11.01.2007

the Reliable Painting Company

Living at Sanatoga Lake in an old cottage without hot water is no picnic, but the rent is cheap and Jan and I learn to grab showers wherever we can and she keeps telling me that it helps to be in love.

Look, I blame myself for telling her all about this nice house Billy and me are working on and how the owners are gone during the day. We have enough to worry about up on ladders painting the eaves of this place when Jan shows up with her towels and lotions to take a shower. Well, Mister comes home early to find Jan upstairs drying her hair with the bathroom all fogged up and he fires us on the spot, all the time giving us this big lecture that we didn't need to hear while we're loading paint cans and tarps into the truck.

At first I feel sorry about what happened, but, within a few weeks, Billy hires on down at the scrap yard and then Jan moves in with him and soon none of it seems very important anymore.

I usually remember only one thing about the day we get kicked off the job, and that's how in the evening, after Jan and I run out for something to eat, we drive back to the cottage but I don't feel like going inside yet. I take the cushions off the porch furniture and put them in the bed of the pick-up truck and lie down back there and fall asleep, I guess. When I wake up, it's dark and I hear crickets and see the stars flicker overhead and I am thinking that she's right: it does help to be in love.

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