Finding Ms. Right Box Set

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Thursday dawned early for thirty-nine year old contractor Edie Davis. Since quitting her day job as an administrative assistant at a construction company six years earlier, Edie liked to think she wasn’t chained to a desk any longer. But every morning when she woke at six, the first thing she did was boot up her desktop computer on her way to the bathroom. Then it was a trip to the kitchen to pour the first of two cups of coffee that would get her through the morning, and back to the desk in the corner of her living room, where she’d spend the next few hours. Answering e-mails, paying bills, reviewing schematics, creating “to do” lists for all projects she had to oversee. Davis Contractors was finally beginning to show a profit after several rocky years getting a foothold in the community, but she didn’t want to get ahead of herself and hire an admin yet. As long as she could do the paperwork herself, Edie planned to do just that.

Being a small company—and, run by one woman, how much smaller could they get?—meant Edie had to limit the number of projects they tackled at any given time. She always said “they” and “we” when referring to the company, even though she was the only one calling the shots. The plural somehow sounded more…professional, maybe? Grandiose? She didn’t want to give anyone the wrong impression about Davis Contractors, trying to come off sounding like a larger firm when they obviously weren’t, but she also didn’t want to let her clients know exactly how small they were. Sure, whenever someone called the business line, it rang to Edie’s cell phone and she answered. But she liked to think that added a personal touch. At least, she’d had no complaints yet.

Currently she only had two projects under way—a landscaping detail for a large industrial park that was eighty percent finished, and an addition to a single-family rancher that was just getting started. The framework for the add-on went up the previous week, adding a second story to the home and providing the client with much-needed attic space as well as several small bedrooms perfect for a growing family. With the landscape bit almost out of the way, Edie had taken on another client, a second residential dwelling. This one needed repairs to an existing screened-in porch, gutter replacements, and a complete roof overhaul. On Monday, the bank finally closed on the loan that would cover the improvements, and Edie’s copy of the paperwork had arrived the next day.

She checked her e-mail for anything important and deleted half the new messages as spam. Of the remaining e-mail, one message was from an attorney seeking a copy of her insurance policy, which she would get sent over later. One was a bill of lading from the firm supplying trees and shrubbery for the landscape project. And one was a rambling missive by her ex-girlfriend Charlene, who had obviously had a bit too much to drink the night before and thought it a good time to reminisce about what might have been.

Too late for that, Edie thought, anger rising in her at the sight of Charlene’s name on the screen. Without reading further, she deleted the message. They had nothing to say to each other, and that was really how it should be—they broke up over a year ago, in no small part thanks to Charlene’s infidelity. That was the real reason Edie didn’t have a full-time assistant, because coming home from a project site early one day to find her live-in girlfriend in bed with her accountant had hurt.

What had Charlene’s defense been? “Oh please, Edie. As if I’d leave you for him,” she’d said, dismissive, the bed sheets pulled up over her ample breasts while the guy scrambled to dress. “Don’t you like a little d**k now and then?”

“Get out,” Edie told her.

She had had to repeat herself several times before it sunk into Charlene’s thick skull that fooling around in the afternoon with the numbers guy had changed things between them. When her dry wit turned to humble apology, then outright pleading, Edie ignored her.

“Edith, please,” Charlene cried. This after everything she owned was packed and sitting on the stoop outside, and Edie barred the front door to keep her out. Charlene still tried to argue her case. “Some people have open relationships, you know? That doesn’t mean they don’t love each other. It just means—”

“It means we’re through.” On that note, Edie shut the door in Charlene’s face, and ignored the jiggling knob, pounding fists, and frantic doorbell until Charlene grew tired enough to leave.

Every morning or so, Edie woke to some sort of contact from her ex. An e-mail begging for forgiveness, or a slurred voice mail apologizing all over again, or a few lines scrawled on the back of a postcard that must have made the mailman’s day. I still love you, one such postcard went. We were so good together. You’re awesome in bed, and I miss that. I miss us. Don’t you?

After that one, the mailman smirked whenever Edie was home when he came by. She didn’t care. Let him think what he wanted, and let Charlene apologize until she turned blue in the face. Edie had too much going on with her business to deal with someone who didn’t see what might be wrong with sleeping around.

As her pulse evened out, she right-clicked on the Trash folder in her e-mail program and selected Empty. She didn’t want to hear what Charlene had to say, not now, not ever.

She had work to do.