I slowly walked back inside, the rain soaking through my sweatshirt.
“Well?” Cassie asked. “Is he going to fix the water?”
“Looks like it,” I said.
A few hours later we had hot water. “Thank you,” I said to Jason as I turned on the tap and felt the heat on my fingers. “It’s wonderful!” A few tears squiggled out of my eyes. Hot water! Praise be. I paid him the thirty dollars, and he hauled away the old machine, saying that if he would scrap it for us. I wanted to hug him but he was already looking at me like I was nuts.
My phone was buzzing when I came inside. “Hello?”
“Hi,” a deep voice answered me.
I sat down at the kitchen table with a plunk. “Hi, Luke.”
“I’m just calling to let you know that Danny Bob decided to ditch Michigan and is headed for Nashville to become a country music star. I think he has what it takes.”
“Well, we’ll miss him, and I hope when he makes it big he’ll remember the woman who went back to find him when Charlie left him in McDonalds.”
Luke laughed. “How could he forget you?”
Seriously, I glowed. “How is New York?”
“Grey,” he sighed. “Dirty.”
“That fun?”
“That fun. What’s new with you?” he asked.
“Well, I have good news. Guess what? We have hot water!” I told him.
“That is good news.”
“Jason, the dad from the swim meet, just installed a new waterheater. For thirty dollars!”
“That’s awesome.”
“It’s more than awesome. There is hot water literally pouring out of the faucets. This is honestly one of the best days of my life,” I told him.
“It doesn’t take much to make you happy.”
“Try showering for a few days with blue lips and see how happy hot water makes you!”
“I’ll pass on that.”
Luke told me more about what he was doing in New York, and I told him about nosy Mrs. Ferber. He agreed that she should MYOB, then asked, “And what does that mean?”
“Um, duh, Mind Your Own Beeswax. Were you not in second grade? Do I need to teach you how to make a cootie catcher too?”
Luke’s laughter made my heart race. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the important parts,” he explained.
I checked the clock and remembered Cassie’s advice from long ago: hang up first! “I have to go start dinner,” I told him.
“It was good to talk to you,” Luke said, then paused. “I wish I were there instead of here.”
“Oh, really?” I was floating off my chair.
“Really. Unfortunately, Em, I’m going to have to stay in New York for a while.”
“Oh.” I came down from the clouds.
