Chapter 44

August 19. 1978

Sandra finally chose to buy a very plain set of furniture for the living room. She managed to find a middle ground between ‘middle aged stodgy,’ furniture and the trendy fashion furniture which was favored by people her age. She avoided the ugly browns, oranges, and greens that seemed to dominate the furniture world, and ended up with a cream colored living room set with matching end tables and a coffee table. She had picked up a cheap dining table from Target.

Her father, with the help of Benny and Tim, moved her bedroom furniture into the master bedroom. This required that they wrestle it up the stairs to the second floor. That was not easy. The furniture was built for a house that had bigger dimensions than this one. It took a lot of jockeying to get the dresser into the room.

Her mother showed up with bags of towels, linens, and curtains. Most of the stuff was old and used, but in 1978 one didn’t throw things away because they were old. Her mother was using this as an occasion to do a little redecorating at home. She also brought over several boxes of items for the kitchen, namely plates, glasses, silverware, pots, pans, a cookie tray, cake pans, muffin pans, and various cooking utensils.

Sandra went on a shopping expedition with her mother and Cathy, leaving the men behind to haul furniture and set it up in her absence. The men had more than enough to do, particularly hanging the curtains which required putting up the curtain rods. There were actually a lot of little jobs like that to do.

Sandra went about filling her house with housewares with a very different goal from Benny. Benny wanted new items that would last and would have been his as first owner. He had no interest in hand me downs and castoffs. He spent a fortune because of that.

Sandra had purchased items as a holding pattern against the eventuality of moving in with Cathy. When something of great value was to be bought, it went to Cathy’s house. Anything of lesser value that it displaced showed up at Sandra’s house. Cathy’s house was to contain the antiques, the fifty year old tableware, and the art. When it was time, they would sell off all of their houses and move together into a large place which would be filled with quality furniture.

Tim had a completely different plan for his place. He was slowly collecting basic items, a hodge podge of nice items that wouldn’t break under normal wear. All of it was currently stored in the outbuilding at the office. He viewed everything he had purchased so far as disposable. He was waiting for the right woman to enter his life. Fixing the house was to be her job. If she worked with him, she could stay. If she pushed him out of the way and did as she wanted, then she would soon find herself searching for a place to stay. He wanted a partner who would work to build a home for them both.

At the moment, Tim was upstairs trying to get the clothes bar in the closet to stay up. It was not cooperating. There was only space for one person, a bar that had to be held in place, a screw that had to be placed just so, and a drill to drive it. Supposedly the bit was magnetic, but just as he would get the screw in place, it would drop off. He broke down and released a swear word or two.

There was a rush of words coming from downstairs that sounded like a drunken sailor finding out his date for the night was a donkey. He went downstairs and found Sandra’s father sucking his thumb.

“It looks like you really mashed that.”

“Yes, I hit it with my hammer.”

“Did you break anything?”

“I cut myself.”

“Is it bleeding bad?”

“No. It’s a seeper. It’ll bleed a little bit all day until it looks like I cut my thumb off. The problem is that it hurts.”

“It happens all of the time.”

“What do you do about it?”

“I suck it up.”

Tim returned to wrestling with the closet. Benny was just putting up one curtain rod after another ignoring everything else around him. Sandra’s father went back to what he was doing.

It didn’t take them long to finish all of the last minute detail work that put the house into shape. They gathered in the living room to wait for the women to return. The one thing that she didn’t have was a television, so they were stuck sitting there looking at each other. Of course, Tim and Benny were comfortable with doing that, but Mr. Miller wasn’t. The silence was getting on his nerves.

“So you’re Benny.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t really know you.”

“That’s right.”

“You are around my daughter a lot. I should probably know a little something about you.”

“I’m Cathy’s boyfriend.”

“I know that.”

“So what else do you need to know?” Benny asked puzzled.

Tim said, “Mr. Miller, forgive Benny. He’s not trying to hide anything. It’s just that he’s not exactly what you’d call a conversationalist. Benny is a thinker. It’s not only what he does, it’s what he is. He’s a thinker. He spends most of the time inside his own head, thinking about things. He’s a brilliant mathematician, but he’s going to school to learn mechanical and electrical engineering so that he can get into robotics.”

“Wow. Robotics. That’s impressive, but I don’t think the world is ready for a Rosie the Robot.”

“Does your car have cruise control?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the kind of thing that Benny wants to develop. He wants to make it so that small computers control large things that are important in our lives.”

“Oh, I get it. You say robotics and everyone thinks of the Jetsons,” Mr. Miller said.

“Rosie is poorly designed. The center of gravity is too high and the small base wouldn’t provide a stable support,” Benny said.

“I never really thought about Rosie from an engineering perspective.”

“I have.”

“I guess you have.”

They sat there silently for another minute.

“I know Sandra has some interest in men. She comes in the house hot and bothered after your make out sessions in the driveway. But, I know that she also likes girls. As far as I can tell, Cathy has no interest in boys. Cathy is a lesbian.

“I never understood why you pretend to be the boyfriend of a lesbian, though.”

Tim was shocked at the direction the conversation was going. He had no idea that Mr. Miller had any clue about Cathy’s sexual orientation. His comments about his daughter were telling as well.

Benny said, “Cathy and I are friends. I help her with her problems. I spend a lot of time thinking. She keeps people away from me, so that I can think.”

“I’m not criticizing. You two boys have helped Sandra and Cathy tremendously. I was just curious why.”

Benny answered, “They are our friends. We help our friends.”

“I can’t believe my little girl owns a house within months of graduating high school. This is a nice house. It’s better than the first house that I bought when I first married my wife. That she’s able to afford this place is just incredible to me.”

Tim said, “Benny solves problems. Finding us a place to live while going to college is one of the problems he solved.”

“He must be very good at solving problems.”

“He is.”

“Most people would have looked for a place to rent.”

“Benny is not like most people.”

“So how long will you keep up the pretext of being Cathy’s boyfriend?”

“Until it is safe.”

“Well, I appreciate what you two have done for my girls.”

Benny frowned. “I thought you only had one daughter. I don’t remember doing anything for your other daughter.”

Tim said, “He’s talking about Cathy.”

“She’s not his daughter.”

“Is he for real?”

“Yes.”

“I bought her a present,” Benny said out of the blue.

“You did?” Tim asked surprised that Benny thought to do something like that.

“Yes. She bought a present for me when I moved into my house. Should I go get it?”

“That would be nice.”

Benny went out and crossed the street to his house. He returned with a framed print. He held it up for Tim and Mr. Miller to see.

Impressed, Tim said, “That’s an Erte print.”

“Yes. It’s numbered and signed.”

Tim exhaled loudly. He couldn’t believe that Benny had bought an original Erte print, particularly of his famous alphabet series. Tim didn’t realize that the prints had come out two years earlier.

Mr. Miller said, “That’s worth hundreds of dollars.”

“I don’t think the person selling it knew that. She only had the one letter. I would have bought them all if she’d had them.” Benny turned it around and showed it to them. It was the letter Z. He said, “It’s got a certificate of authenticity, too.”

“Where did you get it?”

“At a garage sale.”

The only reason Benny stopped at the garage sale was that he spotted an Escher print while driving past. Escher was one of the few artists whose work sung to his soul. He had a bunch of empty walls at home and figured he could get it to fill the void. When he saw the Erte, he knew that Sandra or Cathy would love it.

“How much did you pay for it?”

“That’s kind of hard to say. I bought a lot of stuff, there.”