Under Construction

By Raspberry

It was a rare day in Seattle. The sky was clear, the sun shimmered overhead, and the park was filled with smiling couples and cheerful families enjoying the promise of the coming spring. A figure watched the passersby from her perch, an old wooden bench that had seen better days. Faded graffiti covered the seat, and the metal rods that attached it to the concrete had rust enveloping it like weeds climbing a flower stem. 

Not that the woman on the bench paid any attention to the bench she sat on. She had visited it so often that it had blended into the background for her, almost like a muscle memory. Crossing the street from the car park, twenty steps into the park, and then she would sink onto the bench, eyes trained on the building, a shiny new office, across the street.

She could recall the dirt patch that used to occupy the area. The sprigs of grass clinging to life even as the land was razed to make way for a new project, teased by a giant white banner for months before the first construction worker appeared.

Cherry hardly noticed the workers when they began popping up. It was in the fall, around the time she was drowning in term papers and group projects she seemed to be working on sans group (how did she always get stuck with people who thought adding their name to the paper counted as a contribution?). She heard the steady hum of their machinery as she power-walked from home to her early morning classes and again as she rushed home for lunch and back to campus to bury herself in books at the library. 

The foundation for the new building was laid and dried before she even glanced at the site. And that was the day when everything changed. It was winter by then. Cherry wasn’t used to the cold, despite the three winters she’d already experienced there. She wrapped herself in her sweater, jacket, coat, scarf, gloves, and hat. But she still shivered as she hopped on the balls of her feet, willing the crosswalk to hurry up and change so she could run to the safety of her warm Business Management class.

The laughs of the workers carried over the steady pounding of the machines, and Cherry glanced towards the building that was starting to take form. She wondered how anyone was able to work in this weather. A worker (in nothing more than jeans, a gray hoodie, and an orange vest that matched their hard hat) strode over, as if to brag that the cold wasn’t that bad.

Cherry glanced at the worker as the light changed. Her foot lifted to cross the street just as the hard hat lifted. Blue eyes framed by light freckles. Long, wispy brown hair slipping out of a loose braid. Pink cheeks and a soft smile. 

Cherry’s foot caught on the hem of her pants, and she felt herself fly forward. 

“Are you okay?” a voice like a song asked as Cherry crashed into something soft and warm. 

She glanced up and saw those blue eyes looking over her with a concerned crease between them. The woman was holding Cherry up.

“Uhhhhhh,” Cherry began, suddenly forgetting how to string together sounds into coherent words. 

The woman didn’t let go of Cherry’s arm as she guided her back down the sidewalk and towards the park. The bench was cold as Cherry sank into it, but she only barely registered it as the woman sat next to her. 

“Is your ankle okay? Did you twist it?”

“I think I’m okay,” Cherry managed, and she tried to give a casual laugh. “Just tripped over my own feet.”

Her laugh sounded maniacal to her ears, but the woman didn’t look startled. She just smiled, and Cherry felt her insides melt. 

“It’s a bit slippery,” the woman offered. “But as long as you’re okay…” 

Her voice trailed off, and she glanced back towards the construction site. Cherry saw her wipe her hands on her jeans, like she was stalling. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

“I’m Cherry,” she said quickly. 

The woman smiled at her and held out a hand. 

“Nice to meet you, Cherry,” she replied. “I’m Olive.”

“Seriously?” Cherry couldn’t stop herself from blurting this out, but in her defense she couldn’t tell if the woman was teasing her.

“I guess we both had foodie parents,” the woman replied with a laugh. “I can show you my license if you don’t believe me, but then I’d have to run away. My last name is even worse.”

“Well now I have to know,” Cherry gushed, and then hesitated. “But you’re not allowed to run away.”

She couldn’t tell if Olive was flushing or just cold, but the smile on her face was definitely wider. 

“Tell you what,” Olive began, glancing across the street. “If you’re free around noon, I’ll show you my ID. I have to get back to work, but I usually eat lunch at the cafe nearby.”

Cherry had two papers to work on, but she found herself promising to be at the bench at twelve. At some point, Olive helped her up and walked with her across the street. Cherry was sure she went to class after that, but she had no memory of the time between Olive leaving and the moment she saw Olive cross the street at exactly twelve o’clock.

