The Fixer Upper

by Judith Arnold

  “That’s Tara,” the girl said. She struggled against a smile, as if she didn’t want him to see how happy she was. He didn’t need her smile to sense her mood, however. Joy seemed to radiate from her eyes and vibrate in her limbs. “Who’s interviewing your son?”

  “Libby Kimmelman,” he said, then paused. Should he be telling her this? Who was she? A Hudson student, he assumed, but still…

  “Oh. Okay, great.” She flopped onto a chair across the waiting area from him, tossed her backpack and jacket onto an adjacent chair and swung her legs, too antsy to sit still.

  After watching her for a moment, he lowered his eyes so she wouldn’t think he was staring at her. He checked his watch, then glanced up to notice her checking her watch.

  Tara returned. “Hey, Reva!” she greeted the girl.

  “Hi.” Once again, a smile threatened to explode across the girl’s face.

  “Waiting for your mom?” Tara asked.

  She nodded. “He said she’s interviewing his son,” she whispered.

  The blonde smiled at Ned, then turned back to Reva. “Does your mom know you’re waiting for her?”

  So this girl was Libby Kimmelman’s daughter. Ned recalled her mentioning a daughter when he’d met her, and here she was. This shouldn’t intrigue him, but it did. He immediately started analyzing the girl’s features. The eyes were her mother’s, large and dark, like those of a character in a Disney cartoon. The nose was not so much her mother’s. The cheeks and chin, yes. Libby Kimmelman’s hair was wavier than the girl’s.

  Reva Kimmelman had a spectacular smile, even when she was trying to wrestle it into submission. He wondered if a full-fledged smile from the mother would light up the world the way the daughter’s did.

  “You seem psyched about something,” Tara commented.

  “I am,” Reva said, “but I’ve gotta tell my mom first.”

  She turned her dark eyes to Ned. Did she resent him because his son was taking up her mother’s time? Well, she’d just have to cool her heels. He figured the longer Eric’s interview went, the better. He hoped Tara wouldn’t buzz Libby and mention that her daughter was bubbling over in the waiting room; he didn’t want Libby to rush Eric out the door so she could see Reva.

  “So how’s school going for you?” Tara asked Reva.

  “Great. Really good,” Reva said, her leg swinging faster.

  “Getting excited about moving on to the upper school next year?”

  “I guess.” Reva shrugged and examined a lock of her hair, picking through it with her fingers. “How do you get your nails to grow in, Tara? Mine always come in uneven, and then they break.”

  “Maybe you need more calcium in your diet,” the blonde said. “Or gelatin.”

  “My friend Kim has to keep hers short because she plays the piano,” Reva said. “If she grows them too long, they tap on the keys and then her piano teacher gets pissed off. My other friend, Ashleigh, paints her nails black. They aren’t long, but they’re kind of disgusting. Do you think fake nails look real?”

  “It depends. If they’re high quality and you shape and polish them, they can look pretty good.”

  “Yours are real, though, right?”

  “Yeah.” Tara scrutinized her hands and, apparently, liked what she saw.

  Ned stifled a groan. One definition of hell might be finding yourself trapped with two females discussing their manicures.

  The magazines at his elbow tempted him. Surely reading about palate expanders had to be more exciting than eavesdropping on the nails discussion. He lifted the top magazine, flipped through it and discovered it filled with photos of cheerful mothers playing with their children, concerned mothers measuring cough syrup into teaspoons for their children and an occasional mother-and-father pair flanking a child. No single fathers in this magazine.

  At last, he heard a door open down the hall, and then voices—Eric’s and Libby Kimmelman’s. “So the thing about Linux,” Eric was saying, “is that it’s free. This guy who invented it believes software should be free. I really want to learn how to use Linux, but when I try to read about it on the Web, most of the stuff’s written in German.”

  “That could be a problem,” Libby Kimmelman said. “Maybe you need to learn German.”

  “Do they teach that here?”

  “Not until sixth grade, I’m afraid,” she said. “Everyone gets some basic Spanish and French in the lower grades. Over in the upper school, they teach Latin.”

  “That’s cool,” Eric said. “Nobody talks Latin, so it’s kind of like a secret language.”

