Some Rough Edge Smoothin'

by Louisa Trent

  “No I...”

  “Don't bother denying it. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She dumped the hot spaghetti onto a large serving platter. “Okay, maybe your life experiences are different than mine, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends-”

  She poured the most delicious sauce he's ever had the pleasure of inhaling over the white mound of pasta. Oregano and tomatoes and piping hot spaghetti were in the middle of the platter. Not the rubbery, open-up-a-can kind variety. Not the kind you got in restaurants. The real thing. Sera was the real thing too.

  Fuck the spaghetti! Let him at the cook. Sera looked so tasty, he could just eat her up.

  That was one impulse he stomped on fast.

  “We can never be friends, Sera. We're from two different worlds.”

  Sera plunked the spaghetti and sauce and about a million round meatballs on the table. “As soon as you're done with the bread, we can eat,” she said, an edge to her voice.

  “It's done.”

  “Then please take a seat,” his hostess replied, gesturing to a place setting across from hers.

  Tomas was sorry Sera was scared, sorry she was pissed too, but he knew that in the end, making her understand some basic facts about himself was the kindest thing he could've done for her.

  So why did he feel as though he'd just missed out on something real important by refusing her offer of friendship?

  * * * *

  After dinner, Sera filled the cracked enamel sink basin with hot water and detergent, and dunked the stacked dinner plates. No fine china for her. Her dishes were all mismatched. With spaghetti piled on them, Tomas probably hadn't noticed. He would now.

  “A dishwasher didn't come with these digs, huh?” he teased, coming up behind her.

  She laughed over at him as he moved to the side.

  “I don't own one either. No room in the trailer,” he explained. “I'll dry and put away if you show me where.”

  Never one to turn down an offer of help, Seraphina tossed him a dishtowel. Then, picking up the soapy sponge, she ran it across the surface of one of her best supermarket glasses. Not fancy crystal, but pretty all the same.

  “The mansion's got some good solid underpinnings,” Tomas said slowly, broaching the subject like a can of bloodsucking worms.

  She, on the other hand, wasn't at all squeamish. “Of course it does!” she exclaimed. “They don't build houses like this any more.”

  She covered her mouth with a soapy hand. “That was not meant as a sneaky attack on your construction company, Tomas. I simply happen to prefer antiques to contemporaries.”

  “No offence taken. Personally, I'd rather renovate old buildings than tear them down-if a structure can be saved. Some can't. Listen, stop trying to convince me that this house can be rehabbed; you've already swung my opinion.”

  She turned off the tap with a snap of her soapy wrist. “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. Just tell me what you want done and I'll start fixing it up for you.”

  “This is a complete about face from your earlier position on the school. Why the change of heart, Tomas?”

  “Let's just say that as a kid, I wanted to learn the piano and never got the chance, and let it go at that.”

  She nodded. “I see. Well-while it's commendable that you want to ensure that kids get an opportunity you missed out on, if you don't mind my asking once again...what's in it for you, Tomas? You're a businessman, and I don't mean to look a gift horse in the mouth, but charity doesn't seem to be your thing.”

  “I'm trying to change my image.”

  “By becoming involved in the Arts?” she asked, trying to pin him down.

  “No. Not exactly.” He looked very uncomfortable. “I thought maybe if you and I were seen together, folks might think I was turning over a new leaf.”

  “Are you? Are you turning over a new leaf?”

  “No,” he said, baldly. “But it would be good for business if it looked like I was becoming an upstanding member of the community.” He rubbed his neck. “I have plans, Sera, big plans, But they'll never come if I don't clean up my act. You might say I've got some rough edges that need smoothin'. I thought maybe you could do that for me.”

  “Some rough edge smoothin',” she said mimicking his rough manner of speech. “I see. How do you suggest I accomplish this?”

