Ariel craned her neck to look out the window, and that’s when she saw who it was. Unannounced, uninvited, unwelcome.
One of the things that Ariel misses about living in the city is the abundance of choice. In restaurants and bars, bookstores and boutiques, housewares and hardware and lampshades and everything: If you don’t like one business, the people who work there, you can go to another, or another, or another. Not here. In this small town she doesn’t have options, not about the businesses she frequents, nor the people she interacts with. There’s just one orthopedist, one toy store, one pharmacist. And for water problems, just one guy who’s exactly the sort of creep Ariel would choose to not deal with, if she had any choice. She doesn’t.
She stepped out onto her porch, looked up the street one way, then the other.
“Hello?” She tried to imbue those two syllables with doubt and reluctance and frostiness, but not overt hostility. She didn’t want to pick a fight, not unless she had to, not in a situation like this. No escape route. No witnesses.
Jeb Payne climbed down out of his supersized truck, hitched his pants. He wasn’t yet as overweight as he’d end up, but he’d made a lot of progress since he’d first visited to repair the filter.
“Hey.” He lumbered toward her with a big toolbox.
“I didn’t call, did I?” Ariel knew for certain that she didn’t. But she hoped that framing this as a question would be less confrontational.
“Nah. I’m here for the three-year follow-up. Just part of our service deal. For, um, valued customers.”
“Not necessary.” Ariel crossed her arms, stood in front of the door. “Everything’s all right.”
“Good to hear.” A smirk. “But I gotta check it out anyway. Part of our deal.” As if she hadn’t understood the first time.
“Really, you don’t need to.”
“Really,” he said, “I do.” He was now on her porch. “It’ll take just a minute.”
He was standing at her screen door, but didn’t reach for the knob, as if drawing a distinction between his uninvited arrival and the undeniable crime of entering without explicit permission. Ariel got the feeling that Payne had learned all the finer points of criminal trespass from his cousin the cop.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
She did. But was she really going to say it, As a matter of fact I do mind, please leave? Ariel waited a second, to convey her reluctance, but Payne didn’t retreat. She didn’t want to turn this into an overtly antagonistic situation, but that seemed to be the only alternative to letting him in.
Ariel stepped aside, let him pass. But she stayed out on her porch, debating. She looked at Payne’s truck, blocking hers in the driveway. She looked again at the empty isolated road, where very few cars passed at any time of day. She looked toward her nearest neighbor’s house, a few hundred yards away, no Buick in the driveway; Cyrus was probably down at the VFW, where he had a beer or two almost every afternoon.
She was getting a bad vibe. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that she was all alone.
“Could I trouble you for a glass?”
“The cupboard on your right,” Ariel said, still outside.
Payne ran water into a glass, took a sip. He left the tap open.
“Is this the way it always tastes?” He was still standing at the sink, holding the glass out in her direction, trying to lure her inside.
She wondered if she was overreacting; she’d been accused of that before. It did seem unlikely that this man had come here, in broad daylight, with the express premeditated intention of attacking her. But it was definitely not impossible.
Ariel walked inside. She ignored the glass in Payne’s outstretched hand, and instead pulled a fresh one off the shelf, filled it, took a sip. But she didn’t pay any attention to how the water tasted.
“Seems fine to me.”
“Hmm.” He made a face of disagreement. “I gotta go to the cellar, check out your, um, apparatus. Please keep the water running, so we can get a pure sample. I’ll be back up in a few.”
He exited, and Ariel breathed a sigh of relief. She returned to dinner prep, dipping eggplant slices in flour, then beaten eggs, then bread crumbs, her hands coated in glutinous goop.
Then Payne was back on her porch, with the dogs behind him. They felt obliged to supervise visitors.
“Hey,” he said.
She washed her hands in the still-running water, then turned to the screen door, but didn’t approach it.
“Everything okay?”
“Can I come in? Need to get another sample.”
Again she hesitated before saying, “I guess.” She wanted to register her reluctance clearly.
Payne filled a couple of vials, then closed the tap. “It’ll be a week or so for the results.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for coming.”
He made no move to leave. He glanced at the counter, the bowls of ingredients, then his eyes moved back to her, beginning with her legs, moving up slowly.
“It’s quittin’ time,” he said, affecting the extra-thick accent that men around here sometimes use to prove that they’re country, to distance themselves from city transplants.
“Well,” she said, “thanks again for checking in.”
“I’m in no rush.” He grinned. “How ’bout a beer?”
During Payne’s entire visit, Ariel had felt something bad niggling at her, like a little tickle in the back of your throat that you can choose to ignore. Until you cough, and it hurts.
“Oh I don’t think so. I have to get dinner made; my son will be home any minute.”
Ariel glanced at the counter, noticed that there was no knife within easy reach.
“In fact some people are coming over,” she lied. “They’ll be here soon.”
None of this was true, and Payne’s smirk told her that he knew it. “Havin’ a party, huh?”
Ariel had learned lessons; of course she had. She knew what she needed to do here, and when she needed to do it. But this is a hard thing, to say no, to do it loudly, to make sure there’s no alternative interpretation, no possible misunderstanding, no hint of ambiguity.
“No, not a party.”
He took a step toward her. “I like to party.”
To bite the bullet and say: Please leave.
“How ’bout you? You like to party, dontcha?”
To say: I insist.
“Listen,” Ariel began. He was standing too close already. He was a big human, with seventy or eighty pounds on her, a half-foot of height; she didn’t want this to turn into a physical fight.
To say: Leave right now, or I’m calling the police.
“You’re making me uncomfortable.” Ariel glanced down at his footwear, steel-toed boots.
“Uncomfortable?” As if this were utterly ridiculous. “Naw, don’t be like that.”
“But I am.” Ariel met his eye, trying to look firm. To be firm.
“C’mon.” Payne took another step, within grasping distance. He gave another lopsided sneer, as if they were playing a game that was slightly funny.
“Please, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave.”
He reached toward her, and she swatted his hand away. His crooked smile collapsed into a frown; his whole face went dark.
“What? You a fuckin’ dyke? Like people say?”