Sets Appeal

by Virginia Taylor

  Vix didn’t like the look of her shiny new black car beside the others. She didn’t like that she had purchased the Merc after her divorce merely to annoy Tim, who had wanted this particularly pricey model. Her money hadn’t been made by her but by her ancestors, and she would feel more pride in a car she had bought with her own hard work. Since she hadn’t yet earned any money, she decided to trade down, a deed her father wouldn’t question. Nor would he care what sort of car she drove. He had always despised ostentation for himself, while making sure he pressed the biggest and the best upon his only daughter.

  Feeling ostentatious and consequently chastened, she walked inside the echoing building, seeing no one, but hearing voices from the back. To make her presence known, she proceeded toward the source and heard Steve say from behind the bench saw partition, “He’s screwing her. There’s no doubt of it.”

  “If so, it’s his business, not yours,” Trent said, sharply.

  “Maybe, but why does he lie about it?”

  “P’raps he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Like I give a freakin’ damn.”

  The band saw started screeching, and a length of wood clattered onto the floor. “...was her car in his driveway this morning,” Steve yelled above the noise. “And you saw her come out and wave him off. Nothin’s surer than she stayed the night.”

  Determined not to be an eavesdropper, Vix walked behind the partition, and said, “Good morning. How’s everything going?”

  The two men looked up. “We’re making the poolside huts today,” Steve said, his face tight and his voice terse. “Luke’s working on the pool. JD is working on the balustrade for the terrace.”

  “Fantastic.” Stepping backward to avoid a cut length of wood on the floor, Vix awkwardly knocked into a half-made flat, which teetered until she grabbed one end. “I’m off to finish painting the house.” She held the flat until the edge stopped trembling, and didn’t look up until she could smile brightly.

  Even someone as credulous as she could make a logical assumption about who the guys were talking, because Steve always stopped to pick up JD. Her cheeks hot with hurt and embarrassment, she mixed ochre and white to make the stone color for the mansion.

  So, she had thrown herself at a man who wasn’t available. Worse was still being so attracted to him, but why not? The man was every good girl’s dream, sexually responsive rather than being sexually available. He would never push his own needs. As she rolled the entire flat with the undercoat, she steeled herself into seeing him as he was, an attractive man who didn’t want to alienate a workmate, which she had scrupulously been since the embarrassing beginning and which she would be certain to remain from now on.

  While she waited for the finish to dry, she inspected the stencil she had made at home last night, a tracery of cut-out blocks, checking her measurement against the front section of the house. With the stencil repeated, she would end up with three quarters of a block on the corner of the so-called building, which would certainly not look like a corner edge on a real house.

  Sighing, she sat at JD’s table with his pencil in her hand. Only a miniscule adjustment to the porch area was required to fix the problem. Three times she did the math, and three times she came up with different measurements. In the distance, the guys talked, argued, drilled holes, banged in nails, and laughed. Her own space echoed with her frustration. She would have to make a whole row of faux cut stone smaller than the rest. Probably no one would ever notice but knowing that left her with an uncomfortable niggle of frustration. For her first job, she wanted to produce something spectacularly right.

  Restless, she rose to her feet and strode to the tiny kitchen at the back of the building, where she and the guys usually sat for their breaks. She filled the urn, which she turned on. Last night she had made a cake for morning tea. JD’s active sex life wouldn’t be allowed to ruin her day. Nor would the guys’ attitude towards sissies. She didn’t like sitting in a mess, and she wouldn’t.

  Mouthing the words to Pink’s “Stupid Girl”, she set the table with a sissie’s tablecloth, set out plates, and lined up the various mismatched mugs. “Maybe if I act like that, flippin’ my blond hair back...” danced her to the doorway, where she yelled, “Morning tea is served, gentlemen.”

  All noise ceased. Fortunately, a silence couldn’t really deafen, and she heard a laugh. Then a single male voice called back, “Okay.”

