Beginner's Luck. Kate Clayborn
Читать онлайн книгу.
Averin. If Ben Tucker could find old file cabinet handles, maybe he can tell me where to find old china cabinet knobs. And also I should thank him. That seems like the right thing.
I tap the edge of his business card against the note. I’m definitely making an excuse to call him—but suddenly it’s so quiet in here. I swipe my phone off the table before I can think better of it. As soon as it starts ringing, I want to hang up, but then remember that a great crucible of modern technology is widely available caller ID. Have to go for broke, then.
“Ben Tucker,” he says when he answers, his voice a deep rumble. It seems to scrape me in the same place it had last week, right at the base of my spine.
“Hi,” I say, and immediately slam my eyes shut. Hi sounds silly, too informal. I clear my throat and try again. “Hello. This is Ekaterina Averin.”
There’s a pause on the other end, a little longer than is comfortable for a phone conversation. I think about clarifying, maybe explaining that we’d met on Friday, though if I have to do that, this guy’s more incompetent than he’d let on—and frankly, he’d let on a lot. But then he says, “Ekaterina,” a little slowly—but he’s pronounced it exactly as I do, and I’m grateful for that. Mostly people ignore the first part, the quick, breathy Eh, and go straight to Katerina. “Beautiful name,” he says.
“People mostly call me Kit,” I say. “Fewer syllables.”
“Okay. Kit, then. But I don’t mind the syllables.”
“I wanted to call and say thanks for the handles you sent. They were perfect.”
“Great,” he says, but he sounds—I don’t know. A little distracted, maybe? That’s annoying—you’d think after everything he’d want to make a better impression. “I’m so sorry,” he says, and I think he’s about to redo the whole apology again. “Can you just—can you hang on one second? Please.” It’s the please that gets me. It sounds how the word is meant to sound—a real plea for something.
“Sure,” I say, and expect him to click over to another call. But I hear the phone being set down, the rustling of clothes, another man’s deep voice. And I can hear Ben when he says, “Come on, Dad. You need to take one of these tonight.” The other man—Ben’s dad—grumbles back, and right when I think maybe I should set my own phone down, maybe I’m hearing something I shouldn’t, there’s another rustle and the phone is muted. I’m both relieved and disappointed.
It’s another minute before he comes back on. “I’m sorry,” he says again.
“That’s all right—I could call at another time. I didn’t realize you’d be busy. Well, that’s silly, I should’ve realized that, it’s eight o’clock. It’s not like you don’t have a life.” I clamp my mouth shut. Too much. I’m a terrible phone talker.
He chuckles. “I don’t have much of one right now. My dad had an accident recently, and he’s a bit of a challenge to—you know. Manage.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling like the worst for calling. About freaking file cabinet handles. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I can let you go.”
“No, no—it’s all right. He’s okay. He had a fall last week, needed a couple of surgeries. But he’s okay,” he repeats this part a little forcefully, convincing himself, maybe. “I’m in town to help out for a while.”
It’s my turn to pause, to draw it out. “And to recruit me?”
“Recruiting you is something that came up more recently. Listen, Kit, on Friday—”
“I got your package. And your note. I appreciate the apology.”
“Right, okay. Good.”
“I’m actually calling about the handles you sent. About how you found them.”
He laughs, but I’m not in on the joke, so I stay quiet. “Well. One of the things I’m helping out with while I’m here is my dad’s business. He owns a salvage yard on the south side. Tucker’s Salvage.”
I’ve heard of it—in fact, I’m pretty sure Tucker’s Salvage is in that local favorites paper I just looked through, but I’ve never been. “And you guys have old cabinet handles?”
“We have everything. We do architectural salvage, so we’ve got everything from old building materials to antique furniture and light fixtures. Some stuff we restore, some stuff we sell off as is, some stuff we have parts for. Like your cabinet there.”
Well, damn if an architectural salvage yard doesn’t sound like just the place for someone who’s recently bought an old wreck of a house. “Aha. And—can anyone come by? To have a look at what you have there?”
“You have a need for salvaged parts?”
“I do,” I say, and my voice sounds a little petulant, a little defensive. What business is it of his, what I need? Maybe I’ll try to go at a time when he’s not around. He can’t possibly be there all the time.
“I’m there open to close pretty much all this week, and would be happy to show you around.”
Shit. “Oh. That’s very nice of you, but I don’t think it’d be right—”
“No expectations. I won’t say a word about Beaumont to you, not unless you ask me.”
I lean down and touch the plain, boring handle that’s currently keeping place on my beautiful, original, built-in china cabinet. I know there’s probably antique handles and doorknobs online, but I’m a materials scientist. It matters to me to hold things, to touch them, to feel their weight. I’d rather see this stuff in person before I buy it. “I guess I could come by,” I say, but then quickly add, “I’m really busy though. I could come on my lunch hour, maybe on Thursday.”
“I’ll make time,” he says firmly.
Once we’ve settled the details—when I’ll be there, where to find him once I come in—there’s really nothing more to say, but I feel a strange reluctance to hang up. It was nice, for a few minutes, to have his voice in my ear. It seemed to dull the echo I was feeling in the house before I called.
But that’s ridiculous, completely ridiculous and needy, and also inappropriate given that what I’m most interested in from Ben Tucker is for him to leave me alone about his stupid job offer. And that I get to look at his doorknobs, or whatever. So I say, maybe a little more abruptly than is natural, “Thank you very much. See you Thursday,” and disconnect.
I open the music app on my phone and turn the volume up loud. Then I get back to the job of making this place a home.
* * * *
When I drive up to Tucker’s Salvage on Thursday, I’m resolved to make it a short visit, frustrated that I’ve spent too much time since Monday feeling flushed and fluttery whenever I’d thought of Ben, at one point seriously considering asking Marti whether I might be having hot flashes. Plus, I feel a little disloyal—is going to see Ben a suggestion that I’m open to his recruiting? The thought has plagued me, and I’ve not even told Zoe and Greer about this visit, so determined am I to make this outing a mere formality. I’ve come a little early, having wrapped up my morning work, and I figure that I’m fulfilling another task. I said I’d be here, and I am, and I’ll make it quick.
But when you take one step inside Tucker’s, you get the sense that there’s no way to make it quick. The building itself is probably the size of a football field, and the space that greets me is sort of a large anteroom—there’s an L-shaped set of glass cases, the kind you’d see in a jewelry store, behind which is what looks to be an office. All around me are large, gorgeous pieces of refinished furniture, set out to create aisles and alcoves within this large room. Above me hang pendant lights and chandeliers of all types, some of them casting prisms of light on the concrete floors and along the walls. Along one wall—top to bottom—are shelves lined with labeled bins, the sign above indicating that this is where you search for Hardware.