Chad Wilson's garage door fell with a crash! His mouth agape, he stared at it from the front seat of his car.
"Murphy's Law always hits at the worst times," he muttered, turning off the ignition. Exiting the car, a deep sigh escaped him as he stepped closer to the downed, buckled door. "Geez! What's this gonna cost to fix?"
Chad couldn't say for sure. He also couldn't afford the time to try and install a new garage door himself. First, he didn't know how to do that. Second, his editorial service was just getting off the ground, and his work kept him seated behind a computer almost 24/7. The funds he'd need to spend, though, to have a garage door installed didn't sit well with Chad, either. Every cent that he made had to go back into his business. Although he didn't have much wiggle room in his house emergency fund, he was glad that he had something for such unforeseen events.
Slipping his cell phone from its holder that was clipped to his belt, Chad searched online for garage door installers. Then he called the first home improvement company that he found.
"I don't know, it just fell," Chad told the specialist on the telephone, answering the question that he'd just been asked about his garage door. "It doesn't have an automatic opener. I had trouble with the springs last year, but I don't think that changing those again now will do anything. Some panels of the door are crushed. The whole thing is wrecked. It all needs replacing."
* * *
Three days later, Chad still hadn't heard from the installer. He was supposed to have given Chad a courtesy call by now—to provide him with a better window of when he'd be coming by to check out the job.
"Two-bit outfit," Chad scoffed as he searched his kitchen's tabletop for the paper on which he'd penned the company's contact information. When he couldn't find it, he picked up his cell and searched for the company online.
But just as Chad located the company's number on the Internet, his doorbell rang. As he looked through his front door's peephole, he saw a young lady standing on his top step. She was wearing blue jeans, a tee shirt, baseball-type cap, and holding a clipboard.
"Not another call for signatures," Chad sighed, unlocking the main door of his house. "I just signed a petition last week," he said to her through the screen door.
"Petition?" asked the young lady, bemused. "I'm...the...garage door installer, Mr. Wilson. Here for a site inspection?"
Chad's face contorted in confusion.
"Not what you expected, huh?" she toyed, her dark eyes studying his handsome, screen-filtered, mixed-up face.
For lack of better words, Chad said, "They told me you were going to call first."
She offered him a simple grin. "I tried, but your number sent me to voicemail, so I hung up. You must've been on the phone. And, by the time I was going to call again, I was here."
"So you are," Chad said, mesmerized by her perky frankness.
"Well...don't let me interrupt. Finish your call, I'll wait—"
"No, no, you don't understand," Chad said, stepping outside. "I was just...online...looking for how to...get in touch with you guys."
She grinned. "To give it to us for my not having called first, right?" she teased.
Both of their faces lit in amusement.
"I'm Stacey Baker," she said, extending her hand.
"Hello, 'Stacey Baker.' I'm Chad Wilson, as you know," he replied, shaking it.
"Nice to meet you, 'Chad Wilson.'"
A twinkle sparkled in her eyes; a flutter skipped his pounding heart. The innocent contact between them had set each one aglow. Still, they couldn't figure out what was happening. Stacey had never had eyes for a client; Chad had never fallen for a repair person. Then again, Stacey had never answered a service call for someone who had stirred her inside like Chad; Chad had never had a female repair specialist visit his house who turned his legs into Jell-O.
"Uh...the...door, Mr. Wilson?" Stacey finally said, swallowing uneasily, breaking their eye lock and handshake.
Mr. Wilson?
"Oh. Right. Of course," replied Chad, boyishly. "It's...out...back. Follow me."
After locking his front door, Chad led the way down his front stoop's steps, along the side of the house, and to the garage door. Watching as Stacey sized up the area, efficiently measured everything, and recorded her door measurements, Chad said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" she curiously asked, lifting her look from the job-estimate sheet on her clipboard.
"For not having thought that a woman might answer my door-distress call."
His honesty gladdened her, and a broad happiness stretched her face. "Thank you. Apology accepted."
He looked at her kindly.
Her eyes batted away, then set back onto his.
"I...hope...it's not going to be expensive," Chad finally said. "Home improvement funds," he winced, "are rather tight."
Stacey waved off his concern. "This door's a standard size. It's really not difficult to hang, either. To save even more money, you could buy the door at the home center, and put it up yourself."