  “Well...I thought maybe some of your class might rub off on me if we...uh...dated. I'd take you out, show you off, go to nice restaurants for dinners. We'd see the occasional movie. And, whenever either one of us needed to attend a public function, we'd be there for each other. I want you to bring me up, but I don't want to bring you down. I want everyone in town to think that you're with me, that we're a couple. Behind closed doors is another matter. Bluntly put, going to bed with me isn't part of the deal.”

  “I'm sorry. I have a problem with that.”

  “That's okay. I understand. A man like me...a lady like you...I knew it'd never work. Don't worry, I'll still work on the mansion, fix it up for the school, even without you agreeing.”

  Tomas certainly had his own brand of integrity!

  Did she?

  In principle, she didn't approve of trying to hoodwink people. But first and foremost, she was a practical woman, and she recognized that sometimes principles must be stretched for the sake of the greater good. The school was the greater good.

  “No, Tomas, that's not my problem. I was referring to the behind closed doors aspect of the arrangement. Frankly, I need physical release. No sentiment. No romance. No pledges of undying devotion. Just sex. I believe you're the man for the job.”

  Soapsuds floated all around them. It was with some concern that Seraphina looked at the dish dryer. “You should probably close your mouth before you swallow a detergent bubble, Tomas.”

  “Hell, woman! Are all missionaries straight-talkers like you?”

  “We are not all alike.”

  Any more than men with pony tales and earrings and two-day beards are all alike, she reminded herself.

  When his mouth snapped shut, she said, “You see, Tomas, one should never judge a book by its cover. I made that mistake with you when we first met. Don't make that mistake with me now.”

  She drew her shoulders back. “Why don't we both give it some thought? After all, I wouldn't want to take advantage of you when we're behind closed doors,” she said with a wink. “Let me know your decision-say, Monday? Unless you don't normally have sex on Monday? Unless you're only a Saturday night sort of lover?”

  “No, I'm pretty versatile; I can usually squeeze sex in on weekday nights too.”

  Slapping the dishtowel down on the counter, her dinner guest headed for the door.

  Hand on the knob, he turned back around. “What was his name?”

  She blinked in confusion. “Whose name?” she asked, befuddled by the question.

  “Your husband. You've never mentioned him by name.”

  The feeling swamped her. It came and went in waves, rolling over her when she least expected it. It didn't only happen when she talked about him; sometimes it would hit her from someplace in left field. Practicing a piece of music at the piano or taking out the garbage or getting ready to climb into bed and it would just be there, waiting for her. Sometimes she would push through it; other times she would let it engulf her until she felt as though she was drowning in a sea of...in a sea of...

  Nothingness.

  Those were the worst times. She felt like such an imposter then.

  “Matt,” she said, quietly. “My husband's name was Matt. He was such a good man. Too good, really.”

  “I'm a pretty good listener...you know...if you ever want to talk about him.”

  “Thanks for the offer, Tomas, but I think we should keep this arrangement superficial. I need sex; you need to change this town's perception of you. Why don't we just let it go at that?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was Monday morning, and at Ruiz Construction Tomas sat slouched over his desk
, pretending to pour over his blueprints. But no matter how hard he stared at his drawings, no matter how many times he picked up his pencil, he couldn't concentrate enough to make the changes he knew had to be made in the plans. Sera's carelessly flung, ‘Why don't we give it some thought?’ kept interfering with his concentration.

  He was giving it-'it’ being having a sexual relationship with Sera -some thought, all right. Plenty of thought. Hell, fucking Sera was all he was thinking about.

  Sera wanted to have sex. Period.

  He wanted to have sex with Sera. Period.

  The way Tomas saw it, the placement of that punctuation mark was one of those defining moments in a man's life. Suddenly, pretending to be a couple to trick the good folks of Fenton was taking on a secondary importance to actually being a couple for real. Scary.

  Not the part about taking Sera to bed. That wasn't scary. That was easy. He knew he could satisfy her sexually. It was all the rest of the junk that had him worried. Beyond mind-blowing sex, what?

  They had nothing in common.

