The Fixer Upper

by Judith Arnold

  “Yeah, who’s this?” she asked, doing her best to sound bored.

  “Luke Rodelle?”

  “Oh.” Luke Rodelle was pretty cute, and he’d score only a two or three on the creep scale, which went all the way to ten, except for Danny Vandrick, who was easily a twenty. Luke’s hair was thick and kind of long, and he dressed mostly in baggy khakis and untucked polo shirts, and his upper lip had a smudged appearance, as if he’d been sucking on pencils. He ought to start shaving. “Hi.”

  “Yeah, so I was wondering—would you shut up?” he said, not to Reva but to someone on his end of the line. At least, Reva hoped he wasn’t telling her to shut up. She’d hardly even said anything.

  She heard some laughter in the background and sighed. So help her, if Luke had phoned her on a dare and was going to ask her whether she smoked after sex or something, she would hang up so fast he’d feel the slam of the phone like a slap right through the wire. And then she’d tell everyone in school tomorrow that he was a jerk, and they’d take her seriously because she was a soloist.

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding sincere. “I was wondering, Ashleigh Goldstein mentioned this musician you know? Darryl something?”

  Reva could hardly claim she knew him. But he’d asked her name the last time she’d seen him at the park, and then he’d sung a song just for her. The next time she saw him, he probably wouldn’t even recognize her, but for now, she saw no reason to correct Luke. “Yeah. Darryl J,” she told him.

  “See, I’m kind of searching for something new. Music-wise, I mean. Hey, I heard Froiken gave you a solo.”

  Reva puffed up a little. She remembered what her mother had said—that Ms. Froiken didn’t give Reva the solo; Reva had earned it. She wouldn’t say that to Luke, though. It would come across as bragging.

  Through the phone she heard a high-pitched howl, some guy in falsetto pretending to sing something operatic. That unpuffed her pretty fast.

  “Would you just—jeez,” Luke said to the screecher, and then, to Reva, “That’s just Micah Schlutt. He’s such an asshole.”

  Reva didn’t know whether she was supposed to agree. Luke hung out with Micah, after all. If they were friends, it wouldn’t be very nice for her to say he was an asshole, even if she happened to think he was.

  “Anyway, I’m on the committee for the holiday dance—I’m not sure how that happened, except Matt Staver put me up to it—but anyway, I think the whole deejay thing is getting old, you know? So I was wondering, where does this Darryl dude play? I’d like to check him out.”

  Reva bit her lip to keep from blurting, “At the Band Shell in Central Park.” For one thing, as autumn grew colder, he might not be playing outdoors that much longer. For another, he was way too cool to perform at a school dance, for God’s sake. For yet another, he was hers. She wanted him to have the biggest possible audience, but she also wasn’t ready to hand him over to the rest of the world in the form of Luke Rodelle and his committee. “He plays in the park,” she said vaguely, because she had to say something.

  “Central Park? ’Cause, you know, there’s sometimes some music action down in Washington Square Park.”

  Was Luke up on street musicians? Did he actually travel all the way to Greenwich Village in search of decent singers? Reva could just imagine asking her mother if she could spend the day in Greenwich Village. If her mom ever allowed it, which was highly unlikely, she’d make Reva go with friends and bring the cell phone, and call home every half hour just to say she was safe, even though her dad lived only a few blocks south of there. Her mother treated her like such a baby sometimes.

  Luke rose considerably in her esteem because he was knowledgeable about Greenwich Village musicians. “Maybe Darryl J plays in the Village, too,” she said. “I’ve only seen him in Central Park.”

  “So, he’s good, huh?”

  “Yeah, he’s good.”

  “Okay.” Luke had apparently run out of things to say, which made the gross-sounding background belch noises from Micah hard to miss. “Yeah, well, so anyway, I thought maybe you could show me where this guy plays.”

  “Sure,” Reva said. Her voice was steady, but her heart started thumping like an out-of-control metronome. Was Luke asking her out? Or did he just want her to lead him and his committee to Darryl J’s spot by the Band Shell, and then her job was done and she should disappear? Since she wasn’t one of the dating kids, she wasn’t real skilled at reading the nuances. How could a girl tell whether a guy was asking her out or just asking her a question?

