The Renovation

by Terri Kraus

  He took a long drink, then wondered if he should order a pizza. But, he eventually opted for Mrs. Whiting’s healthy soup with some cheese and crackers for dinner.

  Not a feast, but enough.

  Instead of calling upstairs for Chase, Ethan sat down in the living room. The elegant Victorian homes in Franklin often had huge formal front parlors but terribly small living rooms at the rear of the house—just the opposite of what modern families wanted. When he and Lynne had bought this place so many years ago, Lynne had wanted to remove a few walls to create a better traffic flow and more usable space, but Ethan had never found the uninterrupted time to accomplish her dream. But, after living here for a few years, they had come to love the intimate, cozier feeling of each smaller space, so it had remained. He had upgraded the kitchen and the bathrooms, but the spaces were mostly original—the way Ethan had preferred them all along, but he had never insisted that his vision take precedence over Lynne’s. Looking back—the way he did whenever he found a quiet moment to just sit within those walls—he was very glad it had turned out that way.

  It’s just right the way it is … the way it was … the way it was all supposed to be.

  The Sunday paper still lay on the front sidewalk. Ethan retrieved it, sat in his chair in the back family room, switched on the light, and began to make his way through the fat paper.

  The streetlamps were glowing when he startled back awake. His watch read 8:30.

  He shuffled the papers into a neat pile, set them on the table by the chair, and extracted the television listings. After tossing his empty soda can into the recycling bin and the television listings onto the kitchen counter, he snapped off the lights and made his way upstairs.

  He was not hungry, but ever so tired.

  Chase’s room was dark.

  He must have fallen asleep as well.

  Ethan placed his hand on the knob and turned it slightly. Then he stopped and let the handle creak back into place. He listened for a moment and didn’t hear a sound. He bowed his head, as if in defeat, and stepped away, trying to avoid the loose, squeaky board in the middle of the hall.

  Only when back in the darkness of his room did he exhale loudly.

  Chase sat in the window seat of his room and looked out onto Otter Street. He had watched the darkness edge up on the neighborhood. He heard the calls of children laughing and playing down the street. He watched the sweep of car headlights.

  He thought of the cemetery, more than a dozen miles from where he sat. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  The boards in the hall gave creaking evidence to his father’s presence. Chase knew he was standing outside his door. He heard the knob turn. He waited. Chase knew his father would not come in this evening. He had brought up the wrong subject at the wrong time again.

  “I know you haven’t forgiven me,” Chase whispered.

  He wasn’t sure if he was talking to his father … or the dark heavens above him.

  On most workdays it took Ethan only a few minutes to get ready. In his closet hung a dozen identical work shirts—all blue denim. The only difference was the amount of wear each showed. A dozen folded white T-shirts were on a shelf. Half a dozen jeans slumped on hangers. Two pair of identical work boots sat on the floor. He could have dressed in the dark—and often did.

  But this morning he shoved aside the jeans and reached farther into the back of the closet. He found a pair of khakis and slipped them off the hanger. He unfolded them and looked down. The hanger crease was hardly noticeable.

  Ethan hated to iron. To do so today—a workday, after all—would have felt … obvious, somehow … and disconcerting.

  He flapped the trousers, hoping the snap would serve as a quick pressing. It didn’t, but he decided he would live with the few wrinkles at the knees. He placed his stocking feet on the cuffs and pulled up at the waistband. The wrinkles appeared to loosen some. He found his least worn work shirt and hurried downstairs as he buttoned it.

  Normally, he spent twenty minutes reading the morning paper and sipping at coffee. Today he had spent too long in the shower and shaving. He heated a cup of water in the microwave, added instant coffee to an insulated travel mug, and sat down at the desk to write a note to Chase.

  He did not like leaving his son alone and asleep. But he had little choice. Hiring nannies and sitters was expensive. He had done so for the first few years—he had to—because Chase was too young to be on his own. Now, during the school year, it was easy. They both rose at the same time, and Ethan would often drive his son to school. At thirteen, Chase would have been humiliated to suffer the stigma of having a teenaged sitter who was only a few years older than him.

  For the most part, Chase had proven himself responsible. It was an agreement they’d reached at the end of the previous summer. One bad decision on Chase’s part, one foolish choice, and a sitter would be there permanently. Mrs. Whiting came by on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons.

  Every morning Ethan took a clean three-by-five index card from the stack by the phone and jotted Chase a note.

  Chase—

  At the Carter place all day. Call cell if you need me. Mrs. Whiting here p.m.

  Gather up laundry. Be good—

  Dad

  He hesitated to add the word Love. He did on some days. But he did not feel like it this morning. The silence of their weekend was deafening and still painful.

  He was at the door, but then turned back, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a five-dollar bill. He picked up the pencil and added:

  Buy breakfast at McDonald’s.

  He stood, then bent over again.

  He scribbled the word Love just above his name.

  Ethan had looked at his watch a dozen times in the last ten minutes. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious. The crew was dismantling old walls and framing new ones. Despite Ethan’s original reservations about Mrs. Moretti’s reconfiguration of the third-floor space, much to his surprise this newly defined area felt good—almost right—as if the original architect had been consulted. By lunchtime they would start their work on the staircase to the turret room.