  Sera was a professional, a teacher with a college degree; his yearly income was well over six figures, but in terms of outlook, he was strictly a blue-collar hard hat.

  She'd grown up in a loving family, with parents who were ministers; he'd been a neglected street kid.

  She was cultured; he was ... good with his hands.

  As much as Tomas wanted to, he knew he couldn't change the past. He couldn't change who he was inside, either. It was the future that had to concern him now. He was determined, to the point of being driven, to make something meaningful out of his life. Being seen with Sera would help him accomplish his goals, but at what price to her?

  This arrangement would do dirt to her good name, make her a target for town gossip. He knew how that went; he'd been the brunt of town gossip all of his life. He had thick skin; he could take the crap dished out. Sera's skin was delicate and fine. The gossip would hurt her and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt Sera. She'd already been hurt enough for a lifetime.

  He couldn't even imagine loving someone the way she must have loved her husband and then lose him to disease. Sometimes, Tomas thought, he was lucky to have never loved anyone like that.

  Matt. Her husband's name was Matt. Probably short for Matthew. Nice name. It probably hurt her too much to say it, to mention him in conversation, and that's why she didn't. Not at all. As in never.

  He wouldn't mind if she talked about him. Tomas meant what he said. He was a good listener. Sera needed to talk to someone about her husband, needed to get those grieving tears out.

  He knew from Myra that Sera had it damn rough in India. He couldn't say he was any too comfortable around weepy women-what guy was?-but the way he looked at it, better he lend her a shoulder than have her keep all that sad crap pent up inside. Sometimes just being there for someone was enough; the words didn't really matter. A good thing, since he'd never been too good with words.

  'Course, offering comfort might be construed as a breach in their superficiality bylaws. Might even lead to friendship. Couldn't have something like friendship lousing up the sex.

  A construction worker poked his head inside the office door. “Hey, boss! The new hydraulic lifts aren't worth crap.”

  “Yeah, and I'm not doing a thing about ‘em until I handle the defective girder problem,” Tomas shot back, temper flying. “What do I look like, a fuckin’ octopus?”

  “Anything you say,” said the hardhat, backing out the trailer door fast. “I was only passing along the information.”

  Yep, all in all, his day had been a royal pain in the posterior.

  Then Myra walked in.

  He didn't look up from the blueprint. “I already made coffee.”

  “I'm fine. Thanks for inquiring.” She sat down heavily behind her desk.

  Tomas belatedly remembered his manners. “Sorry,” he said glumly. “How was your weekend?”

  “No complaints. Yours?”

  “Had dinner over to the Monroe place.”

  Myra nodded. “It's a step in the right direction, Tommie.”

  “S'pose so.”

  Sera had only kissed him like that because she was lonely. Grief did that sometimes. A person in pain would reach out to anyone. He understood that she didn't really want him; she wanted her dead husband.

  Tomas lifted the seat of his jeans up off the chair. “I'm going out, Myra.”

  “When will you be coming back to the trailer?”

  “I don't know.” He'd never been able to keep anything from Myra, and he wasn't about to try now. “A while back, a rock got chucked through a window over at the Monroe place. The dealers that were misplaced from the house are looking to cause trouble, and Sera is caught in the middle. I think my presence at the house 24/7 might get them to think twice about trying something again. If that doesn't work-at least they'll have the right target. “

  She digested that piece of information. “Tommie, those dealers have an ax to grind, don't you let ‘em grind it on you.”

  “Don't worry about me, cupcake. You know I can take care of myself. And I'll take care of Sera, too.”

  Myra gave him one of her special and seldom seen looks. It was an expression that fell someplace between wanting to give him a big sloppy kiss on the forehead and wanting to kick his butt all over town with one of her extra-wide orthopedic shoes. Either way, the affection came through pure and strong.

  “Ya know somethin’ , Tommie Ruiz?

  “What's that, Myra?”

  She wiped at her streaming mascara, then blew her nose hard into a tissue that had seen better days. “Never mind.”

