Katherine stumbled out onto the uneven back stoop, audibly groaning under the weight of the heavy-duty trash bag. It was full of crumbled plaster and strips of wooden lathe and swung ponderously, threatening to pull her over with each uncertain step. As her foot slipped on the sloping stone slab she overcompensated and was forced to let the bag drop with a heavy crunch. Catching herself with a sideways grab at the door frame, she slammed backwards into the peeling paint of the old wood siding.
When she looked over to her left she saw the two college boys next door watching her with bemused faces.
"What the hell have I gotten myself into," she said over the fence with a degree of humor she wasn't actually feeling. She knew if she let herself acknowledge her discouragement she'd just start crying again.
"Spring cleaning day?" asked cute blond one with a smile. His firm jaw was covered with peach-fuzz stubble and tilted slightly as he flashed a half-smile.
There was a time when Katherine would have died rather than let a boy like that see her as she was now; her body hidden under baggy, faded red sweats; her light brown hair bunched up under an old baseball cap; her face without makeup and her body covered from head to toe in plaster dust. But the circumstances of her recent divorce had left a scar on her self confidence and she had no illusions that some hot young stud like that had any interest in a thirty four year old package of damaged goods like her. Not that she wouldn't jump at the chance, the kid was fine.
"Every year I tell myself I'm going to dust more frequently, then I find myself like this," she quipped as he batted the plaster dust from her arms and torso; raising a cloud that drifted away in the afternoon sun.
"Yeah, put off your work all year and you find yourself struggling to catch up at the last minute," said the other boy, arching an eyebrow up into his dark bangs and raising the textbook he was reading.
"Finals, huh?"
"Yeah," they replied together.
"I don't miss those days. Maybe the partying, but not the coursework," she said.
She cringed inwardly at her lie. She had been a very late bloomer. The truth was that she was a dork in college who lived off campus with her aunt. In those days she was a scrawny poetry nerd and a frumpy dresser. She had never gotten invited to any good parties. She wondered why she was casually falsifying her history to these kids.
"Yeah partying is great until you find yourself trying to learn statistics in an afternoon," said the dark haired one, reaching up to brush his shaggy mop out of his eyes.
"I don't envy you guys," replied Katherine. She pushed herself off the wall and positioned her feet on either side of the bag of debris, bracing herself to lift it again. "But then, I'm not envying myself either."
"How's it coming in there?" asked the blond one before she had a chance to grab the bag and break off the conversation. He had ambled over to the old chain-link fence and was leaning on it. His sinewy arms stretched out from his sleeveless "Rutgers Lacrosse" tee-shirt.
"Slowly. It's going too damn slowly. I'm starting to think it might have been a mistake to kick out my ex-husband just because he was diddling the sophomores," said Katherine, trying to be funny, but instantly regretting it.
She saw the dark haired kid look away in sudden embarrassment for her. That made it worse. The blond asked guilelessly, "You were married to Dr. Morris?"
"Yes," she sighed.
Katherine could feel herself blushing. She was annoyed for still feeling uncomfortable about her breakup with Jack. It wasn't her fault that her husband couldn't keep his dick out of the student body. She had done everything she could to keep him at home. She had gone to the gym five times a week; had started to dress a little sexier; had let Jack experiment with sticking his prick in her "alternate orifices" as he so romantically put it. But just because she drew the line at letting some slut in the bed with them, he was suddenly accusing her of "becoming an old prude". Then one day her doctor told her she had mysteriously contracted the clap and the whole thing just fell apart.
It wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been a public scandal with articles in the school and local papers and a couple of stories on the TV news. So, of course these kids knew about it; this had all happened only a semester ago. It would take a few years before this cohort got flushed out of the university system and her wrecked personal life could be considered ancient history.
"My ex-girlfriend was one of the girls he..."
"Jesus Eric, get a fucking clue. She doesn't want to talk about this," said the dark haired boy.
Eric blushed at his faux pas and mumbled out an apology. Katherine could feel her eyes go red and a tear leak out to wash a path through the white dust on her face. Using every scrap of her self control she willed herself not to break down crying. A few more tears escaped her, but she avoided a blubbering scene.
"I better get back to work," she choked out and reached down to grab hold of the bag at her feet.
"You need some help with that? You're just taking that bag around to the dumpster in front, right?" asked the blond kid, Eric. He seemed eager to wash away his awkward slip with honest labor.
"No, you have studying to do," Katherine demurred. She didn't feel like accepting help from any man right now. Once again, Jack's sins were infecting the whole opposite sex in her eyes. "I can take care of this myself."
"How many of those bags you have in there?" asked the kid with the mop of black hair. He had got up from the table and was moving to join Eric at the fence. He was about five foot nine, maybe half a foot shorter than Eric, but built thicker; well muscled with a wide chest and shoulders that strained at the fabric of his old "Pixies" tee-shirt.
"I dunno, maybe a dozen more," she said, letting herself be convinced.
The two boys looked at each other and shrugged a no-big-deal shrug. "We can clear that stuff out for you, no prob," said Pixies shirt guy.
