THERESA THERRIEN - A UTILITARIAN LIFE

Theresa is a writer who resides in London Ontario. She’s written two historical novels and many short stories of all different genres. Follow her on Twitter: @TDTherrien

​A Utilitarian Life

​Thomas
My parents said I should probably find work and move out of the basement. I got a job with the utility company and it was easy enough. Turn off the water, disconnect everything and connect the new meter. A monkey could do it. A monkey would get bored doing it. I’d never been any where near the top of my class, but even I got bored.
Elizabeth
I really dislike anyone coming into my place. It wasn’t a matter of hiding anything. It wasn’t as though I were a criminal or doing anything morally wrong. I just prefer my life to remain private, except what I choose to share.
I delayed the utility company for almost a year with cancellations and missed appointments before they threatened to shut off my water.
Thomas
I saw just about everything in people’s basements. Unused exercise equipment, abandoned art projects, little work spaces for people who liked to tinker: wanna-be writers, programmers, wood-workers. Funny thing was, the basements almost never matched the rest of the house.
Basements were the hiding places for their secret lives and upstairs, on display, was their other life, the one they let people see. Sometimes part of the basement was a living space, but everyone still had a secret part, usually near the vital workings of the house, like the furnace and the electric panel and the water meter. Just like people keep their secrets close to their own vital workings, I guess.
Anyway, I didn’t try to see the secrets. I just couldn’t help it.
Elizabeth
I like my place to be in order and my life to be predictable. I know that messy and disorganized people like to think of themselves as creative and spontaneous, but the truth is that they are almost without exception only messy and disorganized. My life runs like a well-oiled machine, a lifestyle almost effortless to maintain. I have rotating menus, a schedule for cleaning and maintenance and I ensure everything I purchase means something leaves my house so that there is never clutter.
I enjoy company when we’ve made plans and I can adjust accordingly, but no one I know would just drop by.
 
Thomas
I was early. Some people really like to just get the appointment out of the way, so if I get there early, I knock on their door and ask. Though there was a car in the driveway, no one came to the door. I didn’t mind, though. I always have a book in the van in case I have a few minutes between appointments. I never liked to read when I was in school: Shakespeare and all the Great Authors. They were okay, I guess, but I liked a story where things happened and that made sense.
Elizabeth
What was he doing here so early? Though I was only sitting reading, I thought my time should be respected, so I ignored the knock at the door and stayed on the sofa, reading. He could wait in his van until the appointed time.
Thomas
As I put the paper booties over my work boots, I noticed the book on her coffee table. The house was like a model home or something, nothing out of place to show someone lived here. Except for the book. Though hers was a hard cover and in perfect condition with a tidy bookmark peeking out from the top, and mine was a tattered library paperback splayed open on the seat of the van, we were reading the same book. Jaws, by Peter Benchley. I was about to tell her, but then I saw her follow my gaze, then glare back at me, lips pressed together tight, I decided not to.
Elizabeth
I saw him look at my book. What business is it of his what I read? I don’t owe any explanations to the water meter guy.
Thomas
It was the first basement I’d been in that matched the rest of the house. There was nothing. Once I changed the meter in a house that had been sold and the new owners hadn’t moved in. Even that house had a few almost empty cans of paint left for the new owners for touch ups. An old curtain rod. A single rusty Phillips screwdriver. Signs of life. But this lady’s house had none. It was sterile.
I set my toolbox down and squatted next to the meter. Though I couldn’t see her, I sensed Elizabeth’s presence behind me. She wasn’t leaving.
“I’m reading Jaws, too,” I said, to fill the uncomfortable silence. Most people left me alone to do my job. Even if it meant I was alone with their secrets.
Elizabeth
I didn’t answer.
I thought he’d understand that meant I wanted him to stopped chattering and finish the job, but apparently that was lost on him because he kept talking. He said, “It reminds me of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.”
I was surprised. I would not have thought he was a reader. In spite of my desire for him to finish posthaste and leave, I asked, “How is like The Old Man and the Sea?”
Thomas didn’t look up, but asked, “Have you read it? The way it became something personal, between Quint and shark, like the shark was a person. That’s how it was between the man and the marlin too. Just the two of ‘em, locked in battle.”
I’d hoped to shame him into silence, but it appeared that not only had he read it, he understood it. I suppose this is what comes of allowing too many English degrees. I didn’t answer, but only frowned at his back, but he didn’t look up from his work, so the effect was lost on him and he just kept talking.
Thomas
I got the feeling I’d insulted her but wasn’t sure how. Into the uncomfortable silence, I said, “I’ve only got two chapters of Jaws to go, but don’t worry, I won’t give anything away,” Thomas finally turned to her, smiling.
“I’ve seen the movie,” she said in a voice like battery acid on his ears, “As has everyone.”
Elizabeth
I regretted how sharp my words sounded but couldn’t think of a way to soften them and I didn’t want to talk anyway. Why did people have to be so intrusive?
I felt worse when he looked away, cleared his throat, and picked up a wrench because it was what I wanted him to do. Just finish and leave.
Thomas
I didn’t want to leave things like that. Her angry for no reason. I said, “They’re both about, you know, people trying to best nature, but then being conflicted about getting to know nature personally.”
Just as I said that, a centipede scurried from the crack between the wall, which wasn’t unusual because of the vibrations of the power tools. But I hated those things so much. I yelped and jumped back, banged my head on the shelf and fell, sprawled on the floor. As I looked up, Elizabeth squashed the creature under her fuzzy pink slipper, the movement controlled, deliberate and fearless. I heard the crunch as she twisted her foot.
She smiled, then, for the first time. With a little shrug, made an invisible mark with her finger on the wall as though she were keeping score. She said, “One point for me in the battle against nature. Sorry I didn’t take the time to get to know it first.”
I never would’ve guessed she could be funny. I laughed, hoping she wouldn’t clobber me too.
Elizabeth
I was startled by his laugh. It was loud, unselfconscious and sincere and seemed magnified in the small space.
Before I could stop myself, I asked, “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Thomas
Even as I smiled and nodded, I wondered, why? I hate tea.
Elizabeth
All I wanted was for him to finish and leave. Why had I invited him to stay for a cup of tea?
 
Thomas
When she finally left me alone in the basement, I turned the water on again and sat back on my heels. I looked all around. It was completely bare, aside from the crumpled centipede, and it suddenly occurred to me that Elizabeth’s secret was here in the basement after all. I packed up my tools and tidied. I was never a confident guy, but in this one thing, I was sure. Elizabeth’s secret was a sterile life. Despite her prickly nature, she was lonely. I’d have a cup of tea.