by Cate Tiernan
That made sense. “Okay.”
“Then you demo—take out all the broken stuff.” He squinted at me, looking a lot like the Marlboro Man in a hard hat. “Are you sure your dad knows what you’re doing?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding firmly. “This project will… teach me responsibility. And planning. Budgeting. And stuff.”
“And he’s in construction, but you don’t know any of this?”
“I was at school. And church camp. But you know, Bill, you seem to have a good grip on this. You should be the main guy and organize the other guys. Make them do things in order.”
Bill looked at me. “Like a general contractor?”
I seized this. “Yes. The general contractor.”
“General contractors get paid more.” He slapped his work gloves against his worn jeans, sending up a bit of dust.
“Okey-dokey.”
So Bill became the go-to guy, and I became the one who brought in Subway for lunch and kept a supply of Snickers bars and walked around nodding seriously, saying “Looks good.” I got into the pattern of doing study-type things in the morning and then showing up at the shops around noon. That day I had brownies. I figured, give them some sugar, they’ll work harder, right?
A tall woman with straight, corn-yellow hair was talking to Bill. They shook hands, and then he pointed at me. She came over, looking like someone out of a Wyeth painting.
“I’m Mary,” she said. “Subcontracting sheetrock and painting.” Her denim shirtsleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing hard forearms. Her white cargo pants were speckled with many colors of paint.
“Hi, Mary,” I said, shaking her hand.
Without smiling, she gestured with her head to another woman who was carrying in a four-by-eight-foot piece of drywall. “That’s Josie. She works with me.”
Josie turned around at the sound of her name, and I gave her a little wave, feeling like such a poser in my size-six work boots. She smiled at me, then headed back out for more supplies.
“Great. Thanks,” I said, and scuttled off.
I was hoping the whole thing would glide into a video montage set to fun music, where I’d see little cuts of activity and then go immediately to the “after” picture. There could even be a short blooper reel, like when Harv put his elbow through a window and needed stitches. Of course he had no health insurance, so guess who got to pick up that tab?
But this, like every single other freaking thing in my life, had no fast-forward button. Instead it was day after day after day, and each day had a whoooole twenty-four hours in it.
There were some good things. I was seeing the shops slowly (I mean slowly) being restored, and that was kind of fun. Since I was downtown so much, I saw Meriwether, sometimes several times a week. That was really nice. She and Lowell were chugging along, and her dad was considering asking Mrs. Philpott to a movie, which made both of us squeal with disbelief and excitement.
I still hadn’t seen any sign of Dray, but practically the whole rest of the town was popping in to eyeball what we were doing. Dexter’s Ace Hardware, two blocks away, was injected with new life as Bill made me order tons of hardwarey stuff from them. I started getting most of our lunches from Pitson’s deli counter, and Julie Pitson, the owner’s daughter, began experimenting with recipes. She’d wanted to go to New York and be a chef but had fallen in love and gotten married at nineteen. So we guinea pigs were paying the price for her life choices.
“What is this?” I asked suspiciously, peeling back the white butcher paper. “Julie, I swear to God, if you put wasabi aioli on another tuna salad, the guys will riot, they really will.”
“You tell them to eat it and shut up,” she said. “That there is Brie, watercress, and Granny Smith apple, touched by a bit of champagne Dijon.”
I looked at her.
“I’ll throw in some chips,” she muttered.
Then there was the mysteriously growing number of pay slips I found myself signing. I’d originally hired eight guys. Bill had subcontracted out the sheetrock and the plumbing, so that was five more people. Now, almost three weeks later, I had twenty-two people on the payroll.
“Bill!” I yelled. I had set up a card table and a folding chair for myself in one of the bay windows of the last shop on the right.
Bill came through from one of the back rooms.
“What is this?” I demanded, waving a pay slip. “Who the hell is Rusty?”
Bill looked around, then pointed to a short, red-haired teenager who was sweeping up drywall dust. Of which there was an abundance.
