Ashley & Milo

by Norman F. Hewes

  **************

  We were home early enough for Ashley to make a potato salad and I built a little charcoal pit near the gazebo. I had found some camping utensils in the garage and one item, although used for toasting bread, I found could be used for holding hamburgers and you could cook six at a time. Ashley was making patties when two kids, a boy and girl ran up and said hi to the girls. "Can we play in the house like we did last time?"

  I looked at Lindsey and Marie and I could tell they were hoping I would say yes. I nodded okay and didn't even look at Ashley. I knew this was something she wouldn't have done. Hell, she wouldn't even be out here cooking where the neighbors could see her. Just as all the little ones disappeared into the gazebo, Kim and Will came around the corner looking for their two offspring. I waved them over and they came hesitantly and started to apologize.

  "I'm glad you came along. I'm just putting burgers on and you can help us eat them. The kids will want a hot dog, but that is about all. Ashley, meet Kim and Will from down the street. Will helped me unload the shrubs. Kim is the pretty lady with the big tummy. I say this so you don't get Kim and Will mixed up. Kim and Will, meet Ashley Winslip. She is my employer, my landlady and is the widow of my very best friend who died a short time ago in Iraq.

  "She also has a condition that he wasn't aware of when he died. Kim, maybe you could fill Ashley in on what and when to expect changes that will be happening to her very soon. Feel free to use my apartment."

  "Milo, damn you. You did it to me again. You wait, I'll get even."

  The two women headed for my place and some privacy. Will asked, "What was that all about?"

  "The day I met Ashley about a month ago she was down, I mean as far down as a person can be. I stopped her from going any further down. I found out since that time that even though she has lived here most of her life, she didn't have any friends. The worst of it is, she didn't know how to go about finding any.

  "I don't know if your wife and Ashley will become friends, but she at least has an opening. She is going to need a lot of support getting over Calvin, her husband, and getting through her pregnancy. She thinks she is plain, but if my friend picked her for his wife, she has to be beautiful underneath her exterior features."

  "That's sad."

  "No, I think that is life. That is for her anyway and I hope all of her heartbreak is in the past. Good, the burgers are almost done." I shouted into the gazebo, "Hey kids, I'm cooking hot dogs out here. Come grab yours. We Dads are going inside to eat. There are Eskimo pies upstairs when you finish playing."

  Upstairs it was the usual, what do you do, where did you grow up, go to school, etc. Will and Kim were the Grovers. Kim had a law degree, but Will kept her pregnant, so she had never practiced. Will worked in a bank as a finance officer. Ashley shared her life and I shared mine. The kids came in for their ice cream two times to be exact.

  Will was looking out the window overlooking the gazebo. "You have company. It is Mr. 'Busybody' Peterson. I kind of feel sorry for him. He is in his seventies and lost his wife last year. Since then, he has become quite a bother."

  "What did he do?"

  "He was an architect, I think."

  "Good, just the person I want to see."

  I went downstairs and met him as he was leaving. "Mr. Peterson, I have an extra hamburger and a beer. Won't you join us?"

  "Well I might. I like what you are doing with the Nelson lot. I still say it is a shame the way this building looks from the street."

  I opened the door and led Ralph into my apartment where the Grovers and Ashley were sitting. "You know the Grovers and this is Mrs. Ashley Winslip. This is Ralph Peterson. I'll get your burger and beer. Tell Ashley what you think about this building and I apologize for blindsiding you, but someone has to tell her."

  Ralph was speechless. Ashley was laughing. "Mr. Peterson, don't mind Milo, he does this to everyone. You are right about the building. It hasn't bothered me that much, because I don't have to look at it, but I can see why it would to people going by. Do you have any ideas?"

  "Well not really. Just something to break up the plainness of it all."

  "Well, ask Milo. He has ideas about everything. He hasn't said anything, but knowing him, he will hit me with something someday, and it will be just what is needed. Go ahead and ask him. I'm as curious as you are."

