Page 8 of His Build
“Love you, Sadie,” Lucy said.
“You too.”
After Lucy hung up, she felt a thousand times better. Thiswasa good idea. A relaxed pace here and not having to worry about what was going on at home with Sadie looking after her apartment. She could focus on this job—which actually sounded pretty fun, even if it came with some unexpected memories of Stan and her childhood. She wasn’t going to let that baggage get in the way of her life today. She was going to do this job well, and she was going to enjoy it. Like she told her clients, the only way to avoid fear was to conquer it.
Tomorrow she would go down to that construction site and set this job off on the right foot.
Screw fear.
3
Lucy woke up the next morning in a pile of design magazines borrowed from Toby and a slew of sketches torn from her notebook. She’d stayed up past midnight, deep in planning mode, aided with a couple of glasses of pinot noir.
It had been glorious.
Last night she had felt good about her plans. Toby’s lobby had pushed her to latch onto the idea she’d had bouncing around when Alfred had emailed her the drawings and notes from the previous designer. She was going to do his place in what she calledMad Men meetsModern.
Her predecessor had at least donesomegroundwork, and ordered a contemporary kitchen that would work well with her ideas for the rest of the house. The room would be done in unembellished black cabinetry and matching granite counters. Lucy would add copper fixtures and modern hex tile to the backsplash. She’d carry the theme of black and white into the bathrooms—she’d already sourced the faucets and tile for that, too. The walls would be painted gallery white to showcase the views of the lake and provide a backdrop for the furnishings and fixtures, which would all be mid-century modern, right down to the lighting and artwork. The clean simplicity of the style would complement the modern architecture beautifully.
But this morning as she sat up squinting in the sun streaming in the windows, all the fun planning and open-budget excitement faded as she faced the cold reality of what lay ahead of her: visiting the construction site.
At the firm in New York, she’d done most of her work in the office in front of a computer screen. She’d rarely visit sites in person until the building crew were mostly gone. Even then, she was usually part of a team. Today, she’d be on her own.
Out of her element.
Rusty.
Remember why you’re here.
Fifty thousand dollars.
And it was only six weeks. She could do this.
After a quick stop in town for a takeaway latte and muffin at a cute little diner packed with people who fortunately didn’t seem to stare too hard at strangers, Lucy headed directly to Alfred’s. It took her longer than she’d expected to get there—the property was tucked around the other side of Emerald Lake, through a good ten minutes of unmarked back roads. She only found it by following a roofing truck laden with material down a narrow, rutted dirt road she would definitely have missed otherwise.
By the time Lucy pulled up to the site, the nerves were back in full force. But when the big truck angled to the side of the property, her nerves fell back as she took in her surroundings through her mud-speckled windshield.
Before her was a sprawling waterfront property lightly treed and sloping down to a private beach with a dock and beginnings of a boathouse. In the center, across a muddy stretch of what must be the future garden, sat the skeleton of a stunning modern home, all angles and lines and jutting roof peaks. Sheathing covered the sides already, and the windows and doors were hung with bright blue tarps.
It was going to be gorgeous. And she got to be in charge of arguably the most fun part of the build—all the finishing touches. The embers of her excitement and determination fired up again.
She pulled in next to no fewer than four pickup trucks, the one beside her with a modern-looking sketch of a house on the side and the words “GRAYSCALE CONTRACTING” over top. She recognized the company name—this must be the head contractor’s truck. Her heart thudded in her chest as she shut off the engine.
When she stepped out of her SUV, her ears filled with the sounds of construction: the pop of a pressure nail gun from roofers up high, the rumble of a generator kicking in. Male voices shouting questions and answers across empty spaces. Her stomach plunged with a fresh burst of nerves as she was brought back to an old feeling of deep discomfort.
She was about to step into a site where she would be out of her element and was likely to be outnumbered by men. The type of men who talked big and blew off her ideas. Who laughed at her if she tried to assert herself. Men like her stepfather Stan.
Lucy’s mom used to bring her and Sadie to job sites when they were young, before things went sour with Stan. They’d stop by on the way home from school, or during the summer, just to say hi. When she was elementary aged, the subdivisions he worked on fascinated Lucy. She loved poking around the open rooms; climbing up on concrete pipes and mounting rail-less stairs.
But once Lucy got a little older and Stan realized she could be a source of entertainment, everything changed.
He learned this when they were visiting one time and caught him on a coffee break.
Lucy had waited until Stan had dug into his donut and the rest of the crew sitting around on upturned buckets and piles of bricks appeared to be preoccupied with smaller conversations.
She’d leaned in, whispering, “Could you show me how the building’s plumbing works?”
She’d been a curious kid and had seen the long stacks of pipes poking out of the concrete like periscopes.
