The Window Washer.

Intro:

There he was again right on time. Whistling his new favorite song he found today. Shuffling papers and straightening my desk up I pretend I’m swamped with work. We’ve never even said a word to each other and today isn’t going to be the day that it changes. Nothing ever changes around here which is just what I love. Everything is simple and unchanging, consistent. He comes on Mondays, I leave the money on the window ledge outside, he washes the outside of my enormous windows starting from the bottom on the ground till as far as he can reach, whips out the ladder and washes the topmost part of all the windows all the while as I pretend to stay focused and look professional. then once he’s finished cleaning he knocks softly on the window and waves goodbye. He never questions, comes inside, or misses a spot, he simply does his job and is done with it. He never once made a funny face or wondered why my windows always seemed to get so dirty, by far they are always the dirtiest ones in town. He never has never once noticed. Of course it seems silly to purposely dirty your windows possibly every saturday night...But of course it also seems silly to fall in love with the town window washer.

Chapter 1:

Whistle, fake, wash, knock, wave. Whistle, fake, wash, knock, wave. Whistle, fake, wash, knock, wave. It's always so hot in this room. With my desk overlooking the street and wide see through windows the sun warms it up hot. I shoved open the way-too-big window. Rubbed off the dirt and grime I got from touching it and walked back to my desk. Whew. finally some fresh air. Nestle into my big leather chair and sigh. Back to paper work. Knowing how to finance your life is fine but why I decided to be an accountant I don't know. I’m really starting---What's that noise? Is that whistling?? I freeze praying it's not him. Is it Monday? It can't be Monday. Scrambling for my calendar turn the page...It's Monday. The window is still open! Its wide open. Maybe he won't notice. I've never talked to him before. What will I say?? I need to go close the window. Then I’m safe. Safe into consistency. Maybe he’ll just think it's a really clean window and won't know it's open so he’ll skip it! Wow. How could I have messed up. Just keep your head down. Act normal. Oh this is a nice bank account balance what about this. Stay busy and focused Carol. Busy and focused. Don't look up at all. You'll get through this. All I can hear is the splash of his water onto the windows from his tin small bucket. Splash. Drip drip. Splash drip drip. I can't take it anymore. I look up just in time to see water coming straight towards me. “Oh my gosh! Are you okay? I'm so sorry I thought the window was closed and I was just going to wipe it down anyways just for good measure!” He says as he comes bolting through the open window. AH. He’s coming into my house? AH. Oh wait he asked me a question. “What?” “Are you okay miss? Wow is there anything I can do? Here where are the towels.” Bewildered I sit like a deer in the headlights. “Here let me help you.” I can't snap out of it. It all happened so fast now he’s mopping up trying to save all of my drenched papers. Helping me stand up as an enormous puddle that drained onto my lap splatters to the wood floor and all over my shoes. “Ah jeez I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? I’ll clean this all up, you can go change-it's about lunch time and... I’ll take you to lunch! I know a good place and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll just finish washing these other windows while you dry off and change.” He then looks at me not like he is waiting more like he is seeing me for the first time. Like he's trying to see inside me and figure me out. That's when I snap out of it. I whip around the other direction and don't say a word. Briskly trying to get away as fast as possible. Just get to my room, just get to my room. Finally I reach my door turn the handle and practically run inside. The door slams shut after me. What am I going to do? I slam onto my bed face down. The window washer is in my house. He wants to take me to lunch?? What happened. How did all of this happen so fa-*Softly knocking* “Uh miss so was that a yes? Or is there anything else I could do to help you..?” “Uh no that's okay.” Except my face was suffocated by the pillow so i'm not surprised he couldn't understand a word I just said. “What was that?” “Um sure let me just get changed, you just go...uh...finish the windows.” I say as I roll off to the side of the bed to look at myself in the mirror. “Ok sounds good it should only take me about ten more minutes.” I hear his footsteps round the corner back into the office to finish up the windows. My hair was dripping wet still even after I had squoze out most of the water. My face was pale due to the shock still and my adrenaline was going crazy. I try to smooth down my blazer.Well that did close to nothing. I decide to bag the whole look and climb into the shower to get the window washing soap water out of my hair anyways. I really can't believe I’m going to lunch with him. I don't have a clue as to what he is like or what his name is. Well he must be fairly gentlemanlike for helping me the way he did. Or maybe he just thinks I looked like a cat after a bath, scared and pitiful and he felt obligated to help me. Or maybe he’s interested in me? Suddenly the clock chimes one. I turn of the shower just in time to hear the faint knocking again. “I’m finished ready to go?” Of course I’m not! What kind of a question is that. You throw water on me and expect me to be decent in ten minutes? I think as I scramble into a plain