The Handyman's Dream (6 page)

Dragging the phone with him, Ed threw himself on the sofa. “I’m sorry I haven’t called, but I was at Laurie’s, putting in her new dishwasher. And as for that guy last night, he was”—Ed paused dramatically—“the new mailman!”

“What?” Glen squawked. “You said he was straight.”

“Well, when I’m wrong, I’m wrong,” Ed said, taking great pleasure in smugness.

“Are you shitting me? What’s going on in that town anyway?”

“Look,” Ed said, stretching out on the sofa. “I wasn’t at all sure when he came to the door Thursday, and I knew if I said I thought that maybe he was one of us, you’d have me chasing him all over town, and I didn’t want to do that. He just happened to walk in there last night, we just happened to bump into each other, and it just so happens that he likes me as much as I like him.”

“Well, slap my ass and call me Anita Bryant. Ed Stephens with a boyfriend! The eighties are definitely starting off with a bang. And in that town! Christ! Did you move to the Magic Kingdom or something? Are you still in Porterfield?”

“I was when I woke up this morning,” Ed said, still smug.

“My God. You saw the guy, you wanted him, and you got him. That’s unreal. Maybe I should move to Porterfield.”

“Problems with Mike?”

“Oh, no. But, Ed, things like this don’t happen very often.”

“I know. I still can’t believe it. It’s like a dream.”

They were both silent a moment, then Glen asked, “So when are you seeing him again?”

“Tonight.”

“God!” Glen sighed, stunned once again into silence.

“Listen, Glen, I really need to get ready for him. He’s coming over later. Can I call you back this week?”

“You’d better,” Glen shouted. “I want every last horny, dirty detail. I may even drive out to that stupid town to see you. This is better than All My Children.”

Ed hung up the phone, knowing he’d just experienced a first: He had managed to impress Glen Mercer into silence. Things are definitely changing around here. My knight in shining blue cotton is really coming here again. He looked at his watch. Only three-thirty. Crud! He still had over two hours before Rick was due to arrive.

He pulled himself off the sofa and looked critically around the room, wishing he was Samantha Stephens instead of Ed Stephens and could make it immaculate with the twitch of a nose. On the other hand, Rick seemed to be quite easygoing, and living in a house with three kids, he was probably used to a little dust and clutter. Still . . .

Ed tracked down a dust cloth and made a half-assed circuit of the living room furniture. He then hauled a battered old Hoover out of the kitchen closet and pushed it around for a few minutes.

“Good enough,” he mumbled.

He looked at his watch again. Well, he’d used up a whole twenty minutes. Now what?

He’d already decided to have a pizza delivered for their dinner, as Rick had mentioned he liked pizza as much as Ed did, so he didn’t have any food preparation to do. He didn’t know what they would end up doing all evening, besides eating, talking, and—he let out a big sigh—maybe repeating last night’s lovemaking in the bedroom.

He went to his record cabinet and pulled out an album of Carly Simon’s greatest hits. Soon “Anticipation” was pouring out of the speakers. He paced around the room, wondering if Carly Simon had ever felt this nervous and excited about James Taylor. He couldn’t imagine that anyone who was cool enough to write “You’re So Vain” ever felt as dorky as he did. As Carly sang about how right it feels to have her lover’s arms around her, Ed remembered exactly how it felt the night before with Rick’s arms around him.

He shook himself back to the present. Just look at you, he told himself sternly. It was bad enough you were channeling Gidget last night when he was kissing you, but now you’re acting like Gidget. You may be queer, but get a grip already. He laughed, a loud happy laugh. Oh, what the hell. Even if things crashed and burned with Rick, he knew he’d always remember how he felt right now. It was a grand feeling, and Ed decided to enjoy it.

He dreamed through two sides of Carly Simon, then decided it was late enough to hit the shower. It would be his second shower of the day, but he wanted to be as fresh as possible when Rick arrived. He scrubbed himself with a worn-down bar of Dial and joyfully butchered “Anticipation.”

Ed wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror, then carefully studied his face. What on earth did Rick see in him? The same old Ed Stephens looked back at him, and all Ed could do was shrug at himself. He didn’t know what Rick saw, but Ed was just glad Rick saw something.

“Son of a gun,” Ed whispered to himself, switching from “Anticipation” to “You’re So Vain.” Hell, Carly could have James Taylor, and she could have Mick Jagger singing backup for her. Ed didn’t envy her. He was more than content with the idea of Rick Benton coming to see him.

