A Tale of Two Trucks (4 page)

After all of the tough stuff we’d both had to deal with—especially Joe!—it was nice just to joke and talk about work or our favorite TV shows over lunch. I was glad to find out that he was also a fan of
NCIS
(although not quite as rabid a fan as I) and took the opportunity to warn him that, should he ever have the poor judgment to call me on a Tuesday night, I would not answer the phone. The
NCIS
hour was sacrosanct.

“Don’t take it personally,” I added. “I just think that Leroy Jethro Gibbs deserves my full attention!”

“What about Tony?” Joe teased good-naturedly. “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

“Tony is a total homophobe—didn’t you see the episode where he kissed the transsexual? He couldn’t get to the mouthwash fast enough!” I complained. “No, I’d probably have better luck with McGee.”

“Ah! ‘Probielicious’,” Joe commented, using the nickname that Tony had given his coworker on a previous episode. We both burst out laughing and were in a good mood when we got back to work.

T
HE
hardest part of the whole project (at least emotionally) was the nursery, where Joe’s little baby girl had slept for her two short months in this world… and also where she had died. Everything was left exactly the way it had been, down to the box of diaper wipes, which were now bone dry. I could tell from the stale, musty smell that the door had not been opened in a very long time.

“Do you want me to do this?” I asked when Joe paused in the doorway.

“No. I… I need to….”

He was groping for words, so I placed a hand on his arm and squeezed.

“It might be good for you to… get some closure,” I said quietly, and he nodded. I walked over to the window and pulled up the blinds, letting in some sunlight, then turned to survey the items in the room. “Do you have a box that we could put her things in?”

“Um… yeah, I think so,” he replied and went in search of it.

I used my DustBuster to suck the dust off the stuffed animals and placed them in the box he came back with, along with her baby clothes. I asked if I could put the baby powder and other half-used items in the next house I designed, and he was more than happy to let me have them. But he wept silently as he sat on the floor to disassemble the crib, which broke my heart. When I knelt on the floor to hug him from behind, he grabbed my hand and clung to it for a long time.

He finally took a deep breath, regaining his composure, so I had to let go of him and let him finish his project. I taped up the box of Dana’s things to make sure they would be protected, and then, with a marker, I wrote her name on the top in a cutesy cursive, embellished with flowers and hearts and smiley faces. Joe sniffed but grinned through his tears when he saw my handiwork. Then he carried the box tenderly up to the attic for safekeeping.

Chapter 6

I
WAS
spending a lot of time with Joe after hours now, since he wanted to assist in remodeling his house and I worked on other clients’ projects during the day. I couldn’t resist teasing him, though, that it was his way of getting me to come over and cook dinner. He blushed bright red and spluttered that I didn’t have to, but I cut him off right away.

“I’m just
kidding
! I enjoy
having someone to cook for,” I assured him, waving off his protests with a bamboo spatula. “And it’s no fun eating dinner with only the TV for company!”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind….”

“I wouldn’t be doing it if I minded, now, would I?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he conceded with a grin, showing how well he’d come to know me.

He’d been doing a lot of remodeling work with Fred’s crew recently, which gave him fresh ideas for his own place too, and he was now totally on board with ripping out the wall between the dining room and kitchen (although we decided to tackle that later). He’d balked at some of my color choices but agreed to let me paint his living room and dining room walls a warm burgundy, to be offset by black-and-white furniture that would make it look more masculine.

“It’s gonna be The Man Cave!” I chortled, sketching out what I had in mind after dinner that Friday night. “Ooo! I just had a scathingly brilliant idea: do you want a Holstein-patterned
faux
fur rug? We could go for a cowboy and western look!”

He looked at me in mild exasperation and shrugged. “
You’re
the designer—
you
decide.”

“Okay… then I say ‘Nay’ to the cowboy, but we’ll do Holstein couch cushions just to break up the monotony. Oh! I could paint you a picture with some kids tipping cows—wouldn’t that be a hoot!”

