What I Remember Most

by Cathy Lamb

  I’d chosen the photo of Kade in his black T-shirt, looking off to the right. Behind him was an armoire that he’d designed, with a carved blue heron in full flight. His black hair, a little long, had a feather to it, probably because he’d just run his hand through it. He filled out his black T-shirt in a sexy way. He was smiling and looked relaxed and happy, a man who owned a company and was proud of what he made, confident of his business.

  I’d had eight other photos blown up, too, although not as large. The photos were of the furniture that Hendricks built. I matted them in white and had Tad stain the frames. I hung them on the wall to the right of the offices and to the left of the factory doors. Each piece of furniture was a work of art, and I thought they should be treated like works of art.

  I cleaned up and organized.

  It was almost nine o’clock at night.

  Would Kade like it?

  What if he hated it? What if he was embarrassed by it but didn’t want to tell me? What if his face froze and I could tell he thought it was as good as rotting deer meat? I massaged my throat. The worry was making it feel tight.

  Before I left to go home, I glanced back at the photo of Kade on the wall.

  I thought of him in jail. He’d had some tough years.

  I’d been in jail. I’d probably be there again. I hoped I would be tough, too.

  At least we had one thing in common, though I had come out of my recent stint without any knife fight scars on my face. It would be nice if there were no knife fight scars in my future, although if Neanderthal Woman was still there, it could happen.

  Good golly God, Kade was one tough dude.

  I hoped he liked the lantern lights. I hoped he liked the plaid curtains.

  I was at Hendricks’ by seven-thirty Monday morning, and I was nervous, nervous, nervous. I was desperate to know what Kade thought. Perhaps he would think the trees were strange growths on his walls. Like warts. Or creepy.

  Unfortunately, Kade was out of the office. He was with a client who was going to turn an old church into a bed and breakfast and would be buying much of his furniture from Hendricks’.

  Two men, Angelo and Petey stopped in the entrance and gaped.

  “Oh. My. God,” Angelo said. “Fancy me that.”

  “Blimey. I feel like I’m standing in a painting,” Petey said.

  “Do you like it?” I wanted a compliment. I know on the inside I’m insecure about a boatload of stuff. I try to hide it because it’s victimy and pathetic and weak, but I am what I am.

  The men walked around. They studied the painted walls and trees, the polar bear table and wolf armoire, the lantern lighting, the curtains, the photos.

  “Grenady . . .” Angelo said. He stopped and put his hands on his hips. He was a college football player and has a nose that has been broken way too many times. “This is quite special. Breathtaking.”

  Petey, about fifty, weathered, who had a slight Irish brogue said, “It’s downright damn beautiful. You gotta come over to my place, lass. I need help. A lot of help.”

  I kneaded my fingers together. “Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

  I heard the same reaction from everyone who came in.

  Tad said, “Over the weekend? You did this whole room in two days?”

  Rozlyn said, hugging me, “It’s a gift, Grenady. You have a decorating gift.” I teared up and sniffled at that one. Then she whispered, “How come you didn’t put the photo up of me flashing the girls with my tongue out? That hurts me.”

  Marilyn came in and forgot to hide her expression. Her jaw dropped. I could tell she liked it. She said to Cory, “Oh. My. God. Eudora was busy this weekend!”

  When Cory said that I had done it, her face closed down. “Oh. Ah. Hmm.” She peered around again, eyes narrowed. “Now, why did you choose the paint color you did? And the curtains? Don’t you think it looks a little too . . .” I saw her brain pumping away, searching for a put down. “Lower class?”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t see you, Marilyn. Good-bye.” She’s an idiot. There’s always one petty, jealous person in every group. I wondered why Kade had hired her, and kept her. Everyone else I understood, but not her.

  “Don’t be so sensitive, Grenady!”

  “That’s what all controlling, rude people say to other people when they’re deliberately making noxious remarks and want to blame their prey. Out you go.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. You’re just the receptionist!”

