Chapter 3

Elizabeth’s first call to Bobby was both terrifying and exciting for her. It felt terrifying to call a man, knowing she was going to talk to him about hiring him for sex. Oddly, it was exciting for the same reason.

Liz did remember Bobby Dalton. He’d been cute, back then. She remembered him as smiling a lot, which caused her to wonder why she remembered him so well, because they’d only spoken that one time. She’d been busy with pep club, and cheerleading activities, and classes, and boyfriends. She was on all the committees for social events, such as planning and decorating for dances, and fund raisers for the pep club and all that. She didn’t remember Bobby being at many dances or other extracurricular events. She assumed she’d seen him in the stands during football or basketball games.

Another thing that made it terrifying was that she didn’t know whether or not he knew why she was really calling him. Felicity had said she had to talk to him first. Would he know that when she called, it would be about sex, even though she was going to ask him to fix something? Would he expect her to have sex with him? That wasn’t what she wanted. She just wanted to titillate Jeff ... to get him going.

As she heard the phone ringing at the other end, she almost hung up, but, as she was thinking about that, a bright female voice answered.

“Dalton residence, this is Matilda speaking.”

“Oh ... hi,” said Liz. “This is Elizabeth Sinderson. I was trying to reach Bobby Dalton ... about a repair I need done.”

“Okay,” said the cheerful voice. “I’ll try to find him. He might be out in the chicken coop. Hang on.”

While she waited, she thought about hanging up too. Chicken coop? Why would a grown man be spending time in a chicken coop? What would he say? What would she say? She half expected a male voice to come on the phone, gloating, saying something crude, like “Hey, baby, why did it take you so long to call me? I’ve wanted to get in your panties for ages.”

“Hello,” came a deep voice.

That was it ... just “Hello”. She felt a shiver of anticipation. His voice seemed to strum some chord in her body.

“Hi,” she said. “This is Elizabeth Sinderson.” She waited, not knowing what else to say. She felt tongue tied.

“Hi,” said the deep voice. “Mrs. Chumley said you might call. What can I do for you?”

He sounded so urbane. Had this man really just been in a chicken coop?

“Um ... there are some things broken,” she said. “Around the house,” she added, feeling foolish.

“Well, I could come by and see if they’re the kinds of things I can fix,” he said.

“That would be good,” she said, weakly.

“How about this afternoon?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said, feeling like a little girl, for some reason. “I’ll see you then.”

She hung up. Her hand was trembling. She felt like she had just made some kind of horrible mistake. She worried about it all morning, and found herself doing the same things over and over again. She changed the towel on the rack in the kitchen three times, and, the last time, tugged on it so hard, while she was straightening it, that one of the two ends that held the bar in place pulled off the wall. The rod slipped out of the other side and the whole thing went clanging to the floor. She almost giggled hysterically as she realized there was something else for him to fix now.

Then she couldn’t decide what to wear when he came. When would he come? She was still trying to decide whether to wear jeans and the blouse she already had on, or a skirt, when she realized she hadn’t given him her address. He might not come at all! She jumped - almost let out a little scream as the doorbell rang. She dropped the skirt in her hands, in her nervous reaction. She was so rattled that she just left it lying on the floor and found herself running to the door. She opened it ... and there he was.

“I looked you up in the book,” he said, smiling.

Bobby remembered Elizabeth. Everybody probably remembered her. She had been a whirlwind of activity while he was in school. She was involved in everything, and he saw her everywhere. He remembered her as one of those girls that most guys dream about, but never expect to actually interact with. She was pretty, popular, always had a boyfriend, and was moving so fast that she didn’t notice him.

She was still pretty, though she wasn’t the drop dead gorgeous woman he expected. She was obviously older, though he couldn’t put his finger on anything that made her look that way. She still looked like he remembered her. Of course that had only been seven years ago, so maybe that wasn’t so strange. She looked nervous, and was panting.

She stood there, looking at him with wide eyes, like a deer in the headlights. He recognized that look. She was scared. He kept what he hoped looked like a friendly smile on his face. Why was it that women were so nervous around him? Surely it wasn’t the sex thing. This woman had had her pick of boys. She’d probably had more sex by the time they’d graduated than he’d had since then.

He decided to break the silence. “I brought my tools, just in case.” He lifted the strap of the tool bag off his shoulder, and gripped the handles. His cheeks were beginning to feel the strain of holding the smile.

“Oh! Of course!” she said, nervously.

She stepped back and he stepped in. She was still staring at him.

This was not the boy she remembered. She remembered a tallish boy, not thin, but not big either, who smiled shyly and never said much. She was sure she’d been in at least one class with him, but she couldn’t remember which one. He had been ... unnoticeable.

He was anything but unnoticeable now. He was more than “tallish”, standing four inches over her own height. His shoulders looked like a brick wall, filling the doorway. She hadn’t known he had blue eyes. His hair had that slightly shaggy look of a man needing a trim, except it looked good on him and you wouldn’t want him to get one. A lock of hair had fallen forward on his forehead. And that smile! It had made her knees weak.

She tried to get a grip on herself. This was just a man she’d known in high school. Well, hadn’t known ... but had been familiar with anyway. It had to be this sex thing that was making this so strange. Surely he wouldn’t affect her like this if she just bumped into him on the street.

