He raised his eyes just slightly over the top of the Auto Mechanics magazine
he was leafing through, and quickly lowered them again, going semi-dormant.
“I mean, really. What is it? Jeez.” She marched across
the small room, old carpet sending up small poofs of dust.
“Maybe we should vacuum,” he thought, holding still, practically
holding his breath. “Better not bring it up now. She’s
about to blow.” He smiled, but not until after she had left the
room. He went outside, looked at the sky. “Might rain,” he
thought, half listening like a bat, echo-locating where she might be
so he’d be out of range of danger, but close enough that when
the mood shifted he could swoop in on her.
“Where’d you go? You need the truck this afternoon? Think I’ll
go to the store. Got to get out of this place. Need anything?” she
asked.
“I’m out here, Popsicle. Surprise me.”
“Do you have a twenty I can borrow?”
“Yep. Got paid yesterday. You knew that.”
“That’s why I’m asking today, not yesterday, Deedlebug.” She
ruffled his hair, grabbed the twenty and went to the car.
“Hey, wait a minute. That twenty has a price tag. Come here
you high tempered filly. I want a hug.”
She ignored him and zoomed
off, adding the sound of an old, out of tune engine to the noise
level. He sat back down in the living room
with his
magazine,
bare feet on the table and finished flipping the pages. He went
into the kitchen.
“I’m back,” she yelled, holey screen door slamming
behind her, grocery bag in her arms. “Something smells good in
here. Garlic. “
He kept his back to her, stirred the tomato sauce,
checked to see if the spaghetti water was boiling yet. She came up
behind him and put
her arms around him, smiling into the warm place on his neck.
“It’s about time I got that hug. What did you bring me?’
“Look and see.”
He expected beer. Maybe some pretzels.
Instead there was a bag of miniature Reese’s cups, popcorn, the
kind you shook over a burner on the stove, and a huge bottle of Dr.
Pepper.
“You said to surprise you.” Her eyes were now flashing with humor
instead of irritation. Show me what you’ve been working on.”
“The spaghetti sauce?”
“No. What you’ve been working on all day banging around the back
yard, driving me crazy, until you came in here to drive me nuts.”
“Oh, that.” He walked her, hands on her shoulders, out the back
door behind the garage. There, a large blue shingle roofed doghouse
just happened to be catching the last rays of sun.
“Really? A dog? Now? Yeah.” she jigged around in a circle, practically
wagging her tail.
He finally got a real hug, from the front, with lots of kisses.
“The Johnson’s mutt had puppies. Their paws are huge so I made
a big house. There are six in the litter. But the deal is, I get to
choose which one we get.”
“One?”
