Chapter 4—Simon #2
“I was trying to determine whether I’d accidentally become a stalker.” I shift slightly. “I did some reading.”
Her amusement deepens. “Some?”
“I wanted to understand what you do.”
“So you studied my website closely enough to memorize things I may or may not have said.”
I groan. “When you phrase it that way, it sounds worse.”
“That’s because it is...and still funny.” She returns to the escritoire, still smiling. “How much reading are we talking about?”
I consider lying and decide I’ve already embarrassed myself enough that another inch won’t matter. “Your website. The Wexler Museum piece. Two interviews.”
Christa looks over her shoulder. “Two?”
“One was short.”
“Ah. Completely reasonable, then.” The smile lives in her voice.
I nod solemnly. “I thought so.”
She begins consolidating one of the lifted areas, explaining enough for me to follow without turning the process into a lecture. The adhesive she’s using smells faintly different from what I expected.
“Hide glue?” I ask.
Christa’s hand stops.
I immediately know the browser history has betrayed me without even being visible.
Slowly, she looks up. “Excuse me?”
I point toward the small pot beside her. “Hide glue.”
“Yes.”
I nod as though identifying it is perfectly normal.
Her eyes narrow. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve encountered glue before.”
She snorts. “Not that glue.”
“You’re very judgmental about my adhesive experience.”
Christa puts down the tool in her hand. “Simon.”
I should lie but don’t. “I researched that too.”
Her expression shifts toward disbelief. “How much?”
“Define much.”
“You already admitted to two interviews.”
“Reversibility too.”
Her eyebrows climb.
“French polishing too.”
She seems intrigued. “Why?”
“I wanted to understand what you were talking about.”
For once, she doesn’t joke. She looks at me for several seconds, and the humor in her face softens into appreciation.
The reaction makes me uncomfortable in an entirely different way.
“Nobody does that,” she says.
“I’m sure people research.”
“Clients don’t. Not usually.” Christa looks back at the escritoire and adjusts one of the weights holding the veneer. “They ask me to explain it, then forget by the next visit.”
I frown. “I don’t like asking questions I could answer myself.”
She stares at me for a second. “That sounds more like you.”
I smile. “You know me well?”
Her hand pauses again as though she’s thinking it over. I didn’t mean it as a challenge. Christa glances toward me. “Charla talks.”
Right. I stifle the urge to scowl. I lean against the worktable, careful not to touch anything she’s using. “I’m beginning to understand the scale of that problem.”
“You have no idea.”
“I may have some idea.”
Her lips twitch.
I choose my next words carefully. “Has she always been persistent?”
Christa gives me a look that suggests the adjective is inadequate. “Since birth.”
I grunt. “That must have been difficult.”
“Being her twin?” She considers it while adjusting the lamp. “Sometimes. Mostly when people thought being identical meant we were interchangeable.”
Something in the answer catches my attention. Not because she sounds wounded. Instead, it’s more like tired.
“You’re not.”
Christa looks at me.
I don’t elaborate, but she clearly understands.
She turns back toward the escritoire after a moment. “No, we’re not.”
The room quiets. I watch her work rather than trying to fill the silence.
Five minutes later, she hands me a pair of nitrile gloves.
I look at them. “Promotion?”
“Probation.”
I put them on. “What am I allowed to do?”
Christa gestures toward a small tray containing several brass screws. “Those need to be kept in order. Each one goes back exactly where it came from.”
I nod once. “I can manage screws.”
“I’ve heard men say that before.”
I stare at her.
She looks innocent before a giggle escapes.
I laugh so hard I have to put the tray down. “That was deliberate.”
She nods without evidence of regret. “Completely.”
“You’ve been waiting to use it.”
Her grin widens. “About thirty seconds.”
“Impressive restraint.”
“I thought so.” She gives me the screws and shows me how she wants them arranged.
I do exactly as instructed. For the next hour, I become unpaid labor in my own house and enjoy it far more than I should.
Christa shows me how to label removed hardware, how to support a drawer without putting pressure on one damaged corner, and how to hold the light while she examines an old repair inside the case.
I ask questions, and she answers them. Sometimes she makes fun of me. Occasionally, I deserve it.
At one point, I angle the light too high.
