Rhodes
THIRTY-THREE
Matching Brick: The only true match for a hundred-year-old brick is another hundred-year-old brick, which is why salvage yards exist and why the search can take a season. Anyone can supply brick. Finding the one that belongs is the work.
I’m halfway through explaining to a warehouse supervisor why moving the second load before the first one clears is going to jam his dock when my phone vibrates against the folding table beside me.
I glance at the screen and lose the next word in my sentence. It's Tallulah for the second time in two days.
The first call came late yesterday while I was checking into my hotel in Tampa. It rang once, then stopped before I could answer it. She didn't leave a voicemail or send a text.
I've spent the last eighteen hours trying to decide if that was a butt dial or she meant to call me. A second call tells me it might have been intentional.
“Rhodes?”
I look up.
The supervisor is waiting, one hand resting on the paperwork I was just pointing at. Behind him, a forklift backs out of the building with a warning beep, then swings toward the staging area where the first shipment is still being counted.
“Sorry.” I pick the thread back up. “If you bring the Jacksonville load in before those pallets clear, you’re going to have two carriers waiting on the same doors. Hold the second truck at the yard until Bev from scheduling confirms this one is unloaded.”
He looks over his shoulder. “That puts us at least an hour behind.”
“An hour here is cheaper than three hours with both drivers sitting on detention.”
The client beside me nods. “Do it.”
The supervisor takes the paperwork and heads toward the dock. My phone is still ringing. I pick it up before it gets away this time.
“Hey.”
There is a short pause. “Hey.”
Her voice makes my chest constrict. I turn away from the dock and walk toward the far end of the building, where the noise drops enough that I can hear her without putting a finger in my other ear.
“I wasn't sure if you meant to call me yesterday. Sorry I didn't call you back.”
“No, all good. I figured you were off, so that's why I hung up. Are you really working on the second of January? I figured you'd milk the Christmas holiday for a few weeks.”
“The shipping business doesn't take holidays. I was slow before Christmas, but I've been back since the twenty-seventh.”
“Well, look at you. Wonders never cease.”
I smile before I can help it. “Figured I had to grow up eventually.”
Another pause slips between us, not terrible, just unfamiliar. We managed ten minutes at The Boot a couple of weeks ago without falling apart. Apparently, talking on the phone is different.
I lean against a stack of empty pallets.
“How was Christmas?”
“Good. Loud. Grandbank and Cooper almost stopped speaking over a football game, so basically normal.”
“That sounds about right.”
“How was yours?”
“Good. Cain had everybody over. Sisue got enough toys to open a store.”
“That's fun. I bet Christmas is really cool now with all the little ones.”
A forklift turns into the aisle behind me, and I step farther out of the way. Tallulah clears her throat.
“I actually called because I need to ask you something.”
Every stupid possibility I have been refusing to entertain all day disappears.
“I'm all ears.”
“Cooper says this might be in your wheelhouse, but I don’t really know exactly what you do now.”
“That makes two of us some days.”
She laughs softly. The sound gets me worse than her voice did. I look toward the loading doors and make myself pay attention to the truck pulling into position instead.
“Our shell supplier is tapped out.”
“Oyster shell?”
“Cured oyster shell. We need it for the next phase at Oak Moss. Our last few orders helped wipe out most of what they had stockpiled. Dale, my foreman heading up the restoration, has called suppliers from Jacksonville to the Outer Banks, and he can probably piece together enough volume, but nobody has all of it.”
“How much do you need?”
She gives me the number. I straighten a little.
“That’s not nothing.”
“I know.”
“When do you need the first load?”
“Second half of January would be ideal. We have some flexibility, but not a lot.”
“And the shell already exists? We’re talking inventory that’s cured and ready to move, not something you need processed first.”
“Right. At least that’s what we’re trying to find. The problem is that once we start pulling smaller amounts from several places, the freight gets expensive fast.”
“That’s probably fixable.”
She goes quiet. I realize how that sounded.
“Probably,” I repeat. “I need to see where the inventory actually is before I tell you anything useful.”
“Okay.”
“Do you have Dale’s supplier list?”
“Yeah.”
“Send it to me, along with the quantities each place can commit and whatever delivery restrictions you have at Oak Moss. Weight limits, access, staging area, anything like that.”
“I can do that.”
“Are you trying to bring it all in at once?”
“We don’t have to. Dale would rather have a predictable schedule than six trucks showing up whenever they feel like it.”
“Good. That gives me more room.”
She is quiet again, and this time I hear paper moving on her end. “Is this actually the kind of thing you do?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. Cain gets the interesting advisory work and million-dollar contracts. I handle the smaller one-off jobs in the US.”
“That sounds suspiciously like real employment.”
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
There’s a brief moment where the silence takes over. It isn’t awkward, but it also seems like we both have more to say. Perhaps that’s wishful thinking.
I push off the pallets. “Give me until tomorrow afternoon.”
“You don’t have to make this a priority. I know you’re working.”
“I am working, and this is work, so you're in luck.”
“I’m not a Nero client.”
“No, but I can make some calls without billing you four hundred dollars an hour.”
“Is that what Cain charges?”
“Probably more. He likes expensive shoes.”
“I noticed that runs in the family.”
I look down at mine.
“You've got a point.”
She laughs again, easier this time. A man at the far end of the dock raises a hand toward me, and I hold up one finger.
“Send me what you have,” I tell her. “Let me see whether I can consolidate the suppliers before anything starts moving. If I can get the freight working in your favor, the shell itself may not be the problem you think it is.”
“Okay.”
“And Tallulah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you called.”
The words are out before I decide whether they should be. There is a pause on the other end.
“Me too.”
She hangs up first. I keep the phone in my hand for another second before the dock supervisor calls my name. Then I put it back in my pocket and walk toward him.