Towel around his waist, he went into his bedroom and wasted a few more minutes deciding what to wear. Rick seemed to enjoy the whole handyman thing, so Ed dressed as he usually did, relieved that Rick didn’t seem to have any more fashion sense than he did. He glanced at the clock radio. Almost five-thirty. He dressed slowly, then wandered into the kitchen to help himself to some of the Pepsi Laurie had sent home with him. How was he going to survive these last few minutes?

He took his pop into the living room and wondered what kind of music Rick would like to hear. They seemed to have about the same tastes, but Ed wanted something special playing when Rick arrived. He flashed back to the night before and his thoughts of Chicago’s “Beginnings.” Perfect, he thought, substituting Chicago’s greatest hits for Carly’s on the turntable. He was about to place the needle on the record when he saw a burgundy car round the corner and enter his driveway. Rick! He looked at his watch, and smiled. Ten minutes early, even. Maybe Rick was anticipating the evening as much as Ed was. Ed dropped the needle carelessly on the record and hurried to the kitchen window.

“Carly,” he muttered, watching Rick reach for something on the passenger seat. “Take your anticipation and get the hell out. He’s finally here!”

Chapter Four

Ed moved away from the kitchen window before Rick could see him. He didn’t think Rick needed to know just how anxious Ed was about the evening ahead. He crept back into the living room, where Chicago was playing. “Make Me Smile” was the first cut on the album side, and Ed was indeed smiling.

He heard a polite knock on the back door. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he walked slowly to the door. He opened it, and there was Rick, looking just as wonderful as he had when he had left Ed’s place very early that morning. Rick was smiling over—Ed could not believe it—a bouquet of roses. Needless to say, no one had ever given him flowers of any kind before. Right then and there he threw in the towel and decided he didn’t care how feminine it might be; he was deeply touched that Rick would spend his hard-earned money on something so romantic for him.

“For the cutest handyman in Porterfield, Indiana,” Rick said bashfully, handing him the seven deep-red roses done up in green florist’s paper.

“I’m . . . I’m blown away,” Ed said, taking the flowers. “I mean, thank you. I’m just so surprised.”

Rick grinned, obviously pleased at Ed’s response. “I hoped you would be. Since this is kinda our first official date and all, I wanted to do something special.”

“It’s very special,” Ed said, brown eyes glowing. He felt like some silly-ass beauty contest winner. Hell, all he needed was a crown and scepter. He laughed. “I don’t even know if I have a vase for them.”

Ed laid the roses on his kitchen table, then turned back to Rick, who was dressed as casually as Ed had hoped he’d be, in a faded IU sweatshirt and jeans. Ed didn’t care if he ever saw the guy in a suit. Rick couldn’t possibly look better than he did at that moment.

“You know,” Rick said, a mischievous look in his eyes, “I had another motive with those flowers. I was hoping they might buy me another kiss from you.”

Ed found himself grinning at Rick. “Just one?” he teased. “How about one for each rose?”

“Mmm,” Rick moaned, taking Ed in his arms. “I like the way you think, Mr. Stephens.”

Ed wasn’t sure just how many kisses those roses bought for Rick. He lost count somewhere way past seven. The evening, he decided, was getting off to a very good start. At some point Ed managed to free his mouth long enough to ask if Rick was hungry.

Rick chuckled. “Well, actually, I’m starved. I haven’t had much to eat today. Do I remember you promising pizza?”

“I sure did,” Ed said, reluctantly letting Rick go and heading for the phone. “I’ll call Gino’s. They probably know the way to my house blindfolded.”

Once the pizza was ordered, Ed poured Pepsi for both of them and got Rick settled comfortably in the living room. Ed then scouted around for a vase for the flowers. Much to his surprise he found something appropriate in the basement, obviously left behind by the previous owners.

After arranging the flowers and placing them on the kitchen table, Ed joined Rick in the living room.

“I hope the pop is okay. I’ve got something stronger if you want it.”

“Nope,” Rick said. “Pepsi is perfect with pizza, and I don’t drink all that much anyway.”

“Me neither,” Ed said, again struck by how much they seemed to have in common. “Ever since I barfed all over the interior of my friend Ted’s car in high school, I’ve never been able to get too excited about it.”

“For me it was a New Year’s party in college,” Rick said, sneaking an arm around Ed’s shoulders. “I felt so shitty that New Year’s Day, I vowed I’d never get that bombed ever again. I knew a lot of guys who drank too much in Indy, too. It really kind of turned me off the whole thing.”

