Barry nodded, following me, still carrying Junior like a baby.
“Yeah, so.” I performed a sweeping gesture around the kitchen. “Kitchen.”
It wasn’t much, old appliances, minimal cabinet space, but there was a big metal shelf with my mismatched cups and platesand a small island that doubled as my table, which Kate always said was fancy. By nature, kitchen islands are fancy.
The kitchen remodel would happen at some point in the next, say, five years, I guessed.
“I like the tile,” he said. The countertops were made of this pink tile in multiple shades from the seventies, which I agreed was one of the coolest things about the whole kitchen. The bathroom counter matched. I wanted to find a tile like it for the backsplash when I finally got to remodeling in here. The original counter was too scratched and chipped in some places to try to save it, and I had plans for all new cabinets.
I was extraordinarily aware of the dirty dishes in the sink, the egg pan on the stove, the open cereal box on the counter, the two bags of chips which were rolled closed without a bag clip. Even my dish towel felt embarrassing. It had little dinosaurs on it.
Barry opened the fridge and peeked inside, which was mortifying because I knew with certainty that I had a rotten bell pepper and a container full of food I couldn’t even remember cooking on the bottom shelf.
“Dr. Pepper,” he said. “Fine choice.”
“Okay,” I said. “I mean—yeah. I agree.”
He reached into his duffle and pulled out two protein shakes that he slid on the top shelf next to the sodas.
I led him back through the living room and pointed at the TV. “There’s HBO and Netflix, but not Hulu.” I was the one who used to pay for Hulu, but I had to cut back on my monthly bills. Between Kate’s and Mom’s logins, we were covered enough.
“Three bedrooms,” I said. “Only one bathroom on this floor, though.” I had considered the bathroom situation, and it constantly made me blush. The walls were thin, and he and I were so far from the pooping-in-the-same-vicinity level.
The house had three bedrooms on the main floor, one where I slept, the baby room, and then the third, which I used as the house project workshop. There was a fourth bedroom, if you could call it that—a room and a tiny bathroom in the unfinishedbasement. Well, I suppose the room and bathroom made it partially finished.
It was also on my five-year plan to get the basement finished so that the house could have two more rooms and another small living space, a playroom maybe, or a room where we could really sprawl out to watch movies. I liked to imagine having space for lots of people to come visit, even though my family all lived within an hour radius of each other. I think I liked the idea that we could have room to expand, to grow, and that the house would grow with us.
Barry meandered into the project room first, standing and looking around, quietly petting Junior.
“This will be a guest room. Eventually,” I said, clicking on and then off the ceiling light. I didn’t want him to see the wreck that was the workshop with the old plastic table covered in tubs of hardware and tools, the plastic sheet on the floor housing cans of paint and wallpaper glue.
He studied the photographs in the little hallway, ones of my family and one of Adam Driver that Kate put in a little heart-shaped frame for me. Barry didn’t ask and I didn’t try to explain.
“This is the baby’s room,” I said, in case it wasn’t blatantly obvious. The room really did look great. I figured out wainscoting and painted the bottom half of the wall yellow, the upper half covered in the wallpaper I adored. Ron replaced the light fixture for a newer, nicer one, and Kate and I figured out how to install new blinds on the window. I got blinds for the rest of the house to match, but those remained in their boxes in the workshop room. Another project that I planned to get to—afterI made time to strip the paint from the windowsills. Then, I figured, if I was going to do that, I might as well paint the walls too. So, one thing at a time.
I had a schedule and limited funds, but I was making it work. The whole house was a huge work in progress, one I worked on every weekend with the reluctant help of Jeremy and the mostly excited help of the rest of my family when they had time.
And I loved to do it. I had big, incremental plans.
The crib sat unassembled against the wall, the hardware in a Ziploc bag next to it. It was my crib, and both of my siblings, handmade by my grandpa before Kate was born. Dad helped me sand and refinish it last month, but I was waiting for the mattress and rug to get in before putting it together. Barry skimmed fingertips over the smooth wood, and I swear his face went all warm.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, and I believed he meant it.
“Thank you. The house was my grandparents’. I love it.”
Barry took another long look at the room, the poster I’d hung in a thrifted frame, the dark green curtains my mom sewed from fabric we found at her favorite craft store.
I nodded for the rest of the tour to continue, and he moseyed into my bathroom, letting Junior down on the counter before he opened my medicine cabinet and bent down to get a closer look at my old prescriptions, the one I used to take for my acne before getting pregnant, an antibiotic I forgot to take all of, the leftover stack of birth-control sleeves which served meso well. I stood by silently, gobsmacked by his shameless snooping.
“Find anything interesting?” I asked, incredulous.
Barry shut the mirror and raised his eyebrows. “Everything about you is interesting.”
He squeezed past me and gave a quick look into my room before I pulled the door shut so he couldn’t give it the same snooping treatment.
“My room,” I said.
He nodded and followed Junior into the living room. Cozy’s the best word for the space: not particularly nice, but comfortable, cool art, colorful blankets, lamp lighting. And so many freaking puzzles. I worried he’d comment on them—it was most definitely athing,all these puzzles—but he smiled when he saw the lava lamp next to my multiple copies of theTwilightsaga.
