A Nuisance

Manny then was curious. “What did you have on for tonight that I can help you with?”

And Stefan gave that woman’s excuse that covered everything, “I gotta wash my hair.”

Manny laughed until he got the hiccups.

Stefan watched stony faced and unamused.

Hiccuping, Manny stood grinning, but with some empathy, he said, “When there was something I had to do that I didn’t want to do, my mother always told me, ‘It’ll grow hair on your chest.’ I did more terrible, demanded things than I can count, and look —” he unbuttoned two buttons “ —no hair. She lied.”

With infinite worldly wisdom, Stefan explained, “It was a figure of speech. She meant the discipline would make a man of you. You need more discipline to reach that goal. Go to Kirt’s tonight.”

Manny shook a sorrowful head as he said, “God, I’m sure sorry, but I have to go to a funeral.”

Stefan narrowed his eyes, his brain going over the obituary columns of the area newspapers in the past week. “Who?”

Gesturing with grandiosity, Manny said, “You, if you interfere with my plans tonight.” And he left.

* * *

To go to the Overmanns’, Stefan didn’t shower. He didn’t wear his regular clothing. He stripped naked and pulled on some smelly, sweat-and-grease-stained coveralls. He wiped his face and hands with a grease rag. He went in the utility Jeep to Kirt’s house on land outside Blink.

He was completely confident that he was safe from being invited into the Overmann house. But dirty, in those grease-stained coveralls and wearing that golden earring, he looked like a potentially dangerous pirate.

The Overmann girls all came out and laughed and flirted while Stefan soberly switched and rearranged wires and connections which had been...switched and rearranged. He didn’t make any comment at all about the mess. He just...fixed it back.

Amid the friendly dogs, there was that passel of charming young women, the expansive daddy and the singleton guest named Carrie Pierce. She watched him with almost closed eyes and said nothing at all. She irritated the very hell out of him.

She had on red nail polish. It was daytime. It was too early for her to’ve gotten dressed for a date. She wore pink polish in the daytime and wore red at night. How come it was daytime and she had on red nail polish?

She had a date that night? Who was he? It wasn’t any of Stefan’s business. She was a discard. She could go out with any yahoo she wanted to tussle. It was none of his business.

Kirt’s wife hollered from the porch, “Get your hands washed, it’s about time to eat!”

And Kirt said, “Peel off them coveralls and come on inside. You can finish that up later.”

But Stefan had anticipated that very demand and managed a reasonable hesitancy as he looked at the grinning daughters. Helen, Alice and Trisha. Under his breath, Stefan said just for the daddy, “I don’t have on nothing else?” That was the TEXAS questioning statement. “This is almost done and — “

In a carrying voice, Kirt exclaimed to the whole community and surrounding area, “You mean to tell me you’re nekkid?”

And a genuine blush took over Stefan’s face.

The girls giggled, putting their hands to their faces and exchanging laughing glances, but Carrie just watched.

Kirt then said, “No problem. I’ve got some things you can borrow.”

Still working on the mixed-up connections, Stefan next tried a verbal rejection, “I had a late lunch.”

“Then you can sit with us for dessert.”

Stefan’s eyes went reluctantly to see how Carrie was taking all this, and he met her unsympathetic regard. How like her to be aloof when a man was in trouble. No heart. No compassion. No sliver of concern in that icy heart of hers.

He was lucky her strawberry hair hadn’t ensnared him. She’d let a man go to the guillotine and never bat those heavily lashed eyelids. She was a mean woman, and he’d made a lucky escape when he’d shunned her.

Then to indicate an unarguable defense, Stefan looked at his cast-off, greasy shoes and shook his head once. “I got to stay outside. Thanks, anyway.”

And one of Kirt’s pushy daughters said, “We’ll all come outside. We’ll sit on the porch.” And she went to the house to tell her mother.

So her mother hollered for the other girls to come in to help move the meal outside.

Stefan warned them, “It’s gonna rain.”

And the daughters laughed. “The porch is big enough. You can sit in the rain and get cleaned off.”

Snippy. He sorted the daughters out and that one was Helen. He grinned and glanced aside to find Carrie’s eyes weighing him.

Why would she do that?

He told that slender, nothing woman with all that blond-red hair, “You’d better get inside. Rain’ll melt you.”

And wouldn’t you know, she had a reply, right away. She said, “I’m not made of sugar.”

He was back inside the Jeep’s engine, but he did hear her. He mumbled, “I can’t argue that.”

She asked, “What?”

“I said, ‘None of the tires is flat.’” But he pulled his head out of the engine to look at her to see if she believed him, and she laughed.

Those damned brown eyes of hers had all sorts of sparkles in them before those lashes dropped down and hid it all. Asinine woman.

It was Kirt who told Carrie, “Hadn’t you better get on home before the storm hits?”

“I was invited to dinner before Stefan got here. If there isn’t enough to include us both, he can leave.”

Stefan relaxed. “Yeah.”

“Or he can follow me home, to be sure I get there in this wild and woolly storm that’s going to spray us with a few sprinkles.”

Kirt narrowed his eyes and considered her.

Stefan said, “With the storm coming, you probably ought to get on home. I’ll follow you and come back tomorrow and finish this up.”

Kirt broke in. “No. You stay. We promised you dessert. You can’t wiggle out of that. We’re having Mildred’s pe-can pie.”

Stefan groused, “No! Good thing I’ve already eaten. Her pie is so good I’ll have to have two pieces.”

The father put in, “The girls all can make that pie. They’re good cooks.”

Stefan thought what a touter Kirt was. He’d get those girls married off —but not to Stefan. He went back to working on rescuing the tangled connections.