Home Free (2 page)

Sure, and while we’re at it, why don’t you
shoot me in the head? That’d be swell.

“Okay mom, sounds great.” I hung up,
surprised to see Jack standing in the doorway smiling at me. I’d
forgotten he was there.

“What?” This was his fault, after all. I had
specifically told him not to say anything about my being here, and
now, not two hours later, I was on a collision course with my
family.

“I’m sorry. I always tell my secretary where
I’m going in case there’s an emergency.”

“Hunh. I’ve seen specials about those
life-threatening drywall emergencies. Who’s your secretary?”

He looked kind of sheepish and I knew I
wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Doreen Smalley.”

I could tell he felt bad, but still he had a
hint of a smile playing on his lips that was pissing me off, even
if it was moderately appealing.

“Shit. Might as well have taken out an ad in
the Sun-Herald.” Doreen was my mother’s age and Minter’s version of
the town crier. She knew everything as soon as it happened and made
sure everyone else knew as soon as possible thereafter, and she had
never let a little thing like the truth slow her down, either. I
could only imagine what horrible plight had befallen me. “What did
I ever do to you?”

“I really am sorry. Why don’t you let me buy
you dinner tonight to make up for it?” He seemed to sense my
hesitation and waved his clipboard around. “We can go over the
proposal for your repairs.”

I sighed. I hate that I’m so easy. “How’s
seven?”

I walked Jack outside and watched him drive
away in his enormous navy blue Ford F-350 pickup. I knew it was
practical for his trade, but still the sheer size of the thing made
me wonder if he was compensating for anything. I was sort of
enjoying picturing him naked, a pastime that had occupied a
substantial portion of my tenth grade Spanish class as well, when
my cell started ringing. Again.

I went into the front bedroom that I had
decided to use as my office. It was in pretty good shape. The
computer was set up on the desk, with the monitor on the right and
printer and scanner on the left, and all of my design books and
magazines and Pantone color swatches and client files on the
credenza behind the desk. From the desk, I had an excellent vantage
point for watching the comings and goings on Shasta Drive. Plus, I
could stare out the window and daydream when I was having trouble
with a project. It was ideal. I sat down, feeling resigned, and
answered the phone.

“Alexis Jordan, there better be a goddamn
good explanation for this.” It was my best friend, Pauline
Horowitz.

Pauline and I had met in second grade when
some boys were trying to pull down her pants and I came over and
kicked the crap out of them for her. In second grade, I towered
over the boys while Pauline was a dainty, girly little girl. I had
two older brothers and if I didn’t know how to defend myself, I
would have spent a lot of time locked in our bathroom. Since I
didn’t particularly like the bathroom, I learned how to fight and,
when necessary, run like hell. Twenty-two years later, Pauline is
still petite and classically beautifully. I, on the other hand, am
more like classically okay. At five feet, six inches I’m too tall
to be petite and too short to be tall. I’m not fat or thin, but
usually could stand to lose about five pounds. Maybe seven or eight
after the holidays. I don’t have big breasts or small breasts, long
legs or short legs, full lips or thin lips. The only thing not
average about me is my size ten feet. With the right makeup, a
killer outfit and flattering lighting, I can be pretty hot. Or, as
evidenced this morning at the hardware store, I can be downright
terrifying. In contrast, Pauline has never had a bad hair day in
her entire naturally blond life.

Apparently the rumor mill worked quickly. I
hadn’t called Pauline yet either, not because I was avoiding her,
but because I knew I didn’t need to. She was the kind of friend who
you could talk to three times a day, or you could not call for
three months, and either one would be okay.

“Okay, but shut up and listen. Don’t ask
questions till I’m done and don’t interrupt. I’m going to have to
tell this story a few more times, and I want to try it out on you
first. Ready?”

