A Basic Renovation

by Sandra Antonelli

  The gasp echoed in her ears and it struck her then that she was louder than the bike. The Hog whispered. It hummed. It purred. And it made no sense.

  Where was the thunderous clatter? What had happened to the unmistakable Harley roar?

  Concerned the lack of grunt meant a catastrophic engine failure, Lesley pulled off to the side of the glistening road, rolling to the edge of a pond surrounded by tiny red Valentine hearts, the kind that tasted like cinnamon. But rather than check the bike’s exhaust system or engine, she forgot all about it. In a moment, she’d unfurled a picnic rug, stretched out on it, and closed her eyes.

  Bare-chested and sun brown, Dominic Brennan joined her on the blanket. He smiled like man in a toothpaste commercial and leaned on his side. Then he reached over, brushing stray hairs from her eyes, his long fingers slipped down her throat. Soft as rain, his lips skimmed across hers, once, twice.

  Magically, her clothes vanished. A blue flame warmer than the sun illuminated Dominic’s eyes. He began to walk his fingertips between both breasts. Shifting closer, he lowered his head until his breath began to follow the same path he’d just traced. His mouth hovered above the little hollow between her collarbones. The point of his tongue flicked inside and started to travel a damp little route that led down, down, down to a heated pool of moisture.

  Suddenly he was skinny dipping with his mouth, his butterfly stroke light and smooth. His hands joined in again, dancing over her breasts, his fingers swirled into a rhythm that matched his tongue.

  The sound of a moan woke her.

  And Lesley lay still in her little bed, enjoying the last few moments of erotic reverie.

  She sighed. All right. So she’d dreamt of Dominic. Why should she spurn a perfectly good sex dream simply because of a detestable co-star? It could have just as easily been John. His funny kiss had been the catalyst to these sensations, sensations that seemed to be continuing even after she had awakened.

  She still felt a gentle stroke across her cheek and chin, down her neck and bare shoulder. The caressing touch made her gasp, a soft kiss grazed her mouth, and long, slender fingers slipped though her hair, but they didn’t belong to Dominic.

  They didn’t even belong to the same species.

  Lesley’s moan of delight turned into a Banshee’s cry. And the rat tail that had been tickling her lips disappeared under the sheets.

  Medicated or not, Kyle could sleep through nuclear annihilation, but a good night’s rest for Dominic was impossible. Every time he dozed off, he re-lived what was now the second-most horrid moment of his life. He wound up sprawled on the too-small sofa in the media room, staring at the TV, watching old episodes of Moonlighting, which only made things worse when it dawned on him Cybill Shepherd bore a striking resemblance to Stefanie.

  A scorching case of the what if’s plagued him as he watched Bruce Willis and Stefanie/Cybill spar. As fatigue began to overtake his brain and body, what if turned into carnal how to images of with a naked, red cowboy boot-wearing Lesley. He sat up, his legs stiff from the cramped couch, his cock even stiffer.

  It was a vicious cycle of dread over what Kyle undoubtedly had learned about his mother, Dominic’s shortcomings as a father, and disbelief that a woman like Lesley could give him a seemingly inexhaustible hard-on. Mercifully, he’d finally zonked out in front of the TV sometime after five-thirty.

  Then, around seven, Kyle woke, clear-headed, hungry, and very sore. It didn’t take long before Dominic got the whole story. Over breakfast, he heard about the shopping cart stunt mishap, the up-chucking incident in the ambulance, and how Lesley had handled the fractious, apathetic nurse.

  Dominic was surprised. His mother’s harangue had given Lesley opportunity and motive to retaliate, but she’d simply looked at him coldly, without fighting back as he had expected. He discovered that her disclosures about Brennan family history hadn’t included anything earth shattering about Stefanie.

  Everything was safe, locked up tight in the same vault as always. In a few minutes, his fear, the dread that had resulted in a sleepless night, disappeared.

  But it was replaced by something else. Something unexpected.

