The Renovation

by Terri Kraus

  Cameron let her car slowly come to a stop. She had driven past Ethan’s house three times, trying to get up her nerve. She hoped no one was taking note of her circling around the block. She switched off the ignition. The car engine pinged loudly as it began to cool. She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror.

  I have to do this. I have to.

  She opened the door, stood up, brushed imaginary lint off of her slacks, turned, with some purpose, and walked toward the front door.

  If he’s never going to call me, I need to know that. And he needs to tell me in person.

  She stopped, or almost stopped, halfway up the walk. It was more a slow step, a stutter step, but she would not allow herself to back down now.

  Cameron had scarcely slept the night before. Paige’s story of lost opportunities and last chances for restoration echoed in her thoughts.

  It’s not like we had announced anything. It’s not like we made anything official, or even talked about it. But it was going there. I knew it. He knew it. There was a spark. More than a spark.

  Cameron had talked at a whisper to herself as she paced back and forth in her dark apartment. She had staged elaborate confrontations between herself and an imaginary Ethan. Most of the time, their reunion would go well, and he would profess profound regrets over his stupidity and callousness. Occasionally, Cameron would allow the scene to end in his denial of any attraction between the two of them. That would not happen often because it made her cry. Instead, she would start another scenario, this one with a happier ending.

  And I keep thinking about Chase. He needs …

  She realized she was driving herself slightly crazy. Why on earth must she think about Ethan so much? Summoning her strength, she reminded her heart that there is a certain grace in just letting go, in forgetting. She resolved that, either way, all of this pent-up, bottled-up emotion had to be released. They both lived in a small town. Eventually, they would cross paths. Sometimes she longed for the anonymity of the big city again, where you could just disappear.

  But Cameron was not the sort of person who left loose ends lie—not professionally, and not socially. Things should be tied up. Uncertainty was unhealthy.

  The stairs creaked as she stepped up to the porch. Her heart, beating fast as she drove up, now began to sprint. Her thoughts began to race—What am I doing here? What am I going to say?

  She let her legs move her forward without giving the act of walking any conscious thought. She raised her hand, pointed her finger, and pressed the doorbell. Like jumping into a swimming pool of chilly water, it was best to get it over with in one sudden, irrevocable move. She heard the bell chime inside the house, behind the door. She waited and willed herself not to hyperventilate. She waited and heard nothing—no steps, no muffled calls from inside.

  Now what?

  She pressed the bell again.

  It’s a big house. It could take awhile to get here.

  She inhaled deeply.

  Silence.

  Her shoulders began to drop—not that she was aware of the slump, but the adrenaline was seeping out of her, blood pressure was lowering, heart rate was calming. She pursed her lips once more and pressed again.

  Nothing.

  She looked over her shoulder. Her car was the only vehicle in the street.

  Now what?

  She had to force herself to move, to walk slowly off the porch. Once she reached the sidewalk, she hurried, not wanting to be caught here in the middle of everything and have to explain whether she was coming or going, and the purpose of her aborted visit.

  Her car lurched forward, and she reached an illegal speed much quicker than normal for her.

  Upstairs, in the Willis house, a young boy slipped out from the shadows and moved closer to the window.

  Chase had watched as Cameron pulled up to the curb. He had watched as her car stopped, watched her as she made her way toward the house, watched the way she held her arms close to her body, watched as she stared at the walk. When the doorbell rang, he jumped, even though he knew it was coming.

  He stayed in his secret room, counting the seconds between the chimes. He was, after all, only obeying his father’s instructions. He had been commanded, in no uncertain terms, to never answer the door when alone—especially if it was a stranger. Chase figured that she wasn’t a complete stranger, but she still was sort of one.

  He sat in the darker shadows of his secret room, waiting, hiding. He heard her steps on the porch as she walked away. He watched her walk around her car, knowing that she could not see that deep into the shadows of a small window on the top floor of the house. She wouldn’t be looking for his face anyway.

  He waited until her car moved away from the curb. Then he put his face against the window and followed her car as it sped to the corner, then turned left and out of sight.

  I wonder what she wanted?

  Chase may not have been the most mature observer, but he knew that his father and that woman had not seen each other since … since that last baseball game.

  I wonder what happened to them that day?

  Seeing Cameron at his house did not feel as shocking as he thought it might. When he first learned that she and his father had been out on a date together, he’d anticipated feeling horrible and abandoned and pushed aside. But none of those emotions had welled up inside of him this day. He could see Cameron’s face—no smile, but no frown either. It was just like Miss Patterson in fifth grade. When she was mad or really, really serious, her face would sort of go blank—like no one could tell what she was thinking. As soon as you couldn’t tell what she was thinking, everyone in her class knew to be very, very careful, and very, very quiet. She could easily be pushed into assigning four or five extra pages of homework.

  That’s what Miss Dane had looked like—like something was inside that she was trying her best not to let outside. He knew that for a fact, because that’s the way he felt so often. He knew what it felt like, for sure, and he could tell Miss Dane was right there too.

  I wonder what she’s holding inside?

  He crawled back into the shadows. He opened his secret box.

