The Plumber by Anne Jensen (ajensen@west.net) Disclaimer. As always, Tracy and Vachon are Sony/Columbia/Tri-Star's, and are being used without permission. Theresa and Alan, and most of Tracy's family are my own inventions. Alan checked the address. Yes. This was the place all right. Raising a hand, he knocked on the door. It had been five years since the last time he'd seen her. He wondered if she'd changed. When no one answered immediately, he knocked again. If Tracy was still asleep at 7 in the morning, she *must* have changed. Of course, she might be in the shower, he realized. He was just starting to think maybe he should have called first when the door opened. Alan's eyes widened. Either Tracy really *had* changed, or he had the wrong apartment, Alan decided, looking at the shirtless dark-haired *man* who'd answered the door. "Umm. I'm looking for Tracy Vetter," he said hesitantly. "She's out at the moment," the man responded. Well, that was something of a relief. But it opened up a whole new line of questions about who this guy was and what he was doing in her apartment. "She should be back soon, though," the other man admitted, grudgingly Alan thought. "Ah," Alan said, trying to decide what to do now. He hadn't anticipated any of this. He supposed he could try coming back a little later, and risk missing her again, or maybe leave her a message, but that would spoil his attempt to surprise her. The man in the doorway was studying him a bit as well. "You a friend of hers?" "Alan Simpson. We were in college together." To put it mildly. But he wasn't going to get into the fact that they'd dated steadily for two years with a total stranger. "Ah," the man said. They stared at each other for a moment. Alan shifted his feet uncomfortably, wondering if he should leave after all. Then, to his surprise, the man opened the door a little wider. "Why don't you come in and wait for her?" "Thanks," Alan walked in, adding, "And you would be?" The man grinned. "I'm her plumber." For the first time, Alan noticed the plunger in his hand. "Oh," Alan said in sudden comprehension. That answered that question. Alan pulled off his coat as he walked in. Draping it over a nearby chair, he took a look around. Neat as a pin. It was Tracy's all right. Even in college she'd kept her place perfectly in order. She'd had this annoying habit of straightening things, even in the middle of talking with him. Judging from the precise placement of the furniture and pictures, she still did. The plumber closed the door behind him. "Alan Simpson, huh? Would that be as in real-estate developer Alan Simpson?" "One and the same." Alan said cheerfully. The plumber perched on the arm of a chair, swinging the plunger. "Planning some big deal, here, then?" If Tracy caught him doing that, he'd be her ex-plumber. "Not really. I just happened to be in town, so I thought I'd stop by." "That good friends with her, then," the plumber pronounced. "We dated a bit in college." Alan continued wandering around Tracy's apartment. There were several crayon drawings on the refrigerator. It looked like someone was awfully fond of Aunt Tracy. Tracy's nephew would be too old to produce pictures like that any more, but he'd heard that her sister-in-law had remarried after Tracy's brother died, and it was possible that the two women stayed in touch. A glance at the mantle confirmed it. Among the pictures there he saw one of Dana, and, he assumed, her new husband sitting at a picnic table surrounded by a group of children. One of the kids in the picture, a blond haired little girl, smiled out of several others on the mantle, but Tracy had one of each of the rest of them. "Trying not to play favorites, Trace?" he muttered, picking up one of the pictures of the little girl. Cute kid. She reminded him a bit of Tracy, actually. A flushing sound from the bathroom made him look up . To his annoyance, the plumber was still calmly sitting on the arm of the chair staring at him. "Shouldn't you take care of that?" he asked pointedly. "Probably," the man agreed, not moving. "So, why'd you two break up, anyway?" Alan scowled. Incompetent man. Not to mention rude. "That's none of your business." "Probably," the man said again, sounding amused. Alan put the picture down. "That's it! I'll have your plumber's license for this! You'd better start looking for another career, pal, because by the time I'm through with you--" He was interrupted by a shriek from the bathroom. "Daddy! There's water coming up in the tub!" The little blond-haired girl from the pictures ran out of the room. Alan stared in shock as she began tugging on the man's arm. "Daddy! Daddy! Come quick!" "Go and watch it, Theresa. I'll be right there," the man assured her. Theresa ran back to the bathroom, her little ponytail wagging behind her. Watching her, all Alan could think to say was, "You're Tracy's *plumber*?" "Well, and the father of her child," the man responded grinning. He sauntered off to the bathroom. Feeling like a fool, Alan sank to the couch. Of