I opened the door for him and smiled and told him he was right on time. He said hi or something, and then started bringing everything in. He didn’t have much to say. I just watched him and smiled. He brought in some kind of a crowbar and a power saw and a long orange extension cord. I couldn’t get that idiotic grin off my face. I had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Harold used to tell me that if I didn’t drink myself to death, I’d smoke myself to death. But he was always so cruel. Always so cruel.

I asked him if he would like a drink. He said he didn’t like whiskey, and took the crowbar and tore the facing off the wall like he was mad at it. It made this awful screeching sound when the nails pulled loose. He just … attacked it. Within five minutes he had the frame and the door lying in the carport and was pulling finishing nails from the studs. The nails screamed when he pulled them. I said something about how he didn’t waste any time. I was smiling. He said he wasn’t making much money on this and had to get through as quick as he could.

I thought he was probably mad at me for talking him into coming down twenty dollars. But I’m single, I don’t have Harold’s money, I have to get by, too.

I told him I had some beer if he wanted one. He said let him get this door up and he might take one. He pulled a screwdriver out of his tool belt and stepped outside to the carport and closed the door behind him. Almost like he didn’t have time to talk to me. Or was angry with me. I hadn’t done anything to him. The paneling was rough and splintered where he’d taken the door off. You could see the wires inside the studs. You could see the nails. It all looked so raw.

I made myself another drink, and checked my makeup in the hall mirror. You would have thought I was having a cocktail party the way I was acting. He was out in the carport and I watched him through the window. He was kneeling beside the door, doing something, I couldn’t tell what. His shirt had come up and I could see the bumps of bone in his back. His back looked so smooth. I wanted to feel it with my hands, run my hands over it, up his ribs, down over his hips, I wanted him to put his mouth on my throat and slide it down to my breasts and take one of my nipples in his lips and say Myra, Myra. …