Cynthia Reese - Not on Her Own

Penelope climbed down from the ladder and joined him. She inspected the house, ticking off the progress she’d made. A new foundation, a new roof to replace the old one messed up by the move, electricity and well pump hookup, new locks.

The house was still in sore need of a paint job, but the pressure washing had improved the looks of the house immensely. A thousand more jobs awaited her.

“I—my uncle lives next door, just up the road. I figured I’d check up on you.” Brandon grimaced. “I mean, check in on you. To see if you needed any help.”

Penelope decided his slip was Freudian. Since when did grouches with badges offer assistance? She started to say something snarky about being perfectly capable of looking after herself. She stopped short, though. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. This was the South, she reminded herself. After bouncing around big, impersonal cities like L.A. and New York, that would take her some time to get accustomed to.

“Thank you.”

“I would have called…but I couldn’t find a listing for you.”

“I haven’t bothered with a landline yet. I have a cell phone.”

“You really need a landline. Our E-911 system doesn’t pick up the location of cell phones. A woman like yourself, living alone out here…” Brandon trailed off. His attention dropped to her bare left hand. “I mean, I guess you’re living alone out here.”

Was the deputy trying to hit on her? She suppressed a smile. “It’s just me and Theo.”

“Theo?”

“My cat.” She pointed to the window. “The Siamese?”

Brandon’s gaze followed her gesture toward the long and lanky white cat peering out the windowpane.

“That’s a Siamese?” he asked. “I thought they were brown.”

“Flame-point. They’re white, with apricot ears and paws and tail. Everything you’ve heard about Siamese? Well, multiply that by ten and you’ve got your typical flame-point.”

One of Brandon’s eyebrows arched. “He doesn’t seem to think too much of me.”

“It’s me he’s mad at. I’ve had to keep him cooped up until I could get the windows fixed. Now he’s got the run of the house and he’s plotting his escape back to New York.”

“New York? I thought you said you were from Oregon?” Brandon treated her to intense cop-like scrutiny. What was this, an interrogation? Did he think she was lying?

“I grew up in Portland, moved to Bend when I was a teenager. But New York was my latest stop.” She retrieved the putty knife and scraped the blade against the ladder. “Here.” She handed it to him. “Since you’re here and you offered, I’ll take you up on it. Can you do me a favor and clean the rest of that putty along the top edge?”

Brandon hesitated before agreeing and clambering up the ladder. The move let Penelope see that his jeans fitted snug over a well-formed backside. The faded denim was as much an improvement over his browns as the T-shirt. “I’m kind of surprised you got the house set down on a foundation so quick,” he observed as he deftly wielded the putty knife.

Hmm…skills and looks. Not a bad combo, not bad at all, she thought.

“It was part of the bargain with the movers. They’re the ones who put me in touch with a roofer. Once you move a house, the roof has to be replaced as soon as possible, and this one especially. The whole interior has hardwood floors. I didn’t want them damaged.”

Back down on the ground, Brandon inspected his work and was apparently satisfied. “So the house was what? Built in the thirties? Forties?”

“Mid-thirties, despite the Depression. Want to take a look inside?” For a moment, Penelope couldn’t believe she’d offered. He was a complete stranger. And a big one at that.

But her gut told her this guy was okay. Open, honest face. Nice brown eyes. A lot of smile lines.

“Sure,” he told her.

Inside, Penelope pushed away doubts, say, thoughts of how harmless Ted Bundy had looked to his victims, as she showed Brandon through the house.

They ended in the dinky kitchen with its 1960s atrocity of a kitchen-remodel. Brandon stared, his uncertainty about what to say plain on his face.

“It’ll get better. I’ll rip out the cabinets, restore a lot of the old look,” she rushed to assure him.

“It’s…the whole house is…rough,” he said finally.

“Yeah. But it’s got great bones.”

“And you’re planning on doing this yourself? You must be handy with a hammer.”

Brandon Wilkes scored more points with Penelope because his expression was one of admiration; not a drop of disbelief or condescension tempered it.

“I know my way around a toolbox. It’s the big stuff that’s hard for me. I know how to do it, but when you’re a shrimp like me…”

He didn’t even offer a short joke. Another point.

“Well, I’ll be glad to offer some free labor if you need it. Let me know. If I can’t, I’ll point you in the right direction.”

“Great! Maybe you could suggest someone who could help put up a barn or a shelter?”

He frowned. “Like a pole barn?”

“Pole barn?”

“Yeah, just a barn with poles for framing and then the exterior sheathing is fastened to them. Usually has a metal roof.”

“Sounds about right. How tall can they be?”

“How tall do you need it?”

“Um…” She did some mental calculations. “Twenty feet at least, plus any extra I could get from the pitch of the roof.”

“Whoa. What are you putting in there?”

“My work. I’m an artist. A sculptor. I do outside sculptures for businesses and corporations.”

“You mean, like statues and stuff?”

“Uh…not exactly.” Penelope opened the flap of a cardboard box still waiting to be unpacked on one of the dingy Formica countertops. She pulled out a small model of her latest project. “Like this.”

Brandon stared at it, the same befuddled expression on his face that he’d had when he’d tried to think of something to say about the kitchen. After a long moment, he blurted, “What is it?”

Penelope slid a finger along the narrow ribbons of stainless steel. “I call it Love at Infinity. See the infinity symbol here? And how it wraps around these two vertical pieces?”

Brandon pointed to the highly polished surface. “There? Yeah, I see the infinity symbol. And the wavy vertical lines are supposed to be, what?” He screwed up his face as he examined the piece.

Penelope laughed at his underwhelmed expression. “You’re not a fan of abstract art, are you? Those two pieces represent man and woman.”

“Doesn’t look much like a man or a woman to me, but…” Brandon shrugged. “I don’t know much about art. So you’ll build this bigger?”

“Much bigger. This tall section here tops out at just under twenty feet.”

“And people actually buy things like this?”

Penelope chose to let his comment slide. What had she expected anyway? He was a completely different breed from the usual artsy crowd she ran with. “Yes, yes, they do. Matter of fact, the commission for this one will bring me fifty thousand dollars.”

Brandon whistled. “That’s a lot of money for three pieces of stainless steel.”

“Not just any three pieces of stainless steel. You have to know how to build it.”

“And have somewhere to build it. I don’t think a pole barn would work. Not tall enough. But I’ll be thinking. Where do you plan to put the barn?”

“Out behind the house. Maybe with big sliding doors on casters or wheels. It won’t look right with the house, but…” Penelope shrugged and set the sculpture down. “My work’s what pays for the house, and I’ve got to have a studio. So I guess I can’t complain.”

“You know, this kind of house looks out of place in the middle of a field.”