by Lisa Samson
He’s not wrong. It’s true that I have had feelers out for a while, looking for a proper full-size press since the Vandercook, technically speaking, is a proof press, easy to use but not really made for doing high-volume jobs. I speak in low tones. “What I had in mind was a Heidelberg, if we could find one at a bargain basement price.”
He nods. “The C&P Old Style is a platen press, just like the tabletops we already have. Maybe in perfect shape, and fitted with a motor …”
I take a deep breath. “In a few days, Finn says the two of you will have that thing working just like new.”
“Is that right?” Huey says. “Well, isn’t he the prophet?”
“Don’t pitch a fit on my birthday.”
“Me pitch a fit? Don’t even think about it, Boss.” He makes his way toward the exit—taking his time, though, in no rush to get wet.
Diana rolls her eyes at me once he’s gone. “Oh man. Things are gonna get pretty interesting around here.”
It takes the men about a half hour to agree on how to get the press indoors, then Huey disappears for another half hour, returning with a borrowed pallet jack. In the meantime, with Diana’s help, I’ve cleared some space in the studio.
“Maybe they should bring it down to the basement,” Diana says. “If they have to take it apart, won’t all the pieces kind of get in the way?”
“I don’t know how we’d get it down there. And besides, one of them might end up crushed at the bottom of the steps.”
The glance Diana throws me assures me she believes that to be all too possible. Diana and I see ourselves as the women of the studio. Huey and I see each other as the practical people. And Diana and Finn look at Huey and me as hard-ass overachievers. It works.
With a lot of grunting and a few choice epithets, Finn, Huey, and Chris manhandle the press onto the curb and through the front door as my heart races. I realize my stress doesn’t make the process any safer or easier, so I keep my mouth shut, but man, every cell in my body is screaming.
I can barely watch the progress down the sidewalk, and the small crowd of neighbors that has gathered is getting an eyeful of why I’m glad I’m a woman.
At the door to the studio, the men argue over whether the flywheel has to come off to get the press through. Huey wonders aloud if we have a sledgehammer, and I can easily picture him going all Paul Bunyan on the cast iron, pounding away till our ears split from the noise and pieces are flying straight into our eyes.
“You’ll be thanking me one day,” Finn says to Huey, who doesn’t even dignify that with an answer.
In the end, Chris takes the door off its hinges, giving them just enough room. Good man.
Finally, they heave the press past the counter and into the center of the studio, where it towers in rusty steampunk magnificence.
I feel like we’ve just come safely to the bottom of the mountain after skiing a double black diamond. Not that I ski.
“Your wish is my command,” Finn says, flourishing his hand. It’s true, I wished for a press like this. Just not this one. In this way. Right now. Right here. But other than that …
“That thing weighs a ton,” his brother adds. “No, two tons.”
Diana comes over to inspect the hulk. “Let’s see. That would mean each of you were responsible for almost seven hundred pounds.” She tries the lever, but it’s stuck fast. “I can’t believe you guys even got it in here. It’s like a work of art, though. Like a piece of sculpture.”
Chris rubs his lower back. “Or a medieval torture device. The Iron Maiden.”
“Reminds me of an idol,” Huey remarks, chuckling to himself. “Made of metal and just as useless.”
Finn winces. I feel sorry for him.
Huey taps the flywheel. “Well, I guess we better get used to moving around the thing. It’s gonna be here awhile.”
“I found a great way to get the rust off,” Finn explains, guiding Huey to his computer so they can review some YouTube videos that will walk them through the process.
The eager innocence in his voice is painfully familiar. It’s the same tone I remember from the morning he decided to replace the tile in our upstairs bathroom. Four hours later we had a gulf of gray dust and jagged grout between the bathroom door and the toilet, and Finn had given up on the job, explaining that he’d need to address the subflooring before going any further. That was months ago.
