The Handyman's Dream (4 page)

“Well, at first I was all for hiring a private dick and tracking him down, at least so I could beat the snot out of him, if nothing else. But I began to think that Claire was probably a lot better off without him. Mom was all for Claire moving back to Indy, but Claire wouldn’t hear of it. She had her job, and she thought the kids had been through enough without having to change towns and schools and make new friends.

“Still, Hank’s taking off like that flattened her. I think she’d been through so much already, she just . . . oh, she didn’t fall apart, but she was really having a hard time adjusting to being a single parent. We were talking on the phone one night, and she kinda jokingly said she was going to see if they had any openings at the Porterfield post office. At first I thought she was crazy, but then the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. My nieces and nephew are great kids, and it began to seem like a good idea, me moving up here to help out, as opposed to Mom getting her way and uprooting the bunch of them. Plus, I had my own reasons for thinking a change of scenery wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“Anyway,” Rick said, grinning, “to try to make this long story a little shorter, I moved up here in July, got a job at the post office, and began delivering mail on your street about a month ago. Claire’s life has suddenly gotten a lot easier, and the kids are thrilled to have Uncle Rick around full-time. It seems to be helping everyone, except my mom, who’s now added me to her worry list. But that’s nothing new.”

“Wow," Ed said softly. "That’s quite a story. I mean, that you’d be willing to do that for your sister and her kids. My sister is the greatest, and her kids are okay, but I don’t know if I could do that. But then again, her husband’s a pretty cool guy.”

“There was nothing cool about Hank Romanowski,” Rick said flatly. “Look up asshole in the dictionary, and there he’ll be! Oh, it may seem like some great noble sacrifice I’m making, but for the kids’ sake, I’m glad to do it. Besides, you do what you gotta do for the people you love.”

Ed’s admiration of Rick grew. Nope, the guy was no creep.

“Man,” Rick said, looking embarrassed again. “Here I am, hogging the conversation! What about you? I don’t know anything about you except your name is Ed Stephens, you live on Coleman Street, and”—Rick dropped his eyes to the table, then raised them to Ed’s—“you’re awfully cute. By the way, my name’s Rick Benton. I just realized I never introduced myself. Hell, I feel like I already know you!”

Ed was blushing from Rick’s observation, not to mention the fact he already knew Rick’s name, or at least his first one. My God! He thinks I’m cute. The Dream Man thinks I’m cute. Somehow Ed managed to get past that to say, rather casually, that Ralph Graham had told him Rick’s name in passing.

“I guess I felt like I knew you already, too,” he said, looking again into those beautiful, dark brown eyes.

Rick looked steadily back. Ed knew he was not fooling himself. Something was definitely growing between them, not unlike the something currently growing in his jeans.

“I’m a handyman,” he finally managed to say. “I used to work for Marsden Electric, but I’m self-employed now. Like it a lot better, too.”

“A handyman,” Rick said, admiration in his eyes. “Wow! You mean you really go around, toolbox in hand, fixing things for people?”

Ed nodded, a fresh blush on his face.

“How ’bout that? A gay man who can fix things. That is so cool. Well, I know I already kinda said this, but I’ll say it again. You have got to be the cutest handyman in Porterfield, Indiana.”

Ed’s blush deepened, reddening his fair-skinned cheeks. He bolstered his shaky self-confidence and was able to reply, “I know you are absolutely the cutest guy who ever delivered mail in Porterfield.”

Rick lowered his eyes and smiled. “Thanks.”

“How’d you find this place?” Ed asked, to change the subject.

“Oh, Claire told me about it,” Rick replied, his gaze once again upon Ed. “Just like my folks, she’s cool with the gay thing. I think she’s worried about me, since I haven’t had much social life outside of her and the kids since I moved here. She all but pushed me out of the house tonight, telling me to have some fun if it killed me.”

“You’re looking pretty alive and well to me,” Ed said, shocking himself at his own boldness.

“You too,” Rick said quietly, smiling again.

