He smiled when her positive response came back two minutes later.
For the next two hours, though, he couldn’t help turning an ear toward the raucous laughter and shrill cries as the women’s spades game turned into what appeared to be the competition of the century. As he walked along the basement concrete, following the path of the old wire, filling in the space with new, he listened to Birdie’s complaints and Bree’s consolations. As he used the push rod to get the wire from the basement up into the stud cavity, he grinned at how hard Bree worked to draw Evie into the conversation. As he shut the panel, he noticed the volume of Mrs. Lewis’s laughter at Bree’s jokes. Bree was the glue of that group. Whether they realized it or not, she had single-handedly brought them all a little magic that night.
Upstairs, he flicked on the light and shut the front door softly. “Not too shabby, Green Fairy,” he murmured. The new porch light radiated but for a small smudge on the glass. He leaned in, rubbed it off with the cuff of his jacket, settled back again.
He picked up his tool bag and stuck one hand in his pocket as he jogged down the stairs.
At another burst of laughter inside the house, an idea popped into his head. He pivoted from his path to his front steps to his truck.
He stopped at the rear. Pulled down the tailgate. Hopped into the bed of the truck and dug around.
Pulled out a Frisbee.
Grabbed a Sharpie from his bag and scribbled a hasty note on the disc.
He set the Frisbee on the hood of Bree’s car before turning to go inside.
* * *
Funny thing about women. When you take them out on a first date, the conversation bounces along nicely from topic to topic like a stick bouncing off the slats of a fence as you drag it along, or a playing card flicking against the spokes of a bicycle wheel as it spins.
How many siblings do you have? Terrific! I have three sisters too!
You hate sushi? Me too.
No, I’ve never been to Europe, but it’s always been a dream of mine, ever since . . .
But for Chip, the questions soon turned to the subject of his work, which for the past fifteen years had always been the same. Construction. Really, for a McBride boy, there was no other option. Every Abingdon girl he’d taken on a date knew the facts of his family background well in advance. Any riveted expression just showed him how well his potential future girlfriend could lie.
Folding her hands softly together and resting them under her delicate chin?
Lying.
Leaning forward with fluttering mascara-laden lashes as though what he just told her was positively fascinating?
Lying.
And some of the words that came out of their mouths as they tried to relate . . . frankly, it was comical.
“You are joking!” one had said with a tinkling laugh. “You know, just the other day I was breaking out my tile saw for a little she-shed project I was doing on the bathroom—”
“I’m not entirely sure what a she-shed is,” Chip had interjected, setting down his wine.
She had shrugged. “Oh, you know, just a little shed for gals. Like to hold all your little crafting and sewing projects.”
He remembered how distinctly his brow rose. “You sew?”
“Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed as though he had said something completely outrageous. “No. Anyways, I was on my way up the stairs—”
“I don’t think sheds typically have bathrooms. Or second floors.”
“And I tripped on the new hardwood floors—”
He had put up his hand. “I’m not entirely sure we have the same definition of a shed here. We might need to back up—”
“And realized those steps were entirely too narrow!” Her eyes had twinkled at his, like she had just shared an inside joke between handymen. “So now I’m having to go back and do it all over again, but it’s going to take me ages to find the right repurposed barn wood. Maybe if we happened to go together . . .”
This was Ashleigh. As it turned out, Ashleigh had no idea what to do with a tile saw. And after a revealing conversation he had with her sister weeks later, Chip discovered Ashleigh had shipped the saw to her house fourteen hours before their first date.
Just so they could have a conversation piece.
Ashleigh really did have a “she-shed” (with a full kitchen and two bedrooms) in the backyard of her “little bungalow” (with five bedrooms and three baths). He would have called them something else, but who was he to quibble over definitions with his girlfriend? College students occasionally knocked on her door asking to rent out that she-shed.