Knowing how handy his father is, how handy Chris is, I always figured that if Finn got in over his head on a renovation project, he’d just call for help. But the manly code of the Drexels does not allow for such shows of weakness. After screwing up the tile, the last person in the world Finn would call is his brother, who’d never let him hear the end of it. I’ve learned to adapt.
His short-lived enthusiasm, however, isn’t his sole characteristic. Finn has a way of giving people a break, of cheering them on, greater than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s amazing. He’s really good in bed too. And he’s a good cook and doesn’t mind doing the dishes.
Yes, I hit the mother lode. I still don’t know why he looks at me like he does, as if I’m not the slightly frumpy young woman I am. He says I have the sexy librarian look. I tell him beauty is, quite obviously considering the work I do, in the eye of the beholder.
“I’m going to head home,” I tell Finn, running my hand through his damp hair. He pulls away from YouTube long enough for a peck on the cheek. “When you get home tonight, I have a favor to ask.”
He smiles. “Anything you want. It’s your birthday, after all.”
“Anything?” I whisper in his ear.
“You want to go home right now?”
I laugh. “Get your work done. I’ll be there all night.”
“Be thinking about what you want.”
“All right,” I say. “I’m gonna hold you to that.”
I’ll make sure to ask him about Bel after playtime in the bedroom. Wouldn’t want to miss any of that for the sake of my mysterious aunt. I didn’t grow up thinking missionaries were saints just because.
3.
Good Taste
“So your aunt the nun wants to move in with us? And you think it’s a good idea?”
“First off, she’s not a nun, she’s a missionary.”
“Same difference.”
“No, not really. And she isn’t doing the asking. It’s my mom.”
We’re sitting downstairs in front of the flat screen, eating leftover birthday cake with our feet up on the coffee table. Finn has found a way to spread himself so flat that he can rest his plate on his chest, lifting his head to take a bite. The copper stubble on his chin is flecked with icing.
“And that’s the favor you wanted?”
I nod. “My mom dumped it on me this morning. I was, like, whatever, at first—but the more I think about it, the more intrigued I get. I mean, I wonder what she’s even like.”
“Is she old like your mom?”
“Aunt Bel was a teenager when I was born,” I tell him. “So I’m thinking she must be … I don’t know, midforties? Not that much older than us.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m still in my twenties, you cradle-robber.”
On the table next to the remains of the cake rest a few more presents Finn brought home with him: a DVD of the Helvetica documentary (which I love), a striped sweater he located by clicking through my Pinterest boards (shows initiative), and best of all, a vintage Minolta Autocord, one of those cool medium-format film cameras with the viewfinder on top, perfect for the kind of portrait and street photography I’m always daydreaming about getting into. A Japanese copy of the famous Rolleiflex Automat, only the copy improved on the original, and is a lot cheaper on the secondhand market.
“It’s serviced and ready to go. The guy at the shop showed me some pictures it took, black-and-white stuff, the real deal. The depth … well, they’re completely amazing.”
“You’re completely amazing,” I say, bestowing a kiss. “Sometimes I have my doubts, then you do something l
ike this and I think, ‘He really knows me.’ ”
“Of course I know you.” He gives me his squinty, uncomprehending smile. “I was thinking, you know the half bath in the basement? It would be the easiest thing in the world to blow out the side wall, build it out, and put a worktable in there. You could have your own private photo lab for developing your pictures. You’d like that.”
“Maybe,” I say, envisioning the half bath with no wall, the project abandoned in midstream until he can replace, say, the copper pipes. “We’ll see. I can always have them developed professionally for the time being.”
We watch eating shows on TV. My favorite, chain-smoking chef travels the world, drinking to his heart’s content and showing us his hangovers. Now that’s entertainment. Finn stares over the top of his cake and I watch through the Autocord’s viewfinder, letting the camera dangle around my neck by the strap, fiddling with the silky focus lever until the picture looks razor sharp. After a while, I run upstairs to change into comfy clothes, sweatpants and my favorite T-shirt, a dark gray one a few years old. It fits like a second skin, only this skin comes from my babyhood, it is that soft. On the back in white Futura lettering it says GOOD TASTE. Coming down the stairs, the camera still dangling, I notice a little hole in the shirt, just over my left hip.
