visiting today and she wants me to come.”
I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. First of all, I was worried it would be upsetting for Kelly. She’d just been to her mother’s funeral, and wept through most of it. I was worried about how she’d handle another one so soon. Second, I didn’t want her anywhere near Darren Slocum.
“I don’t know, sweetheart.”
“I have to go,” she said. “To the visiting.”
“No, you don’t. People would understand if you didn’t go.”
“You mean, they’d think I didn’t want to go? Because that’s not true. I don’t want people thinking I’m a chicken.”
“You’re not-that’s not what they’d think.”
“That’s what I’d think. I’d think I was a huge pussy for not going.”
“A what?”
She blushed. “A chicken. And besides, Emily and her parents came to Mom’s funeral.”
Kelly was right about that. The Slocums had been there. But a lot had changed in the interim. And the situation between us and the Slocums was different.
“If I don’t go, then Emily will hate me forever,” she said. “If that’s what you want, then I guess I won’t go.”
I glanced over at her. “What time’s the visitation?”
“It’s at three.”
“Okay, I’ll pick you up at school at two. We go home and get changed, and we go to the visitation. But here’s the deal: You stay with me. You don’t wander out of my sight. Are we clear?”
Kelly nodded. “Got it. And you won’t forget your promise, will you?”
We had reached her school. I pulled over to the curb. “I won’t forget.”
“You know which one I mean?”
“I know which one you mean. About looking into another school for you.”
“Okay, I was just checking.”
From there, I went into work, and told Sally I’d left her some phone message details.
“Done,” she said.
“And there were some other voicemails-”
“And done,” she said. “Okay, some of the places, they weren’t in yet, but I left messages.”
“Anyone looking for estimates?” I asked.
“Sorry, boss.”
We did a quick review of what work we did have going on. Our three active job sites were a kitchen renovation in Derby, a double garage in Devon out back of someone’s house, and finishing off the basement of a five-year-old house in East Milford. For the first time in a couple of years, we weren’t building an actual house from the ground up.
“Stewart and KF are at the garage,” she said. Stewart was our Canadian kid, and “KF” referred to Ken Wang, and was actually an abbreviated version of his nickname, which was Kentucky Fried Wang, or KFW, given that he hailed from the South. “Doug’s headed off to Derby, and there’s no one at the basement reno.”
“Okay.”
“Can we talk?” she asked, coming into my office. “I feel bad about Saturday,” she said, sitting down across from me.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “You and Theo okay?”
“I kind of chewed him out a bit after. I understand it’s your company and you get to make the call about who works for you and who doesn’t.”
“Yup,” I said.
“Even though I think he’s a good electrician, you know? He’s doing some work now in my dad’s-in my house.” Sally had moved in to her father’s place as his health had declined. He’d been a crusty old bastard, but that had also been his charm. He’d been a Civil War fanatic, had a considerable gun collection, old and new, that he’d been very proud of-an enthusiasm I had not shared. I knew how to handle guns, but had never owned one. I hadn’t shared many of his political views, either. He’d liked to argue incessantly that Richard M. Nixon was the best president the United States ever had, so long as you looked past that stupid shit he did opening up relations with China.
Sally quickly learned her father had no savings that would have allowed him to move in to a decent care facility, so she did the best she could, slipping out of the office at noon to make sure he’d eaten the lunch she’d left him, and that he’d taken his meds. The cost of prescriptions had been a killer. She’d spent what savings her father’d had on various drugs: insulin for diabetes, plus lisinopril, warfarin, and the heparin injections for his heart ailments. His Social Security didn’t come close to covering it, so Sally began dipping into her own savings. Pretty much all the money she saved on rent after moving in with her dad was going to drugs. If he’d lived much longer, Sally probably would have had to sell the house and find a small apartment for the two of them. But now the place had been left to her.
“Theo replaced a lot of my old outlets and put a ceiling fixture in the front hall, and when he’s done the bathroom it’s going to have one of those heated floors. I can’t wait to feel a warm floor under my toes when I get up on a cold morning. The tiling, well, that’s another thing. He’s doing that this week, and tiling’s not really his area, you know, but I can get someone else to fix that up later. Maybe Doug, if he’d do it.”
“Great,” I said, and thought about the words we’d had on Saturday.
“All I’m saying is, I respect your decision, and I’ll do what I can to make him respect it, too.”
I didn’t much care whether he respected it or not, just so long as he stayed away from any of my projects, but kept the thought to myself. “I appreciate that, Sally.”
She gnawed her lip, like she was working up to something. “Glen…”
“What’s on your mind?”
“What do you think of him? I mean, as a guy. A guy for me.”
“Sally, I’ve known you a long time, even before you started babysitting for Kelly. And I’ve got no problem telling you what to do around the office, but your private life is none of my business.”
“Okay, let’s say you knew Theo and I hadn’t met him yet, is he the kind of guy you’d set me up with?”
“I don’t set people up.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “God, you’re impossible. Let’s say I’d never met him, but saw him on the site, and I said to you, ‘Hey, that guy, he’s cute, should I let him ask me out?’ What would you say?”
“He’s… a good-looking guy. Handsome. I can see that. And it looks like he cares about you. And he can be polite, until he’s… pushed.”
She studied me. “There’s a ‘but’ coming. I can tell.”
For a moment, I considered dodging, but Sally deserved the truth from me. “I would say maybe you can do better.”
“Well,” Sally said. “So.”
“You asked.”
“And you delivered.” She forced a grin and slapped her thighs. “Was that so hard?”
“Kinda.”
“I mean, I know what you’re saying. But what if I can’t do better?”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Sal.”
“Come on, look at me,” she said. “I’m, like, seven feet tall. I’m a circus freak.”
“Stop it. You’re gorgeous.”
“And you’re a skilled liar.” She got up and lingered a minute at the door. “Thanks, Glen.”
I smiled, then I fired up the computer and googled “Milford schools.” First, I looked to see what might be the next-closest public elementary school, jotted down a couple of possibilities, then looked at the private schools. There were several Catholic ones, but I didn’t know what the chances were of getting into one of those, considering we were not Catholic. We weren’t much of anything, when you got right down to it. Sheila and I were never churchgoers, and had never had Kelly baptized, much to Fiona’s horror.
I wrote down a few more school names and phone numbers, figuring I could make calls throughout the day when I had a minute. Plus, I left a message for Kelly’s principal. Not to rat out the kids who’d called her Boozer, but to sound him out about moving her to another school, given the awkwardness of her situation.
