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“Nothing worth mentioning.” Or rather, nothing she could mention without giving away too much information about herself at the same time.
Fortunately, he didn’t press her on the issue.
“Will you let me know what you come up with in a couple of weeks?” he asked. “If you have any questions, Clay will probably be able to answer them.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“I’ve got a major account in Bermuda I need to do some in-person maintenance on, so I’ll be gone for about ten days starting on Thursday.”
Two weeks.In two weeks, she’d probably have a much better idea of when the project phase at Shora would end and when she could move on to the next one. Two weeks was the perfect amount of time to douse her burgeoning obsession with him.
“Two weeks,” she said. “Yeah. I can probably swing it.”
“I’ll leave you a set of keys if you need them. Make yourself at home.”
“I don’t think it’ll be necessary for me to pop in more than a few times to check structural things, but I appreciate the offer. And I do like your house, Tim. I understand what you meant about not wanting to raze it. It’s got good bones and some really pretty woodwork you might be able to salvage, but it’s not a great place for kids.”
“Have you redesigned homes before to accommodate family spaces?”
She leaned back in her seat and pulled her half-finished coffee closer. “No, but…I can do it. I mean, Ihave, it’s just that none of those ideas have made it into my portfolio. When I was a kid, I used to try to reconfigure my Barbie houses with spare parts I’d find at thrift stores and yard sales. I’ve always been interested in making spaces fit needs rather than intended function. A living room doesn’t serve anyone any good if no one’s doing any living in it, right?”
He bobbed his eyebrows.
She didn’t know what that meant, but she wanted to talk—couldn’tstoptalking. She had to give those words to someone, and he was a convenient pair of ears.
“When I was in college and starting to do mock-up designs, I’d play around with floor plans I found online in tax records. Like, there was this one skinny three-story Victorian home in the neighborhood I grew up in that I fantasized about all the time. It eventually got condemned, but before it was, I made up a bunch of new plans for it that would make sense for different kinds of scenarios.”
“Like what?”
She couldn’t stop herself from grinning because he sounded like he actually cared a little. Usually, peoples’ eyes started glazing over when she started talking about house stuff.
“One was for a couple of sisters who wanted to live together but not necessarily see each other.” She’d come up with that one with Leah in mind. Valerie had more or less partitioned the house into two halves with a common kitchen and laundry room. “Then there was one I made with my grandmother in mind. That was tough, because of all the stairs. She’s had a hard time climbing them for as long as I’ve been alive. And then there was for the family I thought I’d have someday.”
Back before I knew better.
For a while after graduation, she’d held out hope that a partner and a few kids would be on the horizon for her. Work jaded her. Memories of her mother’s smiley depression jaded her even more.
“Tell me about it,” Tim said softly.
“About what?”
“The house?”
“Oh.”
Valerie took a long sip of her coffee and stared at the creamy brown liquid to gather her thoughts. “In that house design, I put in everything that made me feel warm and happy during childhood. The floor plan was laid out in such a way that I could always be visible if my kids were looking for me. I got rid of a lot of walls but made sure to keep some niches a little girl could hide in if she just needed to be alone in the dark for a while. I…” She set down the mug because her hands were starting to shake and the liquid threatening to slosh over the rims. “I went on to play with a bunch of other houses that way,” she said, faltering at the urgent stream of memories bombarding her. “The designs became more sophisticated in time as I became more conscious about efficiency and green living. My favorite kinds of houses to play with were the small ones like the one I grew up in. My grandmother’s house was tiny and cramped andloud.” She let out a dry laugh and met his gaze. “So loud, but it was a loving loudness. I miss that sometimes.”
“You could have your loving loudness.”
“Maybe I could.” She wanted it so badly. She just couldn’t see how having it was possible yet, if ever. “I could have it, but at what cost?”
“Mmm.” With that non-committal sound, he leaned forward and picked up a piece of prosciutto.
Maybe she’d said too much, but she couldn’t take it back. He had to understand that she didn’twantto give everything up. Maybe those words would help him understand.
She hoped someone understood.
