Chapter 5

Still John’s turn:

The day’s shadows were getting deep when I and my surprising partner put the tools away.

One of the other crew tossed me a can of paint thinner.

“Thanks,” I said. “Pine sap is hell to get off. This’ll work.”

Laura and I brushed off as much loose debris as possible and got in the truck.

“What a day!” she spoke. “I haven’t worked like that in, well, ever.”

“Me, it’s been a while. I think we’ll both feel it in the morning.”

“I just want a good shower right now.”

“And a sandwich,” I countered. “At least we had plenty of water.”

The house looked really good, pulling up on the slab where the carport used to be. We walked in the back door. I kicked my shoes off before entering the kitchen.

“Shower first, then food?” she asked.

“Yeah. Uh, you got any sticky spots?”

She eyed me suspiciously.

“From pine sap, darlin’. From pine sap.”

“I didn’t mess with any pine trees.”

“Then you’re probably good. If you’re REALLY dirty, a bit of dish detergent will work wonders, but it dries your skin something fierce.”

“Thanks for the advice. The house soap will work fine, but if I stay here very long, I’m gonna get something just a little more feminine.”

“You better stick with what we got while we’re doing outdoor work.”

“Probably a good idea, but I desire not to smell like a stevedore.”

“Well, I’ve never actually smelled a stevedore, so there’s that...”

She giggled as she walked away. I grabbed a roll of industrial wipes and the can of paint thinner and went back outside to take care of a couple of sticky spots, then headed to my own shower.

It was wonderful – hot water washing away a day’s honest sweat and grime, and the good feelings continued after I got out and shaved.

By the time I dressed enough to meet modesty requirements and get into the kitchen Laura was laying out sandwich fixings, a towel wrapped around her head. “Why don’t you reheat that leftover soup?” she asked.

“Great idea.”

Little bowl of soup. A ham and (good) cheese sandwich. Some chips. And a brown-haired cutie eating across the table from me. Life is pretty good.

“Not bad at all,” Laura said. “Just the right meal after today...”

“I think so. Glad we made soup yesterday. It fits.” That wasn’t what I wanted to say, but I need to get over myself. She’s friendly and she’s pretty and she’s just taking advantage of my offer to help.

After we cleared the dinner mess, I kicked my recliner back. We both fired up laptops.

“Email,” she said. “People asking where I am and how I’m doing. John, how am I doing?”

“You’re impressing the hell out everybody I know,” I said.

“It was kind of a change of pace, you know. Actual physical labor. Results we could see right there in front of us. Appreciation.”

“Yeah, lot of those are missing from life. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want a career of moving fallen trees.”

“Or putting tarps on roofs.” That was being done on the last home we worked on – shingles were blown away. The company supplied tarps, volunteers used them to cover roofs. Laura saw it happen. However, she’s proving to be too valuable with a chainsaw, to the amusement of several people, many of them male.

I’m not telling them I’m NOT involved with her. That’s mostly the truth. There is a wide range of meanings for ‘involved’.

And her take? Moving from the first house we worked on, I asked about the young man who’d showed up with his dad.

“Oh, I knew him in high school. He’s a year behind me.”

“He clipped right up to you when he showed up,” I noted.

“Yeah,” she mused. “Close to my age. I guess he was hoping ... He asked me out. I asked him where we’d go in all this mess.”

“Good point.”

“Then he said the offer extends to when things get better...”

“There will be life after this hurricane, you know...”

“I know. But not with him. Never saw much from him in high school, and he’s not exactly my type anyway.”

“Oh, you’ve got a type?”

“Dunno about a type, but I know what ain’t my type.” She gazed at me. “Somebody that mentions ‘hooking up’ in a casual meeting.”

“He did that?”

“Oh yeah. Kinda subtle. Gets past all that socializing and compatibility stuff, right down to what he thinks is the main event.”

“That’s not the main event.”

“For sure. I like the socializing and the living and the talking and the ... well, I’ve never gotten further than that. Jacob probably had hopes, though...”

“Poor Jacob,” I replied. “His hopes dashed over the last package of Oreos.”

