Chapter 7: A Special Visitor

I drop the can of paint, and it falls to the side and rolls under the back end of the car. With a hand on the top of the trunk, I brace, debating whether I need to make a run for it. A tall blonde hops off my porch, leaving the rocker she'd been sitting in wobbling from her sudden departure.

"I've got it. Thanks. I reach back into the trunk, curious about who the hell is chillin' on my porch, but not curious enough to ask her.

She sticks her head in the trunk, disregarding what I said, and pulls out the second gallon of paint and one of the plastic bags. "Name's Katy. Hardware, huh? Did you see Mack?" The questions roll out of her with barely a breath.

"Um... yeah."

Katy walks up to the porch, the paint swinging in her hand. "I brought your mail."

I've been here less than twenty-four hours, how can I have mail? "Okay..."

"Larry, the mailman, is up there in years. He forgets what road he's on most of the time. As long as the numbers match, he crams it in the box," she carries on waiting for me to open the front door.

"Right." I lead the way into the living room and deposit my heavy can of paint and bag on the floor. "I'm Tabitha—"

"Thompson. I'm aware. The whole town knows." Katy leaves the items she carried beside mine and peeks her head outside returning with a short stack of various mailers.

"The whole town?" I rifle through the pieces she hands me.

"Well probably not the whole town, but Pearl's a blabbermouth, so everyone who doesn't already will by dinner. I'm sure she's enacted the phone tree."

What the hell is a phone tree?

"This is all junk mail." I toss half the stack of flyers in the trash and continue to go through the rest walking to the kitchen.

Katy follows behind me. "Yeah, but I wanted to meet the girl who's the talk of the town."

"Talk of the town?" I cock an eyebrow at her.

"Phone tree," she answers simply. "Plus it's a federal offense to mess with someone else's mail. I couldn't throw it away."

"Someone ripped off the Chen's coupons." I hold up the flyer, the entire bottom missing.

She laughs. "Chen's is the bomb. You need to try it."

"I ate some for dinner last night." I leave off the fact Ridge shared. It's obvious Katy talks with Pearl and I don't need the town discussing our dinner together.

"Well then you understand what I'm talking about."

I nod my agreement.

"So what are you painting?"

"The kitchen and bedroom." I throw the remaining junk mail in the trash and lean against the counter.

"You want help? I have a ton of experience painting."

I'm not sure what to do with Katy and her bubbly personality, but it's nice to have another person to talk with. Especially when she does most of the talking for us. By the time I left Oklahoma the only friends I had were wives or girlfriends of Mario's business partners from his chain of family-owned restaurants. They weren't women who offered to help you paint a bedroom. A half day shopping excursion or fancy lunch, sure, but no hard labor.

"Yeah, I'd love help. I'm clueless."

Her smile grows. "Great! Let's grab the paint and get started."

...

Painting is a bitch. Way harder than I thought. First Katy made us move all the furniture into the middle of the room — Aunt Gertie's massive king size bed and heavy as shit dresser included.

Then we taped all the edges. Thankfully Mack had thrown in a roll of blue tape with the other stuff he stuck in my trunk. Stuck in my trunk. I smile at my internal joke. Bad Tabitha.

Katy wraps her brush around the last unpainted inch above a window and I take one last swipe with my roller to fill in the last non-blue line. Light blue paint flicks off the roller, a drop landing on my forehead.

"There. The room looks great." Katy steps back from the wall. "Now we'll let it dry for a few hours and then come back and do a second coat."

"A second coat?" She's kidding right?

"Yeah, the blue is light. It will take at least another coat. Maybe two. Do you have extra bags to store the rollers?" She takes the plastic bag from the hardware and wraps up her brush full of blue paint.

"Sure." Everyone has a stash of plastic bags under their sink, right? The infamous bag o' bags. Gertie must have one around here.

Katy smacks the lid back on the gallon of paint and picks up the paint tray. "We'll store these in the fridge until coat two." She leaves out the door and I catch her laughing down the hallway.

"What?" I ask stepping up behind her.

"Oh nothing. I was thinking you could invite Ridge over to show him your fresh paint job." She pauses then chuckles again. "Then ask him to dirty it up with you. Leave a few hand prints on the wall."

"Ridge?" How the hell does she know about him?

"He's your next door neighbor. Wait till you meet him." She opens the fridge and places her wrapped brush and paint tray in the bottom. "You need food."

It's time to come clean. "We've met. He helped me get into the house last night."

"Oh... really? Half the town will be jealous because you get to live next to The Ridge Jefferson. Those who aren't in love with Mack settle firmly in the would-have-Ridge's-babies category."

I silently laugh at her assessment. "Which category do you fall into?"

"Mack for sure." She's quick to answer. "I mean, Ridge is pretty, but in third grade he told the entire school I had a crush on him. They teased me for weeks."

"Did you?"

"Of course, but he didn't need to be such a dick about it." Katy closes the refrigerator door with a huff. "Plus he's defective.... It's too bad, really. I bet he looked damn hot in his uniform."

"You never saw him in uniform?"

She sighs. "No he rarely came home. A few surprise visits over the years is all."

"Are you sure he was in the Army?" My curiosity for the hot neighbor grows.

"No, SEALs are Navy, Sweetie. I spent many nights imagining him in that bright white uniform off doing super-secret spy activities. His dad never gave us many details and Ridge doesn't talk about his time in the service either. So the fantasy slowly dried up."

"So why is he defective?" I lean over the counter to get closer and pass off my roller to her. He looked like a perfect specimen last night... and this morning.

She tosses the paint roller onto the bottom shelf and I flinch worried there's now paint in my refrigerator. Katy turns back, pinching her lip, and looks me over. "Oh well. I guess you'll find out from someone in town sooner or later."

"Yeah?" I lean even closer meaning I'm practically lying on the counter between us. When I realize it I lean back and try not to seem too interested, even though I'm sure I've blown my cover.

"He's a bad breaker-upper," she says solemnly like she just announced he might die tomorrow.

What? I hope Katy is kidding, but the dead serious expression on her face suggests otherwise. I laugh and pull back from the counter.

"No, seriously, Tabitha. A Bad Breaker-Upper. Ridge has left broken hearts all over the county." Katy must see the skepticism on my face because she continues. "In seventh grade he wrote 'Have a nice summer' in Connie Michaels' yearbook. It was the harshest breakup any of us had ever seen. They only get worse from there."

"That's a breakup?"

"Exactly. They'd dated the entire year and then she gets a 'have a nice summer' like they were no closer than chemistry lab partners. It devastated poor Connie."

I pat her on the back. "Thanks for the warning, but I'm safe from any yearbook fiascos from Ridge. I plan to keep my panties firmly on my ass." Once he sees I'm on my feet, I'll probably only see him on the occasions we pass each other in the driveway.

She shakes her head at me. "You say that now, but give it time." A door closes and I glance up to find Katy going through my kitchen cupboards. "You have no food here. I'm starved. Let's go to the diner."

Paint is splattered in my hair and on my hands and face, but I'm starving as well. The granola bar didn't hold me over as long as I thought it would, and we didn't take a break to shop for groceries. "Okay. Let me wash up first."