  “And you’re just a screwed-up gnome with dead gopher hair.” I have no idea why I called her a gnome, but she is short, and she did leave after telling me, “Button up your shirt before you fall out.” There was no danger of my falling out.

  Between people chatting, I kept myself busy answering the phone; directing people who had come to talk to one employee or another; and organizing furniture that was going to be shipped to Montana, Wyoming, and California that afternoon. I also helped a number of clients who came in to pick up furniture they ordered.

  I loved helping the clients, because they were so excited about their purchases. They had been waiting for many months for highly personalized furniture, as we’re backlogged, and today was the day. They always loved the presentation. A couple of the employees carried their new furniture into the lobby with a drop cover over it, one pulled it away, and drum roll . . . ta-da!

  I watched their expressions. They were delighted, surprised, and thrilled. They put their hands to their mouths, they jumped on their toes, they hugged each other, they laughed. It was better than expected. It was the best! Often they cried. The furniture was expensive, but people bought it to keep forever.

  Sometimes they had their name or favorite poem or lines from literature carved into it.

  Now and then we had an order for something funny to be carved into the furniture like, Never fear Grandpa’s beer.

  A manly man knows his wife is the boss.

  And, recently, in flowing italic, surrounded by roses: Revenge is sweet. Try it.

  They might have had the family vacation home carved on a table, a beloved pet, or a special view. One woman wanted a penguin because she called her late father Penguin Man. An older gentleman wanted dahlias carved into the front of a woman’s desk for his wife, Dahlia.

  Kade was often there, too, so he and I would stand and chat with them. They told us they would be back soon, he said we would be happy to work with them again, and they waved as they left. Often they would hug us and hug the carpenters, too. We tried to make it special for them.

  That day, though, I was on automatic as I waited for Kade.

  Waited.

  Waited.

  My brain was hyperventilating.

  He did not arrive until three o’clock. Which meant my brain had been semideprived of oxygen for hours. I heard his truck, and I made sure for the fiftieth time that all the lantern lights and the cowboy boot and steelhead lights were on and my desk was cleaned off, except for my computer and a vase full of pink freesias.

  Kade opened the door, filled the whole doorway with his huge frame, and walked in. His eyes set on mine and I stood up, my hands clenched together in front of me. I tried to smile, but I felt it wobble in a strange and awkward way.

  For a second he stood there, looking at me. Then he blinked, smiled, the hit man face softening. “Hi, Grenady.”

  “Hi, Kade.” My smile wobbled again, probably freakishly so. My brain tried to breathe. If he didn’t like it, he would think I was incompetent and stupid. Stupid.

  He didn’t seem to notice the change for a second, but he kept on smilin’. Not a huge, pumpkin jack-o’-lantern smile, but . . . quietly pleased.

  He took a few steps toward me, as if to chat, then stopped, surprised. His eyes went to the hanging lantern lights, then to the Hendricks’ Furniture wood sign on the wall behind my desk and his photo. I could see him taking in the trees. He turned and stared at the eight matted and framed photos of the furniture, the curtains framing the windows, the bird chairs, t
he wolf armoire, and the polar bear and raccoon leg tables.

  When he was done, his eyes found mine again. I waited. I told myself to shut my mouth, as I knew it was open and I was breathing through it, probably like a drowning cow.

  He looked stunned. “You did all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “You painted the walls, the trees . . .”

  “Yes. I have a thing for . . . uh . . . trees.”

  “By yourself?”

  “I had help moving the furniture, and I hired an electrician. He’s an English major. Likes Shakespeare. Quotes Shakespeare. I don’t know why I said that, because you don’t need to know it.”

  “It’s incredible, Grenady.”

  I smiled, sagged with relief. “You think so?”

  “Yes.” He walked toward my desk, still staring at the trees, the photos.

  “All this in a weekend?” He shook his head. “Amazing. It’s totally different.”

  “But you like it? It’s okay?”

  “It’s more than okay. It’s . . . it’s . . . perfect. I can’t believe this. Nice job.”

