CHAPTER FOUR
The stone supplier tried to sell Nadine a problem at eleven fourteen Friday morning. He did it politely. That was how most expensive problems were sold.
“Natural fissure,” Glen said, running his palm over a thin line crossing the quartzite slab. “Part of the character.”
I held a flashlight low against the surface. Light passed through the line in two places.
“That’s not a fissure.”
Glen kept smiling. “We’ve installed from this bundle before.”
“Not in my project.”
Nadine stood a few feet away wearing dark jeans, a camel coat, and a look that said she knew enough to stay quiet until she had all the information. She had spent the last hour walking between rows of stone, touching edges, taking pictures, and rejecting anything that looked too gray.
Glen lowered his voice as if she could not hear him. “I can give your client ten percent off.”
“She doesn’t want a discount on a cracked slab.”
“It’s stable.”
“Then put it in your showroom.”
His smile disappeared.
I turned to Nadine. “We’re not using this one.”
She glanced at the line. “Because it’ll break?”
“Maybe during fabrication. Maybe two years from now. Either way, you’d be paying for a risk you didn’t choose.”
Glen spread his hands. “Every natural stone has risk.”
“Not the same risk.”
I had done business with him for nine years. That did not entitle him to lower my standard when a slab had been sitting too long.
He sighed and looked toward the office. “I have two more from the bundle in the back.”
“You should’ve led with that.”
When he walked away, Nadine stepped beside me.
“You made him mad.”
“He’ll recover.”
“You always send food back too?”
“If it’s wrong.”
“I knew it.”
“What do you do?”
“Eat around it and complain later.”
“That’s inefficient.”
“That’s being raised by a mother who said never embarrass people in public.”
“Your mother was wrong.”
Her head turned. “You just met her in your imagination.”
“She can be wrong there too.”
Nadine laughed and tucked her hands into her coat pockets.
The sound traveled differently in the warehouse.
It echoed off stone and steel, softer than it had in the townhouse.
I had been careful all morning. I kept the conversation on the project.
I explained sealing, fabrication, edge profiles, and why I preferred a mitered island without turning the selection into a lecture.
I gave her space to decide. I did not stand too close when we reviewed samples on her phone. Careful did not mean unaware.
She had a small gold hoop in the upper curve of her left ear.
She chewed the inside of her cheek when she was comparing prices.
She had worn a perfume I recognized but could not name, something warm with orange peel beneath it.
None of that belonged in a project file.
Glen returned with a forklift operator and two slabs on a steel rack.
The first had too much blue. The second had cream, soft brown, and one long vein of green that caught the cabinet sample without matching it. Nadine went still.
“That one,” she said.
I checked the entire face, edges, and backing before I answered.
“It’s good.”
“Just good?”
“It’s stone, not a man.”
“Men get reviewed with less inspection.”
“That explains a lot.”
She gave me a sideways look. “You got jokes today.”
“One.”
“I’ve counted three.”
“You’re generous.”
We reserved the slab and arranged a template date. When Glen brought the invoice, the price was higher than the first slab. Nadine read it before signing.
“This one is twelve percent more.”
“It’s a premium selection,” Glen said.
“It came from the same bundle.”
He blinked. I looked at him. He corrected the invoice. Outside, a cold wind moved through the industrial yard. Nadine zipped her coat and stared at the paper in her hand.
“You were gonna say something,” she said.
“You did.”
“I learned from the cabinet contract.”
“You read before that.”
“I read. I didn’t always challenge.”
“Why not?”
She looked toward the rows of warehouses across the road. “Because sometimes peace costs less than being right.”
“That doesn’t sound like peace.”
“No. It sounds like a woman trying to get through dinner.”
She folded the invoice and put it in her purse. I should have let the conversation end there. She had answered more honestly than I expected, and I did not have a right to use that honesty as a door.
Instead, I said, “My ex-wife used to say silence was my favorite way to win an argument.”
Nadine looked at me. “Was she right?”
“Usually.”
“Damn.”
“I didn’t say I was proud of it.”
“How long were you married?”
“Fourteen years.”
“Children?”
“Milan.”
“That explains why she talks to you like she’s correcting a floor plan.”
“She’s been doing it since she could speak.”
Nadine smiled. “Why’d the marriage end?”
The question came without the false casualness people used when they wanted personal information but did not want responsibility for asking. I respected that.
“I kept thinking providing was the same as being present,” I said. “By the time I understood the difference, my wife was done teaching it.”
Nadine’s expression did not turn soft or sympathetic.
“Did you cheat?”
“Hell no.”
“Hit her?”
“No.”
“Spend money you didn’t have?”
“No.”
“Then fourteen years ending over silence sounds dramatic until you’ve lived with somebody who can make you feel alone in the same room.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged one shoulder. “I know that trick.”
“My ex remarried eight years ago. She’s happy.”
“You okay with that?”
“I wasn’t invited to approve it.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “That was almost healthy.”
“Don’t insult me.”
