Jettie Woodruff - Underestimated

“Well, we better get busy,” Lauren stated, closing the pizza box.

I looked at her with a little bit of confusion mixed with hope. “I am not going to let you help me paint,” I demanded with my head tilted.

Please help me paint, please help me paint.

“The way I see it, you don’t have a choice. I am doing nothing but sitting at my house watching reruns of Greys Anatomy. Now where are the paint pans?” she asked, and I smiled, happy that she wasn’t giving me a choice. There was one problem, however.

“Paint pans?” I asked. I hadn’t bought paint pans. I just bought paint and brushes.

“You don’t have any pans?” she asked. I shook my head.

“What about rollers?”

I shook my head again, and she laughed. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”

She took the unlocked lock from her shed door and took the two pans with four rollers and handed them to me. “Do you have any drop clothes?” she asked.

Where was my mind? I had forgotten everything. I had never painted a day in my life. How was I supposed to know that you needed more than paint and brushes?

“Nope.” I smiled.

I was so grateful for Lauren’s help. I would have never gotten done with a paint brush. She trimmed while I rolled on the light gray paint. I liked it so much in my new room that I decided to use it in the living room, as well.

“Do you have a radio?” Lauren asked.

I ran over to my list and jotted it down along with other things that I had been remembering throughout the day. Like a microwave. How could I forget that?

“I am going to run home and do number two and get us one,” she announced. I laughed out loud at the number two comment. I actually laughed and if felt great. Could this truly be happening? Could I really pull this off and not be found? My thoughts were all over the place, and Lauren was back disrupting them ten minutes later.

“Everything come out okay?” I teased.

“Do you really want me to elaborate on that?” she provoked right back. I shook my head. Nope, didn’t need to hear that.

Lauren turned the radio to a country station. I hated country music. Brakes. Wait a minute. Drew hated country music. I had never actually listened to it. How could I hate it if I had never even listened to it?

“Where’re you from?” Lauren asked as we painted and listened to something about somebody digging their keys into the side of somebody’s souped-up four-wheel drive.

“Indiana,” I remembered.

“What part? I have a cousin in Indiana.”

And the questions begin. “Carson,” I answered with only that.

“What brought you to Misty Bay? I know you didn’t come all the way here just to work with Starlight Scarlett in her weird little coffee shop.”

“Now you’re scaring me,” I stated, hoping to get off topic.

She laughed. “You will absolutely love Starlight. She is as Bohemian as they come. I just know that you didn’t move to this sectarian town for that purpose,” she assumed.

“Are you calling this town a cult?”

“Are you going to avoid my question all night?” she retorted with her own question.

I smiled down at her from my step stool, which thank God she owned too. “I lost my job when they downsized, and my grandmother left me this house. I just decided it was time for a change.” I lied, hitting it right on the money. I smiled inside, proud that I remembered until I saw the look on her face. She knew I was lying. She knew my grandmother didn’t leave me this house.

“If we’re going to be friends, you can’t lie to me,” she said being exceedingly blunt. “My aunt owned this house up until last month. She owns mine too. That’s why they are both ugly blue.”

I walked down the step stool to face her. “Lauren, please don’t ask me too many questions about my past. I am not running from the law or anything like that. I just need to keep a low profile,” I tried to reassure her.

“Well, you need a better story,” she said, turned and started painting again. “People around here know that my aunt has owned these two houses for years.”

Thanks a lot, Ms. K. Nice investigating skills.

“I’ve got it,” she stated matter-of-fact. I looked down at her with a peculiar stare. Why would she be so zealous about helping me? I didn’t get it.

“How old are you?” she asked, again bluntly.

“I will be twenty five next month. Why?”

“Perfect,” she alleged while I continued to look at her like she had two heads. “We went to college together, and when you lost your job, I told you about my aunt’s house, and you bought it,” Lauren exclaimed excited. “You didn’t tell anyone else the grandma story, did you?”

I shook my head.

I was happy that Lauren stopped asking questions, and we talked and talked while the room was being transformed into a whole new domicile. We painted the living room and kitchen with the light gray almost silver tone paint. The wall around the French doors and the front door were painted in a darker shade of gray, and I, without question, loved it. I tried to get Lauren to quit and go home just before midnight, but she wouldn’t. I was glad that she didn’t.

She washed all of the new dishes and put them away while I hung curtains. The only thing left to do was clean the hardwood floors and wash down the two bedroom walls. I could do that the following morning. The furniture wouldn’t arrive until around noon.

“I’m done.” I stated. I couldn’t go anymore. My energy was gone, and my body was telling me that it had enough. “I can’t thank you enough, Lauren,” I told her, and I couldn’t. I would have never gotten that much done without her, let alone trying to do it with limited tools.

“Yes, you can. You can thank me by going in there and getting some clean clothes and coming home with me. I have an extra bed.”

“I’m fine here, but thank you just the same.”

“I insist. If I leave, you are going to continue to work, and I can tell that you are exhausted. Now move it.”

I smiled at her. We just met, and she already knew my intentions. I was already thinking that I could get the walls washed before I went to bed. “I’m going to grab a shower, and I’ll be over.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

I didn’t wonder anymore why Lauren had picked the house on the other side of the road, rather than the one by the ocean. Her house was quite a bit bigger. She had it decorated with modern décor. The walls were like mine and painted two-toned but with beige and chocolate brown. There was a black and white, female country music singer hanging behind the couch. I knew I had seen the woman before, but couldn’t tell you her name.

“You play?” I asked, eyeing the guitar on the couch.

“Yeah, I mess around a little,” she said, modestly.

She was dressed in flannel pants and a t-shirt just like me. She yawned and showed me to her spare bedroom. It was a queen sized bed with a fluffy green comforter. I couldn’t wait to crawl into it.

I lay in bed and stared out at a branch blowing back and forth in the window. I had a million and one thoughts going through my mind, and they wouldn’t seem to settle. I thought about decorating my new house and making it my own. That thought led to the mansion that I had just fled from. My whole house was the size of my suite there, but already it was more inviting than the ice cold castle. That thought led me to thoughts of Drew, and I betted that he had at least five P.I.’s looking for me.

Would he find me? Was there any way that he could trace my whereabouts? I wondered what my friend Jena had told him. She knew nothing. I made sure of it. She had no idea where I was either. I talked to her the night before I had disappeared, and we even talked about the weekend charity event that we would attend, tomorrow . I wondered if Drew was sly enough to report me missing. I had made my intentions perfectly clear with my short, to the point, note, informing him that I hoped he rotted in hell. It was a good possibility that he never even found the note. I had typed in my e-reader. I told him not to try to find me, but I knew that was like pissing in the wind. He had everyone he knew on it, and then some.