The Morning After the Drywall

I woke up at 6:04 in a trailer that smelled like joint compound and coffee that had already been made and drunk. My bra was hanging off the propane heater. My phone said the high today was 71.

So that was my morning.

I am 62 years old. I have run commercial jobs for thirty years, I have fired men for less than what we did last night, and I was lying in Jefferson Reyes's bunk in his work trailer behind the Harlow building wearing one sock and his flannel shirt. His wife died six years ago. My divorce finalized two years ago. We have been friends for fifteen years, and last night over two beers on his tailgate, fifteen years of nothing turned into something around 11:40 PM.

I did not regret it. That surprised me. I expected regret the way you expect rain in April. Instead I lay there listening to the building hum through its early systems check and felt, honestly, fine. Better than fine. Curious about how awkward this was about to get.

Because here is the problem. I am his boss. Not directly, I don't sign his checks, the GC does, but I run the job. And we were both going to walk onto that site in three hours and pretend, or not pretend, in front of forty tradesmen who would notice everything.

I picked up my phone at 6:12 and texted him. He was, I assumed, in the site office getting the day's closeout sheets, because he had already gotten up and dressed and left me in his bunk like a gentleman, which is a word I had never once applied to Jefferson Reyes in fifteen years.

The text said: do you have coffee. Also my underwear is in your lunchbox. This is not how I planned to start a Monday.

I stared at the ceiling and waited. The trailer has a water stain shaped like Ohio above the bunk. I had never noticed it before because I had never been in his bunk before, obviously.

He answered in under a minute. A photo. His thermos tipped upside down over his open palm, nothing coming out, and next to it on the sawhorse one of his drywall knives, the 10 inch one, laid flat. The caption said: no coffee. But I will trade you a ride to the hardware store for the knife. You can hold my coffee when we get there.

I laughed out loud alone in a trailer. That is a specific kind of feeling.

Then I sent him a screenshot of my calendar, because I am who I am. Framing inspection, 10 AM. Owners walk through, 2 PM. Closeout punch list review, 4. Underneath it I wrote: I am not doing the walk of shame across that job site. I will stay in this trailer until dark if I have to. I mean that. I have granola bars in my purse.

The three dots came up. Then: chloe. Your car is still parked where you parked it at 6 yesterday. My truck is parked where it always parks. Everyone already knows you stayed. There is no walk of shame. There is just a walk.

I put the phone on my chest and thought about that. He was right, of course. My Subaru had been sitting in the visitor row for twelve hours. Mario on the concrete crew sees everything and reports everything to everyone. The story was already circulating. By lunch it would have three different endings, none of which involved two sober adults over 60 deciding to do something stupid and enjoyable.

I texted back: fine. But I am walking with purpose. Nobody walks with purpose at 8 AM unless they are ashamed or late and I am neither.

He said: that is the spirit. Also wear your own shirt, I like that flannel.

Which, fine, was flattering, and I hated how much I liked it.

* * *

I got dressed. My pants were folded on his little dinette bench, which he had apparently done at some point during the night, which told me something about him I already knew but liked being reminded of. I found my other sock under the table. My panties were, as advertised, in his lunchbox, folded on top of a bag of chips like a horrible little napkin. I considered taking them. I left them, as a kind of note, which was worse than a note and I knew it.

At 6:51 I texted him from the trailer steps. The lot was empty except for the site super's F-150 and my Subaru and his truck, which sat there looking like evidence.

Here is a thing I did not expect to think about at 6:51 on a Monday: my ex-husband.

Dale would have been mortified by this. That is the only word for it. Twenty-six years married to a man who kept a spreadsheet of what the neighbors might think. Dale would not have said a word about last night. He would have gone quiet in the specific way he went quiet, and he would have been pleasant at the inspection, and then six weeks later it would have come out sideways over something small, a dish rack or a gas bill, that I had embarrassed him once in 2019 by parking in the wrong spot and he had never gotten over it.

I know that sounds like I am being hard on him. I am being fair to him. There is a difference and it took me two years and one lawyer's bill to learn it.

I texted Jefferson while I sat in my car with the engine running and the heater on. My thumbs did it before my brain approved the message.

Dale would have died. Just died. He would have made me leave at 5 AM in the dark so the concrete crew never saw my car. He would have referred to this trailer for the rest of his life as the incident.

Jefferson's reply took a while this time. Long enough that I pulled out of my spot and got to the drive-through and back. When it came, it said: good. That is exactly why you should enjoy it. You are not married to him anymore. You are parked where you parked. Nobody out here cares what Dale thinks and neither should you.

And then a second text: also the knife. Hardware store after work. I am buying you coffee so bring my flannel back clean or not at all.

I sat in the parking lot of the Dunkin and laughed again, and then I sat there a minute longer with the cup in the cupholder and thought about how light I felt. Not giddy, I am too old for giddy. Just light. Like a punch list that got shorter for no reason.

The morning went the way mornings go. The inspection passed with two corrections. The drywall on 14 looked good, better than good, because of course it did, Jefferson has been finishing board since before I ran my first job and he does not turn in sloppy corners no matter what else happened in his trailer the night before.

We managed the site itself like professionals. He passed me twice on the 12th floor and said "morning, Chloe" both times, plain as paint