Color of Loneliness

by Madeleine Beckett

  “What’s wrong with you?” Myra hisses into the phone.

  “So he is. Is he wearing a wedding ring?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. I know you looked. Now tell me.”

  Myra’s face scrunches up because she does not want to admit that she knows the answer to that question. “No,” she finally says.

  Susie squeals in her ear. “Okay, now here’s the deal. I want you to go take a picture of him with your phone and send it to me. Hurry.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “You have two choices here. You can either tell me what the guy looks like – which you refused to do by the way – or you can take a picture of him. And if you don’t, I will call your lovely neighbor, Mr. Grampie-like, and ask him to take a picture of the two of you posing together.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, yes, I would. I’m actually searching for Jim’s phone number right now on my computer.”

  Myra’s shoulders slump. She knows Susie always follows through with her threats; with no remorse whatsoever. “Fine.”

  Susie squeals in triumph. “Okay, so how old do you think he is?”

  “How am I supposed to know that?”

  “Well, he’s not Grampie-old is he? Is he close to your age, or will you be robbing the cradle?”

  “Good God. I have no idea,” Myra says. She closes her eyes and rubs one temple. “Probably around my age.”

  “Perfect. How tall is he?”

  “Taller than me.”

  “I’m calling Jim...” Susie says in a sing-song voice.

  Myra lets out a little growl. “Fine. He’s tall, all right? Over 6 foot.”

  “So is he like basketball player tall like 6’ 5” or something?”

  “No, maybe 6’ 1” or 6’ 2”. I don’t know. Besides, what does it matter?”

  “It’s important to my visualization process. Now what’s he built like? Is he all tanned and muscular like a fuckhawt construction-worker type with muscles bulging everywhere?”

  Myra rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “No. He’s more like, slim and lean.”

  “Hm. That’s different than I pictured, but it still works. So what’s his face look like?”

  Myra growls again. “I don’t know. He’s got nice eyes, a square jaw, and um, never mind.” Myra presses her palm to her forehead with her eyes closed tight, wishing she could make this all go away.

  “What?”

  “God. Okay, he has… nice lips. I cannot believe I just said that.”

  Susie giggles with delight. “Does he have good hair? What’s it look like? He’s not going bald, is he? I hate cue balls.”

  “No, he has nice hair, I guess. He’s not bald.”

  “Oh good. I…”

  “Here he comes. I’ll call you back.” Myra hastily flips her phone shut, her face flushing as Dylan knocks on the door before pushing it open.

  “I don’t wanna have to knock on your door every time. All right?” he says.

  “Mmhm, that’s fine.”

  “Your water main has a busted pipe. I should be able to fix it.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I’ll get it better insulated.”

  “Okay.”

  “I need to go get supplies then I’ll get started.”

  She nods.

  He says nothing before he abruptly turns around and exits the door.

  * * *

  Several hours later, Myra grabs a banana, taking a bite as she climbs the stairs to the second floor. Walking to the window in her bedroom, she casually pulls the curtain back an inch, her curious eyes peeking out, searching for the contractor. She sees him perched on the tailgate of his pick-up truck with his left leg up and his elbow resting on it. He has a thermos sitting beside him and a cup in his left hand. His right hand scribbles on his clipboard which lies on the tailgate beside him.

  She watches him for a few more minutes before she shakes her head at herself, and walks back down the stairs, book in tow.

  Lying on the couch, she starts reading. Sometime later, she jerks slightly when she hears his boots on the porch. He flings the door open and a cold blast of air hits her. Never glancing in her direction, he wordlessly plods down the hallway towards the downstairs bathroom. She hears the sound of air burping through a pipe before water splashes in the sink. She sits up excitedly.

  He steps back into the living room. “Got your water working. I’m gonna turn off the water to the kitchen, but the rest of the house should work,” he says before he heads swiftly out the door, leaving Myra in a gust of cold air.

  “Thank you,” she calls out to the closed door thrilled to be able to use her toilet again.

