we’re just taking a lunch break to give it time to dry so we can apply the second coat.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say. “We have to paint this entire room again? ”
She clenches her jaw, but resettles herself with one breath. “Yes. You’l see why when we come back after lunch.” Her voice is al patience and fortitude.
I possess neither of those traits. “Fine. Whatever. I’ve got to be here for a month. Doesn’t matter if I paint the same damned wal fifty times.”
Her lips set in a line, she huffs a breath and glances at me and away. “Could you put your shirt back on, please?” I have to grin. “Why? Does it bother you that I’m shirtless?”
She rol s her eyes in a big exaggerated gesture, and I struggle not to laugh. “I don’t care if you want to strip naked.
But we have retired people helping out today… and some of them are of the ‘no-hats-indoors’ variety, so I doubt they’d be thril ed to see you at lunch sans shirt. But suit yourself.”
I grab the shirt off the floor and pul it on, fol owing her out of the room. “Strip naked, huh? I don’t know about that, Dori. We just met.” She doesn’t reply, but her ears go pink.
Score.
*** *** ***
Dori
I can’t believe I just invited Reid Alexander to be naked in my presence. As if I didn’t know he wouldn’t take that sort of remark silently.
I was expecting to find him difficult to motivate and just as difficult to teach, but he listened (though he seemed bored out of his mind), and for the most part he fol owed my instructions. I had to let him try it his way first, because apparently he’s a learn-the-hard-way type. (Shocking.) He didn’t trust me about not getting too much paint on the rol er. Or rol ing in arches instead of straight lines on the first pass. Or not rol ing too near the ceiling.
In front of the first wal he painted, there are splotches of paint al over the floor. I had to point out several drippy globs he needed to back up and fix before they dried that way. And of course, he hit the white ceiling in two places and the baseboard in two more, trying to rol al the way to the crease. By the second wal , he’d improved, more so the third, and the last was nearly perfect. I was starting to relax until he took off his shirt.
I’ve managed to remain unaffected by male torsos for eighteen years, but good gol y, I’ve never been confronted with a torso like his. He’s like an ad for cologne or beachwear or gym equipment—al perfect skin stretched over flawlessly-toned muscle. Luckily, his arrogance is such a turnoff that I didn’t have any problem asking him to put his shirt back on.
Like the walk through the house this morning, conversations break off when Reid and I emerge into what wil be the back yard, once we lay sod. Twenty or so people sit on upturned buckets and folding lawn chairs scattered about the concrete patio, paper plates of tamales and tacos on their laps. Some workers wil be here every day—
notably the crew leaders like Roberta. Others vary day to day—col ege students, church groups, garden clubs or employees from area companies that support community service projects by giving them time off to volunteer.
I walk to the water spigot to wash my hands and Reid does the same, and then splashes water over his face and runs his wet hands through his hair as though everyone out here wasn’t watching him do it. Fol owing me to the card table where the food is laid out, he acts as though there’s nothing odd about a Hol ywood celebrity being handed a paper plate and pointed to the plastic utensils and the cooler holding bottled water.
I sit on a step, balancing my plate on my knees, and he sits next to me. Everyone is stil staring, though whispered conversations are resuming.
“So why are you here?” he asks. “I’m guessing you haven’t been arrested for drunken driving or gotten caught with a joint in your gym locker.”
“ Um , no,” I say, once I’ve finished chewing. “I’m a regular.”
He peers at me, and I can’t decide if he’s puzzled or amused. “So you do this al the time. Hmm.”
“What?”
While he’s studying the other volunteers, appraising each one without any alteration in expression, I’m gazing at his profile, waiting for him to continue. He has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen on a guy, and his now-damp hair, darker blond when wet, curls at the ends over his ear and at the nape, grazing the neck of his paint-smeared t-shirt.
“Nothing.” He shrugs. “I just wonder what else you have time to do, if you’re doing this al the time,” he adds, biting off half a taco. People like him never understand people like me. It’s like we come from different species.
“Wel , since I don’t make a habit of getting drunk, smoking pot, clubbing and sleeping with everything that moves, I have plenty of time for other activities.” Ohmygosh. I did not just say that.
He laughs softly, turning to face me as I scowl. His blue eyes are striking, framed by thick, dark lashes. “Let me guess—Monday is book club, Tuesday is family game night… Wednesday is Bible study, and Thursday you meet up with the sewing circle to make quilts for the elderly… Am I close?”
Without answering, I get up to go back inside. This isn’t the first time I’ve been ridiculed for what I am, but for some reason—maybe because it feels so incompatible with where we are—it’s more disheartening.
“Wait,” he says, and for some stupid reason I stop, expecting him to apologize. “When do you have time for the soup kitchen?”