The Fixer Upper

by Judith Arnold

  Reva waltzed out of her bedroom, looking far too cheerful for someone who’d been grounded. Libby faked a smile. “Hi, sweetie. What have you been up to?”

  “Homework,” Reva said. She looked far too cheerful for someone who’d been doing homework, too, but Libby couldn’t give her the third degree. There had to be some trust, even if Libby didn’t trust Reva at all these days.

  In fact, Reva remained suspiciously bubbly and chipper as she helped Libby prepare dinner—without being asked. She talked about her solo, about how important singing was, about how she was convinced the world would be a more peaceful place if everyone sang at least once a day. “Like at the U.N.,” she explained, “you’d get all those delegates singing ‘I’m With You’ at the top of their lungs, and by the end, they’d all love one another.”

  “‘I’m With You’?” Libby asked as she slid a pan of chicken pieces under the broiler.

  “It’s a song by Avril Lavigne,” Reva told her.

  Levine, Libby thought. A nice Jewish girl, so how bad could the song be? Still, while she was in this not-trusting-Reva phase, she ought to listen to what Reva was listening to, just to be sure her music of choice didn’t contain lyrics offering instructions on how to run away from home.

  Over dinner, Reva chattered happily about the dance committee, about her stepmother’s promise to buy her a new outfit to wear when she sang her solo, about Ashleigh Goldstein’s conviction that organized sports were a metaphor for militarism and about the unit on electricity her science class had just begun. Libby wondered vaguely what ever happened to the unit on dead leaves. If Reva ever did a project with those leaves she collected, Libby hadn’t heard about it.

  They were washing dishes when the doorman buzzed them to announce Ned’s arrival. So much for calling him and canceling tonight’s visit. Let him fuss with her fireplace. Let him make his dream of it come true. She’d review applicant files, or maybe thumb through the glossy catalogs that had been crammed into her mailbox, and familiarize herself with all the gifts she couldn’t afford.

  Her doorbell rang as she propped the last dish in the drying rack. Reva, being unnervingly helpful, said, “I’ll get it.” Libby thanked her, relieved to have a moment to collect herself before she had to face Ned.

  Collect herself? Ha. She had about as good a chance of collecting herself as a colander had of collecting water. She scooped up her poise, only to watch it dribble out of her through a million tiny holes in her ego.

  “Hi, Reva.” Ned’s voice spun through the apartment. He had an absurdly sexy voice, Libby acknowledged with a sigh. The last time she’d seen him, she’d kissed him. Since then, her life had turned inside out and she’d botched everything, and she was losing her daughter, and she was broke.

  “Mom?” Reva sang out. “Mr. Donovan and his son are here.”

  Ned had brought his son? Well, why not? He shouldn’t have to pay for a babysitter when he wasn’t even charging Libby for this job. She dried her hands on the dish towel, noticed her unpolished nails, wondered whether her hair was as shabby as her hands…and then screwed her courage and emerged from the kitchen.

  He was more attractive than she remembered, even with his son standing right next to him in the foyer. Clad in jeans, work boots, his denim jacket and a lumpy wool scarf that appeared to have been hand-knitted by someone who wasn’t very good at knitting, Ned carried a large canvas duffel. She tried to imagine the tools inside that bag, tried to imagine what those tools could do to her fireplace…and then lifted her gaze to his face and forgot the duffel.

  Oh, God. All she could think of was his kiss.

  “Hi,” she said. “Hi.” Two times, as if her brain had stopped functioning—which, in a way, it had. Maybe Ned would assume the second “Hi” was for Eric. “Take off your coats. Can I get you anything to eat?”

  “We’re here to work,” Ned said with a hesitant smile. “Actually, I’m here to work.” He dropped the duffel and gestured toward Eric’s compact backpack, which the boy carried slung over one shoulder. “Eric brought some stuff to keep himself busy. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” she said, forcing herself to play her role as the proper hostess even as her brain clung stubbornly to her memory of kissing Ned. “If you’d like, Eric, you can watch TV or use the computer.”

  “I’d like to use the computer,” Eric said politely. “I’ve got this new software I’m working on.” Not bothering to remove his jacket, he carried his backpack into the den.