  * * *

  “Hi,” Myra whispers into her phone.

  “Why are you whispering?” Susie whispers back.

  “Because the contractor’s downstairs working in the kitchen, and I don’t want him to hear me.”

  “Ah. And you think he might hear you all the way upstairs?” Susie asks with a snigger.

  “Shut up,” Myra whispers.

  “I think he sounds dreamy. A hot, angry contractor in a small town. Why don’t you ask him to dinner?”

  Myra doesn’t answer.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m not wasting my breath on your asinine question.”

  “I’m serious. You’re new to town; he’s working hard all day on your house and you know a man needs to eat. And have sex. This is perfect.”

  “No way in hell,” Myra whispers.

  “Ms. Sommers?” Dylan calls out from downstairs.

  “Gotta go,” Myra says before she tucks the phone back into her pocket and makes her way quickly to the staircase.

  “Yes?” she calls out. She swallows hard as she carefully makes her way down the steps.

  “Your piping is worse than I thought. I’m gonna replace everything with PVC; it’s plastic so it won’t rust.”

  “Okay. Oh, and you can call me Myra.”

  His eyes tighten slightly before he continues talking. “I’ll start the tear out today, but I probably won’t have time to install the new piping until tomorrow.” He rests his right hand lightly on the hammer on his tool belt.

  Myra nods. With his head down, he walks back into the kitchen.

  * * *

  Myra slips Jim’s key into her coat pocket and heads to his house to return it. Knocking, she frowns when after a few minutes he doesn’t answer. Peering into the window, she notices there are no lights on; Jim always has a light on.

  She knocks again, and when she gets no answer, she walks the short distance to his garage and looks inside. Her heart pounds when she sees his car because that means he has to be home. Knocking harder and still getting no response, her stomach tightens as she pulls his key from her pocket, and quickly unlocks the door. Pushing it open slowly, she calls out into the darkness, “Jim?”

  CHAPTER 6

  SCARLET, ANGUISH

  With her stomach in her throat and her mouth dry, she steps into Jim’s dark living room and calls out his name again. With no lights on and not being overly familiar with his house, her fingers fumble in the dark along the wall for a light switch. But she can’t find one.

  Taking a wobbly step forward in the darkened room, she prays that she doesn’t knock anything over. Her wide eyes finally adjust a bit more to the darkness allowing her to make out a few shapes. Keeping her hands straight out in front of her, her jelly-like legs take a few more steps forward until her hand touches something soft. Grabbing onto it, she sighs in relief when she discovers it’s the soft fabric of a lamp shade.

  Practically panting, she quickly switches the lamp on, flooding the room with light. “Jim?” she calls out again. Taking in some rapid breaths, she walks as fast as her unstable legs will allow into the kitchen.

  After searching the entire first floor and not finding him, she stands at the bottom of the stairs and looks up the long staircase. Swallowing hard and with her heart pounding wil
dly against her ribs, she climbs the stairs and her fingers quickly find the light switch. Scanning up and down the hallway, she freezes when her eyes catch sight of the lowered attic door which has a dim light emitting from it. Bending over and leaning her hands on her knees for a moment, she tries to catch her breath.

  When she reaches the attic stairs, she looks up and nervously calls out to him again but gets no response. Climbing the stairs fast, her eyes frantically search the attic for her beloved neighbor; she sees nothing but mounds of boxes piled from floor to ceiling.

  “Jim?” she calls out again in a shaky voice. She slowly moves through the small path of boxes and junk, peeking behind and around each section of boxes, searching for any sign of him. A hand grasps her shoulder as a voice speaks in her ear, “Myra?”

  She screams at the top of her lungs.

  Jim answers with a startled yell of his own. Whirling around, she finds his frightened face staring at her, his eyes big as saucers.

  Myra covers her face with her hands as her heart races and her body trembles.