  He glanced at the crew. It might have been his imagination, but most of them looked as if they had dressed with more care this morning than usual. Even Sid, who favored rock-concert black T-shirts and tattered jeans, looked positively dapper in new jeans and a clean polo shirt.

  No one made mention of the newspaper story, but Ethan was certain they were all well aware of it.

  From below came a call: “Hello! Anybody here?”

  It was not Mrs. Moretti, but a younger, more buoyant voice.

  “That’s the reporter,” Ethan said aloud to no one in particular and bounded down the steps to meet her.

  The news of her arrival brought the crew to a standstill for a moment. Then came a flurry of action. They all, almost in unison, readjusted their caps, brushed off some sawdust, hitched up their tool belts, and peered down the third-floor stairwell.

  “Thank you so much,” Cameron said as she extended her hand to Ethan.

  Bart Renshaw, the staff photographer, hovered behind her, taking his last “before” photos of the house. Bart, a kind and cooperative man with salt-and-pepper hair, was always dressed in clothes that Cameron was sure were made of 100 percent unnatural fibers and purchased in the sixties. His stomach was smeared with sawdust from lying on the floor to get some more interesting camera angles. His pocket bulged with a dozen rolls of exposed film. He looked happy, clearly certain he had a full page of great photos. The crew worked awkwardly as he snapped his shots, not certain if they should stop and pose or pretend to be unaware of the camera’s presence.

  “It wasn’t as bad as I thought,” Ethan said as he shook her hand. He liked her firm grip. “You know a lot about construction and architecture.”

  Cameron smiled. “
My father had the family home remodeled twice while I was growing up. It was a Victorian too—a farmhouse. I was the annoying little kid who hung around and asked too many questions.”

  Ethan found her expression warming. He reluctantly dropped her hand. She turned away and took a few steps toward her car.

  She spun back around, perhaps surprised that he had not yet moved. “Listen …”

  He listened.

  “It’s almost lunchtime,” she said as she took a step closer to him.

  His crew had begun to gather on the front porch.

  She lowered her voice. “I mean, you did me a favor here by agreeing to this story. I know we slowed your work down this morning.”

  Ethan shook his head. “No, they actually got a fair amount done. It was okay.”

  She looked pleased. He hoped his crew was not paying attention to her, though he was sure they were.

  “So … since you did me a favor, maybe you would let me do you a favor.” She ran her hand through her hair that fell in long, loopy curls and smoothed it behind her ears. “Will you let me buy you lunch?”

  Ethan swallowed. “Today? You mean now?”

  “Sure. Today. I’m here. You’re here. I’m hungry. I assume you’re hungry.”

  Ethan could almost hear her smile.

  “Well …” He felt his cheeks redden. It had been a very long time since he’d blushed.

  “Please. I feel I owe you a lunch at least.”

  He wanted to turn around and see the expressions of his crew. He knew they had heard her invitation. He was sure they’d never seen him in such a situation. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having been in this type of a situation. He swallowed again. “Well, I guess so.”

  Her smile grew in breadth and intensity. “Good. I’ll drive. I have to drop Bart off at the paper. And you get to pick the place for lunch. Okay?”

  Ethan nodded mutely.

  When he reached the car, he turned back to his crew. Joel stood at the staircase handrail, leaning against it, staring after him. The whole crew was staring, though some tried to be less obvious.

  “I’ll … I’ll be back after lunch,” he said a little louder than necessary. Then he opened the car door and slid in.

  It smelled of flowers.

  “Cumming’s?”

  “Sure,” Ethan said. “Don’t you like it?”

  Cameron shrugged as she turned the wheel from the curb in front of the newspaper office, where they’d dropped off Bart, and darted out into traffic. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there. I always thought it was a Mafia front.”

  Ethan held onto the door handle and chuckled. “The Mafia? In Franklin? Around here, Pizza Den is as Italian as we get.”

  She leaned back and laughed, and he tried not to look at the graceful lines of her neck. Then she switched lanes quickly and turned onto Elk Street without using her signal.

  “The way I see it,” she said, “is that the shades are always closed all the way down. It looks like they haven’t changed their sign in decades, and I never see anyone leave the place. And they have posters in their window from last year’s county fair.”

  She spun the wheel again and headed onto 12th Street. The tires squealed for a moment.

  Ethan grinned as she flew into a parking place just down the block from Cumming’s.

  “They have a loyal clientele,” Ethan explained. “We overlook those shortcomings here, I guess. At any rate, the food’s pretty good and it’s not expensive. And they know me there.”

  She turned and smiled back at him as she pulled the keys from the ignition. “Well, I’m always up for new things. Cumming’s it is.”

  Ethan didn’t have to glance at his watch. Over Cameron’s shoulder, on the rear wall of the restaurant, was a large clock with an advertisement for a dairy, now long closed. The hands swept past one o’clock. If it had been a normal day and a normal lunch, Ethan would have stood up a half hour earlier, whether his host stood or not, and stated that he had to return to work. But now, ten minutes past one, he sat, sipping his fourth cup of coffee, and listening to Cameron talk.