  Reva approached Libby. “If you want me to keep an eye on him, ten dollars—”

  “I’m not paying you to sit for him.” Libby cut her off. “Ned and I aren’t going out.” Because if we go out, we might kiss again, and that can’t happen.

  Scowling, Reva pivoted on her heel and stomped down the hall.

  “What software is Eric going to put on my computer?” Libby asked.

  Ned shrugged, then removed his jacket and unwound the scarf from his neck. “Something illegal, I think.”

  From the corner of her eye, Libby noticed Reva pausing halfway down the hall. Illegal had apparently caught her interest.

  “What kind of illegal software?” Libby asked. “Are the MP3 police going to break down the door and take me away?”

  “He’s been playing with a bootleg copy of some software you can use to create Web sites. He and his buddies have been making silly Web sites for whoever they don’t like.” Ned handed her the jacket, and she remembered she was supposed to hang it up. “Fortunately,” he went on, “he doesn’t have any Web space, so he can’t post the Web sites publicly. If he did, we’d all be in trouble. And his after-school sitter would probably quit.”

  “He doesn’t like her?”

  “He doesn’t like the way she smells,” Ned answered.

  Reva reversed direction and wandered into the den.

  Fine, Libby thought. Let the kids make phony Web sites using bootlegged software. Let Ned stop staring at her with his seductive blue eyes and get to work on her fireplace. Let Libby hide in the dining room, surrounded by walls of file folders.

  “Rough few days, huh,” Ned said.

  Damn. He was going to get personal. And she was going to do something embarrassing, like cry. “I’m okay,” she said, sounding about as okay as a prisoner discussing the fit of her blindfold in front of a firing squad. He continued to stare at her, and she smiled and backed toward the dining room. “I’ve got tons of work to do, so I’ll just stay out of your way. Give a holler if you need anything.” Before he could stop her, she escaped to the cluttered dining-room table.

  She sat in the chair nearest the window, which overlooked an airshaft. Her ghostly reflection in the dark pane informed her that yes, her hair was as poorly groomed as her hands. The cardigan of the sweater set she’d worn all day was slightly askew.

  Turning her back to the window, she picked up the folder closest to her, opened it and shuddered. It contained the application materials of Samantha McNally, the pint-size soprano who’d submitted the CD on which she’d tackled Puccini and taken him down.

  From the living room drifted an interesting assortment of sounds: a zipper, the rustle of heavy cloth, a tapping. The clank of tools, more tapping. “Libby, I’m going to open a window,” Ned called to her. “It’s cold out, but when I’m using a solvent, I need the ventilation.”

  “Go right ahead,” Libby hollered back.

  She hunched over Samantha’s application, but the words danced across the page, a blur of neat print. The famous aria from Madama Butterfly resounded inside Libby’s head, but unfortunately, the rendition she heard was Samantha’s, not Maria Callas’s. The shiver that spun down her back Libby blamed on the window Ned had opened, not her tattered mood.

  “Wow,” she heard Ned say, followed as closely as an echo by Reva murmuring, “Wow.”

  Libby folded Samantha’s file shut, shoved away from the table and marched to the living room, hugging her cardigan more tightly around her as the chilly nig
ht air struck her. She’d expected to see Reva watching Ned and exclaiming over whatever he’d been wowing about, but Reva was still in the den. Her wow must have had something to do with Eric’s software.

  Libby had no idea what Ned’s was about. He had draped a thick white drop cloth across the floor in front of the fireplace and inside it, and he knelt half in and half out of the opening. An assortment of ratty old towels, a square of steel wool and a tinted glass bottle lay within reach.

  The man sure knew how to fill a pair of jeans, Libby thought. Considering what a lousy mother she was, she had no right to think such a thing, but she couldn’t help herself. “Why did you say wow?” she asked.

  Ned ducked his head out from under the fireplace arch and smiled up at her. “Come here,” he said, extending his hand. “You’ve got to see this.”