His beautiful, elegant, family-friendly girlfriend carried enough charm in this town for the both of them. At the moment, his girlfriend also happened to be standing with her cream-colored heels firmly on the threshold, her eyes scanning his gutted living room as though expecting the floor to collapse at any moment.
Chip set down the pry bar he was using to peel the baseboards away from the wall.
“Ashleigh, are you sure you don’t want to come inside?”
“I am inside,” she answered, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked pointedly down to her shoes, and he did too.
“Yes, well, would you like to come more than one inch inside? I could turn on the space heater.”
“Oh, I’m not cold,” she replied in an upbeat tone, though her shoulders visibly tensed at the sound of a creak upstairs. “I like the fresh air.”
“It’s thirty degrees.”
“I’m warm-blooded.”
“You’re shivering.”
She looked down at her slim forearms, lined with goose bumps, as though they weren’t hers. She began rubbing them furiously.
He sighed and reached for a towel. It was only 5:00 p.m. He had planned on getting in roughly three hours of work before their dinner reservation—hoped to, with a little luck, have the wall down.
“How about we just head over to 128 Pecan now? I could do with a meal anyways.” He cast a glance back to the inoperable oven and the cellophane-wrapped stainless-steel range beside it. It’d been days since he’d had a hot meal.
“Don’t be silly,” she replied with a smile. “I’m fine, Chip. Really. I said I wanted to see your work-in-progress and I meant it.” She bit her lip. “And I would be all for helping with that”—she paused, looking at his pry bar—“plier, too, if I had remembered to change out of these clothes.” She looked down at her creamy pencil skirt like it was an obstinate toddler and shrugged. “But I am loving what you are doing with the place,” she added, and ventured to unlock her arms to prove her point. She put her hands on her hips, then thought twice and put one on the doorframe, then decided it was better not to touch anything and leaned with her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t,” Chip said quickly. “That frame is still a bit unsteady.”
She jumped back into her pencil-straight formation.
While he moved to the kitchen, she spoke louder. “I can see you’ve gotten a lot done already. What with the new windows and cabinets and”—there was a pause—“this clean floor in here. So spotless. I can hardly see any dirt.”
He glanced back to see her squinting at several dust particles highlighted by the setting sun. Her arms stiffened at her sides as she resisted shooing them off.
Either Ashleigh really loved him or she was one of those girls who really, really wanted to get married. He hadn’t figured out which.
Honestly, both ideas were a bit too scary to examine.
He flicked on the faucet and the icy water nearly froze his hands.
One nice thing about Ashleigh was that she did try. This construction stuff was about as far out of her wheelhouse as Kate Spade was from his, and yet she made the effort to visit him, to compliment him. To pick up terms here and there so she could use them to say things like, “That tankless water heater was a great choice for Jim and Tara’s home, Chip. And the way you got it to work with that flex hose . . .”
He had to give her credit; if there was one thing
a man loved, it was getting a little self-esteem boost from a woman who took his work seriously.
Two days ago, when Chip had told Ashleigh the news that the Barter was about to open bids for a major renovation, she was nothing but supportive, overwhelmed with excitement. They’d spent the whole evening talking strategy. It didn’t matter to her that his father—king of Abingdon construction—was going to be his competition. Or that the eccentric Mr. Richardson was the illogical sort of fellow who had once bought up and renovated an entire row of dilapidated houses simply because they made his wife sad when she drove by.
Chip could almost feel like these facts didn’t matter to him either. Almost.
Yes, he was coming to realize a supportive woman was one of the best things a man could have in life.
Enthusiasm.
Kindness.
Respect—
“You’ve gotta move that fence.”
Chip swiveled around to see all six feet of his neighbor standing in the doorway beside Ashleigh and shaking a pointed finger at him. Bree’s hair was in more of a strangled bun than usual, and she wore a gigantic deep-blue alpine parka with what appeared to be muddy bear-claw marks down the length of the coat. Ashleigh was clutching her chest and leaning into the rickety doorframe as though the deranged woman was the greater danger.
