Page 28 of The Sound of Harmony

“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” Kendrick asked. “An upstairs, a downstairs, a garage. What am I supposed to put in a garage? I don’t have a car.”

“You think a garage is to store a car?” Emma asked. “You really haven’t lived in America much.”

“How silly of me,” Kendrick said. “It’s meant to store broken tools and outgrown bicycles.”

“Clearly.”

“And I’m going to have to learn how to mow the lawn. American men are required to shorten a plot of grass every weekend with a mighty machine. This is how they prove they are manly men. The bigger the machine, the bigger…well…you know.”

“Of course,” Emma said, trying not to breathe too heavily into the phone. And trying doubly hard not to think about the size of his machine. “And it must be loud. The louder the better.”

“What was that?” Kendrick said. “I can’t hear you over the roar of my enormous manhood.”

“Living the dream.” Emma moved to the air conditioning unit and kicked it down a notch. It was getting way too warm in here.

“But seriously,” Kendrick said. “Tell me about Cannondale. My visits there were all about relatives. I’m not familiar with the area.”

Emma’s apartment was spotless, and there was nothing else to occupy her hands, so she sat on her couch again. “It’s a college town, first and foremost.”

“Which I like.”

“Me too,” Emma said. “The only status symbol that counts for anything is your education and how you use it. People care deeply about the arts, but they love it for the art itself, not for who the artist is. There’s a lack of snobbery, and a huge tolerance for the unusual. You can be yourself here.”

“That sounds refreshing. And I already have one friend in Cannondale.”

Emma grinned. “True.”

“I’m glad it’s you,” Kendrick said.

Emma allowed herself a little shimmy before sinking deeper into the couch cushions. Friends. Friends are nice. And friendly. Kendrick needed a friend because he didn’t know anyone here. He was asking about Cannondale because he wanted to fit in. That’s all this was. No need to make it more.

“There are orchestras in Cannondale,” she said, steering things back to a safer topic. “Not professional ones, but you could still play flute. Or trombone. Or trumpet, or…how many instruments do you play?”

“I can give up everything else,” Kendrick said. “But flute was my first love. I’ve been playing it since middle school.”

“You started that young?”

“Yes. I’d just discovered girls, and all the pretty ones were playing flute, so I did too. Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by beauty?”

She could hear the lie in his voice. He was probably teased in school for playing flute so that was the line he used with his buddies. Like the guy who sincerely loves to sew but tells his friends he’s taking sewing classes to meet girls. Gender norms were so dumb, but middle school was a dumb time in everyone’s life.

“And now a beautiful woman is making my house beautiful so I can live in a beautiful town,” Kendrick said. “I must be doing something right.”

It was midmorning when Emma arrived at Kendrick’s house the next day to take measurements in the kitchen. The kitchen was a nice size, but it lacked adequate storage, so she was going to add a rolling island with a countertop and drawers. She also wanted to take a few more “before” pictures for her website.

As she got out of her truck, she glanced across the street at the Zelinskis’ house. Luke’s white rental car was still parked in the driveway. No dumpster yet, but a stack of cardboard boxes sat on the front porch. She hoped Luke was being careful with his parents. In his eagerness to discard their belongings, he might throw out their relationship too.

She lingered for a moment, hoping Maude might come out to say hello, or at least wave through the window, but the house was dark and silent.

That morning, she’d told her therapist about Luke Zelinski’s charming personality and how he’d made a heck of a first impression on her. Jen had surprised her when she said that she was proud of Emma for quitting that job. “You listened to your instincts,” she’d said. “You kept yourself safe.”

“No, I talked myself out of a job because I was scared,” Emma protested. “There was no real danger.”

“There are different kinds of danger,” Jen said. “There’s physically safe and there’s emotionally safe. Staying away from that guy? That was an emotionally safe thing to do.”

“I wish I’d stood up to him,” Emma said.

“Small steps,” Jen said. “We’ll work on that next.”