea-my one after-work guilty pleasure. Next, I flounced down on the couch and flipped on the tv–just in time for my only other guilty pleasure: Oprah. I was absorbed in a rerun about swinging housewives when I heard a rap on the door; I don't call it a knock because it really was like a "rapping"– the kind you would read about in a horror novel. Or maybe it was just that damn fortune cookie making me think that way.

I sighed and shuffled to the door; just then, the teapot screamed. I quickly took it off the burner and turned off the heat. Then the doorbell rang.

"Insistent little bugger, aren't you?" I whispered. My heart did a strange little flipflop in my chest as I reached the door and peered out.

He was ordinary enough–the guy standing outside–short and balding. Like at least half the other men in Vineville. So, I opened the door.

"Can I help you?" I asked in a louder than normal voice, hoping I showed confidence that I did not feel.

"Hi, Ruth is it?" He asked in a quiet voice, smiling and pushing his glasses up on his nose. I noticed his blue overalls and a logo of some sort–Hagee's– printed on the right side of his uniform. I'd never heard of Hagee's.

"Yes. Can I help you," I stated (since I was tired of asking) in a strident tone, hands on my hips.

"I'm just here to check your hot water heater."

I nearly laughed with relief. "Finally! I had forgotten about that. Are you from town?"

"No, Hagee's is in Dornville. You called last week." Tom, as his name tag said, looked at me with raised eyebrows.

"Right; now I remember." I shook my head at my forgetfulness and let him in. I drank my orange pekoe as he banged around in the utility room before announcing ten minutes later:

"There. It's all fixed. You just needed a new piece of copper here to stop the leak."

"Thanks; it will be great not to have to put a pan there anymore to catch water. So, how much is it, and do you take a check?" I paid him, and he left with a smile. As I closed the door, I giggled.

I glanced at my watch: 2:30. I had worked hard earlier today; I deserved a nap, and Luke wouldn't be coming over until 7:00 or so. I set the alarm for 4:00pm and snuggled under my goose down duvet.

I was awakened from a luscious dream in which a strange man was licking my neck with his long, pink tongue. I shivered with longing and revulsion as I rubbed my eyes. I pulled myself out of bed as I heard the second knock on the door, glancing at my watch. It was 3:30.

I padded to the door and smiled to myself.

I opened the door and looked into eyes like my own–hazel with what I had always called a brown tiger stripe.

"Ruth? Ruth Moore?" The man with the shabby tweed coat and the completely bald head asked.

Looking into eyes just like mine, I felt a shiver. I said, "Yes, daddy. It's me."