The Handyman's Dream (9 page)

Chapter Six

The following Tuesday, Election Day, Rick was making his regular early afternoon stop at Ed’s.

“Let the rest of the world have their coffee breaks.” Rick squeezed his handyman. “I’ve got me a kissin’ and huggin’ break.”

“Considering how I feel about coffee, that’s fine for me,” Ed said, squeezing back. “But you know, darlin’, if you want, now that I have that coffeemaker, I could slip you a cup every afternoon.”

Rick sighed with regret. “That would be great, but I don’t think it’s such a hot idea. I’m pushing it as it is, stopping here almost every day. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with saying hello to a friend while I’m on the job, but I don’t want anybody beginning to notice, if you know what I mean.”

Ed nodded. He knew exactly what Rick meant. “Anyway,” Ed said, not wanting to dwell on any potential disapproval of their growing relationship, “I won’t be home tonight, so don’t bother to call. Mom’s invited me for dinner so she can have someone to bitch to about the election. I’ll end up hanging around there, keeping her from throwing something at the TV when Indiana goes to the Republicans, like it always does.”

“Democrat?” Rick queried, eyebrows raised. “I would have guessed the opposite.”

“Oh, no. Not my family, or my mom’s family anyway. The Beales go way back around here, all the way to those graves I mentioned the other day at the cemetery. They’re all hard-core working-class types, and they have no use for Republicans. Why, my grandparents were so devoted to FDR they had a picture of him in their living room. Mom’s brother, my uncle Chester, says that if you don’t know who to vote for, vote Democrat, and you can leave the booth with a clear conscience.”

“Well, just don’t tell your mother I’m voting for John Anderson today. I like the idea of someone challenging the two-party system, but there is no way in hell I’d vote for Reagan.”

“I voted this morning, for Carter. If I had voted for anyone else, I’d be cut out of the family.”

“Man, they’d love my folks then.” Rick chuckled. “Well, if we ever get to the point of showing up together at family gatherings, I don’t have anything to worry about then.”

Ed looked at Rick, but didn’t say anything. At this point, the idea of anyone in his family other than Laurie knowing about Rick made him uneasy. Although Ed tried to hide it, Rick apparently noticed his discomfort.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, baby. I’m just talking. I will say, though, I’m kinda planning on being around for a while, so it may be something we have to deal with. My folks are no problem at all, of course. I already know they’re gonna think you’re great. But what about your mother? Will she think I’m great?”

Ed shrugged, looking away. “I don’t know. Laurie’s dying to meet you, so that’s no problem, but Mom? Right now, I’d like to keep you around, so maybe we can put that off for a while, okay? I don’t want her scaring you off.”

Rick laughed, hugging Ed again. “I’m not scared. Hell, after hearing about her, I’m looking forward to meeting her. She can’t be too bad. After all, you turned out pretty good.”

“Just let me get through tonight first, okay?” Ed said nervously.

“Yes, sir. No more family talk, I promise. I’ll see you tomorrow, same time, same place. Is it a date?” Rick asked with a kiss.

“I’ll be here,” Ed said, smiling at his mailman, still amazed this dream was in progress. “And I’ll stock up on hugs and kisses, just for you.”

* * * * *

Ed tried to keep his thoughts away from Norma’s possible reaction to his relationship with Rick when he joined her for dinner that night. He sat at his usual place at her dining room table, happily serving himself his mother’s stew and fresh baked biscuits. Looking at the brimming serving bowl, he knew he’d be eating stew for the rest of the week.

Norma Stephens bustled into the dining room with butter for the biscuits. She was a short, slender woman, her hair the color of Ed’s, although Ed suspected it was quite gray under the Miss Clairol. At fifty-one, middle age was creeping onto her face, but Norma fought it as much as possible. “Just because your father’s gone is no reason for me to let myself go,” she often said.

Tim Stephens had died two years earlier at the tender age of fifty, the victim of a heart defect he’d never known he had. Ed missed his gentle father, missed the time they had spent together in Tim’s basement workshop, and his never-ending patience with his children. Norma’s occasional overbearing personality had always been counterbalanced by Tim’s quiet understanding, and his wry sense of humor with Norma had always let Ed and Laurie know they didn’t have to take her too seriously.

