Page 28 of The Cul-de-Sac War

“You are joking!” one had said with a tinkling laugh. “You know, just the other day I was breaking out my tile saw for a little she-shed project I was doing on the bathroom—”

“I’m not entirely sure what a she-shed is,” Chip had interjected, setting down his wine.

She had shrugged. “Oh, you know, just a little shed for gals. Like to hold all your little crafting and sewing projects.”

He remembered how distinctly his brow rose. “You sew?”

“Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed as though he had said something completely outrageous. “No. Anyways, I was on my way up the stairs—”

“I don’t think sheds typically have bathrooms. Or second floors.”

“And I tripped on the new hardwood floors—”

He had put up his hand. “I’m not entirely sure we have the same definition of a shed here. We might need to back up—”

“And realized those steps were entirely too narrow!” Her eyes had twinkled at his, like she had just shared an inside joke between handymen. “So now I’m having to go back and do it all over again, but it’s going to take me ages to find the right repurposed barn wood. Maybe if we happened to go together . . .”

This was Ashleigh. As it turned out, Ashleigh had no idea what to do with a tile saw. And after a revealing conversation he had with her sister weeks later, Chip discovered Ashleigh had shipped the saw to her house fourteen hours before their first date.

Just so they could have a conversation piece.

Ashleigh really did have a “she-shed” (with a full kitchen and two bedrooms) in the backyard of her “little bungalow” (with five bedrooms and three baths). He would have called them something else, but who was he to quibble over definitions with his girlfriend? College students occasionally knocked on her door asking to rent out that she-shed.

His beautiful, elegant, family-friendly girlfriend carried enough charm in this town for the both of them. At the moment, his girlfriend also happened to be standing with her cream-colored heels firmly on the threshold, her eyes scanning his gutted living room as though expecting the floor to collapse at any moment.

Chip set down the pry bar he was using to peel the baseboards away from the wall.

“Ashleigh, are you sure you don’t want to come inside?”

“I am inside,” she answered, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked pointedly down to her shoes, and he did too.

“Yes, well, would you like to come more than one inch inside? I could turn on the space heater.”

“Oh, I’m not cold,” she replied in an upbeat tone, though her shoulders visibly tensed at the sound of a creak upstairs. “I like the fresh air.”

“It’s thirty degrees.”

“I’m warm-blooded.”

“You’re shivering.”

She looked down at her slim forearms, lined with goose bumps, as though they weren’t hers. She began rubbing them furiously.

He sighed and reached for a towel. It was only 5:00 p.m. He had planned on getting in roughly three hours of work before their dinner reservation—hoped to, with a little luck, have the wall down.

“How about we just head over to 128 Pecan now? I could do with a meal anyways.” He cast a glance back to the inoperable oven and the cellophane-wrapped stainless-steel range beside it. It’d been days since he’d had a hot meal.

“Don’t be silly,” she replied with a smile. “I’m fine, Chip. Really. I said I wanted to see your work-in-progress and I meant it.” She bit her lip. “And I would be all for helping with that”—she paused, looking at his pry bar—“plier, too, if I had remembered to change out of these clothes.” She looked down at her creamy pencil skirt like it was an obstinate toddler and shrugged. “But I am loving what you are doing with the place,” she added, and ventured to unlock her arms to prove her point. She put her hands on her hips, then thought twice and put one on the doorframe, then decided it was better not to touch anything and leaned with her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t,” Chip said quickly. “That frame is still a bit unsteady.”

She jumped back into her pencil-straight formation.

While he moved to the kitchen, she spoke louder. “I can see you’ve gotten a lot done already. What with the new windows and cabinets and”—there was a pause—“this clean floor in here. So spotless. I can hardly see any dirt.”

He glanced back to see her squinting at several dust particles highlighted by the setting sun. Her arms stiffened at her sides as she resisted shooing them off.

Either Ashleigh really loved him or she was one of those girls who really, really wanted to get married. He hadn’t figured out which.