The Transformation

by Terri Kraus

  “He doesn’t own a hammer? Really?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you.”

  Oliver nodded. It was the only gesture he felt safe offering.

  “Maybe watching the parade of repairmen and contractors got me interested in flipping properties. Maybe,” she added, “I wasn’t really the corporate type. That’s what my father claimed. So I turned to flipping properties.”

  Oliver seldom wanted to be social, but this evening, with this beautiful, warm, vibrant woman sitting near him, he really wanted to be congenial and polite. “Would you like some tea? I have a teakettle in the basement. And an extra cup.”

  Samantha looked at him, at his teacup, in his eyes, then at Robert, whose head was now up and whose eyes were on her.

  Oliver was struck by how easily he could read her expression.

  If she says yes, that means she’ll follow me downstairs … to my makeshift bedroom … and she doesn’t want to do that. Or maybe she does, but she’s telling herself that she doesn’t.

  That knowledge, that quick interpretation, had never happened to Oliver before. Never. He could have stared at a thousand women’s faces and had no idea what any of them thought. Yet somehow he knew what Samantha was considering.

  “It’s late,” he said. “I bet caffeine keeps you up, and all I have is regular tea and regular instant coffee.”

  He was amazed a second time. He could see the relief wash over her, the tension in her eyes releasing, her shoulders easing.

  That really is what she was thinking.

  “It does. You’re right. But I will take a rain check, okay, Oliver-not-Ollie?”

  “Sure. That would be great.”

  She stood up and dusted off the back of her jeans. Oliver noticed she was wearing high-heeled black boots.

  “I just wondered if you were here and if you needed anything. You’re all settled then?”

  Oliver nodded.

  “What’s the first thing you’ll be working on?”

  “Tearing up the carpet. Moving pews. Sort of demolition, but not that much. I’ve got a Dumpster coming in the morning and three guys who tear stuff up for a living. They’re fast and cheap.”

  Samantha crossed her arms over her chest. “Good. Okay if I stop by in the morning?”

  Oliver stood as she stepped to the sidewalk. “Sure. You own the place. You can come anytime.”

  He could see her smile in the darkness and knew it meant more than just a smile.

  “Anytime? You mean that? Really?” Her voice grew deeper and slower, as if she were savoring every word.

  Oliver’s ability to know what she was thinking quickly disappeared—like the reverse of Pentecost and the disciples not being able to speak in strange languages.

  Maybe she’s kidding? Maybe she’s flirting? Maybe she means exactly what she’s saying.

  She stepped forward, tousled the fur on Robert’s head, then gently touched Oliver’s forearm. “I will see you tomorrow. I hope you sleep well. Maybe we can go over the almost-final plans in the morning.”

  Then she turned and hurried down the street. Oliver sniffed the air. He smelled a hint of tobacco, maybe alcohol, mixed with the same sort of flower or fruit he’d noticed before.

  CHAPTER SIX

  OLIVER ACTUALLY THOUGHT about what he was going to wear that day. Normally, unlike Taller, he paid little attention to what he put on for work. Whatever was clean, or next in line in the closet or dresser, was what found its way onto his body.

  But today he shuffled through the shirts he’d brought until he found one that was the newest and with the fewest stains or tears and without shredded cuffs. The one he selected was only a few months old, and other than a small faded paint stain on the forearm, which he covered by rolling up the sleeves, it appeared new and neat and most presentable.

  The jeans he wore were the newest of the four pair that he had brought, along with one pair of khakis that he could wear out to dinner, if he went to a non-fast-food restaurant, that is.

  He had gotten up early, just a shade after five, and as soon as he was showered and dressed, he roused Robert the Dog and led him upstairs and outside to a remote area behind the church, an area he’d clean up at the end of the week. He ate the six tiny powdered-sugar doughnuts he’d brought from home as breakfast, knowing it wasn’t a properly nutritious meal, with all that refined sugar. But they also contained flour—and flour was healthy, right? He ate fast, quickly disposing of the evidence.

