by Erin Duffy
“Okay. No Rhododendron,” I agreed. “We can find another one that doesn’t remind you of an agoraphobic time in your life,” I teased.
“Thanks,” Lissy said, missing my sarcasm entirely. “I don’t want there to be any negative associations with this place.”
“Believe me, I get that,” I told her, and I did.
“I like Easter Bunny,” Antonia said.
“Me too,” I agreed.
“I like it, too,” Lissy added. “I just don’t know if we should buy it right now.”
“Why not?” I asked. We were in Home Depot. Why were we there if not to buy paint?
“Maybe we should just take a sample, and once we’re allowed back in the store, assuming that Fred hasn’t sanded the floors down to matchsticks and there’s still a floor to stand on, we can see what the paint looks like in natural light,” Lissy said.
“Never underestimate the importance of good lighting,” I said, remembering Tara Redmond’s office and wondering what happened to the thread-puller.
“I think we’re overthinking this,” Antonia said. “Let’s just pick a color. We can stand here for ten hours and decide, or stand in the store for ten hours and decide, but it’s not going to make this decision any easier. Let’s just do it now and move on. What do you think?”
“I think that sounds scary,” Lissy admitted. I wasn’t so sure. There was something to be said about just ripping off the Band-Aid. I took out my phone and snapped a picture of the paint samples.
“I just sent a picture of them to Fred. Let’s see what he thinks.”
“Sure,” Lissy said. “Because a heterosexual man is obviously the right person to ask if you’re looking for a second opinion on a pink paint color called Easter Bunny.”
“He’s good at this stuff. It doesn’t matter if the paint is pink! He’ll know.”
“Awwww, isn’t it so cute to see our little Claire in love again?” Antonia asked.
“I never saw her in love the first time,” Lissy said. “Was it this sickeningly cheerful?”
“Worse,” Antonia added. “Someday I’ll tell you about it.”
“Oh, stop. I just think that he knows a thing or two about DIY and we know less than a thing or two about DIY so we’d be silly not to ask him. A professional decorator might advise that we stay very far away from the color, but we can’t afford a decorator, so we are going to have to rely on our own instincts, and Fred. It’s unfortunate that none of us have ever done anything like this before, but sometimes, you just have to wing it. This is one of those times.” I felt like the team captain—like it was my job to push this team over the finish line.
I knew Lissy was nervous because she had turned her store, and in some ways, the memory of her mother, over to my boyfriend and his very large sanding machine, and she wasn’t really all that familiar with either of them. It would’ve been easy for me to tell her that she had absolutely nothing to worry about, that Fred was a pro and that when he was finished she’d have the most beautiful store in town and it wouldn’t have cost her a dime. I wanted to tell her all of this, but I had absolutely no idea if it was true. Fred certainly seemed knowledgeable about the art of drum sanding, but he was an accountant, not Ty Pennington. I was terrified that if something went horribly wrong, Lissy would never forgive me, and then Fred would be responsible for ruining the only friendship I’d managed to nurture since I’d moved here. There was a lot riding on this for everyone, and it wasn’t like the floor was a small thing that we could afford to screw up.
“Okay,” Lissy agreed. “Just let me sleep on it. I’ll come back and buy the paint tomorrow, I promise. I just want to think it over for a few hours before we commit. Okay?”
“Okay,” Antonia and I said simultaneously. It was a simple request, but we had to make a decision by tomorrow, or we were going to risk not finishing everything on time. We said good-bye to Lissy in the parking lot, and I watched as she stared at the two paint cards while she walked to her car. I was happy that Antonia and I had decided to surprise her with our little DIY project. I just hoped she loved it as much as I wanted her to.
“You ready to go back inside and do that all over again?” I asked as we watched Lissy’s car disappear into the road.
“Let’s do it!” Antonia cheered. We locked our arms together, and quickly scurried back into the store.
ANTONIA AND I returned to the house and laid out the entire Sunday New York Times across a large patch of grass in the backyard. I opened the bag from Home Depot and removed the sandpaper, paint cans, and two paintbrushes. We were ready. I was sure of it. I was pretty sure I was sure of it.
“Are you sure you know how to do this?” Antonia asked.
“No! I have never done this before, but it’s spray paint, not open heart surgery. I imagine you just point and shoot.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Maybe we should wait for Fred, or someone else, to come and help us.”
“Fred is helping enough. Speaking of, how long does it take to sand floors anyway? Shouldn’t he be done by now?”
“Are we sure he knows what he’s doing?” Antonia asked.
“I’d really rather not answer that question right now.”
“I just hope we don’t ruin the whole set and end up still needing to buy something. We don’t have a lot of time left before she needs to reopen.”
“Don’t be so negative! Besides, how hard could it be? What’s the worst thing that happens? We wreck a perfectly good kitchen set and the grass in my backyard? So what? I don’t care about either of them.”
“Okay. You’re right. Let’s go get it,” Antonia said, looking hysterical in denim overalls, a baseball hat, and a pair of sneakers, because that was apparently what you wore if you wanted to spray-paint your best friend’s ex-husband’s kitchen set in the backyard.