Christa squints. “Unless you’re attempting to interrogate me, lower that.”
I immediately adjust it. “Sorry.”
“Better.”
“Do you always bully clients?”
Her chuckle is throaty. “Only the ones who prove trainable.”
“I knew that would come back to haunt me.”
Her smile is quick. “You volunteered the information.”
The easy rhythm between us becomes dangerously natural. That thought arrives without warning.
I step back while she changes position and force myself to remember the obvious. Christa is married.
I know nothing about the state of that marriage beyond what I observed Friday, and observations made across a ballroom don’t entitle me to conclusions. Wanting her doesn’t change the rules, so I keep my distance when she crouches beside me.
I don’t touch her when she reaches across me for a tool. I try to ignore the citrus scent of her shampoo when it wafts my way. It smells light and clean, not like the heavier scents many women in our circle use.
I don’t tell her that I moved two meetings today because I wanted to be here. I guess I have some sense of self-preservation remaining.
I ask about wood because it’s safer. “What made you choose conservation?”
Christa sits back on her heels and looks toward the escritoire. “My grandmother.”
That surprises me. “Really?”
“She collected old furniture. Nothing on your grandmother’s level, but she loved pieces with history.” Christa removes her gloves and flexes her fingers. “When I was twelve, she bought a damaged sewing table at an estate sale and let me help clean it.”
“At twelve?”
Her lips twitch. “She had poor judgment.”
“I respect her already.”
Christa smiles. “She made me read for three days before she’d let me touch it.”
“Less impressive.”
“Then she stood over me the entire time making sure I didn’t ruin anything.” Her expression warms with the memory. “I loved it.”
“Because you fixed it?”
She considers the question. “Because I could see what somebody else had made.”
She looks at the escritoire while she answers.
“The construction, the tool marks, and the places where people used it. The sewing table had this worn patch on one side where someone must have rested her wrist for years. Grandma told me removing that would’ve been like erasing the woman who owned it. ”
I think about the scratches inside my grandmother’s drawer. “That’s why you told me to keep the hairpin marks.”
“Exactly.”
I nod slowly.
Christa studies me for a moment. “You really are interested.”
“I told you.”
“I thought you were being polite.”
I shrug. “I’m rarely that committed to politeness.”
She laughs.
I probably shouldn’t be proud of how easily I can make her do that now.
Her phone vibrates against the worktable. She glances at the screen, and the smile disappears. Not dramatically, but it’s gone.
I look away before she notices me noticing.
Christa picks up the phone and reads whatever is there. She stiffens slightly before typing a short response.
“Tate?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She looks up.
I immediately regret it. “Sorry. None of my business.”
“It was Tate.” She places the phone face-down. “You’re right.”
I nod.
That’s enough of a warning. I’m not asking what he wants. I’m certainly not asking why his name erased her smile.
Christa pulls on fresh gloves, I pick up the light again, and we return to work.
A few minutes later, she glances toward me. “You can ask one question.”
I look over.
“About Tate,” she clarifies. “You look like you’re swallowing one.”
I almost laugh. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
She shakes her head. “One question isn’t intrusion if I offered.”
I consider several and reject all of them as too personal or too revealing of what I’m feeling. I can’t let her see the glimmer of hope that I might have a chance. I can’t even let myself think that way. “Does he appreciate what you do?”
She looks stunned. Of all the questions she expected, that clearly wasn’t one. She looks down at the small tool in her hand. “Not particularly.”
The answer irritates me more than it should, but I keep that to myself.
“He thinks it’s a nice hobby that became a business.” She shrugs like that doesn’t bother her. “He’s proud when somebody important recognizes my work, but mostly embarrassed that I work with my hands.”
I look down at them. Her nails are polished but trimmed short compared to the women I know. I want to touch them, to run my thumb along her palms in search of calluses, but I quell the impulse.
She looks down at her hands too. “He made it clear with his yearly Christmas gift of a weekly pass at the manicurist my sister uses.”
I glance toward the escritoire so I don’t say something rude. “He’s an idiot.” Too late.
Christa’s head snaps up. I shouldn’t have said that...except she laughs. Not delicately. She bends forward, one gloved hand braced against her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not.
“No, you’re not.”
“Not especially.”
She straightens, still smiling. “You barely know him.”