Greer’s got a family event, and Zoe bluntly says,“You must be crazy. I just had my nails done.” She leans in to give me a hug.“Send us before and after pictures, though.”
I spend the rest of the morning in the small backyard, which is weedy and overgrown. But unlike most of the house, there’s nothing so bad about it that I can’t tackle it myself, and it feels good to be out in the sun, slathered as I am with SPF 50, digging out the worst of the weeds that have grown up around the small garden shed that, same as everything else on this property, has potential to be great, but right now falls somewhere between vaguely shabby and completely dilapidated. Once I’ve cleared an entire side, I can picture the bed I’ll dig out along the edge, the lavender or maybe salvia I’ll plant, the cream paint I’ll do the shed in. Maybe I’ll add small shutters on the windows on either side, add window boxes too. Less haunted house, more dollhouse.
But this dollhouse isn’t getting built in a day, and I’m starting to feel a bit like a wilted flower in this heat. Still, I feel good, the accomplishment helping to wear off more of the Ben tension I’d felt this morning. Tomorrow will befine, piece-of-cake fine.
I get myself a glass of ice water and take it out to the front stoop, plopping onto the top step in exhaustion. I try to be out here a bit every couple of days, to wave at my new neighbors as they pass by, getting a sense of who’s who on the street. Betty was my neighbor when I lived above the bar, so there was an easy camaraderie. I want that here—the kind of neighbors who’ll watch out for your place but who also might invite you over for a cookout. Things are a bit uneven on my street, sure, with some houses fully renovated and some in grim disrepair, but since my place is on the grim side of things right now, I don’t judge.
So far I’d met three different homeowners, including Jeff and Eric, across the way, whose house looks as if it was redone for one of those HGTV shows. It’s both perfectly current and perfectly historical. When their front door opens and Jeff steps out onto his porch, he gives me a friendly wave and I smile back, warmed by even this small cordiality, this growing sense of my place here. But the feeling cools when I see a tall, broad figure step out from behind Jeff, who turns back to shake the man’s hand.
Ben Tucker’s hand.
Well,shit, I think, standing too fast from where I’m sitting, my water sloshing a bit over the top of the glass to land on my feet. My street is narrow, so my abruptness is enough to catch his eye, and when he looks across the way at me, there’s a few seconds where we’re just staring at each other, that weirdness that happens when you see someone out of context, like running into a teacher at the movies. But then I see a broad smile spread across his face, and my stomach flutters in answer.
He and Jeff exchange a few more brief words, Jeff giving Ben a firm pat on the shoulder before Ben heads down the steps. I think for a minute that he might get into the truck that’s parked out front, but instead, he tucks his hands into his pockets, glancing quickly down the one-way street before crossing to me. He stays on the sidewalk, though, looking up at me, a sheepish quirk to his mouth.“Fancy meeting you here,” he says.
“You’re not following me, are you?” I say, and his eyes widen immediately, his smile dropping.
“No. God, no. Sorry—I delivered some stone to Jeff and Eric this morning. They’re customers. I swear to you. I’m not—”
I smile down at him, charmed by his sudden concern.“It’s okay. Small world, though, or else your salvage yard gets around.”
His shoulders slouch in relief.“We do all right. These older neighborhoods, we get to a lot. And I went to high school with Jeff.” He nods up at the house.“So this is your place, yeah?”
I look back at it, stupidly, like I’m checking to see if it’s still there, or if I’m at the right address. But really it’s just me trying to make sense of how my house must look to Ben. Probably not good. I think of Zoe’s shithole-to-ten scale. I am still definitely at a four.“Yep,” I say, turning back to him, conveying a confidence I don’t really feel. I try to redirect.“How’s everything? Your dad, and…that kid?”
“Oh,” he says, looking a little surprised I’ve asked.“They’re okay. My dad’s busting my balls, of course. You saw a bit of that.” I have to laugh a little at the way he says this, the genial embarrassment he has at his father’s teasing.“And the kid—his name is River—he’s around. My dad’s making him work off his debt at the salvage yard.”
“Really?” I’m more glad than I thought I’d be to hear this. The boy’s pale, stricken face had come back to me more than a few times since Thursday.“That’s—that’s really good.”
“It’s really good for him, probably. It’s not so good for me, since I can barely get him to say four words sequentially. I think on Friday he called me ‘mister,’ but maybe sarcastically? He makes me feel like I’m a hundred years old.”
I snort.“That’s a teenager for you, I guess.”
“This is…” He pauses, looks up again at the house, then restarts.“This is a really beautiful place.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.“It’s not beautiful now, but it will be.”
“You forget that I have a unique appreciation for old things,” he says.“It’s in my blood.”
Ben is wearing almost the exact same thing I saw him in on Thursday: t-shirt, dark blue this time, faded jeans slung low on his hips, a brown leather belt that’s so worn I can see cracks along the edge from where I stand, and shit-kicking worker’s boots that are covered in dust. He’s got a ball cap on, low over his eyes, his dark blond hair curling with sweat around the edges.
“Would you want to see inside?” I blurt, and then, in my mind, I dump the entire glass of ice water I am holding over my head. What iswrongwith me? First I ask him to my lab, now my house? I certainly hope my vagina doesn’t have a mind to issue invitations, but honestly the way Ben looks, it’s not entirely unlikely that she’ll speak up in the next five minutes or so.
His grin should look cocky. It probablyiscocky, but somehow he wears it well, without malice or intention. He looks—pleased, like, what a treat to be asked, what fun to have a crazy almost-stranger invite you into her hot mess of a house to look around. I start to tell him that it’s no big deal, he doesn’t have to, but he’s already opened the wrought iron gate and is coming up the walk, up the steps.“Yeah. I’d love it.”
I turn back to the door and for the first time recall that I am currently wearing a pair of old hiking boots, cutoff shorts derived from my most unflattering pair of jeans, and a Harry Potter t-shirt. My hair’s too short for a ponytail, so before I’d gone outside I’d pinned some of it back with a few old barrettes. My glasses are probably dirty too, so pretty much I look very similar to the way I did on the playground in elementary school.Awesome.
I open the front door and wave Ben in ahead of me so I can quickly remove the offending barrettes. I need a mirror to know if this was a mistake or not, but I do my best to ruffle my hair and make some kind of sense of it.
“Wow,” he says, standing in the living room, his hands set low on his hips. He reaches up to take off his ball cap, runs a hand through his hair. It’s sticking up everywhere, and this comforts me, given that I’m probably rocking something similar.“This is great. Look at this woodwork,” he says, crossing to the fireplace. I’m ridiculously pleased he’s noticed this, because it’s my favorite thing about the house too.
“It needs a lot of work, I know.”
He nods.“Quite a bit on your hands,” he says, but I appreciate that he’s not patronizing me about it. He walks around, peering under windowsills, crouching to look at the back of radiators, reaching up to run his hands along doorframes, the plaster walls. I’m transfixed watching him, how tactile he is, how focused. It’s the hardest thing not to think about what those traits might be like in another context.
I take off my glasses, swipe them quickly on my t-shirt. When I put them back on, he’s standing under the archway between the dining room and living room, hands back on his hips, looking at me.“You do need a lot of stuff for this place.”
“Yeah.Probably going to give your dad a lot of business, huh?”
