One #2
“I’m Michelle Cooper from Synergy, and this is my team, beginning with Jory Harcourt here on my right, then Lily Chow, Greg Eldridge, and Ellie Whitcomb.”
“Pleasure to meet you all,” he said affably, nodding at the rest of us after releasing Michelle’s hand.
“And you,” Michelle replied, sounding over-the-top cheerful, like one of those late-night life coaches, but I knew this was simply her in hyped-up mode. “Are you ready to have us take over your life?”
“If I say sort of, will you hold it against me?”
“Never,” she apprised him, tipping her head, being comforting, forcing a smile.
It was horrible.
He, of course, invited everyone in, moving out of the way so we could enter.
Inside, Michelle immediately started talking about the positives Mr. Fisher would experience from his partnership with us. We could assure him that … blah, blah, blah …
I ducked around the corner before I fell asleep on my feet.
The sales spiels killed me, as did our boss, Blake Southerlyns, morning kick-off meetings, which was why I made sure to miss them on a regular basis.
I sent others in my place instead, and Blake had told me on a number of occasions, when he found me in the halls later, that I was missed.
I asked him if he wanted me snoring in front of everyone.
He glowered at me, but as of yet, he had not insisted on my presence.
Inside the house, I was astounded at the complete and utter waste of space that it was.
Mr. Fisher could have done anything with his home and had instead chosen to do, as far as I could tell, absolutely nothing.
It could be a refuge, a palace, a sanctuary …
but he had gone with frat house. It was so much more heinous than I could have ever imagined, down to the choice of music that was playing.
Thankful that I had my iPod, I put in my earbuds and got out my digital camera to record the horror that was the man’s home.
I was singing silently along with Eric Clapton, sunglasses up on top of my head, where I had shoved them when we walked in the house, when Michelle and our client joined me half an hour later.
Hayes Fisher was smiling wide.
“What?” I asked, removing the left earbud.
“You’ve got a rock-’n’-roll heart?”
I grinned big. “Yep. How’dya know?”
He nodded. “You were singing along and I love Eric Clapton. Why don’t I have that album?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. As far as I can tell, you don’t have any good music.”
Michelle coughed.
“I’m sorry?” Mr. Fisher’s face fell as he scowled at me.
That fast I had annoyed him. It really was a gift.
I glanced over at Michelle. “I don’t normally talk to clients for this very reason.”
She gave him her best fake laugh as I left the room to take more pictures.
I wasn’t charming. I tended to be blunt, and I always felt that clients needed to know the truth about things.
I had learned it when I worked for my brother, Dane, years ago.
Dane just spoke his mind, and so I did too.
It was a bad habit though, as I was not the architectural god he was.
Dane always told me there were ways to tell people things.
Honesty was sometimes not the best policy.
I needed to learn finesse. I told him if I didn’t already have it, it probably wasn’t going to happen. I was nearly thirty after all.
“Mr. Harcourt!”
I looked over my shoulder at the sound of my name.
“Are you listening to me?”
Of course not.
“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”
“I was trying to!” He sounded so very irritated.
“Why?”
“Why?” he repeated, squinting at me.
“Talk to Michelle or Lily,” I suggested, turning away from him.
But he moved fast, barring my path. “Could you just … could you take those out of your ears so I can speak with you?”
I conceded to one earbud. I left the right one in. “Yeah?”
“Yeah?” He repeated the word irritably.
“Oh. Yes?” Dane hated yeah too. My brother said that yeah was a plague on mankind, sloppy and overused. And he didn’t think he was uptight. “Sorry.”
“What?”
I huffed out a breath. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fisher?”
“What are you doing?”
“With the camera, ya mean?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m detailing the horror, of course,” I replied like it was obvious, adding some snark to my voice for good measure.
“Pardon me?”
I gestured around.
“Do you have something to—”
Michelle tried to break into the conversation. “Mr. Fisher, I think—”
“Mr. Harcourt, you—”
“I’m just taking pictures so the design team can know what they’re up against.”
“Up against?”
“Well, yeah.”
“In what way?”
I gestured around so he’d realize I meant everything.
“You have a problem with my home?”
Michelle chuckled hollowly. “No, he—”
“Yes,” I apprised him, enunciating the word, “I have a problem. It looks like a frat house in here, except it’s clean. No empty beer bottles in sight.”
“Pardon me?”
“It’s incredible what you haven’t done.”
“What?”
“What?” I was confused. I was speaking English—I was just sure of it.
With a dark scowl, brows furrowing, he looked at me.
