It was just a few days before Christmas, and the wind was chilly and doing an extra good job of sneaking down the back of my jacket collar as I lugged trash from my apartment to the dumpster located just across the parking lot. I wasn't paying much attention to my surroundings, doing my best to keep my head hunkered down between my shoulders and out of the wind. Unfortunately for my sinuses, I wasn't doing a very good job of it, and my head was protesting this trek out into the cold December winds. Just as I reached the dumpster, I heard the sounds of garbage hitting the pavement, followed closely by the sound of a female vice lowly cursing her own clumsiness, and the cold wind and who knows what else.
I tossed my bags into the dumpster and went around to see if I might be able to help. The first thing I saw was a bunch of boxes lying on the ground, then I noticed a female head with long brown hair caught by the breeze, and her hands darting around quickly trying to grab crumpled sheets of newspaper before they blew away.
I quickly stepped over and started grabbing papers and stuffed them into one of the boxes she had dropped. It was obvious from the boxes and the paper that she had just moved in, along with the fact that I hadn't seen her before. I looked across the pile of garbage at her, and muttered the usual half-hearted hello people use when they first meet strangers in awkward situations. She looked up and used her right hand to brush some of her long brown hair out of her face, in the process hooking it behind her ear. As she did, I got my first look at her eyes, blue, with flecks of green and gray hidden in their depths... I think for a moment my heart stopped beating, or at least it skipped a couple of beats at the least.
"Um.. looks like you had a problem," I mumbled, standing up with a couple of boxes in my hands, feeling strange tingles run through my body, and not sure if it was from embarrassment or impending frostbite.
"Yeah... the damn wind snatched the boxes out of my hand just before I could get 'em in the dumpster," she told me, still squatting on the ground holding on to loose sheets of newspaper.
"Let me get that for you," I said, stretching out my hand toward the papers she was holding. She placed them in my hand then grabbed the last couple of boxes and stood up. We tossed the papers and boxes in the dumpster then stood awkwardly for a few minutes, both of us searching for the next thing to do or say. Well, I know I was, and I just guessed she was also.
She suddenly stuck out her hand and said, "Thanks. My name is Laura. I just moved in this weekend and needed to get rid of some empty boxes. Thanks for the help... I didn't look forward to chasing boxes and papers all over the complex."
I grasped her hand and shook, her slim fingers feeling far too tiny and delicate in grip. I told her I was Jack and pointed across the lot at the building I lived in. she told me she lived in the building right across the court from mine. We shook hands again, then both headed for our respective apartments, eager to get out of the cold.
I shut and bolted the door behind me as I entered my apartment and tossed my jacket on one of the chairs. I went over to my recliner and flopped down to watch some tv. As I absentmindedly flicked through the channels, I saw a pair of blue eyes floating in front of me. Some little voice was telling me that meeting Laura would be good for me in the long run.
Personally, I believed it was time something good happened to me. I had had a girlfriend for a couple of years, Elizabeth, a tall blond with bright green eyes who was a sex maniac at times, and ice cold bitch at others. She kept her body in shape through strict diets she could never get me to try, a lot of biking, and as I late found out, a lot of extracurricular fucking. Well maybe not a lot, just with her boss at the bank where she worked. The one she left me for...
I had just decided to ask her to marry me and had bought the ring and had it stashed in my closet. My plan was to ask her that weekend, but when I called her on Wednesday to make plans for the weekend she dropped the bomb on me... she was calling it off. She had fallen in love with her boss at work, and wanted to work on a relationship with him... yada yada yada. I slammed the phone down, and called up one of her co-workers that I knew very well and asked her what she knew about this. She told me that it wasn't something new, Elizabeth had been fooling around with him ever since he'd bought a new Porshe.
"Is she fucking him, or his car," I yelled, ready to throw the phone across the room.
"To tell the truth Jack? I think she's fucking his car and his wallet... and the only way to get to both is through him. I'm sorry ya had to find out like this, but you're better off with out her ya know."
"Yeah.. still sucks though..." I hung up the phone and pulled out a bottle of tequila and promptly forgot everything until the next morning. All that had happened 6 months ago, and I had been feeling like the biggest loser around. I still felt like a loser, but those eyes kept haunting me, even after I gave up remembering the break up and went to bed.
A couple of days later I met Laura in the laundry room. This meeting wasn't as awkward as the last, and I felt happier than I had in a long time when she looked up from the book she was reading, flashing a smile as I came in the door with my load of clothes.