He laughed at the idea, and we began moving his furniture down into the basement in preparation for the all-out painting frenzy that would commence the next morning. We were hoping to get the whole house interior done in just two days, which was ambitious, but even if we didn’t completely succeed, it would change the feel of the house dramatically.

W
E
got off to a good start, with Joe painting the ceilings and the upper half of the walls and me doing the lower half, the edges, and the trim. The first snag we ran into was that two of the cans of paint hadn’t been mixed properly and were very obviously a shade off from the rest. While Joe went back to the store with those cans and the receipt, I continued painting and, since I was alone, set up my iPod with speakers so I could listen to Gloria Estefan while I worked.

I love to paint to her upbeat songs and had chosen for
my playlist all the best ones: “Get on Your Feet,” “Conga,”
“1, 2, 3,” and “Live for Loving You” to name a few. It made the time pass by so quickly that Joe was back before I knew it—literally!—and when I turned around he was standing in the doorway with a huge grin plastered on his face, having listened for who knows how long as I sang along to “Turn the Beat Around” at the top of my lungs, no doubt shaking my booty as I always did without even realizing it.

“You are
so
gay!” he pronounced and roared with laughter. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten the fact that I had an extended paint roller in my hands, which, of course, I now used to roll a streak of burgundy-red paint on his tattered T-shirt.

“And
you
are so
dead
!” I declared.

The glint in my eye must have tipped him off that he was in deep doo-doo, because he took one look at the red roller I was poking at his face and sprinted off through the dining room and out the back door. I followed in my sock feet, never even considering the grass stains they would incur, brandishing the paint roller like a trident and yelling threats at Joe like a banshee.

He ran around the corner of the house to head for the front yard, and when I hollered “You are
so
dead meat!” he glanced back to see how close I was on his heels. It almost proved to be fatal—he tripped over the rainspout and went sprawling across the front lawn, skidding to a stop mere inches from the sidewalk, where an older couple (presumably his neighbors) were pushing a baby stroller with a baby (most likely their grandchild) in it.

“Beware the crazy interior designer!” Joe gasped at them, deadpan, before scrambling to his feet and tearing across to the other side of the yard. I had to admire his aplomb in a situation that could have been mortally embarrassing. Not to be outdone, however, I plucked one of my business cards out of my breast pocket and extended it to them with my best poker face. The poor old gent was so astounded, he took it without a word.

“Open house dates to be announced,” I told them solemnly, then resumed my pursuit of Joe, still wielding the roller.

He tried to evade me by hiding in the garage, but I flushed him out, and then we did a few laps around the house. At one point I caught a glimpse of us mirrored in the glass sliding doors at the back—we looked like a German shepherd being chased by a Chihuahua. Joe was beginning to tire, though, and he finally fled into the house, crying, “Uncle!
Uncle
!”

I followed him in with a bloodcurdling “
Aiii-yaaaaah
!” that must have been audible to the entire block (on a Saturday morning, no less) only to be grabbed and wrestled to the floor as soon as I stepped in through the doorway. He got the roller away from me and pitched it into a corner, then collapsed on the drop cloth, still holding me in a hug—which was all it took for him to keep me immobile, he was so strong and big!

In fact, I could feel his thick chest muscles heaving against my back as he panted for air, laughing, and his arms were wrapped around me like bands of steel. I closed my eyes for a brief moment, my heart caught in my throat—
If only…! If only…!—
as I felt myself sink even deeper into the mire of unrequited love. I just wanted to be held there forever!

I might have blurted out something incredibly stupid if my iPod hadn’t started to play “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” just then, which made Joe laugh even harder and brought me to my senses. I laughed weakly, pretending to be winded from the exertion, and pressed a hand to my side, where I really did have a painful stitch from all the running. He let me go and we lay for a while on the floor, side by side in companionable silence, listening to Gloria as we tried to catch our breath.

I was extremely glad that Joe didn’t seem to have noticed anything unusual as we got back to work, but that night, as well as many others, the sensation of being held in his arms came back to haunt me, making me physically ache to feel his touch again, even though I knew it was a lost cause. I pulled the blankets around myself tightly in the hopes of dreaming, at least, that Joe was there with me, holding me.

