The Ladies' Room

by Carolyn Brown

After that, how could I say a word? In Billy Lee's eyes I wasn't a whiner. I'd worked all day, then gotten up the next morning and ridden the monster tricycle to town and back. It might not be a lot in anyone else's opinion, but right then I needed a champion, and I'd gladly take Billy Lee.

  He set his bucket down. "Way this works is that we pour the remover into one of the buckets, paint it on a foot at a time, let it set for a few minutes, and use the putty knives to take off what we can. It'll probably take several applications to get down to raw wood"

  "So we're not going to get this room completed today?"

  He'd already begun to pour some of the smelly liquid into a bucket. "You in a hurry?"

  "If I live to the promised three score and ten, I figure I've got about thirty years. Same as you. So I don't reckon I'm in a big hurry. Can't promise I'll be lucid the last ten, though. Momma started losing it at sixty. Think we can get this room done by then, so I can enjoy it for a few days before I have to check into the nursing home?"

  "Trudy, you are not going to that place," he said seriously.

  "And what makes you so sure?" I asked.

  He quickly changed the subject. "I'll open the windows and get some ventilation in here. Fumes get pretty strong after a while. Hey, the window people just pulled up."

  He raised the windows. One looked over the backyard and his little frame house next door, and the other overlooked Broadway Street with all its killer potholes.

  .,You are the official contractor on this job, so would you go show them where to start?"

  "Wow, I get a title." He grinned.

  "Want me to make you a fancy name tag?"

  "Sure." He nodded on his way out of the room.

  Two men and Billy Lee were back in a few minutes with a window. I'd expected them to measure, rub their chins, measure again, and do all the stereotyped things men do when they're discussing a job. But Billy Lee had already given them measurements-of every window in the house, and they went right to work.

  Billy Lee showed me how to apply the paint stripper, and I found out really quickly that it could make fat cells whine and cry like little girls. I dropped a chunk of saturated paint off the putty knife onto my bare leg, and it dug in like a leech and in seconds was burning so badly, I thought for sure I'd see bone when I wiped it off. But there was barely a red mark. I sucked up the screaming and saved the whining until later, when I was all alone.

  One of the men asked Billy Lee how his business was doing with the economy in trouble, and he brushed the guy off with an evasive answer. My curiosity alert went into high gear. Just what kind of business did he have? I figured he lived on some kind of inheritance his grandparents had left him and doing odd jobs like this one when he could get them.

  "You'll have a nice place here when you get done. I'm glad to see you restoring rather than just remodeling. By the way, I'm Roy, and this is Melvin." The window man made introductions.

  I nodded toward them. "Nice to meet both of you. I've got this idea in my head about how I want things to look when it's all done. I love the warmth of wood and bright colors. Billy Lee is my contractor, but I'm helping where I can."

  "Don't know how you got him to work for you, lady, but you got the best there is. I'd gladly pay him double top wages to remodel my house. I didn't know he'd come out of his shop building for anyone. How'd you do it?"

  I raised an eyebrow at Billy Lee.

  He blushed. "Gert was my friend, and she asked me to do this."

  "I'm your friend. When you get finished, will you work for me?" Melvin asked.

  Billy Lee shook his head.

  "Is that a no?" Roy teased.

  "That's exactly what it is," Billy Lee said.

  "Can't blame a man for trying. These are going to be beautiful framed out in oak," Roy said.

  I stopped long enough to wait for the stripper to do its job. "I hope so."

  "So you like the ... What did you say? The warmth of wood?" Billy Lee asked.

  I wiped sweat from my forehead with a paper towel and nodded. "I didn't realize how much until these past few days. I'm a country girl at heart, not a modern one. I want a house full of color and laughter."

  "That's the way you were when we were little. You liked red and yellow and blue when we colored out on the back porch, and you were always laughing," he said.

  "You remember me as a child?"

