Actions Speak Louder (10 page)

“Maybe what?” she asked crisply.

“Maybe … it was her way of alerting me to the fact that she enjoyed seeing me in my boxers,” he announced with a cheeky grin.

Marcia watched him, mouth agape, and then burst out laughing.  “Or …” she said, raising a clarifying finger, “she was under the misconception you weren’t wearing any.”

He met her gaze, smiling.  “That did occur to me.  I’m actually rather disturbed by it.”  He shook his head, as if ejecting a troubling image from his mind.  “So you know, I heard you last night when you were warning me about the window.  But, what could I do?  I needed to find that flashlight.  How was I supposed to know we have a peeping Thomasina in the hood?”

“Well, now you do, and you should probably count your lucky stars you’re not down at the precinct, explaining yourself to a bunch of suspicious cops.  They might have developed some serious misconceptions about you.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re probably right.”  He grinned again and cocked his head, but suddenly sobered.  He remembered he had something to tell her, that he’d entirely forgotten about.  He still hadn’t clarified
her
misconceptions about him.  He’d intended to tell her the day before, but the opportunity just hadn’t presented itself.  “Marcia, there’s something I do need to tell you…”

“Marcia!” Collette cried, as she threw open the door. 

The couple glanced toward the door, in time to see the girl burst into the store, her hair windblown and her cheeks bright pink. 

“Hello, Collette,” Marcia said, smiling.  “You seem in good spirits.  Do tell why.”

“Yeah, do tell,” Ethan said without enthusiasm.

Collette smiled gleefully.  “Drew and I went to a movie last night.  And afterward, we went to that ice cream place down the street…”

Ethan emitted a sound much like air escaping a tire.  “Okaaay,” he muttered, and turned to Marcia.  “I guess I’ll talk to you this evening.”  He gave her a hopeful look.  “Will you join me for cheesecake later?”

She gave him a distracted glance, since Collette was practically bouncing with nervous energy beside her.  She attempted to focus on him.  “Why don’t you plan on bringing that cheesecake over to my place around seven…?”

He raised a questioning brow.  “You don’t want to come to my house?” 

“If memory serves, I don’t recall seeing a single chair in your place,” she pointed out. 

“Oh, yeah, you make a good point.”  He gave a self-deprecating laugh.  “I’ll stop by your place.” 

With a tip of his cap at her, and a quick glance at Collette, he left the store.  He came back in not a moment later.  “I forgot my traps,” he said in response to Marcia’s raised eyebrows, and strode to the register to pay.

On the rebound, he paused and gave Collette a mock, angry glance.  “Your timing needs work,” he told her.

She only laughed.  “Pretty boy,” she taunted.

***

When Marcia arrived home around six-thirty, she saw that several men were at Ethan’s place, many apparently shutting down for the day.  As she drove into her garage, one of the men from the crew nodded in her direction.  She smiled in return.

Since it was evident the men weren’t working on the front of the place yet, she surmised they were probably dealing with the bug-infested, dry-rotted back porch.  To see if her hunch was right, she hurriedly dashed to her sunroom, greeted Tootsie and Allie, and then called them outside with her.

Sure enough, she could see from her vantage point that the back porch had been torn off.  She spied Ethan standing beside a man, who was gesturing toward the house, as if explaining what he intended to do to the place.

Sighing, she worried for Ethan.  She sincerely hoped the contractor wasn’t taking advantage of his lack of expertise and planned to overcharge him.  She hoped he wouldn’t use substandard materials on the job either.  She had read that it happened a lot, to inexperienced and unsuspecting people.

Maybe she should go over there, to assure things were done properly.  She fixed her gaze on Ethan’s face.  He looked perplexed, and she just couldn’t bear to think he might be preyed upon by an unscrupulous contractor.  Yes, she should go over there.

The dogs were not pleased when she put them back in the sunroom, so she could hurry over to his house.  “We’ll play later,” she assured Allie, who stood with her ball in her mouth, giving a small, hopeful wag of her tail. 