  “So, like, when would be a good time for you?” Luke asked.

  If she said after school one day this week, it wouldn’t be like a real date. It would just be an after-school activity, sort of. If she said Saturday, the whole thing would become more serious. What did she even think of Luke Rodelle? He seemed nice enough, but her only real contact with him was in math and history, where he didn’t really say much although at least he didn’t make stupid comments, and more generally from the fact that they’d both been attending Hudson forever and it wasn’t such a big school that you didn’t get to know all your classmates to a certain degree.

  Did she like Luke enough to suggest Saturday? Or would she be better off playing it safe and saying Thursday? If this was only about finding a musician for the holiday dance and all he wanted was for her to point out Darryl J to him and then go away, she’d just about die if she’d devoted a Saturday to that. But if he actually intended to share Darryl J with her and they went on Thursday, then they could only spend like an hour together before she’d have to go home, because her mother would shit a brick if she stayed in the park past four-thirty.

  She was keenly aware of the silence between them. She had to decide. “Saturday?” she suggested.

  “Okay.”

  Omigod. He’d said okay. “What time?” she asked.

  “One o’clock?”

  “Okay.” So they wouldn’t have to eat anything while they were together, which was probably good.

  “We could meet somewhere. The Band Shell’s gonna be too crowded.”

  “How about the mosaic at Strawberry Fields?’

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Well. Bye.”

  “Bye,” he repeated, then hung up.

  After setting down her phone, she sprawled out on her bed and reran the conversation in her head. This wasn’t a date, she told herself. He just planned to observe Darryl J for some stupid school dance.

  Well, so what? She didn’t want to be dating Luke—or anyone else, for that matter. Her heart belonged to Darryl J. And she’d be helping him by generating some new fans for him, which was a very loving thing to do. Let Luke hang out with a turd like Micah, who thought making belching noises was funny. Reva didn’t like him that much.

  She was a soloist, after all. That was way cooler than Luke Rodelle could ever hope to be.

  Libby scrutinized the video box in her hand. Its computer-printed label gave the title of the video as Scenes of a Childhood. It purported to present a visual narration of the life of one Jeremy Tartaglia from his birth to his fifth birthday party.

  “Tara, could you watch this video for me?” she asked her assistant.

  “Is it X-rated?” Tara inquired.

  Libby considered the scene of Jeremy Tartaglia’s birth. “There might be some nudity in it,” she said.

  Laughing, Tara accepted the box from Libby and handed her three pink message slips. “Louise Streitmeister phoned three times. She said she wants to talk to you about the donation she intends to make to the Hudson School.”

  “She should discuss it with someone in the business department, or the fund-raising chairpeople,” Libby said, accepting the pink squares of paper and frowning. “Why does she want to talk to me?”

  “I assume her donation is contingent on the status of Aidan Streitmeister’s application,” Tara explained.

  “Wonderful.” Libby tossed down the message slips as if they were radioactive. “If the woman�
��s handing out bribes, she might as well make a donation to me, not the school.”

  “Oh, yeah, like that would really work. You’re so corrupt.” Tara started toward the door. “Your interviews begin at ten-thirty today. I’m gonna go scare up a VCR to check out this flick.” She glanced at the label. “It isn’t Swedish, is it? There was some Swedish flick with a title like that. Scenes of a Marriage, I think. I had to watch it in my film class in college. It went on forever. Very long and boring.”

  “If that’s long and boring, we won’t accept the kid,” Libby promised, then waved Tara out the door.

  Alone, Libby stared at the pink message slips. The audacity of applicants—or, more accurately, their parents—astonished her. Did this Streitmeister woman really believe she could buy her son a place in next year’s kindergarten class by making a huge donation to the school?

  Maybe the idea wasn’t all that far-fetched. Only a couple of generations ago, that was exactly how things worked at elite private schools like Hudson. Families offered endowments and their offspring attended the school. Applications were just a formality. A top-flight education could be bought and sold like a loaf of rye. A very, very expensive loaf of rye.

