Thursday 7:18pm.
I sat in my trailer and drank Stoli's straight from the bottle, alternating between that and Ocean Spray cranberry which I too drank straight from the bottle. The overhead air-conditioning unit was humming along nicely cooling me off and making the turkey and provolone sub sandwich go down all the easier. Well, that and the Stoli's. The day was finally over. Though the day had begun with a beautiful girl, breakfast and a raging hard on it quickly went down hill from there.
After pissing Joy off royally I made it to the closing attorney's office only to have to wait for the other parties. The closing on the house was a clusterfuck of legal wrangling on the part of the buyers and their mortgage company. That and the legal secretary at the attorney's office had misplaced paperwork before taking her leave of absence for her honeymoon. It was unbelievable and I, after three hours in had volunteered to just call the whole thing off until all the parties involved, including myself had their shit together. I announced it loudly too. At that point one of the attorney's asked if it would be possible to postpone the closing until three that afternoon. All parties agreed. It would give me time to get lunch and check in with Joy.
She never answered even after three messages. I figured she was still upset with me. I liked her, couldn't get the taste, smell and feel of her out of my mind. I could fall hard for this girl but that was opening myself up to a world of possible hurt. I still wasn't sure about that. It was just happening too fast. Still, I didn't want her sore at me.
The closing was not over until after five at which point I called Joy again only to get the Betty's Repo pitch on her phone. She was either busy or mad. I was leaning hard toward mad.
The attorney's told me it would be three to five business days before the proceeds from the sale of my home would be deposited into my account after of course the original loan had been satisfied. That was all I had to wait for and I was completely unbound, untethered and able to leave. It was not as euphoric as I thought it would be, but still a relief.
Naturally I got stuck in traffic on the way back, traffic so bad I decided to get off and have a bite for dinner. I called again to see if Joy wanted me to pick up something for her too. Still no answer. I was frustrated with everything by that point in spite of having closed on the house. I was becoming really angry with Joy, well maybe disappointed at the childish way she was acting and feeling justified but admittedly melancholy about my decision to stop where we had that morning.
Baldino's was my favorite deli and it was close so I decided to err on the side of friendship and pick up a couple of foot long turkey and provolone's all the way, threw in a couple of bags of chips and fresh Chocolate fudge brownies. How could you go wrong? Her eating habits were atrocious and her lack of a dietary schedule had started to affect me.
To add to the frustration the damned air conditioning in the Landcruiser decided the perfect time to crap out would be in traffic on the way home. The thing had manual windows too and without Go-Go Gadget arms I only managed to get the drivers window down for the relief from the heat. I arrived home a sweaty, stinking miserable mess.
Joy wasn't even there when I got back. I pondered just hanging the sandwich and accouterment on the door handle. It would be okay, it was in the shade and if she wasn't home soon I would get it and stash it in my small fridge in the trailer. I decided to just leave her a note. I would probably fall asleep and it would sit there and spoil.
After eating I had to get the grit off of me. The hot shower felt so good. I decided just to dry off and lay on the bed and enjoy the AC in my boxers. Of course I dozed off.
Thursday 8:27PM
There was a knock on the trailer door, a faint knock, more of a tapping. I wasn't sure I even heard it. I raised my head, and lowered the metal detecting magazine and listened. Nothing. I went back to reading. Then the tapping came again, this time harder and more metallic. This was an obvious sound, someone at the door. I put the magazine down and slid off the bed. All I had on were boxers and a teeshirt. I stopped before opening the door and looked down. Everything covered? Good. I opened the small door and it swung out. Joy took a half step aside out of the way.
"Hi. You want to go somewhere with me?"
"Wait a second," I said, retrieving the sandwich from the refrigerator.
"I got you a sub, Turkey, decked out, brownie and chips too. I drank all the Vodka,"
I held the plastic bag out to her.
Her eyes darted between my mussed hair and my bare knees, goofy looking toes and bag full of food. She finally looked back to my face.
"You want to come in?" I said politely, still surprised by the visit.
