Marriage Seasons 04 - Winter Turns to Spring (9 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Y
ou crazy mutt. I ought to take you over to Mr. Moore’s house so he and Boofer can teach you how to do this thing right.”

Brad blotted up the latest of Yappy’s messes and tossed out the paper towel. As he lifted the plastic liner out of the trash can, he recalled the night Charlie Moore had helped him chip tile off the kitchen floor. A lot of the time, the old man seemed too hopelessly out of date to understand what life was like these days. But once in a while he said something that made good sense.

Charlie had told Brad about the importance of commitment. Both people had to be so resolute in working on the marriage that their commitment to it became more important even than their love for each other. Charlie had said of his wife,
“If I wanted to make an important point, I had to get her to focus on me.”

Though he was exhausted from mudding drywall seams all day, Brad had made up his mind to force his wife to focus on him. He was determined to get what he wanted out of her. For a change, it wasn’t a romp in bed. No, Brad was determined to make Ashley notice him. Not only notice him, but say something nice. Admire him the way she used to. Talk about how lucky she was to have him. Tell him how wonderful and smart he was. List all the things she loved about him.

“Is that so hard?” he asked the puppy, who was prancing beside him toward the front door. “I mean, really, Yap. You think I’m pretty great, don’t you? Why doesn’t she?”

Tossing the trash bag into a larger bin outside the house, Brad reminded himself that he had set a goal for this night. Driven by his purpose, he avoided Larry’s bar, made himself a sandwich at home, and began doing what he knew would catch Ashley’s attention.

For the second time this month, he was cleaning their entire house from ceiling to floor.

While washing load after load of laundry, he had vacuumed all the floors and scrubbed the toilet bowl. Then he had started on Ashley’s side of the bed, stacking her bead magazines, putting her shoes in the closet, and gathering up all the doodads she put in her hair. He cleared his side of shoes, magazines, socks, dog toys, and empty water bottles.

“When did she quit thinking I hung the moon?” Brad asked as he held the door open for Yappy. “I’m the king of the bedroom, if I do say so myself. That ought to keep her happy enough. So why doesn’t she ever have a nice word for me?”

Yappy shook his head until his ears flapped loudly.
“Wow!”
he barked. Then the rest of his little body shivered right down to his fluffy tail.

“Yeah, it’s cold out there,” Brad grunted. His thoughts turned to Larry’s for a moment. No doubt Yvonne would be into her second set by now. That long dark hair would be swishing around her shoulders as she swayed back and forth in her tight jeans. Brad could be warm, slightly buzzed, and listening to some good music. Instead he was cleaning house for an icy redhead who rarely gave him the time of day.

Was it really the drinking that had driven Ashley away? Or had she gotten so busy she forgot she was married? Or—worst of all—had she stopped loving him?

Frowning at the thought, Brad switched off the overhead light, stretched out on the sofa, and flipped on the television, giving the room a warm glow. He would
not
fall asleep, he told himself as Yappy leaped up and curled into the crook of his arm. He absolutely would not doze off. Though his neck ached from staring at the ceiling all day, he would keep his eyes open until that woman walked through the door. …

“Brad?”

The voice snapped him up from the couch as though he had touched a live wire. With a sharp yap, the puppy tumbled onto the carpet.

“Are you drunk again?” At the tone of Ashley’s voice, Brad cringed. She set her hands on her hips. “Because I am
not
hauling you into bed tonight. You can just sleep on the couch with your dog.”

“I haven’t been drinking,” he told her.

“Yeah, right.” Ashley tugged off the scarf around her neck and hung it over a hook on the rack by the door. “And how were the ladies at Larry’s? Did
Why
-vonne sing all your favorites?”

She shrugged out of her coat and stamped her feet on the floor. “It’s snowing, for your information. One of us is going to have to shovel the driveway tomorrow morning, and it won’t be me. Two dish guys didn’t bother to come to work tonight, so the rest of us had to pitch in and wash everything.”

Brad rubbed a hand over his eyes and then rumpled his hair to try to wake himself up. “I’ll take Yappy out,” he mumbled. The puppy’s failure to become house-trained had become yet another tension between the couple. He turned on the living room light as he opened the door. Maybe Ashley would notice what he’d done, but at this point, he was beyond caring. Who wanted to be married to the Whine Queen anyway?