  He smiled. I like when he smiles. It makes me relax. I could not imagine that man mad at me. I think I’d faint, and I am one tough broad.

  “I feel like I’m in a different company. Are you sure this is my company?”

  “All yours. You have the best furniture line I’ve ever seen, Kade.” I brushed a hand through the air. “Wow. I sounded like an annoying suck-up there. Sorry.”

  “No, never that.” He turned around to study the room again, those muscles straining against his shirt. “This is a hundred times better, Grenady. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome.”

  “And I heard that you bought Debbie a chocolate cream pie the other night. That was thoughtful and kind.”

  “She’s a nice lady.”

  “So are you.”

  “You are, too.” I bent my head. Why did I say stuff like that? He laughed. “Thank you. I’ve always wanted to be a nice lady.”

  “I meant, a nice guy. Man. Gentleman.”

  We shared a glance that went on a shade too long.

  A shade.

  Too long.

  I smiled.

  Cleo came over that night to practice her artwork. She painted a picture of a blue and pink dog who wore only hats with cats on them. She said her mom “had such a bad hot flash, she was covered in sweat, like someone poured a pail of water over her, but I didn’t do it!”

  I was not looking forward to menopause. I’d probably be a melting woman, too.

  I sketched out a collage on a four-by-six-foot canvas with a pencil.

  My plan was to paint a huge magnifying glass. Inside the glass would be a girl with lilies wrapped around her body, like clothes. She would stand all by herself, her hands outstretched to the sides. In her right hand she would hold the Big Dipper, in the other a red, crocheted shawl, blowing in the wind.

  Outside the huge circle of the magnifying glass I would paint another lighthouse. I don’t like lighthouses, even though I have painted many. They make me feel like doom is coming. They triggered something, but the “something” was hiding in some cavern of my mind and wouldn’t come out.

  I outlined a dark forest around the glass, too. Towering pine trees, but in shadow, fog lacing the nettles.

  I knew I had been found running down a road next to a forest. Daneesha had told me that, which she read in the police report. I didn’t remember that part.

  I would get a black plastic circle of some sort to form the magnifying glass. I would add white glitter to the Big Dipper stars and paint layer after layer on the lilies, so they would be thick and lifelike. I would put a mirror at the top of the lighthouse. I would make the pine nettles thicker by using a pallet knife to goop on green paint.

  I liked the draft. I liked the lilies, the Big Dipper, the shawl.

  I hated it. The lighthouse made one of the scars on my head ache. I hated the fog, too, and the dark trees.

  Pretty much how I felt about most of my art.

  “I think dogs will fly one day, don’t you, Grenady?” Cleo asked.

  “Yes. But not until they sprout wings first.”

  She thinks I’m funny.

  They kept calling, saying they loved me and that I should hide from that “flaming liberal government, out to get ya, in your business, making you guilty when our raccoon princess daughter isn’t guilty at all . . . tell that possum Covey he can come here to hide, and we’ll lure him into a weasel trap because that’s what he is, a damn cross-eyed weasel.... Swing me a cat, I got a hole we could dump him in. He’d be doggone lost forever.”

  She called, too, offering friendship and tears. “I love you, baby.”

  I loved them all so much, but I would not drag them into this mess.

  They did not deserve it.

  There was a check from Kade on my desk when I went to work on Tuesday. I actually said, “Whew,” out loud. I knocked on his open door.

  “Hey, Grenady, come on in.” He stood up, ever the gentleman.

  “Thank you for the check, but it’s too much.” I put it out for him to take. He put his hands up in refusal.

  “No, it’s not. I would have had to pay one of those decorating people much more than that.”

  “But I already had the furniture from here. I’m an obsessive bargain shopper, and it didn’t cost near this much. It was only frames and matting and paint and supplies, and some lighting. I put the supply bill and the electrician’s bill on your desk. You have it, right?”

  “I have it, and I have your other receipts. Take the check, Grenady. You deserve it. You spent your weekend doing it, which means you don’t get a day off for two weeks. In fact, you can take a few days off here, anytime, full pay.”