  He carefully laid the old hockey jersey on the floor and smoothed out any wrinkles. He wished it would still fit him, but he hadn’t been that size for years. He carefully turned the jersey over, folded each arm to the middle, then folded it again, so the jersey formed a small, tidy rectangle. With a gentle hand, he picked it up and placed it back inside the box. Before he closed the box, he stared at the jersey for a long moment.

  I wonder.

  The days grew shorter as autumn began to give way to a gray, dreary winter. Ethan promised everyone concerned that the Carter Mansion project would be done by Christmas.

  Even though it was steady work, he felt his crew grow restless over long projects. A few years back, just after his wife … he found a yearlong project building new homes between Senaca Heights and Franklin. Midway through, he knew it had been the wrong decision. He became bored with the repetitions. His crew also grew bored and tired. Two of them quit and started taking on small remodeling jobs. None of them enjoyed the routine, the sameness, of a long project, no matter the quality.

  Now they were falling behind on Ethan’s ambitious, original estimation of time required to finish the Carter place. Large jobs and a lot of small tasks remained undone, and the punch list began to snowball. It would grow longer, Ethan imagined, with each passing day. No one liked to play catch-up, and Ethan took it upon himself to work longer and harder than anyone else on the crew. Some days, Joel would stay with him. The two of them, dedicated to one task, could accomplish much in the span of three or four hours.

  Tonight Ethan had made a lot of noise, cutting framing lengths of two-by-fours for a new wall on the second floor. Mrs. Moretti had changed the plans once again, shrinking the master suite and
adding more room to the walk-in closet.

  No one likes having to tear things out—especially tearing out things that take days to put back up.

  Ethan had volunteered for this one. He liked working alone. He liked the solitude. It gave him time to think.

  He stacked the cut lumber on one side of the room. He snugged the pieces tight against the wall, taking some pride that each cut board was identical to the one below—no angled cuts, no short pieces, no long pieces.

  He stopped and wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

  He wondered what Cameron was doing.

  He had tried not to think about her, not at all, since that day, that bright and sunny day of the championship game. Ethan told himself over and over that he hadn’t been that upset, that bothered by the loss of the game, nor his son’s mistake. That’s what his head said to his heart. But once his angry words had started coming, he couldn’t stop them. He had been angry—angrier than he had ever been—and unsure what he was really angry about. But there it was, vile and venom, spewing out—even in that short burst. Its power had surprised him.

  Yelling at Chase was bad, yet he knew that most fathers and sons sometimes tangled. What he’d said was no worse than some of their disagreements in the past. He didn’t see what had his son so upset that kept him silent, or sullen, for so many weeks now.

  He was a teenager, of course, and teenagers can behave in some terribly odd ways, but this was so unlike Chase.

  And Cameron—what he’d said to Cameron—was it all that bad? He told himself it wasn’t. He and Joel had exchanged worse words—several times—and the next day, they would be best friends and shaking hands and working together like nothing had happened.

  He was pretty sure Cameron did not intend to shake his hand—not just yet.

  I hardly even got mad.

  And when he’d turned around, she was gone.

  I don’t know how she could have just disappeared like that. And why didn’t she call me? She was the one who left.

  Ethan unsnapped his tool belt and laid it to the side, out of the way, so no one would trip over it. He switched off the overhead light, a big-watt bare bulb in a pull-chain socket. The room went dark and the light from the streetlamp outside filled up the void, shining through the stud wall in the bedroom. It cast long, narrow, linear shadows over Ethan, the shadows like prison bars—tight and running from ceiling to floor, offering no exit, no exit at all.

  Franklin had few taverns that respectable, single women might feel comfortable entering alone. Reed’s on the river was not one of them. But CeCe did not want to drive any farther, and she spotted a parking spot right next to the entrance.

  “We’re meeting Michelle here at six. It’s early,” CeCe called out to Tessa as she switched off the car. “The biker and hoodlum crowd won’t show up till later.”

  Tessa hoped she was kidding and hoped she didn’t have personal knowledge of when the harder clientele actually did show up.

  “I don’t want a piece of pie or coffee or some stupid mocha-flavored iced decaf latte,” CeCe said, explaining her choice. “I want a real drink. And I don’t want to drive to the mall. This place is fine. We just need to sit down and talk with Michelle for a few minutes.”

  Michelle pulled into the parking lot just minutes later, and after introductions, the architect and interior designer followed CeCe inside.…

  As the ladies’ eyes adjusted to the darkness of the tavern, CeCe pointed to a booth by the window. “See? Hardly anyone here. And the smoke isn’t all that bad yet. You want a diet something, right?”

  She returned with drinks and a bowl of pretzels. “Free dinner, too. This place is great,” CeCe said, laughing.

  Michelle grabbed a pretzel. “Well … do we have a problem?”

  CeCe took a large swallow, then another, then sat back in the booth. “Direct question—means we’re all tired and want to get home. Okay. Direct answer: Should we consider changing construction crews? We are weeks behind schedule here. He told us Christmas. I’m not an expert, but it’ll be more like Easter.”

