Nan Rossiter - The Gin and Chowder Club

“Well, I don’t want to cramp your style, but I’m happy to help.”

Asa didn’t know what to say. Finally, he managed, “Well, if you’re sure it’s what you want to do.”

“I’m sure-I just have to change.”

Asa was stirring the paint when Noelle returned with Martha at her heels. She had on a pair of worn tan shorts and one of Nate’s old white V-neck T-shirts. Looking up, Asa decided that Noelle would look beautiful no matter what she was wearing. This isn’t helping, he thought. At the same time, he wondered how he was going to get through the day.

The morning flew by, and Asa found that he had never enjoyed painting so much. He had dragged a second stepladder from the basement, and they had started out at opposite ends of the house.

At the outset, Asa had teasingly challenged, “Bet I can beat you to the front door.”

“You’re on!” Noelle had replied, laughing. “But if you get any red paint on my blue hydrangeas, you automatically lose.”

The trim around the windows had always been painted the same shade of red as the clapboard, so the job was simple. They worked steadily all morning, and an easy conversation ensued. Asa found himself often stopping to watch Noelle paint and to listen to her tell stories. It was a comfortable feeling, almost like old times.

Over the course of the morning, Asa learned that Noelle’s father had been a Baptist minister and that her mother had spent her life “serving others.” Noelle and her older brother Pete had been raised in a home where the needs of others were always put first, even when their own needs were barely being met. However, Noelle recalled that there always seemed to be just enough. She laughed and said, “Every meal was like the loaves and fishes. No matter how many sat around our supper table each night, there was always plenty. And my mother was such a good cook that we often had folks stop in who didn’t really need a meal. It just smelled so good outside that they found a reason to knock!”

Asa laughed at this, his own stomach rumbling at the mention of food. “So, you were a preacher’s kid?”

“Yup,” she laughed. She hadn’t heard the term in a long time.

The two worked quietly for a while, and Asa tried to picture Noelle as a young girl sitting in an old white New England church. He saw her head solemnly bowed in prayer, her hair in pigtails. He pictured her giggling in the front pew just like any other preacher’s kid who thinks they own the place. He smiled and wondered how well she knew her Bible.

He looked over, cleared his throat, and started reciting, “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles…” But then he faltered.

Noelle looked up, smiling, and picked it up. “Surely you remember Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Job…”

“Of course I do. Psalms, Proverbs…” Asa stopped again, grinning.

Noelle easily recited the rest of the books in the Old Testament, and Asa laughed. “Oh, well, I used to know them.” Noelle paused and then started in on the New Testament.

Asa held up his hand, “All right, all right, you win. You don’t need to show off!”

They went back to painting, Asa still trying to picture a younger Noelle. There was so much that he didn’t know about her, and he suddenly wanted to know everything . He wondered if her parents still lived in Maine. He decided to ask, and when Noelle told him that they had both passed away when she was in nurse’s training, he wished he hadn’t. Asa said he was sorry, and Noelle assured him that it was long ago and that they had lived full lives. She went on to say that after her mother died, her father, despite his deeply religious background, had been a lost soul and had died less than a year later-on their wedding anniversary. Asa tried to imagine the love-and loss-Noelle’s father must have felt to die of a broken heart.

Asa’s stomach had been rumbling for an hour when Noelle finally offered to make sandwiches.

“I brought lunch,” Asa said. “In fact, I have two, if you’d like one.”

“I’m sure you brought two because you can eat two.”

“Actually, I skipped my run this morning, so I really don’t need to eat both of them. You’re welcome to have one.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to have lunch up by the pool?”

“Sounds good. I’m just going to get some iced tea. Want some?”

Asa pulled the bottle of orange juice out of his cooler. “I’m set,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

“You certainly come prepared.”

Martha followed Asa up to the pool, and Noelle joined them a few minutes later. She was carrying a large glass of sweet tea and a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “These cookies are not holding up very well in this heat. You’d better eat them.”

Asa looked at the melting chocolate. “Oh, we won’t have any trouble with those, will we, Martha?” Martha wagged her tail agreeably, happy to have her name mentioned in close proximity to the word cookies. Asa handed Noelle one of his sandwiches and leaned back in his chair in the shade of the umbrella. Noelle took half and wrapped the other half back up.

The air was heavy with the monotonous trilling of crickets and the hum of laboring bees. The unmistakable sounds of a steamy July day, sounds reminiscent of simpler times , Asa thought, absently composing. The wings of the season, droning endlessly, blissfully ignorant of summer’s fleeting hours…

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, eating their sandwiches. A bluebird alighted on the wooden gate and burst into a song. “Look!” Noelle whispered. Suddenly, his mate called from the tree line, and the flash of cobalt was off again, as quickly as he had come.

Noelle finished her sandwich and reached for her iced tea. “Did you bring your suit?” she asked.

“No, but I meant to. I meant to bring a radio too.”

“Well, you can borrow a pair of Nate’s shorts if you want to jump in.”

Asa looked at Noelle and said slyly, “I didn’t need shorts the other day.”

Noelle feigned shock. “You mean you went skinny-dipping in my pool?”

Asa reached for the uneaten half sandwich, smiling. “Well, it was just so damn hot, and I didn’t want you to come home and find me suffering from heat stroke. I really was just thinking of you.” He couldn’t help but look in her eyes as he said this.

“Well, at least you were thinking of me,” she teased.

“Always , ” he said with a smile.

“So, what’s stopping you today? I can go paint, and you can cool off.”

“Or… you could join me…”

“Mmmm… that would be fun. But as enticing as it sounds…” Noelle smiled gently. “I’d better not. You s till could, though.”

“No, that’s all right,” he said. “You’re just saying that so you’ll finish your half of the house before me.” He grinned at her as he finished his drink.

She laughed. “You know, Asa, you’ll never be able to conceal where you’re from with that accent.”

Asa broke a cookie in half and gave it to Martha. “You’re one to talk,” he teased, standing up.

Noelle laughed, knowing it was true.

The front of the house was sunnier in the afternoon, making the job almost intolerable. Martha had found cool shade under a nearby tree, and Asa envied her, wishing he could take off his shirt. He and Noelle worked in silence for a while.

“If you want to quit, it’s okay by me,” he said.

“You just want to win.”

“I didn’t realize you were so competitive,” he teased.