He kind of scoffed. "She had to go for drinks with a 'potential clien
t.'"
So the Workout Witch did have a job. Julie forced a half smile. "Sounds important."
"Self-important, maybe," he said, glancing at his watch. "She's an art dealer." Then, somehow switching topics completely, he asked, "Are you hungry?"
Taken off guard by the shift in conversation she repeated, "Hungry?"
"Yeah, I'm starving," he said, getting up off the couch. "I made you come all the way over here, ruined your Saturday night, the least I could do is feed you."
Actually, she realized she hadn't eaten in quite some time, and since he mentioned it her stomach finally caught on.
"Let's see what we have in here," he said, opening up the freezer. "Frozen quinoa, frozen eggplant, a Lean Cuisine, broccoli… deli spirals? Okay," he said, closing the door. "Take-out it is." He flashed Julie a smile. "What do you feel like?"
"You don't have to do that," she said. "I should probably go anyway."
"Do you want pizza? No, probably not, you work at Pizza Hut, don't you?"
She wasn't sure why, but she was flattered that he remembered. "Is Potbelly's still open?"
"I honestly couldn't tell you. Come on, we'll go find something to eat in this damn city," he said with a smile. "Let me just go change out of this shirt and I'll be right out."
Well, she wasn't going to argue. "Come on Anna, let's get your little sweater on and we'll take your daddy out to get some real food." She leaned in to whisper conspiratorially, "No health crackers allowed."
As if she understood, Anna giggled.
---
They ended up at Wendy's, eating French fries and Frosties and talking about life.
"So what are you going to school for?" Matt asked idly as he dipped a fry in ketchup.
"I'm majoring in English with a minor in communications."
"That's cool," he said, nodding his head. "Hopefully you don't do what I did and change majors every time you change your clothes."
She smiled and dipped a fry. "What were you originally doing?"
"Well, for the first half of my freshman year I was going to go into business administration, the second half I was going to be a computer programmer, and in the spring semester of my sophomore year I finally decided on actuarial studies."
"Actuarial studies?" she questioned.
"I was going to be an insurance man."
"You're an insurance man?" she asked, not meaning to sound so surprised.
He smiled. "No, I ended up switching back to computer science with a business minor. Apparently I knew what I wanted in the first place, but I got distracted."
Julie shook her head, her eyes drifting to her crumpled up sandwich wrapper. "I know all about that."
"Are you distracted?" he asked, feigning a grave expression.
She cracked a little smile. "I've spent most of my life being distracted," she stated, popping a fry into her mouth.
"You don't strike me as someone who's lacking drive or ambition," he remarked, dipping another fry.
"I'm not," she said on a sigh. "It's not that, it's that I intentionally distract myself. When I do know what I want there's usually some reason I can't have it, so to stop myself from desiring something I know I can't have, I make the decision to distract myself, to move my attention elsewhere. Good intentions, but more often than not my distraction proves to be as bad as the thing I was originally trying to distract myself from."