Constant Pull (3 page)

“No,
Lanie
. That’s not it. Not at all.” I felt myself avoiding eye contact. Lanie was Kevin’s matchmaker girlfriend. I constantly had to swat away her attempts at blind dates for me. My last couple of boyfriends were less than perfect experiences. I wasn’t in any giant rush for a three-peat.

“HA HA.” He
spoke slowly without humor. “Something with work?  That idiot contractor back?” he asked.

I just shook my head.

“What then?” He asked. He waited impatiently and I found myself not wanting to get into it with him.

“I’ve
just been having strange dreams and I don’t know what to make of it.” I said finally, the words rushing out of my mouth.

“Oh
. But, you never remember your dreams.” He said.

“Exactly.” I replied
. “Not lately…it’s the exact opposite.”

“What about them is bothering you?  Are they scary or something?” he asked.

“No, they’re just…. disturbing.”  Our food came in less than five minutes, Coney Island restaurants were known for ultra-fast service. I started putting mustard all over my half of the fries. I like mustard like crazy and I must have been distracted by the conversation because I put a little too much on, even for my taste.

“
Disturbing how?” he said, a little more demanding, leaning in a bit.

“Like I’m supposed to be doing something
. Like they’re, I don’t know…informative or something. And there are palm trees in all of them. I think.”

“Sounds like
your subconscious is telling you that you need a vacation.” He joked. “What’s your 1 to 10? How much are they bothering you?”

“I’d say….a 4 and a half.” I told him, finally looking up at him and eating the fry I was perfectly coating in chili and mustard
. I might have lied. It might have been a six.

“Hmmm….” He said, taking his napkin and setting it on his lap
. I remembered mine and tossed it on my lap. “Do you want to tell me about them?”

“Actually?  Not really.” I said,
cheerfully. I was dying for a subject change. “I need a psychiatrist or a psychic or something” I said, laughing at an attempt to lighten the mood.

“You know, if you ever want to, my mom has a friend
. Well, she’s not a friend friend. But, an acquaintance friend. She has a metaphysical store in Ann Arbor. She’s a little….. out there. Well, you’d have to be, right?  But, I’ve met her a few times. She’s a real nice lady. Just has a
very
open mind is all.” He was scooting his side of the chili fries around with his fork.

I was starting at him in slight disbelief
. He looked up and noticed.

“Oh come on
. You know my mom. Anyway, she considers every possibility.”  Kevin’s mom was a physics professor at the University of Michigan. She was incredibly well respected. She also wrote a southern cooking cookbook on a whim years ago, he’d told me once, and she had been super successful with it. Like lottery-successful. Kevin had been promising me a copy for about a year now. Because of that and because of his father’s business, Kevin’s family was pretty wealthy. He was insistent that he would pave his own road though-didn’t need that type of help.

“
You know the first law of thermodynamics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So, she considers the idea that it just…you know-changes. Like Mediums. Mediums claim they can talk to dead people because the dead person’s energy has just passed over to where we can’t see-but mediums can still see them. It’s like a sensitivity I guess.” He ate his coney with a fork and knife like nothing he was saying bothered him in the least.

“I guess I never believed that
. Or thought to ….think of that.”  At first, I felt slightly turned off at the idea of some weird lady with cymbals on her fingers and layers of lime green chiffon throwing glitter at me with some strange accent as she tries to speak to my dead family.

“Well if you get to that point, let me know
. My mother asks about you all the time so I know she’d be up for helping you if you want. She’s always trying to untangle the universe. She’s got some dream analysis books too. I’ll ask her if she can loan you one.” He said. “Plus she has some cool stories about when she spoke to my great-grandma through a medium. It’s really cool. I would do it.” He looked up at me, waiting for my response.

“I’ll think about that.” I said
. I strained to keep an open mind since I had a great deal of respect for Kevin’s mom and I hadn’t seen her in a few months.

Kevin spoke up
like he remembered something.

“You know, I’m going to my
parents’ house on Sunday for dinner. They would be thrilled if I showed up with you. Do you wanna go?” he asked, happy with his big idea.

“Sure, but check with
them first. Is Lanie coming?” I asked, hoping for my blood pressure’s sake that she was busy.

“No, she’s on
Sunday night. She’s bummed.”  Lanie was a nurse in the geriatric unit of a giant hospital in Detroit. It’s such a nice thing to take care of old people and it explained her bubbly personality; she was just a little much for me sometimes. But, if Kevin loved her, then I would deal with it. I truly wanted him to be happy.

