H2O: The Novel Part 15

"Why are you capitalizing the word He?" I wrote back.

"I cap it because 'He' is Lord. The Big Guy deserves a little respect. The shift key's not too much trouble considering all He's done for me."

"You're drifting pretty deep into the spiritual world again, WRKRJC."

"And you don't like it, do you?"

"I like to talk to you, but no, I don't like it when you go yoga, incense, and confession booth on me."

"Yoga's not what I'm talking about. In fact, it's exactly the opposite of what I'm talking about. Don't get too wrapped up in the old church trappings from your childhood. You mentioned you were raised by a family that went to church, right?"

"Yes. We were-I mean, my parents are Catholic." I hated to think about it. More memories of Mother's control.

"I want you to think about spiritual things in the context of relationships, not church trappings, confession booths, incense, or even your parents' rules. G.o.d wants a relationship with you. He wants you to know Him, to trust Him. He loves you."

"Do you type that fast on a BlackBerry, or do you have a laptop strapped to your hip?" I wrote.

"You're changing the subject again."

"Answer the question."

"I will if you'll answer mine first."

"Be quick about it. Gotta go to the bathroom."

"G.o.d wants to help you out of your 'pit,' as you call it. The question is, do you want to change? How badly do you want to climb out of that hole?"

I really did have to go, and my body wasn't going to let me wait much longer. He deserved an answer so I spit it out, surprised as soon as I hit Send that I'd been so frank with him. "Want to change? Yes, I do." I paused, and then added, "I want out of this hole more than anything in my life."

I jumped up, clutching at my stomach, but hoping he'd answer quickly.

"I use a netbook and a Smartphone. Always wired."

That's what I thought. He had a laptop strapped to his hip like the j.a.panese. I typed a quick "b r b" and ran for the bathroom, about to explode.

It wouldn't be pretty.

I hate fixing things. I particularly hate to fix things that should be simple but aren't. There's something insultingly straightforward about a clogged toilet that infuriates me. It's a nasty mess, and people like me can't seem to make the sewage go away. Yet, bring in one urban professional and whoosh, the clog is gone, for a hundred bucks. Using nothing but a piece of wire or a special plumber's tool. I'd plunged all I could stand; nothing went down. My life reminded me of this toilet bowl. A fetid swirling mess.

I dared not get closer to the bowl. Nasty, brown . . . and wet.

It was time to call for help.

Five pumps of the hand cleanser for this one. A dozen empty cleanser bottles choked the wastebasket to the right of my sink, and more flowed onto the floor. I'd taken the trash out four weeks ago, and more plastic spilled over in a nauseating stream of waste.

The mirror snagged me before I could escape the bathroom, insisting that I embrace truth. I faced the real me, not the one I imagined as I wiled my day away in front of a computer screen, hoping WRKRJC would write back every time I sent him a comment or question. I tarried at the reflection, wondering where the old Kate had gone.

Purple-black handbags hung below my eyeb.a.l.l.s; ugly wrinkled things that waited to catch my pupils when they fell out. My skin was yellow. I used to think the funny coloration came from the constant application of baths of hand sanitizer, but I realized now that I suffered the jaundice of a rotten diet and no sun. I was killing myself, one day at a time. I looked back at the toilet. Water had ruined me and turned me into that mess.

Bushy eyebrows not plucked for three months resembled a fur coat, a reddish hairy line atop deep gaunt sockets. My oily head of hair was pulled back into a tight slimy ponytail. Pragmatism bested beauty at this point in my life. The top of my head shone like Xavier's old chrome, oily strands reflecting the bathroom light. Those bulbs that still burned, that is. I needed a handyman to fix this place. It had become a pigsty.

I tried hard not to notice the mess because my surroundings proved my failure. I'd determined to control and conquer, but to look at my habitat and survey my health, a visitor would conclude that "Kate gave up a long time ago."

