Suitable Precautions Read Free Page B

been so pale, and this year she was making an effort.
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    â€œFIFTY-ONE CENTS IS NOT A LOT TO ASK,” Charlie said. “Find me anybody else who would take a stinking letter from here to Saskatoon for fifty-one cents, and I’ll be damned. You think you can go up to someone on the street
and get them to take a letter down the block for that?” Ella said no, she didn’t think so. “You’re damn right,” Charlie said. “You can’t.”
    Dangerous dogs shouldn’t be left to terrorize the neighbourhood.
    He didn’t steal pension cheques, so stop calling the cops.
    People who didn’t shovel their snow should try doing his job and not breaking their legs. Ella of all people should know that.
    If he had had a bad day, he might go on for hours.
    Ella went to the kitchen to get Charlie a beer, thinking for the hundredth time that no matter what, those gloves had been worth the money. Even now it seemed like an extravagant idea, cashmere lining and Italian leather, but she had talked herself into it and made a plan, knowing that it was a good year for grand gestures.
    She had waited until a bad snowfall and then watched the mailman come up the walkway. When his boot hit the wobbly first step of her porch, Ella had crouched a little and jammed the small flat box through the mail slot. It was a tighter fit than she thought, and the shiny gold wrapping scraped most of the way off. She hung onto the corners of the box with pinched fingers.
    â€œWhat now?” The mailman’s voice came through the door.
    Ella shoved the gift forward a little and lost her grip. The box slipped onto the porch and the brass flap that covered the slot snapped shut on the wrapping. Ella yanked the paper back and balled it up in her hands.
    â€œSorry,” she said through the door.
    She poked the flap up again with one finger and saw the mailman from the waist down. He turned the box over.

    â€œThey’re mittens,” she said, panicked. “Gloves, I mean.”
    He tucked the box lid under his arm and tried one, stretching his fingers inside the soft leather.
    â€œFits like a glove,” he said, reaching his hand closer to the mail slot. Ella didn’t laugh.
    The mailman kicked at the salt on the steps, which were scraped down to the bare concrete. Ella wasn’t sure what to do next.
    â€œI’m hungry,” he said. “What about you,” he checked the letters in his bag, “Ella?”
    They spoke through the mail slot. Ella said they should meet at the pasta place on the corner when his route was done.
    â€œNo, I’ll pick you up,” he said, sliding the mail to her, waiting for her to take it before he let go. Ella had felt stupid as the flap clanged shut and the mailman walked away. Her calves were cramping and she had forgotten to ask for his name.
    But it didn’t matter now, Ella thought happily, popping the cap off the beer. Charlie loved her just the way she was. She was his. “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” she whispered to herself as she padded back to the living room and handed him the bottle.
    â€œA cold beer and a hot woman,” Charlie said. “This is heaven, right, babe?”
    Ella said that it was. She stretched her legs out along the couch and let him balance the bottle between her bare ankles. When it spilled, he licked it off her skin, careful with his tongue as his hands pushed up the leg of her jeans. He spilled more on her shin, licking as he went. The blond hairs on Ella’s thighs stood up from the cold and so she took the bottle and began pouring. Down his chest, over his waist.
They licked, drunk on expectation, and Ella rushed to take off her panties before they were doused in beer, knowing the way the cheap fabric stained. She wrapped her legs around him tightly; it so often seemed that Charlie was just barely tethered to her, that when they made love he was in danger of gliding over her and