Man Hands

by Sarina Bowen

  I’ll make sure of it.

  Twenty-four hours later, I’m singing a different tune. Honestly, Dancing with the Stars might actually be easier than finishing this job.

  It’s not Quebec’s fault. It’s really fucking beautiful here, but now that only pisses me off. The rugged mountains and the piney scent ought to make me happy. But they don’t, because the network wants me to do the unthinkable: a tacky renovation.

  In all my years in TV, I’ve never had creative differences with the network. They don’t usually care what I do as long as the owner cries tears of joy when I’m done. But this time it’s different, because the homeowner is the producer of one of those shows where seventeen scandals happen before the first commercial break.

  No wonder the pay was so high. I didn’t realize I would have to sell my soul to finish this project.

  “You want glitz and shiny surfaces,” I’m saying to the producer on our second day of pre-production. “But this old ski lodge you’ve chosen clearly demands a rustic, manly touch. There ought to be deer antlers on the wall, and rough-hewn beams.”

  He taps one shiny shoe on the floor and makes a tsk-tsk sound. “I need skylights in the den and a hot tub that seats sixteen.”

  “Sixteen?” I bark. “That’s not a hot tub. That’s a Roman orgy!”

  “Have you even watched Betrothed?” the producer asks. “Orgies are not out of the question. Six engaged couples spend a month together to be sure their bonds are strong enough for marriage. It’s a great vacation. But temptation is everywhere.”

  “Wait.” My poor brain tries to wrap itself around this horrible concept. “So you put them all in bathing suits in a hot tub and see who cheats first?”

  “The bathing suits are optional,” he says with a snicker. His teeth are so white and shiny that I’m practically blinded.

  I groan, when I’d really rather vomit.

  “Now talk me through the upstairs renovation,” he says. “How many skylights can I have?”

  None, you fucker. “Skylights are a terrible idea in this climate. They’ll cause ice damming in the winter, and the roof will leak.”

  Shiny Shoes gives a shrug. “I’ll be long gone by then. And I need a lot of light fixtures everywhere, so we can capture the infidelities in HD.”

  Seriously, I want to bonk him over the head with my socket wrench. “I’ll make sure the electrician is up to speed.”

  “The kitchen table has to sit at least a dozen people at once. No, wait—it needs to be the kind that can be either large or small depending on the need. As the couples break up and leave the show, I’ll need a more intimate setting.”

  Gross. But the table is not my problem. “When the designer turns up, you can tell him all about it.” Theoretically they’re sending an interior designer tomorrow. And it’s a damn good thing, because if Shiny Shoes wants mirrors on the ceiling, or heart-shaped beds, it’s not my funeral.

  I already heard him say something about a lilac color scheme. Gag.

  My phone rings, and it’s a thrilling sound, because it means I can escape from this fuckwit. “Excuse me,” I say loudly, for the benefit of anyone in earshot. “My fiancée is on the line.” Becky the publicist has asked me to refer to Brynn that way as often as possible.

  And Brynn is making that easy for me, because it really is her on the phone. Eagerly, I step away from Shiny Shoes and move outdoors, where everything is calm and beautiful. “Hi, gorgeous,” I answer.

  “Hi!” she returns, sounding breathless. “I didn’t get your text until now. I was kneading some dough.”

  “Were you now?” I say, dropping my voice. But I realize too late that “kneading some dough” doesn’t sound the least bit sexy, so now I’m snorting and laughing and Brynn is giggling in my ear.

  “I don’t even want to know,” she says, tittering.

  Titters is such an awesome word. And just like that I feel all the frustrations of this job fall away. Ten seconds on the phone with Brynn is all it takes.

  “I had some good news today,” she says. “I’m making a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread to celebrate.”

  “Oh, wow. Cinnamon raisin bread is really good for toast. With butter…” My stomach rumbles.

  “Don’t you want to hear the news?”

  “Of course. What happened?”

