Anne Tyler - The Beginner's Goodbye

“Are you thinking of getting that fixed?” he asked me after a moment.

I swallowed and said, “Yes.”

“I could come by and take a look, if you like.”

“I’m not there,” I said. I cleared my throat.

“Maybe after you get home from work, then?”

“I mean, I’m not ever there. I’m staying with my sister. That rain we’ve had broke through the tarp and the hall ceiling fell in.”

Gil Bryan made a whistling sound through his teeth.

“I was thinking,” I said, “could you stop by my sister’s house around five-thirty and I’d just give you the key so you could go check the place out?”

“Check it out on my own, you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “Well, I could do that, I guess. But it’d be better to have you along.”

I said nothing.

“So, okay,” he said. “I’ll go it alone.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re talking about just the roof? Or the interior, too.”

“Everything. I don’t know. Just take care of it. You decide.”

“Everything? What kind of time frame are you looking for?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “However much time it takes, I guess.”

Then I gave him Nandina’s address, and hung up, and put The Beginner’s Book of Kitchen Remodeling back in its place on the shelf.

· · ·

I’d chosen five-thirty for a reason: Nandina would still be at work. She made it a point of honor, most evenings, to stay longer than anyone else in the office. So she wouldn’t be there to horn in on my first consultation with Gil Bryan. She wouldn’t find out that it was my first consultation.

But my sister has an uncanny sixth sense; I can’t think of any other way to explain it. She knocked on my door at a quarter till five and stuck her head in and said, “I’m going now. See you at home.”

“You’re going now ?”

“I might as well. I’m at a good stopping place,” she said. She had her purse slung over her shoulder.

So, by the time I got there, she was already in the kitchen starting dinner preparations. And when the doorbell rang, she arrived in the hall right behind me, wiping her hands on the hem of the apron that covered her housecoat.

Gil Bryan had the dingy, dusty look of a man who’d been at hard labor all day, but the skin beneath his eyes was still shining, and I felt the same sense of trust that I had before. I said, “Come in, Mr. Bryan,” and he said, “Gil.”

“Aaron,” I told him, and we shook hands. (He had a hand like a baseball mitt.) Then I had to add, “This is my sister, Nandina,” because she was still standing there. “Contractor,” I told her curtly, and she said, “Oh,” and backed off and returned to the kitchen.

“Come in and have a seat,” I said to Gil.

“Oh, I’m all dirty. I’ll just take the key and be on my way.”

I fished my key case out of my pocket. As I was unhooking my house key, I asked, “Are you planning on going over there this evening?”

“I figured I would.”

“Because I’m not sure the electricity is working.”

“Huh,” he said. “Okay, I’ll go in the morning. Check it out during daylight. How about I come by here tomorrow, same time, once I know what’s what.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I handed him the key.

“And you want me looking at everything.”

“Everything,” I said. “Make a list.”

“Okay, then,” he said. But I could tell he was baffled by my attitude.

We shook hands again, and he left. Not two seconds later, Nandina popped out of the kitchen. “ That didn’t take long,” she said.

“He just needed a key, was all.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied, and returned to her cooking.

But over dinner she asked, “How exactly did you get this contractor’s name?”

“Through Jim Rust,” I told her.

She cocked her head, like someone who thought she’d heard an off-note in a song. She said, “Jim Rust has used his services personally?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, although I didn’t know that for a fact. Then I said, “It’s a done deal, Nandina. Butt out.”

“Well! Sorry ,” she said.

We ate the rest of the meal without talking.

· · ·

The following evening, I had Gil to myself. I was waiting at the house for him when he rang the doorbell.

“Hey there,” he said, and I said, “Come on in.”

This time, he had clean clothes on — a chambray shirt and fresh khakis — and he accepted the seat I offered him on the couch. I sat at the other end of it. He was holding a crisp white file folder, I was happy to see. It implied some degree of professionalism. He opened the folder on the coffee table and spread out an array of papers covered in surprisingly small, tidy, uppercase handwriting.

“So, okay, Aaron, here’s what we’ve got,” he said.

I was happy, too, that he used my first name. Workmen who persist in saying “Mr.,” even after you’ve told them not to, always strike me as deliberately off-putting.

“You were right about the electric,” he told me. “There’s been a short in the wires, on account of the water dripping down through the walls to the basement. For that I’m going to bring in Watkins Wattage, but they can’t make it over to take a look till—”

I heard the front door open. Nandina called, “Aaron?”

Damn. She appeared in the living-room entrance.

“Oh!” she said.

Gil stood up. “Evening,” he said.

“Good evening.”

“We’re busy going over some figures,” I told her.

I gave her a look that she couldn’t possibly mistake, and she said, “Oh, all right; don’t let me interrupt,” and backed hastily out of the room.

“You were saying—?” I asked Gil.

He had sat down again, and he was riffling through his papers. “There’s structural damage in the attic,” he said. “That’s the worst of it. Some of the rafters need replacing. Roof, of course, and the insulation’s shot; and so are the hallway and kitchen ceilings and the cabinets on the west wall. Chimney will want rebuilding, too. Chimneys are kind of a big deal, I hate to say. Now, moving on to the sunporch—”

“Can’t we just take that off?” I asked.

“Say what?”

“Take the sunporch off; demolish it. It’s a lost cause, anyhow, and it was only tacked on to begin with. It’s not a part of the main—”

“Would you two like some refreshment?” Nandina asked. She had reappeared, but from the dining room this time.

“No,” I told her.

“Mr. Bryan?”

“Gil,” he said. He had risen once more to his feet. “No, thanks.”

“A cold beer, maybe?”

“No, thanks.”

“Or a glass of wine?”

“Thanks anyway.”

“We don’t have anything harder,” Nandina said. She had ventured a few feet farther into the room; any minute now she would plop herself down in an armchair, as if this were a topic that required deep discussion. “I know it’s still gin-and-tonic weather, but—”

I said, “Nandina.”

“What?”

“That’s okay,” Gil told her. “I don’t drink.”

“Oh.”

“AA,” he said. He straightened his back as he spoke, almost defiantly, but then he raised a hand to feel for his beard in this uncertain sort of manner.

Nandina said, “Oh, I’m sorry!”

“That’s okay.”

I was fully expecting Nandina to segue into the non-alcoholic side of the menu, but before she could, Gil told her, “We were just talking about the sunporch. Aaron here is saying how he wants to take it off.”

“Take it off? Take it off of the house?”

“That’s what he’s been saying.”

“Well, that makes no sense whatsoever,” Nandina told me. “You’ll lower the resale value.”