Tom wisely tucks the impending request back in his pocket. He shouldn’t risk getting his memories ruined, too. “Maybe if I’d gotten the studio done, you’d still be doing portraits.”
He is now looking at the long, narrow building beyond the fishpond, against the fence line, that has had a lot of plans attached to it. It was once Grandpa William’s carpentry hideout, and it still smells like cyprus pine. Loretta used to sit in there on a folding chair, drinking coffee and thinking about him. It was going to be my photography studio, and before that, Loretta’s tarot room. One summer, Tom got as far as cladding the inside walls and putting down carpet before Aldo sent him on to his next job—then the next, and the next. An unfinished project would weigh heavily on Tom.
“Don’t feel bad,” I warn him, but I think I’m too late. “You’ve been busy. You are not the cause of my career change.” I mean, technically yes, but he doesn’t need to know that. I was already on a long downhill slide.
“If you’d called me, I would have come,” he says with the barest hint of accusation. “You know I would.”
“Don’t worry about that. You’re here right when I need you most. Like always.”
Patty is standing on the edge of the slime-filled fishpond. One foreleg lifts. I pick her up and kiss her little dome head. From the laundry window, Diana’s aghast face is like the feline version of The Scream.
I tilt her up to me. “Patty, you’ve gotta stop flirting with danger.”
“Says the girl living in a house with fire-hazard wiring.” Tom gives me his notebook and begins unfolding a ladder. “I can’t believe Loretta lived in this place. Why didn’t she get me to renovate years ago?” He’s getting mad. “She shouldn’t have lived with these issues.”
I have to laugh.
“She couldn’t be bothered packing. She said, and I quote, You can deal with it.” I flip through the last few pages of his notes. I almost forgot his handwriting: square blocks, flat lines, and intriguing shorthand. Arrows up and down, measurements, estimates of cost. Page after page of bad news. “And she thought the issues were quirks. Which they are.”
“You are so similar to your grandmother that it’s scary.” Tom hooks the ladder on the side of the house. “Please, just promise me you won’t touch any of the outlets. Or tell my fortune.”
“I know how to manage this house. I’ve lived in this house part-time for most of my life, remember? Every single ski season.” My parents are obsessed with sliding down snowy hills in matching padded onesies. I wonder what it’s like.
“Did you used to hate me?” He took my place on those ski trips. I stayed with Loretta, took photos until I lost the light, and read books by the fire, my hand in a candy bowl. Lovely, but it was no black-diamond run.
I shake my head. “No, I was glad you went.”
I’m glad you all got to live a little, unencumbered by my shortcomings.
“Glad for me because I was poor,” Tom says in a wry voice. He looks up the ladder and puts a foot on the bottom rung. “Glad that your parents are incredibly generous and took me everywhere.”
“No, glad for you because staying behind sucked, and I wouldn’t wish it on you.”
I remember Loretta saying to me, Wave goodbye for God’s sake, they might all have a plane crash. You’ll regret it if you don’t. That kind of statement is even more startling when said by a fortune-teller. Smile and let them enjoy themselves.
The only translation I could possibly make from that was: Who could relax around me, the ticking time bomb?
“I’m glad you all got a vacation from stressing out about me.”
“We weren’t vacationing from you,” Tom says, surprised. He begins climbing up the ladder. “Loretta let you believe some things that weren’t true.”
For one sharp moment I feel like he knows that I confided in Loretta and she got me the hell out of town. But there’s no way he could. I’ve never told a soul. His eyes are mild and have no bad memories in them when he looks down at me.
“If you need anything switched on or off inside, ask me. I hid your hair dryer.”
“That just means you put it up somewhere high, out of my eye line? Your hiding skills are terrible.” I watch his butt as he climbs higher. “What are you doing up there, anyway?”
“Just looking at the gutters back here.”
“Me too.” I grin breezily up at him as he glowers back down at me. “What? I’m interested in the state of my house.”
There’s a loose rattling noise. Tom shakes the entire gutter about a foot away from the roofline. Slimy leaves splatter down onto me. Patty and I both yap like seals.
“You asshole.”
“You deserved that, you deviant.” He rattles the gutter again.
“Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“Do you want to climb up this ladder while I stand down there looking at your butt? See how it feels?” Busted again. If he registers every time my eyes are on him, I’m doomed.
“I’ve got nothing on you, babe.”
“You sure did hide in the shower a long time. Didn’t know the water heater could handle that.” Tom’s hand goes to his back pocket and he pulls out a screwdriver.
“That water heater is a tin can. It was freezing by the end.” I just let it go cold, numbing me down to the bones, cooling the strange restless energy inside me to manageable levels. I’ve never actually taken a cold shower over a guy before.
He looks across at the neighbor’s roof, and in his profile, I see him swallow. In his mind, he thinks, Ew, gross. Darcy Barrett, a shivering drowned rat, boy hair flattened to her skull.
He hoists himself a little higher onto the edge of the roof. There’s a tile-scraping sound and the ladder trembles. I leap on the base of the ladder and wrap my entire body around it. “Fuck! Be careful.” Another wet leaf plops down on my face.
“It’s fine,” he says, treading down the rungs. He doesn’t turn, but instead spends a lot of time pulling the ladder down, folding and refolding it. I’m glad. I can hide my sudden heart jolt.