Kari did the dishes after Rob left, marveling and feeling somewhat ridiculous at how luxurious something like having a new faucet could be. He was right. The pull-out spray handle was great. Drying her hands, she eyed her cellphone sitting on the countertop.
Don’t really be a coward. Send her a text.
She picked up the phone and held it for a moment and letting it out in a rush. Unlocking the device, she opened her texting app and sent Sam a message before she could coward her way out of it.
Hey. Can we talk?
As olive branches went, it wasn’t exactly the most eloquent, but hopefully it would get the job done.
Resisting the urge to stare at her phone screen and wait for a response, Kari stuffed it in her back pocket and wandered back into the dining room, gazing around at the blank, white walls. It’s your house. You can actually paint it whatever color you want.
So what color did she want?
The room was an interior one without any windows. So…something sunny? A soft yellow, maybe? Kari rotated in a slow circuit. Yes. Yellow would be good in here.
Wow. She’d made a decision.
Bolstered by this, she moved to the living room. There were windows here, but they faced north and east. So, more light but still…she turned and walked to the desk in the corner and fished out an old sketch pad and a package of colored pencils. With swift motions, she sketched an idea. A pale color on the walls—barely a color at all. Or she could leave it white and add some Scandinavian motifs over the doors and windows. Maybe she could cut a stencil…
Her phone shrilled in her back pocket. Kari’s pencil skated across the page, her pulse jumping. Dropping the pad and pencil to her sofa, she dug the phone out of her back pocket.
A text from Sam. Just one word. Sure.
A tightness in her chest Kari hadn’t even known was there loosened. She tapped the phone’s screen. Now?
Ok.
The tightness snapped back. Kari swallowed, tapped Sam’s contact information, raised the phone to her ear. Her hand shook. She felt like she might throw up. The phone barely rang and Sam’s voice was in her ear. “Kari?”
Kari would normally say something smart-assy at the questioning tone of Sam’s voice. Something like, “Got any other aunts?”
But not today.
“Hi, Sam.” Now that she had Sam on the phone, she didn’t know where to begin. She should have planned, had some sort of script or something. “How have you been?”
Sam didn’t say anything for a few moments and Kari could hear her walking. It sounded like she was outside. “I’m…I’m okay.”
A tiny trickle of relief made Kari’s shoulders lower a fraction of an inch away from her ears. “Good. Are we okay?” she blurted.
The sound of Sam’s footfalls stopped. “We’ll get there.”
The trickle of relief turned into a torrent, rushing through her, filling that scooped-out hollow place inside her. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know how.”
“I know.”
“How’s everything else?”
“Good. Really good, in fact. I’ve started seeing someone.”
“You have?” A pang of something—jealousy or loneliness or some emotion in between—shot through Kari. “Who is he? When did you meet?”
“Over a month ago. He hired me to take him out on the river.”
Kari’s brows drew together. Sam, a fly fishing guide, had always had hard and fast rules about dating her clients. As in, she didn’t do it. Ever. “He did?”
“He did. And I can hear the disapproval in your voice, but don’t worry. He’s not my client anymore. Just my boyfriend.”
“What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
“Graham. His family calls him Gray. He’s a librarian at the university.” Sam’s voice went soft, unusually so for her. “He’s a really good guy, Kari.”
“Well, I’m glad for you.”
A pause, as if Sam was working up to something. “I’d like you to meet him.”
The lonely, jealous feelings tightening Kari’s stomach and chest blew away, like a cool fresh breeze passing right through her. “I’d love to meet him. Why don’t you find out when you guys are available for dinner and come over?”
“That’d be nice. Speaking of which, how’s that good-looking next door neighbor of yours?”
“Rob? He’s nice. He replaced my kitchen faucet today, as a matter of fact.” The memory of his shirt riding up as he emerged from under her sink sent a rush of heat to her cheeks.
Sam’s voice went sly. “Is that a euphemism for something? 'Cause it sounds kinda dirty.”
