by Terri Kraus
The second call offered more promise. A young couple, the Pettigrews, recently married and in their first home, wanted to redo their kitchen and bath. It was a job Jack could easily handle alone, but he also knew young couples often lived on a pretty thin budget. He promised them he’d come by to give them an estimate the following day.
As dusk settled over the town, the streetlights clicked on all at once, as if some master switch had been flipped. Jack sat in his one chair and looked out his one window in his very small efficiency/studio apartment on Jefferson Street. He had propped the window open with a paint stirrer, so the noise of the traffic was diffused. Every red-light cycle, a buzzer would sound at the intersection of Main Street and Jefferson, a half block away, for at least fifteen seconds. He had asked his landlord, who lived in the apartment on the first floor, about it.
“For the blind people. When it buzzes, they know it’s safe to cross,” he’d explained.
Jack had stared out the window for several nights and had yet to see a blind pedestrian.
But I guess there must be visually impaired people in Butler. Why else would they install a buzzer?
Gratefully, the buzzer ceased buzzing at 10:00 p.m.
I guess blind people go to bed early.
This evening, he was not tired. He had not done physical work all day. He had passed out more flyers—black-and-white copies he’d made at a fast-print store. He’d stopped at a few more construction suppliers and had talked to some contractors he’d met. He’d asked about work or jobs they had been offered that were too small for their crews. Everyone had been polite and helpful, offering advice on what areas would be a good source of jobs, and where not to go.
He had known starting a business would not be easy. He had no illusions about what might be in store. Ethan Willis had done it—started small and built himself up gradually. Now, with all the notoriety that came with the Carter Mansion renovation in Franklin, Willis Construction had become a very successful restoration business.
If Ethan could do it, so can I, Jack told himself. I can do this. I know I can.
If all else failed, Jack knew he could get a sales job in one of the several warehouse-type do-it-yourself home improvement centers around town. He did not want to, but he would go that route if forced. Jack knew that he was a natural-born salesman. He knew, without being smug, that he had a way with people—that they quickly trusted him, that they would buy things from him and believe him.
But I don’t want to wear an orange apron.
He stood up.
I don’t look good in orange … but then, who does?
He ran his hand through his hair.
I am good at one key part of that sort of job: making people like me and trust me.
He stared at his face in the small mirror over the sink.
But … isn’t that one of the reasons I got into the trouble I did?
The buzzer sounded again. Jack decided that staring out the window at the street below felt a tad bit desperate. He was not desperate yet. He slipped on his sneakers and padded down the dimly lit steps of his new home.
This is just until I get on my feet. Then I’ll buy a small old house that needs renovation, work on it in the evenings, sell it, buy another, and start over. I can do that.
He walked down Butler’s main thoroughfare, named, appropriately, Main Street, North and South, with Jefferson Street the dividing line. Main Street was actually Route 8—the William Flynn Highway—but that would not suit a downtown street sign.
I wonder who William Flynn was?
Butler had once been a very prosperous town, the site of steel plants and glassworks, home to thousands of immigrant workers. A few steel firms still remained, but the labor force needed to run them had shrunk. Over the years, malls and shopping centers and megaplexes had emptied downtown Butler of much of its retail viability, but there were many signs of a rebirth.
Historic buildings were being renovated. Landmarks were being restored rather than demolished. Large planters with seasonal flower arrangements lined the sidewalks, and banners on the vintage-style light posts highlighted performances at the historic Little Theater and exhibitions at the town’s museums. Jack passed several new restaurants and specialty stores and a few empty storefronts with WATCH THIS SPACE signs posted in them.
He stopped at the window of The Iron Works, a motorcycle service, repair, and customizing shop that had taken over the entire street level of an old department store. He could see the holes in the stone surface of the second-story facade where the old establishment’s name had once been but could not decipher the letters or the name from those sparse clues. He stared inside the darkened shop. In the window stood, or leaned, an elegant old motorcycle, from the halcyon days of American motoring, a restored and refurbished Indian Motorcycle, with its shift lever on the tank. They called it a suicide shift because, to shift gears, a rider had to let go of one side of the handlebars. No doubt it had caused any number of accidents with new riders.
He looked at the Indian for a long time, wishing he hadn’t been forced to sell his own motorcycle to fund his fledgling business. But certain sacrifices were necessary. He tried not to dwell on that fact.
He walked west a few blocks. He caught the thick, greasy, and wonderful scent of hamburgers frying on a grill. He hadn’t had dinner. Sometimes he skipped the meal. His appetite was not what it once was.
Across the street was a storefront tavern, with a palm tree painted on the side of the old brick wall. The leaves had been outlined in green neon, with THE PALM written in neon script. Even from where he stood, he could hear the faint humming drone of the lit neon gas, like a large bee in a harness.
I could eat something.
A second neon sign hung in the window: BEST BAR FOOD IN TOWN.
I’ll just get a burger. That’s all. I do have to eat.