  “Are you okay?” Jim asks before he starts chuckling. He gently pats her on the back as his chuckles turn into full-on laughter. Myra joins him. Her shoulders shake uncontrollably as the bottled-up nerves let themselves loose in a frenzy of loud giggles and snorts.

  After laughing until tears run down her face, she swipes them away with her coat sleeve and gives Jim a tight hug. “You scared me half to death,” she whispers.

  Jim picks up the ear buds dangling around his neck, holding them up for Myra to see. “Jackie gave me one of these new-fangled iPod contraptions and put some wonderful classical music on it for me. Guess I had the volume up too loud.” He starts snickering again, wiping a tear away from his wrinkled cheek with a crooked finger. “You gave me a good scaring too, young lady.”

  “What are you doing up here?” Myra asks as she wipes her eyes again.

  “I was looking for some more pictures, and time must have gotten away from me. I found several albums. Can you help me carry these?” Jim asks as he reaches behind him and pulls out several dust-covered albums and hands them to Myra.

  Settling on the couch with the albums spread out in front of them, Myra reaches into her pocket and pulls out his key. “I came over to return this to you. The contractor got my water working.”

  Jim smiles as he takes the key from her. “He should have your house whipped into shape in no time.” Leaning forward, he grabs an album and places half of it in his lap and half in Myra’s.

  For the next several hours, they peruse the albums and Myra intently hangs on every word of Jim’s beautiful stories of days gone by. He shares tales of his life with his wife, Emma, and his daughter, Barbara, but her favorite stories are the ones of her parents and grandparents. She loves being able to relive cherished moments of her family’s lives through his incredible, vivid memories.

  Myra stifles a yawn. “I really don’t want to, but I’d better go.” She stands and stretches.

  “I had a wonderful time. We’ll finish these albums up maybe another day?” Jim asks with a hopeful grin on his face.

  Myra smiles and nods. “That’s a promise.”

  * * *

  Dylan wakes up in a shiteous mood, which isn’t much different than any other day for him, but for some reason, today seems even shittier than normal. He doesn’t bother with a shower and digs through the mounds of clothes on the cluttered floor of his bedroom for the least dirty pair of jeans he can find and yanks them on. Grabbing a blue plaid flannel shirt off of the bathroom floor, he sniffs it to make sure it doesn’t smell too nasty. With a shrug of his shoulders, he throws it on.

  Downing two cups of coffee and eating a slice of leftover pizza from the box in his fridge, he grabs his stuff and throws it in the passenger seat of his truck. As he takes off down the road, he glances at his reflection in the mirror noticing his excessive facial hair. “Ah, fuck it,” he mumbles under his breath. He could not care less about his appearance. He figures the uglier he looks, the better.

  Turning into Myra’s gravel driveway, he sighs, just hoping he can get this job done as quickly as possible and get the hell out.

  Lumbering out of the truck, he runs his hand through his hair; it’s getting too long and definitely needs a trim. Picking up his tool belt off of the seat, he buckles it around his waist. Just as he raises his hand to knock, Myra opens it.

  “Hi,” she says with a small smile. It pisses him off. He can’t figure out why someone would be so goddamn happy this early in the morning.

  He nods, glaring. “I’ll get started on the plumbing,” he grumbles as he marches past her.

  “Okay.”

  * * *

  Myra hides out upstairs feeling uncomfortable being downstairs anywhere near Dylan. She stays productive by packing up several boxes of Grampie’s things. But before she even realizes it, she finds herself at the window again, peeling the curtain back a bit and sneaking a peek at him. Her mouth drops open at what she sees below. Stunned, she stares for several minutes before dropping the curtain and turning around slowly, staring off into space, thinking. As a plan forms in her mind, her mouth twists into a smirk. “Yes,” she yells loudly to the empty room.

  Plopping on her bed, she whips out her phone.

  “Hey, hon, what’s up?” Susie says.

  “The usual. Hey, you know how you’ve been dying to set me up with this contractor?”

  “Yeah. I forgot to ask you the most important question yesterday. What’s the hot contractor’s name?”