Which, to be fair, was probably true.
Bree—or possibly just Bree’s humongous coat—pushed Ashleigh aside as she marched toward him.
“You move that fence. Or I’m going to move your house.”
It was hard at the moment to decide what to do. Part of him wanted to laugh hysterically, and part of him felt the smile slipping off his face. He turned off the water.
“How exactly do you plan to move my house?”
“And can we talk about the Frisbee for a second?” Bree said, breezing past his question. “Because, honestly”—she whipped the disc up next to her crazy eyes—“giving your neighbor a Frisbee with the instructions to ‘roll down your window and throw it as far as you can before you step out of your car’ is not a real solution to my problem here. And for the record, it also doesn’t work.” She motioned to her muddied coat, enunciating each word. “As. You. Can. See.”
His smile wilted.
He had meant the offering to be a playful joke, even hoped it might represent a clean slate. Honestly, he figured Russell’s overenthusiastic greetings toward Bree would have calmed down by now. The dog wasn’t trying to maul her. He just loved her. Like, really, really loved her. If she could just understand, pet the dog a little, Russell would calm down . . .
“Do you know he’s watching me all night now?” Bree’s eyes narrowed. “All. Night?”
Chip laughed. “No, he’s not. He sleeps in my room—”
“At the foot of your bed,” she continued. “Sitting on that blue sleeping bag of yours. Staring at me through the window. Every time I open my eyes, he’s watching.”
He watched her for a few moments. Waiting for her to blink.
She didn’t.
“Um.” Chip swallowed. One glance to Ashleigh confirmed he would be getting curtains from her in the next hour. “Ashleigh, I want you to meet my next-door neighbor. Bree. Bree. Ashleigh.”
Bree’s eyes stayed on Chip as she nodded. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Ashleigh replied.
Chip put up a finger. “Shall we not overlook the fact that this means you look into my room all night? ‘Staring’?”
It was disconcerting. A little bit intriguing. But also disconcerting.
She threw her hands in the air. “It’s different! You know what I mean!”
On the second floor, Russell began scratching against the hardwood. Then came the sound of a tornado blowing down the stairs.
Bree ran toward Chip, grabbed him by the shoulders, and threw herself behind him.
From under the hood she had pulled over her head, her muffled voice cried out, “See! See! The murder dog wants me!”
Ignoring Ashleigh, Russell hit the bottom stairs and skidded across the floor toward Bree like a kid in ice skates. Even from a distance, Chip could see the foot-long drool on both sides of his slackened jaw. Chip squatted, and when Russell was just hitting the kitchen, he pounced.
He struggled mightily with Russell’s collar as he moved toward the door to the back porch. “That’s it, boy. Time for a nice run, huh? A nice”—Chip struggled to push the door open—“long”—the door opened, and he used every muscle in his body to push the dog outside. He slammed the door and turned. Chip put his hands on his hips, smiling at his success. “Run.”
Russell’s huge body lunged against the door. It quaked.
Chip turned the lock.
He heaved a sigh and turned back around. “There. Now. Where were we?”
What he saw when he turned around, however, was not a woman. It was a ball, a giant blue ball on the floor beside the unfinished cabinets, a jumble of downy, deep-blue quilting.
He stepped closer.
The ball didn’t move.
He squatted next to it.
“Um . . . Bree?”
Nothing.
“Hey. Bree.”
He reached out with tentative fingers and touched the ball’s surface.
Bree exploded out of her defensive crouch. Her eyes were as fiery as he’d ever seen them. “I want that fence moved. You put it on my side and I need that fence moved.”
Her voice had taken a desperate turn.
He sighed. Rubbed the stubble of his chin.
It was time to get real.
“Do you know what you’re asking? It took me a full day to get the fence installed.” He motioned to the rooms around him, all empty but for the bare essentials. “And look around. Does it look to you like I have the time or money to dig up the driveway, again, to move it a couple of feet?” He stepped over to the light switch and flipped it up and down. Of course, it did nothing. “What’s more important here: running electricity or having a fence moved twelve inches?”
