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“Did you make some of those macadamia nut cookies? Bring me those.”
“You should be so lucky, troll.”
FIVE
“So wait, go back, is Leah still speaking to you or not?” Shoshana Goldman’s voice was emphatic over the phone line.
Abi snorted, glancing at the phone before going back to the open day planner in front of her. She was taking the afternoon off from the preschool, and the thought of leaving before lunch felt wrong. Even if it gave her a good excuse to catch up on this stuff while she waited for Ilan Efrat to show up to talk about the ridiculous tree-clearing situation.
“She’s still speaking to me, but she wants to make it clear I’m a jerk who should apologize for my absolute jerkitude,” she said, talking to Shoshana was one of the things she needed to catch up on. Leah and Sho had a much closer relationship, but Shoshana was also still Abi’s friend, and Abigail liked to be sure she was putting in the time. It was important to support people. “Like that’s not a thing I’m not already very familiar with. Anyway, my stomach was so messed up that I couldn’t eat anything, and I ended up stopping by the Cuban place on the way home.”
“I’ve been meaning to try that place, was it good? Maybe I’ll make David take me there this weekend,” Shoshana mused, and something in the way she said it made Abi think the man in question was probably close by. She rolled her eyes, happy for her friend, but annoyed for some reason she wasn’t sure she could articulate.
“It was really good,” Abi said, deciding it was better to ignore the feeling. It wasn’t Shoshana’s fault she was happy in her relationship. “Dani will love the plantains.”
“Oh, plantains!” Shoshana crowed, and Abi had a feeling there was going to be Cuban food in the Goldman-Freedman household sooner rather than later. “What time is Ilan Efrat supposed to get there?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Abi said, not looking at her watch. She had an uncanny ability with time. Leah swore it was because she was such a type-A personality. Abi thought it was more likely because she took her responsibilities very seriously, but maybe those two things were the same thing.
“Not that you’re paying that close attention,” Shoshana teased.
“I mean, he’s the one who set the time, not me,” Abi said, irritated. She flipped a page in her planner and scrutinized the chore list she’d started yesterday morning. If he wasn’t going to show up on time, she was going to do something productive like clean a toilet. “I wouldn’t make a thing about it if he’d texted or something.”
“You’ve been on the phone with me,” Shoshana pointed out, “maybe he did.”
“The notification option still works, it would have come through if he had,” she shot back, her tone sour. “The least the guy could do is be on time.”
There was the sound of someone clearing their throat very close by. Abi jumped on the kitchen chair, nearly falling off it completely. She twisted, following the sound to the open kitchen door. She’d taken out the storm window on the screen door two weeks ago because the weather had been so nice, sitting at her sunny kitchen table looking out of the wall of windows to her backyard was one of her favorite things. Until right this second.
“Abs?” Shoshana said, sounding a little concerned.
“Hi,” the man on the other side of the screen door said, he gestured behind him to the deathtrap of a back deck. “I was on time. Your gate was open, so I figured I’d walk around back. You didn’t answer when I knocked.”
“Oh, crap,” Abi was at a loss for words. The man smiled tightly, his expression saying he’d heard everything, but he was too much of a professional to be a dick about it. She tried to return the smile, but her face felt frozen with mortification.
“Abi, is everything okay?” Shoshana said again, her voice sounding tinny and far away. Abi jumped again, realizing Shoshana was still on the line at all. She grabbed for the phone, and it clattered off the side of the table to the floor. She cursed, and then she immediately threw an apology over her shoulder as she reached under the table for the phone. The guy didn’t comment, just leaned against the door frame and waited patiently.
“Sho, listen, I’m fine,” Abi was saying because she could still hear Shoshana talking like she was trying to get her attention. Being half under her own kitchen table was awkward and she hated it, and she was praying to God that her phone’s screen wasn’t shattered. Or more likely cracked, since the call hadn’t disconnected. “Shoshana, listen--”
She heard something like a snort of laughter behind her and resisted the urge to throw her middle finger at the guy. She hadn’t felt the urge to flip someone the bird since she was thirteen. What was happening to her?
“Shoshana,” Abi said, more forcefully than she probably needed to, but it was enough to make the stream of words coming from the phone stop. “I will call you later.”
She didn’t wait for a response, just tapped the red button to end the call, and finished that silent prayer with thanks since her phone appeared to be fine. So she turned her attention back to the man on her deck.
“Hi,” she said, sheepish and hating herself for it. She gestured behind him to the deck. “I guess it’s too much to ask for the ground to swallow me whole, huh?”
“Sinkholes are a well-known phenomenon,” he said, stepping back from the screen door as she opened it for him. He made a point to wipe his boots on the mat before stepping into her kitchen, reaching behind him to catch the screen door so it wouldn’t slam shut behind him. “But I don’t think there’s a chance of that in the next ten minutes.”
“Oh, hey,” Abi said, trying to remember why she thought this was such a brilliant idea in the first place, “Great.”
* * *
“--and that’s why it would be really convenient if you could start a few hours later every day,” Abi said, realizing by the time she was done that Ilan hadn’t spoken in a while. From the look on his face he was letting her lay all the bullshit on the table before he started flinging it back at her.
“Lady,” Ilan said before he could stop himself, “Just who exactly do you think you are?”
Abi reared back as though he’d slapped her. Perhaps he had, proverbially, he mused as he watched the way her eyes narrowed, and her mouth twisted in disgust. He considered pointing out to her that she wasn’t the only person who felt they were inconvenienced by his company clearing the land behind her house, and she also wasn’t the first person to point out they got started early. At least she wasn’t down at the town hall making a nuisance of herself like the old man three doors down.