  "Sure. Y'all used to visit Gert, and I'd sneak through the hedge. Your mother always had a bag with crayons and two coloring books, and Marty and Betsy got one, and you always colored with me"

  Talking about it jarred my memory. "And you colored so perfectly, you made us girls look bad"

  "But you made everything so much fun. You colored hair purple or blue, and sometimes the sky was green. You've always loved color, Trudy. I'm glad you're going to keep the wood natural and use bright colors in the house. It'll be you."

  "I may dye my hair purple or blue next week to prove the real Trudy has been resurrected"

  "Please don't do that. Leave it brown. It's you just like it is now.,,

  "And who is me?" I asked.

  "You are Trudy Matthews with kinky, curly hair and a beautiful smile."

  "Flattery will get you out of lots of explaining," I teased.

  At noon Billy Lee and I washed up side by side in the kitchen sink. Our hands touched in the basin as we rinsed off paint speckles and dirt. There weren't any tingles, though, and the floor didn't wiggle a bit. I wasn't surprised. I never expected to feel anything romantic again.

  "Mayonnaise?" I asked.

  He pulled paper plates and napkins out of the cabinet. "Mustard, please."

  "On bologna, lettuce, and tomatoes?"

  "And dill pickles. Ever try it?"

  I shook my head and left the mayonnaise in the refrigerator; might as well do something different to celebrate my freedom. "Is it good?"

  He opened the bread wrapper and took out four pieces. "If you don't like it, I'll eat yours and mine. Here, I'll make them"

  "What kind of chips and soda do you want?" I asked.

  "Barbecue is good with bologna. And I'll have sweet tea if you have it made up."

  I took a bag of mesquite-barbecued chips from the pantry, put them on the bar, and fixed two glasses of sweet tea. By that time he had the sandwiches finished.

  He dragged a bar stool around and sat down across from me. "We ready? You saying grace or me?"

  "Go ahead."

  His prayer was very brief. He thanked God for good friends and the health to enjoy them. Then he thanked Him for the food and a beautiful day. When he said "Amen," I looked up to find him with his sandwich headed toward his mouth. I did the same and was amazed. Pickles and mustard were meant to go together.

  "Where'd you learn to make a sandwich like this?" I asked.

  "Gert always made them with mustard. Mayonnaise was for ham and cheese. Mustard for bologna."

  "Wise old coot, wasn't she?"

  "That she was." He nodded and kept after the sandwich until it was gone. Then he made himself two more.

  On occasion I've let myself have two sandwiches-like when I'm upset enough to chew up railroad ties and spit out Tinker Toys-but not too often. Not with my propensity to pack weight onto my hips and thighs.

  He took in the whole house with a sweep of one hand. "You still want to strip all this wood?"

  I nodded and swallowed. "Did Gert really leave you enough money to work that long? I can pay you, Billy Lee. She left me well-fixed for life. I can pay whatever you charge. Just give me a bill once a week, and I'll write you a check"

  High color crept up his neck and around his angular jawline to his cheeks, which were blazing in a matter of seconds. "There's enough to take care of whatever you want done. I can work for you for a whole year and not lose a dime."

  "Good! Then, yes, I want all the paint taken off and the wood stained and shining."

  "High gloss?" he asked.

  The color in his cheeks began to fade. Maybe the mus
tard took it away. Hmm, maybe it would work like that on cellulite. If I ate mustard and pickles every day, would the fat disappear off my thighs? Or if I rubbed mustard on my thighs and let it set until it was dried up like an old creek bed, would I wash away all the pesky little cellulite critters?

  "What?" I belatedly asked.

  "Varnish comes in flat finish, semigloss, and high gloss," he answered.

  "I guess high gloss is the shiniest?"

  He nodded.

  "Then that's what I want. Does it look like a basketball court when they've just waxed it?"

  He grinned. "That's about right."

  When I finished chewing and swallowed the last bite of the sandwich, I brought out the cheesecake.

  He groaned. "I forgot we had dessert. I shouldn't have eaten the third sandwich."

  "Want to save it until midafternoon for our coffee break?"

  "Yes, I do. But you go ahead. You only ate one sandwich."

  "I think I'll wait too. It'll taste good with a cup of coffee in a couple of hours."