  “I don’t want any days off.” No way. Then he might get used to me being gone and think he didn’t need me. “This is excessive. I can’t take it, Kade.” I pushed the check toward him again. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “Keep it, please. Everyone loves the lobby now, and so do I. I’ve had a whole bunch of people tell me how it’s a huge improvement, and it is.”

  “It’s too much . . .”

  “Don’t argue.”

  “But—”

  “I said I’m not taking it back.”

  I stared up at him. He was resolute. Decided. I heard that hard tone.

  “Fine. But you have to let me buy us a better coffeemaker with this money. The one in the employees’ lounge is terrible. I think the machine turns regular coffee beans into high-octane sludge.”

  He laughed. “Okay, Grenady. But only a coffeemaker. Then we’re even.”

  “A coffeemaker it is, then.”

  We grinned at each other. I wanted to hug him. I didn’t. He was huggable, though. It would be like hugging a bear. Warm and strong, wrapped all up, protected.

  I left before I reached out and embarrassed myself by hugging the bear.

  I looked forward to lunch every day. Rozlyn, Eudora, and I all have lunch at one o’clock. We’re all swamped before that, but around one things start to get less hectic.

  “Hey, I’m having a sex toy party at my house next Sunday night,” Rozlyn said. “You two are coming. I have to prepare in case I date Leonard. I stalked him yesterday at the grocery store, swung my cart around twice so I could go down the same aisle as him, and I said hello both times, and he smiled back and said hello, then I had a hot flash and had to leave.”

  “Why couldn’t you go to the next aisle, wait till the sweat dried, and then meet up with him again?” I asked.

  “Because I think he was triggering the hot flash. I don’t want to meet him and sweat, unless we’re naked.”

  “Are you serving wine?” Eudora asked.

  “Uh, yeah. Hello?” Rozlyn shook her head, all those black curls flying about. “I said that it’s a sex toy party. Did you think I would serve milk? You gotta seize the day and seize the sex toy party.”

  “Double che
cking. I don’t want to waste my time.” Eudora examined her nails. “I like having long nails that are capable of scratching.”

  “No time will be wasted. And why do you need scratchy nails?”

  “You never know when you’ll need to defend yourself,” Eudora said. She took my hand. She was wearing two diamond bracelets. Gorgeous. Old design. “Grow those nails out, Grenady. Nails can be weaponry.”

  “I’m familiar with that concept. Thank you.”

  “What about you, Grenady?” Rozlyn asked.

  “Well . . . uh . . . I don’t know . . .” I thought of Covey. That killed any thought of sex. Kade strode by the employees’ lounge, black cowboy boots on. “I’ll be there.”

  “If I have to hold edible underwear and vibrators and know that no man is on my horizon to help me enjoy them, you’re comin’ too.” Rozlyn leaned over and patted my hand. “And you have to promise me if you get laid you’ll tell me all about it.”

  “Sure. I’ll send photos to you at work via e-mail.”

  “Perfect.” She high-fived me, then wiggled her impressive chest. “Come to me, Leonard! Come to me!”

  “Make sure it’s high-quality wine,” Eudora said. “I don’t want my palette ruined.”

  Three days later, Eudora broke two of her toes skydiving. “It was worth it. There is nothing like falling through the sky. Nothing. That was my fifty-sixth jump, although it’s been years since jump number fifty-five.”

  “Your fifty-sixth jump?” I asked, impressed.

  “Yes.” Eudora arranged her necklace. Turquoise stones, which matched her earrings, which matched her turquoise heels.

  “Did you used to skydive with friends?” Rozlyn asked.

  “No, for work. Some of them were friends, but mostly we got things done.”

  “What sort of things?” Rozlyn asked.

  “Things.” She winked at us. Then she said something in Russian.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I said that the Cold War was quite cold, but the Russian men knew how to warm a woman up.”

  Was she serious? I darn well thought she was.