Chapter 4

Instead of starting to work immediately, Bobby quit looking at the wood and turned his eyes on her.

“That’s a winter coverall,” he said.

“Well, of course,” she said. “It’s winter.”

“But we’re working inside. That’s going to get awfully warm.”

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” she said, peevishly. “Let’s get to work. I don’t want to spend all day here.”

“Okay. I thought we’d start with the trees for the mist,” said Bobby. “That will teach you how to do miters and joinery, and help you understand bracing.”

“Okay,” she said.

He started right in, showing her lumber, which seemed to come in a bewildering number of sizes. All they were building for the trees was a basic frame. The trunk and foliage would be done on cardboard, which would be tacked to the frame. So all they had to do was come up with a design that would be stable, with the cardboard on it, and then build that.

Within fifteen minutes, Erica was sweating heavily inside her coveralls, and she could feel runnels of sweat rolling down her chest, between her breasts. She pulled the zipper down as far as she could without showing her bra, and that helped a little, but she was still horribly uncomfortable.

The saws he taught her to use threw tiny bits of wood up into the air. It covered everything, including her coverall and face, where it stuck to her sweaty skin. Soon she was doing all the cutting, and running back and forth, as he told her what size lumber was needed, and what dimensions to cut it into. Then he was showing her how to use various techniques to fasten the wood together. Right now they were making a branch. She was holding a one by two up against a one by four, while Bobby prepared to nail them together.

“Hot in here,” said Bobby.

Then, to her amazement, he pulled his T shirt up and over his head, exposing his bare chest to her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’d forgotten how good the boiler is in this old school,” he said, picking up his hammer. “Now, for this we want to use a six-d nail, because that’s going to go all the way through and let us bend it over on the other side. That will keep this from pulling apart as it is moved around.

She’d been about to tell him to put his shirt back on, and that it was totally inappropriate for him to expose himself like that, but he went on with things so quickly that the opportunity passed. She wasn’t a prude, but it just seemed entirely too relaxed to just take his shirt off like that. Then what he had said registered in her mind.

“Wait. Didn’t you call that a six penny nail before?”

“Mm hmm,” said Bobby, who had seven or eight nails sticking out of his mouth between his closed lips.

“But that’s not what you called it just now,” she said.

He took the nails out of his mouth.

“Six-d means the same thing,” he said. “The ‘d’ stands for denarius, which was an old roman coin that looked a lot like an English penny. A long time ago, when blacksmiths made all the nails, it cost six pennies, or six-d, to have a blacksmith make you a hundred nails two inches long. So they called them six penny or six-d nails. I guess it just stuck, ‘cause that’s still what we call them.”

“Fascinating,” she said, reaching with one hand to pull the heavy coverall front back and forth, trying to get some cool air inside it.

“You’re awfully flushed,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“It’s just hot,” she said. It almost killed her, but she went on. “I guess you were right about this being too thick to work in indoors.”

“Take it off,” he said simply.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Sure you can,” he said. “It comes off the same way it went on.”

Now she was embarrassed. “I just can’t,” she insisted.

“You’re going to get heat stroke if you stay in here much longer,” he said.

“I don’t have anything on under it!” she finally barked.

Erica stared at him. She was prepared for him to say something like “Well, so much the better,” and leer at her.

“Oh,” he said. “Did you bring any other clothes, by chance?”

“I don’t have anything else to wear while doing something like this,” she said.

“Well, we have to do something,” he said frowning. “You can’t keep wearing that.” He appeared to be thinking. “Hang on a minute.”

He put the hammer and nails down and then pulled his T shirt back on. Then he went out the door off the stage that went to the hallway between the band room and auditorium.

He was back in a short time, with something in his hands.

“I had an extra pair of jeans in the truck,” he said. “We’ll have to roll the legs up, but they should fit you okay.”

“I can’t wear your clothes!” said Erica.

“Why not?” he asked. “You need something that won’t cook you, and I have these.”

“What about a shirt?” she asked.

He pulled his T shirt off and extended it to her.

“But you were just wearing that!” she moaned.

“I guess you could go back home and change into something else,” he said.

Erica felt frustration eating at her again. She didn’t want to look incompetent in front of this stupid man. Hadn’t she just told him she didn’t have anything to wear while building sets?

“Oh all right!” she said, snatching the pants from his hand.

“You can change behind the curtain,” he said, still holding out the shirt.

“I’m not changing my clothes with you here!” she snorted.

“Can I ask you a question?” Bobby was staring at her.

“All right.”

“I know you’re beautiful and all that,” he said calmly. “And I’m sure that men pay a lot of attention to you, but why is it that you seem to think that all I’m interested in is having sex with you?”

She was speechless. Her mouth sagged open and she stared back at him. Her speechlessness only lasted a few seconds though, as her mind groped with the boldness of his comment. She wanted to lash out at him. At the same time, her mind perceived this as an opportunity, of sorts. Here was a man ... a good looking man ... a good looking man who was not wearing a shirt, and was showing her all those rippling muscles on his chest, arms and back. He represented everything she had trained herself to dislike about men. She didn’t take the time to think about the fact that he hadn’t acted like all the men she was so disgusted with, or that he hadn’t actually come on to her in any way that was identifiable. He just represented that class of human beings that frustrated her so much.

So her mind settled on telling at least one member of the sex that thought it was the dominant sex, exactly how she felt about all that.

Depending on your perspective, the next twenty minutes was one of two things. It was either a triumph for women’s liberation, in which a strong, vibrant and capable woman put a member of the domineering gender in his place, or a twenty minute whine about how unfair everything was for Erica Bradford ... and by extension ... other women.