  The window guys returned, and we all went back to work.

  Put on stripper. Take off blistered paint. Do it again and again.

  "Do you remember Mrs. Dorry in the first grade?" I asked. He'd remembered that I colored hair purple and the sky green. What else was hiding in that brilliant mind of his?

  He nodded.

  "I was terrified of her," I said.

  "I know. When she called on you, I always wanted to answer for you. You looked so scared that I felt sorry for you"

  "You were shy too."

  "More like bored. My grandmother taught me to read before I went to school. I was reading the newspaper when I was five. And Grandpa taught me to do math and figure. They believed in living simply. Grandpa grew a garden, and Grandma canned food for the winter. They taught me to work and to love to learn new things. I wasn't really afraid or shy. I was just bored and different."

  Suddenly it mattered to me very much that Billy Lee was my friend. He'd said I looked nice on Sunday; that he liked my hair; that I wasn't a whiner. He'd brought supper the day after Gert died. Not one of my old friends or acquaintances had even called or come by my house to see how I was faring with the loss and the divorce, much less brought barbecued ribs.

  I tried to remember if I'd said anything nice to him since the funeral. Other than standing up for him with Drew-and I'd have done that for the real village idiot out of anger-I hadn't. Some friend I was!

  That night I ran a warm bath and only whimpered a few times when I sank down into the water. The old claw-foot tub had a nice, sloped back made to lean against. I promptly fell asleep and awoke an hour later sitting in a tub of cold water.

  After I'd toweled off and slipped into underpants and a comfortable old cotton gown, I stepped into the bedroom and actually shivered. God bless the woman who'd invented airconditioning. Okay, it might have been a man, but I'll bet you dollars to earthworms that a woman nagged him into it.

  I held the bottom of the nightgown over the front of the air conditioner for a few minutes, not caring if it produced chill bumps. Then I crossed the hallway to the room that would eventually be my bedroom and switched on the light to look at the progress one more time.

  My bedroom. Mine. Not mine and Drew's but mine. I was as possessive as a little girl on Christmas with a brand-new doll. I turned the light off and noticed a yellow glow coming from across the yard, so I ventured to the window and looked out toward Billy Lee's place. His small house was dark, but light flowed from big open garage doors at both ends of his enormous shop building out in the backyard. Did the man ever sleep? As I watched, the lights went out, and the doors rolled down. Billy Lee made his way across the yard and into the house.

  Alone isn't a bad place to be, especially when it's the alternative to distrust and unhappiness, but alone brought loneliness as the darkness surrounded me. I wished for the nerve to go downstairs and call Billy Lee. Just to hear his voice. Just to talk about the day. Just to be a nosy neighbor and find out what he was doing every evening in that big shop building.

  awoke in a royal pout.

  Life was not fair.

  It could have given me what I'd thought I had all along, but, oh, no! It had to wait until forty was bearing down on me to play show-and-tell with the truth of what had happened in my life.

  Before the day in the ladies' room, the worst thing in my life was facing my fortieth birthday in July. I had a lovely home, a healthy, grown daughter, a loving husband, and friends by the dozens. That was BTF: before the funeral. Now I had an old house filled Aunt Gert's past, a daughter who was married to a boy I'd never met and who hadn't talked to me since the funeral, and an ex-husband who'd evidently never loved me. And the only person who'd come to my rescue was Billy Lee Tucker.

  In the middle of the stripping job, I took a moment to really look at him. He was talking with the crew of men who'd arrived to put in my new central air-conditioning unit. The window men would finish their job by noon, the electricians were out of the attic and working their way through the bedrooms upstairs, and the plumbers would arrive Monday morning.

  By the end of the next week the people crawling all over my house would be gone, and it would be up to me and Billy Lee to do the finish work. We wouldn't even have to work in the backyard once the air-conditioning was installed. But that morning the house was so hot, it sucked the air out of my lungs, so we were outside. Billy Lee had taken the doors off the bedroom and laid them across sawhorses under a shade tree. My job was to strip all the paint off one closet door. Billy Lee worked on another one when he wasn't supervising any workers. He kept everything going smoothly, and I was glad. I couldn't have done it even with a day planner at my fingertips.