Kari laughed, feeling almost dizzy with relief that the conversation had taken this turn into normal territory. “One hundred percent clean, I promise. It was leaking. I asked him for a plumber recommendation. He told me he could fix it himself. He did. And there we are.”
“Well, well. Maybe he can help you if you have any more…personal plumbing issues.”
“Shut the front door, Samantha Halvorsen. He fixed my sink. Don’t become one of those people who starts dating someone and then wants to pair everyone else off. I’m fine.”
Sam laughed at that, a happy sound. “Okay. But…it feels good to be able to tease you again.”
“It feels good to be teased. Let me know when you two can come over for dinner. I’ll do my best to be the intimidating old hag of an auntie.”
“Right,” Sam said. “Because that’s so you.”
“It’s a new look I’m working on. I’m heading for Crone Club.”
Sam made a noise that sounded like pfft. “Right. I’ll see when Gray and I can come over. And Kari?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for calling.”
Kari swallowed around the growing lump in her throat. “Of course.”
Returning to his house, Rob tried to throw himself into his usual Saturday chore routine. Laundry into the dryer, some light cleaning, paying bills.
Oh, the exciting life of the single, middle-aged guy. A regular bachelor rave-up.
When had his existence settled into something so solitary? Helping Kari with her faucet might be the most social he had been in…was it months? It was. As a young man, he had been up for going out for a few beers, but hadn’t been a part of the club scene. More like the Irish fiddle at a local folk pub night scene. Then marriage to Liz, having Mia, they had done domestic things. Birthday parties and outings with other families where the parents could team up and take turns making sure the kids didn’t succeed in what seemed to be their endless quest to get killed doing something reckless. They had gotten sitters and had the occasional date night, too, growing rarer and then stopping as they grew apart and the marriage exploded so impressively it might have made for a Fourth of July fireworks display if it hadn’t also been so upsetting.
The long process of unwinding the life they had made together, of dividing assets and finding new homes, of setting out careful plans and schedules for Mia had left Rob too tired and demoralized to date much immediately after the divorce. Not to mention, divorce doesn’t exactly leave you in the best frame of mind for jumping back into the dating pool. Eventually, that pain had faded and he had gone out with a few women, but it was clear that their sights were set on marriage—eventually if not a lot sooner—and Rob wasn’t about to put himself through that again. But those women had seen his single-dad-ness and his easygoing manner and assumed he was looking for another spin into married life, a new mom for Mia.
It always ended when they found out they were wrong. He could do commitment. But he wasn’t doing marriage again. And Mia already had a mom.
So he had stopped dating entirely. As a teenager, Mia had teased him about it. “Maybe if you issue a warning before the first date,” she said. “Get them to sign a contract or something.”
“Yeah, because nothing says, ‘I’m an arrogant shithead who thinks all women want to marry me’ like a pre-date warning that I have no intention of remarrying anyone ever.”
“True. It’s not a good look.” Mia had looked thoughtful at that, her big, dark eyes going all somber and serious.
“Stop thinking about my love life, kiddo. That’s an order from your old man.”
“Not so old as all that. You should at least be able to have some fun sometime.”
“It’s not fun if it ends up hurting someone. So, for the time being at least, no dates for me.”
But it was lonely, living this way, especially since Mia had moved out. And it was also kind of a cliché. A bachelor existence seasoned by the occasional poker night with a few people from work. Rob stuffed a new load of dirty laundry into the machine, added detergent, and turned it on. His mind turned back to Kari. Pretty Kari with her wide cheekbones and pale blue eyes that met his so easily because she was almost his height. Kari who seemed so tough and yet had a deep well of uncertainty underneath her calm, self-assured manner.
He wondered if he could be friends with his next-door neighbor. That would be nice. Just getting to know someone. They wouldn’t have to go on dates. If they wanted to, they could hang out and never leave their own back yards. He could help her more with her home-improvement stuff.