gray dress. I glance in the mirror and I look the same as I did ten minutes ago. Just different clothes, go figure. Take a deep breath and “Yep I guess I’m ready.” I say as I slowly open the door. He looks up and I freeze again. His eyes are even more beautiful than I had previously known. Wow. They link everything in me together and whole again for a few moments. You know something is different about a person when they don’t even have to say anything and one look could change everything. He doesn’t even know me but he is effortless in the way he gets me. I don't even realize him holding out his arm for me to take until he grabs my hand and sets it onto his own arm. He maneuvers his way through my house and out the front door. I can’t help but daydream and fall deeper into my thoughts. Maybe I should always leave the window open. He could come over everyday and I could just be frozen. I wish I could stop freezing up like that. I freeze and escape to the place in my mind I created the day I overheard the local town news gossip about a simple man the window washer. Us ladies on the town council must discuss all the “important news” before we actually get the town meetings started (apparently). As usual I had been lost in my thoughts and skimming over the words they spoke to each other, just passively listening. Not interested at all in how they seemed to blow anything they could out of proportion. Which was very hard to do not to mention pathetic, considering rarely anything happened in this town. But then I suddenly felt the atmosphere change in the room, causing me to look up and pay more attention. It felt as if the ladies could not decide what to do about this man. I couldn't tell if they were indifferent towards him or fearful of him or excited about him or anything. All I know was their was a change in their tone that they spoke about him. Facial expressions and words were changed. It's hard not to notice anything out of the the norm around here because everything is “normal” and unchanging. A simple little town, with simple people, and simple everything. And then the conversation ended . I didn’t even hear what his name was. All I heard was his profession, a window washer. Naturally that left everything else to be imagined up so I could complete him in my mind. I never have been able to get any other information. The ladies carried on with the meeting and that was the last time he has been spoken of in “public.” The subject of the “ordinary” window washer has remained very hush hush. After all with such a normal and generic profession what is the big deal about a window washer in the first place. Maybe that is what intrigued me though. The day I heard of him. If he’s so seemingly normal why do things change when he’s around. Or talked about. Or even seen. From that day on I continued to think about this man. Occasionally hours on end just simply wondering. Letting my imagination run away without logic and without care. It came to a point I couldn’t even carry on with my work. Being the entire town's personal accountant that was a problem. Highly impractical. That was when I decided to hire him myself. And to finally put this twitterpated nonsense to rest. I asked around, anyone that could tell me anything about him. Apparently this man was anonymous to most of the town folks. All they said was they leave money on the outside of their window sill, he comes and walks around town and cleans all the outside windows of the house, knocks softly on the window when he's done, waves goodbye, and just leaves. I wondered if he comes around and to the houses that don't normally put out money anyways. I was willing to give it a shot. I set out a reasonable amount of money on my window sill (weighing it down with a stone I had found out back) and waited. That was Sunday night. I waited and tried to immerse myself in my work. I couldn't help but come back and check every ten minutes or so if he was there washing my windows or not. After getting little to no sleep that night I decided I needed to get out. So I left walked around the whole town, bided my time, did a little of grocery shopping and went back to my house. When my house came into view I could already tell he had been there! I practically sprinted the last block. With my brown paper grocery bag spilling out fruits and vegetables every couple of steps and my hair unpinning slowly from all the running, I must of looked like quite a sight. But not as a sight as my windows! Wow it felt like christmas. They looked so shiny and sparkly it looked like I had no windows on my house! It was that clean. I got to the window sill and - the money was gone. I didn't go back to pick up the groceries. That was when my imagination switched on and I stood there for hours thinking about what could happen next and what he looked like and - well you get the picture. By the time I snapped out of it the fruit were getting eaten by ants and the vegetables were rotting in the sun. I felt absurd leaving money on the sill when my windows were still sparkling after a full week. I wanted to see the man though. So I came up with the only solution I could think of. Late Saturday night I would make any random type of mixture and splatter it all over my windows, like a painting canvas. Every time Sunday night came around I left money on the sill and every Monday morning clean windows, no sight of the money. After a couple of weeks, I decided to move my office into the living room with the biggest windows in the whole house overlooking the street. I wanted to find out more about this man. And I knew I couldn't do it without being there in person.

Not finished yet...