  Once again, he was dragging her into the fireplace with him. Once again she was going to wind up pressed close against him. Maybe the fireplace represented hell. Maybe Ned was Satan. Except she didn’t really believe in hell or the devil. As Gilda had once put it, “There’s no such thing as heaven or hell. There’s only naches and tsores.”

  Joining Ned in the fireplace qualified as tsores. But he was waiting for her, and running away would be rude. To say nothing of ridiculous.

  She eased herself onto the cloth, carefully smoothing her tailored wool slacks over her knees, and tilted her head to peer inside the fireplace. Ned had used the solvent to remove a large swath of paint from the inner trim. He aimed his flashlight at the cleaned area, and Libby saw the long expanse of green marble, silky smooth and rippling with veins.

  The marble definitely merited a wow. She tried to utter one, but her voice caught in her throat.

  Ned drew her against his chest. She would have resisted if she’d had any balance, but given her position, she tumbled right into his arms. “I’m not attacking you,” he whispered. “Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

  They were inside a fireplace. Their offspring were in the next room, wowing over the computer. Ned’s chest felt too warm in the cold room, too solid. His arm felt too possessive. And she was supposed to tell him what the hell was going on?

  “I’m a terrible mother,” she whispered back. “I’ve applied for a mortgage as big as the Titanic. I’m beholden to my ex-husband because he’s contributing the down payment. I’m buried under applications to the Hudson School.” And all I want is to kiss you, she almost added.

  “You’re not a terrible mother.” His breath ruffled her hair with each syllable he spoke.

  “I am. Reva is lying to me. She’s rebelling. She’s—”

  “A teenager,” he said. “They’re supposed to do that.”

  “Eric doesn’t do that. He’s so well behaved.”

  “He isn’t a teenager yet.” Ned’s hand moved gently on her upper arm, as if he could stroke her back to equanimity. “But you’re right. He’s well behaved. Remember that while you dig yourself out from under all those applications.”

  She was tempted to elbow him in the gut; positioned as they were, it wouldn’t have been hard. But his caress was stroking her back to equanimity. She hadn’t felt this good since…

  Since the last time she was with Ned. Friday night. Before Reva turned off her cell phone and became a teenager.

  “Reva’s home,” Ned pointed out. “She’s safe. She’s acting civilly toward a boy three years younger than her. I’d say her mother must have done a damn good job.”

  “You’re trying to butter me up so I’ll accept Eric into the Hudson School,” she muttered.

  “No. I’m doing the fireplace so you’ll accept Eric into the Hudson School. Just kidding,” he quickly added when she stiffened against him. “Check out this marble. Is that beautiful or what?”

  It really was beautiful. Undeniably wow-worthy. “Is the outside going to look like that?” she asked.

  “I hope so. The outside has more paint on it. We’ll just have to see.”

  His arm was still arched around her, his chest still cushioning her spine. One of his knees nudged the outer surface of her thigh. His chin brushed the crown of her head. “I really should get back to work,” she said faintly.

  He tightened his hold on her. “I’ll let you go in a minute.” He turned off the flashlight, depriving her of her lovely patch of green marble. “When can I see you?”

  “You’re seeing me now,” she reminded him.

  “When can I see you outside a fireplace?”

  “Ned…”

  “Come on, Libby. We’ve got something here, something with potential. We should follow through on it.” He shifted slightly, his knee bumping her thigh again, his belt buckle pressing into her tush. “And I don’t think your being pissed at your daughter is a reason to avoid me. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  He was so wrong she couldn’t even imagine of where to begin. So she kept her mouth shut.

  “When can we get together?” he asked again. “Like a date or something.”

  “A date.” She felt dazed, as if someone had clubbed her with a two-by-four.

  “Yeah. We go someplace together, talk, enjoy each other’s company, maybe fool around a little afterward…. Maybe fool around a lot, depending on how things go. Or maybe not fool around at all, if that’s what you want.”

  She wanted to fool around a lot. She wanted to feel so carefree and guiltless that going someplace with Ned and fooling around a lot would serve as her general life plan. “I don’t know,” was all she could manage.

  “Check your calendar. I’m free Friday night and Saturday night.” With that, he released her, then gave her a little push to evict her from the fireplace. She felt a rush of cold from the open window and the absence of Ned at her back.