“Are you cold?” she heard herself ask.

“A little,” Olive replied with a short laugh. “I didn’t wear half my closet like you. It gets in the way of work.” 

“You can’t work with frostbite, though,” Cherry said, unwrapping her scarf. “At least wear this until you go back to work.”

The navy scarf seemed to bring out the blue in Olive’s eyes, and Cherry fought a shiver that shot down her spine. Olive led her to a small cafe and ordered hot sandwiches and steaming lattes.

“Alright,” she said, sliding into the chair across from Cherry. “That’s a ham and cheese for you and a tuna melt for me.”

“I think you’re the first person I’ve met who actually orders a tuna sandwich,” Cherry said before she could stop herself. The sparkle in Olive’s eye seemed to encourage her to go on. “I mean, I always thought of it as something people make at home when they’re on a budget.”

“Fair, but it has lots of protein, and I have a job that tends to take a lot of energy,” Olive retorted with a smile. “Plus, it tastes good.” She took a big bite and gave an exaggerated groan. “Mmmmmmm.”

Cherry felt her cheeks flush, and she admonished herself. People weren’t supposed to find sandwich-eating attractive. What was wrong with her today?

“Okay, so I did promise,” Olive said, snapping Cherry out of her trance. 

She slid an ID badge across the table, her nose turning pink. Cherry lifted it and stared at the blue-eyed piercing image in front of her. Olive’s hair was down in her driver’s license picture, slipping past her shoulders in gentle waves. The bright light had erased the freckles, but she was still entrancing. Cherry realized she wasn’t supposed to be ogling and shifted her gaze to the name in bold. 

“Seriously?” she said with a snort. 

“I definitely wouldn’t use this name for a fake ID, if that’s what you’re asking,” Olive said, the pink in her nose spreading across her cheeks. 

“Olive Branch?” 

“My parents have a sick sort of humor,” Olive replied, taking a sip of her latte and letting it linger in front of her to hide her face. “My brother got a normal name, but I get the name that’s been teased since birth.”

“Would you have rather they named your brother Tree?” Cherry teased.

Olive snorted, and a cloud of foam shot up from her coffee cup, sending both of them hunched over in giggles. 

“Honestly, yeah,” she laughed when she had caught her breath. “I mean, he’s a software engineer, so he’d still get off easier than me, but still.”

“Your coworkers tease you?”

“I work in construction with a 90% male workforce. Of course I get teased,” Olive pointed out. “Maybe I should’ve just followed my dad’s advice and gone into woodworking in his business.” She rolled her eyes. “Because having him boss me around for the rest of my life would be living the dream.”

Cherry felt herself leaning forward as she demanded to know more. She wanted to drink in every story, every detail about Olive’s life before that morning. Olive’s lunch hour passed too quickly, before either of them had even finished their food. 

They met up the next day for lunch. Then the next. Soon Olive was coming to Cherry’s after work, fixing the wobbly bookshelf while Cherry finished term papers. Cherry would read papers out loud while Olive nodded and pretended to understand, which is how Cherry reacted when they went out to lunch together and Olive would describe the details of construction work. 

Days turned into weeks turned into months until the building, and Cherry’s degree, were finished. Cherry could scarcely believe how quickly time had flown, how the building in front of her was so new yet had seemed like a part of her whole life. She reached in her pocket, fiddling with the velvet box for the umpteenth time. 

“Hey!” a voice pulled her from her trance, and Cherry jumped to her feet. “How was the interview?”

Olive was grinning at her, her wispy hair pulled into a loose ponytail, ripped jeans and a long flannel that seemed to shine under the sun. 

“It went great!” Cherry replied, matching her smile. “I think this could be the start of something amazing, you know?” 

“Well, you can tell me all about your amazing new plans over lunch. I’m starving.”

“Definitely,” Cherry replied, feeling the box poke into her sides as she wrapped an arm around Olive. 

They would talk all about their plans. And hopefully make new ones together as one. But Cherry would have to draw the line at taking Olive’s last name.