Why Norma and Tim had been so compatible was still a mystery to Ed, but he knew, despite whatever Norma might say, that she missed him as much as Ed and Laurie did.

“Eat up, eat up,” Norma commanded, as she always did. “There’s plenty. I’ll have some for you to take home, unless I decide to take the whole pot downtown and throw it through the door of Republican headquarters. Oh, I know those smug so-and-so’s. Probably whooping it up as we speak, convinced they’ve got that second-rate actor elected. Honestly. I can’t believe how stupid the people of this state are, or this country. Didn’t anyone ever see any of his movies? He can’t act. Why would anyone think he’s fit to run the country, or even a garbage truck? Old, too. He needs to be put out to pasture.”

Ed smiled. He enjoyed his mother’s harangues when they weren’t directed at him.

“Why, he ruined Dark Victory for me. Imagine, putting that flop of an actor in a movie with Bette Davis! What was Jack Warner thinking? I cannot to this day watch that movie, and I’ve seen every other movie Bette Davis made at least twice.”

“You forgot What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? You didn’t see that one twice, Mom.”

“Humph,” she sneered. “That wasn’t a movie, that was a horror show. I meant Bette Davis when she was Bette Davis, not the mess she is now. Well, I’ll say one thing for her: At least she’s not dumb enough to think she can run the country.” She narrowed her eyes at Ed. “You voted today, didn’t you? For Carter?”

“Oh, Mom. Of course I did. Would I be sitting here eating your stew if I hadn’t?”

“Just checking,” she said, giving him a suspicious look.

After dinner they moved into the living room to watch the election returns on the big color console television on which Ed had, years before, watched the first moon landing. When it became apparent that Ronald Reagan would indeed take office in January, Norma slapped the arms of her chair.

“Well, that’s that. Fools! Didn’t anyone learn anything after Nixon and Watergate? Why, this country won’t be fit to live in four years from now.”

Ed slowly counted back in his mind. “Mom, you’ve lived through, by my count, at least three Republican presidents. I’m guessing you’ll survive this one, too.”

“Sleazy money-grubbers in ugly golf clothes, all of them. Nothing but a bunch of greedy old men,” she grumbled. “And it’s four. I know you. You forgot Hoover.”

Ed gave up. Norma could not be pacified tonight.

“You’re taking this awfully well,” Norma said, eyes upon her son. “Why, if your father was here, he’d be agreeing with me.”

“Like he’d have a choice.”

“Watch your mouth. Seems to me you’ve been in an awfully good mood for quite a while now. The way you were moping around after your birthday, I was beginning to wonder if you were having some silly man’s problem, worrying about getting old or some such nonsense.”

Ed shrugged, trying for innocent nonchalance. “I’m not worried about anything, and I am in a good mood these days. I’ve always liked this time of year, with the leaves changing and all. You know that.”

“The leaves are almost gone, Edward,” she said, beginning to zero in on him. “Most people get depressed in November.”

“Well, you always said I was different from everyone else.”

“Humph. Sometimes I wonder,” she said, still looking at him intently. “By the way, where were you Sunday afternoon? I tried to call three different times and you weren’t home.”

Ed commanded himself not to blush, thinking about what he and Rick had been doing at that time, not far from his ancestors’ graves. “I was hanging out with a friend. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Who with?” she demanded. “That character from Fort Wayne who uses hair spray?”

Ed had to smile at Norma’s description of Glen. “No. Just a guy I’ve gotten friendly with here in town. Actually, he delivers mail on my street. We got to talking one day when I was out front, raking leaves.” The white lie came easily.

“A mailman! Not one of those drunken hooligans your father used to play cards with?”

“Oh, Mom. Dad’s friends were not drunks. I never saw Dad have more than three beers in his life. You just resented the fact that he was off somewhere having a good time without you. And, no, this guy is new in town. You know I haven’t really had any friends around here since all the guys I knew in high school moved away, so I’d think you’d be glad to know I have someone to hang out with sometimes.”