“Look at this,” I say, plopping onto the couch.
“Stop picking at it or you’ll make it bigger.”
It looks big enough for my pinkie finger to pass through. Sure enough, I try it and succeed. A vague memory from this morning surfaces. As I made my daily hop into the upstairs bathroom, I bumped the doorjamb and there was a tiny tearing sound. At the time I didn’t know what had ripped—now I do.
“This sucks. It’s not on the seam or I could sew it back up.”
“Can’t you … I don’t know, weave it back?”
I laugh. “Right, I should have thought of that. I’ll get out my spinning wheel and fix it right up. I can patch it, or do a Frankenstein stitch, but it’ll look ugly.”
“I’ll get you a new shirt.”
“I like this one,” I say.
“Then leave that hole alone.” He reaches across the couch and pulls my hand away. “Seriously, babe. You’re just going to make it worse. Here, play with your camera some more.”
“All right.”
He turns up the volume on the show, then starts talking over it. “I don’t think Huey’s very happy with me at the moment. He was kind of sulky all afternoon. You know how he gets. Over polite, and then he starts doing exactly what you tell him, being super literal about every little thing. I think he’s ticked off because I didn’t consult him about the press.”
“Hmm,” I say.
“Every time he had to move past it, he would knock up against it and kind of stagger back, making a big show. It was cracking Diana up, but seemed a little dramatic to me. And not in a good way.”
“So what do you think about Aunt Bel?”
“You mean the Nun? I don’t know. You think she’d want to stay very long? More than a couple of days?”
“I have no idea. According to my mom, she has nowhere to live, no money, no job.”
“And you think it’s your responsibility?”
“Not per se. But she’s family.”
“And a missionary to boot.”
“I didn’t know your family was big into missions.”
He waves that away. “They weren’t. But your grandparents were. Right?”
He remembers everything. “Yes. Mom feels like she was always a disappointment.”
“But they loved you a lot, right?”
“Definitely.”
“Well?”
Things are so cut and dried with Finn.
“Mom doesn’t want her around,” I say. “That much is clear. And she made it seem like something funny’s going on with Aunt Bel and my dad.”
“Is there?”
“Finn, Aunt Bel is almost as much of a mystery to me as she is to you.”
He sits up, puts his plate on the coffee table. “Okay, so let me get this straight. Bel ran off on a summer missions trip and never came back. Your grandparents worshipped her, and your mom has never forgiven them, or her sister, for that. Is that about right?”
“As far as I can see. If there’s more, I almost just don’t want to know about it.”
He makes no comment, but I can guess what he’s thinking. If this were his family, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. The Drexels don’t turn up on your doorstep asking if one of their middle-aged siblings returning from overseas can move in with you for a while. For one thing, I don’t see many middle-aged Drexels resurfacing after twenty years. They’re a sensible breed, always looking and planning ahead, aware of their responsibilities and quick to fulfill obligations, not to unload them on others. They exude competence, especially when you stack them up against the Crazy O’Haras.
“This is what you married into,” I say, the thought that a good part of him actually fits in better with my family than his own remaining in my head, and at this moment I want to crawl over there and smother it with affection.
“No, it’s not that. I was just thinking. The spare room upstairs, if we blew out the closet wall and refinished the hardwoods …”
Saturday morning I wake up to the smell of coffee. The sheets on Finn’s side of the bed are still warm. I roll over into the heat and breathe deeply of his scent, brushing the hair from my face and stifling a yawn. Padding into the bathroom, I check the mirror over the sink. I rub my eyes. I hear the beat of a pounding hammer downstairs.
