“And what is that?” I asked.
She stuck her pen behind her ear, then came over to stand beside me. “That this is an impossible amount of work, an undoable task that will, mostly likely, never be completed in a million years.”
I didn’t say anything, because she was kind of right.
“Or maybe,” she continued, reaching down into the box to pull out one sheet printed with brick house parts, “that’s just what I’m thinking.”
“At least you have a lot of help,” I told her.
She gave me a flat look. “I have a lot of people. Not the same thing.”
I watched her for a second as she turned the piece in her hand, studying it. From downstairs, I could hear the sounds of the restaurant getting ready to open: chairs scraping as they were pushed aside to be swept under, the voices of the staff laughing and chatting, the clinking of glasses being stacked behind the bar. It was as familiar to me as a song I’d been hearing my whole life, covered by various people but the basic tune the same.
“I mean,” she continued, “can you even imagine how hard it’s going to be to put together all these tiny houses, and then find the right places for them, not to mention each tree and streetlight and fire hydrant?”
“Well—”
“I mean, there are hundreds of these things. And they all have, like, a hundred pieces. And it’s supposed to be done by June? How in the world is that going to happen?”
I wasn’t sure if this was a rhetorical question. But she had stopped talking, so I said, “Well, it’s like you just told them. You start with the base, and work your way up. It’s basic engineering.”
“Basic engineering,” she repeated. Then she looked at me. “Did I really make it sound that simple?”
“You sure did.”
“Huh. I’m a better liar than I thought.”
“Hey, Opal!” a voice called up the stairs. “You up there?”
“It depends,” she replied over her shoulder. “What do you need? ”
“Copier’s on the fritz again and we only have two special sheets printed.”
She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Did you try the paper-clip trick?”
Silence. Then, “The what?”
“Did you put a paper clip under the toner cartridge . . .” She trailed off, clearly having decided this was too complicated to convey from a distance. “I’ll be right there.”
“Okay,” the voice replied. “Oh, and Gus wants to talk to you, too. Oh, and also the towel guy’s here and says he needs cash, not a check—”
“I’ll be right there,” she said again, louder this time.
“Ten four,” the voice replied. “Over and out.”
Opal reached up, massaging her temples, the pen behind her ear jumping up and down as she did so. “Basic engineering,” she said. “I hope you’re right.”
“Me, too,” I said. “Because that’s a lot of boxes.”
“Tell me about it.” She smiled, then squared her shoulders, dropping her hands, and started over to the stairway. “Hit the lights on the way out, will you?”
“Sure thing.”
I heard her head down, her footsteps fading, and then turned to follow her. As I did, though, I saw, sitting on the table by the wall, the directions she’d been holding as she’d given her speech earlier. I picked them up, impressed by their heft: rather than a few stapled sheets, as I’d thought, they were like a booklet, sizable and thick. I flipped past the first pages, the table of contents and introduction, the company’s contact info, to page eight, where the actual directions began. STEP ONE, it read at the top, with about four paragraphs of tiny type beneath it, complete with diagrams labeled with letters and numbers. Whoa, I thought, and flipped forward a bit, only to see more of the same. Then, though, remembering what I’d just said to Opal, I turned back, finding STEP ONE again. FIND FOUR CORNERS (A, B, C, D) OF BASE, it read, and ARRANGE ON STABLE SURFACE AS PICTURED.
Downstairs, a phone was ringing, and someone was yelling they needed lemons. I walked over to the box with the uppercase A on it, ripping it open, then dug around for a few moments before I found the top left corner labeled A (BASE). I carried it across the room and put it down on the floor, as pictured. Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.
After an early dinner at the bar with my dad—broken up by two phone calls and a kitchen crisis—I headed out of Luna Blu, cutting down the alley toward home. It was almost dark as I turned onto our street and crossed it to my house, the only one with no lights on. I was digging around in my bag for my keys when I heard a car pull up behind me. I barely glanced at it and the two people inside, then went back to hunting. When I finally found them a minute later, I looked back and realized it was Dave and Riley.