One more glance at the toilet reminded me that I'd have to escape my condo to use another bathroom unless someone came and fixed my plumbing. The reckoning time had come. Another human would see this pit and laugh. I could smell the alternative; what waited in the bathroom would fester forever unless I got some help soon. I headed for my comfort, my friend who never talked back; the laptop and Google would lead me to a plumber.

I love the web. If I need something, it's out there. A quick Google and I'm in the domain of whatever world I desire. This time I searched a world I'd never before entered-the domain of pipes and tools and burly guys. I needed a plumber, and I had no plans to wade through a phone book when surely I'd find a tradesman who understood the net. It didn't take long.

"Virtual Plumber," I read out loud, chuckling at the thought of a wireless plunging job. That would be the ticket. Enter my debit card number, my drain would open magically, and the mess dissolve away into the Internet. I entered my information, checked the "clogged toilet" box, entered "please help!" in the comment box, and hit "submit." It wasn't thirty seconds later that I got an e-mail response, a simple yet effective greeting.

"Plumber J is on the way!" From

I panicked. I'd done it. A man was headed to my home and I looked like c.r.a.p. I scanned the mess around my condo; there was no way to fix this place or myself before he arrived. I a.s.sumed it was a "he" coming to help. I'd never met a lady plumber.

Considering what he might encounter soon in the bathroom, the rest of this disaster, including me, looked pretty good, so I returned to the laptop.

"I'm back," I wrote to WRKRJC. "Sorry it took so long. You still out there?"

No response.

Not much to look at, an average sort of guy. Maybe a little on the heavy side, but he had a super smile. I didn't see his eyes wander a bit while he stood on my door stoop, half an hour after I'd summoned him on the web. He never seemed to notice the mess in the condo or my disastrous state of dress. And he didn't disrobe me with his eyes-a remarkable and pleasant change, considering my experiences with men. On the other hand, considering my state, who would give me more than a pa.s.sing glance?

Too scared to talk, I didn't even introduce myself but ushered him directly to the bathroom and turned him loose. The less said the better. WRKRJC had answered my last instant message and I wanted to return to the net, addicted to his attention, and determined not bother the plumber.

"Where r u?" I typed. I hadn't heard from him in over ten minutes. That delay represented an eternity for my timely web friend.

A minute later, he wrote back. "Fixing stuff."

"What?" I asked, and again waited much too long for his return reply.

"Clogged toilet in a messy condo."

I froze, listening to the rattle of tools and the sound of metal against ceramic that came from the direction of the bathroom. My heart pounded as my fingers hovered over the laptop keys.

"How messy?" I stared at the two words for an eternity before I hit Send.

The sounds from the bathroom silenced a moment, then resumed as his answer hit my screen.

" Toilet's pretty rough but the lady's nice."

"You're a plumber?" I wrote back quickly. Again, the sounds in the bathroom silenced just before his answer appeared.

"That's one of the things I do. I help people fix stuff. I build, too."

More sounds of plunging and metal tools rattling in a bag were sounds of progress in the bathroom.

My heart raced. I hadn't needed my iPhone for days. But I knew right where to find it, buried under a pile of bills in the kitchen. I turned it on, grateful for a little residual battery power and a paid-up data plan. Typing with my thumbs as I walked, I returned to the den and approached the door to my bedroom.

"What's this lady look like?" I typed. As I hit the Send icon, I watched the back of the plumber through the bathroom door from a distance. There was little chance he'd hear me sneak up on him.

He dropped his tools and reached to a Smartphone on his hip, typing away quickly as he hunched over the raunchy bowl.

"She's really pretty but looks like she could use a friend."

I sucked in my breath as I read the response, with my hand to my mouth in surprise.

He heard me, stood up from his crouch over my toilet bowl, and turned. I stood there, red-faced I'm sure, my iPhone in one hand, the other hand covering my lips. The plumber-WRKRJC-smiled and stared at me for a long time in silence, then turned back to my toilet and continued plunging.

