The nerve!
“Good-bye!” she said, hanging up the phone. She fell back onto the pillows, and pulled the sheet, then the comforter up around her, mad that such a nice dream had been interrupted like that. Didn't these people realize you had a life outside of their problems? From his point of view, she was this lazy good-for-nothing housewife who had nothing better to do than spend all her time considering what else needed doing to perfect this house that took all her time already and was eating them up with its needs and its extravagances!
Was it her fault the roof leaked? Was it her fault mice had crept into the basement and were nesting in the old dryer down there? And heating cost so much? Was it all her fault they had three children who needed a safe, warm house, clothing, food, books, and a father once in a while?
She couldn't get back to sleep. Combing her hair, she stared into the mirror at the face of a woman she barely recognized. She had gained a lot of weight since she had married. Diets didn't seem to help. Age had taken the soft prettiness Geraldo had once loved and left a middle-aged lady with hard lines around the eyes and mouth, in a housecoat in the middle of the day, hardly able to get out of bed. Geraldo had noticed and judged.
Funny how he remained so possessive of her, quite jealous of men on the street who caught her eye, cockadoodling like a rooster if she even once looked back. Old habit, she guessed. He could get really angry and impossible, irrational even, on the topic of other men, so she was always very careful not to trample his male ego. Yet here he was anyway, slipping away from her.
She could get him back. Rallying, she put on some tights and a big clean T-shirt. She would hop on the Exercycle. She had just enough time before the kids got home.
Propping a book on a stand near the stationary bike, she began pedaling. She pedaled hard, so that the sweat broke out on her forehead and ran down her face. With one hand, she picked up the book, turning the pages as she finished, skimming, mostly absorbed in the workout her body was getting. Geraldo deserved something better from her, a better devotion. She knew it. She loved him and she was making him unhappy. She needed to work harder, do better. He had taken her checkbook and her credit card that morning, and left her with just a little cash. She had resented it, yes, but she would rise above it, not letting this petty garbage get between them.
Sweating, pedaling, breathing hard, she resolved to work off the extra pounds, keep the house cleaner, even scrub the damn toilet bowls more often, and quit spending extra money he didn't think they could afford, even if she disagreed. It wasn't worth losing her marriage, just because he was a skinflint in some ways, and nagged her so much about her spending habits. He was a good father, the best, and had always been an attentive husband until recently. She would promise him no more wastefulness, no more frivolity, and stick to the bargain.
She didn't think there was another serious woman in the picture yet. She still had time to work things out with him.
She would get the kids to bed early tonight, put on a pretty negligee, and perfume. He had said he would be home early, so that they could talk. Instead, she planned to show him she remembered how to be a wife to him, in every way.
She had answered the door without hesitation, thinking Geraldo must have misplaced his key. A strange man in a uniform with an emblem sewn above his pocket stood on the porch, staring at her nightie.
“Mrs. Rodriguez,” he said. “It's so good to meet you in person.”
She knew the voice, but couldn't place it. Aware of the darkness outside, the hour, and the skimpiness of her clothes, she tried to close the door, but the man had a toe in the way.
“I'm here to clean the furnace,” he said. “You made an appointment with me for tonight.” She couldn't see him too well on the porch, but what she could see matched the voice: a pockmarked face, a short body, a certain twist to the trunk that suggested something not quite right with his posture.
Had she made an arrangement with this man? She had drunk a few glasses of wine that evening, waiting for Geraldo, who had said he was delayed, quite a few glasses, and those phone calls just weren't all that important. She couldn't remember exactly what she had said. She got a lot of calls from solicitors, and at the moment, she had a headache and a certain amount of blurriness.
“This is a bad time,” she said.
“I'll have to charge you seventy-five dollars for a house call whether I clean the furnace or not, at this point, Mrs. Rodriguez. It'll only take fifteen minutes. Might as well let me do my job.”
Seventy-five dollars! For fifteen minutes of work! Geraldo would kill her! Lost in her thoughts, trying to figure out a way to make this whole thing palatable to her husband, who should be home any moment, she let the little man in.
He brought some tools in a canvas plumber's bag. While she scrambled for a robe, he picked up dirt and lots of clinky bits of debris from the vents in each room, snaking a long vacuum hose a long way down, except for in the children's bedrooms, even though, as he said, those might be the dirtiest. Kids stuck all kinds of things down there. But she didn't want him to wake them up.
Then he needed to get into the basement. Geraldo insisted that she unlock the basement for workers, and never give out the key to anyone. To get there, they had to go out the back door, and down a steep hill alongside the house to a half-size door that led underneath. She put some shoes on, and turned on the outside lights while he waited, watching her. She pulled a jacket on over the wispy robe she had found, tucking her wallet into its pocket, and led him outside. She wasn't letting him back in the house.