She paced and railed about the whole litany of complaints that women had, concerning the way men treated them and the way society hobbled them, limiting their options and stifling creativity. She ranted about how men made women into sexual objects, dehumanizing them in the process. She wailed about historical examples of how women were beaten down ... land ownership rights ... voting rights ... less pay for the same work a man did.

Finally, out of breath, sweating profusely and feeling faint, she slowly stumbled to a stop. Bobby had stood there the entire time, not saying a word. He didn’t flex the muscles in his bare chest to try to impress her. His face didn’t take on the smirk she expected. His lips didn’t smile in that snide way that meant “This bitch is nuts, but I’ll humor her.” That face seemed to suddenly be at the end of a long tunnel. Then it seemed to begin to melt, and she leaned forward, trying to focus, because her eyes didn’t seem to be working any more.

As Erica Bradford’s seriously overheated body began to shut down, that little lean proved to be more than her failing muscles could deal with. She teetered, on the balls of her feet and then, as her brain finally gave up and moved into unconsciousness and everything went black, she tipped and fell forward.

Consciousness returned in a way that felt like a dream. She knew she was awake. It was dark, but that was all right, because she knew her eyes were closed. There was a booming sound ... an almost irritating sound, because she knew that sound was trying to get her attention and she didn’t want to wake up from this dream. She felt perfectly comfortable, floating in ... what? She was floating in something, because she was wet. She decided she was lying on a beach somewhere, because she could feel the surf breaking over her as it ran up the beach. It felt good ... cool and refreshing.

The sound wouldn’t go away. Something was pressing against her lips, and she tried to turn her head. The sound moderated, and she realized it was a voice. It was calling her name!

“Erica!”

“Erica!”

It was too insistent. It wasn’t going to go away, so she opened her eyes. She closed them again, because they weren’t working. Everything looked misty and insubstantial.

“Drink this, Erica!” came the voice.

The thing pressed her lips again and she felt water trickle into her mouth. She wanted to spit it out. It was salt water. You didn’t drink salt water.

“Drink!“ came a command that had the tinge of panic in it.

The beach suddenly rose beneath her head and her chin was tucked onto her chest.

“Drink this!” came the urgent command again.

Her mind suggested that if she did as she was told, maybe the irritating voice would go away, so she opened her lips. Water trickled into her mouth again. It wasn’t salty, so she swallowed.

“Good,” came the voice again. “Drink more.”

She did, and her vision improved. The blur in front of her became the image of a man. She knew this man. What was his name? She thought hard as the man gave her more sips of water. Each sip seemed to clear her mind a little more. It was almost like magic and soon she wanted to drink more just so she could think more clearly.

“I was about to call an ambulance,” said the man. “Keep drinking.”

“Bobby!” she mumbled, inordinately proud that she’d finally dredged up the name she’d been seeking so desperately.

“I’m here,” he said. “You passed out. I think you had heat exhaustion ... maybe heat stroke. Drink more water and I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Something deep in her brain whispered to her that she needed to be strong. “I’m okay,” she said, in response. She didn’t feel okay. She felt weak as a kitten. The water sliding down her throat had felt so good, and she remembered how it helped her think better. “More water,” she said.

It took fifteen minutes, though Erica wasn’t aware of the passage of time, before she was thinking more or less normally. He kept feeding her little sips of water, encouraging her to keep drinking. Eventually she felt silly lying on the floor of the stage, on a Saturday morning, and asked him to help her sit up.

As soon he did, the first thing she saw were her bare legs.

Her mind jolted. She was wearing that dreadful coverall thing ... wasn’t she? She blinked. Her eyes went up her legs to her white panties ... and then to the bra that encased her hated breasts, just below her chin.

“I’m naked!“ she gasped.

“I had to get you out of those coveralls,” said Bobby, one hand on her back, and the other gripping her elbow. “You were cooking in there, and you lost too many fluids without replacing them. You should probably go to the hospital and get checked out.”

“You took my clothes off?!“ Her voice went from low to high in that one sentence.

“I had to cool you down,” he said patiently. “I also poured cool water all over you. Heat stroke is very dangerous, Erica.”

She looked at her breasts again. Her bra was, in fact, soaking wet. Now she saw drops of water all over her bare skin. Her panties were almost transparent and she could see the fine mesh of hairs pushing against them through the cloth.

She looked up at the man who had stripped her. His blue eyes weren’t on the deep cleavage her bra exposed. Nor were they on her transparent panties. They were staring at her face and there was the unmistakable glint of worry in them. His eyes were so blue! They reminded her of the feeling she’d had when she first came awake and thought she was lying on a beach by the ocean. She felt a pinprick of something, poking at her conscience. A thought floated to the surface of her mind. It was a somewhat foreign thought, because it was the kind of thought she hadn’t had for a long time. It was her brain, suggesting that perhaps ... just maybe ... she had met a man who wasn’t like all other men ... a man who was ... just maybe ... a nice guy.

“Help me get dressed please,” she said softly.

“Sure,” he said. “You want me to get you a towel from the locker room?”

“No,” she said, feeling the urge to cover her breasts with her hands. “Just help me get dressed.”

She felt like a little girl being dressed by her mother as he told her to put her hands up and then pulled his T shirt down over them, and over her wet hair. The folds of the shirt stuck to her wet skin and he had to tug here and there to get it to go on down. She felt his fingers brush her in a dozen places as he pulled the shirt into place. When his fingers brushed the sides of her breasts, she looked at his face. He was frowning slightly and had the look of someone intent on doing a good job at something.

“Can you stand up yet?” he asked, when the shirt was on.

“I think so,” she said.