Chapter 2

I slept alone and not well. I was trying hard to get comfortable in the hard bed I had used for almost a year before the 9mm wake up call. It was quite the shock to find that my bed, and none of the chairs I owned were at all comfortable. That isn’t quite true the second hand, office type chair wasn’t too bad. Also I guess the short time I spent in my one dining room type chair was fine.

It was the sofa, the stuffed chair, and the bed that were the problems. I was too cheap to replace all the furniture. Even if most of it was pretty close to being worn out when it came from the thrift store. The bed was going to need at least a sheet of plywood under the mattress. There was no way in hell that I could do that. I also needed a larger bed, I had been told that by everyone.

Since I finally had enough space for a double bed, I went shopping. I went to a mattress outlet store. My bed frame would expand so all I needed was a mattress and box spring. I knew that when I went inside and was approached by the clown who was working there. No, I’m not kidding there was a guy dressed as a clown working there.

“What can I do for you,” he asked.

“Not a thing, do you have a real salesman working,” I asked.

“I am a real salesman,” he insisted.

“And I’m a real customer walking out the door,” I said turning to leave.

“Wait,” he demanded. “Lucy come here.”

Lucy showed me to a bed. It was the right size and I wasn’t in shock from the price. Lucy clinched the sale when she agreed to have it delivered and installed on Monday.

It still meant that when Mica came over that Saturday morning things would not have changed much. I didn’t even look for a sofa. I thought I would allow Thai to chose the sofa and chair.

“Thia I know you are at work. Give some thought to picking me out a small sofa and chair to replace mine. It too uncomfortable to nap on now.” I said in the message I left.

By the time Mica arrived the bed was inside the house and in place. The new bed was delivered before we started on the rewrite only because Mica got held up delivering Joy to her father’s apartment. It was afternoon before things were ready to go.

We had several false starts before we got started on the screen play. The way we handled it was Mica read all the women’s lines aloud and I read all the men’s lines. I also read all the exit stage right type instructions.

The first thing we had to do was give each character a realistic personality based on someone we knew. Yes Alyson based her detective on me since I was the one who actually worked on the Caroline investigation, Then we had to assign a personality to Alyson’s character since Mica hardly knew her.

The same was true of the Judge and our retired porn star. The script was imaginary so we could improvise the lines to make them fit the personalities we chose for the characters. I had no ideas if the dialogue we switched would work better, but the scenes we came up with were more realistic than those Alyson’s wrote.

Since I hadn’t seen the TV show let alone read the script for season one, it was mostly guess work on my part. I expected it to be over before it began.

Mica and I worked all Saturday afternoon and then again on Sunday morning before we declared it good enough. I sent it along with the electronically signed release to the production company Sunday evening.

Mica and I had tried out the new bed the night before. Since I was still suffering the effects of the blown out hip, it was very slow with a lot of touching rather than any rough sex. Mica didn’t complain thank god. She was also very cooperative, if you know what I mean.

Mica left about 5:00PM Sunday and Thia called on the phone about 7:30PM. Her call was to inform me that she would be happy to pick out a sofa. She informed me that I could either ride with her or keep my mouth shut about her choices.

“So what time do you want to leave?” I asked.

“Not before 10AM,” she said. “I will sleep until at least 9AM.”

“Okay anytime after 10 AM and before 11AM.” I suggested.

“That’s fine. We are going to have to drive to Greensboro,” she said.

“Fine pick a store with some variety because we are only going to one,” I demanded.

“You know they are going to charge for delivery. We are outside their delivery area, but I expect it will still be less expensive than buying it locally.” she said.

“On the way out of town lets stop at the Daniels Furniture Store it should be close to the Greensboro prices if we factor in delivery,” I said.

Thia had to try the new bed before we left. Not that kind of trial. She bounced up and down on it then stretched out on it, before she declared it acceptable. I intentionally did not ask her acceptable for what.”

“So, did you sleep better last night?” she asked.

“It seemed to be just fine,” I declared somewhat noncommittal. I didn’t intend to go into an explanation of Mica’s sleeping arrangement.

At Daniels Furniture Store we found a gray thee cushion sofa. “It has a steel frame,” the guy explained to Thia who had asked. “That thing should last twenty years without a problem.”

I sat on the sofa slipped off my shoes then stretched out. My hip hurt but it wasn’t as bad as my current sofa hurt me.

“Pick me out an easy chair,” I ordered Thia.

She saw it as her responsibility to get something durable and comfortable as well as nice looking. I stood by and watched her struggle with her new found responsibility. We arranged for a delivery and haul away service the next day.

The two days shopping for a bed and a sofa had cost me only a little short of two grand. But it was over and for that I was thankful. I was also hopeful that nothing else would pop up to require my attention.