"You're back," he said. "Perfect timing. Want to help me put up these curtains?"
I stared at Joe with the look of a kitten getting ready to pounce on a ball of yarn. My mischievious grin and tendency to rock back and forth before I just allow my desires to take over had Joe's eyes get wider and wider.
"Joe," I said softly. "Hi."
"Hi," Joe said and I catapulted myself from the chair and jumped into his arms where his tight hug nearly pushed all the air out from inside of me.
"I'm glad you're back," he said in a voice even quieter than a whisper.
"Me, too. You look good. What's up with the curtains?" I asked.
"Well, I got some to give this place a little bit more of a friendly feeling. I planned to have them up before you got back," he replied.
"Your windows are friendly. I like the bamboo shades, don't even need curtains, really," I said.
"That's what I thought, too, but while you were gone I just thought it might be nice to come back to things looking more put together than they are," Joe said.
"I think things look good when there's not something covering them up," I replied.
"Naked windows?" Joe asked.
"Yeh, like naked windows. Nothing to hide."
"I guess it was something I just figured with you being a girl and all, that you'd feel more comfortable in a place that had the frilly stuff," Joe said.
"Oh no, what kind of curtains did you get?" I asked.
Joe lifted white, ruffled curtains out of the bag. Along with two long and tassled ties that were a light shade of eggshell. He also had new curtain rods in the bag, which made a clang, clang sound as he dug around the bottom of the bag to show me the receipt. "Only thirty bucks for everything, not bad for two window dressings."
"Joe, did you just say window dressings?" I giggled.
"Yes, I did, the woman at the store kept calling them that."
We both started laughing.
"I have an idea. Let's go back to the store, return those curtains, take the thirty bucks and buy some Chinese food to celebrate your curtainless, naked windows," I suggested.
"That sounds like a great idea. I have an even better idea, though," Joe said.
I moved my head to the side slightly, in question.
"Let's get you out of your curtains and get you naked, like a window," Joe said.
I smiled.
"Then, we'll go return these window dressings," Joe finished, and we both laughed again.
"Joe," I said as my face came close to his and my hands were on his cheeks, "you don't have to dress up anything to make me feel more comfortable."
"I know," Joe said and kissed me on my nose. "I'm a man, though, so sometimes I'm going to think of you as just wanting or needing things you don't need or want. Guys do that sometimes, you'll find that out in your life."
I stepped back to look at Joe after he said this. Somehow, he'd already come to the conclusion that this was not to be forever. He'd made peace with it already. My heart was both elated and sad at the same time. I knew it wasn't to be forever, but Joe knowing it, too, just made it more defined. I went to the bed and laid down flat, looking at the ceiling. Joe came over, as I sat back up, and I undid his zipper and looked up at him, as his underwear came down and his slightly curved body part came up to greet my lips.
About two hours later, we headed out to get Chinese food.
Sitting on the edge of the stone wall where the girls and I sometimes congregated to meet up with regular customers, the group of guys walking by us were doing their cat calls and general teasing. "Hey, girls, slippery yet?"
But his eyes were staring at me with more of a look of "what in the hell are you doing here?" I stared back in answer "you're stoned and have no right to judge me. You don't know me or my reasons." He rolled his eyes at me. I'd never seen him before, but somehow our vision-only conversation was enraging me. He looked about my age, and had the same walk I had, I noticed. Confident but not sure about what, focussed yet searching, busy and intent but with no real destination or goal in mind. Just living the life we were in and not really concerned with what it was all about anymore.
A few hours later, after a driver dropped me back off at the wall, I noticed him, the eye-conversationalist, drive by in a car, staring at me from the back seat, which was filled with pot smoke, all the windows closed in the summer time, air conditioned coldness blowing through vents swirling the marajuana smoke around the batch of them. "Stoners." I thought, and then laughed at myself for judging them so abruptly, as if it were a bad thing to be when it clearly wasn't doing anybody any harm. I watched as he leaned over and said something to the driver and the car slowed down and pulled up near me. "Want to get high?" he asked as he rolled down the window facing me. "No." I said.
He smiled at me in such a way that seemed to suggest he knew all about me, everything I'd ever done, everywhere I'd been. I took a few steps back, my senses were getting confused and he made me nervous. I couldn't distinguish his motives.
Later that night, as a client was driving down the avenue, I saw him again, sitting on a porch with one of the stoners from the car he was in, in front of one of the rare few apartment buildings that lined this business zoned area, with all of its convenience stores, bakeries, fine restauraunts, diners, hot dog stands, bars and churches. He didn't see me, but I looked through the windows of the car as long as I could to watch him. The customer turned to me and said "Do you know him?" I replied "No, but he knows me, I think."
When I went back to Joe's that night, I fell asleep alone as Joe wasn't home. He must have been out talking with his police buddies, or working on some local drug sting. As I lay there right before drifting off, I stared at the ceiling as I pet the cat on its neck and head, and wondered why I couldn't shake this get-high guy out of my mind.