“So,” he said. “Why don’t you show me the things that need repair.”

She blushed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that you don’t look much like I remember you.”

He laughed. “Farm work has a tendency to put muscle on,” he said. “You don’t look like you’ve changed a bit, though.”

“Me?” she said. “I’m surprised you even remember me.”

“Of course I remember you,” he said, the smile leaving his face. “Everybody in school remembers you.”

She had just been chastised, and she knew it. But he hadn’t been mean about it. And, truth to tell, she hadn’t actually meant what she’d said. It was just one of those things you say to generate conversation.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just nervous.”

“Well, you don’t need to be nervous because of me,” he said, smiling again.

She felt calmer. For some reason, she believed him. He hadn’t postured, or bragged, or done any of the things she associated with men who thought the sun rose and set on their masculinity. He hadn’t barged in and suggested that he needed to see her bedroom. He hadn’t said she should get naked. He hadn’t even, come to think of it, let his eyes rake up and down her body!

She had just naturally gravitated to the dining room, where the china cabinet was. She picked up the piece of the handle that had fallen off and held it out to him.

He ignored her and examined the part of the handle that was still fastened to the door of the hutch. He got into his tool bag and came out with what she knew was a pair of vice grips. The piece that had fallen off was a circle of metal that had dangled from a loop screwed onto the door of the hutch. That loop wasn’t a complete circle, and had spread apart, allowing the finger pull to drop out. He simply inserted the finger pull back in the loop and used the vice grips to squeeze it closed again. Just like that, it was fixed.

“Next?” he asked, smiling at her.

She thought of the towel bar in the kitchen that she had just broken, and took him there. He picked up the piece that had come off the wall, and the bar. When was he going to ask her about the sex?

“I think the set screw that holds this side on just worked loose,” he said. “The mount is still firm on the wall.”

He took what she had thought was a pen from his pocket, and she realized it was a tiny screwdriver, with a clip, like a ball point pen had, that clipped it to a pocket. He reassembled the parts of the towel rack, had her help him hold it all in place, and used the screwdriver underneath somewhere. When he let go, it was firmly attached to the wall again.

He asked about more things, and when she couldn’t think of any, asked her questions. A drawer that squeaked got pulled out and he used her own hand soap to lubricate the parts that rubbed against each other. She found that it was fun to watch him analyze a problem and come up with a solution she never would have thought of.

She was watching him pulling the hinge pins from a squeaky door and oiling them, when he caught her unawares.

“So, tell me about your husband.”

The nervousness crashed back in on her. He had been thinking about the other reason he was there. He did know there was another reason. That made his prior behavior even more confusing. For a man who ... supplied sex ... he didn’t act very ... sexual!

“This is so strange,” she said. “I’m really embarrassed about this.”

He kept his eyes on the door.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed,” he said. “From what I understand, there are lots of men who get a thrill out of having a sexy wife, and knowing that other men see her that way.”

“It seems odd to me,” she said, before she could stop herself. He seemed to be taking this so calmly. This was not the shy boy she remembered.

He stood up, a hinge pin in his fingers, and looked at her.

“When you go out in public ... say to the grocery store ... do you put on makeup first?”

She blinked. “Sure,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I want to look nice,” she said, thinking that was obvious. Why did women ever wear makeup? They wanted to look nice!

“Okay,” he said. “But why do you want to look nice?”

“That’s a silly question,” she said automatically.

“No it’s not,” he said, his voice calm. “When you weren’t married, you wanted to look nice to catch a man’s eye. But you got your man. You have him now. Why do you want to look nice for strangers?”

“I don’t know!” she said, feeling some frustration. Why was he asking her these questions?

“It’s normal to want to look attractive,” he said. “I’m not trying to suggest otherwise. I just want you to think about it. Do you try to look nice for the women who will see you?”

“No,” she said. She frowned. “At least I don’t think so.” Something about that nagged at her a little bit. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

“Well,” he said. “I think about things from a male perspective. I don’t really understand women very well, even though I’ve lived with eight of them for most of my life. It’s just that I think your husband is reacting to things the same way you are, really. I mean you want to look nice, and be attractive. He wants you to look nice and be attractive too. Most women won’t admit it, but I think one reason they want to look nice is so that men will notice them. It makes them feel good. Your husband just enjoys that too. When other men notice you, he feels proud, because just like you got him, as a husband, he got you too.”

She thought about that. It sounded so reasonable.

“I’ve never really thought about it like that,” she said.

“I don’t know if I’m right or not,” he said. “Like I said, I’m a man. What I can tell you is that if I’m out with a woman, and other men are interested in her, it kind of makes me proud that she’s with me ... that she chose me ... instead of one of them.”

That made sense too. But there was a disconnect there.

“Okay,” she said. “I get that part. But why would he want me to do things with other men, when I chose him to be my husband?”

“Well,” said Bobby. “I don’t understand that part either, except that, in the end, you always go back to him. Maybe he gets excited about how, with all the other men available ... with the temptation there ... you always choose to stay with him.” He put the hinge pin back in the hinge and moved the door. It didn’t squeak any more.

“Maybe it strokes his ego when another man tempts you, but you choose to stay with him,” said Bobby.