Niko
Chapter four
The trick to laying out dovetails is listening to the wood.
It’s already made most of the decisions for you.
The walnut I had on the bench Thursday had a run of straight, tight grain down the middle of the board.
That meant it wanted the tails spaced wide and confident.
I struck my lines with a knife, sawed the first two tails, and settled into my work.
My phone buzzed on the end of the bench.
I finished my cut. The phone buzzed again, then three more times in a cluster, like an insect trapped under glass.
I picked it up.
Max: we’re coming by after his practice. 2ish. box retrieval, ten minutes, in and out
Max: “we” is me and Rafe. keeping you informed. transparency is the foundation of brotherhood
Max: also. before you see this somewhere else, I want to be the one to show you this
He shared a link that connected to a photo. It was last night, outside the restaurant. Max wore his cream coat, and he tucked himself in against a hockey player the size of a barn door. Both were laughing at something. The hockey player had his hand on Max’s waist.
The caption read polite player from the Canadian prairie found himself a Chicago boy. It drew thousands of hearts and likes.
The phone buzzed one more time.
Max: you’re doing the face at your phone right now. the joint you’re working on can feel it. wood holds tension, you told me that
It was ten to one. I had a little over an hour if they arrived at two. I could get the rest of the tails sawn and maybe the waste chopped out of the first corner.
I picked the saw back up.
They arrived four minutes later.
The bell over the door hadn’t finished its first note before I heard Max’s voice.
”—and this is the shop. Yes, it is amazing.
He built half of what you’re about to see.
Act natural.“ He came in walking backward, holding the door with his shoulder, wearing a rust-colored sweater I hadn’t seen before.
“Niko. We’re early. Before you look at the clock, remember time is a human construct. ”
“You said two.”
“Practice ended, and the man was standing there, showered and available. Then the bakery line was short. All the signs pointed towards early arrival. You take the earlier plane when it’s offered.” He moved to the side, and Rafe Mikkelsen stepped forward.
He was tall, with broad shoulders; his complexion fair, with pink across the cheekbones from the cold air outside. He carried a bakery box in front of him with both hands, as if it contained precious jewels.
“Mr. Gregory,” he said. “Thanks for letting us stop by.”
“It’s Niko. The other one’s also Mr. Gregory.”
“Niko.” He balanced the box in one hand and offered the other to shake. “I’m Rafe.”
I shook it. The grip was perfectly firm, not crushing and not limp.
“These are for you.” He held out the box. “Max recommended the cherry ones.”
I looked at my brother.
“He asked what to get,” Max said. “I consulted. That’s what I do. I’m a consultant.”
“Thanks,” I said, and took the box, setting it on the end of the bench.
Rafe stood just inside the door with his hands loose at his sides and looked around the shop. He turned in a slow half-circle. “This is a great space.” It was a compliment delivered with underlying warmth.
“It works,” I said, and went back to the bench.
Behind me, Max picked up the tour without missing a step.
“Okay, so, clamp wall, which is alphabetized.” He laughed.
“It’s not alphabetized. They’re arranged by size, but I tell people it’s alphabetized to see their faces.
” He gestured. “That’s the wood rack. Do not lean on the wood rack.
I leaned on it once three years ago, and I’m still hearing about it. ”
“You knocked over eleven hundred dollars of quartersawn oak,” I said.
“I interacted with it.”
I picked up the saw and checked my line for the third tail. Max pointed out Grandma’s chest. Rafe followed him across the room with unhurried steps on the concrete floor.
“Niko does full restorations. That sideboard by the door is a hundred years old. The client cried a little when he saw it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Rafe said.
“The client’s grandmother rolled dough on it for forty years,” Max said. “Tell him, Niko.”
“You just told him.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Then Max filled the space. “He’s warming up. This is him warming up. You should see him cold.”
I got the third tail sawn. When I looked up to reposition the board, Rafe had drifted to the sideboard, keeping a careful two feet back from it, hands now clasped behind his back like a man at a museum who’s been told to back up by a docent.
Something about him made me itch. He was pleasant, but there had to be more. He had to slip. People always did.
“Okay,” Max announced, clapping once. “Box. The entire reason we’re here.
And while I’m at it, I’m shooting the unboxing.
My followers are in love with the bakery and Rafe, too.
” He was already moving toward a corner shelf, looking for angles with his phone camera.
“This will only take ten minutes. Niko, pretend we’re not here. ”
“I’ve been pretending since you walked in.”
Max pointed at me. “See, people think he’s joking.”
Rafe smiled and moved out of Max’s way. I had tails to saw, but I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at Rafe again. He was reaching for a cherry pastry.
The unboxing only took Max four minutes to shoot, but it took eleven minutes to set up. As directed by Max, Rafe had taken a single bite out of three different pastries before they were done.
“Okay, done,” Max said.
Rafe picked up one of the pastries he’d bitten and enjoyed the rest. He didn’t look at Max. He focused on the pastry.
Everybody watched Max—all the time. He was a professional and excellent at what he did. But Rafe didn’t focus on him. He enjoyed his pastry, and then he glanced at me, and there was a quick once-over I wasn’t supposed to see.
Rafe finished the pastry, and then he looked around the workshop. He rolled his head back and checked out the tin ceiling. It wasn’t a quick sweep. He was exploring the space.
