The Fixer Upper (24 page)

The huge, unpainted cylinders lay in the middle of the framed-in living room, forcing the crew to detour around them. Macie minced back and forth, pacing the length of each column. Occasionally, she bent over and stroked one. Watching her, Ned realized she would have been disappointed with him. Even when he was fully revved and raring to go, he was a hell of a lot smaller than those columns.

What with the assorted construction noises, the thumping of salsa from the boom box and Macie’s intermittent sighs of ecstasy as she fondled her columns, Ned knew he couldn’t have a calm, civilized conversation with Libby
right now. She probably didn’t have time for a lengthy chat, either, swamped as she was with Hudson School applications. But he needed to hear her voice, so he whipped out the cell phone, crossed to the corner of the loft farthest from where the boom box was sitting and the guys were taping the drywall, and punched in her office number.

“When would you like to see me?” she asked.

“How about right now?” he suggested. “You could mosey on down and watch me spackle drywall. It’s a thrill you don’t want to miss.”

She laughed. “How about if you and Eric come over for dinner sometime this week? Pick a day, as long as it’s not today.”

“Why not today?”

“If I’m going to make dinner, I’ve got to plan it out.” She paused. “I should warn you, I’m not the world’s greatest cook.”

“Reva looks healthy enough. And Eric will eat anything.” Ned smiled, picturing the four of them seated around her dining-room table—and then lost his smile at his vision of that table hidden beneath mountains of application papers. Maybe they’d have a picnic on the living-room floor, instead. “We’d love to come for dinner, Libby, but what I had in mind was more in the nature of just you and me, you know. Taking a bike ride, something along those lines.”

She laughed again. “Now?”

He felt a pleasant twinge in his groin at the fantasy that they could toss aside their jobs and spend the morning naked and sweaty in each other’s arms. “Now would be great, but I don’t think we can manage it.”

“When, then?” She sounded thoughtful. “This isn’t going to be easy, Ned. I can’t ship Reva off to her friend’s house for a sleepover every weekend. And then there’s Eric….”

“We could set the kids up at the computer and then hide
in your kitchen. If we close the door and we’re very, very quiet…”

Her laughter this time sounded sad. “Reva and Eric really complicate things. I don’t know how to do this.”

He wondered how she’d done it with previous boyfriends. Maybe those men hadn’t had children, and she’d gone to their places but returned to her own bed to sleep. Or maybe she hadn’t had sex with them at all. Ned wasn’t a jealous kind of guy, but he wouldn’t mind terribly if she hadn’t had a bunch of red-hot lovers before him.

“Do you get time off for lunch?” he asked.

Silence greeted him, and then, “Do you?”

“I could grab an hour. I’d have to spend a lot of that time in transit, though. This job is down in the Meatpacking District.”

Another moment of silence passed before she asked, “What would happen if you grabbed an hour and fifteen minutes?”

“I’d return to work out of breath but smiling. Where should we meet?”

They decided to meet at her apartment at twelve-thirty. At noon, when everyone was breaking for lunch, he told the guys he had to run a few errands and might be awhile. They were pros; he didn’t have to micromanage them as they finished taping the nail holes and seams in the drywall. They nodded and made a few sarcastic remarks about getting a gold star for each errand he completed, and he politely laughed and said he’d see them later.

Then he bolted.

He’d never been so impatient for a subway to arrive, and so impatient for it to deliver him to his stop. Emerging at 72nd Street, he saw a guy strumming a guitar and singing at the station. The singer actually had some talent, and Ned would have stopped for a minute to listen and toss a dollar into his guitar case if he wasn’t pressed for time.

He sprinted up the stairs two at a time, practically knocked three people over in his dash for the door and flew the few blocks to Libby’s building. He spotted her approaching from the corner. She was walking, not running. Did that mean she was less eager for this than he was?

No, it meant she was wearing high heels. He admired her elegant legs as he caught his breath, and smiled when he noticed her accelerating her pace once she saw him. She smiled back, and the sheer force of her joy at being with him was enough to knock the breath right out of him again.

