My Lucky Groom

showed Ventura to a dingy cubicle at the far recesses of the room, near the coffee-making station. “You stay here. I’ll bring you something to do.”
    A few moments later, Mary returned and dumped some coffee packets on Ventura’s desk.
    “What’s this?” she asked, looking up.
    Mary set her hand on her hip. “Your first assignment.”

    Jason and the kids walked through the front gate, holding ice-cream cones. Richard looked up from his front steps, where he sat reading the newspaper.
    “You know, Mary’s doing a decent job with her fashion column,” he said. “Not that I understand a word of it.”
    Jason took a bite of ice cream. “That’s because you don’t speak our language.”
    “What’s that?” Richard teased. “The language of love ?”
    The kids plunked down on the front steps, licking their cones.
    “How’s the chocolate peanut butter?” Richard asked them.
    Both kids frowned. “Nothing’s the same without Ventura,” Elisa said.
    Ricky shook his head in agreement, and Jason glanced at Richard. “I’ll bet Papa Bear knows just what you mean.”
    “Shut up,” Richard said under his breath. He never should have told Jason about that dream he’d had. At the time, it had seemed harmless and funny. But Jason hadn’t let him hear the end of it. After he’d found Ventura passed out on the sofa with those storybooks, Richard had later thumbed through them. For some reason that had led to a pretty wild dream that night. He’d been the Papa Bear, and Ventura—dressed as Goldilocks—had landed in his bed.
    Jason whispered in Richard’s ear, “And I thought women were the ones who had romantic fantasies.”
    Richard elbowed him. Hard.
    “Ouch!”
    “What happened, Uncle Jason?” Elisa asked.
    “Just got an, uh…” He glanced at Richard. “Stitch in my side.”
    Jason laughed, muttering under his breath, “Man, that was pervy.”
    Richard snatched away his ice cream. “Hey!”
    “You’d better not breathe a word of that to Mary,” Richard said, knowing Mary would immediately share it with Ventura.
    “I swear on my life!”
    He grabbed for his cone, but Richard held it out of reach.
    “Swear on your Gucci loafers.”
    “Aw, man, that’s not fair.”
    Richard held the cone higher.
    “Okay, okay. I swear.”

    “Ventura!” Mary cried with dismay. “What are you doing?”
    Ventura lethargically opened one eye. “Resting.”
    “Well, you don’t rest here, okay? Wake up!”
    Ventura groggily lifted her head to see she was still in the newsroom. So it hadn’t been a dream. The nightmare was real. For three weeks, she’d done nothing but mess up. The few meager copy editing assignments she’d scored had been a major botch, and she couldn’t even seem to make coffee.
    “Hey!” an angry voice snarled. “What idiot keeps burning the joe?”
    Ventura buried her head with her arms, her cheek pressed to her metal desk. It couldn’t really stay this bad forever. Could it?
    Mary leaned toward her with a whisper. “You’ve got to find a way to snap out of it, girlfriend, or I’ll be forced to hire your replacement.”
    Ventura slowly sat up. “But all I do is type and file, and type and file, and… ”
    “I told you, you’d have to start from the ground up.”
    Ventura’s head dropped back on her desk with a thud as she centered her gaze on the coffeepot. “You mean grounds, don’t you?”

    Ventura dragged herself toward Nanette’s townhouse, practically in tears. Nothing about this new job was going as planned. She’d expected it to be hard but had no idea it would prove so humiliating. She was an intelligent woman with a good education, and yet she felt like the lowest of the low in that newsroom. Perhaps it was because she was the lowest person on the totem pole, not to mention the newest employee.
    She was just approaching the front steps when she spotted Richard’s sports car parked at the curb. Richard? What on earth is he doing here? Suddenly invigorated, she raced up the stairs and through the front door.
    She entered the townhouse to find Richard chatting in the living room with Nanette, who’d just returned from the islands.
    “Richard!” Ventura said with a happy smile. “It’s so great to see you.” Unable to stop herself, she sprang into his arms.
    He laughed warmly, hugging her back. “You too, Ventura. You look…” He gave her an appraising frown. “Tired.”
    “She is tired,” Nanette assured him. “Exhausted from that