  Michelle liked her client. She liked her honesty and enthusiasm. She liked that she paid her bills on time. But she knew that her unbridled urgency to complete tasks would be a problem.

  “No. We’re fine. Really. Willis is doing a good job for you. Schedules always slip a little.”

  “But, Michelle, he doesn’t get it. He’s always fighting me about everything. He doesn’t want a wide staircase. He doesn’t want to move the wall in my bedroom—even though I told him a dozen times. He wants to put a lower ceiling over that blasted pipe that sticks out in the hallway. He wants to use the old ‘authentic’ windows. Every day it’s something else to fight about. I’m writing the checks. Why doesn’t he ever say, ‘Yes, CeCe, I’ll do that for you right now, Mrs. Moretti, ma’am’?”

  Michelle felt weary. It was the same argument she had with virtually every client. Construction realities and client expectations rarely matched—even on the perfect jobs. When things got complicated and involved—like with the Carter place—the expectations of both client and craftsman could be, and often were, at polar opposites.

  “I don’t know, CeCe,” she said, hoping to soothe her. “But you want a contractor who’s passionate about your project. Ethan really cares about his work—and the quality of the job.”

  “A true craftsman like that—that’s rare. It really is,” Tessa added.

  “But I want him to say yes—just once. I don’t like arguing over everything,” CeCe claimed.

  “I can talk to him again. I’ll try. But he’s one of those guys who thinks that all good carpentry practices stopped around 1910.”

  “He likes things to look the way they used to look. He has great respect for the past,” added Tessa.

  “But I’m not a Victorian. As Tessa and you both know, Michelle, I don’t like Victorian—other than the shell. I love the outside, but the inside has to work for twenty-first-century life—my life. I said that from the beginning of this project—didn’t I, Tessa? He refers to that as ‘Disneyland.’ I want a big bathtub and a big shower and big closets and windows that actually go up and down. And if I want to have an electrical outlet every two feet, he should do that without giving me a hard time.”

  That was their most recent battle. In the first-floor office, CeCe had insisted on twice the number of outlets as the building code—and the architect’s drawings—required. And she wanted them higher than the standard distance from the floor.

  “I have lamps and an electric pencil sharpener and a computer and a printer and fax machine and a copier—and I do not want cords snaking all over the floor! And I don’t want one of those annoying—and ugly—power strips! I want real outlets. Higher. And lots of them,” she had said.

  “But that many outlets up high will be like little dots around the room,” Ethan had answered. “It won’t work in here.”

  CeCe had stormed off, calling over her shoulder that there had better be twelve outlets in that room or “I’ll take a sledgehammer to it myself and make some really big dots.”

  “I think your contractor is just a purist,” Tessa said. “He’s not intentionally trying to be obstinate. He just really believes what he believes. And he does wonderful work.”

  “CeCe … I understand,” Michelle said. “I’ll try and talk to him. But I agree with Tessa. I wouldn’t try and talk you out of making a change if he didn’t do the best work I have ever seen. And you can’t change now. Instead of Easter, it will be the Fourth of July before you’re in. I know how much you want to spend this summer here with your family.”

  “But I hate that I feel like I have to be on-site almost every day,” CeCe complained. “That if I’m not there, they’ll do what Ethan thinks is right—and I’ll have to come in and yell at them to change it. I don’t like this part of the pr
ocess at all. On Wednesday … I stopped in and they were framing out the guest bathroom. And I noticed that they had capped off the plumbing for the second sink. I said, ‘I want two sinks here. There were two sinks before. Why would I want to eliminate one?’ And they just sort of stared at me like I was an alien, and answered, ‘Ethan said that they only had one sink in each bathroom when this house was built … so we thought …’ I was ready to scream.”

  Tessa held her laughter. “Men don’t think too far in advance, do they?”

  “They don’t. Men—especially contractors—act like small children. You have to follow them around and make sure they don’t get themselves into trouble,” CeCe answered as she downed the last of her drink. “And for that, I have to pay them too.”

  Cameron disliked autumn. Not the good autumn with red and golden leaves falling in a gentle breeze against crystal blue skies, or football games, or crisp air and brilliant sunshine. No, she disliked the mean, gray, dismal autumn days, when rain would fall steadily, the sky would turn the color of wet slate, the temperature headed close to freezing, and the wind whipped along the banks of the river—all in a grand summation to make her miserable and depressed.

  Sunday was just such a day—a perfect example of a perfectly miserable autumn day. She awoke to rain pelting against her window. It had started on Friday and had not really let up.

  Cameron was not good with nothing to do.

  It was the weekend of Applefest, western Pennsylvania’s big autumn event. Each year an entertainment stage for band concerts was erected, and hundreds of local food and craft vendors set up booths on the grounds of the old courthouse. Families wandered through the farmer’s market and the antique-car show, sharing apple strudel, caramel apples and candy apples, apple cider, apple cider donuts, and apple pie. Cameron imagined that the event, including the morning’s 5K run, would be a complete washout. So, she couldn’t take a walk there as she had planned—too wet. She was too out of sorts to read. Even the Sunday paper, usually a grand treat, irked her by sitting fat and thick and almost insulting, on the kitchen counter.