the sidewalk parade, people strolling past restaurants, bars, and boutiques. Different skin colors, a mash-up of straight and gay, non-flash money and hipsters, heads, hustlers, and intellectuals, young couples, bike messengers, old folks who remembered the fires of ’68, everyone trying this new thing together. It wasn’t perfect because nothing is, but down here it seemed as good as Washington had ever been, and for some, it was a dream realized.
To Chris Flynn, it just looked like a nice place to live. But he figured that he would never be able to afford to buy a place in this zip code. Weren’t any carpet installers who owned property here. The ones who carried mortgages here, he reckoned, had gone to college.
“Dag, boy, it sure is different than it was,” said Ben Braswell, his big frame sprawled on the bench, his arm on the lip of the open passenger window.
“It was the Metro system did it,” said Chris, thinking on something his father had once said, explaining the positive changes in the city. “Every place where they opened subway stations, the neighborhoods improved around them. Public transportation got all this shit going again.”
“Took, like, twenty-five years to happen.”
“Point is, it happened.”
“Yo, man, pull over,” said Ben, rubbernecking the diner that bore his name. “I need a half-smoke now.”
“After this job, maybe,” said Chris.
“Chili, mustard, onions,” said Ben, his gentle eyes gone dreamy. “Sweet tea. Maze on the juke…”
“We don’t do this installation, we don’t get paid.”
“How we supposed to work if we don’t eat?”
“How you supposed to pay for your half-smoke if you don’t work?” said Chris.
“True,” said Ben.
Chris was going to have to disappoint him. There wasn’t time to stop anywhere because they were already behind. After this install they’d have to drive back out to Beltsville in Maryland to pick up the roll for the next job, then head over to a home in Bethesda to complete it. Ben would understand.
Chris turned left off U into the residential section of the neighborhood. “If we get done quick, we’ll have time for lunch.”
They found a spot on the street close to the job site. A real estate agent was standing outside the row house, talking on her cell, a look of annoyance on her face as she spotted the van, recognizing the magnetic sign on its side that read “Flynn’s Floors.”
“Wait here,” said Chris. “Let me get up with this woman before we unload.”
Chris got out of the van and approached her. She continued to talk on her cell and did not acknowledge him. She was in her midfifties, with a short, spiky, gelled hairdo. She was blond, heavily made up, and had crinkle-bunny lines from age and too much sun. Her petite figure seemed shapeless under her loose, sleeveless purple dress.
The “For Sale” sign mounted on a post behind her had her photograph on it, arms crossed, smiling, with two young people, also smiling, standing behind her. In big letters, the sign said, “Mindy Kramer,” and below it, in smaller script, “The Kramer Dream Team.”
“I’ve got to go,” said Mindy Kramer into her phone. “They finally got here.” She shut the cell’s lid with an audible snap and looked at Chris. “You are?”
“Chris.” He did not use his last name unless asked.
“I expected you earlier.”
“We got hung up on another job-”
“And now I have to leave and meet a client on Capitol Hill. I’ll let you in and then I’ll come back and lock up when the job is done.” She looked past him to Ben, seated in the van, slouched, his blue Nationals W cap worn sideways on his head. “Mr. Flynn said his crews were bonded and insured. I assume that includes you and your partner.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s take a look at the room.”
She marched up the granite steps that led to the front door. Chris turned to the van and did the darting- tongue thing, and Ben smiled. Chris followed Mindy Kramer into the house.
Chris admired the structure and its craftsmanship as soon as he walked inside. Chair rail molding in the dining room, wide-plank hardwood floors in the center hall, plaster walls. No furniture, though. Whoever once lived here was gone.
“This way.” Mindy Kramer cut a right through open French doors.
Chris stepped in, rapping his knuckles on the door frame out of habit and curiosity. As he expected, it was solid wood, not the Masonite he saw in so much new construction. The space was about fourteen by twelve, he guessed, and would be called a library on the listing, as it held a wall of built-in bookshelves. He looked down at the worn carpet that covered the floor.
“It should be a pretty straightforward job,” said Mindy Kramer. “I went with the cable. Mr. Flynn said the loop pile would be fine for a medium-traffic space.”
“It’ll work,” said Chris, pulling his Stanley tape measure off the belt line of his Dickies where he kept it clipped. He laid down the tape and measured the length and width of the room, which was close to his estimation, and mentally noted that his father had ordered a larger roll than was needed to do the job. This meant that he hadn’t liked Mindy Kramer or that he foresaw complaints from her or multiple post-job visits. When the customer showed arrogance or attitude up front, they tended to pay extra. Chris’s father called this the “personality defect tax.”
“Is what you brought sufficient?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Chris. “It’s gonna be fine.”
“There’s a walnut floor under this carpet, but it needs sanding and refinishing. Nice hardwood is preferable to carpet when you’re selling a home, of course, especially to younger clients, but I don’t have the time or inclination to go that route. I just want to get some carpet down and bring in a few pieces of furniture here and there so I can flip the property. I bought it at auction for a song. The previous owner was a gay gentleman who had no surviving heirs… ”
Chris nodded, trying to keep eye contact with her. All she was doing was bragging on how savvy she had been and how much money she was going to make. Telling a stranger this because she was insecure. He was not impressed.
“We’ll get started,” said Chris. “It shouldn’t take us long.”
“Here’s my card,” said Mindy Kramer, handing him one. “Call me on my cell when you’re almost done and I’ll shoot back over and give it a look. Tell me your number, Chris.”
Chris gave her his cell number. She punched it into the contacts file of her phone and typed in a name.
“I’m going to call you Chris Carpet,” she said, proud of her cleverness, “so I can remember who you are when I scan through my contacts.”
Whatever, thought Chris. But he said, “That’s fine.”
Mindy Kramer hit “save” and glanced at her watch. “Any questions?”
“That’ll do ’er,” said Chris, giving her the redneck inflection that she no doubt expected.
Ben had already slipped his kneepads over his jeans and was tying a leather multipocket tool belt around his waist when Chris emerged from the house. Ben and Chris wore the same type of belts and in their pouches they kept their pro-shop razor knives. As Ben finished tying his belt off, Mindy Kramer got into her C-series and, cell phone to her ear, sped away.
Chris put his pads on, and he and Ben went around to the back of the van. They untied a red towel from the end of the out-hanging carpet and removed the roll and its sister roll of padding. They carried the carpet inside, came back and got the padding, took it up the steps, and placed it beside the roll they had stowed in the hall. It was hotter in the house than it was outside, and both of them began to perspire. They had done one job already, so it was the second time they were sweating into their polo shirts that day.
“In here,” said Chris, and Ben followed him into the library.
Ben sized up the job, liking that there was no furniture to move and that the space was virtually square. “Looks easy.”
“Can you take up the old carpet?”
“What, you too busy to help?”