“Oreo’s’re worth it,” she giggled. “Uh, next time we get out where something’s open, I need to buy a hair dryer.”

“I’m a poor host. I have a hair dryer.”

She eyed my short buzz cut. “For YOUR hair?”

“No, actually for my workboots. Dries ‘em out fast.”

“Neat that you didn’t say ‘last girlfriend left it’.”

“Just so you know, I’ve never had a live-in girlfriend.”

“That’s interesting,” she returned. “I thought...”

“Nope. Just never worked out that way. You want that hair dryer?”

“Does it have boot residue all over it?”

“I’m not even sure what ‘boot residue’ might be. And no, it’s clean. I bought it for the purpose and I think I used it once. I’ll get it.”

Presenting it to her, I got “Oh, that’s a nice one. I’ll be back.”

I heard the dryer going in her bathroom. Oh, now it’s HER bathroom, John?

She came back out, hair brushed to brown and gold perfection, a tiny hint of curl at the tips, a bit pulled behind her ears, framing a lovely face.

“Better?”

“Wasn’t bad before. That towel-wrap look suits you.”

“Beast!” she snorted.

We watched a little TV before turning in.

When the alarm woke us, both of us were complaining of sore muscles from yesterday’s exertions, but we resolved to continue onward.

We didn’t eat breakfast at the house that morning, having been promised that the company was putting a catering truck at the office, serving breakfast, for starters.

We sat in the cab of the truck to eat. At least that move put us in an air-conditioned environment in the stultifying humidity of the Gulf Coast summer morning.

“We can do better than this,” Laura posed. “Not that I’m not grateful, but seriously ... Even a bowl of cold cereal at home...”

“I agree. Tomorrow we’ll find where they need us to show up, then leave from the house after we do our own breakfast.”

The day was another muggy day outdoors, wrestling with fallen debris and trees, a volunteer-produced lunch meal, then another gathered on the way home for dinner. We hit the house in pretty much a state of physical exhaustion – showers, a bit of a stretch in the recliner for me, her over on the sofa, and then right after eight-thirty, we were in our own beds.

I heard muffled words – Laura on her phone. I looked, the cell signal’s back at half-strength.

Next morning, per promise, we did our own breakfast, then in the truck, Laura said, “Can you ask Pete if we can do an excursion to check on Mom and Dad’s?”

That phone call went through, with the expected response and direction to yet another co-worker’s house when we got around to it.

When we got to Laura’s house, a bit of a drive out of town, we put them on the list for an emergency roof tarping and we emptied out the refrigerator, happily before the contents got too rotten. She was reporting the results of our trip as we headed back into town, picking up on a work in progress as yet another house was cleared of trees and a blown-in workshop.

We got home that night thinking that we’d reached the end of the list of employees who needed help, but Pete called in one more. “Larry Whelan just got back in from evacuation and he’s got trees down on his house.”

“Be there first thing in the morning,” I answered.

Another evening of quick hygiene, easy meal, and sleeping the sleep of the just, and the alarm got us up yet again.

We’re developing a very comfortable arrangement, Laura automatically diving into one task while I attend to another. The house stays clean, the kitchen neat, the laundry sorted.

And now we’re on the way to Larry’s house. His ‘beautiful shaded lot’ has caved in on him. The mix of tall pines and water oaks were probably a joy of shade in the midst of summers past. Right now, at first look I don’t think he’s going to have much house left. A tall water oak appears to have given up first in the storm, and in falling, it twisted and caught a pine about a foot in diameter, bringing it down under its cluster of branches. Six of us showed up, me and Laura being two of the chainsaw gang.

I’ve gotten accustomed to her approach to reducing these messes. She starts in, taking branches four to six inches in diameter first, unloading the tree in increments so it can move small amounts as it becomes unencumbered. I work with her, sometimes placing and tying off a ladder carefully. We have our act down pat.

That’s what we were doing. I moved from working off the ground with her to a spot on the roof.

That’s the key – we have a plan. And if things LOOK dicey, we back up and take a measured approach, tying off branches, portions of tree trunk, whatever, with lines to make sure that when they move, they’ can only move where we want them to go, and we make sure we and others are clear at critical times.