Famous in a Small Town(55)

I went back to Brit’s room after breakfast, laid across her bed, turned to face the window.

At the desk underneath it, newspapers had been laid down, and a number of odds and ends and bits of wood were strewn about, around a small three-sided box. A new miniature kit. Probably for Christmas.

After Flora and Brit’s big fight, after the greenhouse was broken, Mrs. Feliciano had called us over the next time she saw Brit and me out in my yard. She took us into her room and pulled a box out from under the bed and opened it—it contained the wreckage of the miniature greenhouse.

“Flora said there was an accident,” she said.

Neither of us spoke.

She reached into the box and pulled out a paper pamphlet. “I found the booklet that Papa used to make it.” She looked up at both of us, from Brit to me and then back again. “We can put it back together, can’t we?”

Brit nodded.

Mrs. Feliciano took us to the table in the garage where Flora’s dad had built the greenhouse, showed us the box of tools he used—pliers and scissors and toothpicks and glue. She told us we could use the stuff anytime—she would leave the back door to the garage open.

I would’ve helped—I wanted to—but Brit took over reconstruction of the greenhouse entirely. By the end of the summer, she had put it back together as best she could. It didn’t look exactly the same, but it was whole again, at least.

I wasn’t there when she gave it to Flora—just came over one day to find it back on the bookshelf in its original home.

Brit didn’t stop there. She asked for a miniature kit for Christmas that year, and by spring, Flora had a tiny bookstore as well, and then an art studio, a dressmaker’s shop. We never really talked about the miniatures—beyond complimenting them when Flora showed us—and I got the feeling that Brit didn’t want us to, that it was something between her and Flora. Penance, at first, but then something that was unique to them, special between them.

I was still staring at the latest kit on Brit’s desk when she got back from her run. She entered the room quietly, saw me awake on the bed.

“Gonna shower,” she said, grabbing some clothes out of the dresser. “Make sure you call in at Safeway.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. I had forgotten I was supposed to work today.

“Brit,” I said as she headed back to the door. She paused. “Thanks for—”

She shook her head. “Don’t mention it.”





forty-three


I babysat for Harper that evening.

Part of me wanted to cancel—I felt like the living dead—but I stayed in all day, and managed to get it together by six o’ clock.

August wasn’t there. I couldn’t help but feel relief—I had no idea what to say to him.

Heather and Cadence were at another dance thing. They had left in a flurry, Heather searching for Cadence’s ballet shoes while pointing out stuff in the kitchen for Harper. “I got some of those squeezie things she likes, she can have one of those if she’s still hungry after dinner,” she said, hurriedly pulling on some sandals. “And there’s a bunch of stuff in there for you if you want. August made some mac and cheese earlier but didn’t eat it, so go to town.”

Then they were gone, and it was just me and Harper, who didn’t want anything more than food and attention.

It was Kyle who came home first. Harper had fallen asleep in my arms, and I was too tired to get up and put her in her crib. Anyway, it was comforting—the warm weight of her, adjusting every so often, making little grousing sounds.

Kyle took her from me when he arrived, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. But instead of heading to her room, he looked at me.

“Want to see something we’ve been working on for August?”

“You and Harper?” I said with a small smile.

“Yeah, she’s crack with a band saw,” he replied, and I flashed on that first night in the kitchen with August—I saw her change the oil on the car yesterday.

I stood and followed Kyle into the kitchen, through the door to the basement. Harper slept on, face smooshed against Kyle’s shoulder.

Past the laundry area was a door that Kyle pushed through.

There were a few windows set high up into the wall, and carpeting down where there had been bare concrete floor before. Also, actual walls and an actual ceiling. The light was still a bare bulb with a pull cord set into one of the walls—“Gotta get something better for lighting,” Kyle said—but it was a real room.

“Just finished painting yesterday. I’ve got a mattress and box spring coming from one of the girls at work, said they’ve barely used it. And I was thinking—we were wanting to get a new TV this year anyway—you know how Heather gets with the Black Friday sales—so maybe we could put the old one down here, for gaming or whatever, get a couple of chairs or something, I think there’s enough room for it.…” He turned to me. “Heather picked the carpet and the paint color and all that. We wanted it to be kind of a surprise … his birthday is next month, and we’ve got to get him out of the kitchen, you know, that was really only a temporary solution, and a pretty terrible one at that, even though he insisted …” He trailed off. “What do you think?”

I thought about what August had said—They’re good people. So I’m gonna make it easy on them.