Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brittany texted me back early the next morning. You want me to lend my sander to the guy who crushed your heart back in January?
Yes, I said.
The one who made you feel humiliated and ashamed?
He’s INCREDIBLY responsible. He’ll return it to you in better shape than he receives it.
It took more than a minute for her to respond. Her disapproving sigh was audible. Fine.
She left it on her porch along with a Ziploc filled with sanding pads, and I picked them up on my way to Macon’s.
Another breakfast was waiting for me on the table when I arrived: oatmeal swirled with blackberry compote and topped with toasted almonds.
The cabinets had already been emptied and drawers pulled out, and their contents were separated into tidy piles in the dining room.
Edmond was batting around a small whisk that clanked against the baseboards.
“Sorry,” I said, catching an overripe whiff of myself. “I should have worn something else.” I’d put the Colburn County shirt back on because it was the one I always used for hard labor, but clearly I should have christened a second work shirt.
Macon was wearing the plain black shirt I’d seen him gardening in. “I promise I only smell you a little.”
I buried my head in my hands.
“Would you like to borrow something?” He sounded uncomfortable even as he offered it.
“That’s okay. I’ll just stink.” I was still in a mindset where the best option in any situation was to wallow in my own misery. Besides, the thought of wearing his clothing discomfited me, too.
I tried to keep some distance between us as we washed the breakfast dishes, but it didn’t take long for me to give up. Caring took too much effort, and he didn’t like me that way anyway, so whatever. What was I even doing here?
“Are you okay?” he asked. Apparently, my vibes weren’t great, but it looked like he was beating himself up, too. “I shouldn’t have asked you to help. I put you on the spot last night.”
“Hey, no. I want to help.” When he gave me a skeptical look, I said, “I literally have nothing else to do right now. Not a single thing on my calendar until my sister’s wedding.”
He scrutinized me harder.
“Too honest?”
“No.” His gaze dropped as he picked up the drill on the counter. “Do you know how to use one of these?” He didn’t mean it in an insulting way. He knew enough about me to know that I’d probably never had a reason to use one. He was correct, and I shook my head.
“I think you might enjoy it this morning,” he said.
Soon I understood. Drilling was loud and aggressive.
I was a quick student, and it was satisfying to be the one making a racket.
After I removed the first few screws, he left me to it and moved outside to figure out the sander.
I joined him when I was finished. He was watching a tutorial on YouTube.
“I think I’ve got it,” he said uncertainly.
“I’m sure we can figure it out,” I said.
He glanced at me, and I almost expected him to point out the boost of confidence that the drill had just given me. But he simply took me in and then returned his attention to the task at hand. And with a little trial and error, we did figure it out.
It turned out, though, that sanding was the terrible part of the terrible job.
Finally I said, “Fuck this. They’re your cabinets,” and stormed back inside.
I used sandpaper to scuff up the paint on the cabinet frames and listened to a novel about women who become so enraged that they turn into actual dragons.
We worked until lunchtime—he’d prepared vegan banh mi—and then continued all afternoon. We were only two-thirds of the way done when it was time for me to leave.
Macon removed his safety goggles and mask. “At least let me order a pizza to thank you.” From the neck down, he was coated in a thick layer of chalky white dust.
“You’ve been feeding me all weekend,” I said, turning off the faucet. I was so tired that I’d nearly nodded off as I bathed my arms in his sink again. And then, “You order pizza?”
“Sometimes I think you believe I’m not human.”
I stared at him.
“No chain restaurants, vegetable toppings only, and I compost the box,” he said angrily.
At last, I smiled. Although I was tempted, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stay awake long enough for the food to arrive. “Maybe next time,” I said.
It was the first night all year that I fell asleep easily and slept deeply.
That week at work, Macon kept me updated on his progress.
He was still sanding late into the night, but he could only do so much given the upkeep his garden required.
He spoke with such restraint that I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to come over and help.