He followed her down the steep hill, slipping and sliding in the mud. She had trouble with the key; it took forever to get the door open. The cold night air worked on her, and suddenly clearheaded, she remembered the phone call. She hadn't told the furnace man to come at all.
He followed her through the door.
She flipped the light on by the door, exposing the dirt floor of a hillside basement and showed him where the furnace was, in the farthest corner, while she tried to think about what she should do now he was here and had already done some of the work. He fiddled with the furnace for a couple of minutes, maybe five total, and announced that he was done.
“You said you would replace the filter,” she said. “I didn't see any filter.”
“I don't have the right size. Anyway, yours is in good shape. You don't need a new one.”
She hadn't needed to have the furnace cleaned, either. And she could as easily have vacuumed the vents.
“I'm not going to pay you,” she said. “You didn't do anything. And I didn't ask you to come here tonight.”
“Oh, but you did, Mrs. Rodriguez,” he said, coming close enough so that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. Maybe he could smell hers, too. “You wanted me to come. And now you owe me.”
“I'm not going to pay,” she said. She took a step back. Her foot caught on a box, and she started to fall. The furnace man caught her in his arms, one hand still clinging to a heavy wrench that she hadn't seen him use.
She pulled away, shaking him off like dirt.
“Where's your husband tonight, Mrs. Rodriguez? Working late, huh?” He blinked brown eyes as solid and impassive-looking as thumbtacks. “He'll pay if you don't. I'll just wait with you for him to come home and we'll tell him all about it.”
She was walking toward the basement door, with him following a few steps behind. She whirled to face him. “We're not going to pay! I never asked you to do anything!”
“Look at it from my point of view,” he said, taking that wheedling tack that she just hated. “You have this nice house in a nice neighborhood. I come and do some work for you: I expect to get paid. Is that so hard to understand? Don't tell me you can't afford it. Not too many women can stay home these days, but you do. You're home all day, aren't you? Plenty of time to take a little nap, get out some frozen food for dinner real quick before everyone comes home. It's a nice setup.”
“What do you know about me? You don't know me at all.”
He laughed, and the sound sent a chill up her bare legs. “I know enough. You had a dirty furnace and I cleaned it. Now you owe me money.” All in that nasty voice of his…
“You can't stay.”
“I'm not leaving until I'm paid.”
She wanted this settled without him making a racket and waking the kids and her neighbors. They were standing at the basement door. She took her wallet from her jacket pocket. “Look,” she said. “Just take a look. I only have twenty dollars. How about if you take that and go away?”
“That's not enough,” he said.
“You hardly did anything.”
“The job is seventy-five bucks. It's a deal. A sale.” He set his bag down, with the wrench on top of it, as if he were resigning himself to a long wait.
“What's the name of your company?”
“Goodwill Heating and Plumbing,” he said.
Huh? For the first time she realized he had never given her the same name twice. He was making things up as he went along. Why, she'd bet he didn't even have a shop! Coming to her house like this, in the night, uninvited… probably just set off in his truck with no idea who would be foolish enough to let him in, no business address, no records of any kind… She should never have let him into the house. “Send me a bill. I'll get the money and send it to you.”
“Cash on completion,” he said.
“You have got to leave. My husband is about to come home. If he finds you here…”
“What?” he asked innocently. “Didn't you tell him about the furnace?”
She wanted to scream at him. My God, the man was unreasonable. He was making her crazy! He had no idea! Geraldo might be home any minute! Her husband would be wild, finding her dressed like some floozy, and a man hanging around. He could ruin everything worth anything in her life with his impossible demands! “Get out!”
He folded his arms, and stood there with a little smile on his face. He had her. The men always did get their way…
She grabbed the heavy wrench off his bag, raised it in both hands, and brought it down on his head, while he stood there, goggle-eyed with surprise. He had never expected such a thing from her, that was for sure. He knew nothing about her, nothing. She had to hit him several times before he stopped moving and thrashing around on the ground.
She went back up to the house to get a couple of big trash bags out of the kitchen drawer, put some yellow plastic dishwashing gloves on, and bagged him up, using tape to seal the bags. She made a quick trip to the garage for the shovel, and went to work, digging a fairly deep hole, one that would cover him nicely, in the soft loamy soil at the middle of the basement. She buried him with his tools.
With a bucket of cold water, she went to work on the blood that had spattered the basement wall. Cold water on blood. She wondered if men knew that.
She had a good marriage. She would do anything to save it.
She wondered if Geraldo knew that.
Trio
“Don't ask me that.”
“Why not? You love me. I'm waiting for you to say you don't love me.”
“Please.”
“I didn't come all this way to let you off easy. You have to decide.”
