Page 122 of Story of My Life
“Wallet.” God, I was an idiot. Why couldn’t I just have a nice, normal conversation with a nice, normal woman? Why did everything have to be such a goddamn pain in the ass?
I heard voices and a series of shrill yaps coming from the sidewalk behind me. I knew those barks. It was Ms. Patsy taking her pack of rabid chihuahuas for their evening stroll.
“You want my wallet?” Hazel asked, lifting her eyebrows.
“No. I want mine. I left it here.” I pushed my way inside and closed the door behind me before Ms. Patsy could spot me.
“Well, have fun looking for it,” Hazel said, returning her attention to the stepladder. She dragged it another two feet toward the sitting room.
On a long-suffering sigh, I grabbed it from her. “What are you doing?”
She gave the ladder another tug. “I’m trying to hang up some curtains so the five citizens of Story Lake don’t get an eyeful of me watching trashy TV at night.”
I picked up the ladder and carried it into the sitting room.
“Couch looks good,” I said. It was one of those white fluffy things that looked more like a cloud than a piece of furniture. It was flanked by two fussy end tables. She’d repurposed the upholstered ottoman from the parlor as a coffee table. The new seating area faced the wall, where a not-quite-large-enough TV leaned precariously against its cardboard box on the floor.
“I know I should have waited until you redo the floors, but it’s really nice to have a place to sit that isn’t a moving box or the floor.”
I set the stepladder up under one of the tall front windows and picked up the curtain rod she’d left on the floor. “How are you putting these up?”
“Well, it came with screws. I found a screwdriver in the garage and figured I would just manually…” She performed a poor imitation that was closer to stabbing than screwing.
“No, you won’t.”
“Who are you? The curtain police?” she quipped.
“You try to do this yourself, you’re gonna end up stabbing a dozen holes in the plaster and yourself. I’ll have to fix all of them, which will piss me off, and I’m fresh out of Band-Aids.”
“You’re always pissed off,” she complained.
“A fair assessment.”
She tapped her foot in its fuzzy flip-flop-like slipper. “Fine Whatever. I’ll just get those paper blinds that you stick to the frame.”
“Go get my drill.”
“What? No. Get it yourself.”
“I need my drill, a level, some of that blue painter’s tape, and a pencil if you can dig one up. Should all be in the tool tote in the kitchen.”
“Why?”
“So I can hang your damn curtains so people can’t see you watch your trash floor TV.”
“Why are you being almost nice all of a sudden?”
“Because I drove my niece home from school and she was pissed at a guy who blew hot and cold instead of just being honest. Because I’ve been acting like a thirty-eight-year-old teenage idiot too busy drawing lines and crossing them to clear the air with you.”
Hazel studied me for a beat. “Okay. I’ll get your stuff.”
“How’s it look?”I asked, holding the rod and curtains above the window trim.
“Good. You were right about not hemming them. They look fancier this way,” Hazel said.
“I mean, does it look level?” I said dryly.
“Oh, yeah. That too.”
