Dancing in the afternoon

Jake shook his head in disgust at himself and walked towards the back of the shop. He heard her voice in the back corner of his consciousness and immediately shut down the intense reaction it brought on. This wasn’t like him at all; no, not at all. Just ask any one, Jake was solid, a good man, someone to count on; not the kind to daydream about exotic Boston women. As he bent to heft a sack of feed to his shoulder, he heard his name being called.

Reluctantly, he turned again to the counter of the store where Evie called him to join the conversation she was having with the Boston lady. “Jake, come on over here,” she called. “This lady could use your help.”

Jake walked back out front slowly. He knew he was now the center of attention in the small store and resented it as he had always resented untoward attention, but good manners required that he respond. “And how might that be?” he growled.

Evie had known Jake all his life and was fully aware how he’d be feeling but she was enjoying this all too much to stop now. “Well,” she called out stridently, “seems she needs a handyman and I’ve been telling her you do a bit on the side. That old house needs a heap of work. You interested?”

Jake wanted nothing more than to yell out no and run for the back but money was money, and, god knows, the farm drank it like whiskey. He turned to the woman in front of the counter and felt again that thud in his stomach. Ignoring it, he asked, “What exactly do you want done?”

Marianne thought to herself that this might be the surliest individual she had ever met, but then she hadn’t been exactly sociable for a long time herself. “I need the stairs fixed and new shelves in the dining room to start and from there, well, like the lady says, the old house needs a lot of work. You interested? I’ll pay well.”

Knowing that to be paid well by someone up from the city was way better than could usually be expected around central Maine, Jake reluctantly agreed to take on the work.

“I can start tomorrow about ten after milking is done.” Thinking that the end of the conversation, he turned back to the back room.

“Well, I’ll be done in moment here,” Marianne spoke to his shoulders. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me a lift home, you can take a look at it all and see what you think needs doing or ordering?”

Halting in mid-step but not turning, Jake ran his fingers through his fine dark hair. He could almost feel Evie’s prurient interest, “Yeah, okay. If that’s what you’d like,” he barked out exasperatedly. He continued on to load the battered old Chevy pickup that stood by the back door.

Marianne gave him a puzzled look. “What’s his problem?” she asked of the room in general. “Just Jake being Jake,” Evie replied. Marianne turned back to the counter, ordered a few foodstuffs and some stamps for the letters she carried. Then she paid the clerk and headed out back to the truck.

Standing beside it in the warm summer sun, she watched Jake hefting the sacks and boxes onto the flatbed. She liked the way he moved, spare and stark. His muscles stood in dark relief against the sweat stained tee shirt he wore. Marianne shook herself. Ruefully, she admitted to herself that it had been a long while since anyone had attracted her attention in just this way, a very long while.