  She might come early. Or the Dumpster might be delivered early. They’ll need to know where I want it dropped.

  Samantha was handling all the permits and other paperwork required by the city for the project. Oliver had given her a copy of his contractor’s license. He didn’t need a permit to remove carpet and pews and all the rest that would keep him busy for a couple of weeks. That was a good thing, because he wasn’t sure where the city hall was, or if Shadyside had its own city hall or used the city of Pittsburgh’s department of building codes.

  He set his coffee cup down on a window ledge, just under the stained-glass window illustrating Jesus, the Good Shepherd, holding a lamb. He adjusted his carpenter’s belt, the hammer on one side, a pry bar on the other, with a tape measure, a screwdriver, and a pair of vise grips in their proper places.

  The beginning of a project could be intimidating.

  Where do I start? What do I do first?

  For the most typical additions, it was easy: clear the ground, dig for the footings, get the concrete poured, start with the framing.

  But in this old church, the first move was not quite as simple.

  The pews come off first. But do I dismantle them? They’re historic, antique, and probably valuable. Do I try and store them outside under a tarp or something? Might be a city rule against it. Will they come apart without being damaged? And where do I stack the parts? Downstairs? There’s a ton of space, but that’s a lot of hauling stuff up and down. Or do we just slide them back and forth and work around them? A bigger pain—but maybe it would be easier.

  Robert the Dog circled the old sanctuary several times. Then, after apparently finding the right spot to lie down, he did exactly that in a corner of the raised platform, almost against the back wall. It was underneath the spot where a cross had once hung, the space lit by the round window.

  Oliver knelt by the first pew. It had been installed over the carpet.

  Not the right way to do it. Should have been attached directly to the floor, and the carpet cut around it.

  He nudged his screwdriver at the one edge. The screw came up easily. In less than five minutes, he had one pew unsecured and pushed it toward the center aisle.

  “These are heavy. Probably be best off working around them, instead of hauling them somewhere.”

  Robert opened one eye, listening as Oliver talked to himself.

  Then there was the loud beep-beep-beep of a truck backing up. Oliver hurried out to meet the Dumpster delivery; Robert tagged along.

  “Right here,” Oliver yelled out to the driver, indicating that the Dumpster should be rolled off at the bottom of the steps, just under the port cochere outside the main door. Hauling rolls of old, dusty carpet over a longer distance than necessary was not fun.

  The metal container screeched and howled as it was levered off the truck, the driver careful to keep the bottom entirely on the stone drive. He edged the truck away, switched it off, and jumped from the cab, carrying a clipboard.

  “Sign here, and here, and here,” he said, pointing at the form with a chewed-on pen.

  Without taking his gloves off, Oliver braced the clipboard on a buttress of the port cochere and signed.

  “You tearing the church down?” the driver asked. “Seems too pretty for that.”

  His work shirt featured the name NED,
stitched above the left breast pocket of the stained garment.

  “No. Renovating. It’s not a church any longer. The last congregation got too big and moved.”

  “Really? A church getting too big? That’s a new one. Huh. A church getting too big.”

  Oliver wasn’t the sort of person who was aggressive about his faith. If someone really wanted to know what he believed, and expressed a sincere interest a couple of times, then Oliver might share. But not like this. Not off the cuff and on the street. To Oliver, this place—the workplace—wasn’t the place to talk about Jesus and his beliefs.

  But this time he felt he had to say something. “It happens,” he replied, handing the clipboard back to Ned. “Churches do grow.”

  Ned harrumphed again in reply, then his face brightened. “Maybe it’s because I haul Dumpsters for a living. Most of the time, when I show up, a place is getting ready to be torn down or rehabbed. I don’t do new construction all that often. Too muddy.”

  “Muddy?”