course the girl in the pictures had to be Tracy's daughter. And obviously, this plumber's too. He'd never heard anything, so he'd just assumed that Tracy was still basically unattached. Now that he thought about it, though, coming over here unannounced like this, *did* seem awfully presumptuous. Still, he could have told me, Alan thought, sending a hot glare in the direction of the bathroom, from which now issued a series of splashing sounds. At that moment a key turned in the front door and Tracy walked in saying, "Javier, I got your note." Seeing him on the couch, she stopped. ********************* "Alan?" Tracy couldn't believe it, It must have been five years since the last time she'd seen him. And then here he was sitting in her living room. "Hi Trace," Alan greeted. "You look great." "Thanks. So do you." She continued to stare at him in shock for a moment, then finally managed to shake it off. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?" "I was in Toronto for a meeting, and thought, since I was here, I'd drop by and surprise you." She digested this information. She'd known that he was now a big name in real-estate development. She even recalled reading in the paper that his company was going to be expanding to Toronto, but finding him in her living room was certainly a surprise. "I see. But what I actually meant was why are you in my apartment?" "Oh." He waved a hand at the bathroom. "Your plumber let me in." "My plumber?" she repeated. What in the world was Alan talking about? The toilet had started backing up just as she was getting ready to leave for work last night, so she hadn't had time to call a plumber about it. At that moment, Vachon called, "We're in the bathroom Trace. I think I've figured out the problem." He continued, "Now keep watching that Theresa, and tell me if any more water comes up." "My plumber," she muttered to herself. At that moment, the first rays of the morning sun shone in the window. It looked like her "plumber" was going to be spending the day. She absently closed the drapes against the growing light and turned back to Alan, who was watching her, puzzled. "Is something wrong?" "What? Oh. No." Alan shook whatever it was off. "I take it he's not just a plumber, then?" She switched on a light. "Javier is--a friend." "Who happens to be the father of your child?" The full story ran through her head. "More or less," she said, carefully. Mostly more, but she wasn't going to share it. The splashing in the bathroom stopped and something flushed again. Theresa cheered. "Look, Daddy, the water's going down!" "So I see," Vachon's voice echoed from the bathroom. "Does that mean it's fixed now?" Theresa asked. "I think it's getting there," Vachon told her. "Good job, mi corazon!" "Yippee!" Theresa bounced into the living room. "Guess what, Mommy! I fixed the bathroom!" "You did?" Tracy said, reaching out for her slightly damp daughter. "Wow. All by yourself?" "Well," Theresa admitted. "Daddy helped." She frowned, and, taking advantage of her mother's near ear whispered, "Mommy, who's that man?" "This is Mr. Simpson, sweetheart. He and I were in college together," she introduced them. "Alan, this is my daughter, Theresa." "We've already met." Alan greeted. "When you were telling your father about the water coming up in the bathroom." And about Theresa's father... More spashing noises issued from the bathroom. "You want to take a look at this, Trace?" Vachon called. "Would I ever," she muttered. "Theresa, would you mind staying out here and keeping Mr. Simpson company while I go see what a great job you and Daddy have done fixing the bathroom?" "Okay," Theresa shrugged. "Thanks, sweetheart." She ruffled Theresa's hair briefly and set her down on the floor. "Hey, Trace," Vachon looked up briefly from plunging the toilet as she came in. Recalling her resolution not to make her parents' mistake and argue with her daughter's father in front of her, she switched on the bathroom fan before starting in on him. ********************* Alan sat stiffly for several minutes, trying to ignore the vague murmuring he could almost hear over the bathroom fan. He knew that look on Tracy's face. She wasn't happy, and judging from the sounds emanating from the bathroom, she was giving him a piece of her mind. He was just glad it was this Javier-person she was giving it to and not him. He'd wondered if Tracy had changed in the past five years. Even with motherhood she hadn't changed much physically. She still wore her hair short and she was still as thin as a rail. Her temper hadn't changed all that much either. But there were other, little things, that seemed so different. The Tracy he'd known would never have closed the curtains in the middle of the day. She could be at it for a while, so to give himself something to do, he started talking to Theresa, who'd dragged a pad of paper out of somewhere and was now cheerfully scribbling. "So, what's your mother up to these days?" "She's a p'lice detective," Theresa answered, reciting as if