It took about two hours because she wouldn’t
quit interrupting. “What do you mean, gay?” and “She was going to
shove him under the house? Is that legal?” and “Jack Murphy was in
your bedroom already?” As if he hadn’t been in hers. Finally I got
it out of her that in the version she’d heard, I had been cheating
on Max with someone from Minter, driving the four and a half hours
every weekend to have illicit sex in a peach orchard with a man
whose identity remained cloaked in mystery. I had an unexplained
mental illness that had contributed, along with the affair, to the
demise of my marriage, and my family really did know all along that
I had been in town but were too ashamed of me to tell anyone.
Really, who could blame them? I had to give it to Doreen, she had a
vivid imagination.

We hung up when she informed me that she had
to get back to work, and I called my brother. His voice mail picked
up.

“Hey Kev, it’s Alex. I don’t know what you’ve
heard, but I moved back to Minter. I bought a house on Shasta
Drive, Max is gay, I didn’t have an affair, I’m not insane, Jack
Murphy is doing repairs on the house, and you better be at Mom and
Dad’s tomorrow or I will hunt you down and kill you. What’s new
with you?”

I spent the remainder of the afternoon
relaxing by my pool and came in reluctantly only when it was time
to get ready for dinner. I took a really cold shower, not because I
had been picturing Jack naked again, but because it was a hundred
and eight degrees inside my house. I did the best I could with
makeup that melted the minute it touched my skin and combed my hair
out straight. There was no way I was going to use the hair dryer
when I was already dripping sweat, so I pulled the sides of my hair
into a clip at the back of my head. It looked a little too cute for
my personality, but I didn’t care. I put on the lightest-weight
sundress I could find and little strappy sandals and dug my decent
purse out of the box marked MISC BEDROOM. I dumped my wallet, keys
and lipstick in the purse, then went outside to sit in my air
conditioned orange Honda Element until Jack arrived.

He pulled up about ten minutes later. “Going
somewhere?” he mouthed through the closed window.

I killed the engine and walked around to the
passenger side of the monster truck and hoisted myself in, somehow
managing not to flash him my underwear in the process. He was
smiling again.

“Jeez, this is a real graceful vehicle.”

“Some people seem to have a little less
trouble. Were you going somewhere?”

“Nah, it was cooler in the car than in the
house, so I just waited out there.”

“I don’t think I knew you were so strange
back in high school. I thought you just liked to picture me naked.”
He backed out of the driveway and turned down Shasta towards Bear
Creek. I feigned indignation.

“Hunh. What makes you think that?”

“Baby, all the girls liked to imagine me
naked.” I dropped my head back onto my shoulders and rolled my eyes
towards the ceiling. This was going to be a long night if he was
serious. He turned right onto Bear Creek and then got into the turn
lane to make the left onto Grant Street.

He looked at me sideways and grinned. “Not
buying it, huh? Yeah, me neither. It was always the other way
around. I mean, I thought I had a shot there for a minute after you
broke up with that runner, what was his name?”

Ugh. My boyfriend for most of my junior year.
“Derek?”

“Yeah, Derek. Harrison, I think it was.
Anyway, after you broke up with him, I thought maybe I’d have a
chance, but then you sort of vanished our senior year.”

This was all news to me. I had never for a
second thought that Jack Murphy wanted to go out with me, largely
because he had never asked, never passed me a note, never asked
Pauline if I liked him. Nothing. Not to mention, he dated Pauline
our senior year.

“First of all, I didn’t vanish. You just
started dating Pauline, and next to her, I become invisible. And
second of all, you never asked me.”

“What if I had?” Ah, a trick question.

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

We went to the The Corral, a steak house on
Orchard Avenue near the Southern Pacific train depot. It’s dark and
used to be smoky, back when smoking was allowed in restaurants in
California. The decor consists of walls lined with pine boards
branded with “The Corral,” and red and white checked tablecloths.
They aren’t going to win any interior design awards, but the steaks
are great. I ordered a beer. I don’t much like beer, but Minter is
a beer kind of town, the The Corral is a beer kind of place and
Jack looked to be a beer kind of guy. I felt outnumbered, so I had
a beer.

The waiter brought sourdough bread with the
beers and I dug into it like I hadn’t eaten for a month. I love
bread and I’d been eating nothing but fast food hamburgers from
drive-up windows for days now, in my quest to keep a low profile.
Jack watched, the amused smile back in place. Finally, the
breadbasket empty and the table littered with little gold foil
butter wrappers, Jack brought out the magic clipboard.