Ed was curious about those Indy guys, but figured he’d hear about them soon enough. “I’m glad you like pizza,” he said, changing the subject. “I’m not much of a cook, and frankly, I would have been a nervous wreck, trying to make dinner for you!”

Rick threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, man, don’t worry about it. Hell, I’m so glad to be here you coulda given me a baloney sandwich and I would have been happy. Besides, I think pizza is about my favorite food. Well, next to breakfast. I do like a good breakfast. I cook a pretty mean breakfast, too.”

Ed looked shrewdly at him. Was that a hint about spending the night? “I think I have some eggs in the refrigerator.”

“Would you like me to make you breakfast in the morning?” Rick asked coyly.

“If that means you’ll be here between now and then, yes.”

A look of relief passed over Rick’s face, and his arm tightened around Ed’s shoulders. “Man, I was hoping you’d say that. All day I was thinking about how much I hated to leave you this morning, and how much I wanted to fall asleep next to you.”

“Tonight’s the night,” Ed said, smiling at him.

“Everything’s gonna be alright,” Rick said, reading Ed’s mind.

Ed shook his head in amazement. Anyone who knew the Top 40, past and present, well enough to throw that line out was okay in his book. The whole thing was getting downright spooky. I’d better watch it, or I’m gonna start looking for all the flaws. He was sure Rick had some, but Ed just didn’t want to know what they were yet.

“I’ll have to go get something out of the car, though, before then,” Rick was saying.

Ed looked puzzled.

“Oh, just my glasses,” Rick said sheepishly. “That was another reason I had to leave this morning. My contacts were killing me.”

Ed chuckled. He was glad to know Rick was self-conscious about something.

By the time they were settled at the kitchen table over a Gino’s Special—everything but the anchovies—they had both begun to relax. Food had a way of doing that, Ed had learned over the years. After the edge had been taken off their appetites, they began to talk, filling in the blanks of each other’s lives.

Rick was curious about what growing up in a small town was like, so Ed told some stories, some funny, some not so funny.

“I had a lot of friends in high school,” Ed said. “Oh, I wasn’t popular, but the other nerdy types liked me well enough. We had our own little gang, and I think it helped us get through. I was really grateful to them, but at the same time, I thought I was the only guy in the world who felt like I did. I remember guys talking about ‘queers’ and ‘fags,’ but I never really put it together. Once I did, I felt even lonelier, wondering if I was going to have to spend my whole life lying about how I really felt. I remember being so scared someone would figure it out. I lost track of almost all of those guys I ran around with back then. It was easier to let them go than tell the truth.”

Rick toyed with a pizza crust on his plate. He looked up at Ed. “Did you ever think about killing yourself?” he asked bluntly.

Ed looked back at Rick. A bond that can only be understood by two gay men began to form between them. “Yes,” he said quietly. He didn’t need to say anything more.

Rick sighed. “Well, I didn’t have a lot of friends back then. I was a bookworm with big, thick glasses, and pretty much everyone left me alone. Plus, I had to cope with being the younger brother of Claire Benton, one of the most popular girls at Broad Ripple. I just assumed everyone thought of me as Claire’s loser brother.”

Ed looked at him in surprise. “You were unpopular in school? Man, that’s hard to believe.”

Rick laughed, but there wasn’t much joy in it. “Oh, yes. Just looking at this pizza here reminds me of Claire’s favorite nickname for me back then: Pizza-face. I had horrible zits and wanted to wear a ski mask to school. Nothing I tried seemed to help. The money I wasted on Clearasil! Then there was the fact that I was so tall. Everyone thought I should go out for basketball, but there was one problem with that: I hated it. I wasn’t tall and graceful, just tall and awkward.

“I remember going for long walks around our neighborhood late at night, when I thought no one could see me, just thinking about how lonely I was, and that no one else in the world could possibly feel the way I did. I also had a sneaky feeling that I liked boys a hell of a lot more than girls, and believe me, that didn’t help.

“I remember the summer after graduation. My parents all but forced me into the car and dragged me down to Bloomington for my freshman year at IU. They told me about a million times that college would be better, and sure enough, they were right. Not at first, though. I was miserable through that first semester, but eventually I got to know some people, and for the first time I felt like I fit in somewhere.”

“How did you end up in the postal service?” Ed asked.

