Inspection

Cindy had driven by the Bellamy house on her way back from the library, but she hadn't had time to stop. Now as she drove up, she tried to see it the way a man like Don Lark would. He'd ignore the shaggy yard. The peeling paint and boarded-up windows and clumsy graffiti would mean nothing to him. Beyond that, the house actually looked pretty good. Nothing sagged. The trim was mostly intact. The roof was old but not a ruin. Don Lark had an eye that could see a good house beneath a faded exterior. A middle-aged divorced woman could get naked with a man like Don Lark.

Don't think like that, she told herself sternly.

By the time she got out of her car, Don was already talking to a man on the front lawn.

"Cindy Claybourne, this is Jay Placer. He's an engineer who looks over houses for me."

Cindy smiled and shook Jay's hand. He was a little younger than Don, and his soft hands and body showed that he had an indoor job and didn't do anything in his free time that would toughen him up. That was fine—Cindy kept a clear distinction in her mind between men who were tough because they had real jobs and men who were tough because they had the money and the ego need to spend many hours doing expensive manly activities. Cindy's father was a fireman who hung wallpaper on his free days. She respected a man like Don whose rough hands were earned by hard work. She also respected a man like Jay, whose soft body also came from hard work at a different kind of job. Respected him, but unfortunately was never attracted to his type. It was the tragedy underlying the Dilbert cartoons, which made it so she couldn't really enjoy them. She always wanted to scream at Dilbert: Get out of the office and pour some concrete somewhere!