Standing outside, Brad watched the white flakes drift downward only to melt as they hit the ground. Yappy ran in circles for a moment, confused and excited by the snow; then he remembered he had more important business to take care of. As the little dog lifted his leg, Brad realized he had actually been praying that Yappy would recall what to do in the yard.

Praying
. Praying that a dog wouldn’t mess in the house. How nutty was that?

Though the Hanes family had trooped to church most Sundays when Brad was a kid, he hadn’t given God much thought since turning sixteen and buying his own car. He told his parents he no longer wanted the weekend routine, and they didn’t argue. For them, church was little more than a habit passed down from their own families. Beyond trying to figure out which church to get married in, Ashley never even mentioned religion. Her parents had always used Sundays to rest from the snack shop, and she told Brad she didn’t give the subject much thought.

“Yap, what do you know about God?” Brad asked the puppy.

As usual, the moment the dog heard his name, he paused, looked at Brad, and cocked his head. The response was so immediate, so intelligent, and so downright funny that Brad couldn’t help laughing. The puppy wagged his tail.

“Did you hear me, Yap?” Brad asked. “Have you ever met God?”

“Wow!”
The dog twirled in the falling snow, bouncing on his small feet.

“Is that right? Well, what did you think of Him?”

“Wow wow!”

“I reckon so,” Brad said, reaching down to fluff the fur behind the pup’s ears. Any sense of the divine had left Brad’s life long ago, he admitted. Not even falling snow, glittery and soft and bathed in moonlight, could move him much. He had hardened himself. Turned off the tender, gentle side that might cause him pain. Even his love for Ashley had been rough and driven, as though he were a diamond miner boring through rock to get to a precious gem. But, as it had turned out, his diamond was flawed. Not even worth the work it had taken to make her his.

“Bradley Hanes!” Ashley’s voice in the doorway was filled with joy. “You cleaned up the whole house! Oh, my gosh, I don’t believe it!”

Before he could turn, she had thrown her arms around his waist and was kissing his cheek. “It’s wonderful! It looks perfect. Beautiful! It’s just the way I had always hoped. And the new kitchen floor … and the ceiling you patched … Oh, Brad, thank you so much!”

Unexpected warmth welling up inside him, Brad lifted his focus to the blue-tinged, misted moon.
Wow
, he thought.
Wow wow
.

“Come inside before you freeze,” Ashley was saying. “You too, Yappy. Come on, sweet baby. Did you do your business? I bet you helped Daddy clean the house, didn’t you? Was it your idea?”

“Yap is in charge of
messing
the house, remember?”

Ashley laughed, a clear ringing sound that Brad had always loved. “Oh, he’ll learn. It takes a while, but they always get it eventually.”

The puppy scampered ahead as the young couple stepped back inside the warmth of their living room. “You want some hot chocolate?” she asked.

“Love some.” Brad sank onto the couch again. It had been worth it. Ashley had noticed his efforts to straighten and scrub down the house, and her words of praise rang in his ears.

She would mention the laundry and dishes any minute now. He wouldn’t mind hearing a little more about how much she liked the floor tiles that he and Charlie had installed in the kitchen, either. That had been quite a job—not only getting out the old tile but putting in the new vinyl. He had gotten her attention with the clean house, and now that she was focused on her husband, things were off to a good start.

Now Ashley would probably ask him about the condominium project, Brad predicted, hope taking hold in his chest. When he told her how hard he had worked on those fourteen-foot foyer ceilings all day, she’d probably be amazed. Mudding was never easy, but a ceiling posed an even more difficult challenge than a wall.

It would be nice to tell his wife that Bill Walters had referred to him as the best mudder he’d employed in years. Ashley might like to know that. Even boast to her friends about it a little. She had always been so proud of Brad and his accomplishments on the football field that she fawned all over him.

Not only had she made him feel like her hero, but she talked about her boyfriend’s accomplishments to everyone she knew. Same thing with her engagement ring, their new house, his permanent job with Walters Construction. Brag, brag, brag. Everywhere they went, Ashley had sung Brad’s praises. It was about time for a little more of that admiration and love to start coming back his way.

“You would not believe how hard it is for a restaurant at this lake to keep a good dish guy,” Ashley was saying as she walked across the living room floor, a mug of hot cocoa in each hand. “They earn minimum wage, of course, and the job is unbelievably nasty. That garbage disposal at the country club is always getting jammed.”