  Dominic was befuddled. His mother had always made disparaging remarks about her sons’ girlfriends and wives. Part of it was a cultivated façade; his mother never liked to show she had a soft, caring underside, but she loved her children fiercely. Unfortunately, no woman had ever been good enough for her boys – especially when it came to Terry. No female had ever lived up to the high expectations his mother had. Each girl started out with promise then became a disappointment. In his mother’s eyes, Stefanie had turned into a gold-digger, Marcus’ wife a shrew, and Christian’s an exhibitionist, while Terry’s various spouses had been lesbian, alcoholic, whore and, most recently, waitress. As awful as it was, even if she’d assigned whore to the wrong wife, his mother had been accurate in two cases.

  Three things came out of Kyle’s retelling of last night’s events. First, Dominic realised Stefanie looked nothing like Cybill Shepherd. Second, he owned up to the fact Fabian had been right about the family needing a scapegoat. That’s exactly what Lesley had been for all these years; a convenient patsy to lay the blame and ill will upon, but they’d all been wrong.

  Finally, as guilt wormed its way under his hide, he knew he owed Lesley a debt of sorts. Despite the fact she loathed anything Brennan, she’d taken care of his son, offered kindness and compassion to his child.

  Yes. It was just to appease his own shameful actions, Dominic acknowledged that, yet it was important to be grateful and make amends. The problem was he had no idea how to make amends, although he did come up with three clichés he could apply to the situation: it’s the thought that counts; say it with flowers; actions speak louder than words.

  And he thought it was smart to cover all the bases. Just in case.

  At nine that morning, an old, two-toned green Ford Bronco prevented him from driving up the steep driveway. He left his truck parked on the street below and trudged up the incline that had been swept clear of dead vegetation. Then he found himself looking at smelly carpeting, sections of broken drywall, and lengths of wood that stuck up out of a yellow dumpster.

  With a box shoved under his arm, he slipped a plastic bag over his wrist, and rapped his knuckles against the screen door. The last time he’d been here he hadn’t noticed the holes and rips in the screen. He wondered if he’d added a few when he’d jerked the door open and broke the lock.

  His knocking made no impact over the music playing and Lesley singing along again. Glory days, he hoped she was dressed this time.

  Now why had he thought of that?

  The last thing he needed was the cornerstone of a hard-on being laid in his pants. He took a deep breath and wrinkled his nose at the stink drifting out the door. After a slight cough to clear out the acrid tang of cat urine, he shouted, ‘Anyone home?’

  Lesley had just reached for a jug of cold water in the fridge, a stale cranberry walnut bagel clenched between her teeth, when a booming ‘Hey’ scared the hell out of her. She closed the fridge and glanced at her watch. GP was a stickler for being punctual, but this was too early for him. She turned off the music, tossed the bagel on a napkin, and went to the door.

  Khaki shorts that stopped mid-thigh drew attention to his deep tan, while a faded peacock-blue t-shirt accentuated his eyes, their bright, jewel-tone clear through the holey fly screen. He had a well-worn leather tool belt sitting low on his hips. It was decked out with all sorts of gear. Nail heads poked out of a little pouch, a hammer was slung through a loop on the right side. A few screwdrivers, pair of pliers and a flat pencil poked up from the apron pocket at the front. Dominic looked delectable and Lesley felt a little ache began to pulse between her thighs. Yet, after last night’s sexy little dream, that warm quiver wasn’t what she found odd.

  He had a bouquet of yellow roses in his arms and a box of chocolates tucked under his elbow.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

&
nbsp; She crossed her arms and cocked her head. ‘I get the hammer and stuff, but the rest seem like odd tools for a crucifixion – if that’s what you’re here for.’

  ‘Why can’t this be easy?’ he muttered under his breath.

  ‘Well, which is it, did you come to crucify or court me?’

  He frowned and exhaled with slight exasperation. ‘If I was here to crucify you I would’ve brought along some wood.’

  ‘And if you you’d come a-courtin’ you would have ridden up in a surrey with fringe on top, right? What do you want, Dominic?’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’

  ‘OK, I need to talk.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to listen to anything you have to say?’

  He cleared his throat, loudly. ‘This is all wrong,’ he exhaled again, through his nose. ‘This is all completely and utterly off beam.’