Marcia bent to give both animals a pat on the head, and then dashed out her front door.  The two men were now at the front of the bungalow, standing beside a large pickup truck, with the logo E.J. Winslow on the side.  Before she could get to them, she watched as the man climbed into the truck and backed out of the driveway. 

She frowned, noticing the name on the truck again.  It sounded so familiar.  Wasn’t that a large, commercial construction firm?  If so, why were they at Ethan’s?  A home remodel was small scale and she recalled reading in the newspaper that the firm’s current project was a massive, downtown high-rise.    

She furrowed her brow.  Perhaps even the largest construction firms were facing economic hard times and had to make do with whatever work they managed to get.       

She reached Ethan just as he was about to return to his house.  His eyes widened when he saw her, and he glanced away, toward the truck that was reaching the corner.  He didn’t pull his eyes away from it until it made the turn, and then he turned his attention to her. 

“Hi, Marcia.”

“Hello, Ethan.  Isn’t that a commercial construction firm?” she asked, watching after the truck.  “It was E.J. Winslow, right?”

He nodded.  “Yes.”

“They don’t do home renovations, do they?” she asked, frowning.

“Uh, well, about that…”

“Marcia!” a male voice called from across the street. 

Ethan heaved a sigh.  Once again, his attempt to come clean had been thwarted by an interruption.  He and Marcia turned to the source of the voice.  It was Mr. Grambel. 

The elderly man hurried toward them, waving.  “I found ‘em, Marcia!” he said gleefully.  “I found a nest of carpenter ants out back.  Can’t believe I missed ‘em.  They’ve ruined several feet of my fence, but I finally got ‘em.”

She smiled.  “Good for you!  I suspected there was a nest on your property.”

“That you did.”  He turned to Ethan, and then his eyes widened in recognition.  “Ethan!  Is that you?  How’ve you been, son?  It’s been what, five, six years since I’ve seen you in the old neighborhood?”

Ethan accepted his proffered hand.  “About,” he said, smiling broadly.  “It’s great to see you again, Mr. Grambel.”

“Well, you too.  What brings you back?  I saw the truck in the driveway a bit ago.”

Apparently, Mr. Grambel had spotted the truck with the logo on it.  Ethan grimaced, casting a hesitant glance at Marcia.  Did she realize he was referring to the business truck?  But then he felt relief.  She probably thought he was referring to his personal truck, which was also parked in the driveway. 

He didn’t want Marcia to think that having Mr. Grambel out him as the owner of the business was the impetus for his coming clean to her.  He wasn’t sure how she would take the news, but it needed to come from him and not their neighbor. 

Mr. Grambel cleared his throat.  “Well?” he prompted Ethan.  “What brings you back to your grandma’s old place?”

“I’m renovating it.”

“Planning on flipping it, are you?”

He shook his head.  “I’m seriously considering moving in.”

Mr. Grambel beamed.  “Well, that’s just wonderful.  We’ve missed you, boy.  Chuck will be glad to hear you’ve come home.”  Marcia knew Chuck was his oldest grandson.

Ethan smiled.  “I hear Chuck has three little ones and one on the way.”

“Yep, and the three little ones aren’t so little anymore.  You’ll have to come by and have a look at the photos Mary keeps on the mantel.”

“I will,” Ethan promised.

After shaking Ethan’s hand again, he announced he had to get moving.  “Mary’s made her famous meatloaf, so I’d better get back.  You come by as soon as you can.”  He turned to leave, but turned back.  “Oh, Marcia, I’ll be needing more of your magic powder so I can off those ants once and for all.”

“Sure thing.  I’d give you some of my own stock, but I gave what I had left to Ethan.  I’ll pick up some at the store tomorrow and drop it by your house during my lunch hour.”

He shook his head.  “No, no.  I’ll stop by the store.  I need to pick up a few things anyway.”

“I really don’t mind,” she assured him.

“I know you don’t, but I do have other errands.”  With a final salute, he hurried off toward his house.

