My anxiety shot to ten as we waited for him to come, watching even more videos to be sure we both understood what was waiting on the other side of that oven door. I owned a set of tools as well, thanks to my father, but I wouldn’t pretend I knew how to operate them.
Gabriella’s boyfriend was tall and thickly built, with a clean-shaven, handsome face and a quiet confidence that bordered on arrogance already. They made a cute couple, though I wouldn’t have pegged them as “together” by the way he walked in without so much as a peck on her cheek. She didn’t fawn over him or melt into smiles, either.
Gabriella introduced me to Lorenzo, and he got to work right away.
Reminded me of my last ten years with Eric. All business.
Gabriella stood beside him for a second, showing him one of the videos we’d watched. After less than a minute, he waved her off and barked, “I got it already.”
My head snapped back fast because I just knew Gabriella was going to say something about his tone. But she didn’t. She sighed, holding in the thoughts that were written on her face.
Lorenzo turned on the oven light and then opened the back door. “Tell me when the light goes off.”
I felt embarrassed for her. Then angry. Then I decided it was best to mind my own business and be glad someone had come over to help us. Who was I to tell a young woman how to be with herboyfriend after it had taken me nearly thirty years to advocate for myself in my own marriage?
After Lorenzo had successfully killed the power to the oven, Gabriella and I served as assistants, handing him wrenches and screwdrivers.
Sweat began to form along his hairline before long.
“You need water?” Gabriella asked.
“No,” he snapped. “Just… Quiet on the set, okay?”
The room was filled with the funk of his attitude and the sound of strained breathing and the occasional clink of metal on metal. When Lorenzo got to the point where he was ready to unhook the electrical wires, he started to unscrew the back panel first. Having watched several videos already, Gabriella and I both knew he didn’t need to do that. We exchanged wary glances, but she stayed silent.
Seeing as we were all three huddled close, supporting that heavy oven, and Lorenzo was expending his energy and stretching his arms beyond their natural capacity, I spoke up. “You can disconnect the cords through the top panel.”
He acted like he didn’t hear me. Kept right on doing it the way he’d committed to.
“Yeah, that’s what the videos showed for this model,” Gabriella said a few wasted seconds later.
Lorenzo gave a heavy sigh and asked, “Do you want my help or not?” First, he laid his eyes on Gabriella. She didn’t respond.
But when he poked those sassy brown eyes at me, I said, “No, I do not. We can finish on our own.”
“Fine.”
He let go of his corner, and all the weight landed on me and Gabriella. We struggled to push the oven back in place ashe grabbed his little sorry tools and threw them in his piddly orange box.
I gave a count. “On three. One, two, three.” Together, Gabriella and I restored the teetering appliance to a safe position.
“Really, Lorenzo?” Gabriella grunted at her boyfriend.
“Really. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
I gladly showed him out, wondering why I had the worst luck with handymen.Note to self: Next time, find help online!The internet could not do worse than Lorenzo and Wardell.
Left to our own devices, Gabriella and I exchanged a glance—hers full of youthful determination, mine tinged with a resignation that came from years of facing life’s curveballs. We were two very different people in that moment, but we shared one common goal: fixing this blasted oven.
“I’ve got my father’s tools,” I offered, hoping the ghosts of past DIY attempts wouldn’t come back to haunt us.
“The power’s off, so we can’t electrocute ourselves. We only need a screwdriver at this point,” she reminded me, with that confident nod of hers that made me believe we could actually pull this off.
We fumbled through the final steps of the tutorial, the mechanics simple enough but somehow still daunting. The screwdriver slipped once, twice, but Gabriella caught it in midair, her reflexes quicker than mine. We kept pushing through, handing tools back and forth, our hands brushing occasionally as we tightened bolts and loosened screws. Each clink of metal felt like a tiny victory, and with every success, a little more of the tension between us eased.
But we did it. Together.
“On three. One, two, three.” We freed the oven from its snug spot beside the cabinet and set it on the floor. It was a smallone-hundred-dollar victory in the grand scheme of things, but monumental in that moment. In the aftermath, a spontaneous celebration erupted between us. A shared laugh broke the tension, and we found ourselves doing a little dance around the room, a salsa dance of sorts.
