What Happens to Goodbye(65)

“Think wheel,” she kept saying to me as I stood over the model, holding a house in one hand. “We start in the middle, at the hub, then work our way out from the center, around and around.”
“We were just kind of putting things in as we pulled them out of the boxes,” I told her.
“I know. I could tell the first moment I saw this thing.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “But don’t feel bad, okay? That’s a beginner’s mistake. If you kept it up, though, you’d end up climbing over things, houses piercing your knees, kicking fire hydrants off accidentally. It would be a serious mess. Trust me.”
I did, so I followed her direction. Gone were the pick-apiece, put-it-together, find-its-place days. Already, she’d developed her own system and fetched a red pen from her purse to adapt the directions accordingly, and by an hour in, she had us running like a machine. She gathered the pieces for each area of the pinwheel—she termed them “sectors”—which Dave then assembled, and I attached to their proper spot. Create, Assemble, Attach. Or, as Deb called it, CAA. I fully expected her to make up T-shirts or hats with this slogan by our next meeting.
“You have to admit,” I said to Dave when she was across the room on her cell phone, calling the toll-free-questions line at Model Community Ventures for the second time for clarification on one of the directions, “she’s good at this.”
“Good?” he replied, snapping a roof on a building. “More like destined. She makes us look like a bunch of fumbling idiots.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “She said my approach was promising, for a beginner.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself.She’s just being nice.” He picked up another piece of plastic. “When you were in the bathroom, she told me your sectors are sadly lacking.”
“That is not true! My sectors are perfect.”
“You call that perfect? It’s total chessboard.”
I made a face, then poked him, and he poked me back. He was laughing as I walked back to the model, bending down to inspect my sector. Which looked just fine. I thought.
“. . . of course! No, thank you. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Okay! Bye!” Deb snapped her phone shut, then sighed. “I swear, Marion is so nice.”
“Marion? ”
“The woman at Model Community Ventures who answers the help line,” she said. “She’s just been a godsend.”
“You made friends,” I said, “with the help line lady?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re friends,” she replied. “But she’s really been great. Usually, they just put those numbers on there but nobody answers. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent on hold, waiting for someone to tell me how to glue an eave properly.”

I just looked at her. From across the room, Dave snorted.
“Hey, is Gus up there?” someone called up the stairs.
I walked over to see Tracey on the landing below. “Nope. He’s in a meeting in the event room with Opal.”
“Still? God, what are they doing in there?”
I had a flash of the pad with all those numbers, how her name had been awfully close to the top. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, when he finally emerges,” she said, pulling a pen out from her hair and sticking it back in with her free hand, “tell him that councilwoman called again. I don’t know how much longer I can put her off. Clearly, she’s undersexed and highly motivated.”
“What?”
“She’s hot for your dad,” she said, speaking slowly for my benefit. “And he is not getting the message. Literally. So tell him, would you?”
I nodded and she turned, walking back to the dining room, the downstairs door banging shut behind her. It wasn’t like I should have been surprised. This was the pattern. We landed somewhere, got settled, and eventually he’d start dating someone. But usually, it was not until he knew he had an end date that he’d take that plunge. Sort of like someone else I knew.
“Mclean?” I heard Deb call out from behind me. “Can I have a quick discussion with you about your approach in this area here by the planetarium?”
I turned around. Dave, who was carrying a structure past, said cheerfully, “And you said your sectors were perfect.”
I smiled at this, but as I walked over to take her critique, I was distracted. I didn’t even know why. It was just a phone call, some messages. Nothing that hadn’t happened before. And it wasn’t like he’d called her back. Yet.
At five o’clock, with three sectors done that had passed Deb’s rigorous inspection, we decided to knock off for the night. When we came downstairs, the restaurant had just opened. It was warm and lit up, and my dad and Opal were sitting at the bar, a bottle of red wine open between them. Opal’s face was flushed, and she was smiling, happier than I’d ever seen her.
“Mclean!” she said when she spotted me. “I didn’t even know you were here!”
“We were working on the model,” I told her.
“Really?” She shook her head. “And on your snow day, to boot. That’s some serious dedication.”
“We got three sectors done,” Dave told her.
She look confused. “Three what?”
“Sectors.” Nope, still lost. I didn’t even know how to explain, so I just said, “It looks really good. Serious progress.”
“That’s great.” She smiled again. “You guys are the best.”
“It’s mostly Deb,” I said. Beside me, Deb blushed, clearly pleased. “Turns out she has a lot of model experience.”