  ‘Wow, I guess that PhD still comes in handy, huh?’

  ‘Glory days, Lesley, enough of this wrestling match! I don’t need to be the champion! I was wrong, all right? I’ve prided myself on raising my son right, on teaching him certain things about life and how to treat others with respect, but it turns out I’m one hell of a hypocrite. All this time I’ve been telling him to be open-minded, to be fair, tolerant and non-judgmental, but I did a shitty job of modelling that behaviour.’ He kicked his foot against the bottom of the broken door. The frame was bent and it would be the first thing he’d fix, when, or if he managed to fix this. ‘I said some things, I ma—’

  ‘Are you apologising?’ She stared at him, a finger poking the screen, releasing a puff of grey dust.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With a bunch of flowers and a box of candy?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘Mousetraps. Kyle said you had a situation. I have mole traps out in the truck, but this was all I could carry.’

  Her mouth compressed to a thin line, for just a second, then, she opened the screen door, jerking her head to indicate she was granting him entry.

  Dominic moved into the foyer, following her to the kitchen, suddenly feeling ridiculous with his arms full of roses. Roses? Roses? What had he been thinking? Hell, she was a lesbian, she’d know there was no romantic intention behind them, so why did it matter if they were roses; they were yellow and yellow denoted friendship. Besides that, maybe their perfume would mask the cat pee stink. ‘How long have we known each other, Lesley?’

  ‘Twenty years, maybe.’

  ‘And in those twenty years, how much time have we spent together, a couple of Christmas holidays, a Thanksgiving or two? How many conversations have we had? Seven? Five?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Strangers who meet in Walmart have had longer conversations than the two of us.’

  Lesley turned back towards him, took the bag from his hand, and pulled the box of chocolate from under his elbow. ‘Thanks, I’ll take these, but you keep—what is that, a dozen roses?’

  ‘Two dozen.’

  ‘Ooh, you went all out, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m apologising.’

  Lesley didn’t know what to think. Or feel. Part of her wanted to shriek at him. A sizeable chunk had had enough of the name-calling and hatefulness, while one more sliver recalled that not-so-distant erotic dream.

  She upended the bag, unwrapped wooden mousetraps clattering onto the bright orange countertop. Next, she tore the cellophane from the chocolate box, lifted the gold lid, and pulled out a gorgeous, dark Godiva chocolate that had a glacé cherry set in the top. She impaled the chocolate on the trigger of one mousetrap, pulled back the spring, and let it go. The metal arm leapt forward, splitting the confection open, the cherry and liquor filling inside oozing out like sweet, sticky blood. ‘Death by chocolate,’ she muttered.

  ‘Why do I get the impression you wish that piece of candy was one of my balls?’

  She glanced up from her handiwork, ‘I didn’t think anything of the sort.’

  ‘Here,’ he thrust the yellow roses towards her, ‘put them in a vase.’

  ‘I’m fresh out of vases. You keep them. Give them to your girlfriend. Take them to the cemetery.’

  Dominic set the flowers on the counter and turned to go, but he hesitated, twisting back to her. She could hate him all she wanted, but he’d be damned if he didn’t finish his apology. It didn’t matter if she didn’t need it, he did. ‘Listen, we’ve known each other for years, Christ, we were family, yet other than a few…particular details that don’t paint things in a very nice light, I don’t really know you at all. But I learned something new about you. I’ve seen your regard for Kyle and he told me what you did for him. You went to the mat, regardless of how you feel about this family, and that says a lot more than Terry…’ He sighed. ‘You’re a good person and it’s unfortunate I let my brother’s view of you colour my impression, especially when I make such a point of teaching my son to form his own beliefs of things and people. My mother is my mother, her ideas about you are set in stone and she can’t forgive or forget anything, but there are two people in every marriage, two sides to every failed relationship. That applies to me as well. What happened to you and my brother is water under the bridge, ancient history. I’m sorry.’