  They turned the corner into the waiting area, and Eric raced over to Ned just as Reva leaped from her chair and hurled herself at her mother. Before Ned could say hello, Reva let out a shriek. “Mom, guess what? I got a solo! Ms. Froiken gave me a solo!” She flung her arms around her mother and jumped up and down. “I get to sing ‘See me, feel me, touch me, heal me’!”

  Ned caught Libby Kimmelman’s eye as he rose from his chair. Her daughter was clinging to her and leaping up and down, shaking her so wildly she could barely remain on her feet. She burst into laughter.

  Ned laughed, too, because she looked pretty funny, her daughter bobbing like that, jerking her shoulders and babbling about a choral concert. Libby’s hair was tousled, her blazer pushed askew and her eyes as bright and full as her daughter’s. “Calm down, sweetie, and tell me everything,” she said.

  Reva released her and danced in a little circle around the waiting area. “I tried out, remember? And at rehearsal today she announced the soloists. And I got a solo!” She pirouetted, giving her foot a graceful thrust into the air. “We’re doing Tommy, and I get to sing ‘See me, feel me, touch me, heal me.’ I can’t believe she gave me a solo!”

  “She didn’t give it to you,” Libby said. “You earned it.” Ned thought that sounded like the kind of statement the magazine in his hand would advise a parent to make.

  He glanced down at Eric, who wore a smirky smile, apparently finding Reva’s exuberance hilarious. Or maybe the smile reflected Eric’s assessment of how his interview went. Jesus, the kid was only ten. What did he know about interviews? He probably thought it was a huge success because he’d had a good time talking to Ms. Kimmelman. Ned had had a good time talking to her, too. Or it would have been a good time if he hadn’t been so damn conscious of the stakes.

  Eric was carrying his warm-up jacket, and Ned tugged on it. “What do you say we hit the road,” he suggested quietly, not wishing to interrupt the Kimmelman celebration just a few feet away. “I see Mrs. Karpinsky made sure you were prepared for the weather.” The jacket was waterproof, with a hood. Ned wished he had his own warm-up jacket instead of the denim. At least he had an umbrella, thanks to Mrs. Karpinsky.

  Eric donned the jacket and started toward the door, shouting, “G’bye, Ms. Kimmelman!” over his shoulder as if they were buddies likely to see each other again in a day or two.

  Ned cringed at Eric’s informality, but the kid’s shout caught her attention. She extricated herself from her daughter’s crazed embrace and called across the room, “Goodbye, Eric. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, too,” Eric said. From him the words emerged a little stilted, but he sounded earnest. He surprised Ned by adding, “So, I’ll e-mail you my Henry Hudson research paper, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, then lifted her gaze to Ned and gave him a smile that lit a fire in his gut.

  Whoa. Why would she be smiling at him? She wouldn’t, except as a courtesy. The fact that he liked being the recipient of her smile a little too much was his problem, not hers. He nodded toward her, mumbled a quick thank-you and followed Eric out the door. Eric was already halfway down the hall and Ned had to jog to catch up to him.

  At the building’s entry, Ned pulled Eric to a halt. Rain was now streaming down. “We’re going to need this sucker,” he said, studying the umbrella. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d used it. It had been Deborah’s.
Umbrellas were a girl thing.

  He was confident enough in his own manhood to use an umbrella, though—especially in a downpour. If only he could figure out how to open it. He pushed the button in the handle, but nothing happened.

  “You have to take the outside part off first,” Eric pointed out.

  Oh. Right. Ned pulled at the sleeve that enclosed the umbrella. It didn’t slide off easily; the ribs pressed against it. Probably because he’d pushed the handle button. The umbrella had opened inside the sleeve.

  He tried to squeeze the ribs shut. He tried to peel off the sleeve. He tried to keep from cursing. Maybe umbrellas were a girl thing because guys were too stupid to figure them out.