"No, I was just heading out and thought maybe you might want to come along. And thank you for the food. I'll put it away. Really, thank you for thinking about me."
I just skipped over it. No big deal. I didn't even rub it in that I had called several times to no avail. Whatever her reasons for ignoring me she was over it. I wasn't even entertaining the idea of going anywhere, not without damn good reason.
"Where you headed?"
"Downtown. Well, the Southeast downtown, Decatur really."
She smiled that sweet subtle way she did that let me know she might have motivation she wasn't letting me in on.
"Joy, you asking me on a date?"
"No, I'm asking if you want to come with me somewhere."
"Are we picking up something? Because if that's it I'm spent. We'll have to go tomorrow."
Joy stepped closer to the narrow aluminum steps hanging beneath the door that I was awkwardly still holding open. She smiled again disarmingly and accepted the food. She then stepped inside and I finally moved out of the way, retreating back to the edge of the bed to sit.
"I'm going to the observatory. Every Thursday and Friday nights from nine until midnight they have astronomers on staff to point to the telescope for you. It's one of the only telescopes open to the public. If you've never looked through one it's pretty neat; amazing in fact."
"That's it? Just the telescope, no cars or anything?"
"Yes, that's it," she paused.
"Well, they usually do a show in the planetarium first and it's a little hokey but it does make you feel like a kid again, but that's it."
I ran my hand through my crazy messed up hair. What the hell?
"You're on, but I wasn't kidding. I'm spent. Do I have a few to get dressed?"
Joy seemed relieved. She let out a long breath like she had been nervous about asking me.
"Yep, whenever you're ready. I'm going to go put this food away."
She reached to me and gently took my forearm holding it for a second until she had eye contact.
"Thank you Nick for thinking about me." Was all she said.
"Done, it's a date. I'll come around in a bit and pick you up at your place."
For my attempt at humor I got a smile. Maybe she was coming around. That's really all I ever wanted to be anyway was friends. That had to come first. That's what I had been telling myself.
Quickly I picked out comfortable blue jeans and navy tee-shirt with a short sleeve casual button on over the top. That was just about my regular everyday uniform, no sense in breaking with tradition. I combed my hair a little with my fingers, working in whatever hair goo I had on hand. It would go it's own way anyhow once it dried but at least it would look semi purposeful. I then brushed my teeth, and took one final look at myself in the mirror on the bathroom door.
The reflection was about as good as it ever got. I was tired, that was no lie, the heat and frustration of the day had drained me. My semi bloodshot eyes were beginning to cast doubt that I would even be able to stay awake through any kind of planetarium show.
Chuck's on, then casually I walked around the building and opened the heavy metal industrial fire door Joy used as an entrance. Unexpectedly she was standing right there and smiled brightly as I walked in and immediately she started talking.
"I took a bite of that sandwich. It was so good! You'll have to show me where that place is. Thank you for coming with me too. You seemed interested in the whole solar system thing when I was explaining it to you so I thought you might enjoy this. It's like seeing some of these things up close gives the whole system more meaning. They can look at both Saturn, and Jupiter and better than that even. Four of Jupiter's moons can probably be seen, I think so at least. I was looking at the sky charts and I did the math real quick and they are going to be in line."
I watched her face as she thought for a moment, rolling her fawn eyes to the right, then back down, her lips moving ever so slightly.
"We should be able to see Io, Callisto, Ganymede and Europa," she smiled in satisfaction.
She had taken her hair down for some reason and had brushed it out. It hung past her shoulders with almost no curl to it. It was ochre, shiny and soft looking. I had actually never seen her hair down. It was absolutely lovely and covered that mind of hers that could lasso far off moons with complex mathematics.
"Hi," I finally said, stammering as my brain was still dancing around the sudden burst of information.
"This will definitely be a first for me and I'm looking forward to it."
"Good," she smiled up at me, "I'll drive."
"Of course."
I followed her to her side of the Jeep.
"I said I'd drive."
I just nodded agreement then opened the door for her and waited while she climbed in then I closed it.
"Thanks," she said as I got in the other side.
"I'll never get used to that."
I agreed.