The bar was getting crowded. Ed noticed a long line of guys waiting for drinks at the bar, and he could just make out the bobbing heads of the dancers in the disco room. “Upside Down” was playing. Ed, who was not typically gay about some things, was definitely a gay man when it came to Diana Ross. He’d loved her since he’d first heard the Supremes on the radio years before. His foot tapped the beat against the floor, and he thought about asking Rick to dance.

“I love this song,” he commented.

“Me too.”

Rick’s smile became bashful.

“I’d ask you to dance, Ed, but I’m not all that good at it. Besides, I’d much rather dance to something slow with you.”

At the idea of actually touching Rick, that electric charge went through Ed again. “That would be nice,” he said softly. “And don’t worry, I’m not much of a dancer either!”

They both laughed. Rick took a long sip from his bottle of beer, and Ed raised his glass to his mouth, surprised to see that the ice had almost melted while they had been talking. He knew beyond any doubt that he wanted to get to know Rick Benton better—hell, a whole lot better—but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He didn’t want to do anything to offend Rick, and more importantly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to rush whatever was happening between them.

“I really like the music they play now,” Rick was saying. “But sometimes I miss the music from my high school days, in the late sixties.”

“Me too.” Ed couldn’t help but wonder what else they had in common. “I graduated in 1970. How about you?”

“Broad Ripple High, class of ’69,” Rick said mock proudly, “which makes me twenty-nine. And you’re . . . what? Twenty-eight?”

“Just turned, yes. Porterfield High for me! We had one hundred and seven kids in our graduating class. I’ll bet yours was a lot bigger!”

“Oh, yes. I tell you, I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up in a small town, but you know? I really kind of like living there. Everybody’s so friendly, especially the people on my route. Why, I can’t tell you how many of them have stopped to make conversation while I’m delivering their mail. Hell, that hardly ever happened when I was working on the north side of Indy.”

Ed snickered. “Oh, I don’t know if they’re being friendly or just nosy. There’s a lot of that in a small town, believe me. Just be glad my mom’s house isn’t on your route. She’d have your whole life story by now.”

Rick laughed, then tipped his beer to his mouth for the last few drops. He set the bottle down carefully, studying it. He looked up at Ed and studied him as well.

“You know, when I delivered that letter to you yesterday, I was really hoping I’d get to see you again. I mean, I told myself I was imagining things, but I just had the feeling, you know?”

“Me too. My friend Glen calls it fag intuition, but I just call it wishful thinking.”

Rick laughed again. “Yeah, that’s right! But I never, ever guessed I’d run into you here tonight. You didn’t get any mail today, you know. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was.”

Ed, blushing once again, couldn’t think of anything to say.

“I think that’s why I let Claire talk me into coming out tonight. When I saw you yesterday, it hit me that I’d been awfully lonely lately. So I came here . . . oh, hoping to . . . well, whatever. You know how these places are.”

“Yeah, I know. Thing is, I think I came here for the same reason, after seeing you yesterday.”

Rick looked at him in surprise. “Then it wasn’t my imagination? I mean, that maybe it wasn’t so much the intuition thing as . . . ” He trailed off, looking at the floor.

“Rick,” Ed said, thinking how good it felt to say his name, “as far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t your imagination.”

Rick looked up to meet Ed’s eyes. The music was thumping even louder from the disco, Freddie Mercury hollering his way through “Another One Bites the Dust,” but Ed was so lost in Rick's eyes he could not have said what was playing.

Rick slowly put his hand on the table, palm up. Ed reached out, tentatively, to take it in his own. He almost gasped when they touched. That electric shock roared through him again. Rick looked at his hand in Ed’s, then looked up at Ed.

“Damn,” Rick whispered hoarsely. “I wish I could kiss you right now, right this very minute.”

“Me too.”

But neither one of them moved. They sat, hands lightly clasped, looking at each other across the table. For a moment they seemed to be the only two people in the place, but then someone drunkenly bumped into their table. Rick’s empty beer bottle tipped, and his free hand reached out to grab it. He carefully steadied the bottle.

“If I’m going to kiss you, I don’t want it to be here,” he said to the bottle.

“I . . . I don’t know how you’d feel about this,” Ed stammered. “But we could go back to my place.”

Rick looked up, his face relieved. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They both laughed now, their grip on each other’s hands tightening.