by rote, "Metro Homicide, 96th Precinct." Not the answer he'd been wanting, but it was enough to mull over. Police detective, that wasn't surprising. She'd tried getting away from it in college, but everyone who'd known her knew that she was bound for a career in law enforcement. But Homicide? He never would have thought that she'd want to go into that. "How did your parents meet, anyway?" Tracy's daughter giggled, and carefully switched crayons from black to red. "Daddy gave Mommy a hand with a case." This Javier person helped Tracy out on a case? That didn't seem like a normal thing for a plumber, unless someone was flushing evidence down a drain, he supposed. Things like that never came up on the news or cop shows, but maybe it was possible. If he wasn't a plumber, though, what was he? "What does your daddy do for a living?" "Gran'pa says he's a slacker." Her child's voice did a fairly good impersonation of Commissioner Richard Vetter's more strident tones. "Mommy sometimes says he's her informant and sometimes says he's a musician. But he's just Daddy." "So your dad doesn't do *anything* during the day?" He couldn't believe it. Tracy was friends--and had a child with--someone who didn't have job? Theresa laughed again. "Of course he does, silly. He sleeps." That was even worse. Alan was horrified. "Your father spends all his time sleeping?" "No." Theresa changed from red to yellow this time. "Only during the daytime." Interesting. "Oh, what does he do at night, then?" Maybe he'd asked the question wrong. Theresa shrugged. "We do stuff." "What kind of stuff?" Alan was really curious now. "Last night we went to the park for a while and then we came home and he told me a story, an' then we had a tea party." Well, it seemed like the guy was a great father and all, but didn't he have any kind of job? "How does he make money?" Or does he mooch off your mother? Theresa paused in her drawing to consider the question. Maybe he *does* mooch off Tracy, Alan was starting to think when Theresa said, "I think he has a cheese account for when he wants money. When we went out to get Mommy's Mother's Day present, we stopped by his friend's house and I heard them talking about it." A cheese account? What was a-- "You mean a Swiss account?" Moving on to a brown crayon, she said, "Uh huh. Just like the cheese." A Swiss account. Famous for hiding identities and squirreling away large sums of money. It didn't have to come from illegal sources. Alan had a Swiss account himself and hadn't robbed any banks or taken small countries hostage, but still... This Javier fellow wouldn't have been the first person to turn state's evidence in exchange for avoiding prosecution. He asked his next question carefully. "What case did he help your mom on?" Theresa scrutinized her drawing. "A bunch of 'em. He even saved her life a lot." She added another splotch of yellow. Saved her life? Maybe this Javier person wasn't so bad after all. Or maybe Theresa was just idealizing her father. Realizing that he was trying to get adult value judgements out of someone who couldn't be more than four, about her father, no less, he gave up that line of conversation completely. "So, what are you drawing here?" "It's a picture of us having breakfast," Theresa announced proudly. "This is Daddy," she pointed at the black and red splotch, "This is Mommy," she pointed at the yellow and brown splotch, "and this is me," she finished, adding bit of orange to the other yellow one. It all looked like multi-colored scribbles to him, but he managed to make suitable compliments about it. ********************* The atmosphere inside the bathroom was less pleasant. "--So you passed yourself off as my plumber?!" Tracy demanded. Vachon had set the plunger back down in the toilet shortly after their "discussion" had started. He could tell Tracy was angry with him, and he was willing to admit privately that she had some right to be. "It seemed like the best way, Tracy. I didn't know who he was. I mean, he could have been a revenge-crazed axe murderer out to kill you." "And you let him in? With Theresa here?" Vachon was suddenly grateful that the nearest wooden object was the plunger handle which was closer to him than it was to her. "It was either that or let him wait for you outside where he could kill you. At least this way I could keep an eye on him and if anything *did* happen, I wouldn't have to do only what was *humanly* possible." Of course, he'd known within two minutes of talking to him that the man had been above board. But by then he'd begun to have some stirrings of an emotion he didn't want to put a name to. He told himself that he was just afraid that this Alan Simpson had broken Tracy's heart, and that he only wanted to know what his motives in "dropping by" were. Admitting any of this to Tracy, however, would only make her more angry. She seemed to guess anyway. "And you didn't figure out that he wasn't?" He managed to keep himself from wincing. "By then it was a little late to do anything about