“This is crazy,” she whispered as he gathered her in a quick hug, then slung his arm around her and hustled her into her building.

Yeah, it was crazy. Unlike Saturday night, he hadn’t showered or shaved. He was dressed in his work clothes, and while he’d taken a minute to wash his hands and face before he’d left Macie’s loft, his jeans were layered in dust and his shirt had a smear of plaster on the sleeve. In contrast, Libby was impeccably groomed, just as he would expect of someone who’d spent her morning evaluating the offspring of millionaires at a posh private school. Her skirt was neatly tailored, her blouse smooth and silky, a colorful scarf tied around her neck. Her legs—he allowed himself another admiring glance—were sheathed in stockings.

Real stockings? With a garter belt? Hell, he was lucky she’d agreed to meet him for a quickie. He shouldn’t push his luck.

The doorman gave them a suspicious look as they sped past him and ducked into the elevator. The instant the door slid shut, Ned had his arms around her and his mouth locked with hers. They both groaned—with relief, with excitement, with everything. Heat flooded him, stoked not just by Libby herself, by her fluffy hair and her soft skin and her dazzling eyes, but by the situation. This was almost illicit. It was hur
ried. It was like his first time, with Jenny O’Neill. They’d done it in the den of the Sekowskis’ house, where she’d been babysitting. She’d sneaked him in after the kids were asleep, whispered, “Happy birthday,” and handed him a condom. They’d made love and he’d been out the back door within twenty minutes, and while it had hardly been the most satisfying sexual encounter in his life, he’d had nothing to compare it to at that point, and he’d believed it was fantastic.

He had plenty to compare today with, and he knew just from kissing Libby in the grand paneled elevator of her building that it would be fantastic.

And it was. On the rug, on the floor in front of her half-finished fireplace. Walking all the way to her bedroom would have taken too long, so they’d done it right there, Ned chivalrously bearing the brunt of the floor’s hardness by lying under her—as if having Libby on top of him, with her skirt bunched up around her waist and her blouse open, her bra hanging slack below her breasts and her body tight and hot and wet around him, was such a noble sacrifice. Thank God he’d had a condom with him. He’d figured after Saturday night that he ought to be ready at all times with Libby, because they probably wouldn’t be able to predict when the opportunity for sex would present itself.

As soon as he felt her climax, he let go. No time to hold back, to play her for a second orgasm, to prolong the moment and show her what a restrained, skilled lover he was. Not when he had to be back at the Colwyn loft before too many minutes had elapsed. She sank limply onto him and he stroked her back, smoothing the wrinkles in her blouse and the tangles in her hair.

“Hey,” he murmured when a minute passed without her moving.

“That was quick,” she said, then propped herself up and grinned at him. “I’m not complaining.”

“Good.” He grinned back. “I hate to fornicate and run, but it’s one of those days.”

“We’ll have to do this again,” she said.

“Just say the word and I’ll come running. Literally.” As soon as she rolled off him he got busy hauling his jeans back up—they’d spent the past few minutes tethering his ankles—and buttoning his shirt. He’d have to return to work, but he’d be back. Whenever Libby said the word, he’d be back, and he’d be sure to have a condom with him.

“W
hat do you mean, he’s coming over?
Who’s
coming over? And whoever he is, he can’t come over.” All right, so Libby was babbling. She was allowed to babble. Tonight she would be hosting her dinner party with Ned and Eric, and she was stressed out. She’d prepared Hawaiian chicken, a recipe she’d gotten from Gilda years ago and recalled loving, but she hadn’t made it in ages and the memory could play tricks on a person. Maybe Gilda’s Hawaiian chicken wasn’t as tasty as Libby remembered it. Maybe Eric hated pineapples. Maybe she’d blown the recipe by doing all the prep work last night. Maybe leaving the chicken breasts marinating in the fridge for a full day before sliding them into the oven would cause them to be too chewy or sweet.