“I’m paying him to sweep?” I made my voice frosty. “You subcontracted the sweeping?”
“Well…” Bill took off his hard hat and brushed his sleeve against his forehead. Just then a heavyset woman with curly, fading auburn hair bustled through the street door.
Seeing Bill, she said, “Whew! Sorry to be a few minutes late. Got held up at church.”
Bill mumbled something, looking at the ceiling, anywhere but at me.
“Mama!” Rusty had heard her, and I saw immediately that he was what Russians used to call “angel-touched.” Down syndrome. Back in Dostoyevsky’s day, people believed that these children had a special innocence and a direct line to God, and they were treated accordingly.
Rusty’s mother beamed at me. “I can’t thank you and your father enough for this, sweetie. When Bill said Rusty could work here two hours in the afternoons—well, I can’t tell you what a difference it makes.” She lowered her voice. “He loves this job—he feels so important.”
“Hi, Mama,” said Rusty, and she kissed him.
“Hey, angel,” she said. “You ready to go?”
They headed out the door, and the woman turned around again and mouthed Thank you one more time.
I looked at Bill, who pulled his lips back from his teeth in an ingratiating grin, like a deerhound. Without saying anything else, I went back to my card table. After a moment, Bill headed off.
Dropping my head into my hands, I felt a wave of… discomfort sliding over me like a cloak. Discomfort tinged with anxiety. Formerly treated by an immediate and substantial influx of something mood-altering, preferably of the margarita persuasion. Four short months wasn’t enough to completely wipe out old habits, old ways of coping, and everything in me right now was screaming to jump up and find the nearest bar. Which I happened to know was a run-down pub called Salty’s, out on the service road by the highway.
And this was just me being emotionally incapable of dealing with life—I wasn’t even a legitimate alcoholic. It made it seem extra pathetic, somehow.
Around me were the sounds of change—sawing, hammering, people talking loudly. Inside me everything was changing, too. Suddenly I felt unmoored, unsure of who I was, what I was doing. For a frantic second I longed to be back where I was six months ago, even though I now understood that to be my all-time low. But it was a low I knew, could do, was intensely comfortable with—until I wasn’t comfortable with it anymore.
For the last four months, River and the other teachers had told me, over and over, to slow down and feel the feeling. Sit with the feeling until you know what it is. Thanks to their guidance, I could now accurately identify fear, panic, dismay, disgust, anxiety, anger, fury, and disdain. Figuring out why I felt any of those things was something else entirely.
My breathing was coming more shallowly. I wanted to tear out of there more than anything. I would kill for something that would make me not feel this. But why was I feeling it? What was going on?
“What’s going on?”
My head jerked up at the voice, startled, as if God herself had reached out and put her hand on my shoulder.
God? Not so much. It was Dray.
She’d come in through the street door and was standing in front of my card table. I hadn’t seen her in months. She was wearing a short, inadequate jacket with tattered faux-fur hood fringe, and her hair was growing out its weird brown/green combo that made it look like she was trying
to hide in a jungle.
“What?” I said.
She waved fingers with chipped black nail polish at all the activity. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
“I bought these eyesores,” I said. “Now they’re fixing them up. Either that or I have to start charging the rats rent.”
Neither of us smiled.
“What are you gonna do with them?”
Her eyes were still caked with heavy eyeliner, but she’d chewed off her lip gloss, and her bare mouth made her look younger than a really old seventeen.
“What have you been doing?” I asked. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”
A familiar look of bored patience. “My mom sent me to my aunt’s for a little while, to help with the new baby.”
“Whose baby?”
“My aunt’s. Anyway, now I’m back. At my mom’s.”
“How was the baby?” I was surprised by an unconscious softening in Dray’s eyes.
“He was cute,” she said, sounding almost like a regular teenager. “Kind of a lump, you know? But then he started smiling. That was pretty cute.”
“And now you’re back.”