  She waited, horrified. Instead of thinking the song, she had yelled the words. While she heard the tools being tossed down, the murmur of conversation, and the approaching footsteps, she poured the milk from the carton into a sissie’s jug. “So there,” she muttered, slicing the cake into man-sized chunks.

  One by one, the guys arrived, stared at the table, made a hot drink, and sat, JD last. This was her first sight of him today and he looked gorgeous, clean and hunky, and so sexy that she didn’t doubt he’d been satisfied in bed last night. By a real woman, Lonny the magnificent.

  Vix folded her arms, determined not to show her feelings. “One sexist comment from anyone and I don’t share my cake.”

  “I love the flowery tablecloth,” Trent said, alerting her with a wide-eyed grin. “Our Nan had one just like it.”

  “Shouldn’t we use spoons to eat the cake?” Steve lifted his mug, prissily curling his little finger.

  “Forks,” Luke said, a frown on his freckled face. “Little ones. Sherry and I got some for a wedding present. Maybe I ought to bring them tomorrow.”

  “The cake will be stale tomorrow. I’m sure Vix will let you use your hands today.” JD’s khaki eyes met hers and her chest thumped loud enough to hear.

  She tilted her chin. “As it happens, I brought cake forks.”

  Four pairs of eyes turned toward her in horror, and she laughed. “Kidding. It’s orange and poppy-seed cake. I hope you like it.”

  She drank her tea, knowing that not only couldn’t she and JD be lovers, they didn’t have enough in common to be friends. Although he could make a woman’s body hum, that was of no use to anyone but his girlfriend. Discussing the classics with a tradesman would be a waste of time. All he and she could talk about was sets. Nevertheless, when she looked at him, her body craved. He knew how to tease a woman until she wanted to tear off his clothes and run her hands all over his skin.

  Lucky Lonny. She had a man who could pin her body with his, smile, and give her hard/soft kisses and pretend he wanted her, though in Lonny’s case, he wouldn’t need to pretend. Nor would he need to understand why a woman who’d been belittled by a control freak would not let another man guide the sex play. A macho male like JD would see Vix’s orders as he did; a slur on his masculinity. She knew why he had destroyed the condom but aside from having a trusting girlfriend, Vix’s insecurities would have put him off.

  Morning tea over, she heaved a breath and stood. “Back to the drawing board,” she said, with a frustrated sigh.

  JD raised his eyebrows. “Having a problem?”

  “What makes you assume that?”

  “Your tone of voice, Michaela-Angela. Can I help?”

  “Only if you know how to work a slide rule,” she said in a superior voice, dusting the crumbs of the cake into the bin.

  The guys all paused, waiting, strange expressions on their faces.

  JD stared at her, pushed his hands in his pockets, and said, “Actually, I do.”

  And so, after a slight adjustment in two places across the width of the porch, Vix finally began forming her perfectly matched stone blocks.

  * * * *

  Jay felt like a heel. He hadn’t counted on Lonny standing in his doorway this morning, waving him off like a wife sending her husband to work with a packed lunch. Normally, instead of eating breakfast, she spent at least an hour in the bathroom, plastering on her makeup and styling her hair to look exactly the same as when she had crawled out of bed. He also hadn’t given a thought to her car parked out the front for Steve to see. Steve had alw
ays been possessive of Lonny, although he knew, like JD, that most of his friends had had sex with her at one time or another.

  This also gave Jay a guilt trip. For years he’d told himself that he was Lonny’s friend and friend-sex simply wasn’t on. Last night he’d realized, when she said she loved him, that although his long friendship, or guardianship, gave him feelings for her, too, she had never featured in his mind as a sexual being. Even if she had, he wouldn’t want a woman who’d had sex with his friends any more than he would want to join the queue. He’d turned out to be a prissy-mouthed hypocrite despite all his noble speeches.

  After checking his diagrams for the size of the trapdoor in the stage floor from which the pool would appear when needed, he put a steadying knee on the sawhorse and cut an angle into the bull-nosed length of wood, which Vix would paint as a stone edge. She was back on her platform ladder again, this time marking out windows for her three-story house.