  “I got an interview!” she cries.

  “Congratulations! Where?” This is good news. Maybe I haven’t ruined her life, after all.

  “That little art college downtown—I almost didn’t send my résumé. It’s such a small school! But they called me this morning.” The words get muffled. She’s chewing on something.

  “Are you cooking something besides the bread?”

  “Am I breathing? Of course I am. Woman cannot dine on bread alone. She also needs bacon and poached eggs.”

  My stomach rumbles even though I ate only an hour ago. “Sure wish I could join you.”

  “Of course you do,” she says cheerfully. “The bacon was hand-smoked by the guy at the farmers’ market.”

  That’s not the real reason I wish I was there, though. I can picture standing with Brynn in her shabby kitchen, and the image is so much more appealing than the one I’ve got in front of me here. A week from now I’ll have rebuilt this place with a gleaming, chef’s gourmet kitchen. And I don’t even care.

  Fuck.

  “The network is pissing me off.” I sigh into the phone. “I wish I was at home with you.”

  There’s a silence on the line while Brynn absorbs this bit of truth. What I want her to say is, Then come home.

  “What did they do?” she asks instead.

  “This project is sleazy,” I complain. Because it is. “I worry that they’re trying to position me in a different, sleazier way than they used to. As if showing the world my ass has changed my image, so they’re just going to drive me like an out-of-control belt sander until I crash into something.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says sweetly.

  Aw. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I just have to remember why I got into the business—to build spaces for happy families.”

  “That’s an excellent reason,” she assures me. “Everyone deserves a nice home.”

  I’m embarrassed now, so I mutter something about being good with my hands. But it’s been a while since I stated my purpose out loud. And it occurs to me that part of the reason I’ve been building family homes for almost twenty years is that I never had one for myself.

  Last year I tried to make a home for myself, but I went about it the wrong way, and it flopped.

  Must have built it for the wrong girl.

  This epiphany is interrupted by my pal, Burt, who’s waving to me with both hands. That probably means that Shiny Shoes has just found a new way to wreck the project, and that I’d better go do some more damage control.

  “I gotta go,” I tell Brynn reluctantly.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say quickly. That’s what a man is supposed to say. “Talk soon?”

  “Of course.”

  I love you. The words are on the tip of my tongue, and they almost tumble out. Except that’s not how Brynn and I are with each other, and nobody is listening so I can’t even claim it as an act of publicity. “Take care of yourself,” I say instead.

  There’s a pause and then she says, “You too!”

  We hang up, and I spend the next half hour verbally wrestling with every idea that comes out of Shiny Shoes’s mouth.

  I like to create spaces where happy family lives are meant to be lived. He wants a space where great drama happens. The two goals are incompatible. In order to rein in my fury, I stop listening. Instead, I just watch his mouth move while nodding occasionally.

  But one thing is clear. I need to stop brooding over my personal life and pay more attention to my career before everything goes to shit. Some people aren’t meant to get a Happily Ever After, and that’s just the way it is.

  36 It Ain’t Easy Being Pink<
br />
  Brynn

  After I talk to Tom, my heart hurts. I don’t understand it. So I try to be upbeat. I try to be enthusiastic, and I think I pull it off.

  I’m so confused.

  I blame my mom.

  No, for real. When I called him I’d just survived my weekly visit with her. My mom is a consummate up-grader. She’s been married four times and is looking for number five. She reads self-help books for fun. And she can’t be bothered with cooking, so it’s all take out and instant just-add-water dishes for her. I think she’s also why I cook so much. When you’re raised on TV dinners and chipped-beef on toast because it’s all your mom can throw together before heading out on another date, there’s something really comforting about a home-cooked meal.

  Whatever. I digress.

  She means well, she does. Which is why she came over to give me a pep talk. She walked in, kissed my cheek, and immediately started unpacking the grocery bags from cleaning out her cupboards. Now I have a stack of instant gravy mix, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and Chicken NoodleO’s. Not even the contestants on Chopped could come up with something edible from that.