He smelled faintly of a hockey rink. I hadn’t been in one since I was eight, and it came back anyway, the cold-rubber-and-tape smell riding on his jacket. Practice had ended an hour ago, and it was still coming off him.
”—so the box is here now,“ Max was telling his followers, “at an undisclosed secure location—“
Rafe crouched at the wood rack, keeping his hands to himself while he sighted down the length of the bottom slab, the big waney-edged one, reading the line of it end to end. From behind me, with his phone in one hand pointed at his face, Max’s voice ran on, bright and quick.
“And that’s the saga,” Max said, in his own voice again. He shoved his phone into his pocket. “Perfect. Done.” He reached out for his box on the shelf where I’d put it.
They both drifted toward me, and Rafe stood a polite arm’s length back. He looked down at my work: a corner with two tails cut and the test joint sitting dry-fit beside it.
I kept my eyes on my work and waited for the quick compliment—great bench or cool project. Instead, Rafe was quiet for a moment as he looked at the wood.
“How does that hold together,” he asked, “without a single nail?”
“The shape does the work.”
In 99% of conversations about my furniture, that would end the conversation.
Rafe continued. “Right,” he said. He was looking at the test joint, the little dry-fit corner sitting by the vise.
“But that’s the part I don’t get. There’s no glue in that one, right?
It’s just sitting together? So if I pulled on it, what’s actually stopping it from coming apart? ”
I looked at him. “Come here,” I said.
He stepped around the bench. Max didn’t move and watched quietly.
I knocked the corner apart with the heel of my hand and set the two halves on the bench in front of him.
“Tails,” I said, pointing. “Pins. Look at the shape of the tail. Wide at the face, narrow at the base. It’s a wedge.
Now look at the socket it fits into. It’s the same wedge cut backward.
When they’re together, which way can the tail come out? ”
He bent over the bench. One long finger traced the flare of a tail without quite touching it. “The only way is the way it went in. Any other direction, the wedge jams against the socket.”
“So the joint is only weak in one direction.”
“It makes the two boards a perfect fit.” He looked at me and smiled.
“Here.” I fitted the two halves loose and handed him the joint. “Feel it seat.”
He took it exactly how I’d have wanted him to take it.
He held it in both hands, respectful of it, and he pressed the corner home.
Then he pulled it apart and put it back together again.
A man his size, the corner nearly disappearing between his palms, working it apart and back together like he owed the mechanism his full attention.
“It’s tight right at the end,” he said. “The last quarter-inch.”
“That’s the fit. If you try to use two sloppily cut boards, they go together easily and hold nothing. If they’re cut right, the joint can last a hundred years. Wood moves with the seasons, so you’re cutting for a fit that works in July or December.”
“How do you know it’s right? Before you put it together.”
“You don’t the first fifty times.”
He grinned. “We had a grain drill on the farm. Old Massey auger; my dad’s dad bought it.
The gearbox had a tapered shaft, and the whole thing held with the taper.
There was no key or bolt. My dad used to say that work keeps it together.
I was maybe eight years old. I thought he was trying to sound deep.
” He worked the corner apart again, thumb riding the tail.
“He just meant the load seats the taper, same as this. It either fits or it doesn’t. ”
It either fits or it doesn’t. Rafe walked into my workshop and instantly understood my work. That precision was what I loved about wood. It didn’t play with ambiguity.
Max pulled his phone out again and glanced at it. “Oh no, we’ve got to run. I’ve got a meeting, and Rafe, you have your nap and then your thing.”
“Nap and a thing?” I asked.
“The thing.” Rafe straightened up from leaning over the bench. “It’s a team dinner, and the nap, hockey players do that. It’s sort of more training. Six thirty tonight is the dinner. We fly to Denver tomorrow.”
“Denver,” Max said, gathering his coat off a sawhorse. “Altitude. I’ve shot there twice, and both times it caused problems.”
“Varga has a complete plan for the altitude. It’s on the team chat.” Rafe glanced at his phone. “I’ve got forty new messages since practice.”
“About altitude?”
“About one beer working like three.”
“Your team sounds extremely scientific.” Max patted his pockets as if he were missing something. I walked over to the finishing bench and picked his sunglasses up off it, holding them out without comment.
Rafe set the test joint on the bench, squared to the edge. “Thanks for showing me this,” he said. “This place is really something. I can see why Max brags about it.”
The statement was warm, complete, and right. When Rafe first appeared, I wouldn’t have trusted it could be honest. Now, I realized it was him.
He wasn’t lying to me. Every polite word was true.
I said, “Sure. Thank you.”
“Box,” Max said from the door. “The box. The entire purpose of this expedition. I nearly left the box.”
“It’s on the shelf,” I said. “Where it’s been since it arrived.”
Rafe crossed the shop. “I’ve got it,” he said.
Max stood next to me at the door, winding his scarf as we both watched.
“So, Sunday,” he said. “Dinner. Mom and Dad’s. Taco Sunday is confirmed.”
Rafe carried the box over, and they left. Max said something with both hands, and Rafe nodded while Max held the car door for him.
The shop was mine again.
I can see why Max brags about it. There was no crack in Rafe anywhere, no seam you could get a fingernail into. The next thought rattled me. I’d known him for maybe half an hour, and I already missed him.
That was ridiculous.
I picked up my chisel.
My phone buzzed.
Max: told you.