Adding to her panic was her suspicion that it would take several hours and a forklift to clear all the application papers off the dining-room table. She didn’t have several
hours. It was quarter to five, and Ned and Eric were due at six.

And now, halfway home from the Hudson School, Reva had announced that some musician would be dropping by. “I told you,” she asserted. “I told you Darryl J was going to come over and record a sound clip for the Web site.”

“When did you tell me this?” Libby demanded. She sped up a little, practically jogging the last block before their building.

Reva jogged along beside her. “Last night.”

She must have mentioned it while Libby had been measuring the barbecue sauce, or browning the breasts, or draining the liquid from the canned pineapple chunks. Libby had undoubtedly nodded and said, “Fine, fine,” without realizing what she’d agreed to.

Apparently, she’d agreed to let her daughter invite a stranger—a street musician, no less—into their home to make a recording. “Why tonight?” she asked. “Mr. Donovan and his son are joining us for dinner.”

“Eric’ll want to hear him. He helped design the Web site. Although he’s got sucky taste in music. He likes hip-hop.”

Libby ignored Reva’s critique of Eric’s musical preferences. “What Web site?” she asked as they entered the building. Reva kept pace with her as she detoured to the mail room to pick up the day’s bills, gift catalogs and credit-card solicitations.

“I told you. I made a Web site for Darryl J. Actually, Eric made it with my guidance. We have to put a sound clip on it so people will realize how talented he is.”

Darryl J. Wasn’t that the singer Reva had been searching for when she’d turned off the cell phone and journeyed down to Greenwich Village a week and a half ago? Libby hadn’t completely lost her mind—she definitely remembered Reva telling her about the street musician.

But she didn’t remember anything about a Web site, let alone giving permission for this Darryl person to come to her apartment.

Maybe she should be glad Ned would be there. Not that she needed a big, strong man to protect her and Reva from the stranger Reva planned to welcome into their home, but…

“When is Darryl going to arrive?” Libby asked as they rode the elevator upstairs. She’d never been impressed with the elevator until she’d started viewing it through Ned’s eyes. His passion for old architecture hadn’t quite rubbed off on her, but thanks to him, she’d developed an appreciation for it. The building’s maintenance fund—which she would be paying into as soon as Sharma approved her mortgage application—must include a budget for polishing the elevator’s honey-hued paneling and brass trim. The lustrous walls made her feel as if she were standing in a very, very small gentlemen’s club, one of those elite retreats where men smoked cigars and sipped brandy and closed billion-dollar deals.

Libby wouldn’t mind a billion-dollar deal. A brandy would be nice, too. The cigar she could do without.

“I’m not sure exactly what time he’ll arrive,” Reva answered.

“You couldn’t do this another night?”

“No, because for one thing, Katie Staver loaned me her digital recorder today, and I can’t just hang on to it forever. And besides, Darryl J works some nights, but he was free tonight.”

“Where does he work?”

“I don’t know. He serves drinks somewhere.”

“He works at a bar? How old is he?” Oy vey, Libby thought. Her daughter had been traipsing through the city in search of some guy who worked in a bar.

“Well, he’s only eighteen or nineteen. ’Cause he just got
into college, which means he’s smart, right? But he’s taking a year off to try to make it as a musician. I think you can serve drinks if you’re eighteen. You just can’t drink them.”

Why her daughter would be up on the intricacies of labor law was beyond Libby, unless it was because she wanted to keep abreast of Darryl J’s employment situation. “What are you going to do if he arrives just when we’re sitting down to dinner?” she asked.

“I guess I’ll ask him if he’s hungry.”

Libby suppressed a curse and tried to recall how many chicken breasts she’d marinated. She probably had enough for one extra mouth. “What’s he like?” she asked.

“He’s very nice,” Reva said, her eyes glowing like hundred-watt bulbs.
Wonderful
, Libby thought.
Reva’s in love
. She was in love with an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old boy who worked in a bar. Not good.

