Tribute

explained.
    Convenient, she thought as her father went back to painting.
    And since the living area was getting painted, she decided to set up her tools outside and get to work on the trim.
    IN THE MORNING, Cilla decided she’d been foolish and shortsighted to bar Ford from the house the night before. She hadn’t wanted any distractions while she reviewed her test manual, and had planned on an early night and a solid eight hours’ sleep.
    Instead she’d obsessed about the test, pacing the house, second-guessing herself. When she slept, she tossed and turned with anxiety dreams.
    As a result she woke tense, edgy and half sick with nerves. She forced herself to eat half a bagel, then wished she hadn’t as even that churned uneasily in her stomach.
    She checked the contents of her bag three times to make absolutely certain it held everything she could possibly need, then left the house a full thirty minutes early, just in case she ran into traffic or got lost. Couldn’t find a parking place, she added as she locked the front door. Was abducted by aliens.
    “Knock it off, knock it off,” she mumbled as she strode to her pickup. It wasn’t as if the fate of the damn world rested on her test score.
    Just hers, she thought. Just her entire future.
    She could wait. She could take the test down the road, wait just a little longer. After she’d finished the house. After she’d settled in. After . . .
    Stage fright, she thought with a sigh. Performance anxiety and fear of failure all wrapped up in a slippery ribbon. With her stomach knotted, she opened the truck door.
    She made a sound that was part laugh, part awww.
    The sketch lay on the seat, where, she supposed, Ford had put it sometime the night before.
    She stood in work boots, a tool belt slung from her hips like a holster. As if she’d drawn them from it, she held a nail gun in one hand, a measuring tape in the other. Around her were stacks of lumber, coils of wire, piles of brick. Safety goggles dangled from a strap around her neck, and work gloves peeked out of the pocket of her carpenter pants. Her face carried a determined, almost arrogant expression.
    Below her feet, the caption read:
    THE AMAZING, THE INCREDIBLE CONTRACTOR GIRL
    “You don’t miss a trick, do you?” she said aloud.
    She looked across the road, blew a kiss to where she imagined he lay sleeping. When she climbed into the truck and turned on the engine, all the knots had unraveled.
    With the sketch riding on the seat beside her, Cilla turned on the music and drove toward her future, singing.
    FORD SETTLED on his front veranda with his laptop, his sketchbook, a pitcher of iced tea and a bag of Doritos to share with Spock. He couldn’t be sure when Cilla might make it back. The drive to and from Richmond was a bitch even without rush hour factored in. Added to it, he couldn’t be sure how long the exam ran, or what she might do after to wind down.
    So around two in the afternoon, he stationed himself where he couldn’t miss her return and kept himself busy. He sent and answered e-mail, checked in with the blogs and boards he usually frequented. He did a little updating on his own website.
    He’d neglected his Internet community for the last week or two, being preoccupied with a certain lanky blonde. Hooking back in entertained him for a solid two hours before he noticed at least some of the crew across the road were knocking off for the day.
    Matt pulled out, swung to Ford’s side of the road, then leaned out the window. “Checking the porn sites?”
    “Day and night. How’s it going over there?”
    “It’s going. Finished insulating the attic today. Fucking miserable job. Yeah, hey, Spock, how’s it going,” he added when the dog gave a single, deep-throated, how-about-me bark. “I’m going home and diving into a cold beer. You coming by for burgers and dogs on the Fourth?”
    “Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll be bringing your boss.”
    “I thought that’s how it was. Nice work, dog. Not you,” he added, pointing at Spock. “Don’t know what she sees in you, but I guess she settled since she knows I’m married.”
    “Yeah, that was it. She had to channel her sexual frustration somewhere. ”
    “You can thank me later.” With a grin and a toot of the horn, Matt pulled out.
    Ford poured another glass of tea and traded his laptop for his sketch pad. He wasn’t yet satisfied with his image of his villain. He’d based Devon/ Devino predominantly on his tenth-grade algebra