by Pamela Morsi
“It’s the only thank-you we know how to do,” Charlie said. “All the coffee you can drink.”
Mazy held off, but Eli drank some. And Tru, who as far as Mazy knew had never shown any interest in even tasting the stuff, fixed himself a cup, although he heavily laced it with cream and brown sugar.
They had expected help and they were not disappointed. Men with toolboxes began trailing in almost immediately. Some of them were guys that had been avoiding Mazy. She did not, however, take the opportunity to talk to them. She was off the clock. And besides, she hoped that as word got out that she was actually trying to help, the more wily debtors would seek her out.
Kite Bagby strolled in. And Jimmy Ray Esher was not far behind him. Pastor Blick arrived in “civilian” clothes, teasing that he was there to insure that the job got finished today.
“The weatherman says it’s going to be gorgeous tomorrow. I want to make sure we get this done today, so that no one misses out on a beautiful Sunday in the Lord’s service.”
“Well, we’re all hoping you’ll turn out to be as good a carpenter as your boss,” Charlie joked.
Mazy was surprised when Karly and Che showed up. She’d expected her friend to make an appearance later in the day, but she hadn’t thought that Che, who had been out of town all week, would give up his day home with the family for community service.
“Oh, we just couldn’t stand not to be a part of the biggest makeover the town has ever seen,” she declared.
Mazy hadn’t seen the legendary Indian motorcycle rider since her high school days. And had he not walked in with Karly, Mazy was not sure she would have recognized him. The long black hair was now cut short and flocked with silver highlights. And the silent, solemn face that she remembered was bright-eyed and smiling.
“I’m not sure we ever officially met,” Mazy said as she shook his hand.
“People don’t meet in high school,” he agreed. “They simply become aware of each other. And I was already brooding along the highway when you girls were still going to pep rallies.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have met him myself if I hadn’t gotten a job at Brandt Burger.”
“I didn’t know you worked at Brandt Burger.”
She smiled. “It was after...after your retreat from school.”
“Ah, the ‘I’m invisible in my own hometown’ era,” Mazy said. “I guess I wasn’t allowed to get a burger.”
“They weren’t any good, anyway,” Karly said.
“What? I ate a million of them,” Che said, feigning shock.
The loosely organized, or perhaps mostly unorganized, crew began removing the top cap on the wainscoting. Each piece of chestnut was being taken down with great care, hoping to limit any damage to the wood. Mazy was honestly surprised at how quickly the work went. Once the walls had been exposed, those who were less skilled with the removal, including Mazy and Tru, were relegated into plaster patching. The walls behind the wood were mostly in good shape and feathering in the quick repair material was straightforward. Mazy worked, steadily gaining confidence as she went along.
As the morning wore on, more people showed up. There was an almost social aspect to the work. Local Grind might belong to Charlie and Alice, but a lot of folks saw it, and the building where it was housed, as an asset to their little community. They wanted to help it thrive.
The expanding crew relieved many of the early-bird workers. Mazy’s efforts were taken over by a faster, more experienced and generally better plaster repairer. She was happy to give over. Her arms were aching from the unaccustomed activity. And she’d been up and down the ladder so many times it practically qualified as a gym workout.
She got herself a cup of coffee and wandered around watching other people work for a while. On the second floor, removal of the paneling was still ongoing. They had managed, with the help of Pastor Blick, who had apparently worked a summer job once at Otis, to get the ancient freight elevator operational.
“The mechanism is all good,” he assured everyone. “It just needs regular maintenance and inspection.” Without certification, no one could actually ride on it, but it was very helpful in getting the stacked chestnut down to the alley to be loaded.
Mazy managed to surreptitiously watch Tru work for several minutes. He was happy and seemed to find a comfortable place in the company of these men. For much of the morning he was the only teenager at the site. Then Gerald Youst showed up with his two sons. The three high school kids were polite to one another, but the Youst boys were quiet and mostly kept to themselves.
From across the distance of the room, Mazy caught Eli’s eye. He smiled at her so intimately, as if they were some old married couple who had been together long enough to read each other’s thoughts. He was clearly pleased with how well things were going and showed genuine pride in her efforts to make a difference. For one long, wonderful moment she allowed herself to be completely caught up in it.
Here it was, at last—the love she’d searched for all her life.
As if she were on a thrill ride, the bottom dropped out of her stomach and the dizzy feeling it left was slightly nauseating.
Had she come back this way again? Where a handsome smile could make her forget everything she knew about relationships with men?
Mentally shaking her head, she went down the stairs and found an out-of-the-way place to sit, which luckily had already been scoped out and partially occupied by Karly.
“This is my favorite part of working,” she said. “Finding a place to get off my feet while other people get it done.”
Mazy laughed. “Okay, we’ll give it ten minutes and then we’ll figure out a way to be useful.”
In fact, their break turned out to be even shorter than that. Alice arrived with a car full of groceries. Both women were recruited into sandwich making and, ultimately, lunch service.
