She grabbed her bathrobe from the edge of her bed and ran down her stairs calling the plumber’s name. “Leroy!”
The noise grew louder closer to the source.
“Leroy!”
She saw the shadows of two men beyond the plastic tarp before she unzipped it. The back of the man controlling the jackhammer faced her. There was no way she was going to be able to get his attention without touching him.
Mary reached out and tapped his shoulder.
He didn’t respond.
She used her whole hand the second time and he jumped away. His eyes were wide with shock until he realized she wasn’t a threat.
Mary waved a hand across her neck indicating for the man to cut off the machine.
When the racket stopped, her ears buzzed.
“Did you look at the time?”
Both men stared at her. “My English not good.”
“My Spanish is worse.” She didn’t recognize either man. “Leroy?”
The man standing outside her door responded. “Leroy come later.” He waved his hand in the air.
“Okay.”
The man with the hammer smiled and turned back to the giant noisemaker.
“No, no, no! People are sleeping!”
“No do?”
Both men looked thoroughly confused.
Mary pointed to her wrist. “Time,” she said. Then she placed both palms together and leaned them against the side of her head as if they were a pillow. “People are sleeping. I told Leroy he couldn’t do this until after ten.”
They exchanged glances before talking to each other in Spanish.
The same guy tried again. “We done ten.”
“No. Start at ten.” This wasn’t working. She lifted both hands in the air. “Hold on. I’m calling Leroy.”
Thankfully the man had his cell phone on him and answered immediately. “Leroy! What the heck.”
“Wait, who is this?”
“It’s Mary Kildare. There are two guys with a jackhammer waking up my neighbors.”
“I told you we were taking the slab today.”
“And I told you not to start until after ten.”
“My crew has another job after yours.”
It was too early for this. “Then send them to the other job first and come back here later.”
“They can’t. The other job has a baby in the house.”
She wanted to scream. “My neighbors have babies. Leroy, this is not negotiable. I cannot have these guys making this kind of noise at this time in the morning. I’m in a condo with a shared wall!”
“That will delay us.”
Mary pinched the bridge of her nose to keep from cussing. “How long?”
“I might be able to get the crew back there by Thursday.”
“This is getting ridiculous.”
“If they come on Thursday, I can get over there on Saturday—”
“Saturday does not work for me.” And she didn’t want him around on the weekend she was out of town. She couldn’t stop him if he showed up with a jackhammer then.
“It’s your floor. If the guys can’t make it Thursday, they can be back Monday morning.”
“Monday afternoon!”
“Right, your neighbors.”
Mary handed the phone to one of the guys standing in her doorway and waited while he fired off Spanish and grumbled. When he hung up, she was relatively sure she was being cussed at and smiled at simultaneously.
With all the chaos of the morning, Mary found herself running out the door with coffee in her hand to make her first appointment. Once behind the wheel she twisted the key and heard her car protest. Unlike the night before, it gave up its complaining and turned over. But the muttering the thing was making reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing. And it wasn’t fighting with the plumber.
To make matters worse, her first client of the day didn’t show . . . and didn’t call. She had a two-hour window of time between eleven and one. Mary thought for sure she’d be asking someone in the building to jump her car, but it finally turned over on the third try.
By three, the mechanic had called to say they couldn’t get her car up to check out what was draining the battery until the morning. By three fifteen, Leroy called to say he would bust the floor on Monday . . . afternoon. Sarcasm and disapproval laced his message. By three thirty Mary was standing outside her building waiting for her Uber ride to show up and texting Dakota. I’m coming over and I’m bringing wine.
Dakota was quick on the reply. That bad?
The Uber driver pulled up and she jumped in the back. He repeated the address she’d already put in the system and she confirmed it before returning her attention to her phone. You have no idea.
Mary heard the friendly “come in” from the back of Dakota’s place after her knock. “I’m back here.”
Leo crying told her where Dakota was in the condo.
“Look who is awake.” Mary smiled at the two of them. Dakota was in the process of changing a diaper, and Leo was in the process of waking the dead.
“He doesn’t like his butt cold.” Dakota smiled down at her baby. “And when Mommy changes your diaper, it’s cold . . . isn’t it?” Her voice raised an octave as most adults’ did when talking to infants.
Mary peeked over Dakota’s shoulder and smiled for the first time that day. “He’s growing so fast.”
Dakota taped down the edges of the diaper and tugged on his tiny pants. All of this she did with one hand while leaning against a crutch.
“Where’s Walt?”
“I sent him to the store.” Dakota backed away. “Why don’t you hold him while I wash my hands.”
Mary stilled and found her palms itchy. Why was she hesitating?
Dakota found her other crutch and made her way into the kitchen.
Mary squeezed her fists and approached her nephew. Careful with his head. He fussed as he kicked but settled almost immediately when she lifted him. He weighed next to nothing. She settled him into the crook of her arm. “How you doing, big boy?”
Leo blinked and stared as he quieted his cries.
Mary’s crazy day floated away with a blink of a tiny baby’s eyes. When Leo let out a peep, she found her body moving side to side, and the motion made him smile. “Not bad for a newbie, eh?” she whispered.
