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“What’s a joist?”
“It’s the horizontal beam at the top of the wall. You’re going to hang the two by four parallel to that joist so you can rest the sheetrock on it while you screw it into the ceiling.”
“Oh! Smart. Okay.” She did what I instructed then moved the ladder around the room, putting up the other two by fours. When she was done, she jumped down from the ladder and clapped her hands together. “Now what?”
“Now you go make me another cup of coffee and some whole-wheat toast, and I’ll get the sheetrock hung on the ceiling.”
“What? No. I’ll do it.”
“You’re not going to be able to hold a fifty-pound piece of sheetrock over your head with one hand while you screw it in with the other.”
“How do you know?”
I looked her up and down. “Because you’re five foot nothing with a fancy manicure.”
“What do my nails have to do with anything?”
“If you did any kind of physical labor, they wouldn’t look like that. Hell, I bet you don’t even do dishes.”
Josie’s eyes widened. Her hands flew to her curvy little hips. “Excuse me? I’ll have you know I do dishes. I even have a new kitchen faucet—which I installedmyselfthe other day. And I might not be the size of an oak tree like you or do manual labor for a living, but I do Pilates five days a weekandI use twelve-pound dumbbells to do the Jennifer Aniston arm workout four days a week.”
“A whole twelve pounds, huh?”
She scowled. “Don’t mock me.”
“Just being realistic.”
“No, you’re beinga jerk. I should’ve watched the YouTube videos. At least there the people doing the teaching can’t insult the students. Can you possibly just tell me what to do and I’ll do it?”
I shrugged. “Okay. Go out front and grab one of the boards, then carry it up the ladder. Start in the corner. Lean one side of the sheetrock on the two by four you put up and square the edge to fill the corner as much as you can. Then screw it to the ceiling beams.”
“Fine.”
Josie marched out to the driveway. I watched from the house as she struggled to lift the sheetrock from the pile. It went against everything in me to stand here and not help. After a few seconds, she set the board back down in the pile and returned to the kitchen. I thought she was going to admit defeat, but instead she rustled inside a plastic Lowell’s bag on the table and pulled out a Gorilla Gripper—a tool that latched onto the sheetrock and allowed you to carry it with a handle. It made lugging boards a hell of a lot easier. A lot of my guys used gadgets like that.
Josie chucked me a feisty grin on her way back out. This time, she managed to lift the sheetrock, but it still wasn’t easy for her to haul into the house, even though it was only twenty steps. There was no way in hell she was going to get that thing up the ladder and screwed into the ceiling on her own. She made it as far as the second rung before the ladder started to tip. If I hadn’t been standing here to grab it, she’d be on the floor wearing a sheetrock blanket.
“Can I do it now?” I said.
“I’m capable. It’s just going to take me a bit.”
I gripped my hips. “How about this… We agree that you’re capable, but we also agree that it will take me a hell of a lot less time to get the ceiling done, and I have shit to do.”
She chewed on her pouty lip. “Alright. Butonlybecause you have a time constraint.”
I took the board from her hands. “Right.”
Over the next half hour, I threw four boards of sheetrock up on the ceiling. Josie watched, eager to help whenever possible. At one point, a cell phone rang from atop a box on the other side of the room. Josie ignored it. But a few minutes later, it started to ring again. This time she walked over and checked the screen. “Do you mind if I answer this?”
“Do whatever you need to do.”
Josie stepped from the living room into the kitchen. The house wasn’t that big, so it was impossible to not overhear the conversation. One side at least.
“Hello, Mother.”
Quiet.
“Oh no. Is she okay?”