  From where he stood, her stonework looked real. At some stage, she had blotted ochre and gray onto her fake stone, unevenly, adding light and shade for depth, and the whole sat together well. Too bad she was lousy at calculations. He smiled to himself. She would need him again, and soon, because her windows didn’t fit proportionally under the turret. He watched her descend her ladder and stand back, narrow-eyed, assessing the mistake he had spotted.

  She turned and glanced at him. Then she raised her chin, flipped back her blond hair, climbed up the ladder, and re-marked correctly. His mouth relaxed. Today she wore her paint-smeared jeans that did wonders for her curvaceous behind. Her big shirt hid the rest of her, but he knew how she looked. He knew she had smooth-skinned, firm breasts, a supple waist, and a muscle-flat belly. He wanted her, and he set his mind to achieving his aim on Saturday…if she could be convinced he would be good for her.

  The sheets of corrugated iron wall began to protest the afternoon temperature drop and he glanced at his watch. Work started at eight and the team liked to leave by five. The sounds of packing up for the day began, the clattering of a wood length thrown on top of others, the rattling roll of the stack collapsing under the weight, a curse, and flats thumped upright against the walls. Male voices murmured. Footsteps clumped to the kitchen and back, the broom handle bounced on the floor, all familiar sounds, along with the metallic click of tools being locked back into metal boxes.

  Vix glanced around, clearly brought of out her focused painting world and into the present. She’d marked out the panes in her two sets of two big windows on one side of the building. On the other, she’d sketched a front door with two tall, rough-cut pillars on either side. On the veranda above stood another four pillars. These were smooth marble, or would be, he assumed. Higher still was the turret, as yet only windows and stone.

  After a blink at him, she took her brushes off to the sink area. He packed up while he waited for her to return, which she did, wiping her wet hands down the sides of her jeans. “See you tomorrow,” she said, grabbing up her big workbag. Diagrams poked out at the top, drawn with colored pencils, and a white plastic ruler rested on top.

  “I won’t be here tomorrow.” He brushed the sawdust off his shirtfront. Her eyes followed his hands, showing an unconscious interest in his body.

  “A day off after three days work?” she said in a cynical voice, her gaze meeting his as the guys ambled over.

  “He takes a day or two off every week.” Luke grinned at him. “He’s what you might call an unsteady worker.”

  Jay silenced his brother with a look. “Any problems, see Steve. He’s in charge when I’m not here. Are you okay with that, Steve?”

  “Me?” Steve sounded pleased. “No worries.”

  Jay trusted Steve as a good steady worker, and Jay had decided to interfere in Lonny’s life. The set-building team would need another boss when he left after this job. Steve, like any other builder, relied on the economy for the bigger jobs. At times, he had to take work interstate. This caused him to mumble and grumble about not being able to settle down. If he had a regular business of his own, taking on a mortgage wouldn’t be a problem. The set-building team, under a new management that didn’t have other plans, could expand into other areas like temporary venues for festivals, outdoor concerts, or large events. Then Steve would earn more money than Lonny, and she might consider a man who loved her as her partner, rather than one who had only lately begun to judge her.

  Arriving home, he cooked and ate a stir-fry, and moved the furniture from his sitting-slash-dining area into the hall. He then proceeded to knock every nail in the floor below the level of the wood. Next step was to putty the holes and he had that done in an hour.

  Tomorrow, after he and his fellow architectural students had delegated the order of speaking for their final presentation, he would check his computer models as well as his programs predicting the thermal properties of his designs. That done, he could get back to work on his own home.

  He planned to hire a floor-sander and go over the floorboards tomorrow night. He could add a couple of coats of sealer on Friday, and by Saturday he would have a finished floor to show Vix that he wasn’t a complete loser. She already liked him enough to offer to help him paint. If she liked him more, she might be willing to snuggle into his arms and kiss him back.

  He eased into bed, tired but smiling.

