The Ladies' Room (20 page)

I moaned. "Billy Lee, I could strangle you. Why'd you
bring me over here to show me something I can't have?"

"I didn't say that. I said I can't make another one just like it,
Trudy. If you want this one, it's yours," he said.

I grabbed him in a fierce hug and stopped just short of kissing him passionately right on the lips. "I was willing to make
a deal with Lucifer to get it. How much? I'll write you a check
when we get back to the house"

"You cannot buy it. It's already paid for. Gert said to help
you fix up the house. This is part of the deal."

"God doesn't have that much money," I protested.

He finally laughed. "God doesn't need money. So you
like it?"

"Yes, I do. I really, really want this furniture, and I want
you to build more. I want my whole house filled up with your
work."

"Honest?"

"Cross my heart"

"Good. I won't have to give back any of Gert's money. I
could have the painters help me move it in today. You could
probably get a good mattress and box spring down at the furniture store here in town"

"Yes, yes, yes," I singsonged as I ran my hands all over the
furniture.

"I measured the spaces you'd have for the dresser and chest,
and there was that little place over there in the corner beside
the window I thought the lingerie chest might fit into."

"Billy Lee, you are an artist. The next thing I'm going to
start talking about is my office. But is all this going to take
away from your business?"

"No, the joy of having your own business is that you can
take a sabbatical year whenever you want to. I reckon we'll
have the house done in about that long. You ready for breakfast? We could make some omelets and French toast if you've
got eggs over there"

I was hungry, but I hated to leave my new furniture alone. I
wanted to sit there until the men moved it to my bedroom, then
spend the rest of the day admiring it.

"There are plenty of eggs. Want biscuits and gravy to go
with an omelet instead of French toast?"

He grinned, and I really wanted to kiss him, but I led the
way back through the hedge and into my kitchen, where we
fell into making breakfast together. He browned a handful of
sausage in a cast-iron skillet while I made biscuits. We decided
on scrambled eggs rather than omelets. It was as if he read my
mind when we worked in the kitchen. If I needed a spoon, he
handed it to me before I spoke. I melted butter to just the right
temperature, and he had the eggs ready the moment I needed
them.

"I bought the new wood, the aspen down in Dallas, for your
cabinets in the office. That room isn't as big as the other two
bedrooms, so we'll make the most out of all the available
space."

I reached up and framed his face with my palms the way
Momma did with me when she wanted the truth. "Billy Lee,
be honest with me. Did Gert really leave you that much money?"

He looked right into my eyes and said, "Yes, ma'am."

The notion was crazy, but I wanted to talk about something
a lot more personal than my office and had no idea how to
begin the conversation. I dropped my hands and poured gravy
into a bowl.

"Maybe we'd better measure the room," I suggested. "I've been meaning to get a tabletop and a laptop, but I've been too
busy to go shopping for either."

"It shouldn't be much bigger than the one in my office.
Towers and the new flat monitors don't take up as much real
estate as the old ones did. So we can measure my equipment
and make the built-ins to fit them"

When had I begun to think of Billy Lee as more than a
neighbor? When he'd asked me to stay at the church dinner?
Was that the day a friendship had been born? It seemed as if it
had evolved slowly from neighborliness to friendship. I vowed
I wouldn't ruin it with coveting more, so I started loading
my plate with food. But it would have been very easy right
then to stop coveting the bedroom suite and start coveting my
neighbor.

That evening after we'd stripped paint all day, I took a long
bath and went to see Momma. I hoped she was having another
good day, because I really, really needed someone to talk to
about Billy Lee and my changing feelings.

Lessie shook her head when I opened the door into the lobby.
It had not been a good day. I sat down beside Momma on the
settee near the piano and patted her leg.

"Crystal came today," Lessie whispered.

My heart dropped all the way to my aching, tired toes.
"Crystal was in town?"

"Ungrateful child," Momma said in a strong voice. "You
raised her wrong, Trudy. Gave her everything, and now nothing is good enough. What's the matter with young girls today?
Want the world laid at their feet. You should send her to Gert
for six months. That woman could straighten out the spawn of
the devil."

"Gert is dead. Remember?"

Her eyes brimmed with tears that fell down her wrinkled
cheeks. "Oh, no, when did Gert die? I must shop for a new suit
for the funeral. Is it tomorrow?"

"Momma, Gert died back in May. Remember? I inherited her
house, and you came to visit me and helped me decide where
to put the quilts." I tried to bring her back to the present gently.

She wiped at the tears and narrowed her eyes at me. "Why
do you tell me things like that? Who are you? I thought you
were my daughter, but she's dead. She and Gert died together.
Oh, Crystal will be so sad. Excuse me; I have to go lie down.
This is too much for me right now. Does Drew know?"

"I'll take her to her room, Miss Trudy. You might as well go
on. Maybe tomorrow will be better," Lessie said.

It was dark when I got home. Billy Lee was in his shop. I
knew because I could see the light out there. What was he
doing? There wasn't a sign hanging on the hedge that prohibited trespassing, and he was the one who'd made himself indispensable at my house, so I could go over there if I wanted.
Nothing jumped out of the twilight and attacked me when I
stepped through the hedge. Sweat dripped off my jawbone
and beaded up under my nose. My hands were clammy as I
slipped inside the building. The Harley was still in the same
place. The room where my bedroom set had been was now
empty, but there were four other doors.

Leave me alone in a room, and I'm instantly curious about
what's in the drawers or behind doors. Momma trained me
early in life that it was bad manners to go prowling around in
other folks' belongings, but it didn't keep me from wanting to
slip my hand into the pocket of that coat lying on the bed or
take a quick peek inside the bathroom vanity drawer. It was an
exercise in willpower that had gotten only slightly easier as I
got older.