“Here’s the thing. Your house has good
bones.” I must have looked worried because he continued, “That
means it’s structurally sound.” Relief. I’d been picturing corpses.
“Your biggest problems right now are the air conditioner, which
probably needs a new compressor, flooring in the master bedroom,
some plumbing problems in both bathrooms and a couple leaks in the
roof. Plus the squeaky floorboard in the hall.” That sounded bad to
me. “It’s not bad.” Okey-dokey then. “And it’s too small of a job
for me to schedule in.” I sighed. “No, that’s a good thing. Well,
good for you, anyway.”

Jack went on to explain that construction is
often a waiting business, waiting for deliveries and waiting for
subcontractors and waiting for weather and just waiting. Big jobs
have lots of waiting, which meant that if I could be flexible, he
could work on my house while he was waiting on other projects. And
since that would normally be dead time to him anyway, he would
charge me just ten percent over the cost of materials. Sold.

The steaks came and the clipboard went away.
I cut into my rare filet mignon and felt the saliva pool in my
mouth. Unlike southern California, Minter has no sushi bars, tapas
bars or fine dining. There was a French restaurant once, but it
didn’t last long. Apparently when the local economy depended on
eradicating pests like snails, people weren’t inclined to view them
as a delicacy. The fanciest restaurant had a dress code requiring
clean jeans and shirts with sleeves. But what Minter lacked in
variety and class, it made up for in quality. Cattle and hogs were
raised locally, and if you went with the odds and ordered a steak
or pork chops, you’d never be disappointed.

Over the steaks and beer, Jack and I
reminisced about high school and caught each other up on our lives,
and I disabused him of many of the stories he had heard about me
throughout the day. I now had children and a criminal record, plus
a terminal illness, among my many other troubles. And apparently
the mystery man in the orchard was Jack himself.

“Why would we do it in an orchard?” I asked
when he told me he was my hypothetical boyfriend. Junior high
school kids made out in orchards. Teenagers with cars and adults
with beds and sense did not.

“Well, they’re saying you’re a little
crazy.”

“I hope you denied any involvement with such
a freaking loon. Can’t be good for business.”

“Nah, I could use the excitement. Haven’t had
a good scandal since Bobby bought that Toyota pickup.” Bobby was
Jack’s older brother and one of the partners in their family
construction business. Over the years, it had become acceptable for
local women to drive foreign automobiles, and Japanese minivans and
SUVs now clogged the mall parking lot. But for men, at least those
in studly occupations such as farming and construction,
American-made pickups were required.

I passed on dessert, a first for me, but
after all the bread I thought maybe I should cool it on the carbs,
and I stifled a yawn. It wasn’t one of those get me out of here
yawns, I was just genuinely worn out. Jack motioned for the bill,
then refused to let me split it with him. Which was good because I
couldn’t afford to be eating steak. I could barely afford to be
eating.

“No way, Alex, I invited you.” He added a tip
to the charge slip and signed his name in nice, legible writing. We
headed to the parking lot. I gasped when we stepped from the
comfort of the restaurant to the blast furnace that is Minter at
eleven o’clock at night in July.

“So your first project will be my AC, right?”
I asked, trying not to be pushy.

“Yep. Which reminds me. It would be helpful
if I had a key to your place so I could come in and work when
you’re not around. I mean, it’ll all get done quicker that way, but
if it’s something you’re not comfortable with, I understand.” He
beeped the behemoth truck open and heaved me up into the passenger
seat.

“Not a problem.” I fished around in my purse
and pulled out a ring the realtor had given me with half a dozen
spare keys. I couldn’t imagine who would need so many spare keys. I
slid one off the ring and gave it to Jack.

We drove back to my place in silence. It
wasn’t awkward or anything, and I was starting to wake up a little,
and maybe my thoughts were a little less than pure. He parked in
the driveway next to my weird-looking square SUV and came around to
help me out of the stupid truck and then walked me to the door. The
motion sensor light came on. I got my own key from my purse and put
it in the lock.