T
HE
day I had feared had arrived: Joe’s house was completely remodeled, and now there was no reason for me to be there, night after night, as I had been for the past few months. Joe had insisted on my invoicing him for the stuff I’d paid for (like the sleek new sofa I found while shopping for another client) and my time (though with deep discounts, as he no doubt suspected). He had been prompt in paying me biweekly so, once I got my final check, I wouldn’t even have the excuse of coming to nag him for my payment.

I stifled a sigh as I put the finishing touches on the kitchen, where a new wine rack hung from the ceiling in lieu of the old wall, lined with sparkling wine glasses ready to be used. The silk grapevine I’d just twined around the rack added a rustic touch, as did the aged clock on the one beige wall with gold accents (painted on with a rolled-up plastic grocery bag). It contrasted very nicely with the burgundy walls, giving the place a chic yet warm and inviting atmosphere.

“There!” I said with a tone of finality. “You could put this house on the market tomorrow, if the market weren’t so sucky right now!”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed, helping me down the stepladder. “You’ve really done a number on this place! I hardly even recognize it.”

It was true. The whole house felt modern, contemporary, and hip. Even with the market in the dumps, someone would most certainly bid on it.

“I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you?” he said with a wink and pulled out a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator—no wonder he’d insisted on getting takeout tonight!

We toasted each other and sipped the bubbly drink, admiring the new view with satisfaction.

“So,” he began, “what do we do next?”

“Do?” I echoed. “What do you mean? The house is finished. I can’t think of a single thing we could add to it without starting to clutter it up.”

“Well, I need
some
sort of excuse to have you come over and cook, don’t I?”

I stared up at him, mouth agape, for what seemed an eternity.

“Um… Joe…,” I began, hoping I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt, “you don’t need a-an
excuse
to have me cook! I… I’d be…
more
than happy to….”

“Really?” he asked, seriously. “You mean it?”

“Would I offer to if I
didn’t
mean it?” I countered.

“No… no, you wouldn’t,” he replied. Then he beamed as he said, “Well, then, cheers!” And I responded in kind, my heart floating up to cloud nine again.

Chapter 7

W
E
worked out a system of sorts, where Joe would pay for the groceries every other time and I did all the cooking. He also tried to compensate me for my labor (although cooking really
is
enjoyable for me) by doing things around
my
house, like fixing the dripping showerhead, power-washing the back deck and repainting it with some much-needed sealant, and replacing the light bulbs. Every night I made dinner with enough leftovers for our lunches the next day, and in the morning we simply had some toast and eggs for breakfast.

Yes, I said “we” had breakfast because—after several episodes of Joe falling asleep on my couch watching TV, exhausted from a long day’s work—I persuaded him to keep a few clothes in my spare bedroom. Even after Gramma died, I’d stayed in my own room, so the “guest” bedroom was what would be the “master” bedroom for most, furnished with a full-sized bed that Joe could fit in if he lay diagonally. Over the course of two months, his sleepovers had gradually become more and more of a regular occurrence, until now, for all intents and purposes, he was my housemate. The arrangement was working out quite well, although he had to go home every so often to check his mail, pay bills, and make sure it looked lived-in enough that it wouldn’t become a target for vandals. But the clothes he’d brought over a little at a time had accumulated rather significantly, increased by, of course, the new clothes I’d helped him pick out.

“It just looks so
nice
in there now,” he’d explained apologetically about his own house. “I hate to do anything ’cuz I’m afraid I might mess it up!”

There was absolutely no need for him to feel bad about crashing at my place—perish the thought!—and I made sure to tell him so. Of course, we were still very strictly platonic friends (which is an ironic expression, considering Plato himself had probably been gay or at the very least practiced pederasty), but it was nice to have him around in any case. We usually spent our evenings watching TV, and it was amazing how much more fun it was to talk at the TV when there was someone else there to appreciate your comments! Or sometimes I’d paint pictures for my clients in the dining room, and he’d watch in fascination as the images took form on the canvas under my brush.