I met Carlos and Andrea about a year ago. They were older than the people I normally hand around with, both well into their thirties, compared to my early twenties. For some reason we just hit it off and we became good friends.
Carlos was a handsome man, had a good job, and worked hard at it. Andrea also worked, although I suspect she didn't need to, as Carlos made good money. Not having any children was a disappointment to them but apart from that they seemed to enjoy life.
Carlos was very much the extrovert, loud and boisterous, which made it all the stranger that I liked him anyway, me being a bit of an introvert. Andrea was also somewhat of an extrovert, although not as noisy about it as Carlos.
What I found odd about their relationship was this. Carlos had the heart of a lion. He'd fight wolves bare-handed if they threatened his Andrea. Andrea, on the other hand, had a spine of pure jelly. She really hated confrontation and would hastily back away if one threatened. (Unless the confrontation was with Carlos and then she was prepared to slap him down.)
I was having coffee in the café where Andrea had her part-time job. It was a slack time for the café so Andrea sat opposite me for a bit of a chat. Typically this meant that she'd talk and I'd listen, listening and giving a sympathetic ear being my forte.
On this particular occasion she was bewailing the fact that Carlos's niece was staying with them for a couple of weeks. According to Andrea, Chloe was a lovely young thing, a blonde who was eighteen, and she was a golden girl in that she was an eighteen carat gold-plated bitch. Ungrateful and with never a civil word for anyone. Andrea was swallowing her pride for Carlos's sake (plus that dread of confrontation).
I sympathised with her but that was all I could do, except tell her she should maybe drop a gentle hint to Carlos to lean on his niece a little. She gave me an are-you-crazy look.
"A gentle hint?" she asked, sounding completely incredulous. "You men are all alike. You don't notice gentle hints. You manage to miss blatant hints. With something like this the only way to get a hint though Carlos's thick skull would be to drive it home with a hammer. And then he'd just wonder if I'd misunderstood something his sweet little niece said."
Well, she knew Carlos better than me. I subtly changed the subject.
"Carlos said he is going to trim those trees at the back of your place," I said, knowing those trees had been an irritant to her for a while. They were badly overgrown and a good trim would work wonders with them.
"Oh, yes, and about time," she said, smiling again.
"He gave me a call, wanting to borrow my chain saw. Tell him I'll drop it off first thing tomorrow morning."
"Make it nice and early. Carlos starts work at six and I head out for an early shift about eight. Any time after that and you'll have to deal with Chloe and she'll probably drop the thing in the bin and forget about it."
I assured Andrea that I'd be there nice and early, but I'd be stuffed if I was going to be there before six to deliver it to Carlos. I told her I'd make it around eight, figuring that even if I ran a few minutes late she wouldn't mind waiting those few minutes.
It turned out that I was there a couple of minutes before eight, nice and timely, with a full scale battle raging inside. The inhabitants of the house didn't hear me ringing the bell, being too noisy themselves, so I trotted around to the back door and went in.
Andrea was almost backed up to the stove by this teenage harridan who was yelling at her. Surprisingly enough all the shrieking and carrying on were coming from the young termagant, who I assumed was Chloe. From what I could gather from all the yelling Chloe was demanding that Andrea should be cooking breakfast for Chloe. Andrea's feeble protests that she had to go out were ruthlessly ignored. If she'd really had to go to work she'd have already left but she hadn't.
"Enough," I yelled, and my deep voice booming across the kitchen shut the women up.
Andrea was the first to recover.
"Oh, Jake," she said, sounding happy, "you're here."
"Indeed I am, complete with chainsaw. I'll just stick this up here out of the way until Carlos gets home." I reached up and put the chainsaw on top of a cupboard, out of Chloe's easy reach. I turned to Andrea with a smile. "Who's the loud mouthed little bitch?" I asked Andrea, smiling as her mouth dropped open in shock.
"Oh, ah, this is Chloe, our niece. She's staying with us for a couple of weeks." She threw Chloe a hasty look and then turned back to me, grabbing her handbag as she did so. "Thank you for bringing that around, Jake. Sorry, but I have to go. Work, you know."
With that she turned and bolted, happy to be leaving the scene of the battle. I turned and smiled at Chloe.
"Hullo, Chloe," I said. "I'm Jake. A friend to Carlos and Andrea."
