And thank you for your very delicious gift.
My taste buds will fondly remember it forevermore.
From your neighbor who talks on the phone too loudly.
I reach through a space between the tape on my side, snake my hand through the space between the studs, in through a space between the tape on Charlie’s side, and I stick the note to her plastic.
Then, I head back to my couch to work on my proposal, smiling.
The next morning, as I keep pulling things out of my closet, I realize I should have spent a bit less time perfecting my proposal last night and a bit more time deciding what to wear during mypresentation. I’ve got it down to two very different choices, and I can’t decide which one.
Charlie is insightful. I bet she’d know. I look down at my watch. It’s seven-forty. One thing that no sound deadening between you and your neighbor does is let you easily learn each other’s daily routines. So, I know Charlie is currently standing at the one part of her cabinets that’s still in place, eating breakfast. From a part of a conversation I overheard, I’m guessing yogurt with granola and maybe blueberries.
So I put on my first option, which is a navy suit that’s well fitted with a white shirt and a light blue tie that has a subtle design of architectural blueprints. Then I go downstairs to my kitchen and knock on one of the studs. “Charlie, are you nearby?”
“Yeah,” she says, sounding a bit surprised to hear my voice.
“Can you help me figure out what to wear?” I already hate that I said that out loud.
“What to wear? Um, sure.”
As we are both pulling the tape away from the plastic so we can open the door, I start talking. “I am presenting at a historical preservation society about my plans for my next project. What?” I stop explaining when we each open our side’s door and I see the expression on her face.
“Nothing. I just, wow. You, uh, look mighty spiffyin a suit.” She clears her throat. “Seriously, good job on that.”
I look down for a minute, smiling. And then I have to remind myself that my goal is to act neighborly, so I should stop thinking of the flirting responses I really want to reply with. I meet her eyes again. “Thank you. So, I want them to say yes to my proposal, and I know that what I wear can make a difference. Do you mind if I come back in a few minutes wearing my other option?” And here I am, feeling all stupid again for asking.
She says she doesn’t mind, and in my head, I keep replaying her reaction to my first option as I’m changing into the second. It wasn’t flirting—it was an honest reaction, which makes it so much better. Maybe the navy suit is the right choice. It’s professional-looking. Especially when I take Charlie’s reaction to seeing me in it into consideration. I mean, that has to be good, right?
This time, I put on a vintage-inspired crisp white shirt and camel-colored trousers that are slightly tapered and cuffed just enough to show off my brown leather brogues. My tie is a dark gray, leaning slightly toward brick red. Then I put on a charcoal tweed vest with a faint herringbone texture, and add a deep forest green sport coat with leather elbow patches and brass buttons, and look in my mirror. It’s a well put-together outfit that feels slightly… academic. It makes me think of cedar and old books.
I go back downstairs, knock on the stud again, and Charlie and I both open our bendy little doors.
This time, Charlie doesn’t say a word—her eyes just widen. Then she swallows, nods, and says, “This one.” Except the words come out sounding a little choked.
“Yeah?”
“Definitely. The first one looked like you were going on a fancy date or to a benefit or something. This one says, ‘You can trust me with your beloved building.’”
I smile. “That’s exactly what I was hoping it would say.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Charlie says, “I need to go remember how to… not…” She says as she’s closing and re-taping her door. Then she turns around to rest her back against a stud, and I swear, her mumbled sentence finishes with, “…spend all day drooling over those two mental snapshots you just gave me.”
CHAPTER 7
LET THE RECORD SHOW: I AM NOT FLIRTING
CHARLIE
Ihad a crazy dream about needing to hack into the International Space Station’s climate control system because someone smuggled a vintage violin aboard, and the wrong humidity would ruin its tone. Which isn’t even remotely plausible. I mean, they run proprietary encryption that auto-bricks your system if you even sneeze near the login screen. But it has made ideas of ways to code a program to cloak agent heat signatures from motion sensors run through my head all morning.
I’m almost ready for work and am just coming down the stairs to get breakfast when there’s a knock at my front door. The electrician is here already? I answer the door to see a man in his fifties who’s wearing a tool belt and holding a clipboard in one hand and a toolbox in the other. There’s a truck parkedout front. It’s not one of the box trucks, like the plumber and the restoration guys have—it’s a white work truck with a tool chest in the bed and aBolt & Beacon Electriclogo on the door.
“Hi. I’m here to fix some electrical issues in your kitchen caused by a leaky pipe.”
I still can’t believe that I’m letting a worker in here again when I’m not going to be home. I may have freaked out that the plan had changed from plumbers at Lord of the Leaks to Demo Daydreams while I wasn’t even home and without getting a chance to vet them first. At least I got a chance to thoroughly vet this one. Both the man and the company he works for. He’s clean. I guess going without a wall is enough to help me let down my defenses a bit.
And I am pretty proud of myself for making all the progress I have on being okay with workers being here. Jace wouldn’t have let them in at all.