“After all,” Ed said, just as relieved. “We both have to go back to Porterfield.”

“This is true. I really want to get to know you, and this just ain’t the place to do it.”

“Then what the hell are we waiting for? It’s a long drive.”

The words of “A Lover’s Holiday” went through Ed’s mind. He wished he could hear the song again. Geez, I’m really being rescued!

They both stood up, and Ed reluctantly let go of Rick’s hand. Rick immediately put his arm around Ed’s waist, and Ed sighed happily. Oh, if this was a dream, it was the most vivid one he’d ever had.

Glen and Mike walked through the door as Ed and Rick were on the way out. Ed slipped his arm around Rick, and both Glen and Mike stopped dead, mouths open in shock.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, Glen,” Ed said nonchalantly as they passed, his arm firmly around his mailman’s waist.

Once they were in the parking lot, Ed waved at his white Chevy pickup. “That’s me.”

Rick glanced at a worse-for-wear burgundy Monte Carlo. “That’s my poor old ride. She don’t look like much, but she gets me where I need to go.”

“Well, as long as it gets you back to my house tonight, that’s all I care about right now. You know where I live, but go around the corner onto Grant Street. That’s where my driveway is.”

Rick nodded, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Cool. So, I’ll see you in about a half an hour, okay?”

Ed turned to unlock his door, but suddenly turned back to look once more at Rick. He was standing by his car, looking at Ed. They smiled reassuringly at each other, then got into their vehicles.

All the way back to Porterfield, Ed kept glancing in his rearview mirror to see if Rick was still behind him. Ed did his best to gauge the traffic lights so Rick would never get caught on a red without Ed.

Once he was heading south on Highway 401, he had to restrain himself from flooring it because he wanted to be home with Rick so badly, but he kept the speedometer right above fifty-five all the way. Heart came on the radio singing “Crazy on You.”

“Girls,” he said, “you don’t know the half of it!”

The lights of Porterfield finally appeared in the night sky. Ed carefully drove through town and turned onto his street. Rick was still right behind him. As they pulled into his driveway, Ed clicked his garage door opener, then drove the truck into the garage. When he stepped outside the side door, Rick was waiting for him.

“Hi, again,” Rick whispered, a warm smile on his face.

“Hi to you too,” Ed whispered back.

He led Rick in through the back door, then two steps up to his small but efficient kitchen and dining area, and flipped on the light.

“Can I get you something?” Ed asked. “I think I have some beer, but I know for a fact I have Pepsi.”

Rick laughed. “Kindred tastes. Oh, yeah, I took the Pepsi Challenge last summer. I know the difference between Pepsi and Coke.”

Ed shook his head in amazement as he pulled two cold cans out of the refrigerator. Something else they had in common, he thought. He handed a can to Rick, who murmured his thanks.

“Well,” Ed said, “shall we go sit down?”

Rick looked solemnly at Ed, not answering his question. He carefully set the Pepsi can on Ed’s kitchen table.

“You know, I think we have some unfinished business from that place. I don’t know if it’s right or not, but if I don’t get to kiss you, and soon, I’m gonna go crazy.”

Ed’s Pepsi can joined Rick’s. He turned to Rick. Standing this way, he saw for the first time that Rick was indeed taller than him, a good two inches, at least. Ed looked into Rick’s eyes, and again that electric shock jolted through him. Ed had kissed his fair share of men, but never before had he seen a man look at him with such longing.

Ed reached out to him, and Rick gently took him in his arms. Ed’s arms slipped around Rick, rustling his nylon windbreaker. Their lips came together, tentatively, then with more confidence. Ed’s mind began to whirl. He crazily had an image of Sally Field as Gidget, writing about a pretend kiss with her boyfriend Jeff, in her diary.“I sank into nothingness,” Gidget had written, and Ed suddenly knew exactly what that felt like. He would have sworn in any court of law this was the first time he’d ever been kissed by a man, because it felt like the first time. His arms tightened around Rick, and he felt Rick’s tighten in response. How long they stood there, holding each other, mouths tenderly together, Ed couldn’t have said, but when they reluctantly broke apart, it seemed like a lifetime.