“So it was mostly me and Puff, because Puff’s got the artist’s eye. But it was Snowy’s idea that we should remodel the basement space with a stage. And then she found a used karaoke set for saleonthe island, and Boyd offered to buy it for us right then. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Oh yeah, wonderful for Boyd, Tom thought sourly, who’d gotten to spend the day with Tom’s wife while Tom got stung by bees and ghosted by roofers.
“Puff and Snowy?” Tom asked, shoving away his jealousy.
“Two of Boyd’s groupies. I decided to put them to work as long as they’re lurking on my lawn making fancams or whatever.”
“I don’t suppose those are the two Michelangelos who drew me in a three-way with Boyd and a hockey stick?”
Rosie blinked several times in astonishment before recovering. “You know…I didn’t ask what the story was about? Ahockey stick? Wait, don’t tell me any more. They’re entitled to their hobbies.”
“But do I need to have a talk with Boyd?” he wondered.
“About?”
“The girls,” Tom said warily. “And their pornographic hockey dreams. Like, for liability reasons.”
“Oh! No. Not at all. He was very professional with them.” Rosie gave Tom a chiding look. “He’s so nice, Tom.”
“Of course,” Tom said. Because, sure, Boyd was very nice. He was just a movable disaster.
“And he’s afraid you don’t like him anymore.”
“I like him just fine,” Tom insisted. He’d worked with worse people, even if Boyd was the only one who’d almost gotten him drowned.
“And he looks up to you.”
“Me?” Tom laughed. “What, he’s impressed by my many credits in the chorus? The cereal commercial I shot five years ago?”
Rosie shoved him with her shoulder. “No, you know. You’ve been in theater your entire adult life. And he’s just started. He never had any formal training at all. So, like, you could be conscious of that when you talk to him—don’t be too hard on him. Don’t yell. I think you hurt his feelings this morning.”
Tom snorted. “You think that just because I read some Brecht fifteen years ago, I’m in a position of authority overBoyd Kellagher?”
“No, I just—give him a chance,” Rosie said, eyes wide and sincere. “He really wants to do something nice for you. He knows you both could have died.”
“Huh,” Tom said noncommittally. “So did he actually help today, then?”
“Mm,” Rosie agreed. She settled into a more comfortable position as the TV turned to a montage of the current season. And then she launched into a convoluted explanation of her design dreams for the basement pub. She imagined the space lightened, brightened, set up to accommodate wedding receptions or anniversary parties, with a small stage for a four-piece band or karaoke performances. She alluded to a mood board and a new business plan.
It sounded like an awful lot of work to Tom, who still didn’t have the roof situation under control, but Rosie was glowing and hopeful in the way she described it, and, God, at some point she’d stopped looking like that, even though this was his favorite Rosie of all Rosies: Rosie on a mission.
She halted in the middle of a lengthy exposition on the pros and cons of various flooring materials and seemed to catch herself monologuing, or maybe she’d caught the force of Tom’s besotted, bittersweet attention.
“Um, so,” she said. “I think I can make it work with the budget since Boyd’s buying the sound system. Which is amazing of him. We should get him a thank-you card.”
“Okay,” Tom gracelessly agreed.
He thought he would have liked buying things for Rosie, if he’d ever been anything but broke, but then it occurred to him that he actually did have a gift today.
“On the subject of presents,” he said, standing up and lifting his eyebrows.
He fished in his backpack and offered a Tupperware to her.When she was slow to accept it, he knelt next to her and made more of a flourish to present it.
“Um.” She hesitantly opened the lid. “Oh no. Did you pull that out of the walls?”
He had a whole entire honeycomb in the bowl, shaved by the bee lady so that it oozed raw honey. Tom stuck his finger into the goop and then obnoxiously sucked it clean just to make Rosie shriek.
“You know those bees ate nothing but trash for months,” she squealed, scooting back. Tom followed her onto the love seat. Something about the jerky way she’d scrambled away triggered memories.