  “Yeah, when they build new stuff, it’s in a field or something and there’s no roads. My truck doesn’t like mud and no roads. And around here, it’s mostly old stuff getting torn down.” Ned tossed his clipboard into the cab. “You got two weeks on this one, unless you fill it quicker. City says two weeks is the most one Dumpster can sit outside. Worried about rats or something. Like rats are going to eat carpet.”

  “I’ll call if we fill it early.”

  Ned climbed into the truck. “Who’s the owner? I mean, who’s doing the rehab or whatever here? Not that it matters to me. Just curious.”

  Oliver had to think for a second. Did she have a company name? “Oh … yeah. She calls it the 2C Group,” he said, happy to have remembered the name.

  “2C? Like Samantha Cohen? She bought this place?”

  Oliver tried to hide his surprise that Ned the Dumpster Guy knew who Samantha was. “Yes, that’s her name. Samantha Cohen.”

  Ned leered back at Oliver as he started his truck. “She’s a wild one, I hear tell. I did all her Dumpsters on a project over on Mount Washington. She’s really hot. I saw her there a couple of times. The contractor for that job made out like a bandit, from what I hear, and not just in the cash-ola department, if you know what I mean.”

  “What?”

  “You know, the owner, that Cohen lady, she paid the guy in more than just cash.”

  Oliver felt as if he’d been slapped, or had cold water thrown in his face, or both.

  More like both.

  “I … don’t know anything about that,” he said in reply.

  “Hey,” Ned called back as he snagged the truck into first gear, “you let me know if it’s true, eh? Or ask her if she’s interested in dating a Dumpster guy, okay?”

  Oliver stood there, in the quiet of the morning, holding a yellow copy of the Dumpster order in his left hand. As he stared after the truck that wheezed south on Aiken Avenue, he wondered what in the world he should believe.

  The Pratt brothers arrived at 9:00 a.m., just as Oliver had requested, armed with sawzalls, pry bars, sledgehammers, and smiles.

  “I love my work,” said one of the brothers, holding a sledgehammer like a rock musician cradling his favorite guitar.

  Oliver couldn’t keep their names straight and wasn’t sure if he even knew their first names, but none of the brothers seemed to mind in the slightest just being called “Pratt.”

  The three of them followed Oliver inside, bustling about, tapping at pews, knocking on old plaster walls with their knuckles, running their hands over the thick stone piers, thumping the floor with the heels of their work boots. Robert the Dog hurried from his perch and greeted each brother separately, coming to the third, and possibly the oldest, Pratt brother, then sitting with an anticipatory grin. This Pratt, the elder, grinned down at Robert, reached into his jeans pocket, and pulled out a thickness of rawhide, looking like it may have been homemade.

  The Pratt brothers were like that.

  Robert took his treat and trotted down the middle aisle back to his spot on the platform.

  “Good dog you got there, Ollie,” said the possibly senior Pratt. “Remembered that I gave him treats from the last time.”

  Oliver didn’t mind that the Pratts all called him Ollie, since none of them minded being called Pratt.

  “So whadda we got here? Pretty fancy place, eh? You lookin’ for a total bust-up? Pews goin’? Any walls knocked down? Holes in floors? Whadda we gonna tear out this time?”

  Oliver laid out his plans: carpets pulled up, pews moved, five walls downstairs taken down—none of them bearing walls—some badly constructed built-in bookcases in the former pastor’s office removed, first-floor bathrooms gutted, every extraneous piece of furniture taken out.

  The senior Pratt grinned. “This looks like a lot of fun.”

  One of the other Pratt brothers spoke up. “This bein’ a church and all—we allowed to swear?”

  “Or smoke?” the other added. “If I can’t swear, I’ll need to smoke. Maybe we can’t do that in here. Feels like we can’t, at any rate—what with all the Jesuses,” he said, pointing at the windows.

  “It’s not a church anymore,” Oliver said. “They deconsecrated it … or it was decommissioned—whatever it is that preachers do with old church buildings to make them no longer a church. So I’m not going to monitor your language. But take the cigarettes outside. The place doesn’t have sprinklers yet, and I don’t want to see it go up in flames. Okay?”