Ethan watched after him, a ghost of a smile on his face.  “Wow, it’s been a long time.”  He shook his head, still smiling.  “That man was like a second granddad to me,” he said.

“For me too,” Marcia told him, also smiling fondly.

“These curtains should work,” Ethan declared, holding up one of the beige panels Marcia had given him.  “Thank you.”

“I figured you’d prefer them to the ladybug print on the other pair I have,” she told him.

He cocked his head and stroked his jaw.  “I don’t know.  I do like ladybugs.”

“Yes, but do you like dancing ladybugs against a backdrop of blue sky, bubble clouds, and smiling sun faces?”

“Those are actually my
favorite
kinds of ladybugs,” he declared.

“Watch it,” she cautioned, “or I’ll take back those neutral-toned curtains.”

He laughed.  “Hey, are you ready for cheesecake?”

“I was thinking we should probably have dinner before dessert.”

He made a mock frustrated face.  “First, you take away the ladybugs, and now you’re telling me I don’t get my cheesecake.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular drill sergeant,” she intoned.  “Hey, would you like to join me for casserole?  I can have it thawed in the microwave and ready to heat up in a matter of minutes.”

“That sounds good,” he said without enthusiasm, “or…”

“What?”                                  

“We could always order a pizza.  I’ve been craving pizza.”

“Okay, but didn’t I just feed you pizza?”

He nodded.  “You’re right.  Are you tired of pizza?  I should have asked.”

“I love pizza,” she assured him and strode into the kitchen and pulled several takeout menus from the drawer in the island.  “We’ve got Papa Bertolli’s, Mama Dinaldi’s, The Brothers Martelli, Diego Pepperoni…”

“I like Jakes,” he said succinctly.

“Okay.”  She thumbed through the menus and found Jake’s Pizza Emporium.  “What sounds good?”

“The Mighty Man, of course,” he told her, smiling.    

“Okaaay,” she said, and reached for the phone.  She placed the order and returned the phone to the hook.  “It’ll be about forty-five minutes,” she told him.

He nodded.  “That’ll give me enough time to set the traps in my attic.  Want to join me?”

She shrugged.  “Why not?”  It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.  “Oh, shoot!” she cried.  “The girls are still in the sunroom.”

She hurried to let the dogs out and retrieved their dinner from the fridge.  After feeding them, she let them outside.  She and Ethan followed them into the overgrown back yard.  He stood silently near the back steps, his eyes doing a pass over the lawn.

“I know,” she said from beside him, “it needs to be mowed.”

He turned to her.  “I wasn’t thinking that.  I was thinking how nice it is to have a lawn.  Mine looks a lot like yours,” he said, grinning.

“Unmowed,” she said, and frowned.  “Is that a word?”

He shrugged.  “Doesn’t matter.  But I have missed having a yard.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, oddly relieved.  She didn’t want him thinking she didn’t care about her lawn.  It was simply that she didn’t have a lot of free time on her hands right now.  “Of course, a lawn requires a lot of upkeep.  Well, for most people,” she said with a wince, once again acknowledging that hers wasn’t exactly manicured.  She gave him a hesitant glance.  “Where did you live prior to taking up residence in the bungalow?”

“I lived in condo, downtown,” he told her, refraining from mentioning it was located in an exclusive high-rise with views of the city from every window. 

Funny, standing in her back yard, he didn’t miss it one bit.  She apparently picked up on his line of thinking.

“Do you miss it?” she asked with interest.  “It must have been nice paying an association fee in order to forgo the worry about outside maintenance.”

“Sometimes,” he mused.

“Did you live in your condo for long?” 

Somehow, she couldn’t envision him cooped up in large complex, and contending with shared walls.  What she didn’t know was that he owned the penthouse condo, which comprised the entire top floor of the large high-rise, and that he didn’t even share an elevator with others, but instead had his own private lift.

“Yes.  I lived there for several years.  You’d think I might be at least a little bit nostalgic for it.”  He shrugged.  “I don’t feel a thing.”