  And while she unpacked and rearranged my cupboards, which I will rearrange back, she shared with me this nugget of mom wisdom: I’m too emotional. “Maybe that’s why you couldn’t hold Steve’s interest. You’re so glum all the time. No man wants to be tied to a woman whose aura is gray. You need to be leopard-spotted. Or at least a color. Try being pink!”

  After that, I sort of zoned out, but damn it if her words didn’t seep into my brain a little.

  When I spoke to Tom on the phone, I was trying very hard to be pink.

  I fucking hate pink.

  But sure! Life is good! It’s totally fine that you’re in Quebec filming a swanky show! I’m happy here, unemployed, in my kitchen, rolling balls. I have a master’s in English language and literature and I’m currently watching Turner Classic Movies in black and white because I am depressed.

  I guess pink just isn’t my color.

  Whenever I talk to Tom, though, I really do feel more colorful. I want to stay like that. I don’t want to be a drain. I don’t want to be an effort. So I talk in exclamation points! It’s awkward and it hurts my mouth. And also my heart.

  Shake it off, Brynn. It’s for the best. (My mom also mentioned the power of self-talk.)

  And I can.

  I will.

  I mean, I! Will!

  But first, I’m going to polish off this bacon, and then actually take a shower. I have my interview at the art school this afternoon. The head of the department sounded panicked when she called, so maybe things are looking up for me.

  For once, it’s someone else panicking.

  It takes about ten minutes to drive downtown from my place. The last time I was downtown was with Tom that awkward night at Tai One On and the paparazzi. It was also the night when we stealthily escaped across Reed’s Lake. Maybe that was the moment I started falling for him. In the middle of the lake, surrounded by the quiet lapping of the water against the boat, watching Tom paddle by starlight.

  And now I’m horny. Again. Still.

  Focus, Brynn!

  Maybe the self-talk is getting a little much. I’d much rather write a list. As I walk toward the glass building that houses the art college, I start to compose one in my head.

  1) Get this job.

  And that’s as far as I get, because I open the front doors and step into a college building that’s different from anything I’ve ever seen. I say that without an ounce of hyperbole, because to access the college offices, you first have to walk through an installation of a vagina. Literally. I’m walking through a vagina, and it’s all warm and soft fabric, and there’s a breeze blowing. I giggle a little because this is a really big vagina. The installation ends not with a wider exploration of the uterus, but at a normal-looking front desk.

  Something tells me I’m going to like it here.

  I’m whisked upstairs by the receptionist to meet with the head of curriculum development. Her name is Hazel and I want her to be my grandmother. She’s petite, with fluffy white hair. She has reading glasses and wears a cardigan over a flowery dress. This is not a person you would expect to work at a place where the front door is a giant vagina. Except I notice a discreet tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of her cardigan. You just never know about people.

  She smells of patchouli and I love her.

  The interview goes like this. “Brynn. It’s nice to meet you. You have ten years of teaching experience? Why did they fire you?”

  No beating around the bush here. “I got divorced from the dean’s son. They claimed budget cuts.”

  She snorts. “Fucking budget cuts. We have them too. Here’s the deal. We need someone to take over four classes. Three sessions of freshman writing, and one on writing about art. The woman who was supposed to teach them was on sabbatical and fucking fell in love while on a cruise or something with a woman named Thora. They met in Iceland. I don’t understand the story fully, but it involves a fjord and following her heart. Anyway. She’s quit. Up and quit! And we are, to use a cliché, forgive me, up shit’s creek without a paddle. That’s where you come in.”

  “I do?”

  “You’re our paddle.”

  I’m trying to breathe here, I really am. I think she just offered me a job. I’d respond but I’m too busy freaking out.

  “There will be a probationary period until you can join the tenure track. But I have faith in you! And since we’ve got the biggest freshman class coming in and no one to teach them how to write, you’re all we’ve got. We can give you a temporary full-time position. Classes start on Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday? Like, tomorrow?”