  She didn’t have to check her calendar to know she was free both Friday night and Saturday night. She was free every night, much to Vivienne’s chagrin.

  Ned didn’t seem to care that she was upset. He still wanted her.

  “I’ll check my calendar,” she said to his rugged work boots. But he was whistling and doing things to her fireplace’s interior, so she doubted he heard her.

  Seventeen

  “That is so cool!” Reva leaned toward the computer monitor while the kid clicked some keys. He was really fast, and obviously computer-savvy. But he wasn’t like the usual nerdy little boys who obsessed over computers. He didn’t wear eyeglasses, he didn’t dress like a geek and he didn’t get all excited and start spitting saliva when he talked about techno stuff. For a ten-year-old boy, Eric was okay.

  The software he’d brought with him constructed Web pages. He showed her some of the pages he’d created. One featured his after-school babysitter, and it was hilarious. The sitter was obviously an old lady, and he had one page designed like an ad for a musty-smelling perfume and another page full of Wise Sayings from Granny Carpet-Stinky. “Her real name is Mrs. Karpinsky,” Eric explained.

  The sayings were really dumb, like: “Roughage is Mother Nature’s Roto-Rooter” and “If God wanted us to watch TV, He would have wired the Garden of Eden for cable,” and “Because I said so.” A third page was labeled Fashion Tips from Granny Carpet-Stinky, and it included things like, “Hats are more attractive than frostbitten ears” and “Big sleeves make the arthritis in your fingers less noticeable.” The way he wrote arthritis looked wrong—Reva was pretty sure there was no u in the word—but she thought the joke was pretty funny, and much more subtle than the jokes she heard from guys in school.

  “You must really hate this babysitter,” she said.

  “I don’t hate her. She smells kinda funny, but…” He shrugged. “I wish I didn’t have a sitter at all. I wish I went to a school with a good after-school program, so I could just hang out there until my dad came and got me. Like at the Hudson School. They’ve got good after-school programs.”

  “I hope you get in,” Reva said, meaning it. “I’d tell my mom to make sure you got in, but she’s mad at me right now.”

 
“Why?”

  Reva answered with a shrug of her own. If she told Eric the truth—that her mother insisted on treating her like a three-year-old—Eric might tell his dad, and then his dad would tell her mom at some point when they were on a date or whatever. And then her mom would come down hard on her for complaining.

  Reva couldn’t ask Eric for a copy of his software, even though she desperately needed to build a Web site. If her mother found her in possession of bootlegged software, she’d shit a brick. Reva was in enough trouble without breaking copyright laws or whatever all the fuss about bootleg software was about.

  “I’m wondering,” she said, instead, shifting her chair closer to Eric’s so she could view the monitor with less distortion, “if you could build a Web site for me.”

  “Sure. It’s easy,” he said. “You could build one yourself. I can burn you a copy of the CD—”

  “No.” She didn’t want to turn him off by talking about the legalities of sharing software, so she said, “I’m such a doofus about computer stuff. If it’s easy for you, then you can do it.”

  “Well…” He flipped through the old-lady pages he’d created. “It’s pretty much wysiwyg—”

  “Huh?” She really felt like a doofus now.

  “Wysiwyg. What you see is what you get. Some Web site software, you’ve got to do things in code and then download them onto the page. This, you just block out what you want and type in the text, or click and drag the image.” He gazed at her. “What kind of Web site do you want?”

  She lowered her voice slightly, just in case her mother was eavesdropping. “It’s for a musician,” she explained.

  Reva had found Darryl J after school on Monday, right where Ashleigh had told her he’d be, performing on the platform of the subway station at 72nd Street and Broadway. Naturally, her mother had checked up on her while she’d been in the subway, and Reva was pretty sure her mother hadn’t bought her explanation about missing the call—that she’d slept through it. Yeah, right. Like anyone could sleep through all that ringing. But her mother hadn’t accused her of lying, not in words. She’d accused her with her eyes, though, and days later her eyes still looked accusing. Her mother didn’t trust her anymore.