Neither of us could speak. Jake’s broom was poised in midair.
And it wasn’t over.
Something buzzed from just inside the door. It sounded like one of those house intercom systems that builders put into some of the larger homes in the sixties. Without donning her top, Mrs. Badeaux came bounding inside to answer the intercom. “It’s Callie’s day off,” she remarked as she passed. (This she had already told us.) Who then, I wondered, was inside that house, summoning her? And was this person privy to all the fun that Mrs. Badeaux was having out of doors, clearly at Jake’s and my expense?
The top half of Mrs. Badeaux was swinging and bouncing wildly as she disappeared inside. It was as if Jake and I had been unknowingly cast in a comedy sketch from the burlesque-bawdy Benny Hill Show—the difference, of course, being that in the TV show the bobbling boobs of Benny’s sprinting sexpots were never fully bared. Nevertheless, Boots Randolph’s lively rendition of “Yackety Sax” played obscenely in my head.
A moment later, Jake and I could both clearly hear her speaking, apparently into the intercom: “How was your nappy, Mr. Milkman? Now? Oh my good Lord, you are insatiable!”
Almost simultaneously, I said, “We’re packing up and leaving, Jake,” while Jake said, “Fire me if you like, Tony, but I’m going in there. I can be just as good a lover as any son-of-a-bitch milkman.”
As my coitus-crazed assistant made his move to the door, I threw myself upon him. In the ensuing scuffle, pavers were scattered, great areas of smoothed, leveled sand gouged out by our dancing heels. Flashing through my mind was the fact that our tussle had probably added another couple of hours to the job.
If we were to finish the job. I knew now that I had just cause to stop work on the patio. And I had every right to charge Badeaux for all the hours we’d already put in (and for the cost of our materials), though being an extremely successful corporate attorney, Badeaux could have made it hard for Cortner Construction to prevail. Why had Mrs. Badeaux done this? For what possible purpose?
Jake was still struggling as I grabbed the hand tamper to hold him in place on the ground. We remained like this, Jake lying breathless on the degraded sand foundation, me standing equally winded, trying my level best to bring him to his senses.
“Uncle!” he finally cried. “I’ll go. Let me up.”
I’d hardly had any time to consider whether or not I could trust him when the lady of the house stepped outside.
She was now completely naked.
“Why?” was all that I could bring myself to say.
“Why not?” she answered, standing statuesque before us, something out of Greek antiquity in alabaster or marble. “It’s all my husband’s doing, you know,” she tossed out casually, seductively running her right index finger up and down the soft curve of her sunlit right thigh. Jake did a double take, just like a gawking cartoon scamp.
“How can this possibly be your husband’s doing?” I asked, having turned my back to the woman so that I could converse with her without distraction.
“Last month, Henry accused me of having been unfaithful—‘serially unfaithful’ was, I think, the phrase he used — he’s such a goddamned lawyer — ever since we married. The accusation was totally baseless. The trust is now gone from our marriage. If he thinks this is who I am, then this is who I will be. I am now officially open for business.”
“Do you strip for all the men who come to your house?”
Mrs. Badeaux shook her head. “I got the idea of coming out here like this from that Candid Camera movie that came out a few years ago.”
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady,” offered Jake. “I saw it more than once.”
“I had fun. Did you have fun? Would you like to have more fun?”
Jake looked at me. His expression seemed to say, “All of my future happiness depends on how I am allowed to answer this question.”
I shook my head.
The stunt was over, the prospect for further merriment dematerializing in that next moment. Mrs. Badeaux reached inside and drew out a bathrobe, which she promptly put on.
I loosened my compactor hold on Jake, who immediately began to take deeper and more healthy-sounding breaths. “Get up, Jake. We’re leaving now, Mrs. Badeaux. If your husband asks why, I will leave it to you to explain it to him. I’ll put our bill in the mail next week.”
Mrs. Badeaux looked disappointed to see us go, but didn’t try to stop us.
As I was backing the company truck down the driveway, I noticed that the milk delivery van had been joined by a mail truck, sans mailman. “That crazy woman really is open for business,” said Jake. Then he sighed. “I came this close to getting myself a piece of that action.”
I boxed his ear.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I could not help swinging by the house to see to what additional lengths Mrs. Badeaux had gone to confirm her husband’s suspicions of her. The telephone repair truck in the driveway wasn’t overtly suspicious, but the pink Mary Kay Cadillac parked two days in a row sent Jake on flights of girl-on-girl fantasy that were hard to rein in.
I knew that the day of reckoning would come, but neither Jake nor I was privileged to witness the denouement to the domestic drama (or comedy) in which we had both played small supporting roles. All I know is that in the end, Badeaux did pay us (though he apparently had to pay someone else, as well, to come in and finish the job), and that two years later we were, astonishingly, invited to put in a bid to convert the house’s catacumbal cellar into a modern rec room.
“It might interest you to know that I have divorced and have not remarried,” he said. “My days of marital heartache are finally over. I get all the companionship I need from my younger brother, Chad, who moved in with me a couple of months ago.”
Badeaux liked my bid and we won the job. I estimated three weeks to get it finished. We met Chad for the first time on Thursday of that first week. He came down the stairs bearing glasses of lemonade. He was wearing purple eyeshadow, a bright red kimono (loosely sashed), and embroidered mules.
We knocked the job out in two weeks. I’m thinking of changing professions.
1976 THROTTLED IN ARKANSAS AND OKLAHOMA
It was Dr. Key who first suggested the unthinkable: that the two fifty-something-year-old couples should drive to Oklahoma City together.
In the same car.
One sister in the front seat, one in the back seat.
Ladella and Fay in closer proximity than they’d been in twenty-some-odd years.
Ladella said that such a suggestion didn’t even deserve a response.
Still, this didn’t stop her from delivering one: “I don’t like Fay. I don’t look up to her. She’s nasty and she’s selfish and I vowed after that awful Christmas when she went out of her way to put me down in front of our whole family that I would never see her again.”
“Well, you’re going to have to see her in Oklahoma City, whether you like it nor not.”
“I will go to Oklahoma and wish my mother a happy eighty-fifth birthday, Cleron, but I intend to avoid even placing myself in the same room with Fay. And I will not, in this lifetime or any other, trap myself in the same car with her for twelve ungodly hours.”