She laughed again, and this time I let myself watch. A horn sounded from the loading lane. We stepped closer to the building.
Nadine checked the time. “I need to get back across the bridge before my one o’clock call.”
“You have time to eat.”
“I can eat at my desk.”
“That’s not food. That’s punishment.”
“You don’t even know what I brought.”
“You didn’t bring anything.”
“How do you know?”
“You asked if the showroom had coffee and bought crackers from the vending machine.”
She looked offended. “Those were peanut-butter crackers.”
“Still not lunch.”
“There’s a diner two minutes from here,” I said. “We can review the revised cabinet elevation while we eat.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Is this something you do with every client?”
“I eat with clients when the schedule requires it.”
“Does the schedule require pancakes?”
“It’s eleven forty-five.”
“Pancakes don’t care.”
That was how we ended up in a booth at a diner with cracked red vinyl seats and a waitress who called both of us baby. Nadine ordered pancakes, turkey sausage, and coffee. I ordered eggs and toast.
“So you judge my coffee and eat the saddest breakfast available,” she said.
“I didn’t judge your coffee.”
“You called it water.”
“You called it water.”
“You agreed.”
The waitress poured coffee and told us our food would be out soon. I set the cabinet plans between us. Nadine studied the elevation, then moved one of the pendant lights with the tip of her finger.
“These feel too close.”
“They’re centered over the island.”
“But if somebody tall sits here, won’t the light be in their face?”
“That depends how tall.”
She looked at me. I looked back.
“Move them three inches,” she said.
“Done.”
“You’re not gonna argue?”
“You’re right.”
Her brows rose. “You say that easily.”
“When it’s true.”
She sat back. “Terrence would rather swallow a battery than say I was right without adding something.”
“I’m not Terrence.”
The words came out flatter than I intended. Nadine’s fingers stopped on the plan.
“I know,” she said.
The air shifted.
I reached for my coffee. “You shouldn’t have to compare every man to him.”
“I don’t.”
“You compared me twice today.”
“That’s not every man.”
“It’s been two days.”
“Are you keeping score?”
“No.”
“You take notes.”
“On the project.”
Her mouth curved. “Convenient.”
The food arrived before I could answer.
We ate and reviewed the plan. She asked to widen the aisle near the pantry because Asha liked to sit on the floor when they cooked together.
She wanted one deep drawer for her mother’s cast-iron skillet.
She refused a built-in wine rack because, in her words, “I don’t need my kitchen monitoring my drinking. ”
Each choice told me something about how she planned to live there. Not perform. Live. When the waitress brought the check, I picked it up. Nadine reached across the table and took it from my hand.
“This is not part of the construction budget.”
“I asked you to eat.”
“You framed it as a project meeting.”
“It was.”
“Then Mercer Row can reimburse you for your eggs. My pancakes are personal.”
I watched her place her card on the check.
“You always split everything this clean?” I asked.
“Now I do.”
There was more behind it, but she had given enough. I let her pay her half. Outside the diner, we stood beside our vehicles. Her SUV was parked three spaces from my truck.
“You know,” she said, “I expected you to drive something newer.”
I looked at my ten-year-old black Ford. It was clean, maintained, and paid for.
“It starts.”
“So does a lawn mower.”
“Can your SUV carry twelve-foot trim?”
“No.”
“Then stay humble.”
She laughed and opened her door.
“Nadine.”
She looked back.
“The cabinet color was the right choice.”
“I know.”
The answer surprised both of us.
Her smile came slow. “See? I’m learning.”
She drove away. I stayed in the parking lot longer than necessary. At the office, Milan was standing over the conference table with material boards spread around her. She looked up when I walked in.
“Did Mrs. Bellamy pick the stone?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Verde trace quartzite. Slab B-17.”
She nodded. “Good. The green line will pull from the cabinets.”
I took off my coat. Milan watched me.
“What?”
“You said Mrs. Bellamy on Tuesday.”
“She has a first name.”
“So do all our clients.”
I set the revised plan on the table. “Move the pendants three inches toward the sink wall.”
“Why?”
“Sightline.”
“Nadine’s tall?”
I looked at her.
Milan smiled. “Just checking the project notes.”
I went into my office and closed the door.
On my desk sat a framed picture from Milan’s college graduation.
Beside it was a small brass model house my former wife had given me when I opened Mercer Row.
The note that came with it had said, Build better than we did.
For years, I had read that as an accusation.
Eventually, I understood it was advice.
My phone lit with a message from Nadine.
The revised invoice just came through. Correct price. Thank you.
I typed, You corrected it.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then returned.
Still. Thank you for not letting me get played.
I stared at the screen.
There were several safe responses.
That’s my job. No problem.
You’re welcome.
I typed, Nobody gets to make decisions in your house without you.
I read it once, knew it was more personal than necessary, and sent it anyway.
Her reply came a minute later.
I’m starting to believe that.
I set the phone face down. The problem with boundaries was not knowing where they belonged. It was knowing exactly where they belonged and wanting to step over them anyway.