  “Shit creek,” she says.

  I nod. I understand that. But there’s something niggling at me. Two things.

  “Look,” I say. “I so appreciate it, but I just want to be clear and upfront with you.” I’m not talking in exclamation points. I love my mom, but I am not pink. “I’m engaged, but there was this video that came out and…”

  “The sex tape?” she says, and it’s in a tone that I think sounds like approval. “Honey, this is an art school. Clothing is sometimes optional. The students will be thrilled that they have a professor who’s actually heard of sex. We don’t care. What we do care about is the quality of your teaching. If you can do that, then you’re in.”

  And I nod. I can do that. This crazy school is going to take a chance on me. I can hardly believe it. “Okay. I’m in.”

  I go home and try to find someone to celebrate with me. Sadie is unavailable because her babies are teething and she’s too grumpy and tired to chat. Ash is working, but I bribe her by offering to make dinner. Tom texted me to report that he and his pals went out for fondue in Quebec, so naturally I’ve been thinking about melted cheese ever since. He’s up there eating French food without me, damn it.

  And, hello, fondue is a dip. I can blog about it.

  I buy three different cheeses and white wine at the grocery. And two baguettes. And also broccoli because that’s my nod to healthy eating.

  The recipe calls for only one cup of wine, so I pour myself a glass while I grate cheese. Seriously, you could get nice, toned arms from making fondue. I stand at my kitchen counter and grate my way through three blocks of cheese. It’s soothing.

  After the first block, it occurs to me that I can treat myself to another episode of Mr. Fixit Quick. I’ve been portioning them out with as much care as Sadie took with her pot stash in college. I don’t want to run out too quickly. I mean, Tom’s in Quebec, so this is the only way I can watch him flexing.

  Episode seven takes me by surprise, because I recognize the exterior of the house. It’s Tom’s place on the lake! “A real fixer-upper,” he says during the first walk-through. The interior looks like a seventies time machine. There’s an avocado-colored refrigerator and brown laminate countertops.

  Gah—there’s a shot of the boathouse! Our bo
athouse. The block of gruyère I’m grating hits the counter with a thud as the memories come floating back. I should probably be more embarrassed about the way I hurled myself at Tom that night. But watching the camera pan the boathouse, I feel happy, not sad. That night I lived out loud. No apologies. No asking permission.

  It felt damn good. And that was true even before the orgasms.

  The camera pulls back, and I see Tom with his hands on his hips. “This is gonna be awesome,” he says. And since I’ve seen the finished product, I already know he’s right.

  I go back to grating cheese as the show unfolds. Unlike the other episodes I’ve watched, there’s no homeowner on camera. They don’t mention one, either. Tom tackles a tricky roofing problem, and I watch his biceps tense as he uses his hammer.

  Because I have very little willpower, I watch the next episode too. Chandra is in this one, which dims my enjoyment. “What color palette does the owner want in the kitchen?” she asks Tom.

  He gives her a sexy grin, and I’m instantly jealous. “We have a lot of latitude here,” he says. “What color would you want to wake up to every morning, pretty lady?”

  Uh-oh. I have a bad feeling about where this is going. So I top up my white wine and keep watching. And it only gets worse. Chandra can’t decide on lighting fixtures for the patio, and Tom says, “Choose them as if they were for your own house.”

  And then they do the bedroom. “I’ve always wanted a sleigh bed,” she says.

  I watch each scene with wide eyes that are glassy with horror.

  At some point Ash shows up. I pause the show and turn to her, my cheeks hot, my wineglass empty. “I… I think he renovated the Reeds Lake house for Chandra,” I sputter.

  Ash gives me an appraising look. “I have two questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you have any more of that wine?”

  I point at the fridge.

  “And have you actually met this Chandra?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then why does she matter if she’s gone now?”