“Take that, for instance,” I said, pointing.
“It’s a beanbag chair,” he said defensively, rubbing the top of his head. “My friend’s kids love it.”
“Do they?”
“Yes.”
“Well, good. Can you give it to them?”
“What?”
“Jory,” Michelle began, “perhaps Mr. Fisher would like us to create a rec room for the—”
“Just tell us where to send it. I’ll have a courier over here to pick it up today.”
“Mr. Harcourt, you—”
“Christ”—I was in awe, surveying the nightmare—“it’s a mess in here.”
“Could you—”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
Caught off guard, he gulped air and just nodded.
“Do you bring dates here?”
“I—what? Yes.” His voice dropped off as he cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“I will.”
“You will, or you won’t? You don’t sound too certain.”
“What? Yes, of course.”
“Okay.” I smirked at him, widening my eyes, making sure he knew I thought he was nuts. “As long as you’re sure.”
He turned to face Michelle. “Mrs. Cooper, your partner—”
“Mr. Fisher, I—”
I turned my iPod back up so I missed whatever they said to each other as I took in the details—the cinder-block and plywood bookshelves; the milk crates holding his movie collection; the plastic lamp hanging in the living room, the gilded chain that hung from it, down back over the shade, falling to the middle of the floor, where it was then plugged into an orange utility extension cord that was in turn plugged into the far wall.
It was beyond hideous. And then there was the spider plant in the corner.
The only other place I had seen a macramé plant hanger before was in pictures of Sam’s parents’ house from the ’70s.
I thought there was a shot of his mother sitting beside one in the living room.
I turned my camera around and took a picture of just the hanger and then one of me and the plant hanger together—where I was doing my best Vanna White impression—and I emailed it to the project manager, Wade Fujihara.
I got a quick text back and chuckled when I saw it.
He was very confused about where I was—or more precisely, in what time I was.
I had taken the way-back machine to work, he was just certain.
“Jory!”
Realizing that she had been yelling, I took out my earbuds and looked at Michelle. She was right behind me, apparently had been for several moments, and Hayes Fisher was standing next to her.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Harcourt,” Mr. Fisher began sharply, “I—”
“You just moved back here, right?”
“I’m—what?”
“I read that in the profile. You used to live in New York, but you’re originally from here, from Chicago, and you moved back after a horrible divorce ’cause your family’s here, correct?”
“Yes, I—”
“So, most of the crap in here is from the previous owner.”
“No, I—”
“You didn’t make them clean up. You just moved in, yeah?”
“No, this is all my—”
“Oh,” I said, drawing out the word. “Wow, so much for the benefit of the doubt, huh?”
“Mr. Harcourt!”
“Is this about the house, or are we just chitchatting?”
“You—”
“Sorry, you obviously have something to add.” I sighed, even as my mind drifted.
It was why I had stopped going to church when I got old enough to decide for myself.
I had informed my grandmother that I always felt bad because I would be thinking about chocolate chip cookies or something when I was supposed to be thinking about God.
“Do you have any idea how obnox—”
“You know what the coolest thing about driving is?” I asked, giving up for the moment on keeping myself on task.
“What? No, I do—”
“Do you want to know?”
“I—”
“Do you?”
“Mr.—”
“Do you?” I could do this all day.
He took a breath, threw up his hands, and gestured for me to go ahead.
“Okay, so the coolest thing about driving is that if you make an ass of yourself at one light—stall out, roll too far into the intersection, miss the turn light until somebody honks at you, whatever—I mean, it doesn’t matter ’cause by the time you get to the next light, you’re with a whole new group of drivers who don’t know you from Adam.
You’re new. You’re just another asshole in a car who’s drivin’ along, just like them.
I love that. It’s like a do-over at each red light. I wish all of life were like that.”
He was just staring at me.
“Don’t you?” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
His eyes, which were really a lovely shade of sky blue, were fixed on mine.
“So, let’s have a do-over. I’m sorry for insulting your complete lack of interest in your own home, and you will forgive my blunt analysis of your colossal failure. How’s that sound?”
His mouth was open, but nothing came out.
I looked over at Michelle. “I tried.”
She was just staring at me.
Gina Bailey, the only other counselor in the group I was in, knew better than to let me talk to clients. Michelle, apparently, had not gotten the memo. And I had tried to make myself scarce. It wasn’t my fault that the man was following me around.
I had to try and fix it. “Lemme ask you a serious question,” I said, rounding on Hayes Fisher. “Do you or do you not want somebody special in your life?”
“What?”