Good Girl, Bad Girl(102)

55




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ANGEL FACE




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“I knew you’d come,” the woman had announced.

I had been about to put a flyer through the mailbox when the door swung open and she said, “Labrador. Golden colored. What’s her name?”

“Poppy.”

“Come! Come! She’s in the garden.”

She ushered me along the hallway and through patio doors to a small neat garden with paving stones and raised flower beds. Poppy was tethered to a wheelbarrow full of ornamental plants.

“She didn’t have a collar, but I knew she belonged to someone. She’s such a beautiful girl.”

Short and dumpy with a pudding-bowl haircut, the woman had a yappy dog in her arms and two cocker spaniels leaping around her legs.

I threw myself at Poppy, burying my face in her neck, squeezing her so hard that she whimpered but she kept wagging her tail.

“We were in the park and Poppy came bounding over and started playing with Ajax and John Brown,” the woman said. “They were having such fun. I kept looking for her owner, but nobody showed up. Poppy followed us home and sat at the front door. Eventually, I brought her inside. I knew you’d come looking.”

The lump in my throat made it hard for me to answer. It’s still there now as I tell the story to Cyrus, who is unlacing his running shoes and looking at a blister on his heel. Meanwhile, Poppy is curled up on a rug in the laundry, oblivious to the trouble she’s caused.

“I promised her a reward,” I say.

“Do you think she expects money?”

“We could take her flowers.”

“Good idea.”

“I saw a nice garden a few doors down.”

“We’re not stealing flowers.”

“OK. Right.” The blister looks really nasty. “I’ve tightened Poppy’s collar so it won’t slip off, but there’s still a hole under the back fence, so we can’t let her go outside.”

“I’ll fix it,” says Cyrus, retying his runners.

“You don’t have to do it now.”

“I should.”

Cyrus collects a metal toolbox from beneath the stairs and walks outside to the garden shed. After a few minutes, he emerges with a sawhorse under his right arm and several wooden planks balanced on his opposite shoulder.

He kneels and examines the hole beneath the fence. Some of the palings have rotted where they were partially buried in the ground, breaking easily in his fingers. He kneels and begins scooping out soil.

“Can I help?” I ask.

Cyrus hands me a flashlight and peels off his sweaty T-shirt, tossing it onto the steps. Then he takes out a tape measure and calculates the dimensions of the gap.

I notice his tattoos. The inked birds on his torso and arms look like mythical creatures that shimmer in the beam of the flashlight, transforming into new shapes as he moves his arms and bends his body, measuring wood and marking it up. He tucks the pencil behind his ear and picks up a handsaw, which he draws back and forth along the line with a strong easy rhythm, creating puffs of sawdust that fall onto the grass like tiny flakes of snow.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I ask.

“My father taught me. These were his tools.”

I look at the folding drawers of the toolbox: full of chisels and screwdrivers with worn wooden handles. There is a small ax. Momentarily, I contemplate what happened to Cyrus’s family before pushing the thought away.

Cyrus kneels again and measures the piece of wood against the hole. I try not to look at the cabled veins and muscles on his back. The tattooed wings are so beautifully drawn, I have to fight the urge to reach out and touch them with my fingertips to stroke the feathers, feeling their softness.

“Light, please.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t see.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I focus the light on Cyrus’s hands as he measures another length of wood and begins sawing. When he straightens, I notice the downy line of dark hair beneath his navel and the slight shadow where the waistband of his running leggings is stretched across his hip bones.

“Are you cold?” I ask. “I can get you a sweater.”

“I’m OK,” he replies.

“What about a cup of tea?”

“I’d prefer a beer.”

I go inside and glimpse him through the kitchen window, telling myself to stop being so foolish. Getting two bottles of Heineken from the fridge, I open them and return to the garden.

Cyrus takes the beer and empties it in one long series of swallows. He notices that I have one too.

“Is that for me?” he asks.

I mumble and thrust the bottle towards him.

He smiles and says, “No. You have it,” before turning back to the repairs.

I’m aiming the flashlight, but my eyes stray again. This time I’m looking at his mouth and wondering what it would be like to kiss those lips, the upper one thinner and shaped like a cupid’s bow, the lower one fuller and pinker. How would it feel to touch his teeth with my tongue?

Don’t be stupid!

Foolish girl!

I am not a sexual being or a sensual one. I don’t crave physical contact or need sexual release. Yet I feel strange around Cyrus. Different.