“It’s about time,” Dakota said from the other side of the room.
Mary glanced up to see her BFF staring at them. “What?”
“You do realize this is the first time you’ve held him.”
Leo watched her with trust. “Actually, I think this is the first time I’ve ever held a baby.” She knew it was. “Maybe I should sit down.”
“You’d never drop him,” Dakota told her.
Mary slowly let her butt reach the sofa.
Dakota slumped a little less gracefully in the chair beside them. “You’ve really never held a baby?”
“When would I have had the opportunity? I don’t have siblings. I didn’t go with you when your sister had her last one. I was raised by nuns . . . and they don’t have babies . . . so Leo is my first.”
“Leo is almost three weeks old, Mary. I was starting to worry.”
Mary released the tractor beams of Leo’s eyes and looked at her friend. “I was afraid I wouldn’t like it.”
“What’s not to like? Except when he’s puking on you, he’s kinda cute.”
Leo gripped her fingers with his whole hand. “He’s still cute when he’s puking on you.”
Dakota snorted, but Mary knew she was kidding.
“It’s not hard to figure out, Dakota. My parents abandoned me. I can’t help but wonder if they just didn’t want kids. Maybe they didn’t have a nurturing gene. Maybe they passed that on to me.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Not necessarily. Some studies show—”
“I’m calling bullshit.”
“Hey, language,” she teased.
Dakota waved a hand in the air. “He’s
too young to understand. You’re full of crap.”
Mary denied Dakota’s observation.
“Oh, I’m sorry . . . what was it you did for a living again?” Dakota asked.
“Helping people sort out their problems is not the same as caring for a child.”
“No, it’s not. But you care by nature. You can’t help but care. You just told me to watch my language because you care. You’re one of the most nurturing people I know, so if you think for one minute you will be anything but the doting aunt Leo needs, then you have your brain in the sand.”
Mary swung her head and let her hair dangle in Leo’s face. He closed his eyes and let out a tiny gurgle. “I don’t think my brain is in the sand. Do you think I have a sandy brain, Leo?”
Dakota sat back in her chair and put her blue leg up on the coffee table. “I should probably text Walt and let him know he can come home.”
It took Mary a moment to catch Dakota’s words. “I don’t get it.”
“When you said you were coming over I asked Walt to leave and not come back until I called.”
“What, why?”
“Because you haven’t held our son and I knew you’d bugger out of it if Walt was here to help me.”
Mary narrowed her eyes. “That’s one sneaky mom you have there, Leo. You’re going to have to watch out for her.”
Hours later, after a couple of glasses of wine and a lot of baby talk and girl talk, Mary meandered across the street to her taped-up living room and garage without a car. She went straight up to her bathroom and turned on the water in the tub.
Once she was comfortable, with the lights dim and another glass of wine in her hand . . . she dialed Glen’s number.
His hello made her smile.
Chapter Fifteen
Mary packed way too much for a weekend in the city, but she’d rather have too many options than not enough. And with Glen as her tour guide, who knew where they’d end up or what they’d be doing.
She Ubered to the airport and was met by one of Glen’s pilots, who took her bag and shuffled through security as if they were living pre-9/11.
On the plane, Mary used her time to catch up on some reading and take a nap. The sun set through the window at twentysomething thousand feet. She wasn’t sure how this had become her life . . . but she didn’t hate it. All that Catholic upbringing made her feel guilty, but she didn’t dare pinch herself for fear she was dreaming.
When the plane landed, Mary expected to be shuttled on to the hotel Glen told her he’d acquired for her. Instead, Glen stood at the bottom of the stairs descending from the plane with his hands in his pockets and the wind blowing his hair.
She jogged down the last few steps and tossed her arms around him. She tilted her head toward his and greeted him with a kiss.
“Well, hello to you, too.”
“I missed you. I probably shouldn’t tell you that, but I did.”
Glen kept an arm around her when the pilot exited the plane. “Thanks for getting her here safely, Freddy.”
The pilot placed her bag on the tarmac and shook Glen’s hand. “Anytime, Mr. Fairchild.”
“Thank you,” Mary added as Freddy started to walk away.
She tucked into Glen’s side and faced the wind. “I feel like I should tip them or something.”
Glen stumbled and started laughing. “Please don’t start something everyone else will have to follow.”
“But that was the fastest trip across the country I’ve ever had.”
“It’s the same amount of time in the air.”
“Yeah, but there was no security, the plane took off almost the second I got on board. People would fly more often if it was always that easy.”
Glen rolled her bag beside him as they walked off the tarmac and into the terminal.
Mary glanced around. “Wait, how did you get in here? I thought only ticketed passengers made it this far.”
He squeezed her shoulders with one arm around her. “Did you have a ticket?”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. “You live a crazy life, Glen.”
“Can’t argue that.” He kissed the top of her head, and if she wasn’t mistaken, sniffed her hair before standing tall. “I missed you, too.”
Glen drove a Land Rover.
The drive into Manhattan wasn’t bad. It helped that it was on the tail end of rush hour.