  Sometimes Myra had trouble verbalizing her deeper emotions. And that was okay. She didn't have to. He understood. “Me too, sugarpie.”

  He bent, kissed Myra's cheek, then straightened back up before she slapped him upside the head.

  With a hoarseness that had nothing to do with all those smokes she was still sneaking behind his back, she said, “Go on. Get the hell outta here. Go do what you hafta do.”

  * * * *

  Sera hurried up the path to the back porch, a bag of groceries tucked under each arm, her gaze tracing a yard-wide strip of freshly rototilled dirt on either side of the walk.

  Someone had turned over the soil!

  Someone had started the preparations for a garden while she'd been trying, unsuccessfully, to find teachers for her school.

  Unsuccessfully because she hadn't been able to hire any of the candidates she'd spent the day interviewing. Not a one. As soon as the graduating music majors found out the available positions were located in a dilapidated mansion on Fenton's Southside, they said no thanks.

  Twenty interviews later, Calia Vasquez was still her only teacher.

  How could she possibly open a conservatory of music with only one teacher?

  Unless the mansion was renovated, and soon, come September, she'd be offering private instruction on only two instruments: piano and violin.

  Oh, she could play other instruments. She was proficient in the woodwinds: sax and oboe and clarinet. Mediocre on the brasses: trumpet, French horn, trombone, and tuba. And because she could keep count, she'd get by on percussion. But she wanted her students to have the very best. She didn't want to shortchange them with a teacher who was merely passable in terms of ability.

  The garden was a step in renovating the house into a school. Some people might say that a garden was the very last step, in relation to all the rest of the work still to do at the mansion. Not her. She needed a garden. It warmed her that the person who'd established the bed had taken her feelings into consideration.

  Sera followed the tilled border into her backyard. The wide strip of tilled loam connected to a large circular area mounded in the center. The leisurely winding garden path led a visitor into the backyard in an unhurried manner and made the mansion welcoming, approachable. She could picture the perennials now!

  And picturing them was all she'd do.


  Plants were expensive and she'd need hundreds to fill the dug area. Where would she ever find the additional money needed to fund the landscaping?

  Somewhere! She'd find the cash somewhere. Like her mother always said, ‘Where there's a will, Seraphina, there's a way'.

  Growing-up, she must have heard that old-fashion saying about a million times. The homely cheered her now, as did the memory of her gutsy mom who'd tackled problems bigger than a lack of funding in her ministry.

  Racing for the backstairs, brown grocery bags jiggling, Sera discovered that the man who'd dug the garden had also repaired and painted the porch.

  During her solitary dinner that night, she kept checking the back door expecting to see Tomas at the screen. While washing the dishes in the kitchen sink, she listened for the sound of his footsteps. Finally, because she was literally going crazy inside the house, she took the musical score she was composing and went outside to wait for Tomas on the porch.

  Around ten o'clock, she gave up the wait and went back inside in the house.

  After showering, Sera changed into a lightweight summer nightgown, and moped her way to her bedroom.

  It was Monday, and Tomas wasn't going to come.

  And neither was she.

  * * * *

  Sera removed the tack from her mouth. “Do you think the Julliard in New York got their start like this?”

  Calia Vasquez's stabbed a tack into a poster and pounded both into a wooden utility pole. “I doubt it,” she replied.

  Her teacher took another tack out of her pocket. “Look at it this way-if the school doesn't work out maybe Tomas Ruiz will give us jobs with his finish crew. What do you think?”

  “I've seen the way you hold that hammer, Calia. Stick with the violin.”

  Both teachers collapsed in a bout of slaphappy giggles. Exhaustion, that's what came of tacking up flyers advertising the opening of the music schoo since dawn. Wherever there was a vacant telephone or street pole on the Southside now hung a poster. Some shop owners had generously offered storefront windows to display the homemade signs ... after the winsome Calia strong-armed them into doing the right thing for Fenton's wouldbe child prodigies.