it." True, as far as it went. He'd always had a tough time lying to her. "Telling him I was afraid he was a psychopath wasn't going to improve matters any." "I guess not." She folded her arms and leaned back against the wall, thinking about it. Vachon picked up the plunger again. She watched him work for a few moments. "I never knew you knew about plumbing." Vachon used his upper arm to shove some hair out of his eyes. "I worked as a plumber about 20 years ago. Night shift at a 24 hour plumbing service. It wasn't so bad. The hours fit and it was a great way to keep a low profile while trying to dodge the Inca." "Any idea what was wrong?" He shook his head. "Not a clue. Anything from roots in the pipes to too much toilet paper. Your building manager is going to have to check it out, but I think I've fixed the problem in the meantime. Just be grateful it wasn't one of Theresa's toys," he told her, recalling some of the odder things he'd found in his brief time as a plumber. Tracy would have been a little girl herself back then. He worked at it a little longer and then pulled the plunger up. "Now for the test." He flushed the toilet. For the first time in hours, the water swirled around and went down the usual way. "It's fixed?" Tracy wondered. "Yup." He let water sluice over the plunger. "You'll have to clean up the bathroom before you use it, but the toilet's working again." "I needed to clean it up anyway." She shrugged, then dropped her eyes. "Javier, thanks for doing it. You didn't have to." "No problem, Trace. It wasn't a big deal." "It *was* a big deal," she insisted. "And I'm sorry I lost my temper." "Water under the bridge, Trace," he said. "Or in this case, down the drain." That got a laugh out of her. She lightly kissed the tip of his nose, then backed out of his way to let him wash his hands. ********************* Alan was a little startled by the sound of the bathroom door opening. He looked up to see Tracy coming out, followed by her plumber-friend. "Mommy, Daddy, look! I drew a picture." Theresa exclaimed, waving it at them. "I see," Tracy said, accepting it. Javier peered over her shoulder. "What do we have here?" Theresa pointed out the relevant parts. "That's you, Daddy, and you, Mommy, and me, and we're eating breakfast!" Her parents exchanged careful glances. "It's a very nice picture," Tracy praised. "So nice that I'd like to take it home with me," Javier added. Alan could tell that something significant had passed between the two but he had no idea what it was. A warning, perhaps? Whatever it was had completely gone by him. "Okay, Daddy." It must have gone by Theresa as well, because she hadn't lost one iota of her brightness. "And speaking of breakfast, how about we get some, hmm?" Javier picked his daughter up, swinging her almost to the ceiling, in a gesture Alan could never have imitated, even though he worked out every day at the gym. Tracy was smiling at them, not even noticing him. He rose to his feet and cleared his throat. "Oh, Alan. Would you like to join us?" It was more of a polite offer than a real one. "Ah no, thanks. I have to go. An early meeting, you know how they are." He picked up his coat. "Of course." She opened the door for him. "One of these days we'll have to get together for coffee and talk about old times." In the background, he could hear Javier talking to Theresa about washing her hands, and then getting some hot chocolate. "The next time I'm in town," he agreed, knowing full well that they probably wouldn't. There was a time, not so long ago when she would have kissed him madly as he left. Today she just smiled pleasantly, said good-bye, and closed the door. He shook his head a little. Plumber the man might not be, but he'd done an excellent job clearing out the lines of Tracy's heart. He just hoped this Javier fellow realized how lucky he was. Epilogue: "So, why'd the two of you break up, anyway?" Vachon asked later that morning after they'd put Theresa to bed for the day. "Alan's a nice guy, but he tends to be a bit--overbearing--at times." Tracy explained, sipping at her mug of coffee. Dispassionately, Vachon noted. Whatever had happened, Alan Simpson hadn't crushed Tracy's heart. It made him almost warm to the guy. Almost. "I noticed," he said wryly. "Unlike most of the other guys who wanted to go out with me in college, Alan wasn't interested in me because of my father, or because he wanted a pretty girl on his arm at society functions. We had a lot of fun together. After a while, though, I realized that what he wanted in life wasn't what I wanted. We started going our separate ways, and then, after we graduated, we sort of lost touch. The last time I saw him was about five years ago." She drank more of her coffee. "Huh." Vachon took a sip of his own drink, wrinkling his nose at the taste of the red wine laced lightly with cow blood. "Now *Edward* was the real love of my life." "Who?!" Vachon coughed, snorting his drink up his nose. He looked up to find her smirking at him impishly. "Gotcha." Fin.