After Kevin broke up with the girl he’d been dating when he and I first met (she moved to
Israel), we had become such close friends that we made a pact. The pact was that if any of the people we dated didn’t accept our relationship as friends, we wouldn’t bother with that person. It’s not like we brought it up on the first date, but we did bring it up. Honestly, being friends of the opposite sex was the most annoying part of being friends because it seemed to always be a topic for someone or another.

When Kevin first met Lanie, he insisted that I meet her right away
. He said I had to have ‘the talk’ with her. It was a little earlier than he’d wanted me to do it before. I was hopeful for him since he was so squashy for her. The talk is what Kevin and I had with each other’s girlfriend/boyfriend when we really liked them and wanted to let her or him know that we were just friends and that we had never been an item before or anything like that. Always friends, nothing more. It was a pretty quick conversation typically and no one-well, except for the one guy I dated-ever had any issues with it. He was a knob anyway and didn’t make it past the two month mark.

So, I met Lanie and introduced myself
. Kevin actually brought her to a house I was working on since it was on the way to where they were heading. She gave me the ‘elevator eyes’ from the top to bottom as I walked up wearing jeans and a T-shirt and carrying my finish nailer. I might have done the same to her, I don’t remember. Kevin introduced me to her and she said, ‘
Oh, so you’re Mel
.’  Then Kevin took a quick phone call-I’m sure it was fake-and walked away.

‘Y
eah. Just wanted to meet you and let you know that I’m good friends with Kevin, but he’s your guy and not mine and that part is very clear to me. I have no other agenda or plan or whatever. If I ever do anything to upset you please let me know right away.’ 

Lanie was easy
. She just smiled and said
‘Oh. OK!
’ all cheerfully and went on to ask me about my
entire
life.

Murray and I had a pretty big job in an old house in Bloomfield Hills. I was Murray’s primary carpenter, but he also had a couple guys he used on an on-call basis. He’d said they didn’t have the attention to detail I had and were just a ‘smidge sloppier’ so I got the majority of the work if I wanted it.

Bloomfield Hills was a
nice area northwest of where we lived by about 25 minutes. The house was a total renovation and Murray and I were re-doing the main floor kitchen and lower level kitchens as well as all the bathroom cabinets. I was working in the main floor kitchen, hanging the ledger for the cabinet installation. One of the guys from the roofing crew was walking through the house.

“Who are you?” he said, an accusatory tone to his voice.

“Carpenter” I replied, with a flat tone as I continued to work.

“Never met a girl carpenter before.” He said, with a pointy and snide sound to his voice.

“Yeah?” I said, eyeballing him over my shoulder. I made it a point to always look people dead in the eye. My Dad had always told me to make that a habit.

“Well, what a big day this must be for you.” I said, turning back to my work, sarcasm thick in my voice.

“You don’t gotta be a wench about it.” He said, front hand in his jeans pocket. He was freakishly thin and his chin was up, a toothpick in his mouth. He wore a holey once-white undershirt. His brown hair was in a skinny pony tail.

This guy was not a regular with this roofing crew
. I knew a few guys in the regular crew. I’d seen them on a couple of other jobs. It wasn’t uncommon for the crew to get extra help with big jobs, so he was probably someone’s brother-in-law or something.

I locked eyes with him again, no expression on my face
. I didn’t say a word. Then, I went back to hanging the ledger although I felt slightly uncomfortable turning my back to him. I was waiting for Murray to help me hold up the cabinets to hang them but he wasn’t here yet. I decided to head down to the basement as soon as the knob staring at me left. The last thing I wanted to do was barricade myself in the basement with some wack job.

“D’ya
work for Murray?” he asked. The question stopped me. I looked over at him, with a little more curiosity now.

“Yeah
. How do you know that?”  I tried to nonchalantly look down at my T-shirt to make sure it didn’t say ‘Murray’s Carpentry’ or something on it. It didn’t.

“
Because. This is my house.” He said, as he looked around.

“Oh.”  I tried not to look surprised, but I’m sure I failed
. “It’s going to be nice when it’s done.” I said. I thought maybe I should apologize for being rude, but I wasn’t sure how to say it.

“Yeah, should be
. I know you’re probably wondering how a guy like me could afford a place like this.” He said, a kind of weird smile forming on his face as he looked at me.

