By this, she meant the kitchen. Although the house was habitable, it was obvious that nobody had put for the effort toward making ithomey… at least not for a very long time. Some of the things she knew would be longer-term projects. But there were a few she could not live with, specifically in the kitchen.
Very specifically the kitchen sink.
The faucet drip had been driving Eleanor to distraction. It wasn’t quite regular enough for her to tune it out, for every so often it would drip just a little bit faster than it had been before, then it wouldalmoststop, then start again. Drip, drip, drip.
Eleanor had tied a rag around the faucet to at least dampen the noise when, the night prior, she’d realized that she hadn’t taken any of the tools from her old house. This had made sense at the time. They were Brian’s tools, first and foremost. Now she was questioning the logic of that decision.
There was also a shelf propped against the wall in the kitchen, the place where it had previously hung clear from the parallel sets of holes in the wall. One of those holes looked a little… suspect, it was true, but certainly if Eleanor just got the right supports, she could rehang that little shelf, right?
Yes, she told herself. She could.
Feeling youthful and competent, she used her phone to look up some tutorials on YouTube on how to fix a leaky faucet and rehang a shelf. The man who made the videos was a gruff Midwestern grandfather whose accent reminded Eleanor of her late father. She took diligent notes, something she supposed made her seem a littlelesship than her savvy internet research, and left the house with her list in hand, feeling a vague sense of triumph that she hoped wasn’t too premature.
Another quick internet search told her there was a local hardware store, which meant she could shop right here inMagnolia Shore, rather than heading to the big box hardware store that was nearly forty minutes away.Nut and Boltswas housed in a small, unassuming brick building. Its sign was weather worn, although the lettering had clearly been touched up recently, as the paint was crisp and easily legible. When she entered through the front door, a bell jingled overhead. The air smelled of fresh wood and sawdust.
A gruff-looking man with a dark beard and a baseball cap that shaded the rest of his face poked his head out from between the aisles.
“Need help?” he asked shortly.
The question wasn’t necessarily unfriendly, but Eleanor nevertheless felt a pang of insecurity, like she was an imposter for thinking she could fix anything, even a shelf. She squared her shoulders and pushed back the feeling. She was making a new start. If she didn’t figure it out the first time, she’d try again.
“No, thank you,” she said with more confidence than she really felt. “I have things under control.”
The man didn’t reply, merely nodded once and went back to stocking shelves.
A few minutes later, standing in an aisle filled with different sink fixtures, Eleanor was feeling slightly less confident. The video had said she’d need an aerator, but there were several options here. How was she supposed to choose which one to buy? Shecouldask the grumpy proprietor, but she wanted to do this by herself, darn it!
Reminding herself that she could always exchange the item if she’d gotten the wrong one, Eleanor picked the aerator that looked most like the one she’d removed from the dripping faucet at home. She thought the brackets she’d chosen for the shelf were right too, and she’d added several tools to her basket, including a hammer, screwdriver, pliers, and a measuring tape.
Feeling properly handy, she went to the front desk. The shop owner was now fussing with something behind the counter. He’d removed his baseball cap which, Eleanor noticed, revealed a piercing set of blue-green eyes. His rugged beard still covered much of his face, which made it hard to tell his precise age, but she thought he was likely close to her own age. Early forties, perhaps?
She also could not help but notice that he was quite handsome.
She was a little surprised at herself for even having the thought. She had scarcely noticed things like that during the long years of her marriage… and it had only been weeks since her decades’ long relationship had ended! Perhaps, she reasoned, it was a sign that she was starting to mentally adjust to this new phase of life. She liked that idea.
She wondered how he’d look if he smiled. She doubted, however, that she’d get the chance to find out. Something about him radiated coolness. He did not seem like a man who smiled often or easily.
“Find everything you need?” the man asked, arching an eyebrow.
Eleanor realized she’d been staring at him a bit. She cleared her throat hastily.
“Ah, yes, thank you,” she said, removing her items from the basket and laying them on the glass-covered counter. The man looked at her purchases, half general tools, half specific equipment for her task, with a practiced eye.
“Fixing a sink?” he asked. Was she imagining it, or did he sound doubtful?
“Yes,” she said, lifting her chin. “And a shelf.”
His doubtful look only intensified. “And you know how to do that?”
Eleanor felt a prickle of offended pride. Did he think she didn’t know how to fix things because she was a woman? She chose, in that moment, to ignore the fact that she did not really know how to fix many things, not without help from the YouTube gentleman, at least.
“Of course,” she said archly. Then, channeling the man from the video, she added, “I’m reasonably certain that it’s just a cartridge leak, but the aerator that came with the house has seen better days, so I’m replacing it to be safe.”
She hoped that had all sounded right.
“The house? Are you the one who bought that big old house on the corner of Piedmont Street?”
Small towns, Eleanor thought with an internal huff of laughter.
