“Sure.”
His boots, now entering my line of vision, were still relatively clean. He must have just arrived on site. He didn’t have the dog today.
I asked, “Where’s Bandit?”
“Daycare.” Then, in answer to my look, he said, “No, really. I can’t leave him on his own, he has anxiety. And there’s too much going on today to have him here.”
There was something kind of sweet about a manly man who put his beagle into doggy daycare so it wouldn’t be alone. I told him, “You can leave him in my office anytime, you know. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
An understatement at the moment, since I really didn’t want to be alone up in my office. The logical part of my brain was still taking its time kicking in, leaving plenty of room to imagine what might have been pushing or pulling that plug from the wall. So much so that the thump of steps coming downstairs made my shoulders tense up.
It was only Malaika. “Hey, Sam. I thought I heard your voice down here.”
In the exchange of “good mornings” and small talk that followed as Lara came down the stairs after her, I poured Sam’s coffee and my own and fetched the Tupperware container I’d kept hidden in the cupboard. When I set it on the counter with Sam’s coffee mug he glanced at it, then grinned. “No way!”
“I promised.”
He looked like a kid with his cinnamon bun. A possessive kid. Lifting it up and away from Malaika as she leaned in closer to see what it was, he said, “Mine.”
She assured him he could keep it. “I just have to look at those things and I gain ten pounds right on the spot.”
“Better not watch, then.” He bit off a mouthful and looked at me. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I brought you something, too,” he said, and nodded to the space beside the side door just behind him, where unnoticed by me until now, a wooden-framed screen leaned against the wall.
My turn to smile. “Oh, Sam, that’s perfect!”
Malaika ventured, “Dare I ask?”
I told her, “I asked Sam if he could make a screen so we could sift the soil they’re digging up, for artifacts.”
“I made you three,” he said. “The other two are in the truck.”
Malaika’s glance gently reminded me we hadn’t run this through the proper budgetary channels for approval. “How much did they cost?”
“That’s okay,” I said, “I’ve got this. I’m paying Sam out of my pocket.”
Sam shook his head. “I’ve been paid.” And he lifted the cinnamon bun as his evidence. “I already had most of the pieces just lying around in the shed, they’d have gone to scrap anyway.”
If I’d read his face right he was telling the truth, but if that was the case he took pride in his work because what he had brought didn’t look roughly made. He’d built it almost exactly to the width I’d shown him with my hands, about two feet wide, and maybe six inches longer in length so it made a slight rectangle, with rounded handles at one narrow end. And he must have done some research on his own because at the other end, opposite the handles, he’d attached a hinged ladder-like “leg” that was built to lie flat on the back of the screen when it wasn’t in use, and then swing down and serve as a pivot supporting one end of the screen so whoever was doing the sifting could work on their own simply rocking it back and forth.
“I used quarter-inch mesh. Stainless steel,” he said. “That seemed to be what most other ones used. Was that right?”
“You just happened to have that lying around in your shed, too?”
“Yep.” Now he was fibbing, but he knew I knew it, his eyes not even trying to be serious. He lifted his mug, took his first swig of coffee, and couldn’t entirely hide his reaction. He covered it well, though, and I had to give him credit. When I’d made him coffee last time it had turned out like the tar sands, and today the coffee-maker’s mood had shifted so that mine, even with double cream and sugar, tasted thin and weak as water. “Anyhow.” He set the mug down carefully. “I figured quarter-inch would let the soil through fairly easily and still catch things like that old button you showed me.”
Malaika looked from Sam to me. “What button?”
“Oh.” I hadn’t meant to keep it secret from her, I’d just been distracted by my reading of Frank’s uncle’s papers in the meantime. “When I was locking up after the board meeting, I stumbled over a button beside the foundation trench. Mid-eighteenth century. Possibly French.”
She connected the dots with her usual quickness. “As in a French officer’s uniform?”
“Possibly.”
“Well then, I think we should definitely see what else is down there in the dirt. Where’s this button now?”
“Up in my office.” I hid my reluctance to go back upstairs when I offered to show her, then hid my relief when she shook her head.
“Show me tomorrow. I’ve got to get going.”
“And I need to open the store,” Lara said, brushing by me with a sideways hug. “I’ll call you later with the verdict.”
“Verdict?”
“The luncheon. The Sisters of Liberty. Didn’t I tell you? I thought I did. Never mind. I had a talk with my clients,” she summarized, “and they thought having us speak was a great idea. They said they’d talk to the powers that be and let me know sometime this afternoon.”
“Sounds good.” This time I knew my smile wouldn’t have fooled my mom, but it felt fairly convincing and seemed to fool Lara.
So I was a little surprised when Sam, once we were left on our own in the kitchen, met my gaze knowingly. “Not your idea of fun?”
“What?”
“A Sisters of Liberty lunch.” He was down to his last bites of cinnamon bun. “Are you sure you don’t want any of this?”
I was sure.
“Well, don’t worry,” he said. “They’re a nice group of women. They’ll make you feel welcome.”
All except one of them, I thought. My grandmother wouldn’t be happy to see me. In fact, as their president, she might just veto the very suggestion of having me be their guest speaker.
But Sam, although he lived here, either didn’t know my family’s messed-up history or was too polite to mention it. “Too polite” was my guess, as I watched him diplomatically attempt another sip of coffee.
“You can pour it down the sink,” I said. “It’s awful. I know. The machine has a mind of its own.”
He did as I suggested, rinsed the cup and washed his hands. “How do you drink this stuff?”
“I take caffeine any way I can get it.”
“You’re braver than me.”
No, not really, I wanted to say as I watched him head back out to work, leaving me on my own in the house with whatever had pulled that plug out of the wall in my office. I’m not brave at all.
But I wasn’t about to become like Frank’s aunt, either, jumping at things that went bump in the night. Or the daytime.
I refilled my coffee mug, switched off the coffee machine, rinsed the pot out, and then—having delayed things as long as I could—I went back up the stairs.
In the door to my office I paused, and reminded myself that I didn’t believe in ghosts. But just in case I was sharing my office with something that didn’t care whether I thought it was real, I decided to play it safe. “Look,” I said, speaking aloud to the empty room, “just knock it off, okay? Leave me alone.”
Nothing answered, or moved, so I ventured inside. The plugs for the lamp and the fan still lay motionless on the floor next to the baseboard, behind my desk. Clearly I wasn’t going to get anywhere by trying to plug them back in there, but the lamp was a necessity and I could really use the fan. The room felt stifling.
Picking up the lamp I crossed with what I hoped was nonchalance and moved it to another outlet opposite my desk. My fingers only shook a little as I plugged it in, and waited.
Nothing happened.