“The fence moved twelve inches,” she answered.
He paused, seeing the lack of sympathy in her eyes.
Ashleigh still stood in the doorway, holding out her phone. She pointed to it as if to say, Just give the nod. I can have the police here in five.
He glanced back to Bree. As with all things regarding his new neighbor these past weeks, he was going to have to do this the hard way.
He tried once more to pull a little understanding from her. “Honestly, Bree. It’s just a dog.”
“Just a dog who is trying to kill me.”
“Look,” Chip began. “I know it may not be convenient”—her brows rose and he forged on—“but technically, that fence is within the bounds of my property. And he needs that space. As you are well aware, my lot doesn’t grant much yard as it is. What am I supposed to do, move it over so he can have five feet to roam in? He’s practically five feet long himself!”
“I’m well aware of his size,” she said, pointing to the dried mud marks on the shoulders of her parka. “But if you’re so keen on him having some space, you should find him another house to live in.”
Russell barked.
They both jolted as the door shook.
“Give me twenty-four hours, Chip.” Bree leveled her gaze. “I’ll find him a place to roam.”
Ashleigh was starting to whimper, her fingers hovering over the phone’s screen.
Chip looked from Ashleigh to Bree, to the porch door, and back again. There would be no winning here. The Invisible Fence was hard enough to put in, what with pulling up the yard, and avoiding a dead phone line straight from the sixties . . .
A phone line. A dead little phone line, straight from the sixties.
And she, little Barter actress with no construction knowledge, wanted so desperately to have the fence moved.
The Barter.
“You want the line moved so bad?” He straightened, a smile forming as he put out his hand to shake. “Fine. Let’s make a deal
.”
Chapter 7
Bree
If Chip thought he was going to get anything out of Bree, he was in for a rude awakening.
That being said, it brought her unspeakable joy to sit cross-legged on her inflated donut on the gravel supervising as he broke into the dirt with his shovel.
“So, give me everything you got on Mr. Richardson,” Chip said, pulling his shovel back with a load. “Everything. Where he likes to eat, what his hobbies are. What he gave the cast for Christmas presents. Everything.”
Bree crossed her ankles and plastered on the patented sweet, innocent grin that had landed her every one of her jobs. She tried not to look at Russell, who lay at the edge of the line on the other side of the car, panting and staring at her.
“Oh, what can I say? There’s just so much.” She pressed her finger to her chin and tapped it twice in thoughtful musing.
In exchange for his moving the fence line, she had agreed to give him inside information about the Barter heading for a complete renovation. That would’ve been all well and good, but for the fact her backside was still so sore from the dog’s latest tackle that she had to carry around one of those pillows for people recovering from tailbone surgery. She wanted to be helpful, but Evie had been so fond of her new wannabe-minimalist lifestyle that she had “forgotten” to pay the water bill the same day a truck delivered twelve empty barrels for their “new rainwater harvesting system.” This was followed by Evie’s enthusiastic lecture on how they could “forgo drinking recycled pharmaceutical pills and sewage and instead live on the crystal clean water from the sky.”
There had been a pamphlet.
There were also red circles on their fridge calendar, dates when Evie was planning to cut things out of her life she had owned or paid for since before Bree moved in: the television, the dishwasher, the rugs, all plastic Tupperware . . .
So, forgive her, but Bree just couldn’t summon up the energy to be “helpful.” This was about the insanity this man had so cheerfully brought into her life. The way that he chuckled at her demise. The way he acted as though she just took life too seriously.
Too seriously?
Bree Leake of all people most emphatically did not take life too seriously. She was the epitome of easygoing. Her middle name was easygoing. Two years ago, when she’d spontaneously hopped on a Greyhound for a round trip to California just to see a West Coast sunrise, every one of the passengers called her Miss Sunshine.
The Cul-de-Sac War Page 7