His eyes widened in astonishment. "I'm flattered by your confidence in me, but I'm afraid the mechanically-inclined sibling is my brother—on the other side of the country. I'm what you'd call 'book smart.' I try to be, anyway. That's why I started my own editorial service. But it's still difficult, even when you think you know how the words should go on the page."
"I know what that's like," she said. "I was never good at writing. My sister's the one with 'book smarts'; I'm the mechanically-inclined daughter—work too much my father says."
He chuckled. "That's just what my mother says about me. Says that's why I have no—"
"Social life," Stacey giggled out.
His cheeks reddened. "Something with which you're familiar, Stacey?"
"Yeah, Chad," she said through her rolling, simple joy. "It's what my father's told me more than once, about why I don't have a social life."
"Then...I guess...we're both just a couple of...'single' individuals?"
Stacey's stomach flipped. Her palms started to sweat. Her eye twitched. Sensing that Chad's thoughts were in perfect sync with her own, and not believing her luck finding him, her mouth froze as her thoughts raced. That's amazing!
"Stacey?" Chad asked, waving his hand in front of her face, as she stared blankly at him.
"Uh...," she glanced down at her clipboard and pretended to read her estimate sheet. "It's too bad my sister's married," she said quickly. "Y-You two would probably make a good couple."
"I'm not so sure," said Chad. "Don't opposites attract?"
Chad's question stopped Stacey cold. As her look held on him, his friendly smile caused her to nervous laugh, uneasily clear her throat, and hand him her written report.
Taking the paper, he read it over, and his face frowned. "'If you want to quickly finish, hire us!'?"
She sent him a blank expression. "I don't follow."
"That sentence under your company's name has a split infinitive," he pointed out.
"Oh. Right," she said, snapping her fingers once. "We know—I mean, I know," she haphazardly explained, "but, well...you know. Hundreds of pages were already printed that way. We couldn't very well just toss them out. 'Waste not, want not.'"
Her use of an idiom here caused him to grin. "Not a problem. Easily fixed."
He took out a red ballpoint pen from his shirt pocket, and as he corrected the sentence on the page read it aloud: "'If you want to finish quickly, hire us!'"
"That's...just the way...I thought it should read," said Stacey, pointing at the page from afar. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," he answered through a bright face.
Stacey's eyes shot away, then back at Chad and her heart skipped. "You can see it's not too expensive," she said, gulping, trying to remain professional as she continue to explain. "You don't need to re-frame the door, because everything's still intact. You'll need weather striping, but I wouldn't charge you for that. You can get another estimate, if you want. But, we could do the job for you, no problem."
"I think it'd be wise for me to get another estimate," replied Chad, deep in "garage door" thought.
What?...
As Stacey drove away, she wondered about her pained heart. Had its ache resulted from Chad having told her that he wanted to get another estimate, to possibly not hire her company, and to maybe never see her again? Or, had her heart's sadness come about here because she really had fallen for him, and had wished that he had asked her out and he didn't?
When Stacey was one block away from Chad's house heading back to her shop, she knew the answers to her questions were yes, but what could she do about that now?
* * *
"My name's George Carlyle of Garage City, Mr. Wilson," said the gruff-voiced, burly, uniformed man standing on Chad's front stoop. "You called us a few days ago about a garage-door installment estimate."
"Yes. Right. I did."
"Well, I'm here, sir. Lead the way to the buckled door!" bellowed George.
As Chad and George walked toward the garage, by way of the side of the house, Chad thought about Stacey. How could he not? After all, George was pointing out trouble spots on the house that needed fixing, which Stacey had never mentioned.
"I see that there's a lot of pointing needed on this place, Mr. Wilson," said George, gawking up at the mortar between the house's bricks. "Weathered windows, too. Quite old vinyl framing. And worn capping. You should have us point and replace everything."
"What are you talking about, George?" challenged Chad. "I just had all that done. Brick pointing. Windows. Capping. Nothing needs repair on the house here."
George glared at Chad in momentary silence, then blurted out through a rich, hearty laugh, "You're right, Mr. Wilson! You did have those things done. I see it!" He pointed up and along the side of the "in tip-top shape" house exterior. "I just wanted to know how you'd tell me that you did. And how you did, tells me a lot about you."
"Huh?"
"You have a backbone, sir!"
Feigning a smile of thanks as George's laugh continued, Chad turned, stepped forward, and led him to the garage door.
