“I haven’t even turned it on since I arrived. I wonder what he wants.”
“Call and find out,” he suggested.
“Okay, if you don’t mind. The coffee will be ready in a couple of minutes.”
She reached for the kitchen phone and punched in the numbers. She asked to speak to the professor, but he was in class. She gave the local phone number for him to call.
“That told me nothing,” she said when she poured the coffee into two mugs. “Do you take anything in yours?”
“No, I like it black and hot.”
She set the mug in front of him and sat across the table.
“Tell me about some of the other buildings you’ve worked on,” she said.
“What brought that on?”
“I was thinking of how you knew how to do everything with that barn, from the roof to the stalls to framing. I noticed others checked with you as if you were the boss or something.”
“Something. I’ve built a few buildings in my time.”
“Working your way around America.”
He nodded, sipping the hot coffee and looking at her. Her voice was borderline too soft to hear. He really had to concentrate, but that was no hardship. She looked bright and rested today. He still thought she should put on a few more pounds, she was thinner than any woman he knew. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes a bright blue, as if the sun-kissed color in her face enhanced them. A few more days in the sunshine and she’d stop looking like she just got out of a hospital or something.
“So is that how you make a living, building things?”
“You could say that.”
She waited a moment, then took a sip of her own coffee.
“Do you play an instrument?”
He shook his head. “Someone has to be the audience.”
She smiled at that. “Will you come to the festival?”
“I’ll probably be there part of the time.”
The part where she played. He didn’t hear well enough at the outdoor concerts to stay long. But he’d get a front row seat to hear her.
“I listened to a song last night that I had a hard time understanding the words. It was a ballad and sounded like half the words are ones I don’t know.”
“Probably old English. There are a few sad songs sung that harken back to the early days.”
“So can anyone translate for me so I know what they’re saying?” she asked.
He thought a moment.
“Webb Francis. Gina. My granddad.”
“Your grandfather? Does he play an instrument?”
“No. But he had a terrific voice. Used to sing at all the festivals. Hasn’t in the last twenty years or so, but he knows all the songs.”
“Why did he stop?”
“He had a falling out with the woman in charge of the festival that year. Never went back.”