  “After I graduated, I moved to downtown Philadelphia and worked at a couple of temporary jobs, enjoying city life and all that, but still wasn’t sure which direction to go,” she said as she stirred a second packet of sweetener into her iced tea. She ate with gusto and finished her lunch with a piece of Cumming’s homemade custard pie. Ethan liked that. Lynne, a slip of a woman, always had eaten with great enthusiasm too.

  “I mean I had some offers, even at The Enquirer.”

  “The one in the grocery store checkout lane?” Ethan asked.

  She spurted out a laugh. “No, not that one—though they pay more than any paper anywhere.”

  “They do?”

  “Yup. But I sort of had my heart set on a legitimate career. No, The Enquirer is the big daily in Philadelphia. But the job was on the bottom of the bottom rung. I would have worked for years before I had my first page-one byline.”

  She sipped at her tea. “My parents wanted me to stay near home, of course. You know, do the traditional thing—find a bright young man, get married. I told them there is plenty of time for that. My mother keeps sending me updates on all the eligible men in town—who’s getting married, who’s divorced, who’s still living at home. The roster keeps changing day to day.”

  Ethan turned his coffee cup in his hand. He watched the afternoon light cascade over Cameron’s dark hair. It made it seem as if she had a halo about her. As she talked, she coiled and uncoiled a single long loop of her hair, as if she were nervous. But Ethan could not detect any nervousness in her speech or demeanor other than that one gesture.

  “So you came here instead? To escape? To Franklin?”

  She nodded.

  “Not escape, exactly, but the move made sense to me. The Derrick has a decent circulation. Apparently, it’s profitable. The editorial section won some recent awards.”

  “It has?”

  “Awards that only editors pay attention to, I guess,” Cameron said. “I knew if I came here, I could get to do everything right away. Cover meetings and trials and investigative stories and crime—a bit of everything. Then, with experience, I could get a real reporter’s job on a big metropolitan paper.”

  Ethan finished his coffee. “Then you’d leave here?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I miss some aspects of living in a big city—the shopping, the restaurants, the museums, the excitement of parties or something always going on, like plays and concerts. But here it’s simpler, quieter, more … wholesome, I guess—more like real America, you know? I like it … at least so far. Maybe.”

  She looked at him. He stared back into her eyes until he became uncomfortable, then looked away.

  “What about you?” she said, leaning forward, almost touching his wrist with her fingers. “Why are you here?”

  He watched her hand come closer, then his eyes quickly moved to his watch. “Good grief! It’s nearly 1:30. I have never taken this long of a lunch. I’d better get back.”

  Her frown appeared genuine. “So soon? I’m enjoying this. I meet a lot of people on this job, but I seldom seem to have anything in common with them. You sure you have to go now?”

  He stood. “Yes, I’m sure. I need to be on the job. Anyhow, thanks so much for the lunch. I appreciate it. You sure I can’t pay half?”

  She tossed a few bills on the table, leaving a bigger tip than Ethan would have. “I’m sure. Let me get you back to work. I’m sure your crew thinks I kidnapped you—or worse.”

  As Cameron drove off, Ethan’s eyes followed her car as it sped down the street. He turned back to the house and looked up.

  At least five faces in the third-floor window stared down at him. All of them ducked back into the shadows as h
e started walking toward the front door.

  The sin was mine;

  I did not understand.…

  —Oscar Wilde, The New Remorse

  From the body of one guilty deed

  a thousand ghostly fears

  and haunting thoughts proceed.

  —William Wordsworth

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE OFFICES OF The Franklin Derrick were housed on the west half of the second floor of the Standard Bank and Trust Building in downtown Franklin. The bank name carved into the cornerstone no longer existed—the first-floor space being taken over a dozen years ago by a credit union, a title company, and an insurance company claims center.

  After Cameron had graduated from college, she had interviewed at a dozen smaller daily newspapers. Most of the offices, she had discovered, were tucked into some nondescript office complex at the edge of some light industrial park somewhere near the edge of town.

  Not how she pictured a newspaper office.

  But when she opened the door to The Derrick, she realized it was exactly how a newspaper office should look, sound, and feel.

  A dozen desks were set in a haphazard pattern around the large open room. In the two far corners were private offices—for the publisher and editor, no doubt. Half the desks still had typewriters on them, even though computer screens sat at the corner of each desk as well. One side of the room was the editorial area. The other side, advertising. And copies of newspapers lay scattered everywhere—on top of the bank of file cabinets, in corners, on tables and credenzas. Some were piled only three or four thick; other stacks were up to an adult’s kneecap. A long black counter blocked direct access to the room at the entrance. Customers could buy extra copies of the paper, place want ads—some even came in to pay for their subscriptions. A tired, imitation ficus sat at one end of the entry, and a cash register, circa 1960, hulked in the middle of the counter. Next to it sat a brown hand-operated adding machine.