Rusty Nailed (31 page)

It made me smile as I walked up and down the aisles, looking for exactly the right tile. Would it be subway? Would it be a glass design? I didn’t know exactly what I wanted until I saw it. And then I turned the final corner and saw it.

Or him, rather.

James Brown was shopping World of Tile. And he was heading right for me.

“Caroline, what a surprise,” he called out. Damn, he looked good. He always looked good.

“Hey, James.” I smiled as I walked toward him. I hadn’t seen
him since I finished his design job last year. His apartment was young lawyer chic with an urban flair. “What are you doing here?” I asked as he leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek.

“Tile, what else?” He laughed.

“Are you remodeling already? That’s going to get expensive. I charged you an arm and a leg last year, as I recall.”

“I do and you did. And you did a great job. I always tell everyone who my decorator was.”

“Not a decora— That’s great, James; thanks for helping get the word out,” I said. Wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Not worth the breath it would take me to explain it again. “So, where’s the new tile going?”

“Marin, actually. I just bought a house there.” He grinned.

“Really, wow, that’s great.”

“Yep, settling down, just got married. Hey, honey! C’mere, want you to meet someone.” He waved toward a woman in the next aisle.

Wife?

“There she is. Come here, sweetie pie, and say hello to Caroline.”

“Hello, Caroline,” the prettiest girl in the world said to me. Blinking, I looked at Mrs. James Brown. Tall, blonde, young. Beyond pretty. She looked really sweet. “I’m Krissy.”

“Of course you are,” I said, then coughed to cover it. “It’s wonderful to meet you. When did you get married?” I asked James. I felt like I was reeling.

“Just a few months ago. We’re newlyweds.” He grinned and tucked her into his side as she giggled. “We met at the club. Her father is a client of mine, and the rest was history.”

“It happened so quickly, it was just like we were supposed to be together, you know? He proposed just three weeks later. Can you believe it?” She giggled again, showing her ring. It looked like a skating rink.

“I really can’t.” I smiled, trying to keep my eyebrows from flying right up into my hairline. Too late.

“Well, when it’s right, it’s right. Right?” James said, and Krissy’s answering laughter was like tiny silver bells. He grinned at her and reached over and patted her belly. Which I now noticed was noticeably round. She laced her fingers through his and they held her perfect little round belly together. Krissy was on the nest. James smiled smugly at me.

“How do you know Jimmy?” she asked.

“Jimmy?” I asked. Eyebrows were officially a lost cause; they were on the back of my head at this point.

“Caroline and I used to date when I was in law school, and then we reconnected when she decorated my apartment last year. How’s that going, by the way?”

“Fine, Jimmy. Great actually,” I said through my teeth.

“Oh, you’re a decorator! I love decorating. I took a class last year all about it. I love that tile you’ve got there. Are you decorating something for a client?” Krissy asked, referring to the black and neon-green geoprint tile I’d inadvertently picked up and was clutching so tightly my knuckles were turning white.

“This? No, just browsing. Actually, I’m looking for myself today. Just bought a house over in Sausalito, so yep. Tile. For my new house.”

“Oh, I love Sausalito! Jimmy and I go there all the time. He takes me over for pancakes sometimes on Sunday mornings.” Krissy giggled.

James looked at me more closely. “You bought a house? In Sausalito? With who?”

I love that he just assumed that it would have to be
with
someone, that I couldn’t have bought something on my own. The fact that I was years away from being able to afford a house in Sausalito on my own was my own damn business.

“Yes, I bought a house. With Simon, actually. You remember him, don’t you, Jimmy?”

“That neighbor guy?”

“Yes, that neighbor guy.”

“Wow. That’s great, Caroline, really great.”

“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “It is.”

“I’m surprised, though. Not what I expected.”

“What? Why?”

Krissy had stepped away by now; she’d found a shiny tile.

“You used to tell me no way were you going to live in the suburbs. Never going to settle down,” he said.

“I’m not settling down, and for God’s sake, Sausalito isn’t the suburbs,” I snapped, and his eyes danced. He always liked to stir me up. “I’ll have you know I’m not settling at all—it’s an amazing house. I love it; it’s exactly what I always wanted.”