We chatted as I tossed my stuff into two of the machines. She told me that she was 24 and had just moved here to wonderful South Carolina from Florida to be near her grandmother, the last close relative she had, and for some reason I sensed in her voice, a deeper reason, a darker reason.
I told her that I was headed soon to 37 and worked for myself, running a little odd job business... going out to do simple repairs for people who were unable to do it themselves, or weren't able to hire some professional to do it while gouging their wallets of every thin dime they could get
Laura said she she had just gotten a degree in accounting and management, and had taken a job at a local bank, then looked at me strangely as I started laughing when she told me which bank.
"No.. no there is nothing wrong with that bank," I told her when she asked me if I had a problem with that bank. "No... I use it for all my business. My ex works there.. that's what I was laughing about." I told her about Elizabeth and the bank manager and the Porshe. She shook her head and started laughing too. When I asked her what she was laughing about, she told me that the day before she'd seen the district manager in his Mercedes getting his brains screwed out by Elizabeth. I started laughing and was soon holding my sides trying to keep from spitting apart while thinking that Elizabeth was certainly climbing the ladder... from Porshe to Mercedes, from bank manager to district manager.
She then told me about the ex she had left behind. I learned soon that his last name was Bastard, and his first was either Fucking, or Goddamn... or maybe one or the other was a nickname. I never knew, but over time I would start to think of him as Mr. Bastard. After we finished our laundry we headed back to our own places, me feeling a lot better now that I'd been able to talk to someone about my ex, and discovering I wasn't alone in being run over.
I lay down on my couch and idly started replaying my chat with laura in my mind. I was glad we had met somewhere warm this time because as much as I'd been hurt, and had sworn off women for the present, it had been nice to watch her as she wandered around the laundry room, tossing clothes in the dryer... later folding them, moving gracefully from place to place.
Her hair was long, just past the middle of her back, brown with just the lightest hint of waviness. She was maybe 2 or 3 inches shy of my own 5'10", pleasingly chunky, just enough padding to take the sharp corners off, a very nice rack, and a nice set of wide hips that looked like they were made for some one to hold onto while dancing at the club, or between the sheets... and way too young to be interested in an old dog like me. Ah well, nothing gonna happen there, but we seemed to get along well enough, and it would be nice to have a friendly face around to talk to from time to time. As I lay there thinking of her, I started to drift off to sleep, vaguely realizing that my pants had grown way too tight...
Time passed, and by the time late spring rolled around, Laura and I were fast friends. One of us was always at the other's place it seemed, and as spring rolled around we started a tradition of cooking hamburgers on the grill either on Friday or Saturday night. We would start cooking and before we knew it, several of the people we knew would be hanging around. It wasn't a date for us or anything like it. It was more like a party of friends, although a couple of the people we knew started asking when it WAS gonna be a date. I would mumble something about being too old to handle dates, and Laura would stick her tongue out, squinting her eyes and making me break out laughing, feeling at least 10 years younger again.
The only bad part about our weekly cookouts was the fact that warm weather in upstate SC also brings late afternoon or early evening thunderstorms. So as spring grew closer to summer, the cookouts moved indoors or were canceled. It was one of those storms that made us cancel a cookout that changed my whole view of the world.
Over time I had noticed that Laura got tense anytime a storm came through, and more often than not if there was thunder involved she would call to cancel and stay at her apartment. This Friday night was no different, and I didn't blame her at all for staying in her place. It was pouring down rain outside, and the parking lot looked to be a couple of inches deep in water. In the background thunder rumbled, drawing closer with each tick of the clock.
From out of nowhere it seemed, a blinding flash of lightning struck blowing out the transformer for our complex. The air conditioner went dead immediately, and the lights flickered two or three times then followed suit. About 2 or 3 minutes later I heard my cell phone ring, and I rushed to the bedroom to answer it.
"Hello," I said, wondering who was calling, and cursing myself for not looking when I flipped it open.
"Jack? It's me.. Laura. Um.. can I come over?? there's no power here.." she said, sounding nervous.
"None here Laura, and you'd be out of your mind to get out in that rain.."
"I know, but.. I'm scared, and need some company," she told me, the sound of her voice reminding me of a lost little girl for some reason.
"If you think you can swim that far, you know you're always welcome over here.. didn't need to ask ya know..." I told her.