“We have a suite at The Morrison,” he told her.
“Shocking.” Dakota’s sarcasm was really rubbing off on her.
Glen grinned. “Have you met any of Monica’s family?”
“Just you and your brothers last Thanksgiving.”
He nodded and changed lanes . . . not that one did that in Manhattan so much as attempted suicide by moving the car over with a hand on the horn and one finger flying in the air. Glen managed without the finger.
“Once you’ve met the Morrisons, you’ll understand why you can’t stay at any other hotel if they have one where you’re going. Have you ever been to the South?”
“Not really. I don’t think the Florida conference last year is what you’re talking about.”
“No. I’m talking deep Texas. Georgia . . . the Carolinas?”
“Bucket list,” Mary told him. “I haven’t even been to Dakota’s hometown.” But then, up until this last year, Dakota had avoided it like fish avoid dry land.
“Hospitality. There is no other word for it. Every person I’ve met from the South is deeply offended if you don’t take them up on the offer of accommodations or a meal.”
“Are you sure they’re not just being polite?”
“Deeply offended.”
Mary always thought Dakota had been kidding about that Southern trait. “So if I took a trip to say . . . Seattle, and didn’t ask Monica to hook me up, she’d be offended?”
“Ah, no. Monica would completely understand. But after you meet her sister, Jessie, or more importantly Jessie’s extended family, the Morrisons . . . oh, yeah. Offended might be an understatement.”
“So I’m staying at The Morrison.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You catch on quick.”
The Morrison overlooked Central Park. The corner suite had a central living space complete with a living room, dining room, and kitchenette. Mary was drawn to the window the moment she walked through the door. “Wow! What a view.”
Glen rolled her bag into a separate bedroom. “You’re in here,” he told her.
She did a tiny spin and took in the sleek gray tones of the space. An expansive marble entry melted into a plush Berber carpet. The splash of color came from the dark plum sofa and accents on the dining room chairs. Three oval glass chandeliers illuminated the ceiling. It was modern and very New York. “Where’s your room?”
He pointed to a closed door on the other side of the living room. “Door locks on this side.”
“You’re very thoughtful.”
“I’m a thoughtful kinda guy. Now grab your purse, I’m starving.”
“I had a little something on the plane.”
He grabbed her hand. “Then you can grab a little more something here.”
She snagged her purse, which she’d just left on a hall table, as he dragged her away from the room. “You’re pushy.”
“I’m thoughtful and a pushy kinda guy. Especially when I’m hungry.”
They rode the elevator holding hands.
When they exited the hotel, Glen held her hand tighter.
“What are you in the mood for?”
The beauty of New York City was that you could walk two blocks in any direction and find the flavors of the entire world, or close to it.
“I’m not the hungry one.”
He ignored her and rambled off their options. “Burgers?”
She shook her head.
“Chinese or Thai . . . Korean barbeque?”
“Salty.”
“Deli . . . maybe tomorrow for lunch,” he suggested. “Fish tacos?”
“You pick,” she said
.
“There’s a great Italian place around the corner. Pizza?”
“Ohhh, pizza.”
Glen pulled her in a circle and started walking the other direction. “Pizza it is.”
Mary sat back, holding her stomach, after eating not one, but two pieces of the giant pizza filled with dough, sauce, and cheese cooked to perfection. “You’re trying to make me fat.”
Glen was tearing into his third slice. “You eat like a bird.”
She tapped a finger on her empty plate.
“Well, maybe not with pizza,” he said with a wink.
The tiny pizza joint was loud and crazy busy. They’d ordered at the counter and brought their box to a small table by the window. They classed it up by drinking wine from a screw-cap bottle.
She pushed her paper plate aside, rested her chin in her hands and her elbows on the table. “Have you ever done this before?”
He had just opened his mouth to take another bite. “Eaten pizza in New York? Yeah, all the time.” Glen shoved a fourth of the thing in his mouth.
“No. Not the pizza. Dated someone who lived on the West Coast?”
He finished chewing, picked up the red and white checkered napkin, and wiped his mouth. “Hmm, uh, no. Well, not as far as California.”
She made a little rolling motion with her hands.
“What?”
“How far have you gone for a date?”
He stared up at the ceiling before waving his pizza in the air. “France.” He popped more sauce, cheese, and dough into his mouth.
“France is farther than California.”
Glen was not going to give up his meal for the conversation. “You asked how far I flew for a date,” he said around his food. Talking with your mouth full was usually a complete turnoff for Mary, but Glen was the poster child for cute doing it. “That would be France. Dated . . . as in more than one date . . . Detroit.”
“So you flew to France to get laid and Detroit for a relationship.”
He cocked his head and stopped chewing when he took in her words. His slow nod of acknowledgment was followed by him shoving pizza in his mouth.
“What happened between you and Miss Detroit?”
He held his pizza but didn’t bite this time. “Miss Detroit, as you call her, came from money . . . I thought great, someone who has it won’t be using me to get mine.”
Not Quite Perfect (Not Quite Series Book 5) Page 13