By the time I get back to the hotel, I am tired enough that the collar of my shirt feels personal.
I loosen my tie in the elevator, kick off my shoes inside the room, and strip down to my undershirt and suit pants before opening my laptop at the small desk by the window.
Tallulah’s email is waiting with Dale’s supplier list attached. She also sent a spreadsheet with quantities, pickup locations, and notes on what each place can guarantee. She added access measurements for Oak Moss, the staging area, and the delivery windows they can work around.
She did exactly what I asked.
I spend twenty minutes comparing the supplier locations against two carriers Nero has used on smaller Gulf and Southeast loads, then another fifteen checking the numbers one of them emailed back before I left Tampa.
It is not locked down yet, but it's close enough that I am ninety percent sure I can consolidate three suppliers, keep the freight from getting stupid, and have everything in Charleston before the end of January.
I told her tomorrow afternoon. I look at the clock and then at my phone. There's no reason to make her wait just because I gave myself more time than I needed.
She answers on the third ring.
“Hey.”
“Hey. You got a second?”
“Sure. Libba and I are watching something terrible on Netflix.”
A voice in the background says, “It is not terrible.”
Tallulah laughs. “She disagrees.”
“I’ll be quick. I think I can make it work.”
There is a pause, then her voice changes. “Seriously?”
“Nothing is booked yet, so don’t start celebrating, but I found a way to pull from three suppliers and consolidate most of it before it gets to Charleston. If the numbers hold tomorrow, I should be able to get everything there before the end of January without the freight eating you alive.”
“That fast?”
“The shell already exists. I’m not growing oysters for you.”
“Still impressive. You know I'm a hustler, and I couldn't pull it off.”
“I have hidden talents.”
“I remember.”
The words land between us before either of us can pretend they did not. Tallulah clears her throat.
“So what happens next?”
“I have a meeting in Charleston later this week anyway. Nero has a client there, and the logistics company I want to use is local, so I’m going to sit down with them while I’m there and make sure the numbers and timing actually work.”
“Oh,” she says, then pauses. “I’m still here in Charleston through the weekend.”
“Yeah?”
“If it would help, I could meet you. Dale probably could too.”
“It would help. I’d rather make sure what I’m promising actually works at Oak Moss before I commit you to it.”
“Okay.”
We settle on Friday morning. I text her the address for the port office once we hang up.
Tallulah is already there when I walk into the logistics office near the port, sitting at the end of a conference table with a coffee in front of her and a man, who I can assume is Dale, beside her. She looks up when I come in and smiles.
Her hair's down and styled instead of up in a bun, and there's a whole version of her sitting at that table I never got to have. One I’ll never get to have again.
“Look at you,” she says. “Very official.”
I glance down at my navy blazer. “You’re the one who asked for professional help.”
“I did, you're right.”
I take longer than I should getting into the chair across from her. I’m fumbling like a baby deer, and I think she giggles under her breath, but I refuse to look at her for confirmation.
Dale stands and shakes my hand as we make introductions. The rest is business.
We go through the supplier quantities, pickup dates, consolidation point, and what kind of trucks can actually make it down the access road at Oak Moss without Dale having an aneurysm.
Tallulah asks good questions and shuts down one suggestion before I have to because it would interfere with work already scheduled on the bank.
By the time we walk outside, the whole thing is close enough to done that all I need are final rates and signed confirmations.
Tallulah stops beside me on the sidewalk. “That was considerably less painful than I expected.”
“I’m offended.”
“I meant freight logistics.” She smiles.
Dale says he has to get back to Oak Moss and heads toward his truck, leaving us standing there with traffic moving past the port entrance.
Tallulah lifts her coffee. “You have anywhere you need to be right now?”
“Not for an hour.”
“There’s a coffee place around the corner. This is terrible.”
I look at the cup already in her hand.
“Port offices are notorious for bad coffee. Yeah, let's grab a proper cup and run through this.”
We take a table near the window. For the first few minutes, we talk strictly about the shipment. Not numbers this time, just what happens next and how much shell they have already placed.
Then the conversation slips sideways without either of us trying.
She tells me about school and the apartment with Jo. I tell her enough about Nero that she finally understands Cain is not sitting behind a desk in Singapore barking orders at me.
“So you actually like it.”
“I do.”
“That still surprises me.”
“Why?”
She gives me a look over the rim of her cup. “You spent most of college acting like employment was a rumor.”
“Fair.”
“It suits you.”
She doesn't ask why Nero and not Stone Intermodal, and I don't offer. There isn't much left to explain anyway.
I resigned in June. In August, a woman from the environmental district office called me at seven in the morning and asked me to walk her through how I came to send that email.
I did it standing outside a warehouse in Metairie.
She asked twice whether anyone at Stone Intermodal had directed me.
I told her no twice. The review closed two weeks later with only a fine that Ridge paid before I could get to it.
Oak Moss is protected now, and I ended up somewhere I actually like working.
“Thanks.”
For a minute, we let the silence sit. She swirls the cup and watches the brown liquid form a tiny funnel.
I click the brown sleeve wrapped around the paper cup with my thumb. “You’ve done a hell of a lot with Oak Moss.”
Her eyes come back to mine.
“It’s been a lot of work, but it turned out the way it should have.”
That could go somewhere neither of us needs it to go today, so I keep it where it belongs. “I’m glad I could help with this one the right way.”
She nods. “Me too.”
I leave it there. She has already heard every apology I know how to give. We finish the coffee and walk outside together.
“I’ll call you when everything is locked,” I tell her.
“Okay.”
She adjusts the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Thanks, Rhodes.”
“I’m glad I could help. Thank you for calling me.”
She heads toward her car. I stand there long enough to watch her reach it, then turn the other direction.