He halted on the second of the three steps up to the front door of the bar. It was just a momentary hesitation, as if his feet were in debate with his brain. His feet won, and he opened the heavy door and entered, blinking his eyes in the murkiness of the darkly paneled room. It was early; the place was nowhere near full. A few older men sat at the bar. One or two of them turned as he came in, looked, then turned back to the television mounted on the wall. ESPN was on: A trio of old athletes behind a desk jabbered loudly at each other.
Jack took a seat at the long wooden bar with its deep, rounded bull-nose edge and leaned his elbows on the thick surface. Behind it he could see a dim image of himself reflected in the long smoky mirror behind the bar. It all felt so comfortable, so familiar, so inviting.
The bartender walked up slowly, as if not wanting to spook him, and asked, “What will you have?”
Jack inhaled deliberately and waited to answer. “A burger. No, a cheeseburger. You have fries?”
“We do. Evenings only, though.”
“Then fries with that.”
The bartender, an older man with glasses that slipped too far down on his nose—glasses with yellowed, oversized plastic frames that were only in style in bars like this—nodded. “What to drink?”
Jack looked over at the shiny brass pulls on the bar. He knew which beer each would dispense, dark to light, with their thick heads of foam nestling at the top of the frosted glass. He might have licked his lips, just a little, as if tasting a memory. He looked over to the rack of bottles behind the bar, amber and gold and clear, knowing the hard, tight taste of each. He looked down at his hands and counted. He put his palms flat on the bar and waited. He didn’t want to look up and didn’t trust himself to speak.
The bartender must have seen this small, secret dance before—a dozen times, a hundred times—from men just like Jack.
“How about a Coke? A big glass of Coke with ice?” the old man said softly, with a hint of understanding.
Ja
ck looked up and saw the bartender’s eyes, knowing, sympathetic. He nodded, thankful, unhappy, unsatisfied, relieved. “Yeah. Sure. That would be great. A Coke.”
The bartender walked away, toward the back, and called out through an open service window, “Cheeseburger with.”
A moment later he came back with a big glass of Coke and carefully set it in front of Jack. “It’ll be okay. It really will. You keep at it, okay? Your burger will be up in a minute.”
And Jack took a long sip of the drink, wishing that it were true, not believing that it was.
I can do this.…
As Jack walked back to his apartment later that evening, he thought of calling Ethan Willis, his former boss. He’d learned so much from Ethan—about historic restoration, about life. Jack considered Ethan to be the closest thing to a wise man that he knew. He knew Ethan’s cell number and that Ethan would be glad to take his call. But even as Jack picked up his cell phone, he began to doubt.
What am I going to tell him? That I passed a test? Maybe he’s busy.
He plugged the phone back into the charger on the kitchen table.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe during the day. That’s when I’ll call.
He lay down on his single bed.
And it wasn’t that much of a test.
Amelia Westland, age thirteen years, three months
Glade Mills
Butler County, Pennsylvania
October 19, 1875
Great sadness has come to our family. I have lost my beloved Aunt Willa to the pox.
I know not what else to commit to paper. Are any words sufficient to hold my grief? ’Tis a parting to which there will be no reunion on this earth, but only someday, in heaven.
They that sow in tears
shall reap in joy.
—Psalm 126:5
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS EARLY THE NEXT morning when Leslie and Ava finished unpacking. Leslie carefully disassembled the stack of cardboard boxes that carried their kitchen supplies and linens and slid them between the refrigerator and the wall. We might need these later, she thought.
One last box remained packed and unopened. That special box would be unpacked last, when she could find a safe place in the apartment for the contents. Nestled among the thickness of white tissue paper, along with Ava’s baby book, family photos, her school yearbooks, was the diary of her great-great-great-grandmother, whom both Leslie and Ava called Gramma Mellie, more properly Amelia Grace Westland.
The diary would go on her nightstand.
Leslie had read the diary from the late 1800s a hundred times, perhaps more, and still read and reread from the fragile pages often, trying to understand the struggles, grasp the courage, and draw strength from the words and faith of her ancestor.
Most of their other possessions had found a place in their new home. They had a sturdy white kitchen table, four matching wood chairs, a comfortable sofa in soft green, a pair of not-so-unattractive side tables, two beds with almost-new mattresses and box springs, five lamps, and two dressers. Leslie also had some colorful posters of her favorite art exhibitions from the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, still safely rolled up in a long cardboard tube and in need of frames.
It was enough for now. Before they’d left their hotel room, Leslie had carefully copied the names, phone numbers, and addresses of every secondhand furniture and resale shop in the Butler area from the fat Yellow Pages in the nightstand drawer. There were a lot of them, and Leslie hoped she would be able to fill in their furnishing gaps over the next few weekends. In the past, Leslie had scoured resale shops and garage sales looking for hidden treasures for her home. Now it was not so much treasure that she was searching for as bargains—to save the limited money she had.