  Eventually, the sleeve slid off and the umbrella burst open. As soon as it did, he heard a shout from down the hall: “No!” Turning, he saw the Kimmelmans, mother and daughter, hurrying toward him. The daughter had donned her windbreaker; her backpack was slung over one shoulder. The mother carried a leather briefcase. Her shout seemed to have been directed at him.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  She raced toward him, although her speed was limited by her slim-fitting skirt and her stack-heeled shoes. “You shouldn’t open an umbrella indoors,” she explained. “It’s bad luck.”

  Ned laughed. Then he stopped laughing, because she looked so serious. “Bad luck?”

  “Don’t walk under a ladder. Don’t let a black cat cross your path. Don’t open an umbrella indoors. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” She smiled slightly, but he was pretty sure she believed what she was saying.

  “That’s superstition,” he argued.

  Her expression was oddly defiant. “Who cares? You’re still not supposed to open an umbrella indoors.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll just take this thing outside, then,” Ned said, leaning against the door to open it. Eric scooted out, and Ned continued to hold the door for the Kimmelmans. They eyed the rain, the water-slick stairs leading down to the sidewalk and, finally, each other.

  It dawned on Ned that they didn’t have an umbrella—which seemed like a lot worse luck than anything that might befall him because he’d opened his indoors.

  His gaze traveled from the rain to Libby Kimmelman in her neatly tailored suit. “Where are you heading?” he asked.

  “Home. West End Avenue at 75th. We’ll be fine,” she assured him, although her eyes narrowed as she stared out at the rain.

  “That’s on our way,” he told her, extending the umbrella toward her. “Here you go.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

  “I don’t need an umbrella,” Reva said, darting between her mother and Ned and joining Eric outside on the rain-spattered steps. “‘I’m free!’” she sang in a sweet soprano. She stood with her arms outstretched, her face turned up to catch the rain, and sang, more loudly, “‘I’m fre-e-ee!’” Ned recognized it as an excerpt from Tommy.

  “What she is is wet,” her mother muttered.

  “Come on.” Ned crossed the threshold, the umbrella arched over his head and Libby’s. “Let the kids get wet. It won’t kill them.” Before she could object, he angled the umbrella toward the stairs, beckoning her to join him.

  She could have remained behind and let the rain soak her, but she was obviously too smart for that. With a shy smile, she fell into step beside him.

  Nine

  It wasn’t his fault that he had to stand so close to her; if they didn’t huddle together under the umbrella, they’d get wet. So he cozied up to her, the umbrella’s handle between them, and headed down the street.

  The kids wanted no part of the umbrella, which didn’t surprise him. Up in Vermont, Eric had acted impervious to the weather. He would have worn shorts year-round if Ned had let him, and on a few occasions he’d tried to leave for school without a jacket in the dead of winter. “I’ve got a sweatshirt on,” he’d complain when Ned hauled him back inside and ordered him to put on his parka.

  Today was fairly warm, at least, so while his son and Libby Kimmelman’s daughter might get wet, they wouldn’t get chilled. Eric probably wouldn’t even get that wet, since Mrs. Karpinsky had had the foresight to make him bring an appropriate jacket. Reva’s windbreaker offered her a little protection—not much, but her behavior implied that she didn’t care. She loped ahead of Libby and Ned, zigzagging between the buildings and the curb and belting out excerpts from Tommy. “‘Tommy, can you hear me?’” she sang at top volume. If Tommy was anywhere within the five boroughs or northern Jersey, Ned thought, he could hear her.

  “She’s been trying out for solos for the past few years, but she never got one,” Libby explained. She seemed almost as excited as her daughter, her smile filling the half of her face that wasn’t taken up by her eyes. “I know how badly she wanted a solo, and this is her last year in the lower school. I’m so thrilled for her.”

  Reva was obviously even more thrilled. Teenagers often acted blasé about things that really ought to turn them on. Blasé didn’t apply to Libby’s daughter, however. She jogged to and fro, arms outstretched, backpack bobbing against her shoulder as she sang. Eric appeared bewildered by her behavior, but he was still at the age when boys believed girls were congenitally insane. Reva’s zany exuberance probably strengthened that conviction. He gave her a wide berth so she wouldn’t stampede him in her romps around the sidewalk, but he watched her like an entomologist observing a new species of insect.

