Chapter 5 #2
“Oh, you would not believe the hassle that was getting this bookshelf,” Eleanor said as Shane oohed and aahed over the intricate carvings that depicted scenes from fairy tales.
“Back and forth and back and forth with the delivery! I was pulling out my hair. And then, right before I was set to open, I get a call. The truck is broken down… two hours away! Luckily, Garrett has a truck, so he helped me haul it back here, and then my friends helped me put it together. Winnie, who I first had some arguments with about permitting stuff, is a total genius at assembly, it turns out.”
“Wait, your permits enemy helped you build the shelf?” he asked absently as he looked at a particularly detailed carving of a tree. Every leaf was done in detail. Remarkable.
“Oh, we’re friends now,” Eleanor said offhandedly. “Water under the bridge. Anyway, Garrett pretends that he isn’t, but he’s a little jealous that he didn’t get to build the showstopper piece after he built…” She scrunched her nose affectionately. “… basically everything else in this place.”
“It’s wild how much it looks like a business,” Shane said appreciatively. “I mean, I know it is a business. Obviously. But it’s hard to imagine that this was just a regular house, what, six months ago?”
Eleanor fluffed her hair jokingly. “What can I say? I’m a home improvement maven now.”
Shane snorted. “Nice try. I was there when you tried to fix the caulking on your bathtub because Brian was too busy at work.” What Shane didn’t add was that Brian, Eleanor’s ex-husband, hadn’t exactly been the ‘handy’ type either.
“Okay, fine,” Eleanor admitted on a laugh. “Garrett is the maven, and I know how to follow instructions.”
“You do?” He feigned shock. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“So,” Shane observed. “You and Garrett seem to make a really good team.”
Eleanor blushed. “Have I been talking about him too much? Sorry, I’m apparently a total schoolgirl these days.”
Shane gave his sister an indulgent smile. “No, it’s sweet. You seem really happy.”
“I am.” She blushed harder.
“And,” he went on, “you two seem like a good team. I don’t want to say bad things about Brian, since I know you guys were good together for a long time before the chaotic ending, but you guys always seemed to have more of a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy going on.
And that totally works for some couples, I know…
but this seems to make you a lot happier. ”
“Yeah,” she said dreamily. “It really does. He really does. I mean, I never thought that I would ever even consider getting married again, but…” She trailed off, a fierce blush crossing her cheeks.
Shane had always felt a little left out as a child, as the only member of his and Eleanor’s immediate family who wasn’t a redhead, but he had to allow, looking at her now, that there were some upsides to having been gifted his comparatively unremarkable, sandy blond locks.
He didn’t turn the color of a lobster the moment he was embarrassed about something.
Shane didn’t press her this time.
“Right then,” his sister said briskly after she’d taken a moment to compose herself. “Enough about me. What can I do to help you?”
“Oh, nothing specific,” Shane said, offering her a vague sort of wave.
“I think I just need to… be in another place. Just let me hang around for a little while and soak in a way of life that isn’t all deadlines and coding and fighting for the next promotion.
Maybe let me read a few books. You don’t happen to have books, do you? ”
Eleanor sighed sadly. “No. Tragically, I do not have access to any books.” She held her morose expression for a moment longer, then her smile broke back across her face.
“Yes, read anything, obviously. Hang out. See what you want to see. I’d say go to the beach, but it is October, so I don’t think a fragile Californian like you could handle it. ”
“I am from Indiana just like you,” he protested.
He obviously wouldn’t be going to the beach, though. It was October in New England. He wasn’t insane.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Another customer came in, stealing Eleanor’s attention away, so Shane settled into the corner after indeed helping himself to a book.
He whiled away a few hours like this, feeling undeniably weird about not working, then forcing the thought away, before stealing brief moments of actual peace untouched by that nagging feeling.
Eventually, however, the last customers trickled out the door, and Eleanor flipped the sign on the front of her door from Open to Closed.
“Okay,” she said, leaning against the door briefly. “That’s all for today, folks.”
Shane closed his book. “Tell me the truth,” he said. “Do you say that even when I’m not here?”
“Oh, shush,” she chided. “Do you want to see your room or do you want to make fun of me?”
“Can I do both?”
“You cannot,” she said firmly.
“Room, then,” he decided, not without some reluctance.
Eleanor led him through a door at the back of the shop that had a sign that said “Staff Only,” which she had to unlock with the key from her pocket.
“I tried just having the lock, but then people asked me what was back there fifteen times a day,” she explained at his interested look. “Then I tried just the sign, but you’d be amazed how many people simply disregard signs.”
“I work in a client facing industry so, no. I would not be surprised,” he said. “I feel very privileged to get to see behind the curtain.”
They went up the stairs to a quaint little apartment.
It was clear that it had been originally designed as the upstairs floor of a single house, but Eleanor had made it work for her as a standalone living space.
One of the bedrooms had a door removed from the doorway, leaving an open living space with a couch, a television, a coffee table, and an armchair tucked in near the large front window.
The blankets draped over the chair, as well as several paperbacks stacked on a small side table, indicated that this armchair was where Eleanor spent most of her time.
There was a little kitchenette nook next to the living space, then Eleanor’s bedroom. She showed him the bathroom, the little laundry closet with its stacked washer and dryer, and, finally, the bedroom where he would be staying.
“Oh my gosh, Eleanor!” he explained, trying to sound as though he hadn’t been planning this joke all afternoon. “Did you know there are no sheets on this bed? Weren’t you expecting me?”
“Hardy har har. Sheets are in that closet up there,” she said, pointing. “Just for that little bit, you can make your own bed.”
He shrugged. “Worth it.”
As he headed to the closet she’d indicated, Eleanor stepped back toward the door.
“I have to run into town for a few quick errands. Is there anything you need while I’m gone? Specific groceries, toiletries, anything?”
“You have coffee, right?” Shane needed coffee. He might be leaving his tech world behind temporarily, but he’d gone too many years running on fumes to ever risk being without coffee.
“Of course,” Eleanor scoffed. “What do you take me for?”
“Just checking,” he said with a laugh.
With a little wave, Eleanor headed out. Shane took a few minutes to make up the bed, then sat atop the comfortable mattress, the book he had found down in the bookstore in his hand.
He didn’t start reading right away, instead taking a long moment just to sit. He glanced down absently at the tome in his hand.
What was he supposed to do with himself for these next few weeks? Who even was he without his work to organize his days?
Computers had been his identity for so long. Even before his job, that was who he had been: the computer guy. Even as a kid, he had loved computers. He had helped Eleanor learn how to use them. He had built one himself when he had been a teenager, and he’d been so proud.
But it had been a long, long time since he’d found that kind of satisfaction. He had to figure out how to get it back. He had to figure out who he was without his job to keep him going.