Libby would have liked to collapse on the living-room couch and experience a complete meltdown, but she had no time. As soon as she and Reva swept into the apartment, she mentally enumerated everything she had to do. “I could use your help clearing off the dining-room table,” she announced, “but first I’ve got to get the chicken into the oven and start the rice.”

Reva gave her an alarmed look. “You’re making rice?”

“You like rice.”

“But it always boils over, and then you get all upset.”

“I won’t get upset if it boils over tonight,” Libby promised, a vow she was likely to break. At least that wasn’t as great a sin as not having enough food for guests.

Mollified, Reva shed her jacket and carried her backpack to her bedroom. Within a minute, she was in the dining room, scrutinizing the mess on the table. “What do you want me to do with all this?” she asked.

Toss it down the compactor chute,
Libby silently replied.
She peeled the foil off the Pyrex dish with the chicken in it and slid it into the oven. “It’s in piles,” she called from the kitchen. “Keep it in the same piles and move it to my bed.” Ned wouldn’t be seeing her bed tonight.

“What about the multimedia stuff?”

Libby straightened, closed the oven door and turned. Reva stood in the kitchen doorway, holding up Samantha McNally’s greatest-hits CD and Jeremy Tartaglia’s videotape.
Compactor chute,
she thought, but said, “Leave them on my dresser.”

She measured the rice and water into a pot and set it on the stove. Then she assembled the salad fixings. Did she have bread? She should have bought a loaf. Guys ate bread at meals. But what kind of bread went with Hawaiian chicken? Luau loaf? Poi sourdough?

The doorbell rang. They couldn’t be here already, could they? And why hadn’t the doorman announced their arrival?

Libby dropped the cucumber she was rinsing, shook the water off her hands and hurried from the kitchen in time to see Reva racing for the door. What a pair they were, both of them eager for the arrival of their sweethearts. Only Reva’s sweetheart was a much-too-old street singer who served drinks in a bar.

Reva swung open the door. “What are you guys doing here?”

“It was my idea.” Reva’s friend Ashleigh, pasty faced and draped in a long, swirling black velvet skirt, barreled into the entry, followed by the more modestly attired Kim. “We want to hear Darryl J make his sound clip. I talked Kim into coming because she’s so musical. You should have someone musical to judge if the recording is good.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Kim said. “Ashleigh called me at home and said you desperately needed me here. Hi, Ms. Kimmelman,” she added, acknowledging Libby, who stood
in the dining room, dripping water from her hands onto the floor.

“No problem,” Reva said rather presumptuously. What did she mean,
no problem?
Libby was hosting a goddamn dinner party. She was the one with problems.

She heard a hiss coming from the kitchen. Shit. The rice had boiled over.

Abandoning the girls, she dashed back to the kitchen to rescue the rice. Were Ashleigh and Kim expecting to stay for dinner? She’d prepared eight chicken breasts; if no one wanted seconds, she’d be okay. Libby wasn’t planning to eat seconds, anyway. Thanks to the revival of her sex life, she had a vested interest in keeping her tush from getting any bigger than it already was.

Wiping the sizzling, milky rice water from the stove, she practiced breathing deeply. Why should she be rattled about having Ned and Eric over for dinner? Ned clearly approved of her tush, and every other part of her. He’d had sex with her on the floor of the living room. Surely she didn’t have to impress him with her elegant hostess skills, of which she had none. And Eric was just a kid, and a male kid at that. Boys didn’t care if the stove was a little messy or the cucumbers sliced unevenly. She only hoped he wouldn’t mind the lack of bread.

She was cautiously placing the pot back on the burner when the doorbell rang. She moved the pot to a cold burner before leaving the kitchen.

Once again, Reva beat her to the door, this time with her giggling posse in tow. She swung open the door and smiled. “Hi,” she said, although it sounded more like a sigh.

Darryl J was here. Libby braced herself to meet the man. She already hated him because he had the power to break her daughter’s heart. Reva had no business getting a crush on a man so much older than she was, at such a different
point in his life from the one she was in hers, but crushes were irrational and often uncontrollable. Libby saw this situation ending in disaster.

