We Both Paid the Same Stranger to Sublet the Same One-Bedroom, and Neither of Us Would Move Out novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Folding Chairs

The folding chairs were stacked in the pantry at the back of the parish hall, behind a kitchen full of women in aprons.

Gloria handed me a clipboard at the door, and handed Randy a hand truck, and pointed down a short hallway.

"Forty chairs," she said. "Count them twice. I'll be in the sanctuary arguing about tables."

"Yes, ma'am," Randy said.

"Don't dawdle."

"No, ma'am."

She was gone before the door finished swinging.

The pantry was a narrow room with steel shelves on both sides, floor to ceiling.

They were packed with cans of tomatoes, tubs of flour and trays of lemon bars under plastic wrap.

The chairs stood in leaning columns at the far end.

There was one bare bulb, a hook-and-eye latch on the inside of the door, and a smell of dish soap and powdered sugar.

I had come straight from work, in a black pencil skirt and a white blouse with a button gaping over my bra.

Randy was in jeans and a dusty black T-shirt, with a pencil behind his ear.

He looked at the clipboard.

"Forty," he said.

"Forty."

"We could start."

"We could."

I took the clipboard out of his hand and hung it on a nail.

I slid the hook into the eye.

"Tina."

"Gloria's in the sanctuary."

"There are fifteen women in the kitchen."

"They're making a casserole. They're very busy."

"Tina."

"You said you'd keep me warm," I said. "It's a cold room."

He laughed, helplessly, and I walked him backward until his shoulders hit a shelf of canned peaches and the whole rack rang.

We both froze.

In the kitchen, a woman's voice said, "What was that?"

Another voice said, "The chairs."

"Those are some noisy chairs."

Randy put a hand over my mouth and I put a hand over his.

We stood there shaking with laughter until the voices moved on.

He took his hand away.

I kissed him against the peaches.

It was a fast kiss, hungry and not at all careful.

My hands were in his hair and his hands were already pushing my skirt up my thighs.

He had my skirt around my waist in one pull.

"Black stockings," he said into my mouth.

"Thigh-highs. I put them on this morning."

"Why?"

"Because of what you did on the fire escape."

"Jesus."

"It was a mood."

His thumbs found the lace at the tops and followed it around to the back, and then he stopped.

"No underwear."

"I took them off in the bathroom at work."

"You sat at a front desk all day like that?"

"I told a man his crown would be ready Tuesday and I thought of you the entire time."

He swore, low and fervent, and dropped to his knees on the tile.

"Randy. We don't have time."

"I only need a minute."

"You said ten in the laundry room."

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