  "Will tells me you are an architect. If you can tell me if what I have in mind is feasible from a safety, structural standpoint and don't charge Ashley anything, I'll get her to foot the cost of it while we build it. I'll even let you boss the job. How's that for a deal?"

  "God, I'd give my right arm for something to do. Tell me your ideas."

  "Okay, visualize this. The building has five windows equally across the expanse of the front. There are no openings in the lower levels and that is good I think. Now this living room takes up exactly one half the expanses on the outside and we have three of the windows in this room, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. Say we build a balcony outside of this room."

  "Stop right there. How are you going to hold up the balcony?"

  "The building is basically a New England saltbox. Say we bring the roof out flat from the drip edge of the short part of the roof that is facing the street. Visualize this again. Five columns from the ground to the roof, one on each end and two on the corner of the balcony and one in the center. Those three will be holding the balcony and the only one that would obscure the window would be the one in the center. But that shouldn't bother because it would be out ten feet from the building.

  "That's the basic construction. Thoughts to dress it up in line to make this compatible with these estates, you could start adding and that is where you are going to have to get Ashley to loosen her purse strings. Doorways, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, going out onto a curved extension to the balcony.

  "Roof treatment--short posts with a railing, similar to what you would find around a widow walk up in the Massachusetts's seaports. The same treatment again for the edge of the gallery and the curved entrances. Window peaked eyebrows with a little fake gallery for the two windows on the end. On the ground level, nothing except some flagging in and around the columns. How I'm doing so far?"

  Ralph sat in his chair with his eyes closed nand then he looked at me. "I can see it. It is beautiful. You really are serious in letting me be part of this?"

  I looked at Ashley and she was smiling. "Will this stop you from telling everyone I own an eyesore?"

  "I'm sorry, can you forgive an old lonely man?"

  "Nothing to forgive. It is an eyesore and I'm ashamed I haven't done something about it sooner. But then the man with the vision wasn't here to show me what was needed."

  Will and Kim had been sitting quietly. Kim spoke, "Milo, before you start this, could you do the room we are making into a nursery, please? I want it just like the one where your two girls are sleeping."

  At that moment Ralph Peterson's eyes traveled upward. "Jesus Christ, who did this ceiling? I haven't seen this done in years."

  I was laughing. "Ashley, who worked the hardest and got the most plaster on her?"

  Ashley blushed. "Milo did it and I helped. In fact the little stars and some of the moons are mine. But it isn't done and Milo won't tell me how it is going to look when it is finished. He is going to have a viewing Tuesday evening after the ceiling men leave. Would you like to see it?"

  Kim spoke up, "You should see the other two rooms. They are beautiful."

  Ashley proudly led Ralph around. He didn't say much. While he was with Ashley, I promised Kim I would do her nursery before the baby came. I had approximately six weeks. They left and Lindsey and Marie came in. Ralph asked when I would have time to get together on the new project and I promised to be available on Thursday.

  I said as we went downstairs, "I was out of work for over four months and willing to do anything. I couldn't find a
thing. I met Mrs. Winslip and look at me. I have all kinds of work."

  "People just didn't know you were an artist, Son. They will know soon when this building is completed. You better plan on hiring some help and go into business. You are too good to not do what has just been a hobby for you. Ashley said you used to have a business and lost it from no fault of your own. And she also said that you took her and had her doing things that she would never attempt to do on her own. You have the knack to go somewhere, now that you have got started."

  I shook his hand and went back to Ashley and the girls. The girls had gone to their room. "Well?"

  "I was upset with you, Milo, when you left me with Kim like that."

  "And?"

  "Now I'm glad you did. She told me all about being pregnant and I'm going to a Lamaze class with her and Will. He is her coach."

  "And?"

  She looked hopefully at me. "Would you be my coach?"

  "I have already planned on it. If you don't believe me ask Mrs. Hamlin. She agreed that as long as it was my friend's baby and he couldn't, it would be appropriate."

  "When had you planned on telling me all of this?"

  "When you asked me to."

  "Will you do whatever I ask you to?"

  "Pretty much."

  "Then kiss me."