The volunteers came down in shifts, found a place to eat at one of the tables. When they finished, they tagged someone else to take their place.
Eli and Che were among the last to load up, giving Mazy and Karly the opportunity to join them at a table for four. They had all worked up an appetite, which seemed to make the simple sandwiches surprisingly good.
“It’s definitely the skill of the sandwich makers,” Karly teased. “Constructive layering of the meat and cheese, with a generous helping of lettuce and a hint of mustard.”
Everyone laughed.
“No, no,” Che disagreed. “You’ve left out the special ingredient.”
“Special ingredient?”
“Our ladies made them for us with love,” he said.
Eli looked over at her, his eyebrow raised. “Is that what it is?” he asked.
Mazy felt herself blushing and hated it. She couldn’t help herself from being in love with him. But until she had a better handle on whether he could reciprocate, having her feelings out in the open, as they obviously were, didn’t help.
She decided to change the subject.
“So Karly has promised to tell me how you two got together,” she said to Che. “But she hasn’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe you could fill me in.”
Che’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh, it’s one of those sordid tales that Brandt Mountain is famous for. I picked her up on the side of the road.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Would I lie to you?” Che asked. “She was walking down the side of the highway and, man, she was looking hot.”
Karly shook her head and gave a rueful laugh. “It was the middle of summer and I was wearing a tulle skirt. And I wasn’t walking, I was limping. The heel had broken off one of my shoes.”
“There’s got to be more to this story,” Mazy teased.
Che gave a quick glance toward his wife. “Well, it’s, uh, it’s way too a long story for such a short break.” He wiped his mouth on h
is napkin. “And I’d better get back to work if we intend to get this done today.”
“I need to get Tru started on his shelves,” Eli said. “The poor kid has already been about as patient as any teenager can bear.”
He rose to his feet and then bent forward to give her a quick peck on the lips. It was their first public kiss. It wasn’t much, but her heart flew to her throat and her blood raced.
“Yes, it’s official,” Karly said the minute they were alone. “That man is totally in love with you.”
Mazy shrugged. “Maybe, but sometimes love isn’t what you hope it would be,” she said.
“No,” Karly said. “I think love is exactly what you hope it would be.”
Mazy wasn’t eager to argue the point.
“So now I’m really intrigued about how you and Che got together,” she said. “When do I get this ‘long story’?”
“Not right now,” Karly answered as she scooted back her chair. “Too much stuff going on today that’s not ancient history.”
34
By the time they were finished with the lunch break, all the wood had been removed from the main floor. The plaster patching was complete and being allowed to cure as the work continued on upstairs.
Primer and paint would need to go on the walls before the shelves could go up, so Eli and Tru got that started. He enjoyed working with the kid. Their personalities were well suited, he thought. Or maybe it was that Tru reminded him of Mazy. And being with Mazy, for better or worse, made him happy.
Happy.
That thought bounced around in his brain. Being the bad boyfriend made him feel powerful, but it didn’t make him feel happy. Today he was simply Eli with no persona, no agenda. And it felt good. It felt right. It felt happy. He could use a lot more happy.
What he’d felt being dumped by Mazy had ranked high in his personal misery index. No, it wasn’t as wrenchingly painful as his mother’s death, nor as chronically sad as his father’s failing health. But it had been real heartbreak. He wasn’t sure he could go through it again.
Maybe he wouldn’t have to. He’d seen that blush when Che had suggested that she was in love with him. He couldn’t keep the grin from crossing his face. She was in love with him.
No, wait, he reminded himself. That wasn’t true. She was in love with the jerk that he was pretending to be.
Eli wanted to growl out loud. He did enjoy being the jerk, he was willing to admit that. But he didn’t want to be that guy forever, did he? He liked being himself. Couldn’t he love her that way? And if he couldn’t, was it really worth it?
“Is it too messy?” Tru asked beside him.
“Huh? No, it looks fine.”
“You sure did get a grumpy look,” he pointed out.
Eli shrugged. “Thinking about something else,” he hedged.
“Something not good,” Tru said.
“Definitely not,” Eli agreed. “Old stuff, unpleasant crap from the past.”
“Maybe you should try the spitwad cure.”
“The what?”
“Something I learned in that support group,” Tru said. “When something bothers you and you can’t fix it, write it down on a piece of paper, crumple it into a spitwad and shoot it into the trash. That’s the only thing negative thoughts are good for.”
“Wise advice.”
Tru nodded. “Although some days my trash basket can really fill up.”
“For all of us,” Eli agreed.
The day turned surprisingly mild and, one by one, jackets, sweaters and sweatshirts began piling up on every vacant chair. Eli opened all the doors, which somehow made the work more lighthearted and the paint dry more quickly. It was only slightly tacky when Tru and Eli brought in the completed pieces for the shelving.
They had chosen to do cleat-supported floaters, painted to match the walls. That would draw the eye more to what was set on them than to the shelves.
Eli watched as Tru did the measurements. He pulled out the notebook Eli had given him as a reference and he rechecked everything about a half dozen times before he finally predrilled the holes. Eli was pretty sure that nobody had ever drilled more slowly, but he got the job done and it was a perfect fit for the anchor.
