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“All right, Brady,” Mr. Vernice said. “Seeing as how you’ve got no experience at building, we’ll start you off slow.”
He pointed at a large stack of lumber that was piled on the street beside the building. “Get all that up the stairs and then we’ll see how you do with a hammer.”
Adam nodded and turned toward the stack of wood. Hauling lumber didn’t sound fun, but it was definitely something he could handle.
It took him less than twenty minutes to discover just how wrong he was.
Sure, hauling boards up a few stairs seemed simple enough. But there were a couple of things he neglected to take into consideration. One, wood washeavy. His muscles were screaming before he’d made it back for his second load. How he was going to do the entire stack without dropping it in the street, he had no idea.
And two, long, heavy boards weren’t the most manageable items to carry anywhere, let alone up a staircase. He learned very quickly that trying to turn while holding a board over one’s shoulder was a surefire way to remove the head of the person standing behind him. He’d have to remember to buy George a drink that evening to make up for the goose egg on his forehead.
Not to mention, wood boards weren’t made to bend. So if the staircase had a landing that turned, a man couldn’t just turn the corner without some fancy finagling of the board in order to get it around the corner as well.
By lunchtime, Adam was about ready to beg Nora to take him back just to get out of hauling any more wood. Well, maybe not anything that drastic. But a nice broken leg or arm sounded pretty good at that point.
Vernice must have sensed Adam’s lagging spirit, or perhaps he just got sick of Adam sweating all over his wood, because once they ate a quick meal, Vernice handed him a hammer and bucket of nails, quickly showed him what to do, and left him to help a couple other men in getting the outside walls up in one of the rooms. Unfortunately, not his.
Adam squinted at the board he was supposed to hammer to the wall studs. “Can’t be that hard,” he said under his breath.
He grabbed a nail and held it to the spot he thought it should go, then swung the hammer down. Right on his thumb.
He dropped the hammer—which landed on his toe—and clasped his aching thumb with his other hand, his eyes watering, hopping on one foot. The other men roared with laughter, but one of them came over and retrieved his hammer for him.
“Give it a few taps first,” he said, demonstrating with another nail. Once the nail had been tapped in enough, it stayed fairly well without being held, and the man gave it a good whack or two and it was in. “Got it?”
Adam shook his hand but took the hammer back and tried again. He did get the nail to go in this time, though the last whack bent the head instead of hammering it all the way in. But still, he counted it as a victory. The man who’d helped him shook his head but didn’t say anything, so Adam carried on.
All went well…for about an hour. His nails weren’t the straightest, and more were bent than hammered in straight, but his wall was up, and he only managed to hit his thumb three more times. A victory, all in all.
A woman’s voice called out a goodbye to Mrs. DuVere, and Adam looked out the window.
Nora.
She glanced up just as he hung his head out the window, and he gave her a jaunty little smile and wave. Forgetting that he still held a hammer, and his small bucket of nails was sitting on the makeshift windowsill, his arm bumped the bucket and sent it flying.
“Watch out!” he called, helpless to do anything but watch the nails rain down on whoever might be standing beneath them.
He was afraid to look, but the shouts and curses filtering up from the street didn’t bode well. He glanced back at Nora, who gazed at him with wide, horrified eyes…and twitching lips. Yeah. He knew the feeling. Laughing wasn’t going to buy him any goodwill, though, so he kept it mostly under control as he ran down the steps to see what damage he’d caused.
And promptly wished he’d stayed upstairs.
Mrs. DuVere stood on the sidewalk below the window, nails spread in a circle around her.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out as she picked a nail out of the blessedly thick hair coiled on the top of her head and glanced up at him.
“How’s the construction job working out for you?” she asked, her lips pulling into a wry smile.
He chuckled and shook his head, thanking his for-once lucky stars that no one had been hurt.
“I’m sure Mr. Vernice will be promoting me any day now,” he said.
Mr. Vernice glowered at him and held out his hand. Adam sighed and handed over his hammer. “I’ll always treasure our time together,” he said.
Mr. Vernice stared at him like a dog trying to get a fox out of a hole before shaking his head and walking away.
Mrs. DuVere laughed. “I suppose I should be thankful you dropped a few nails and not the hammer.”
He grinned. “I don’t know. The hammer might have missed you. A whole shower of nails spread out a bit more.”