  If only she were corrupt. If only parents like Louise Streitmeister made donations to her instead of the school…

  No, she didn’t need Streitmeister money. Harry would come through for her.

  She hadn’t heard from him since Sunday, but that was an auspicious sign. If he’d decided to deny her any assistance, he would have phoned to let her know. He loved to say no.

  Still, it would be nice of him to phone and say yes.

  As if on cue, her phone rang. She glanced at her watch—ten-fifteen. Harry wouldn’t call her this early unless he had an emergency, and he never had emergencies. They were too messy.

  Maybe it was Louise Streitmeister, calling to ask whom she should make the check out to. Libby chuckled and reached for the phone, knowing Tara was off searching for a VCR so she’d have to take her calls herself. “Libby Kimmelman,” she said.

  “Hi, this is Ned Donovan.”

  Ned. The other subject that was haunting her. Ned and his dimple and his baby blues, rhapsodizing about her parquet floors. Ned sheltering her under his umbrella. Ned asking personal questions about her marital status. Ned believing her fireplace was a treasure. Libby had experienced more than a few moments since yesterday afternoon when she wasn’t sure which posed a greater challenge: putting together financing to buy her apartment, or Ned Donovan.

  She wasn’t sure why he was a challenge. He was only the parent of an applicant—and not the sort of parent who dangled bribes in front of her, unless the use of an umbrella on a rainy afternoon constituted a bribe.

  Damn it, Ned Donovan didn’t have to bribe her to make her feel corrupt. Just one sizzling look from him, one wicked smile and she’d found herself, for the first time in much too long, yearning to shut herself up somewhere with a man and beg him to corrupt her.

  Which wasn’t like her at all. She was the sort of woman people wanted to introduce to nice, responsible bachelors from the synagogue, not rough-hewn construction guys with Irish last names and gazes that could pierce a woman’s defenses more easily than a syringe full of flu vaccine could pierce her upper arm. She and Tara had already concluded that Ned Donovan deserved a prime month in their fantasy Hudson Hunks calendar. Hell, he deserved twelve prime months. And a centerfold.

  He was no doubt calling her to see how his son’s application was progressing. Wasn’t that ultimately why every parent of an applicant called her?

  “Hi,” she said, keeping her voice light and crisp. “Thanks again for sharing your umbrella yesterday. That was very kind of you.” Cripes. She sounded like a Hallmark card.

  “Thanks for the ginger ale. Excellent vintage.” He laughed. “You’re working, and so am I, so I won’t take up a lot of time, but…”

  She listened to the background noises through the wire—a muffled banging, the sound of a hammer pounding nails. “But?” she prompted.

  “Well, your fireplace.” He sighed. “I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  Was this a joke? He was no longer laughing. For all she knew, he had some odd perversion when it came to fireplaces. Perhaps he slept with a smile on his face, dreaming about hearths and mantelpieces. Perhaps when he saw blazing logs resting on andirons he had to take a cold shower.

  “I’m convinced you’ve got a marble mantel. The vertical molding might be marble, too. It wouldn’t take much effort to strip off the paint and see what’s under there.”

  How could he make the word strip sound so sexy when he was talking about her fireplace? Maybe she was the one who needed a cold shower, simply because he’d mentioned wanting to “see what’s under there.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she said abruptly. Thank God he couldn’t see her panic. She sounded like a prude, valiantly protecting the virtue of her fireplace.

  “Why not?”

  “Two reasons. One, it’s not my fireplace. Technically, it belongs to my landlord.”

  “You rent?”

  “Temporarily. It’s a long story.” And none of his business, she reminded herself, although she’d love to share it with him. He seemed easy to talk to, and he had not just a professional knowledge but a kind of weird passion about apartments. And he wasn’t Harry, so he wouldn’t try to make her feel guilty or incompetent just because she couldn’t afford to buy the place on her own.

  “If you removed all that ugly paint from the fireplace, you’d probably enhance the value of the apartment. Why would your landlord object?”