She hoped to find some good school outfits for Ava as well as home furnishings. At Ava’s age, Leslie remembered being very, very particular about what she wore and quite specific about what she refused to wear—the style, the color, the type of buttons, the accessories. Ava seemed not to care at all. Clothing to Ava was not what it once was to her mother. Colors, fashion, and design seemed beyond her. As long as it didn’t pinch anywhere or wasn’t tight, Ava was happy.
On the kitchen table was the flyer she had received from that man just after making her offer on the building. She knew no one else working in construction in the Butler area to call. She picked up her cell phone and dialed the number.
It rang only twice.
“Kenyon Construction.”
Now I remember something else about our first meeting. His voice—unusual, rather deep, thick, and somewhat throaty. He sounds like that actor who voices all the movie trailers. But Mr. Kenyon’s voice is less breathless, and somehow … he sounds more trustworthy.
Leslie introduced herself and asked if he might be available sometime in the near future to give her an estimate on a series of projects.
“I know the building is old,” she explained, “but it’s solid—that’s what the building inspector said—and I want to do some updating on the interior of the empty apartment before I list it for rent. Do you do that sort of work, Mr. Kenyon?”
“I do. Working with older houses is what I do best. How about tomorrow morning?”
“That would be great, but after nine o’clock, if you could. I have a family matter to attend to early in the morning. And it isn’t really a house. It’s more like a three-flat building, with a big empty retail space on the first floor.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure I could handle any changes you might want to make. I’ll see you tomorrow at nine o’clock, then.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be done with the family matter by then, for sure.”
She looked over to her daughter and offered her biggest, brightest, most comforting smile possible.
Ava didn’t smile back. Clearly she knew what her mother meant by “family matter,” and she wasn’t falling for it.
Jack rose much earlier than nine. No building project waited for him—not yet. He had no business to attend to. He thought of visiting a few more stores that catered to the construction trade, getting there early, but did not.
There’s something about this morning. His thoughts, jittery and dislocated, circled back to the evening before at The Palm.
Maybe I tempted myself too much. Maybe that’s why I’m on edge now.
He sat at the table with a pencil, a solar-powered calculator, a recent contractor’s guide to prices, and a half cup of instant coffee. He was almost finished with the estimate for the Pettigrews—the young couple with the outdated kitchen and bath.
He sketched a rough drawing of his proposed kitchen layout, the lines precise and angular, almost as if it had been done by a professional draftsman. Jack took pride in being able to draw 3-D renderings of kitchens and bookcases and all manner of architectural and structural details. He drew out a rudimentary trim profile, made a list of the lumber needed, multiplied the board feet times the prices, listed the cabinets required, added an estimate of the cost of various flooring options—hardwood, tile, and vinyl. He consulted his guidebook. He added midrange prices for kitchen appliances and a new set of bath fixtures—tub, sink, and toilet. He tapped at the calculator.
He could quote $15,000 for the job—$15,000 and change, if he used stock cabinets, the least expensive fixtures, laminate on the counters, and vinyl on the floor. From that number, he began to add extras: granite countertops, custom cabinets, built-in stainless steel refrigerator and commercial stove, hardwood floors. In just a few strokes, that initial figure ballooned easily to $40,000.
Jack brushed off the eraser residue from the estimate.
If they wanted him to do the work and picked the low price, he would be busy for a month and make a profit of at least $3,500. If they opted for the higher prices, he’d make more. People often stretched themselv
es financially. At any rate, Jack’s payoff would not be a fortune. In fact, it wasn’t much at all. But it would be a start. And, hopefully, he would build from there.
I know I can do this.
“Why, don’t you look pretty?” Leslie said as she took a few steps back from her daughter.
Leslie had picked out a feminine, but not frilly, outfit: a bright yellow jumper with a patterned blouse and tights. This was her one school outfit that was purchased at full retail price. Leslie had already stockpiled a wardrobe of garage sale and thrift store finds—all in perfect shape and quite stylish, for pennies on the dollar.
It is what we do now, Leslie told herself. There is no shame in saving money.
Leslie held out her hand and Ava dutifully took it. They walked down the steps of the Midlands Building, onto North Street, over three blocks to Washington, then up one more block to Emily Brittian Elementary School, passing houses in which other children were being readied for school.
Ava was about to enter kindergarten.
Leslie chattered along as they walked, asking if Ava was excited (“A little”), scared (“No”), and if she was going to miss her mother (“Of course, but just a little”). Ava had been to school before, a preschool at the Congregational Church in Greensburg, but that was only three days a week and only in the mornings. Kindergarten in Butler meant that Ava would be in school all day long—from 8:00 until 2:30.
Leslie did not like the long hours but knew she would have to find a job—not immediately, but soon. If she had to work a full eight hours … well, she would figure those details out when she had to.
“You remember you’re going to be there almost all day, right? Through lunch.”
“I remember.”