Peering into his office, he nearly groaned at the pile of paperwork and mail. He had a habit of tossing everything that came in in a haphazard pile, then clearing out the whole thing in one epic sweep. He got hardly any bills on paper anymore, so it wasn’t like he was letting anything important go.
But it wasn’t exactly an efficient system. He knew he should handle it differently. A different method might come with less guilt, fewer furtive glances into his office, followed by shutting the door and reassuring himself that tomorrow was soon enough.
Today finally was that tomorrow. The desk was a mess. So was the floor, for that matter.
Sighing, he settled into his chair and picked up a catalog. It was two years old.
This was going to be a long afternoon.
Feeling lighter than she had in more than a week, Kari put her phone down and picked up her sketch pad, frowning at the mark that had marred her drawing. Flipping to a new page, she re-sketched the motif she had in mind. Doing something creative, something that would make this house more her home, brought a small smile to her lips.
This is really mine. This house. I did it.
She tilted her head, examining her sketch, then held it up, imagining it over the front door, an extended version of it curving over the arched opening that led to the dining room.
Rein it in. First things first. She should learn how to paint a wall first. Suddenly, she wanted to make sure the dining room was painted before she had her first proper guests over for dinner. She wished she had thought of picking up some paint when they were at the home center. Kari wondered what Sam’s new boyfriend was like. It had been a long time since Sam had dated anyone after her last disaster and this sounded pretty serious.
Maybe she should go back to the home center and get some paint.
Maybe Rob needed something. You know. Because she was going anyway. That was neighborly, right?
Or maybe she was being more than a little ridiculous. Collecting her keys and her purse before she could think about knocking on Rob’s door, she marched herself out to her car and set out for the home center. Dodging contractor’s vans and the other weekend warriors in the parking lot, she found a space and went inside to the paint aisle.
And froze.
How did anyone choose anything when there were so many choices? There were at least six brands of paint, each with their own chromatic rainbow, an infinite range of shades of every color. She had been thinking “soft yellow” and here were at least fifty of them. And which brand of paint? Did it even matter? She assumed it did.
Reaching a hand out, she plucked one card of paint samples from its place on the wall display and swallowed. Maybe she should just take all the likely ones home.
Of course that was what she should do. You couldn’t choose a paint color for a room across town in this airplane hangar of a building, under these fluorescent lights. Kari nodded to herself and plucked yellow cards out of every brand display. Considering the thick stack of cards with mounting dread and feeling weird, she detoured to the plant area and selected an African violet to take home. It would like her sunny, South-facing kitchen windowsill. Standing in the line to pay, she flipped through the stack of paint chip cards. Some of the samples looked garish in the sunlight streaming through the glass doors at the front of the store, some were barely even a color.
Deep breaths, Kari. You got this.
How ridiculous do you sound? You’re panicking over painting a couple of walls?
Smiling reflexively at the cashier, she paid for her violet and drove back home, carrying the plant back to her kitchen before going to the dining room and leafing through the cards. She had been right not to make a decision in the store. The light here did different things to the colors. The ones she had thought were too garish in sunlight now looked more muted in a room that didn’t get much natural light. She laid the cards out on the table, nearly covering the surface, scanning over the collection.
This was trickier than she had thought.
Going into the kitchen, she got a roll of Scotch tape. The colors when placed on the table were definitely different from when she held them up to the wall. Setting her jaw, she taped each card to the wall, hoping that one of them would come to life like in a magical realism film, sprouting arms to wave at her and calling, “Me! You want me!”
No such miracle occurred. Her dining room was merely shingled with a multitude of cards sporting various yellow hues. It was overwhelming.
She took a breath, held it. Let it out. No. Not overwhelming. Your house, your room, your walls. Your decision.
She scanned the cards, reaching out to pluck the ones that pulled an immediate “no” from her off the wall and dropping them on the table. Now the neat row of shingled paint samples was more of a snaggle-toothed mess. Kari forced herself to ignore the urge to rearrange them back into tidy rows and just focus on the colors. She pulled another few cards off the wall. It was down to a manageable number now, but…the easy decisions were gone. The low-hanging fruit had been harvested.