“Well, I lasted two years at IU as an English major,” Rick said, getting up from the table to refill his glass. “For someone who read as much as I did, it seemed appropriate. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. I didn’t want to teach, like my folks, and I never really had any ambition to write. The summer after my sophomore year, when I’d survived the draft lottery, I took a summer job doing vacation fill-in for mail carriers at one of the Indy post offices. I loved it! Those long walks I mentioned? Well, this was just like that, only I was getting paid for it. I loved being outside, being on my own for most of the day. When I was offered a full-time job, I just stayed. My parents about died, let me tell you, but eventually they came around when they saw I was doing what I really wanted to do.

“Too, I was still struggling with the whole gay thing, and more than anything I wanted to be on my own to figure it out. I had my own job and my own apartment, and I think I really began to learn just who Rick Benton was. Oh, that wasn’t the end of the story. I had some big screwups ahead of me, but at least I was alive, living my life. For a long time I wondered if I’d make it that far.”

Ed nodded, chewing on his pizza. “Yeah, I remember feeling like that. When I got laid off at Marsden I moved back in with my parents. Geez, what a disaster! When I had the handyman thing going well, I bought this place, and it was a lot better. That’s when I started sticking my nose out of Porterfield, looking to see if there were any other guys like me around. It was such a relief, too, to be out of that factory. I mean, there I was Tim Stephens’s boy, and no one messed with me too much, but I could just imagine them all finding out I was a fag. I don’t think I would have survived it.”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “I’ve been pretty lucky with the postal service. Oh, it’s no gay-friendly place, but I’ve always gotten along well with everyone, and no one’s ever given me any grief. Plus, the rest of my body finally caught up with my height sometime in college. I began to realize that most guys won’t mess with a big, tall guy. Thank God for stereotypes! Why would anyone think a six-feet-two, two-hundred-pound guy who doesn’t swish when he delivers mail would be queer?”

They both laughed.

“You had me fooled,” Ed said, reaching for more pizza. “I had to see you in that bar last night to know for sure.”

Rick shook his head. “Oh, me too. When I saw you coming out of the restroom it took me a moment to figure out who you were. I mean, surely that sexy guy with the certified letter couldn’t be gay. No one I reacted that strongly to could be interested in me.”

Ed was blushing as badly as he had the night before. Fair skin can be a real bitch sometimes. “You really thought that?”

Rick nodded. “Walking my route the rest of that day, I kept thinking, if that guy would be gay, moving to Porterfield would be totally worth it. And you are. And right now it is—worth it, I mean.” Rick dropped his eyes from Ed’s. “I barely got any sleep at all this morning. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and how much I wanted to see you again. Hell, I was ready to come over here about two hours early. I drove around town, wasting gas, until I thought I could show up without looking too eager.”

Ed laughed, thinking of his afternoon spent with Carly Simon and all the anticipation. “Considering the afternoon I put in, I wish I’d known.”

Now they both laughed, and whatever pretense had been left between them fell away. Ed knew two people seldom get to that point so quickly, but whatever fates had thrown Ed and Rick together continued to bless them.

They continued to talk, the pizza growing cold on the table before them. Rick told Ed about his ex-lover, Jack.

“Oh, I thought I was grown-up when I started that disaster, but I found out I was still pretty young and stupid.” He recounted the relationship, a story that both horrified and fascinated Ed, who’d never experienced anything like it. “It went on for about two years before it was finally over. But he would still drop back into my life from time to time. That was the other reason I thought a move to Porterfield would be a good idea. It’s a lot harder for him to find me here.”

When Rick talked about Jack, a shadow of doubt fell across Ed’s mind. The pain in Rick’s face was too obvious to miss, and Ed wondered if this Jack was someone he had to worry about. The doubt faded, though, when Rick, done with his story, looked at Ed. It was also obvious that Rick was here in the present with Ed, and very happy about it.

Rick insisted on doing cleanup. He told Ed he could have his turn the next day after breakfast. Rick moved around the kitchen foreign to him with a casual assurance Ed almost envied. He wondered when that tall, awkward teenager Rick had told him about had vanished, leaving behind this strong, confident man.

Ed went into the living room and put on Elton John, a request from Rick. He was glad to be away from Rick for a moment. He had thought he was in love with the new mailman when he didn’t know a thing about him, but now, watching this man washing dishes at his sink, Ed thought the cliché “falling head over heels in love” suddenly made sense. It’s just infatuation, he scolded himself. This is going better than anyone could have hoped, and you’re just overwhelmed by it. You’ve know him only about twenty-four hours. Get a grip, Stephens. Oh, he could scold himself all he wanted, but Ed knew he had forgotten about the fantasy mailman and was beginning to feel something strong for the real-life Rick Benton.