Kim and Ashleigh had fallen back a step, as if to give the visitor more room. He entered the apartment, a compact fellow—Ned had him in both height and weight, thank God—with skin the color of mocha and braided black hair and a huge guitar case. He wore jeans, but they weren’t torn or stained. In fact, he was dressed more neatly than Ned had been on Monday, when he’d raced from his work site to her apartment for their lunch-break tryst.

“Hey, Reva,” Darryl J said, then nodded at Ashleigh and Kim and then turned to meet Libby. “Hey.”

Hey?
This was how the man who would break her daughter’s heart greeted her? “How do you do?” she said stiffly.

“Mom, this is Darryl J. Darryl J, this is my mom, Libby Kimmelman.”

If he called her Libby, she’d throw his guitar down the compactor chute.

He won a few points by extending his hand and saying, “Thanks for letting us borrow your place to do this recording, Mrs. Kimmelman.”

She shook his hand and decided not to tell him it was “Ms.” rather than “Mrs.” She was already feeling marginally better about the situation. He might even make his recording and leave before Ned and Eric arrived. And when he left, he could take Kim and Ashleigh with him. “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said.

“Try not to make any noise, okay, Mom?” Reva called over her shoulder as she led Kim, Ashleigh, Darryl J and his guitar into the den.

Right. Libby would keep the rice from boiling over and not make any noise. At least Reva had gotten most of the clutter off the dining-room table. Things could be worse.

She wiped off the outer surface of the rice pot, which was streaked with white from the water that had boiled over, and set it back on a burner adjusted to Low. Trusting the pot—undoubtedly a foolish thing to do, but she couldn’t spend the next half hour hovering over the stove, awaiting another eruption—she returned to the dining room to clear the last few folders from the table.

As she carried them to her bedroom, she passed the den. Darryl J was tuning his guitar while the three girls crowded around him like guardian angels, or maybe Muses. If he objected to their nearness, he didn’t say so.

Libby objected to their nearness. She’d prefer that her daughter put a few more inches between herself and the eighteen-year-old bar waiter.

She was in the bedroom, adding her folders to the piles neatly arrayed across her bed, when Darryl began to strum. Not bad, she thought, remaining where she was so she could listen. The girls chattered for a minute—“We’ll just record it to see if you’re close enough,” Reva said. “I think it’s called a sound check”—and then he started to sing along with his strumming.

Not bad at all.

The doorbell chimed, interrupting his song. The girls keened at this dreadful interruption.
It was only a sound check,
Libby wanted to remind them as she strode down the hall, passing the den on her way to the front door.

Ned and Eric stood on the threshold, Ned carrying a bottle of white wine and Eric a large bouquet of flowers. Libby’s eyes filled with tears, even though she knew the flowers were from Ned and not his son. “Thank you!” she gushed as she waved them inside. “Come on in. This bouquet is gorgeous! I’ve got to find a vase.”

They stepped inside, Ned sending her a private smile, which, she supposed, would be the limit of their intimacy
tonight. To her relief, he didn’t try to kiss her in front of Eric. She wasn’t ready for the kids to see her and Ned in PG mode, let alone NR-17.

At the sound of a guitar chord, Eric tilted his head in the direction of the den. “Is that Darryl J?” he asked.

“Yes. He’s recording a sound clip,” she reported, as if she actually understood what this whole enterprise was about.

“Wow. Can I go watch?” He thrust the flowers into Libby’s hands and raced to the den, yanking off his jacket as he went.

Alone at last. Ned stole a quick kiss that made Libby sigh. “A sound clip, huh.”

“It’s for a Web site your son and my daughter are making. When did they do all this?”

“When we were otherwise distracted,” Ned said, grinning slyly and stealing another, slightly less rushed kiss. Libby sank into it for a moment, then nudged him away. The kids were so wrapped up in their Darryl J project she and Ned probably could have torn off their clothes and gone at it in the entry without their noticing, but she still felt funny kissing him when Eric and Reva were just a few rooms from them.