Tiffany blinked, and for the first time since she had let the man into her house, she actually looked at him. Not through him, around him or over him, but at him. And now that she did, even though her brain was still just a wee bit foggy and out of sync, she realized that there really was something vaguely familiar about the man standing in her bathroom, effectively making rubble out of it.
Where did she know him from? Nothing specific came to mind, though a memory seemed to play hide-and-seek with her brain, vanishing before she could get hold of it.
The next moment, she let it go, focusing on the more important question for the time being. “You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?”
Amusement curved the corners of his mouth as Eddie watched her for an incredibly long minute. “It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” He looked around at the rubble he’d created. “You didn’t ask to see any letters of reference, or photographs of my previous work.”
“I assumed my mother had you vetted,” she replied. “Which is good enough for me. She’s like a little barracuda. Nothing gets past her.”
He understood what she was telling him, but it hadn’t been like that. The woman who’d called him, saying she’d gotten his number from Ms. Sommers, had just said that her daughter’s bathroom needed remodeling and to use his better judgment. He’d found that rather unusual. He found Tiffany being so lax about it even more unusual.
Maybe she had become less intense over the years. After all, it had been five years since he’d last seen her. The Tiffany he remembered from their classes together in college had been extremely competitive and had had to verify everything for herself. She’d also given him one hell of a run for his money. Maybe it was a good thing that she didn’t recognize him just yet. He did need the money this job would yield. For now, he decided to play this by ear.
“I just thought you’d want to ask some questions yourself,” he told her.
“Okay,” she said. “How long is this going to take?” When he made no attempt to answer, Tiffany gestured at her disintegrated bathroom. “This,” she emphasized, moving her hand to encompass the entire spacious room. “All this. Rebuilding it. How long is this going to take?” she repeated, enunciating every word.
Leaning the sledgehammer against a wall, Eddie dusted himself off. “‘This’ is turning out to be a bigger job than I thought it was going to be.”
She gave her own interpretation to his words. “Is that your clever way of asking for more money? Because I already told you that my mother—”
“No,” Eddie said, cutting her off before she could get wound up. The Tiffany he remembered could get really wound up. “I’m asking for more time. I thought your bathroom could be remodeled in a weekend, but now that I see it, I realize it’s going to take at least two.”
She still didn’t understand why this contractor could work on the bathroom only on weekends. It didn’t make any sense to her. “Why not just come back Monday morning and keep at it until it’s finished?” she demanded.
Eddie inclined his head, as if conceding the point—sort of. “A week ago, I would have agreed—”
“Fine,” she declared, satisfied that she’d won this argument. “Then it’s settled—”
Eddie talked right over her. As he recalled from past encounters with Tiffany, it was the only way to get his point across. “But that was before I took a day job.”
She assumed he was talking about another construction job. “Put it off until you’re finished.”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Anything is possible,” Tiffany insisted. “I know that you construction people take on multiple jobs.” Her best friend had dated a man who had his own construction company, and she’d complained about taking second place to his work schedule. “That way, if one falls through, there’s still enough work to keep you going.”
“This isn’t another construction job,” Eddie informed her. “It’s a different job entirely, in a different field.”
He resisted the urge to explain just what that other job was. He wasn’t superstitious by nature, but in this instance he was afraid that if he talked too much about the job that was waiting for him come Monday morning, somehow or other he’d wind up jinxing it. He loved working with his hands, loved creating something out of nothing, but construction work didn’t begin to hold a candle to being a teacher. The one allowed him to create functional things; the other was instrumental in awakening sleeping minds, brains that were thirsting for knowledge. And amid those budding minds one could very well belong to someone who might do great things not just for one or two people, but for a multitude.
But Tiffany wasn’t about to let this drop. He began to think that she hadn’t changed, after all. “What kind of field?”
“A field that might eventually produce someone who could do something to effect the masses,” he told her, leaving it at that.
“The masses?” she questioned, eyeing him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “You make it sound as if you were part of the CIA.”
“No, not that organization,” he replied.
“But you won’t talk about it?” she asked, really curious now.
“I’m not being paid to talk, I’m being paid to work,” he reminded her, picking up the sledgehammer again. But Tiffany made no move to leave the area. She was obviously waiting for him to tell her what he was referring to. “I’d rather not jinx it,” he finally told her, being quite honest.
She cocked her head, trying to reconcile a few things in her brain that just weren’t meshing. “You’re superstitious?”
“Just in this one respect.”
“Good,” she said, turning to leave as he began to work again. “Because superstitions are stupid.”
It was her. If he’d had the slightest doubt before, he didn’t anymore, Eddie decided. She was just as opinionated now as she had been then.
As she left the room, he slanted a long look in her direction. From there he couldn’t see her face, only the back of her head. But even the set of her shoulders looked familiar.
It was Tiffany Lee, all right. And right now, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. The only thing he knew was that he wasn’t going say anything to her about their shared past. At least, not yet.
Since Tiffany apparently didn’t recognize him, Eddie decided to keep the fact that they had a history to himself and not say anything to her until he felt the time was right—like after he finished the job. After all, he couldn’t have made that much of an impression on her if she didn’t remember him. He vividly remembered their interactions in college, but it was obvious that she didn’t. If he reminded her of it, she might just turn around and fire him.
It was best to leave well enough alone.
Working at a steady