  “What do you mean, ugly paint?” The paint was ugly, but her faded old furniture and well-worn rugs didn’t exactly shout beautiful. She was used to the paint. It had been there when she’d waddled into the apartment as a pregnant young bride, and it was still there today, which was more than she could say for her ex-husband.

  “I’m sorry,” Ned said, sounding as though he was choking on something. Laughter, she suspected. He probably considered her a Philistine because she didn’t care about the paint. “What was the other reason you don’t want me to salvage your fireplace?”

  “I can’t afford you.” The blunt statement resonated inside her, settling into layers. Financially, she couldn’t afford Ned Donovan’s fixer upper fees. Ethically, she couldn’t afford to develop a friendship with an applicant’s father. Romantically…

  For God’s sake, he lusted after her fireplace. Not her. Romantically had nothing to do with it.

  Except that he had asked her about her marital status. And when he’d bumped shoulders with her and gripped her arm to keep her from stumbling, she’d felt…

  It didn’t matter what she felt. She couldn’t afford him.

  “I wasn’t planning to charge you,” he said.

  “You’re going to renovate my fireplace free?”

  “I was thinking more of a peek—just removing a bit of paint to see what was underneath. If it turned out I was right about the marble, then we’d see.”

  “We wouldn’t see. I can’t afford you.”

  “You won’t even let me take a teeny tiny peek?” She could practically picture him sulking—and even with his mouth shaped in a pout, she could visualize his dimple.

  “What would a teeny tiny peek entail?” she asked warily. She couldn’t afford this, she really couldn’t…but honestly, just one teeny tiny peek? How bad could that be?

  “I’d chip a small piece of paint from the underside of the mantel shelf. Maybe another piece inside the hearth, someplace where it wouldn’t be noticeable. Then, because you were so generous to let me chip the paint, I’d take you out for a drink.”

  Oy. If he wanted to take her out for a drink, he wanted more than her fireplace.

  Closing her eyes, she contemplated the nice Jewish bachelors Vivienne hoped to set her up with. Opening her eyes, she noticed the dial of her watch, which informed her that her first interview was scheduled to sta
rt in five minutes. Ned had asked to look at her fireplace and have a drink with her. She needed to make up her mind, and the seconds were ticking away.

  “Does this have anything to do with Eric?” she asked, because the ethical layer was at least as important as the financial layer. For all she knew, Ned wanted to buy her a drink so he could charm her into accepting his son into the school.

  “Eric isn’t old enough for the kind of drink I had in mind,” Ned said. “Ginger ale he can handle, but I was thinking of something a little more grown-up.”

  Had he deliberately misunderstood her? Was finessing his son’s application so far from his mind it wouldn’t even occur to him to use the occasion of a drink with Libby to win her favor on Eric’s behalf? He might not realize how eagerly other parents would ply her with liquor if they thought it would improve their offsprings’ chances of joining the Hudson community. Ned was a country guy, after all, from the pristine wilderness of Vermont. He might have no idea how most parents played the prep-school applications game.

  Three minutes until her first interview. She couldn’t dither. “If the fireplace means that much to you—”

  “Your fireplace means more than you can imagine,” he said, so solemnly she knew he had to be joking.

  “How is Friday? I could probably—”

  “Friday is fine.”

  “Okay. Stop by Friday after dinner—seven-thirty. And you can chip off only a teeny tiny bit of paint.”

  “You’ll be astonished by my restraint,” he promised. “I’ll see you at seven-thirty on Friday. Thanks, Libby.” The line went dead.

  She’d barely lowered her own phone into its cradle when it emitted a shrill ring, forcing her to lift it back to her ear. “Libby Kimmelman,” she muttered, her mind lingering on the last call, mulling it over, trying to determine whether she’d been conned. Teeny tiny? What kind of man used words like that?

  “Libby?” Tara’s voice bubbled through the phone. “I watched a little of the Jeremy Tartaglia video. It looked like he was saying mama while he was still too young to sit up. I think his parents doctored the film, dubbing in a voice. No baby can say mama at that age.”