California Schemin' - Kate George [26]
Tom stood looking at the ceiling. I couldn’t read the look on his face. Either he was amazed, astounded or really pissed off and didn’t want it to show. We’d gotten about half the sheet rock up. None of it was caulked yet, but on the whole I thought it was looking pretty good. The higher ceiling gave the room an airier look, and somehow it seemed brighter, at least to me.
“How’d you get wrangled into this job? Shouldn’t you be getting sandwiches and Meg putting up the sheet rock?”
“It turns out Meg’s not all that coordinated. She needed me to hold up the sheet rock while she screwed it in, but I can do it by myself. Why stop the whole production when we really only need one of us to get sandwiches?”
“Let me help you down from there. You’ve done enough for one day.”
Tom jumped me down and I stretched my back until it cracked.
“I didn’t realize how long I’ve been up there. I’m stiff.”
“I guess Meg thought you could get this all done before I got home?” Tom shook his head. “I should know better than to tell her not to do something. “
Meg chose that moment to walk back in the house. She was juggling sandwiches and sodas with the dogs surging around her feet hoping for a windfall. Tom turned toward her, and she stopped. “Hi, honey,” she said. “You’re home early.”
“It’s almost midnight, Meg. I wouldn’t exactly call that early. This is your revenge, is it?”
“What in the world would I need to get revenge for?”
“For me telling you not to pull down the ceiling.”
“This isn’t revenge. This is me doing what I feel needs to be done. I can make my own decisions about what I can and can’t do.” The smile Meg had on her face was open, playful. I wished I could be as self-confident as Meg was. She wasn’t even nervous about defying Tom’s wishes. If she thought something needed to be done, she had no doubts that she had every right to do it.
Tom laughed. “You’re right about that! I hate having the kitchen torn up, but it looks like you’ll have this done in a day or two.” He surveyed the room. “There isn’t any mess. How’d you manage that?”
“We cleaned as we worked,” I said, “so the mess didn’t get ahead of us.”
We sat in the living room and ate sandwiches and chips. Yawns kept overwhelming me, and I was losing track of the conversation. I picked up the sandwich wrapper, paper plate and Coke can.
“I’m out of here,” I said. “I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. Are you going into work on the paper tomorrow, or is finishing the ceiling more important?”
“I’ll come in for a while in the morning. What about you?”
“I’ll be in. I can either work on the ceiling or the Royalton Star. You choose. I’ll see you in the morning.”
When I woke up the clock display said it was 3:00 a.m., and I was in pain. My neck hurt, and it was impossible to get into a comfortable position. I could barely turn my head at all. I sat up, groaning, “Jeez, this sucks,” and added some choice swear words. I took my pillow and went downstairs to sit in my big armchair. I propped my pillow behind my neck, but it wasn’t any better. The ibuprofen was on top of the refrigerator. Moving again wasn’t high on my list, but as I couldn’t get comfortable, I thought maybe it would take the edge off, so I dragged myself to the kitchen and swallowed three pills.
Back in the chair I was still having trouble getting comfortable. I stuffed the pillow behind my neck, tried shoving it behind my back. Nothing. Damn. I got up and slid a Gilmore Girls DVD into the player. At least that would distract me for a couple of hours. For two episodes I didn’t miss a line. During the third I caught myself drifting once in a while. I think I slept through a good chunk of the fourth episode, still in pain but exhausted beyond caring.
At six in the morning I was moving around the house, whimpering from pain. I knew I couldn’t drive myself to the hospital. I could barely move my head, for heaven’s sake, but who could I call so early in the morning? It didn’t seem fair to wake anyone, so I called the barracks to see what