  “Dylan. Now you have to put a stop to this matchmaking crap because I just found out something terrible about him.”

  “Really? Is he gay?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Is he a bigamist?”

  “Huh? No.”

  “Did he chop his cock in a freak contracting accident?” Susie asks before giggling.

  “Stop. Now listen to me. This is really bad,” Myra says in a grave voice.

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  Myra pauses a moment. “He smokes.”

  Susie busts out laughing. “Jesus Christ. I thought you were going to tell me he had leprosy or something.”

  “Listen, I saw him sucking on one of those cancer sticks, and you know that’s a deal breaker for me. So you can stop your little meddling and scheming you’ve been trying to pull because you know I would never get with a smoker. Ever.” She sits back against the headboard with a satisfied smile on her face, knowing that she has finally won this battle.

  Susie sighs. “All right. You got me on that one,” she finally admits. Myra mouths the word “yes” and pumps her fist in the air. “But, you know, you gave me a really great visual of him after the intense grilling I put you through so just out of curiosity, what did his nice lips look like when you caught him taking the death drag? Did they caress the cigarette slowly?” Susie busts out into uproarious laughter.

  “Not funny.”

  “You know that was funny,” Susie says as she continues giggling.

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Sorry I’m always razzing you, but I just can’t help myself. You know me and my big gigantic mouth.”

  Myra hums in agreement.

  “So have you been able to get out and make any new friends? I don’t want you sitting alone in that old run-down house feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Well, I haven’t been getting out because it’s Nyssa, remember? There’s nothing to do here. Besides, I’m not in the mood to make any new friends. But I do have one friend, my neighbor, Jim…”

  “Mr. Grampie-like,” Susie adds.

  Myra laughs. “Yeah. Well, he’s been just wonderful. He’s the sweetest man ever. We spent hours last night going through old photo albums together. He told me all these great stories about my parents and grandparents. I’m really lucky to have someone like him around.”

  “That’s great. You do need someone like him in your life right now. Uh oh, here comes E
l Numero Uno Dickhead. Gotta go,” Susie says quickly before hanging up.

  * * *

  As Myra stands in the hallway looking into the kitchen, she sees Dylan’s legs and large work boots sticking out from underneath the sink. Piping and tools are strewn haphazardly around him on the kitchen floor. She clenches and unclenches her fists at her sides, debating what to do. But when her stomach growls loudly, she gives up and walks into the kitchen to make something for lunch.

  Hearing grunting and the sound of metal clanking together, she quickly makes her way to the fridge and grabs ingredients to throw together a quick salad. She clears her throat. “Would you like something to eat?” she asks.

  “Huh?” he says followed by some more grunting noises.

  “Would you like something to eat?” she repeats louder.

  “No,” he replies in a hateful voice.

  “Okay.” She shrugs and rolls her eyes, making a note to never offer him anything else ever again.

  “Motherfuck,” Dylan roars from underneath the sink as a tool drops, clanging loudly. Startled, Myra loses her grip on the tomato she was getting ready to slice. It falls to the floor and starts rolling. Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open slightly when she hears growling noises. “Motherfucking son of a…” Dylan’s voice trails off to some low mumbling that she thankfully can no longer hear. Grabbing the tomato from the floor, she quickly tosses it in the trash. Picking up her half-made salad, she exits the kitchen as fast as she can, leaving the salad ingredients still on the table.

  She sits in the never-used dining room and takes in a deep breath before she begins eating her half-made salad.

  * * *

  Myra spends the rest of the afternoon upstairs, far away from Dylan. She does not want to be anywhere near that man if he throws another fit. Proudly, she stands and looks down at the four boxes she just finished packing for storage. Stretching and yawning, she steps into her bedroom, reaching for her laptop to do some more work on the outline for her book.

  The afternoon goes by like a flash as she gets lost in her imaginary world. Pleased with her progress, she closes her computer and glances at the clock and decides to go downstairs and check on Dylan.