I slip on my sweats before going down. The hole in my T-shirt looks bigger to me, but maybe I’m imagining things. In the empty kitchen, I pour myself some coffee and nibble on a piece of toast from the stack Finn’s left on the table. The silver lining when you’re married to a morning person is that breakfast is ready and waiting, more often than not, even on weekend mornings when you’re supposed to be on duty. The hammering sound comes from under my feet. I follow it down the steep basement steps, ducking my head to avoid a collision with the lowhanging bulb.
In the back corner of the basement, illuminated by shop lights, the head of a ball-peen hammer keeps poking through the wall of the half bath. Each crumbling hole spits a cloud of bone-colored dust into the air.
“Finn,” I say.
The hammering stops.
His tousled head appears in the bathroom doorway. “I figured I’d get an early start. The darkroom won’t take long to frame out, then I’ll run out and get some drywall. With any luck, I’ll have everything but the painting done by lunchtime tomorrow. You can pick the colors. I called Chris and got the number of a guy who’ll rent me a sander.”
“A sander for what?”
“The floor upstairs,” he says. “I’ll get it sanded down this afternoon, and then we can refinish. It’ll need to dry overnight, I’m guessing. If you come to the hardware store with me, you can pick out the stain.”
I stand at the foot of the steps in my bare feet, munching toast and sipping coffee, just looking at him, not saying a word.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m going upstairs. You should be wearing a mask to do that.”
“Are you gonna run to the hardware store with me?”
“I’ll let you know.”
You have to love that kind of optimism or it will drive you crazy. And the man looks extra cute with tools in his hands. Is it wrong that I pray the number for the guy with the sander was written down wrong?
In the kitchen, I finish the toast, pour myself more coffee, and start on the weekend edition of the Sun. The hammering continues for another fifteen minutes, then I hear his footsteps ascending.
“Come to think of it,” he says, setting the hammer on the table, “before I go any further on the darkroom demo, I should probably frame out the walls first. Get some two-by-fours and lay out the new perimeter.” He sits at the table and frowns at the empty toast plate. “Although,
really, we might want to start with the floor upstairs and see how long that takes. I’ve never actually done it before, but I found a video online.”
He throws on some clothes and heads out in his ancient pickup truck to collect the rental sander. When he’s gone, I dial my father.
“So, you’re entertaining strange women from foreign lands, I hear,” I greet him.
He laughs, and I can picture him leaning back against his kitchen counter, the spiraled cord of the telephone attaching him to the wall by the refrigerator. He’s probably wearing gardening clothes as it’s Saturday, his yard day. And one item is plaid, the other either khaki or navy.
Yes, he has a yard day. A grocery shopping day. An errands day. And an ex-wife living in a tent. Sometimes it’s just too easy to figure out what went wrong in a marriage.
“Somebody has to, Sare. And she helped out on laundry day, so it could be worse.”
From what I remember, Dad and Aunt Bel got along famously.
“Where’s she sleeping?”
“On the sofa.”
After the divorce, he built his home himself, just enough for himself, and nobody but himself.
“Can I talk to her?”
“Why do you want to do that?”
“To invite her over.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yep.”
“Well, just so you know, it’s on your head if something goes wrong.”
“I know.”
“I’ll let her know. Your mother’s coming by tomorrow to pick up something of hers from the storage shed. I can get her to take Bel over in my car. Would that work?”
“If you want. Or I could come get her. I haven’t visited in a while.”
He falls silent a moment. “It would be simpler if Rita just brought her over. It’s a little insane here right now. Bel’s a little … off.”
“What do you mean, off?”
“Nothing serious, Sara. Don’t sound so worried. She’s not certifiable or anything—”
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“No, no, no,” he says. “It’s the whole family dynamic, you know. I’ve got a ton of questions, and I’m afraid Bel, she just isn’t talking. I don’t think she’s going to either, but that’s just my take.”