“What?”
“It’s supposed to be Overalls, no apostrophe. Not O-V-E-R-A-L-L-apostrophe-S. Even a stupid, unemployed bartender who now has to work customer service at Lowe’s knows that. It’s like, grade six English. Grade four.”
The plumber looked at Freddie, and Freddie braced herself for attack. Anger.
But the other woman just sighed. Shrugged. And left.
She had been gone a good hour, two, before Freddie realized she had not left an invoice.
Janet got through the day without telling Dark and Stormy who their emergency exploding toilet client was, and how the experience had gone—or why the job was missing an invoice. And Dark and Stormy, pensive herself, didn’t press. But it was still with relief that Janet said goodbye to her friend and business partner at the end of a very long day, and let herself into her apartment.
Her cats were waiting for her. She had accidentally inherited the three-year-old littermates when a neighbour—the former occupant of the flat that now belonged to the hot nurse she and Dark and Stormy both lusted after—left them behind.
She was a reluctant cat mother, who had resisted many earlier attempts to have cats infiltrate her life.
“Already a walking, talking butch dyke stereotype,” she had told Dark and Stormy repeatedly. “Come on. Let me be the one cat-free lesbian in our lives.”
“Just ‘cause you’re a plumber who walks around with a bag full of dildo-like plumbing implements?” Dark and Stormy laughed. But she never pressed any of her foster cats and kittens on Janet. And, when she arrived for dinner one day and found two twin calico cats curled up on Janet’s couch, she simply petted them, asked their names, and did not laugh when, on the spur of the moment, Janet called them Drip and Suck.
She also did not say, “About time,” which was why she and Janet were going to be best friends forever.
Drip and Suck jumped up into her lap as soon as Janet collapsed onto the couch. She rubbed Drip’s head and Suck’s chin. Sighed. She didn’t quite understand what had gone so very wrong at the beautiful Lowe’s employee’s house. And, yesterday morning in the hardware store. Why had she been so fucking rude? It wasn’t like her. Freddie had schooled her, and she had deserved it.
But why hadn’t the woman even attempted to listen to her apology?
She reached for her phone to text Dark and Stormy. Changed her mind. Her friend was also strained and tired. Unlikely to be in a mood for Janet’s whingeing.
But she couldn’t put down the phone.
“Did you know that there’s a thing called an apostrophe fault in the name of our business?” she typed.
Dark and Stormy’s response was quick.
“Yes. I told you so when you filled out the paperwork. I told you again when you got the business cards printed. And I reminded you, again, when you ordered the decal for the truck. You said, and I quote, ‘Our target audience don’t give a fuck if we know grammar. They need us to know plumbing.’”
“Oh.” Janet reflected. It did sound like something she’d say. She didn’t remember. But her memory was shit these days. She didn’t know if it was the stress of the lockdown, the ambient stress of her clients, or perhaps just age.
Not that she was old. Thirty-six wasn’t old anymore. It was like the new twenty-one, right?
She wondered how old Freddie was. Younger. But not too young? Twenty-five, say, but not nineteen?
“What’s up, babelicious? Want me to come visit and watch you get drunk?” Dark and Stormy did not drink. Ever. “Too dangerous,” she had told Janet way back when, when they had first met, and Janet didn’t understand, but accepted. But she did make killer cocktails. Including Dark and Stormies. “I left all the ingredients for Dark and Stormies and Moscow Mules in your pantry last time I was over.”
“No,” Janet typed. Sighed. “I’m just off. You know. Life.”
Janet smiled at the string of hearts and hugs that followed. And laughed, hysterically, at the advice that ended the exchange: “Masturbate. But don’t think of the Hot Nurse—I’m using her tonight and I do not want a threesome.”
Freddie learned fast, and by the end of day three, she knew what brass fittings and connectors were, what they looked like, and where they were stocked. And, she knew the difference between compression and soldered cut-off valves. Also, she had learned that contractors and plumbers arrived at the store early in the morning—and they knew exactly what they were looking for, and also, what to do with it. Usually, anyway. The afternoons brought the hobbyists. Or the people who hoped they could fix all their plumbing problems with Drano.
Between customers—few of whom were wearing masks, and few of whom were practicing physical distancing, constantly forcing her to mentally measure the distance between them and take a few steps backwards without seeming rude—Freddie walked up and down the plumbing aisle, memorizing names, prices, and locations.
It was almost fun.
Almost.
Still. When a customer asked her for a twin ell, and she knew precisely what it looked like and where it was, and also how much it cost—she got a little thrill.
“Hey.” The voice, coming from behind her, was familiar. And it gave her a big thrill. And flooded her with… very complicated feelings. She felt her face turn very, very red. Even her ears, Freddie was sure, were on fire. She remembered being snotty and rude—and, oh, yes, the plumber had been rude and contemptuous first, but Freddie could have taken the higher ground.
She hadn’t.
She had mocked the woman who had just saved her from a massive flood for a stupid apostrophe fault.
And now the woman was back in the store. Probably pissed—oh. Of course. She had never given her an invoice.
Freddie felt her shoulders relax a little. The woman might be pissed, but Freddie owed her money, and she would pay her. And they would be civil to each other.
She turned around.
It seemed an eternity before Freddie turned around, an eternity in which Janet doubted her impulse, and also her sanity. There was, maybe, time for her to turn around herself and run in the other direction. But she didn’t and, as Freddie finally moved to face her, Janet thrust the bouquet of flowers towards her.
“What?”
The other woman looked stunned, and Janet felt—and, was sure, looked—foolish. She was thrusting the bouquet of red Gerbera daisies, purple hydrangeas, and pink freesias across the six-foot space that separated them, and although Janet was tall and her arms were long, the proffered flowers did not quite reach Freddie. They hovered in the pandemic-created no-touch zone between them.
Finally, too slowly, Freddie reached for them.
“What is this?”
“An apology,” Janet said. And fought the impulse to close the chasm between them. “The other morning. I was rushed. And stressed. And in a bad mood. I took it out on you. I was rude. And…”
“I’m really sorry about what I said yesterday,” Freddie said. “That apostrophe…”
“I don’t care,” Janet interrupted. “Really. Do I look as if I give a fuck about apostrophes?”
“It’s dangerous to judge books by their covers,” Freddie said.