“Duh. So what are you gonna do with this place again?”
“I’m praying people will rent these shops. And there are four apartments upstairs. I want to rent those out, too. They’ll be all fixed up.”
Speculation came into her eyes. “How much are you gonna gouge for the apartments?”
“Not that much. They’re little. And on this street. In this town.”
Dray looked at me, and I wondered if she would try to rent one of the apartments, get away from her mom again. I knew one thing: Her loser boyfriend was not going to be welcome.
As we’d been talking, two men had stopped and looked through the glass, going to the other bay window and cupping their hands around their eyes to see better. Now one pointed to me, and then they came through the street door.
“Hello,” said one of the men. He was tall and slender with a pink-cheeked, well-groomed air. The Burberry coat didn’t hurt.
“Hi,” I said. Dray sidled away, meandering toward the back, maybe to see the apartments. They were all open right now, with people going in and out. With a twinge I prayed she wasn’t going to nick anyone’s tools.
“Is the owner around? We looked for an agent’s number,” the man said. “We’re hoping to rent the shop on the end.” He pointed down the street, meaning the shop at the opposite end of this one.
“That would be great,” I said, not believing it could be this easy. “What would you do with it?”
The men gave each other a quick glance, like, Do we talk to the kid or what?
“We’ve always wanted to open a coffee shop,” the other man said.
“Oh God, yes!” I said. “Yes, that would be perfect! Let’s go look at the place right now!” I grabbed my coat off the back of my chair and then saw their hesitation. “Um, this is my project. My… dad is making me do this to teach me responsibility. And stuff. But I’ve been dying for a coffee shop in this town. I’m sure it will be okay with my dad.”
“Coffee shop?” Josie, one of the drywallers, had been refilling her tray with drywall mud. “I’ve always wanted to bake things for a coffee shop. I make the best pound cake ever. And cookies. And coconut cake. And—”
“You guys need to exchange phone numbers,” I said. “This sounds great!”
All of my dreams were coming true!
CHAPTER 14
I hope you didn’t believe that last sentence. I’m of the “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, then wonder why life didn’t give you freaking sugar so you could drink the stuff” school of thought.
And despite my deep and sincere longing for a coffee shop in this cute-forsaken town, my current and most genuine dream was still basically: “I want to feel better.” Plus all the stuff about my heritage and whatnot, father’s heir, mother’s daughter, blah blah blah.
But I had to admit, things were coming together nicely, for once.
At dinner that night, Anne asked, “How are the shops, Nastasya?”
I was in the middle of an internal rant about quiche and how unjustified I found its existence, so I was glad to put down my fork for a moment and quit seething. “Well, you saw them yesterday, right?”
Many of my fellow REers had come by, over the last couple of weeks. Not Reyn. Not the Brothers Three. Not the anti-Nastasya league, which these days was really mostly Solis by himself.
“Yes,” Anne continued. “Did you decide about Luisa Grace?”
Luisa Grace was a bleached-blond local woman who wanted to rent one of the middle shops. I wasn’t sure she was on the up-and-up—she didn’t look that craft-conscious. But we would see. She’d said she was hoping to include other local artists also.
I took more bread to fill in the corners of my stomach that would be going quicheless. “I think it should be okay, but if her stuff doesn’t sell, she’ll be up a creek.”
“Who else are you renting space to?” Ottavio’s voice made me blink—he’d quit talking to me directly weeks ago. I was just happy that so far his surveillance hadn’t extended to the shops.
Part of me, I freely admit, almost said, The devil, Hitler, Voldemort, and the inventor of acid-wash jeans. I had to shove more bread in my mouth to stop myself.
When I could speak, I said, “Ray and Tim, the coffee-shop guys. Possibly Luisa Grace. Miss Gertrude Sully, who wants to open a consignment shop. Have you seen her? I always think the next words out of her mouth will be, I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”
“That should be interesting,” said Rachel. “A consignment shop would be fun.”