“I’m so happy I didn’t let you smash this to bits,” Antonia said as we descended the stairs to the basement.
“One girl’s trash is another girl’s treasure.”
“Isn’t that why Dee Dee is dating Owen?” Antonia joked. For a second my breath caught in my throat, the air fighting through knots, and lumps, and muscles in the midst of spasms, trying to escape. Then, all of the tension eased, and I surprised myself by managing to smile. “I’m sorry. Is it too soon?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, liking so very much that it was true. “It’s been almost six months. It’s definitely not too soon,” I said. “Anyway, I’m happy she’ll be able to use it. I think it’ll be perfect.”
The rickety garage door still worked, though it was only a matter of time before the chain broke in half and the door slammed into the pavement and splintered into a million pieces. The table and chairs were exactly where they were the last time I’d gone looking for them, when I wanted to chop them up and light them on fire in the driveway. I hadn’t been in the garage since, mostly because I promised Antonia that I wouldn’t go near it again until I needed to get the Christmas decorations, but also because there was nothing in there that I needed.
Until today.
We carried the table and chairs one by one into the backyard and set them down on top of the newspaper. Antonia strapped on her goggles. “Here we go,” she said. She began to paint the chairs while I stood next to her and sprayed the table with glossy white paint. Neither one of us was good at this type of thing and it showed, because I wasn’t even done with my first can of paint and my clothing, hands, and lawn were arguably more evenly painted than the table sitting three feet in front of me. I needed this paint job to work, because I refused to go back to Home Depot and tell the man who got stuck helping us that we messed it up and needed to start over.
We were just about finished when Antonia finally brought up the conversation I’d been hoping to avoid at all costs. “We need to talk about when I’m going to leave,” Antonia said. She ran a small paintbrush around the bottom of a chair leg, making sure that every last bit of wood was covered, even though every last bit of woo
d was covered ten minutes ago.
“No, I don’t think we need to talk about that at all, actually,” I said. I knew this conversation was coming, I just kept hoping that the longer she stayed, the more at home she would feel, and maybe she’d want to stay forever. Was that too much to ask?
“You don’t need me anymore. You’ve got your groove back. My leaving is the last thing that needs to happen before you can close this chapter in your life for good.”
“I don’t want you to go. I love having you here. What will I do in this house by myself? Who will make us lasagna?”
“I’m not saying I’m leaving tomorrow, but at some point, I’m going to have to go home. I just don’t want to blindside you with it when it happens. It’s on my radar, okay?”
“Okay,” I lied, because it was so definitely not okay. “Can we talk about something else?”
“You got it. What do you think?” Antonia asked as we stood back and admired our work, and also the fact that my lawn was sprayed white in patches like we were trying to create a football field in the backyard.
“I think they look freakin’ awesome. It looks like a whole different set!”
“Do you think we’ll have a hard time with the upholstery?”
“Probably. I only say that because so far this is going way too smoothly, and eventually something has to go wrong.”
“I’m so happy we were able to go back and buy the fabric without her knowing. I love it! Should we take the seats and recover them now?”
“Do you mind if I take a quick shower first?” I asked, looking down at my hands and my arms, wondering how long it would take this spray paint to dry and set on my skin so that I had to scrape it off with a trowel. “I’m a mess.”
“Go for it,” Antonia said. Her own hands and arms were still clean. I had no idea how she managed to do that.
I took a hot shower, leaving my paint-covered clothes in a little mound on my bathroom floor next to the pile of sheets and towels that I hadn’t gotten around to washing just yet, which you could do if you didn’t share your bathroom with anyone else. That was one good thing about being single—no one asked you if you washed his undershirts, or replaced the hand towels in the bathroom, or bought more toilet paper because the powder room on the first floor was out. Now, if I didn’t want to replace the toilet paper for weeks, I didn’t, and it was no one’s problem but my own—which reminded me that I needed to buy more toilet paper because I was one roll away from running out.
I’d put on a few pounds, which was how I knew that I was finally happy. My mother would describe women in town who were starting to look a little plumper than usual that way, and I never understood it. I was sure if she was here right now, she’d say, “Oh, honey, you look beautiful. I haven’t seen you this happy in a long time,” and she’d be right. I turned and looked at my butt in the mirror, and while I certainly wouldn’t be appearing under the “bootylicious” definition in the dictionary anytime soon, there was a little roundness there, keeping my jeans from hanging off me the way they usually did. My face was a little less pale, and a little less angular, and my eyes were a little less dull and a little less empty. I still had a few more pounds to gain in order to be back to my old self, but a few more weeks with Fred would take care of that soon enough.
I pulled on a pair of jeans, and a brown sweater, and brushed my hair into a low ponytail before I headed back downstairs. I heard a courtesy knock on the front door as I hit the landing, and Fred came lumbering in smelling like a wood chipper and covered in dust. I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me that his drum sander went crazy and now we could see through the floor of the store into the basement, but instead he gave me two thumbs up and a smile. I hoped one day I’d be able to stop expecting the worst. The world wasn’t out to get me. Everything was just fine. My life was mine again, and this time it was going to stay that way.