As George surveyed everything, Chad thought again about Stacey. Would he really call on her company a second time? He had seen her deflated reaction, when he'd told her that he wanted to get another estimate. Would getting her to come back now cost him more money for her company to take this job?
"The whole framework is shot, Mr. Wilson," said George, scratching his head. "This door isn't a standard size, either. It has to be custom made. It's all going to be quite expensive."
Chad's brow wrinkled. In light of what George had joked earlier about his house's brick pointing and windows, he wondered if this was another home-improvement "backbone" test of George's. But, if so, why such a test?
"Another company's estimator told me the complete opposite."
"Well, you could save money, if you did it yourself," replied George, arching his back with his hands on his hips. "But you don't look like the handyman type, sir. It's best to leave this kind of work to the professionals. Believe me, I wouldn't mislead a potential customer."
Chad sighed, crossing his arms. "Maybe I won't even fix the door. I don't need access to the garage. I can park my car in front of it."
"When people tell me something like that, sir, I think they're going to take on the project themselves. Believe me, Mr. Wilson. This isn't a job for you to tackle."
"Really?"
"Take my word for it," said George, nodding. "You have pencil-pusher hands. Putting up this door could be dangerous for you to do alone. Let us do it. Or, at least get a 'buddy' to help you."
"I'm afraid you're right," said Chad, uncrossing his arms, somewhat beaten. "And, I don't want to do it myself—or even try. You know what? Let me think about it."
"Okay, sir," said George, turning, walking away, heading toward his parked van in the driveway. "No skin off my nose, if we don't get the job. But I—"
"Daddy, what are you doing?" Stacey asked in a quick whisper, running toward the two of them, after having exited the van from its passenger side.
Chad's brow crunched in confusion, his eyes locking on Stacey as she neared them.
"Don't walk away, Daddy!" Stacey said in sweet reprimand. "You wanted to talk to Cha—my bu—Mr. Wilson, I mean. So talk, Daddy!"
Chad smiled inwardly at her "first-name address" and "buddy" cutoff. Freudian slip, he thought.
"He's good people, honey. You were right," said George, chuckling wholeheartedly. Then he turned to Chad and added, "Pulled a little undercover boss on you, Mr. Wilson. Your second call for service was to Garage City. That's my son's place—Stacey's brother. But he has no intention of taking this job, because this one's all Stacey's—'your buddy'!"
"That's enough, Daddy," Stacey pleaded through a twisted simper.
"Oh, come on, angel," said George, his attention on Stacey. Then he glanced back at Chad. "I had to check him out."
Dumbfounded, Chad's face contorted.
George winked at him. "That's why I used Stacey's mother's maiden name 'Carlyle,' instead of 'Baker' when I introduced myself, Mr. Wilson," he continued to explain. "Couldn't have you wonder if I was Stacey's father, right off the bat, Chad, by using 'my' name. Know what I mean?"
Stacey glanced at Chad's bewildered face, then back at her father's amused one.
"Uh...wait for me in the van, Daddy," she said, gently forcing him away with a push, then turned to Chad, blushing, as her father honored her request.
"An explanation would be nice," Chad said when standing alone with Stacey.
"Well...," she replied, rolling her hands over themselves.
Chad's eyes brimmed with tenderness. "I hope you didn't plan all this, just because you wanted a job for your company."
"Oh, no, no," Stacey said with wide-eyed truthful innocence. "I just didn't know what else to do to see you again. I work so much that I'm sort of..."
"Relationship inexperienced?" he offered.
"You, too?" she asked through a bright, astonished face.
Smiling like a Cheshire cat, Chad playfully nodded. "Shy like you wouldn't believe."
"So am I where a 'couple' thing is concerned," Stacey sheepishly admitted. "And after you said that you were getting other estimates, I was frazzled. I know it's silly, but I wasn't sure how best to meet up with you again."
"'Couple' huh? Then it's good my second call went to your brother's company."
"Yes!" she exclaimed, jubilantly. "Because I tried to remain professional when my father had asked me how things had gone last week with your job site inspection, but he saw it on my face."
"What...that you're the door to my heart?"
Stacey's mouth curved into a grin. "Am I?"
"Absolutely."
A soft gasped escaped her at his positive revelation. "Then...you'll help me put up your new door, Chad?"
Wide awake, seemingly for the first time in his life, Chad replied with joy, "Sounds good to me, 'buddy.'"