She was going to need help.
The tap on the door was so soft, Rob almost didn’t register it at first. He was trying to figure out what he should do with the paperwork from the HVAC company he had been given after the twice annual visit—file it? Trash it? He never seemed to know which things were worth saving and which weren’t. Hence the piles that never seemed to get much smaller, even after he had gone through an attempted purge. And his office looked worse now instead of better.
Well, he could get rid of the siding salesman or religious proselytizer or whoever it was at the door and get back to his least-favorite task in the world.
Being an adult was so much fun.
But when he opened the door it was neither a salesperson nor a person offering copies of The Watchtower. It was Kari.
“Hi.” Pleasure bloomed in his chest at the sight of her, only to be followed by worry. “The faucet’s okay?”
“The faucet’s great. More than great. Almost a pleasure to do the dishes.”
“Almost?”
“Almost. It’s still washing dishes, when all’s said and done.” Kari chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you have a minute, or is this a bad time?”
Pleasure bloomed in his chest. Helping Kari Halvorsen might be addictive. “Sure. I mean, no. Not at all a bad time. Come on in.” Rob stepped back from the door and waved her inside. “I was just doing my least favorite task in the world, so you’re saving me from it.”
“Least favorite task? Let me guess. Cleaning the bathroom?”
“No, because when you do that at least you end up with a clean bathroom. I’m trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of mail and other paperwork that seems to just pile up on me. I can never decide what I need to keep and what needs to go.”
“We can trade. You can clean my bathroom and I’ll file your paperwork.”
“You don’t know how tempted I am by that offer. But what did you stop by for?”
“Paint.” Kari glanced around the room, almost a copy of the one in her house next door. The entire neighborhood was made up of nearly identical ranch houses, all probably put up by the same builder in the middle of the last century. Rob was pretty sure he could navigate any of them blindfolded, even with the changes various owners had made over the years and the slight differences in size and floor plans to suit larger or smaller families.
“What about paint?”
“The stuff on the walls?” She pointed at his, which he had painted a soft beige when he moved in. “Your piece of handy-man-ery inspired me.”
Rob resisted the urge to puff his chest out. “Really? Inspired? I like the sound of that. Inspired you to what?”
“Don’t get too excited,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I went back to the home center and got a bunch of paint chips for the dining room. I think I have it narrowed down, but I want a second opinion. But I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Five minutes to help me pick a color. Also…I don’t know how to paint. Walls. I mean, it seems straightforward enough, but I’m sure it’s not as easy as it looks. I was thinking maybe you could give me some tips.”
Rob folded his arms across his chest. “No, it’s not as easy as it looks, but it’s also not hard as you might be imagining. Not like figuring out whether or not to keep or toss my semiannual HVAC servicing contract paperwork, for instance.”
“Keep it.” Kari’s eyebrows quirked in a do you really have to ask that? expression.
“See? It’s easy for you to say, but why?”
“Because you have a servicing contract. You keep records about contracts.”
“How do you know this?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know much about owning a home, but I do know about the paperwork about the lease on our office space. When we have workmen come in, I keep the records. If something goes wrong a short time later, it can be useful as leverage.”
“Like what kind of leverage?”
“Like, ‘You said you had fixed the thing and now it’s three weeks later and the thing isn’t working. Come fix the thing. And if you even think about charging me for fixing the thing you said was already fixed, I’m going to make your life unpleasant.’”
This side of Kari, the vengeful Viking Shield Maiden side, was more than a little hot. “Wow. I don’t think I’d want to cross you.”
One corner of her mouth tilted up. “That’s why I make the extremely medium-sized bucks.”
“I’m starting to think office managers are underpaid.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears. I’m starting to think I need to look at your unfiled paperwork.”
“Paint chips are more fun.”
She snorted. “Paint chips? Fun?”
He scooped up his keys. “When compared to paperwork? Definitely. Let’s go.”