“Not really” I said after a minute
. I wasn’t going to respond, but he seemed to be waiting for me to.

“My parents left me a house in California
. Everything is more expensive there. I decided to move here for my own reasons.” He paused as if I was going to challenge him on those reasons. “Anyway, turns out that a nice house in California can buy a mansion in Michigan. Figured it would be smarter to buy one with potential and fix it up a little. Keep more money that way, ya see.”

I nodded
. I was standing against the wall, the head of the hammer in my hand. I got a weird vibe from this guy-homeowner or not.

“Which part of California?” I asked, although I didn’t care
. I just felt like I should say something since I’d been rude before. I didn’t feel like hearing about it from Murray.

“Temecula
. Heard of it?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” I’d pretty much only heard of LA and San Francisco so this wasn’t a shock to me.

“It’s real nice there. Real nice. Temecula isn’t much different than here really. It’s not like the big cities. A few mountains and stuff-better Mexican food-but otherwise, it’s got a solid mid-western feel to it. Strip malls and all. Oh, and wine. Vineyards ya know. Not as much as Napa, but they’re holding their own.” He spoke with his hands in his front pockets looking to the side the whole time. He seemed to be kind of preoccupied.

I nodded when he looked back at me.

“Well, I won’t hold ya up. Keep up the good work. Been watchin’ ya, doing a real good job. Heard Murray’s runnin’ a few minutes behind today.” He said, as he tossed his toothpick in a small pile of garbage in the corner next to a broom.

“
OK, thanks.” I said. I was confused as to why the homeowner would know that Murray would be late before I would or how he could have been watching me. Creepy. I wondered if he’d done something or asked for something from Murray. A change in plans or something from the general contractor, maybe.

After he walked out,
I grabbed my tool bag and headed downstairs. We were supposed to renovate both kitchens and saved the upstairs cabinets to see if we could make them work in the basement. Otherwise, all the old cabinets were being donated.

The roofers were the only other crew here
. I’d heard their pneumatic nail gun firing and the sound of a muffled radio playing. I stood quietly and listened for a minute to be sure no one else was walking around upstairs. I knew Murray’s walk pretty well since he had a slight limp, but I didn’t hear any footsteps at all.

I had to tear down a
couple of partial walls that boxed in the basement kitchen as well as pull down the cabinets. Since I only had a T-shirt and shorts on, I’d leave the walls up until I had jeans on. When I got dressed this morning, I figured I’d only get to hanging the upstairs kitchen cabinets today. No real risk of shrapnel or injury with hanging cabinets so shorts should’ve been fine. Plus it was unseasonably hot for October in Michigan. Just then, I heard a text on my phone. It was Murray letting me know he was running late.

I hoisted myself up on the counter to unscrew the upper cabinets
. First two screws I tried to back out stripped almost immediately. These cabinets had easily been here for thirty years and clearly this wasn’t going to be an easy task.

I decided to try the bounce and pry method since I was losing faith that these cabinets were going to be in good enough shape to donate once I got them down
. I alternated my pry bar and used my weight to get the cabinet down, all with my leg under the adjoining cabinet in an attempt to save the counter top from damage if I had happened to loosen it up enough for it to all come crashing down. It’s never a great plan to use part of your body to save a hunk of wood, but that’s what I did.

I heard sirens in the distance and didn’t think much of it
. They got closer as I used the tip of the drill I was holding to pull my tool bag closer to me across the counter top. The sirens seemed to stop close by; I wanted to get down and see what was going on. But,  I couldn’t just let go; I had too many cabinets loose. I figured if it was something I needed to know about, someone from the other crew would come and get me. Anyway, Murray was on his way-so I decided not to worry. I focused on not dropping the cabinets on my feet and not ruining everything in the process.

I was drenched in sweat
by then and tried to use my drill bit to get the stripped screws out of the wood of the cabinet. It wasn’t going well. Or it might have if I hadn’t waited to do it until this point. My legs and arms were exhausted and I heard CB chatter in the distance. I was intensely frustrated.

Snatching my S
awzall out of my tool bag and tossing my drill to the side, I announced “Screw It”. I sawed off the bottom of the cabinet to make them lighter. This might have worked if I wasn’t so oddly perched and doing an awkward bend. It wasn’t happening, so I decided to cut and run and accept the consequences. I tossed my tools to a safe distance, I let go and hopped off the counter.