Perhaps if she'd let me prowl around more, I would've
caught Drew in those first years of our marriage. Not that I
was blaming it on Momma. Who knows what kind of person I
would have become if I'd been given carte blanche when it
came to snooping?

Which door did I take? The noise had died down, leaving
me with doors number one, two, three, or four. Did he keep tigers and lions behind door number one? I eased it open, only to
find the beginnings of a headboard, one of those tall, antique
cannonball replicas. I could see it in Aunt Gert's old bedroom,
which was to be my guest room.

"Hey," he said.

He was close enough behind me that I could feel the warmth
of his breath on my neck. I jumped as if I'd been caught
snooping in a dresser drawer.

Scarlet crept into my cheeks. "I was bored"

He pointed at the starting of the cannonball bed. "You
like it?"

"It's beautiful."

"Thought it might look good in your spare bedroom. Maybe
with a nightstand and a little vanity dresser with a round mirror. Not many folks come to stay very long, so you wouldn't
need a lot of drawer space in that room. You mentioned liking cannonball beds when we were in Jefferson." He looked
at me.

The town flashed before my eyes, but the shy kiss on my
cheek after the trip made me touch my cheek.

He went on. "So, you're bored. Want to help me work on the
built-ins for the new office? I could use another set of hands."

"I would love to help you. I'm completely ignorant of anything mechanical or electrical, but I'll do whatever you can
teach me" I followed him through door number one.

"Can you hold a sander and keep it going with the grain of the
wood? This is the first room I work in. This is a table saw. That's
a planer. Over there is a jointer. It gets the wood cut into pieces
and ready for the next room. Here, put on this mask. You don't
want a sinus attack because you breathed in too much dust." He
handed me a white paper mask, and I slipped it over my nose
and mouth.

He handed me a sander, told me to sit on a bench in front of a
workstation, and gave me a five-second lesson. Not a single
piece of gym equipment could give the arms a workout like that
sander did. It took a while before I convinced it I was the boss,
but after that we got along fairly well. When Billy Lee was ready
to call it a night, I'd sanded several pieces of wood-some short,
some narrow, some long, some wide. I didn't know how it would
all fit together, but Billy Lee was the magician. I barely qualified
to be in the show.

He inspected my work. "You did a good job. I'll hire you to
work any evening you want to come out here"

"Hire me. I'm just privileged to learn from the master. I
should be paying you."

He grinned.

I pulled off the mask and laid it aside. "You are a genius
with wood. Where all have you sold your work?"

"Far and near," he said.

"Okay, details. Where is the most impressive place one of
your pieces of furniture sits right now?"

"Your bedroom"

"I'm serious."

"Okay. I made a dining room table to seat twenty and chairs
to match for the governor's mansion in Oklahoma City," he
said.

"I'm surprised it's not in the White House. If the president
ever comes to visit Oklahoma and sees it, I'm sure he'll order
one. Want a glass of iced tea? There's a pitcher already made
in the refrigerator."

"No, I think I just want a long bath and a good night's sleep,"
he said.

"Well, then, good night," I said.

"Good night, Trudy," he said softly.

I thought of him taking a long bath while I did the same. And
even though I was literally tired to the bone, both mentally and
physically, it took a very long time before I went to sleep.

Awarm breeze rattled the wind chimes and added to the
chorus of crickets and tree frogs. I wasn't complaining. It was
the last week of July, and we had a breeze, even if it was a hot
one.

The outside of the house was painted a buttery yellow. With
the white gingerbread trim and new windows, it looked like a
Thomas Kincaid picture. Billy Lee had made and hung a new
porch swing on the east wing of the porch, back in the shadows of a mimosa tree. I enjoyed the swaying motion with my
left knee drawn up and my right foot hanging close enough
to the porch floor that I could push off and keep the swing
moving.

The sun had fallen behind the treetops, and the last light of
day filtered through summer leaves in fading rays. I loved sunsets and sunrises more and more, especially when doubts crept
up. Most days I could keep them at bay; on others it was like
being at the starting gate at a horse race.

One moment the doubts were behind bars, the next they
were running full speed ahead. That night I worried. How
many more sunsets would I enjoy before I was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's? Would I be in the nursing home when I was
sixty-five years old? Billy Lee had said that we'd cross that
bridge if we ever came to it, but he was my dearest friend; I
could never burden him.

Then there were those other two more pressing matters.
Number one: whether or not to go back to work in two weeks.
If I was going to quit my job as a teacher's aide, then I should resign in time for the school administration to find a replacement. I thought about the pros and cons. I didn't need the
money, and we weren't finished remodeling. Lately I'd been
going out to the shop with Billy Lee in the evenings and working until dark. The equipment and all that power terrified me.
I didn't even like the sander. But I enjoyed finish work, staining especially. Billy Lee used a spray gun to apply the sanding
sealer and coats of varnish, but staining was done by hand
using a paintbrush and wiping rags. I loved the way the grain
popped right out, every knothole and swirl coming to life
when color was applied.

I pushed off with my foot again and contemplated going
inside where it was cool. When I'd first moved into the house,
I could hardly wait for the air-conditioning to be installed.
And here I was sitting out in the hot night air, sweat beading
up under my lip and on the back of my neck, trying to think
my way out of my problems.

Without reaching a firm decision about school, my thoughts
went to my other big concern: Crystal. It had been longer than
I'd ever gone without talking to my child. When she was young
and every other word was Momma, I would have gladly been
Gussie or even Minnie Mouse if I didn't have to hear a threeyear-old whining "Momma" again. Now I'd love to hear her say
that one word.