  * * * *

  Without JD at work, the guys messed around, going from one task to the next without finishing anything properly. JD might have had a steadying presence, but apparently not a work ethic, which surprised Vix. When he bothered to turn up, the set progressed smoothly without the questioning of plans or the hunt for drawings to check on the measurements that Steve constantly disputed with Vix. Women, apparently, didn’t understand the finer points of carpentry or the myriad of uses for duct tape.

  She painted window frames and panes on the house flat. She tiled the three separate roofs, figuratively speaking. She added a painted set of glass-paned mahogany front doors, brass handled, and, after a squinty-eyed examination, decided she’d caught the gleam of the metal rather well. Then, she marbled the four colonial pillars along the upper veranda and the four under the turret roof. Unable to restrain herself, she painted three aqua-blue window boxes filled with red geraniums, which she had mocked up on her thick stenciling paper, and stuck these between the turret pillars. Laughing, because she loved the light-hearted ’50s look but knew the set designer wouldn’t allow her to use her own ideas, she took a photo with her phone and sent it to him.

  He answered back in fifteen minutes. Gorgeous, darling.

  She texted, Can I keep the boxes? and she waited half an hour, nervous, although she need not be. The window boxes could be removed with a grab.

  You may, said his next text, and she jumped for joy. She wished JD had been there to see her triumph.

  The guys stared at her as though she was crazy.

  “It looks nice,” Steve said, scratching the back of his neck. Among his forearm tattoos was a large fish on a hook, a heart with an arrow, and a dragon eating its own tail. “I don’t know why you thought the designer wouldn’t like it.”

  “Well.” She chewed her lip. “It’s my idea.”

  “I’ve seen window boxes before.”

  “It’s meant to be a gracious house for rich people.”

  “It’s three stories with marble pillars. I think you have represented that,” he said loftily. He folded his arms and blotted out the sight of a skull with a rose for an eye. “Have you seen the show?”

  “I saw it a couple of months ago in Melbourne, when I was applying for this job.”

  “So, what’s the deal with the changing-huts? They’re kinda useless around the pool when the back door of the house is only a few steps away.”

  She lifted her hands, to help with her explanation. “They’re mainly to show the wealth of the family but… Do you know the story?”

  “The story of a musical? Where people talk for a couple of minutes and then
they start singing at each other or break out into a gay little dance? Not on your life.” He planted his fists on his hips.

  She grinned. “The leading lady is about to get married, but she isn’t sure that she is marrying the right man. The night before her wedding, she drinks too much and takes a swim in the pool. When she wakes up next morning, she’s wearing a man’s toweling robe and nothing else, and she finds a man’s watch in the pocket.”

  “So, she swam naked,” Steve said, his gaze on hers.

  “She doesn’t remember, but clearly she wasn’t skinny-dipping alone and this is the night before her wedding. Her husband-to-be wasn’t a houseguest. Because of the changing-huts, the audience saw how she happened to be wearing the wrong robe.”

  “She did the fandango with another guy?”

  “The only person who believes she didn’t is the man who loves her.”

  “That’d be the man she was with.”

  She shook her head. “He was too sozzled to remember what happened, as well.”

  Steve scratched his head and without another word went back to making the doors for the changing huts. She started on the stonework surrounding the pool, wishing she wasn’t glad that tomorrow she would be seeing the man who was probably with the woman he kept denying he was with.

  * * * *

  Jay slid into the back seat of Steve’s car in the morning. A streamer of gray smoke wound in two veins through the lapis lazuli sky. A sunny day was forecast. The early morning light cast bleak shadows across his garden, the piled soil dry and the weeds continuing to multiply. For the past two years, he had been time poor. “Good morning, guys.”

  “Seems we’re making a set for a show about rich people sleeping around,” Steve said to the rear vision mirror, catching Jay’s reflected glance.

  “They didn’t have sex in the ’50s.” Jay settled back into his seat belt.

  “So, how did our parents get born?”

  Trent clipped Steve upside the head. “Moron. They only pretended they didn’t have sex.”