Eli held up one end of the one-by-two cleat as Tru screwed it into place. Once it was secure, Tru dry fitted the shelf and the two stood back a moment and surveyed the work.
“Okay, everything’s looking great,” Eli told him. “Have you got this?”
It was a pivotal moment. Eli knew the power of being trusted.
Tru may have swallowed a bit more seriously, but he nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s all good.”
“If something comes up or you need a hand, come find me.”
“I will.”
Eli turned away, willing himself not to look back. The kid needed to know that it was all on him. A man had to be given responsibility before he could learn how to take it.
He went up the stairs to check out the progress on the second floor. Ultimately deciding that the best use of his skills was on the trailer. Some of the volunteers had piled up the chestnut as if it were merely the used paneling that it had pretended to be. He put on his gloves and sorted and restacked the flatbed in a way that he would have wanted to receive a forty-thousand-dollar investment in wood.
It was close to an hour before he decided to check on Tru. That was more than enough time to complete the project, even when using the drill as if it were the dentist’s office.
He stuffed his gloves in his pocket and headed into the building. The smile on his face and the spring in his step wavered as he saw Tru still hard at it, and not alone. Tad Driscoll was holding one of the shelf blanks as Tru ran a bead of glue along the area that would attach to the cleat.
They both looked up as he approached.
“Hello, Termite,” Driscoll said.
Eli didn’t respond.
“This is my last one,” Tru said.
Eli glanced up at the wall before forcing a smile to his lips. “It’s looking good,” he assured the teen.
The two men stood side by side, watching as Tru fitted the shelf in place. He carefully tacked it in with finishing nails.
“It looks really good,” Eli repeated.
Driscoll folded his arms across his chest in a proud stance. “Tru’s very clever,” he said. “I don’t know many kids his age who could do something like this.”
Eli was fairly certain that most of them could put together a similar project if someone took the time to teach them how it was done. He didn’t say that, however. Tru was glowing with the praise. And Eli knew his own feelings were heavily colored by the unwelcome proximity of Mazy’s ex.
What in the hell is Driscoll doing here?
The downstairs area was mostly completed. The only people besides the three of them were pulling up the drop cloths and sweeping up the debris.
He was not leaving Tru alone with Driscoll. He didn’t know what the guy was up to. For sure, he was no civic volunteer. He didn’t do anything without an angle in mind. All Eli’s protective instincts were on red alert. He would not leave Tru in Driscoll’s sights.
The shelves had been put up so carefully that there was virtually no touch-up painting required. With his major task completed, Eli had planned to suggest that Tru get something to drink and spend the rest of the day lolling around and celebrating his accomplishment. But he was not about to allow him to loll around with Tad Driscoll.
“There’s work to be done upstairs,” Eli announced. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, sure,” Tru answered. As they headed toward the back, the teenager turned and offered a little wave. “Thanks for the help, Mr. Driscoll.”
“What did he want?” Eli asked when they were out of earshot.
Tru shrugged
. “Nothing. Well, maybe basketball,” he answered. “He’s, like, the millionth person who’s asked me about playing basketball.”
“Hmm.”
“Like I told everybody else, it’s not my game. But you know how people are. They always think if they just say things a little bit differently you’re going to suddenly slap your forehead and say, ‘Wow! I should be playing basketball.’”
Upstairs, he made sure that Tru had a paint roller in his hand. He seriously doubted that Driscoll would follow him upstairs. But just in case, he decided to stay close.
He sidled up to Charlie, who was trying to work harder than anybody else. Eli deftly relieved him of his paintbrush and engaged him in conversation.
“Putting paint on the walls sure brightens this place up,” he said.
Charlie agreed. “Getting the windows washed will help, too,” he said. “Then I’m getting that elevator serviced and putting the place up for rent. Somebody in town has got to have something that they need to put up here.”
Eli was nodding agreement when suddenly he realized who that somebody might be.
“You know, Charlie, I’ve been looking for a place to store pieces for the winter. And it sure would be nice to be able to store them where I could bring people to see them.”
If anybody were more surprised than Eli, it was Charlie. They discussed the idea and Eli had the distinct feeling that Charlie was trying to talk him out of it.
“I know you’re a friend of Mazy’s,” he said. “And I so appreciate what you’ve done for us already. I can’t let you do this. I can’t accept...charity.”
“Good Lord, Charlie. You can’t accept it. I can’t afford to give it. But I am seriously looking for heated inside space. I can’t shake on it until I’ve talked to Clark. He may have found a site already. But I’m not acting to be nice. I’m not that nice.”
Charlie chuckled. “You say that like it’s a dirty word.”
“For some of us, it is.”
He was still smiling moments later as he used Charlie’s paintbrush to do touch-ups next to the floor. Since they’d removed the shoe board with the wainscoting, the transition was tricky. Now that he was thinking that this place might be his place, he was keen on getting it exactly right.