“Oh yeah? You ought to see what happens when someone fails to wash out one of our cement mixers at the end of the day. Talk about a jam.”

He took the mug and gazed at his wife. Ashley blew a tendril of red hair from her forehead as she settled into a chair near the sofa.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she told him. “It’s so hard to find responsible employees. Thank goodness I don’t have to go near our garbage disposal. They call it Porky. The moment Porky freezes up, this sickening, greasy water explodes out of it and goes all over everyone. An apron does no good whatsoever. And people leave so much food on their plates. Oh, man, I bet the country club could feed half of China with what we throw away. Good stuff, too, like whole shrimp and pieces of steak the size of my hand. I’m glad I don’t have to look at those leftovers going down the drain. It’s totally disgusting. Just putting the dishes into the washer was bad enough. Tonight was awful.”

Brad took a sip of hot cocoa and studied his wife as she talked. Ashley was beautiful, as always. Even after a long, difficult work shift, she came home looking good enough to eat. She had wound up her long hair and poked a couple of chopsticks through the knot to hold it on her head. Tonight, despite her white work shirt and black slacks, she appeared downright exotic. The beads she had chosen added to the effect—blue and white, with intricate designs she had worked into the clay. He ought to admire them, but he really didn’t want to bring up the topic of beads. That would get her rambling forever. Better to get back to the subject of his job—the cranky cement mixers, mudding the ceilings, all the things Ashley used to question him about in wonderment.

“Are you listening?” she asked.

“Sure.” Brad shook himself inwardly. What had she been saying? “You told me a couple of the dish guys didn’t show up for work.”

“Yeah, and that meant the rest of us had to take turns going down there and running the washer. Oh, ick. I’ll tell you what, if I have to do that again, I’m going on strike. Jay said he’s planning to talk to the owners about raising the base pay for dish guys. Because, I mean, what kind of people can you expect to get for that money? It’s ridiculous. We get these lowlifes who come in and work a few days, and then they bail out on us.”

“Wait a minute … Jay?” Brad struggled to draw his attention away from Ashley’s long neck. “Who’s Jay?”

“I told you the other day. He’s the head of customer relations. He checks on the kitchen all the time. It’s one of the main service areas. If people aren’t happy about their food, they won’t come back.”

“Do you talk to this guy? this Jay person?”

“Of course I do.” She drew a chopstick from her hair. “He is so funny. He can show up and change my whole mood.
You
sure changed my mood tonight. What possessed you to clean the house? It looks wonderful. I’m just blown away. You’re amazing!”

Brad felt a shot of adrenaline flow into his chest and make his heart begin to thud heavily. Ashley had taken out the second chopstick, and her hair tumbled down like red-hot lava. Charlie Moore was right, he realized with some surprise. This was working out even better than Brad had hoped. His wife had not only noticed his housecleaning efforts of the evening, but she was beginning to sing his praises—
and
slowly undressing in front of him.

“It wasn’t too bad,” he said. “The bathroom was no fun, but the rest was a piece of cake. I know how to handle a broom. At work, there’s a lot of sweeping to do after you sand a good mud job. I spent the whole day mudding ceilings. A lot of them were high—cathedral ceilings. It was pretty crazy working way up there. You can’t handle that kind of a job unless you really know what you’re doing.”

Ashley kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up under her. “I hate to sweep. Thank goodness we have people for that at the country club. If I had to run a vacuum under those tables, I would just about barf. Sweeping was my least favorite thing at the snack shop, and I always had to do it, of course. I felt like such a zero when rich people stopped by for ice cream.”

She took a sip of her cocoa, but before Brad could open his mouth to remind her about his mud work, she was off and running again. “Oh, speaking of rich people, guess who showed up at the club tonight. Our next-door neighbor—Miranda Finley. She says she’s finally moving into the house. Poor Mr. Moore. I think she has just about run him into the ground doing jobs for her. She invited some friends down from St. Louis for dinner tonight, because she won’t be there for Christmas this year. They’ve always had a girls’ night out before the most stressful part of the holidays starts up. I guess their tradition dates back to when they had kids at home—Christmas parties, decorating, wrapping presents, all that fun stuff. I have to say, though, it’s hard to imagine having a mom who looks like Miranda Finley, isn’t it?”