Chapter Two, Dancing: the Ride Home

Chapter two  ride home

         Marianne’s hands grasped the edges of her hat just a little bit tighter than they should have.  She sat on the bench seat of the jouncing truck primly, with her sandaled feed neatly beside each other and her bag between her legs on the paper strewn floor.  Her gaze was fixed on the passing fields because she had given up any attempt at conversation after receiving a series of grunts from the driver.  Unfriendly, she thought, nope, downright hostile. 
         Jake stared determinedly onto the roadway.  Through the dust and dirt of the back country way, he drove over the ruts and bumps way faster than he normally would have.  Usually, he was too aware of the condition of the undercarriage to hazard this road but now it was the shortest way to the woman’s house, and he wanted this trip over.
         Beneath his stoic exterior, Jake created an increasingly inventive line of curses aimed on Evie’s head.  The woman knew how he hated strangers and she knew the trouble he’d be in when Amy heard about this.  Having the most jealous wife in the county didn’t make his life any easier.  The doctors said it was all part of her condition.  Condition, humph.  Now, this woman with her dust covered legs and golden eyes sat quietly beside him.  For once, Jake new that any imagined feelings Amy would dredge up for him would be true.  He was attracted.  He didn’t like it, he didn’t want it, but he was.  God alone knew how he would deal with seeing her day in and day out while he worked on that rickety old house of hers.  Hell, he would deal with it.  He was an adult and married.  He had made a commitment and he’d stay by it no matter what, but it had been so damn long since he’d seen a woman sit quietly like this with out rushing or raving.
         The farmhouse appeared after another ridge.  It sat, solitary and stern, among old oak trees by the side of the river.  Two stories high with a porch that ran across the full length of the front of it, it had an el that led to the barn in back and another outhouse by a corralled area.  Jake was surprised by the changes to it already.  The former owner had died over eight years ago, and the house had been let go to seed.  It still needed painting badly but the windows glistened and the corral and barn had been repaired.  A pair of horses stood grazing in a fenced in area behind the barn.  There were sheep on the hillside and a few chickens.  Heck, he even saw a goat there.  The kitchen garden had been turned over and was the deep black of aged manure.  Neatly arranged plants sprang up and as they grew closer, Jake could see the start of a good harvest of tomatoes and chard.
          Jake looked out the corner of his eye at the slim woman beside him and thought there might be more there than met the eye.  Maybe the woman wasn’t as useless as most of those southerners.  Still, he could see where she would need a handyman around the place.  The porch sagged in the corner and the front steps were pretty dangerous looking.  He could see where a few of the shingles on the roof had blown off although the roof on the barn did show signs of new repair. 
         He pulled up to the front of the house and, jumping down, he grabbed the woman’s groceries from the bed of the truck.  Starting up the porch stairs, he examined the woodwork as he climbed. 
         Behind him, Marianne thought to herself, “Well!”  She pushed open the truck door on her own side, and slid down to the ground.  Picking up her bag and shoes, she watched with a feeling of irritation as Jake pushed open her front door and entered.  It was her house after all. 
         Jake allowed his eyes to adjust to the cool darkness of the house.  He stood in an entryway that had an arch to the right into the kitchen and another on the left that opened into a long empty room.  Ahead was a staircase.  Jake’s grandfather had been a carpenter in his spare time, coming from a long line of carpenters. He had given Jake a fine appreciation of the beauty of wood.  This staircase was beauty.  He felt the woman take the bags from his arms and eagerly stepped forward.  Running his hands over the newel, cherry, he breathed on sigh of satisfaction.  He had thought so when he first saw the deep ruddy color of the post.  His hands itched to work on this.  The stairs needed a couple of new rungs and the railing was missing posts.  He could turn new ones easily to match.  Getting the same color tone of the well-worn posts would be hard but not impossible.
         Marianne stood in the archway of the kitchen.  She had put her bags up while he studied the steps.  In the city, she had often watched artists work, and she recognized in the rough, lanky farmer someone with a love of wood.  If he could produce half as well as he loved, maybe they would do well after all.  “You’ll start tomorrow, then?”
         Jake took a deep breath and pulled himself back from his contemplation of the wood.  “Yeah, tomorrow.”  He shook his head as if to shake himself out of a dream.  “No, I’ll have to go into the city to get wood to match this.  The lumberyard here doesn’t have a call for special woods often.  You know this is special stuff, right?  Cherry wood?”
         The smile that cracked fissures in his face surprised Marianne.  “Well, I didn’t but I’m glad you do.  All right, then, give me the name of the place you’ll be shopping and I’ll set up an account for you.”
         Shutters fell across Jake’s face at this reminder of the difference between them.  He wrote the name on a slip of paper with the old stub pencil in his pocket and nodded his head without meeting her eyes.  He didn’t need to see that smile again.  Turning out the door, he called back over his shoulder,  “Guess I’ll do the front steps first.  Make it safer.” 
         He climbed into the cab of the truck, started up the engine and pulled out without looking back. 
         Marianne stood in the front doorway watching the dust cloud behind his truck disappear into the distance.  “It’s probably just as well.  Cranky as he is, he’ll never be asking any questions.”  She closed the door firmly and shut off the world again.