Maytag Man by Elise LeSage

Of course we knew they would send Patrick Bisby. We’d gotten our hands on Maytag’s schedule and saw Patrick was their Saturday-man. “Noon to six,” the reps had said when we called about the dryer. “Would tomorrow be convenient?”

“Yes,”we had answered, giggling into the receiver. “Oh, yes.”

We picked my house because it was nicer than Shirl’s. Plus, my dryer was already on its last legs. When we stuffed it full of towels until the vent smoked, Mom didn’t suspect a thing. She slipped a few dollars in my pocket before she left for work. “The tip,” she said—as if I were an idiot.

Shirl came at nine. It would take a while, our preparation. An hour on the hair—the rollers, the backcomb, the Aqua Net misted until our chignons stood at attention.

The outfits, next. We tested several in the light of the laundry room, then the porch, where we waited for Patrick’s company car. Shirl, baby-blue romper. Me, lace-trim dress. Cute, but not try-hard, the type of garment you could pinch from your chest and go, “Oh, this?”

He came at four. Shirl and I feigned deep conversation as Patrick’s legs emerged from the grey sedan. When he combed his hair back from his movie-perfect face, we hardly stole a glance.

“Missus Barrie?” he squinted, interrupting.

To keep from laughing, bit our tongues. “Yes,” I rose and, like a woman, added: “We appreciate your coming. It’s a shoes-off house.”

Patrick, in my laundry room, was a trick of the light, his hands semi-real as they consecrated the dryer’s insides. He worked without preamble, not even asking our names. This, we blamed on tragedy. Our poor Patrick. Look at how the last two years had sapped the bravado from his shoulders, lank as he stooped for a wrench.

“The valve is broken,” he said while, at the same time, Shirl asked, “You went to Boone, right?”

Patrick stiffened. I imagined slapping Shirl across the mouth.

“We’re on the cheer team,” I offered, blinking as if shy. “We remember you.”

Patrick nodded, and nodded, then asked for a glass of water.

“Of course.” I smiled, yanking Shirl by the arm.

In the kitchen, she said, “Holy shit.”

“I know.” I filled three cups from the tap.

Patrick dropped out his senior year. Shirl and I had been freshman, star-crossed from the start. We were hurt, though unsurprised, that he didn’t recall our faces now; so many girls our age had filled notebook margins with his name. We had loved him en masse. Loved him, giggling, in the locker room. Loved him from the bleachers of his baseball games.

Shirl and I, we loved Patrick even after his father went to prison for that horrible thing with Claudia Meyers. Other girls couldn’t stomach it. His tragedy. They used words like spiral and wasted and downhill. Their devotion, flappable. Not mine. Not Shirl’s.

In the laundry room, Patrick was wiping his hands on a rag. “Easy fix,”he explained. He talked us through mechanical components and the importance of not overloading the rig. We felt time slipping from us. Upstairs, we’d written a list of conversation starters. Each, we realized, babyish. We held our tongues.

“But, anyway, the warranty will cover it.” Patrick stood. To leave.

“Can we test it?” I asked. The glass of water was sweating in my hand. I made an executive decision and emptied one half on Shirl’s romper, the other on my chest.

Shirl startled, almost scowling—but, when I peeled the dress off, she followed suit. Our skin goosepimpled even in the laundry room’s heat. We wanted to cross our arms against our stomachs, but didn’t. We kept our chins up, forcing grins.

We handed our clothes to Patrick Bisby. His mouth had fallen open. His eyes, on the floor. Patrick wore socks. Our bare feet were pale against the concrete. Nails unpainted. I curled my toes in.

“Short cycle fine?” Patrick turned from us to fiddle with panel. “They might be sorta damp, but.”

I leaned against Mom’s folding table. Shirl, like a lemming, leaned too.

“Or I could leave and you could call—”

“No,” I said. “Stay.”

We remembered the importance of keeping our backs straight. Chests, out. Legs, arranged minimize the chub of our thighs. We waited for Patrick to notice this. To look at us. To realize how much we loved him.

Instead, he frowned at the wall. Mom had hung vacation Polaroids. I gave him time to evaluate them, to form a question I could follow up.

“Hawaii,” I explained when he didn’t. “Have you visited?”

He didn’t turn. “No.”

I laughed coyly, stepping closer. “You simply must go.”

“The girls wear coconut bras,” Shirl said from the table.

“No, they don’t.” I shot her a look. To Patrick, I clarified, “She’s never been.”

The dryer hummed for several agonizing minutes. Five. Seven. Ten. Sweat beaded down my chest, close enough for him to notice, if he would notice anything at all.

“How is your dad?” I asked. My voice did not come out right.

Patrick said, “Oh.”

The timer dinged.

He didn’t hand our clothes to us. This was the worst part: the way we had to reach around him, Shirl mumbling sorry after elbowing his ear. Our clothes were still damp when we stepped inside them, fumbling, my fingers clumsy with the zipper.

When Patrick left, we watched him from the bedroom window. He hadn’t tied the laces on his boots.

“Loser,” Shirl said, swapping her romper for a t-shirt. She tossed me my jeans. “Talk about downhill.”

“Totally.” Our laughs were too eager. The dress fell in a wad at my feet. In the pocket of my pants, something crinkled. The money Mom had left for the tip.

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ELISE LeSAGE — Elise is a creative writing lecturer and marketing specialist based out of North Carolina, where she earned her fiction MFA from UNC Greensboro. Her stories have appeared in Buckman Journal, Mollusk Literary Magazine, the Pseudopod podcast, and elsewhere.

Art by AMBER ROSE CROWTREE — Amber is a poet and artist in rural New Hampshire. She is the author and cover-artist of two poetry chapbooks, Harboring the Imperfect and The Inviolable Hours. Her art has also appeared recently in Flash Frog and Smoky Quartz. Her most recent poems are online at
Heart and Portrait of New England magazines, 2025.