“They look great. I’m really happy with how they came out,” he said. “And I have a surprise for you girls.”
“What?”
“I painted them. Well, two of my buddies came over and helped me, but they’re done. Lissy is going to love it.”
“What do you mean you painted them?” I asked. We hadn’t definitely picked out a paint color yet. I also couldn’t understand how he possibly could’ve managed to do that in the time it took us to buy five cans of spray paint and coat a table and chairs in the backyard. We must really suck at this.
“I went to Home Depot and bought the paint color you sent me.”
“I sent you three different colors. Please don’t tell me you picked Rhododendron.”
“You said you thought you’d decided on Easter Bunny.”
“We did. Sort of. We weren’t definite on that!” I said.
“Trust me, you wanted to go with Easter Bunny.”
“This is a strange conversation.”
“I wanted to surprise you, and do it today. I know how it’s been stressing you out to have everything on hold until the floors were finished, and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for slowing down this train. As of tomorrow, you guys can start moving everything back downstairs.”
“You’re serious? Lissy is going to freak out! Assuming she likes the paint. If she doesn’t she’s going to freak out in a bad way.”
“I’m serious. Look, I’m not your target audience, but I think they look great. You’re going to be really happy with it.”
“Did you take any pictures?” I asked, gesturing toward his phone. “Please tell me you can show me what it looks like.”
“I had a feeling you’d ask me that,” he said.
I wrapped my hands around his neck and kissed him, not minding that he smelled sweaty and dirty, and woodsy, and those aren’t three things that I ever thought I’d find attractive in a man—but I did. We went upstairs, leaving Antonia outside with the newspapers and the empty paint cans, and the wet furniture, and I dragged Fred into the shower with me, even though I’d just gotten out of one, and my hair was already partially dry, because that was what you did with your boyfriend after he spent his entire weekend sanding and painting your friend’s floor.
Chapter 20
THE REST OF August flew by in a whirlwind of planning and cleaning and social media postings and before I knew it the month was almost over and our grand opening was just around the corner. The Friday of Labor Day weekend was a beautiful day, the kind of early fall day where people want to open their windows, and turn off the air conditioners, and start looking for their sweaters instead of their flip-flops. The grand opening of Lissy’s revamped store was only a week away, and there was so much to do between now and then. I’d been promoting the store on local social media, but I needed to stop by the office of the town paper, and see how much it would cost to run an ad. I wanted to swing by the high school and see if one of the secretaries in the attendance office would mind if I left stacks of party invitations on her desk so the senior girls who cut class the first week of school would see them when they reported for detention. I needed to double-check with the caterer that we’d be using red trays for the passed hors d’oeuvres, per Lissy’s orders, and I wanted to stop in town and get a small gift for Fred to say thank you for everything he did for us. I knew the last week before the opening would be crazy busy, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had so much to do. But first, I had to do something else.
I dug through the bottom of my closet, and finally found my black ankle boots, the ones that I’d sworn I’d never wear again when I’d been terrified about accidentally falling down, killing myself, and leaving Bo alone. My black pants were fitted, and showed off the curve of my butt without looking trashy. My cotton sweater was a beautiful mossy green that J.Crew introduced for fall, and while I was sure half the town would be wearing it for the next few months I didn’t care. I didn’t own anything this color. It was new. I felt pretty. And, it didn’t remind me of Owen at all. I ran a comb through my hair and brushed it straight back into a ponytail. I added two
thin bangles to my wrist, and a swipe of cream blush to my cheeks. Then, I took one more look at myself in the mirror, and nodded at my reflection. Hi, Claire, I thought. It’s good to see you again.
“Are you ready to go?” Lissy called from downstairs. “I need to be there a little early.”
“I’m ready,” I replied. I turned off the bathroom light and left the master bedroom to head downstairs. I wasn’t going to let those women bully me into staying home on Friday mornings for the rest of my life. I wasn’t going to let them dictate my movements, my mood, or my attitude. Bo liked the library. I didn’t care that it was a Friday, or that I had a million things to do, or that they were likely to be there. We were going to go to story time, and we were going to sit in the middle of the room, right up front where everyone could see us. I was over them. Nobody puts Claire in a corner.
I smiled at the elderly lady manning the front desk. Her name was Barbara, and she’d been working at the library for the last fifty years. She’d seen young children grow up, marry, and return with their own kids and even grandkids. She stashed a glass jar of lollipops at her feet that those in the know could ask for on their way out the door. She’d told me that she used to keep them on her desk, and let the kids help themselves, but that was before food allergies and an all-consuming hatred of artificial preservatives and refined sugar forced her to hide them under her desk like some people hide porn. She was a wonderful woman who’d donated her time for her entire adult life to the children’s section of this library. I hoped I could be like her someday.
Lissy took her seat on the dais and removed her favorite cow puppet from the bag. Personally, I liked the puppet shows the best, because they really showed off the span of Lissy’s talents. She was more than just a good storyteller—she was part ventriloquist, part stand-up comic, part babysitter, and part fairy godmother to these kids and that made her one of the most special people I’d ever met in my life, and without her I’d probably still be back home trying to take a sledgehammer to my own bathtub.