  “Won’t she ruin her voice, trying to sing louder than all the street noise?” Ned asked Libby. If he could hear her over the din of auto and bus traffic, she had to be singing pretty loudly.

  “What noise?” Libby laughed. “Your Vermont roots are showing. This is quiet for New York.”

  If this—the honking horns, the rumbling engines, the whoosh of tires spinning through puddles and the drumming of rain on the taut umbrella—was Libby Kimmelman’s idea of quiet, he’d hate to think what her idea of loud was. Maybe, if Eric got into the Hudson School and they decided to remain in Manhattan instead of moving to a suburb, Ned would get used to the noise, too.

  And he wasn’t sure he and Eric would stay in Manhattan if he couldn’t get Eric into a better school than the one he was currently attending.

  How did the kid’s interview go? Did Libby even remember it? Ever since she’d emerged from her office, she’d been one hundred percent focused on her own child. Ned didn’t blame her, but what about Eric? He struggled to figure out a discreet way of asking Libby about the time—nearly an hour—she’d spent with his son.

  She glanced at him and, evidently, saw the unvoiced question in his expression. “You’re curious about Eric’s interview,” she guessed.

  “Yeah,” he confessed. “Can you tell me anything?”

  She studied his face for a moment, then turned forward as they approached a corner. “It went fine.”

  Now, that was an informative answer, he thought sarcastically.

  “I really—I’m sorry, but it would be unethical for me to go into detail with you, Mr. Donovan.”

  “Ned,” he corrected.

  “Ned.” A smile flickered across her lips. “Eric is a smart, funny boy. Poised and self-confident. I would never have suspected that he was new to the city, or that he…well, he’s faced some challenges most kids his age never have to know.”

  Ned’s pity meter sent out a preliminary warning signal, but before he could say anything about Deborah, Libby continued. “I’m still not sure how many openings we’ll have in next year’s fifth-grade class, or how many applicants we’ll have for those openings. But for what it’s worth, Eric’s right in the thick of it.”

  Still not what Ned hoped to hear. He wanted her to say she’d been blown away by Eric, downright flabbergasted by his brilliance and charm, willing to kick someone out of the Hudson School to make room for him, if necessary.

  “Right in the thick of it” wasn’t bad, though.

  “He and I discussed Egyptology,” she added. “I gather you took him to the Egypt
exhibit at the Met recently.”

  “A couple of months ago,” Ned told her. “He liked walking through the pyramid.”

  “He liked more than that. He told me he’s been reading up on the Internet about hieroglyphics. He seems fascinated with codes and languages.”

  “Either that, or he’s fascinated with the Internet.” That she continued to talk about Eric while her daughter danced around a puddle and let her voice soar over West End Avenue struck Ned as a good sign. He waited for Libby to tell him more—did a fascination with codes and languages give a Hudson School applicant an edge?—but she fell silent when her shoulder bumped his and she stumbled on an uneven slab of sidewalk.

  He reflexively cupped her elbow with his hand to steady her. The rain lifted a tangy scent from her hair, which glistened with drops of moisture. As soon as she’d regained her footing he let go of her and reminded himself that he shouldn’t be thinking about the way her hair smelled, or the delicate feel of her elbow. She was the woman who could decide his son’s fate, and she was a mother, and she probably had a loving husband hurrying home through the rain right now, eager to arrive at her apartment at the same time she and their daughter did.

  “That’s our building,” she said, pointing to a large limestone structure. He didn’t spot any fatherly men racing toward it and waving at them, but he did notice the building: classic prewar, the pale stone edifice lined with broad windows set into ornate brickwork in the facade. A large permanent awning trimmed in wrought iron extended above the leaded-glass double doors.

  Reva darted ahead and stood in the shelter of the awning. Eric arrived beneath the overhang two steps behind her, leaving as much space between them as he could.

  “Can we have champagne, Mom?” Reva asked once Libby and Ned joined them.

  “Of course,” Libby said.

  Champagne? Reva was just a kid. Ned wasn’t a stickler for rules, but he couldn’t imagine giving Eric champagne. That might be because Ned didn’t think much of the stuff himself. If he wanted something bubbly and alcoholic, beer worked better.