“I didn’t say settling;
you
did. I said settling down. And really, all I’m saying is you used to say you never wanted—”

“James, shut up!” I said, my face boiling hot at this point. Krissy was prancing back over, and I needed to get out of here. “Congratulations on getting married and everything, and good luck with your tile.” I whirled around and ran right into a sales guy.

Throwing back my shoulders, I apologized, then said in a clear voice, “My boyfriend likes to fuck my brains out on our kitchen island. Which tile would you recommend for that?”

God bless him, the guy actually showed me some.

•  •  •

T
urns out I was glad for the convertible, because the trail I blazed back over the bridge to non-fucking-suburban Sausalito was infinitely better in a high-performance automobile. Barreling across the bay in a clunky delivery van wouldn’t have cut nearly as dramatic a silhouette on the Golden Gate Bridge. Revving the engine
as I cut down the tiny streets, I whizzed up onto our street and peeled into the driveway. I got out and slammed the door.

“Caroline?” Simon called out, and I turned. He was standing at the edge of the yard, chatting with Ruth from next door. The neighbor who gave us the keys when we first saw the house.

“Oh, hey there, Simon. Evening, Ruth,” I called out in my most neighborly voice. I click-clacked across the driveway, dodging sawhorses and plastic sheeting.

Simon said, “Ruth, you’ll be amazed when you see how much progress we’ve made in that upstairs bedroom. The one you said used to be the sewing room?” He reached out for me and tucked me into his side. “Hey, babe, how was your day?”

“Oh, tip-top.” My voice must have sounded off, because he looked down at me questioningly. “Sewing room?” I asked.

“Oh my, yes. Simon was showing me around last week; I can’t believe how different it looks already!” Ruth exclaimed.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you have a big work crew. So, sewing room?”

“Well, he was showing me the upstairs, and I was marveling over that sweet little room on the second floor—the one that’s tucked under the eaves? I told your Simon that even though Evelyn used it as her sewing room, I always thought it would be perfect as a nursery. Don’t you think?”

My grin froze as I looked back and forth between them. Simon was sheepishly looking down at the ground. But he was also blushing. And smiling. Big.

“Nursery?” I asked through the frozen grin.

“Of course! A cute young couple like you two, I’m sure it’s something you’re thinking about. I know you career girls these days like to wait, but you can’t wait too long, you know. I know it’s not for me to say, and heaven knows I sometimes stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but I—”

I must have made the sucking-on-a-sour-pickle face, because somewhere around “heaven knows” and “stick my nose in,” Ruth began to look at me strangely.

I turned without a word and walked toward the house, hearing Simon apologizing to Ruth over the noise that was filling my ears. A chain saw? Tile saw? Tiles—ha!

Inside, I looked around at the chaos. At the three painters on ladders on the first floor. At the two carpenters carpenting in the kitchen. And at the random guy who was sitting on my window seat with his feet up on my dining room table (tarp-covered box), reading a newspaper.

“Excuse me? Can I help you?” I asked over the din.

“You Caroline?”

“I am.”

Just then I heard the front door slam and an angry Simon stood in the doorway. “I can’t believe how rude you just were to Ruth!”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“What the hell, Caroline. Have you lost your mind?”

“You seriously want to do this now?” I asked, gesturing to the obviously listening workmen and the guy with his feet up. “Who are you, anyway?” I asked.

“I’m Fred, here to do your closets.”

“Okay, Fred. Let’s start in the den.” I gestured for him to follow me, holding up my other hand toward Simon to tell him to do exactly the opposite. As I started to open the door, Simon shouted, “Not the den! Clive’s in there!”

Too late. Like a feline torpedo, he darted out and ran for the kitchen. I grabbed for him as he sped by, but he wiggled through my fingertips and continued on.

We’d been trying to keep him away from the commotion during the day, letting him out only at night. Usually he stayed in the “sewing room” upstairs, as that room wasn’t getting much work done.

“Why the hell was he in the den?” I yelled, trying to follow Clive. He was startled by all the strange men in the house, and was doing his best dodgeball around all of them.