When I was ten years old, my father took us all down to Rockefeller Plaza for a family outing. Something Mother said that day about his sloth set him off. They argued about who was harder to live with, and he compared Mother to her sister, a wild buxom Italian creature who'd flown the coop early and escaped the urban jungle. His comparisons weren't flattering, particularly to Aunt Isabella and her plunging necklines. Mother jumped on one of her favorite harangues: don't talk about someone, because you never know when they're listening.

Just as my father spit out some particularly derogatory term about my Italian aunt and her ample cleavage, I tugged on Mother's dress in desperation. Aunt Isabella ran toward us, arms outstretched and her chest bouncing under a tight blouse. Somehow, she'd come all the way from Jersey and tracked us down on our family day. No one paid attention to my warning, and Isabella collided with Mother and Father while they argued about my aunt. She'd heard my Father's last comment about "the tramp from Tuscany" as she ran up, and family nuclear warfare raged for half an hour on the sidewalk in front of a crowd of onlookers. It was the most embarra.s.sing moment of my life.

Until now.

The only thing I could think to do was rearrange the oil slick on top of my head and put on some lip gloss. Everything I owned to get pretty was located in that bathroom, and I couldn't primp in front of him. What were the odds? A man who knew my deepest fears, deepest secrets, an anonymous ear on the web who'd walked me through the valley of despair for months, was now working in my condo where he could see the worst of me. I wanted to run, to avoid facing him. I'd heard the toilet flush a couple of times. Minutes, at most, separated us.

Yet, I desperately wanted to meet him, to talk, to share just as I'd done for months, to let him listen to what scared me, to ask him help me get a grip on this phobia-no, not a phobia, but a rational dread of water and what it had done to me. I'd descended into a grunge pit, given up on life. I wanted his a.s.sistance, to help me understand these pictures in my head, and to help me climb out of the pit.

He cared and he listened. I'd never known a man like that.

I stared into my reflection on the oven gla.s.s when he spoke. He might have been watching me for a long time. I'd lost track of how long I preened.

"That toilet would work better if you didn't flush the whole roll," he said.

As I spun about, he had a funny little smirk, like he was suppressing a larger smile. He wanted to laugh at me, at my toilet, my apartment, and my ugliness. My heart dove for the bottom of an endless abyss.

"Anything else I can do to help?" he asked as the smirk broke into a full-fledged smile. Not a laugh, but genuinely happy. Surely, he couldn't have enjoyed what he had just done. Or liked what he saw. The human mess and her urban sewer.

I fished for something professional to say but drew a blank. I just shook my head, words stuck in my mouth, red heat rushing to my cheeks. My yellow hollow cheeks probably turned orange as I blushed.

He extended his hand, and I jumped back, cutting off whatever he might say. A damp sheen showed on his fingers from where he'd washed. His hand represented a bomb in my mentally stable world of dry.

"How much?" I stammered, clutching the counter that blocked my retreat.

He shook his head, a broad toothy smile getting even larger. "My name's John. And no charge, okay? This one's on the house."

For the first time in months I smiled. I could feel an odd a.s.sortment of facial muscles work their magic; the sensation was tantalizing. Something warm, something funny, bubbled up inside me. It felt good to be amused.

"John?" I asked, nearly giggling. I couldn't stop myself, as though I'd sucked in a lungful of laughing gas.

"What's so funny?" he asked, his smile growing on me by the minute. "You're not going to make some kind of toilet joke about my name are you?"

He didn't seem the least bit bothered by my middle-school humor, and I cringed, even more embarra.s.sed than when he'd walked into the room. My first response had been to insult him. I could feel the red in my cheeks deepen, and my face was hot.

"No. No, I-I'm sorry. No jokes." I paused, taking a deep breath. "John. It's a common name. It's nice."

"Common? That's funny. So is Kate."