There was a loud crashing sound and I felt a quick pain in my leg
-figured that I must’ve landed funny. The sound quieted and I evaluated the damage. It was a disaster and I was pissed. I grabbed the Sawzall again and abused the cabinets again out of frustration-there was no salvaging them at this point anyway. I stopped, realizing that I was completely full of saw dust and it was going in my eyes.

I realized at that moment that the sound in the room was different
. From behind me, I heard fabric rustling. I turned my head expecting to see Murray and quickly brought my legs together-one had been up on the counter during my Sawzall tantrum. I blinked hard and wiped my eyes, waiting for Murray to lecture me on not wearing safety glasses and for destroying the cabinets and counter top. Instead, I saw two firefighers and a cop crammed in the doorway to the kitchen gawking at me. I heard a woman’s voice shout “Clear!” on the other side of the wall and realized the CB chatter I’d heard was from
inside
the house.

“Miss”, the police officer lodged in the doorway spoke
first, his expression seemed confused “we need to get you out of the house. There’s a small fire we need to be sure is extinguished before you…continue work.”  His gun was drawn but he pointed it down.

“
OK” I said, I hurried up and ran up the stairs and out the front door, my leg aching.

I walked down the
sidewalk a few houses. The cop who followed me holstered his gun and reported on his CB that he’d retrieved me from the basement and that the basement was now clear. One of the firefighters looked over at me and seemed to notice something.

“Phil, toss me the first aid kit
. She’s hurt.”  he said, urgently holding his hands out to catch a big red duffel bag. I had a sizable gash on my leg. The guy who threw it had a cheesy half grin on his face as he tossed it over. My firefighter caught the bag and sat me on his knee, opening it. I thought it was odd that he sat me on his knee and I felt kind of like a little kid sitting there.

He was a big man, maybe six foot four
. His uniform pants were rough on the back of my legs. He smelled spicy. My instinct to protest his help dialed down a bit because I felt the urge to stare at him. He was really nice to look at. He pulled off his helmet and I noticed his dark blond hair. After he shook off one of his gloves, he awkwardly cleaned up my cut. He seemed to feel silly for a second and asked if I would mind sitting on the grass instead. I watched him conspicuously as I felt his gloved hand on my back where my T-Shirt was raised up a bit. He made me feel curious.

I moved off his knee and onto the grass, now trying to get the sawdust out of my eyes and off my face with the sleeves of my T-shirt
. He noticed my struggle and handed me a small packet with a wet towelette in it.

“For your face” he said, looking back at his first aid ki
t.

“Thanks” I told him
.

I did my best to wipe off the sawdust
. By then, the EMT came over to take over the review of my gash and I saw Murray walk up.

“You
OK?” Murray said in his deep voice, a very concerned look on his face.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine.” I said, shaking my head quickly to dismiss any worry
. “I’ve had worse.”

“I’ll yell at you later for wearing shorts.” He said, a shadow of disappointment replacing the concern as he moved his eyes around to look at all the commotion.

“I know.” I said, looking down.

The officer explained to me with his notepad out that the firefighters
already had the fire extinguished but they weren’t sure how it started. He mentioned that he wanted to get ahead of the game and asked if I’d seen anyone suspicious who might have started the fire intentionally. It was a pretty small fire but they still needed to investigate. I turned my head looking off into space, taking a moment to think as the EMT cleaned up my leg.

“I only saw the roofers and the homeowner
. He came in to talk to me. But, that’s it. I think I was the only one inside the house-other than him I mean.”

“The homeowner
.” Murray asked. “A man?”

“Yeah.” I said.

“I thought the homeowner was a lady.” He said, absentmindedly.

The general contractor
jogged up, looking as if he’d rushed to get there.

“How is everyone
?” he asked, worried.

“Everyone seems fine
-no injury from the fire.” the officer replied. “Who are you?”

“Mitch Bishop
. I’m the general contractor.” He said, patting his pants pockets for some ID in case he needed some.

“Is the homeowner on site today?” the officer asked.

“No, sir.” Mitch said “She’s up north this weekend with her kids. Water park I believe.”

“A man stopped in while I was working and said he was the homeowner.” I interrupted
. “Said he was from California. Could it have been the homeowner’s husband?”

“I don’t believe so
. I do believe he is still in China for the next three months. Asian family. They’re moving here. Big automotive executive. Joint venture or something.” Mitch replied.