I’m so happy for my dad, she thought, as she grabbed a frozen ham and Swiss sandwich on a brioche bun. All of his hard work is finally paying off.
At 6:15, she let her staff members go for the evening. She finished up the remaining few tasks on her own. It was 6:25 when she gathered her light spring coat and purse, and headed to where her father sat. “Ready for dinner?” she asked.
“Am I ever!” he said with a happy smile.
4
Beauty
The next morning, Bridget was walking down Klinger Boulevard when her cell rang. She was just a block from Glitter Cup, but she almost wished she was farther away. The spring air was delightfully warm for a change, though it was still only 8:30 in the morning. Alongside the boulevard in big cerulean blue planters, cheerful bouquets of blossoms greeted her as she walked. She answered her phone happily. “Morning, Dad!”
“Good morning, Pumpkin,” he said. As usual, he sounded distracted, like his mind was on a million things at once. “Are you at the café?”
“Not yet,” Bridget said. “But I’ll be there in a few minutes. What’s up?”
“I think I left my folder there. The one with all the details about my new plastic. I must have—can’t seem to find it anywhere around here.”
“That’s because your place is such a mess,” Bridget chided. “Did you look through your lab?” She knew her father’s habits. He often worked in his lab until one or two in the morning.
“Thoroughly,” her father said. “It’s not there. I must have left it on the table...”
“At Big Bobby’s?” Bridget asked.
“No, no... at your café.... I was sitting there reading with that nice juice you brought me. I had a stack of books about patents. I think I forgot to put the books back, too. The folder must be there with the books. Must be there. I’m sure that’s where I left it. I’ll pop by and get it in a few. I’ll need it before two... that’s when the meeting is. Mind putting it in your back office for me?”
“Sure thing, Dad,” Bridget said. She turned onto 4th Street, and Glassman Park came into view. Across the street from it was a towering new hotel which had opened up earlier in the year. And just past the monstrous luxury resort was Glitter Cup, though she couldn’t see it yet.
She always liked walking by the park, and sometimes she took a loop around Glassman Pond if time allowed for it. But with her father’s folder on her mind, she decided not to. She was eager to get it safely into her office.
When she walked into Glitter Cup, a feeling of familiarity and warmth spread through her. The little bookstore and café had become like a second home to her over the past three years. She walked past a display of the latest bestseller. The thick rose-colored carpeting changed over to honey-toned wood floors as she entered the corner of the space that contained the café. Only one of the tables in front of the counter was occupied by an elderly woman, a regular customer named Pat Melhue, who was reading the paper. Two of the handful of stuffed chairs were filled as well. Bridget knew that the café usually had a small morning rush around seven, when it opened up, and then things slowed down until around nine.
She checked the table where her father had been sitting the night before. The top was polished and empty. A little jolt of apprehension buzzed through her, but she soothed herself quickly; of course one of her staff had probably already moved the folder to the back room. She quickly slipped through the hinged counter door. “Morning, Sean,” she said.
Sean was standing in front of the espresso machine. “Hi there, Bridget!” he said cheerfully. “Beautiful outside, isn’t it? How was dinner with your dad last night?”
A timer went off, and Adrienne swept by, clicked it off, and then began fussing with the coffee pots. “That means it’s time for a fresh round of Italian roast!” she said. “Morning, Bridget!”
“Have either of you seen a manilla folder this morning?” Bridget asked.
Sean pressed a button on the machine before him, and rich brown espresso started drizzling into a waiting cup. “I don’t think so,” he said, as the machine hissed.
“Nope,” said Adrienne. She was busy measuring coffee grounds into a filter.
“Oh. Okay. It was out on the table there last night,” she pointed. “My dad left it. It’s important.”
Adrienne fit the filter into the waiting coffee machine. “Is it something to do with his invention?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “I think I saw him carrying it last night when he got here.”
“He was,” Bridget said. “And he’s pretty sure he left it here. I guess you never know, with my dad. His mind is a million miles off in Invention-land most of the time. He has some trouble keeping things straight.”
A knot was beginning to form in her stomach. The folder held important papers, and her father needed it for his meeting that was to take place in the afternoon. He’d be in soon, expecting to find it. Had a café customer walked off with it by accident? That wouldn’t be good.
She waited for Christine, who was at the register, to finish taking an order. “Christine, did you happen to see a manilla folder stuffed with papers on that table when you opened up this morning?” she asked, again pointing to the table.
Christine shook her head and reached for a sleeve of cups. As she unwrapped it, she said, “Why? Is something wrong?”
“It’s my dad’s invention paperwork,” Bridget said vaguely. “I’ll check the security videos.”
She left the café area and hurried through the bookstore portion of Glitter Cup. Jeremiah, a tall, heavyset man with a pale face and an impish grin was the manager in charge of the bookstore. He liked to wear flashy, patterned shirts under his pink or white Glitter Cup uniform tee, and the effect was almost dizzying. The computer next to the bookstore’s cash register had software installed for the store’s security cameras.
Jeremiah was clicking away at the computer, likely checking emails, which was exactly what Bridget would have been doing to start out her shift had she not been dealing with the missing folder. He looked up as Bridget approached. “Hey Bridge!” he said. “I heard about your dad’s good news! He finally cracked the code, eh?”
Bridget feigned a polite smile, though she didn’t feel like smiling at all. “Yeah, he’s pretty psyched,” she said. “How’d you hear about it?”
“Adrienne was telling me a little while ago,” he said. He held up a glittery cup. “She brought over my mocha, and a few books that needed to be put away. She said your dad’s going to usher in a new era of space technology. Lighter plastic—something like that?”
As soon as he mentioned space technology, his eyes lit up. In addition to flashy clothing, Jeremiah also adored science fiction, especially when it involved outer space. The shelves of the Dayton store carried a disproportionate amount of the stuff, a fact that the higher ups allowed because Jeremiah talked up the space-travel sci fi books so well that it always flew off the shelves.
“Can I take a peek at the security cameras?” Bridget asked. “I need to check something out in the café area.”