  Even before he was finished, two of the Pratt brothers had begun to tackle dismounting a pew, the other following closely behind, ready to drag it away once his brothers were finished. In less than an hour, one side of the church stood pewless, and the pews were carefully stacked on one another at the front of the church. They were about to start on the other side when Robert the Dog barked, just once, then immediately returned to his chewing.

  “Oliver … I brought breakfast.”

  The three Pratt brothers stopped and stared, a hard stare, in triplicate. Samantha stood in the doorway, holding up a large brown bag and carrying a cardboard container with a bevy of takeout cups anchored in the holder’s openings.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said after a long moment of silence. “Bagels, schmears, sufganiot, Danish, coffee, and some lox, if anyone here likes lox. I like it, so if none of you like smoked salmon, I’ll treat myself.”

  The Pratt brothers, nearly in unison, dropped every tool they were carrying and hurried toward Samantha as if they hadn’t eaten or seen a very attractive woman in some time—both statements probably more true than false.

  “And I brought some candles,” Samantha added. “They’re great for burning away the rather musty smell in here. I love candles.”

  Oliver walked over to the group, telling himself he was going to act natural, as if he’d heard nothing about what had happened in Mount Washington. Then he reminded himself that he really didn’t know what had happened. Maybe Ned was a loony. Perhaps there had been no relationship at all between Miss Cohen and some sleazy contractor who should have known better than to get involved with a client, no matter how attractive she was.

  “What’s a suf … sufgon—”

  “Sufganiot,” Samantha answered. “Jelly doughnut. They’re delicious.”

  “And what’s a schmear?” asked the senior Pratt brother, obviously posing the question because his two brothers had no idea what it was either.

  Samantha laughed and leaned her head back, baring her throat. It was apparent what all four men were looking at—at least while Samantha was not looking at them.

  “It’s not a ‘what.’ Well, maybe it is. My father says it’s an old Yiddish word—shmirn—which means ‘to smear.’ You take cream cheese and maybe add fruit or nuts or seasonings, like onions or garlic. Th
at’s what you schmear.”

  One of the younger Pratt brothers replied, “Sort of like peanut butter?”

  Samantha touched his forearm, a gesture all the men clearly noticed. “Yes, something like peanut butter. Now, who wants to try lox—smoked salmon?”

  All three Pratt brothers shook their heads. From their expressions, it was obvious none were the least bit partial to any form of disguised fish, especially at breakfast.

  “Oliver? Want to try it? It’s really good. It’s from Kazansky’s. My father never eats it but says it’s the best in the city. Try some on a bagel?”

  A minute later Oliver was chewing the lox and bagel thoughtfully. “Tastes like smoked fish.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Oliver would have shrugged but remembered his mother berating him for responding to questions with a shrug. Instead he replied, “Yes, I do. I may not eat it for breakfast from now on, but it’s pretty good.”

  Samantha appeared very pleased with herself.

  The three Pratt bothers continued to stare at her—not quite as hard now, but still with obvious delighted fascination.

  Taller Barnett arrived four days later, on Friday, in the morning, following the Pratt brothers as they clambered inside. He whistled loudly when he entered, shaking his head, staring at the stained glass.

  “This is one heck of a building, big brother,” Taller said. “Much more church than I had imagined. Like you’re knocking down Notre Dame to the studs.”

  Oliver brushed the wisps of plaster dust from his forehead. “It’s not that fancy,” he said in his defense.

  “It is too. You know it is. So don’t let Ma come here. Just seeing the stained-glass windows will throw her into a religious frenzy. She’ll start throwing Bibles around, I bet, and calling for hellfire and brimstone to rain on you, you sacrilegious heathen.”

  At the words hellfire and brimstone the two younger Pratt brothers stopped work and looked around, as if they were expecting the celestial pounding to start at any minute.