I wanted to crawl inside that smile of his and wrap it all around me. A smile wide enough to paper a wall, to make a dress, or to sleep in. Something made this man happy, and he had it plastered all over him. Nothing about me seemed to put him off; it was like he could look past the dirt in my condo and past the filth I had become, yet see goodness in all of it. I wanted some of that.

His hair hung brown and straight-straight like mine used to be when I cared for it. A mop head, tousled like the hair of a boy who'd been on the run and cared nothing about a comb. His eyes squinted when he smiled, turning his whole face into joy. Brown eyes, brown hair, and a brown sweater against the January chill. But his color wasn't brown. He radiated brilliance, a bright and engaging man.

A tingle shot up my spine as I recognized something else in him. I couldn't place it at first, but I'd seen that smile many times, that same radiance. But where?

Candice!

He didn't look a thing like her, but I could sense something about him, see something in his smile, his demeanor, that reminded me of her. Why?

"How'd you know my name was Kate?" I stammered.

He tapped the Smartphone on his hip, and then shrugged. "Your online plumber request." He winked at me. "I've known you online as 'IceRocket'. But I don't see that name anywhere on your job order," he said, pointing at his Smartphone. He was a jokester, an easygoing humor mill.

"I'm Kate," I stammered. "Kate Pepper. My mother named me Katherine, but I hated it."

Why did I tell him that?

"It's a beautiful name. Not mediocre or common at all," he said with another wink.

"Mediocre?" I snapped. The warm fuzzies inside me ran for cover. Every time I heard that word, I saw my middling father, stuck in his stupid recliner.

"Katherine is a very pretty name. You should be proud of it." He offered his hand again, moving toward me. "I'm John. John Connor." He shrugged. "Or, 'Worker John Connor', as you know me online. WRKRJC."

He paused, looking at me like he could read my soul. I felt naked, stripped bare by his penetrating gaze. Yet, part of me wanted to be naked in front of him, to expose what hid inside and get it all out. To be clean.

"I've really enjoyed our talks online." His extended hand screamed "wet." I dared not touch it and recoiled a little more, trying to become one with the counter behind me.

"Maybe we can get together again? But not over a toilet?" he asked, the smile changing form but still defining his face. He lowered his hand, then bent to pick up the bag of tools he'd set on the kitchen floor. I could only nod, unable to form a word. We watched each other through a tense half-minute of silence.

He shrugged a second time. "Great to meet you at last, Kate Pepper. Guess I'll see you online." He turned and headed for the door, letting himself out. Before he closed it, he looked back at me with a long gaze.

Frozen in place, I waved.

How could I have done that?

A man had just walked into my life, my dreary dirty miserable life, and smiled. He'd called me by name, had helped me, yet accepted nothing in return. Xavier would have never done that in a lifetime of attempts. When he'd done something nice for me, he expected payback, and it had usually involved s.e.x. This man, the moral ant.i.thesis of Xavier, had just given all and accepted nothing.

What kind of man does that?

A tear formed at the corner of my eye, and I swiped it away before the liquid torment could turn on me. Please, no visions. Not now. I dashed for the dining table and my laptop, my only connection with John.

"I'm so sorry. I'm an awful host." They were stupid words but the start of a deeper apology for the way I'd acted. I had to talk to him, at least online. I craved that smile. If I could reel him back, rewind time, or pull my words out of the air and stuff them into the miserable gut they'd come from, I'd do it. I wanted him, his peace, his caring. I needed someone. And I wanted to be noticed. He saw me, but not the oily hair, the T-shirt, the sweatpants of surrender, and the trash. I could feel it.

He saw me.

If he didn't respond, I couldn't blame him. I'd been awful. I sat at the screen, wiping away tears as fast as they formed. I grabbed at a paper towel and kept one plastered to each tear duct using both hands, watching for any word from him. At last, something popped on the screen, but not what I'd hoped for or needed. He was putting me off, a delaying tactic to avoid seeing me. Something he'd never ever done before.

"b r b"

Be right back.