  Lesley looked down at the mousetraps. Out of eight, she’d set four. She pushed them aside, finding it odd that her eyes were burning. An apology complete with a bribe of flowers, chocolates, and mousetraps was one thing, but she wasn’t prepared for his total about-face and it unsettled her, made her examine some things about herself she didn’t like very much. She’d never realised there was such a finely-honed caustic shrew dwelling inside her psyche. It reminded her that she and Peggy Brennan weren’t so different after all. ‘I’m sorry, too. I was angry. I like your son. You’ve done a wonderful job raising him. Kyle’s a lovely young man and he thinks the world of you.’

  ‘He likes you too.’ Dominic leaned forward, resting his palms on the counter, legs spread apart, his gaze level with hers.

  Silence fell over them and as they looked at each other, something changed. There was an awkward edge to it, a heft of embarrassment and regret, but the rank animosity withered, dried up, and blew away on the breeze sweeping through the empty house.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.

  ‘Starving.’

  She pushed the chocolate box towards him, ‘Dig in.’

  ‘You have anything more substantial?’

  ‘How about half a stale bagel?’

  ‘How about a cup of coffee to go with it?’

  ‘Yeah, coffee would be nice wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Well, have you got any? I’ll make it.’

  She made a funny noise, like a goose honk, and said, ‘I bought some last night, but I left it at the police station after my motorcycle was stolen.’

  Dominic reached for a chocolate. ‘Someone stole your motorcycle?’

  Her expression went sheepish just before she nodded.

  ‘Don’t tell me you thought I had anything to do with it?’

  Lesley shrugged. ‘Sorry. It crossed my mind.’

  He shrugged back, his mouth full of chocolate and hazelnuts, ‘It’s understandable…I guess.’

  ‘Dominic?’

  ‘Yeah?’ he swallowed and chose another chocolate, one with a coffee bean in the centre.

  ‘What’s with the tool belt?’

  When Dominic’s rather silly smile bloomed on his artfully chiselled face, there were a few brown specks of chocolate on his teeth, which oddly, instead of marring his appearance, accented his human side and made him seem better looking. ‘My son had an oral contract with you, but since he’s unable to keep his side of the arrangement and give you a day’s work for fifteen dollars an hour, you get me.’

  Chapter 6

  It hadn’t been hard for Martino to get Aces to invite him to the Aspen Lodge for breakfast. The difficult
y lay in getting the old coot to shut up. Did anyone really care to know his bridgework snared the gristly bits of breakfast sausage, that he flossed three times a day, or that his dentist down in Santa Fe was also Val Kilmer’s dentist? Why was the man obsessed with teeth anyway?

  If the dental discussion hadn’t been irksome enough, just after Martino mentioned he was sweet on Eilish Flanagan, Aces had started to talk about his irritable bowel. Then Jerzy, sitting on his inflatable rubber ring at the neighbouring table, put in his two cents about his slipped disc and chipped coccyx, while Barney, coming back from the buffet with his bowl of prune-topped oatmeal, joined in with his cataracts and piles.

  These guys were younger than him, five to ten years younger, yet they were in worse shape, complained more, and did nothing but sit on their asses all day playing cards. No wonder Barney had piles.

  Move it or lose it, Martino thought as his three poker buddies began their one-upmanship over whose pain in the ass was the worst. Sometimes he asked himself why he wanted to dine or play Texas Hold ‘em with these stronzos. The answer was plain; while they couldn’t move it, they sure as hell could lose it. Gambling with Aces, Barney and Jerzy always lined his pockets with a little extra green.

  Not that he needed the money – not that any of them needed the money – it was just he liked the idea of being flash with cash because it made him feel like a man about town. And being a man about town was important when it came to pitching a little woo.

  ‘Jesus Christ, fellas,’ he said, ‘you three need to learn to get up off your asses and be active. Look at me. I play golf every day. I drive. I get out in the sunshine and enjoy life. You saw that old broad on TV. She was one hundred and two and she got a hole in one. You h—’ he broke off, vivid red hair catching his eye. ‘Look at that, boys,’ he sighed, ‘isn’t it glorious?’

  There she was, headed towards their table, which Martino had chosen on purpose because she’d have to pass by them to get to the buffet. He wiped his mouth and started thinking things he hadn’t thought in a long time.