It was half an hour before twelve, and I was straightening things up around the living room when I heard the doorbell ring. "Hmm, wonder who that could be," I thought, and set down the magazines I was going through on the coffee table to answer it. When I opened the door, Jacob was there, smiling a bit nervously at me.
"Oh! You're here early." I stepped outside and shut the door. His truck was parked outside my house again, but this time it was full of equipment, including a lawn mower.
"Yeah, I didn't really have too much to do so I figured it would be better to get here early, in case you had other plans later on today..." he mumbled, trailing off.
"Well, that's fine. You can start with the front yard. If you want, you can look around and familiarize yourself with it, so you don't go running over stuff you shouldn't. I know there's a few plants and stuff around here hidden in the grass. I'm not sure if they're alive or not. I can help you with that, and then it's all yours. If you want, I can do the same for the backyard."
We poked around the front and backyard for about five or ten minutes, and we did find some dead plants, and also some large decorative rocks that were completely overgrown. I left him to start and headed back inside.
Half an hour later I went outside to check up on him. He finished the front yard and was raking up the clippings. "Hey, do you want to take a break for a little while?" I asked him.
He wiped the sweat off his face with his forearm. "Yeah, sure, I'll be there in a sec. Just let me get these in a bag," he replied, waving at the pile of grass.
A few minutes later he was sitting at the table draining a large glass of tea. It was gone within a few seconds. I was surprised he didn't get brain freeze.
I laughed a little. "Er...do you want a refill?" I said, reaching for the glass. "I'd love one. Or maybe two. Please?" he laughed, handing me the glass.
Four glasses of iced tea later (boy, he could drink!), he was back outside fighting with my lawn. It took him another half hour to do the backlawn, and twenty minutes to trim, plus five extra minutes to fight with the weeds growing over the rock garden.
I was picking through my purse to find my checkbook as he was dumping the clippings in my compost heap. I could see him through the window.
I stopped what I was doing for a minute, mesmerized by his sweat-slick muscles, glistening in the summer sun. A slight tremor ran through my body, imagining what a guy like that could do to a woman. I quickly shook myself out of it as he was walking back towards the house.
I made up some more tea while he was outside (he finished off the gallon I made earlier), and he settled himself back at my table to rest a little, a large glass of tea in his hand.
"Well, Jacob. You did a great job. You really are as good as you said you were. I'm going to give you sixty instead of forty five." He looked about ready to protest, but he probably needed it too badly to just blindly wave it off, so he said thank you instead.
"I know you're dirty and probably exhausted, but why don't you just take a shower here so you don't have to ride all the way home like that?" I offered.
"Oh, uh, thanks. I'd really appreciate it. I've, uh, got some spare clothes in my truck. Let me get those real fast and I can clean up." he said, looking oddly relieved. Jacob walked out the door to his truck to get his things.
* * * * *
"Sorry, Jacob, but I can't really do anything for you." The supervisor said. "Prices are going up, and I've got bills to pay, too, you know. I just can't have tenants that are a couple months late on their rent all the time."
He looked somewhat apologetic at me as he closed the door in my face. I grabbed my bags off the floor and threw them in the back seat of my truck.
It wasn't much, but that was all I had in my apartment. I still had to clear out my garage of my equipment, too. The supe told me he couldn't let me keep my stuff in there for a few days 'til I found somewhere else to live because he already found a new tenant that had a steady job and could pay his rent in a timely manner. Could you believe it!
Grumbling, I drove around to the back and gently packed my livelihood into the bed of my Chevy. I checked my watch. It was only 11:20. "What a way to start your day," I moaned.
"Well, I guess there's nothing else I can do but go to Miss..uh, Mrs. Sawan's. I can't remember which one it was. Oh well. I don't think she'll be upset I got there too early." I said to myself, then climbed back in the truck and drove to her place.
I rang the doorbell, hoping she wouldn't notice how much extra stuff I had in my truck just to mow her lawn. I had thought about what I was going to do about my lack of somewhere to live the whole drive down, and came up with a hazy plan.
She opened the door, a little surprised I was there early. We talked a little bit, and she told me what she wanted, and even helped me search for obstacles that might have been lurking in the depths of her overgrown lawn.
I made quick work of the front, went inside for a break and some awesome sweet iced tea, then back outside to finish up.
As I came back in, I saw her sitting at the kitchen table where I took my breaks earlier. She had made up some more tea, and I eagerly helped myself to some of it as I sat down.
She told me I did a great job and even offered me more money than she originally told me she was going to pay. I was about to be all chivalry and tell her I couldn't possibly take more than we had already agreed on, but then what happened earlier popped into my head, and I just mumbled a thank you.
I was lucky I had already paid off my college for the year, but I still needed money for a new apartment.