He knew Norma couldn’t argue that fact, but she still found something to throw at him. “New in town, you say? Why on earth would anyone move here to be a mailman?”

Ed sighed, and told her about Rick’s family.

“Romanowski,” she exclaimed, scandalized. “Why, that family was nothing but trash. This town is well rid of that Hank Romanowski, I’ll tell you. He was probably stealing hubcaps when he was still in diapers. What was this man’s sister thinking, marrying him?”

“Not everyone gets lucky in love, Mom.” He shifted uncomfortably in his dad’s recliner. He had forgotten Norma would have some choice words for good old Hank.

“There’s unlucky, and there’s stupid,” she grumbled. “Oh, well. Good riddance to bad rubbish. At least this woman is trying to raise her children right. I guess I’ll just have to meet this Rick, this friend of yours, though. He’s either a decent, good man, helping out his family that way, or an absolute fool. I’m not sure which.”

“Rick is a good man, Mom. It’s been a pleasure getting to know him. I’ve enjoyed having someone to buddy around with lately.”

Norma looked thoughtfully at her son. “Nothing wrong with men getting together, doing men stuff, I suppose.”

Ed sensed something more behind her words, but decided to ignore it. “Well, if nothing else, he hates the Republican party as much as you do.”

Norma’s eyes lit up. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit. A man who’d be good enough to help raise his sister’s children couldn’t be a Republican. You bring this Rick over for dinner some night, you hear?”

“Yes, Mom,” he said obediently, hoping that night was still a long way in the future.

* * * * *

Wednesday evening, after a bowl of Norma’s leftover stew, Ed went digging in his record cabinet. It was an especially nice cabinet, a product of Tim Stephens’s basement workshop. Noticing that his son spent most of his allowance and lawn-mowing money on records, Tim had built the cabinet for Ed’s thirteenth birthday. It was big and sturdy, with two sliding doors on the front and designed to hold a large number of the 45 rpm records Ed had bought almost compulsively well into adulthood. Other boys may have had sports, but Ed had the music he heard on the radio. He often thought his business kept the downtown Woolworth’s record department thriving through the sixties and seventies.

In recent years, Ed had gotten into the habit of listening to albums, but the music he had heard Sunday afternoon with Rick had whetted his appetite for his older records. He had tuned in that low-power radio station several times since, mostly catching farm reports and Andre Kostelanetz records. The oldies show they’d heard must have been a Sunday-only program.

The cabinet now held one small row of 45s, records Ed had purchased since he had moved into his house, but albums took up the rest of the space. He scooped up a stack of albums and carried them upstairs to his storage area, then returned to the cabinet, staggering under the weight of a cardboard box overflowing with 45s. He happily began to paw through them, murmuring to himself as old favorites appeared. Setting some aside to play, he carefully arranged others in the cabinet. He couldn’t find “Good Vibrations,” but the Four Tops were well represented, and soon “Baby I Need Your Loving” was pouring out of the speakers.

He leaned back against the cabinet, sighing, replaying Sunday afternoon in his mind. Oh, he totally understood the yearning in Levi Stubbs’s voice now. Ed felt so damned lucky he had found Rick. He was almost overwhelmed by the joyful companionship and the growing intimacy between them. He’d never been so excited by, yet so completely comfortable with any other person before.

He listened to the powerful, haunting song and remembered all the years he’d been alone, doing his best to ignore the loneliness. Thinking of Rick, thinking of how quickly he found himself caring deeply for Rick, brought tears to his eyes.

“I wish I could tell him that I love him,” he whispered to himself. “But I know it’s too soon. It’s too soon to say it, too soon to know for sure. But I do, I know I do.”

The phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. Sure it was Rick, he leapt to his feet, answering the phone with a cheery “Hello!”

“Hello to you, stranger.” Glen sounded rather annoyed. “So busy with your mailman you’ve forgotten your friends?”

Glen’s tone, and his words, made Ed feel a little annoyed himself, especially since he was hoping for Rick. “I have to pay for every call I make to Fort Wayne,” he said coldly. “I’m trying to keep the phone bill down.”