Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan Read Free Book Online Page A

cost me money, Frankie. Anyway, she wants wood floors ’steada carpet. I want you to get over to Friendly Freddy’s and get a estimate today. Can you have everything finished in four or five days?”
    “Maybe,” he said, lighting a cigarette. He blew thesmoke upward, and my eyes watched his lips close around the filter again. I wished I was a cigarette.
    “He’ll have it done in five days,” Vinney said. “If that’s soon enough?”
    “That’s fine.”
    “Come on down the street to my office, and we can tidy up the particulars. Oh, hell, I ain’t got any lease forms. I have to run to the stationery store and pick up some. You can help yourself to a cup of coffee. This won’t take but a minute.”
    “Watch him,” Frankie said to me. “He’s Italian.” I started to follow Vinney down the hall and had to brush past Frankie, because he acted like he didn’t have any intention of moving out of my way. My breast wanted to brush against his chest, for the pure warmth alone, but I did just the opposite. When he saw this, he flung his arms up over his head and pressed himself stiffly against the wall. I ignored him and gave the place another once-over. Yep, I thought, I could definitely live here.
    “Vinney just sold you a bunch of crap. You the first person to look at this place. This is a racket, they just call it business. See you in three weeks,” Frankie said. He was back in the living room, driving more nails in the floor.
    *   *   *
    When the mover pulled up to my new home, Frankie was sitting out on the stoop in a tight white T-shirt, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Heineken. I swear, he looked like a black Marlboro Man without a hat and horse. Orchards of soft black hair were peeking out from the V, but I didn’t want to stare. And muscles? They were everywhere. I wondered if he worked out or just worked hard. His face was drenched with sweat, and it looked like black tears were falling from his temples. I can’t lie: I had to stop myself from walking over and patting them dry.
    “Your bedroom floor is still wet, so you gon’ have to put all this stuff in the living room.”
    “What? Vinney told me it was finished.”
    “It is
finished;
it just ain’t dry.”
    Shit. I turned to the driver of the truck and explained the situation to him. He got out to open the back, and I put my hands on my hips and looked up at my windows. “Well, I’m here,” I said, to no one in particular.
    Frankie just kept on smoking.
    When I’d hired the guy to help me move, he’d told me there’d be two of them, but this morning only he showed up. I’d asked some young guy who happened to be passing by if he wanted to make a quick forty dollars, and he jumped at it. Of course I didn’t want him to know where I was moving, so I didn’t ask him to come to Brooklyn. I had carried enough boxes myself, and now I was tired at the thought of hauling all this stuff upstairs. “Moving sure is hard labor,” I sighed.
    “Yes, it is,” Frankie said, and took a sip from his beer. I thought maybe he’d at least offer to help, but he didn’t.
    “Would you mind giving me a hand?”
    “I don’t work for free.”
    Not only was he a handsome creep, I thought, but he was nasty. Even so, I couldn’t carry all those heavy boxes up the stairs. “How much?”
    “Not much,” he said. He flicked his cigarette about three feet away and at the same time jumped off the stoop. For the next hour, I watched him lift and pull things off the truck. Those muscles kept popping up in his arms and shoulders, and he was sweating like crazy. And every time he walked past me, all I could think about was that I bet some woman loves to roll over into those arms at night.
    It took close to two hours for us to get everything except the trunk upstairs. It was full of records, and Iknew it was too heavy for one person to carry, so I offered to help, but Frankie refused. He slung it up in the air, balanced it on one shoulder, then walked on