I’d never heard Rachel use the word fun before.
“The other shop in the middle is still open,” I said. “I think a local girl, Dray Somebody, might rent one of the upstairs apartments. Another woman, Holly Mavins, is separating from her husband and renting an apartment. Two other girls, students at the tech school over in Wessonton, want the third. The fourth one is empty.”
One more piece of bread for the road, unless there was dessert. “Is there any dessert?” I asked, my hand poised over the bread basket.
Fifteen pairs of eyes were looking at me. As always it was an effort to not get lost in the golden-lion ones.
“What?” I said. Did I have butter on my nose? Had I spilled something on myself?
River smiled gently. “You’ve changed.”
My glance quickly went to Reyn’s face, hoping his expression would help me read this situation. He looked thoughtful but was giving nothing else away.
I sat back. “You told me to get a big project.”
“It’s a wonderful project, my dear,” said River. “Don’t misunderstand me. You’re… blossoming, like a flower. I’m enjoying it.”
I looked at her solemnly, my cheeks starting to burn. There it was again: that feeling of anxiousness, of discomfort. “Oh, good,” I said casually, then got up. “That was a great dinner, thanks.” I carried my plate into the kitchen, put it by the sink, and then ran out into the night.
I’m very big on, you know, running out into the night. It usually turns out badly for me. And yet I do it. What an unusual pattern. I should probably look at that sometime.
At least this time I didn’t run far away to the fence by the road, where Innocencio had found me two months ago. This time I ran for the horse barn, because it was warm. Inside it was dimly lit and quiet. Molly, River’s German pointer and Dúfa’s mother, was still settled in one of the empty stalls with her puppies. Her six offspring were nuzzled up next to her in the straw—Dúfa, of course, stuck out like a potato in an apple barrel. Her white, angular form was such a contrast to the fat-bellied, snuggly puppies with soft, spotted gray fur and heads already liver-colored like Molly’s. From here I could see the odd maroon splotch on Dúfa’s side, as if someone had spilled wine on her. I had no idea what Reyn saw in her.
She might feel the same way about me. I
’m not even fuzzy.
Next I slipped past the stall where the devil-chicken was, glancing over to see her wide-awake and staring at me with complete malevolence. I flipped her off, then walked past the horses, which were whuffing quietly, dozing, or munching on hay from their racks. At the end of the aisle was the steep ladder leading up to the hayloft, and I went up it, having to wait a minute at the top to give my eyes a chance to get used to the dark.
Soon I made my way across bales of itchy, dusty hay into a small alcove under the eaves. Far off I heard a rumble of halfhearted thunder, and a moment later the ceiling above me was ringing with raindrops.
It was very cozy.
I lay on my back, looking up at the eaves, hoping they were waterproof.
When would I quit having these panic attacks? When would I be able to deal with whatever emotion came down the pike? I kept thinking I was making so much progress, but then someone would say something or something would happen and I would flip out again, unable to stand being here, being me, being in my skin. Would that ever change?
A tall, dark form suddenly materialized near my feet, and I shrieked, only to see the dim light outlining raggedy gold hair that needed a trim.
“Shh. You’ll wake the whole barn,” Reyn said, sitting on a bale of hay next to me. I sat up, brushing hay off my sweatshirt.
“I didn’t hear you come up.”
His smile was visible even in the darkness. “Yep, I’ve still got it.”
I scowled. “Marauder stealthiness isn’t necessarily something to brag about.”
“I prefer to think of it as Boy Scout caution.”
He wasn’t a big joker, and I couldn’t help grinning.
“I assume you’re not in here to commune with the horses,” he said.
Sighing, I shook my head. “Don’t know why I’m here,” I admitted.
“You just wanted to run.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees and nodded, embarrassed. “Don’t know why.”
He slid off the bale of hay and sat on the floor facing me. “You’re trying to feel your feelings? Is that why the chicken looks so pissed?”