  He must've felt me staring at him, because he looked up and raised an eyebrow in question. I shook my head and went back to work. He gave the fellows a few more instructions and crossed the yard to me.

  "Did you need something?" he asked.

  "How do you do it?"

  He picked up his paintbrush, loaded it with stripper, and slathered a section of the door. "Do what?"

  "Keep everything going at once and organized."

  He shrugged. "It's not so hard. Visualize the end, and start at the beginning."

  "You are a genius."

  He grinned. "Never been called that before"

  "I'm adding it to your resume"

  "Thank you"

  "No thanks necessary. The truth is the truth whether you serve it up plain or top it with chocolate frosting. It's still the truth."

  "So now you're a philosopher as well as a stripper."

  I laughed aloud. "The first I might be. The second would be a physical impossibility."

  "Why? You're doing a fine job," he said.

  "Think, Billy Lee! You just called me a stripper."

  He blushed. "Why would that be a physical impossibility?"

  "I'm over the hill. Strippers are young and built well."

  "You are stripping and doing a fine job of it," he teased.

  "Oh, hush. I can't win a fight with you. So, what's next?" I'd gotten the hang of paint removal and hadn't dropped any of the lethal stuff on me in a couple of days until that moment. I dropped a glob onto my bare left foot, which I hurriedly wiped away. And I did not whine!

  Billy Lee smiled and changed the subject. "Alford should have the bedroom and landing floors sanded by noon. So after we get these doors ready, we'll stain woodwork in those areas. We wait until the plumbers, electricians, and air-conditioning men are finished to apply the sanding sealer and varnish. We can go ahead and work on some more doors if we finish before they do"

  "Speaking of varnish, I've changed my mind. I want the floors so shiny you can see yourself in them but not the woodwork. I want that to look softer. Does that make sense?" I said.

  Billy Lee nodded. "Yes, it does. You're making a wise decision. Satin finish will give it a classy look. High gloss could look cheap"

  My temper
flared. He would have let me ruin all our hard work without saying a thing? What was the matter with the man? Did all genius-level people have trouble speaking their minds? "Why didn't you tell me that?"

  "Are you going to put the same furniture back in that room when it's all ready?"

  I put the brush down and popped my hands onto my hips. "No, but don't change the subject. I want to talk about varnish."

  "Are you upset?"

  "Why didn't you say that high gloss would look cheap? You would have just let me make a big mess after I'd worked hours and hours on stripping the old paint off? I'm not working on this house to have it look cheap. I want it to be warm and beautiful."

  He folded his arms across his chest and set his jaw. "You're mad at me because I was going to let you do what you wanted with your own house? It's your house. You didn't ask my advice, so I didn't give it. When you did ask, I was honest. So don't be mad at me because you almost made a bad decision."

  "You should have told me high gloss would look ugly. We made a deal to be honest, and if you are my friend, then we have to be honest. I don't care about being nice. Look where that got me before"

  He gritted his teeth. "Don't compare me to Drew. I never would have treated you that way. If you want me to tell you what I think, all you have to do is ask, and I'll be honest every time, but I've learned the hard way not to put my two cents in where they are not wanted," he said.

  "From now on I want your two cents. If I don't like them, I'll tell you, and we'll discuss it."

  He nodded.

  "Tell me what you think, and be honest"

  "High gloss on the floor and satin on the rest," he said.

  "And you'll tell me what's best from now on?" I asked.

  "No."

  I jerked my head around to find him grinning. "Then we just had a big fight for nothing?"

  "You call that a fight? I call it a minor disagreement."

  "Why? I was blunt and not nice. It was a fight," I argued.

  "A fight is when we don't talk to each other for a whole hour."

  "Why won't you tell me what's best?"

  "Because you can make decisions for yourself even if they're wrong. Mistakes can be corrected. Life is too short to have everyone else tell you how to live. Make a few mistakes, and learn from them. At least they'll be real, and you'll be living, not just existing."