“They were working on the floors upstairs today, so I brought him down. That’s why the door was closed,” Simon yelled back, diving for him and crashing into a painter. “Everybody fan out,” he said, and just like that, Clive now had six strange men chasing him.

“Stop it! Everyone stop, you’re scaring him!” I shouted over everyone else shouting at Clive.

Fred made a grab for him, and Clive spun out
Tokyo Drift
style, ran up a ladder, down a ladder, and made for the dining room.

Toward the window seat.

Toward the rusty casement window that never shut tightly.

And went

right

through it.

He was there, and then he was gone.

I got there just in time to see his tail disappearing through the garden wall, into the twilight.

chapter twenty-one

I walked the streets of Sausalito until 2:00 a.m. that night. Jillian and Benjamin came over, so did Mimi and Ryan. Sophia was there. And if Neil hadn’t been out of town covering a big game, he’d have been there too.

Armed with flashlights, catnip, and Pounce, we scoured the neighborhood. I went through every backyard I could, crashed through bushes, climbed the secret stairs, and scurried down every pathway in the hills above the seaside town. I could hear my friends calling for him all around, shaking their Pounce cans.

Clive was long gone.

I knew everyone would have stayed out there all night, but when the fog got too thick to see through, and everyone’s teeth were chattering, we called off the search. Mimi had stayed back at the house in case he returned, and while she waited she created a Lost flyer with a picture of Clive and my phone number. We’d print them in the morning and hang them up all over town.

I said good night to everyone, thanked them again for their help, and closed the door. And turned to Simon.

“I’m exhausted, so I’m going to head up to bed. I’ll be up early tomorrow; I want to get a jump start on getting those flyers up.”

“I’ll come up with you,” he said, starting to turn out the lights.

“Leave that one on,” I said when he reached for the dining room light. I could hear the plastic sheeting blowing back and forth over the hole in the window. I’d slammed it shut so hard earlier that I’d broken a loose pane. He nodded and I went upstairs.

My head hurt, my eyes were red and stinging with the tears I’d refused to shed. I plodded up the stairs and stopped at the end of the hall, looking down toward the tiny room at the end of the hall. Under the eaves.

When Simon got to the top of the steps, he stopped behind me. “Caroline?”

I felt him, warm and solid and so close to me. “A
nursery
?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“You and Ruth were talking about that room becoming a nursery?”

“Babe, it’s late. Let’s go to bed,” he replied, his tone icing a bit. He moved past me and into our bedroom. I followed him, my steps falling harder on the newly refinished floors.

“It is late, but answer my question,” I said as he sank onto the new inflatable bed and started taking off his shoes.

“Look. She said something to me about it being a nice room for a nursery, and I agreed. That’s it. End of story.”

“Wrong. Beginning of story. You want a nursery?”

“Caroline, come on. It’s late,” he said, starting for the bathroom and yanking his shirt off.

“Hey, come back here,” I insisted, following him. “We’re not done talking about this.”

“I think we are. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be,” he snapped, kicking off his shoes.

“This is a
huge
deal. Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “You want a nursery and you don’t even tell me about it? Yet you’re talking
with
Ruth
about it? Who seems to have all kinds of things to say on the topic?”

“I
didn’t
say I wanted a nursery. Dammit, Caroline, that’s not how it happened at all.”

“Well, do you? Want a nursery?”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course I do.”

The world exploded.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

The world exploded twice.

“I don’t know! I have no idea! Why in the world do I have to know that right
now
? Tonight?” I asked, my voice beginning to break. It was all too much—the house, the job, the car, the chaos—and Clive.

Brain and Backbone took a deep breath and steeled themselves. Heart couldn’t be anywhere near this. “Why the
hell
didn’t you fix that fucking window, Simon?”

Silence. The kind of silence where you can hear the words you just said ringing back to you.

We stared at each other across our master bedroom. How the hell did I get a master bedroom? Master bedrooms were something to aspire to, to grow into. Grown-ups had master bedrooms, and I didn’t know that I wanted to be a grown-up anymore. I just wanted my cat back.