My evenings were restless, and I began to long for the distraction of physical labor.
On Saturday, he returned Brittany’s sander and the extra pads. Every crevice had been wiped clean, and the cord was neatly wrapped. Then he casually-but-not-casually mentioned that he was ready to start painting. Finally, he was fishing for assistance.
“I can help!” I said. Too eagerly, perhaps. By the way he appraised me, it was clear I’d given something else away about myself. I just wasn’t sure what.
“Okay,” he said, “but you have to pick the paint color.”
“You still haven’t decided?”
“Not my strong suit. Obviously.”
“White it is.”
“Great,” he said. But then a minute later, “You said yellow was the more interesting choice.”
“For me. But I would never stick you with an all-yellow kitchen. What if you hated it? Or wanted to sell your house?”
He looked offended. “I don’t want to move.”
“Good. You shouldn’t. Your house is amazing.”
“So… white.”
“It’s classic,” I said.
A fifty-something man with a pinched mouth entered the library, and we stopped talking.
It was the patron with our favorite name, Ken Fondness.
Ken Fondness spoke as little as possible and was one of the Old Boat Guys, a small but staunch group of men who only checked out historical naval fiction by Patrick O’Brian and C.
S. Forester. They would plow through one series, then the other, and then start back at the beginning.
I once made a pirate joke, and Ken Fondness blew up at me because pirates were not a laughing matter and he was sick of Hollywood portraying them as lovable antiheroes.
After that, he exclusively went to Macon’s side of the desk.
Macon pulled his holds from the shelf—Ken Fondness always had two books on hold—and placed holds on the next two.
Ken Fondness was nearing the end of the Horatio Hornblower series and was about to return to the Aubrey-Maturin series, which he preferred.
(Old Boat Guys always preferred O’Brian.) Ken Fondness nodded his thanks, Macon nodded back, and Ken Fondness exited the building.
“He’s so sad that he couldn’t join the Royal Navy,” I said with a hand over my heart.
“How many knots do you think he can tie?” Macon asked.
“He absolutely has a poster of sailing knots framed on his wall at home.”
“I hope that when he retires, he’ll be able to move to the coast.”
“I bet he would be a great lighthouse keeper.”
“ I would be a great lighthouse keeper,” Macon said.
It was true, and it delighted me to imagine him as a salty, grizzled old fellow polishing the lens to keep the boats safe.
The phone rang, and I answered. It was another regular, a woman I knew only by voice.
She’d had another unsettling dream and wanted me to look up what an owl sitting on a saguaro cactus meant in one of our dream dictionaries.
By the time we decided that her prickliness toward others might be preventing her from gaining new wisdom, I’d long forgotten what Macon and I had been discussing.
“But white is safe, right?” he said.
“She said the owl was tawny.”
“My cabinets. Painting them.”
“Oh.” I slammed the dictionary closed. “Yeah. But don’t you want safe? Although matching the cabinets to the walls is safer than it sounds. It’s also a classic look.”
Macon yanked the pen out from behind his ear and threw it at me.
I followed him to the hardware store after work and was selecting the correct brushes for the job, debating between the cheaper brand (cheaper!) and the more expensive brand (longer lasting!), when I overheard him tell the clerk at the paint counter, “One gallon of eggshell in Rise and Shine.”
I leaned back, met his eyes, and widened mine.
He shrugged.
I let the brushes swing back into their display and hurried over.
“It’s what you would pick,” he said defensively. “And I asked for your opinion.”
Giddiness washed over me. “Rise and Shine in satin,” I told the clerk. “Not eggshell.” And then I explained to Macon, “A little gloss in the finish will make them easier to clean.”
Another shrug, but this one was accompanied by a hint of a smile. “You’re in charge.”
I hadn’t been in charge of anything in a long time. I returned to the brushes and then handed him the sizes we needed in the expensive brand. They were the better value because I knew he would take good care of them.