Always the Last to Know(73)

You’d think with an architect sister, I might get some help. You’d be wrong. Juliet was weird lately. Jumpy. I invited her over one night, hoping for some advice and (cough) sisterly bonding, but she said she had to spend time working on Sloane’s reading skills. Fair enough.

Time to take down that wall. “Okay, Pepper Puppy, stand back,” I said, and she cocked her head at me, pricking her silky ears. “Maybe you should go outside,” I said, remembering that people usually wore respirators for this kind of thing. I let her out; she never ran away, good doggy that she was. Then I tied a dishcloth over my face, cranked up Prince for company—“I Would Die 4 U”—and got a-swingin’.

Boom! Ohh. Therapy and home improvement rolled into one. Boom! Swinging a sledgehammer was fun!

And honestly, it didn’t take that long, probably because the house was older than dirt, the Sheetrock crumbly with years of humidity and mold. Even the two-by-fours came down easily enough, crooked old nails and bits of other types of wood testifying that the house had been built by someone without a license.

Twenty minutes later, I stood in a much bigger area, a pile of rubble at my feet. “Take that, Jules,” I said, and texted her a picture of my destroyed wall.

DIY, baby!

Then I turned off the music, went outside to get the dust out of my lungs. My dishcloth was covered in nastiness, which I hopefully hadn’t inhaled.

Pepper lay on the lawn, gnawing on a stick, which I pried out of her mouth and threw.

“Fetch!” I said, and she raced after it, picked it up and lay down again. “Bring it here, Pepper! Here! Come! Come on!”

Nothing. Well, we all had our talents. I sat on the front steps of the porch and felt the stillness settle over me, seep into my bones.

The air was heavy with the smell of brackish water. The tide was coming in, the river rushing along the reed-filled banks, and the sunset was setting up to be glorious.

If I were to paint the scene, I’d use my palest blue for the sky, and slate gray for the clouds, edging them with tangerine and apricot, and a hint of gold. Every minute, the color changed, deepening, sliding from one shade to the next. The tidal river picked up some reflected color—red, salmon, pink—and the gold of the grasses seemed to glow. The red-winged blackbirds chuckled, and somewhere far away a wood thrush sang, rich and full.

This porch was perfect for sunset viewing. A little wicker couch, or two Adirondack chairs and a little table to hold your wineglass.

An osprey flew over me, its white belly and striped tail feathers picking up the gold of the setting sun. That would be in my painting, too. I glanced over my shoulder and saw someone driving over the bridge now, a pickup truck, its headlights sweeping the increasing dusk.

Yes. This would be my painting. This moment, right here, right now. Homecoming, I’d call it.

Not that I did that kind of thing anymore.

But suddenly, I wanted to.

I hadn’t painted a skyscape in years and years. Not since I left for school and found out the art world didn’t want pretty pictures of pretty places.

Fuck the art world. I headed inside for my camera to capture the colors, the moment, the scope and feeling.

Just as I went into the house, a pickup truck came into my driveway at top speed. I paused.

It was Noah, practically leaping out of his truck. “Sadie! Get out of the house!” Pepper ran to him, wagging her tail so hard it looked like it was going in circles as she yipped with joy.

“Hi!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

He ran up onto the porch, grabbed my arm and dragged me back into the yard. “Your sister texted me. You just knocked down a load-bearing wall.”

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Honey, get away from the house, okay?” He held my arms as if he wanted to plant me in place. “Let me see if I can get something up before the second floor falls in.”

Honey. He called me honey.

Le sigh.

Then I blinked. “What? Shit! Let me help you. What’s a load-bearing wall?”

“The kind that holds up the second floor.” He cut me a look. “You need to stop being handy.” He opened the door. “Jesus. You’re lucky you’re not buried right now. Come on. I have support beams in my truck. And a stepladder. Quick.”

I helped him haul the materials in.

Support beams, I quickly learned, were the kind that hold up second stories after people who watched too much HGTV did idiotic things. Noah quickly made two inverted Vs of fresh two-by-fours to hold up the second floor, securing them so they were jammed tight between floor and ceiling.

When he stood on the ladder to nail them in, his T-shirt pulled out of his jeans, exposing a strip of his lean belly, a trail of hair running from his navel into his waistband. I swallowed.

He knew what he was doing, this guy. Nail gun, drill, a few swear words, big, thick, strong arms, that beautiful head of hair . . . everything you’d want in a carpenter.

“You can’t sleep here tonight,” he said. “I’ll come back tomorrow and put in a permanent beam, but this should hold it for now. Can you stop watching HGTV?”

“That’s exactly what Jules said.”

“She might know something, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Okay. I’m . . . I . . . thank you, Noah. You saved me. And Pepper.” At the sound of her name, my dog collapsed on his work boots, rolling over to expose her belly should he be so moved as to rub it.