High C

8. Strange Offerings

Halfway through the week Bob discovered there was such a thing as canned bread. Some odd soul had deposited one red and blue labelled can of Brown's Raisin Bread to the Train's Food Bank donation box and the staff could not stop talking about it. As other donations piled up they kept digging it out and moving it to the top so they could look at it. On one hand, it seemed a thoughtful gift with a best before date three years in the future. On the other hand, it was bread in a can. The distraction was almost too much.

One day, in between groups, Curtis, an alternate server on the train, brought the can into the staff room and placed it on the table in the middle of everyone's lunch. "I can't take it anymore," he said. "I say we eat it and replace it with something else useful, like baby food or pet food."

"Did you forget to bring lunch today?" Bob asked.

"I am dyyying to open it," said Lena, "but I don't know if I actually want to eat it."

"Guys," said Bob, "we're not going steal food from a food bank and then waste it 'cause it's gross, no matter how badly we want to poke our fingers in that can and see if squishes down to a puck. I mean, is it like plum pudding in there, or is it a dry sponge?"

"I'll get the can opener," said an elf named Kwami.

There wasn't one, and just as others volunteered to run to the dollar-store on the corner and get one, Ivan rolled up his dangling yeti-fluff sleeves and said, "No matter what it's like, I bet it would taste really great if you sliced it and toasted it." The room seemed to agree.

Bob called it. "Well, that's the end of that. Far be it from a charitable lot like us to deny anyone the pleasure of surprise texture and toast. I'll put it back."

After a vote of sighs, Bob took the can out to the front and nearly fell in the bin as he dug to bury the can deep out of curiosity's way.

"What are you doing?" Natasha Loy asked having just walked in the station door.

"I'm working on my core," Bob said tipping backwards into an upright position.

"Well you're just who I was looking for. Do you have time to talk?"

"Sure," Bob said, unsure whether to be pleasantly surprised or call out for witnesses. "Step into my dressing room."

He showed Natasha around the pretend ticket wicket and asked Bailey, whose job it was to tell Bob the train did not run to Kilarney, to give them a minute. They actually had thirteen until the next group came in.

"How can I help you?"

"I'm here because I want to offer you a job."

She seemed very eager for someone who was always trying to get rid of him. "You're kidding," Bob said. "What's the gig?"

"Well it's a little left of centre, but I think you'd be perfect for it, only you'd have to give up this one to do it."

"I'm listening."

"I want you to come home with me for Christmas and pretend to be my fiancé."

She'd said it with a straight face too. Bob laughed. "This has been some crazy day. Did you know they make bread in a can?"

"It's a serious offer, Bob."

"It is?!"

"I know it's sounds crazy, but – "

"It sounds like one of those greeting card movies where there's one bed and we divide it with pillows."

"I know, but it's not– "

"Yeah, and then you walk in on me in the shower and tell me things when you're drunk and then we, you know..."

"NO WE DON'T."

"I know we don't, but what exactly are you asking me?"

"Reverse it."

"Am I'm supposed to walk in on you? I'm afraid it's not going to happen because I respectfully decline."

Bob had never made a woman seethe in grunts before, but he suspected that's what was happening. Natasha held her hands up to beg him not to say anything more while she took in a calming breath. "Look, I am madly in love with a man my parents don't approve of. You met Rodney at the party. He's wonderful, but he's in debt up to his eyeballs and they hate what he does for a living. We could go on seeing each other in secret but we want to get married. I need my parents' blessing for that, even if I have to trick them into it."

"Forgive me, but you're a grown woman. Don't your parents just have to get over it?"

"I really thought I'd have worn them down by now, but it's hard to explain. Daddy built everything we have with his own two hands and he's paranoid about someone destroying it for me and my sister. That's on top of how fathers never think anyone's good enough for their daughters. Mom's basically the same. It's archaic and embarrassing, but it's because of how much they love us. I can't disappoint them. I want you to do it."

"I don't follow. How is taking me home supposed to work?"

"Oh, they'll hate you! They'll be so nauseated at the prospect of having you for a son-in-law that Dad will propose to Rodney himself!"

"I'm...flattered," Bob said, "but I really like what I'm doing here. Call me crazy but I enjoy when people are happy to see me. I prefer it, actually."

"You don't know what I'm offering yet."

"I don't think this time is about the money."

"I'll introduce you to Steve Wurtz," Natasha said quickly.

Bob's pride already had one foot out the door when his ambition blocked the exit. Steve Wurtz, she said. Broadway Impresario, star maker, Steve Wurtz.

"When you say introduce...?"

"I can't guarantee he'll cast you in a feature role, but I can promise you he will give you a speaking part in one of his plays."

"How can you promise that?"

"He's a very good friend of the family."

"What if he refuses?"

"He won't, but if he does, his brother Gene is crazy about my sister. All she'd have to do is agree to a date or something."

" A speaking part? On a stage?

"Yes"

"In front of an audience?"

"Yes."

"That paid money to be there?"

"What else?"

"In this business you have to be specific."

"Yes, if you come home and do this with me for a few days, I promise to get you a speaking role in a Steve Wurtz production performed on a stage for a paying audience. I'll even pay you what you would've made here too."

"Let me ask you this, if you want to upset your family with a broke love interest why not bring them here to see what I do for a living?"

"My parents can't know you're an actor. You'd be dead on arrival. And as for my sister, let's just say she can't keep a secret when it isn't about her. What I had in mind is that you use your, er, considerable talents to act like everything they want on paper only present it as their worst nightmare. Turn the annoying factor up to eleven."

"Ohhh," Bob said thinking she hadn't been insulting him earlier. "Act annoying. Make them hate me. I thought...I'm sure I could figure out how."

"So am I," Natasha said.

"I hate to leave here, but Ivan has been eyeing my spot from his monster cave. Hard to tell if it's both eyes at once, though. All right, I'll do it! I'm going to need a list of their requirements."

"I just emailed them to you," Natasha said putting her phone back in her purse. "You have about six weeks to prepare. Call me if you have any questions."

"I have one question right now," Bob said. "How do you feel about prosthetics?"

"You don't need them," she said, so confidently it was impossible for Bob not to take it as a compliment. "Everything you need you've got right on you."

"This is going to be fun."

"It's going to be something, all right."