Good Bones (14 page)

“Ain’t that hard,” Chris said with a slight blush under his dark skin. He looked adorable, and Dylan had to squelch an impulse to lean across the table and kiss him.
He’s not your goddamn boyfriend
, he reminded himself sternly.

For dessert, Dylan took them to Voodoo Doughnuts, which turned out to be somewhat of a religious experience for Chris. “Holy shit! They have a maple bar with bacon! And a chocolate doughnut with Butterfinger. And… fuckin’ A! That one’s got Oreos and peanut butter.” But the one shaped like a cock and balls—with Bavarian cream filling—made him laugh so hard that the lady in line ahead of them turned and frowned. Dylan bought them a baker’s dozen, and Chris tenderly carried the pink box back to the Prius.

The sugar raised both their spirits considerably. Chris bounced happily in his seat, but Dylan had to fight hard to keep his eyes on the road when Chris sucked the frosting off his own fingers.

A dealership in Hillsboro had a used Silverado. Its silver paint sported a few scratches and dings, but Chris nodded approvingly at the vehicle. “You can tow almost eighteen thousand pounds,” enthused the barrel-chested salesman. Then he started talking about torque and steering knuckles, and Dylan sort of tuned out. Chris popped the hood and spent some time poking around, after which they took it for a drive.

“Well?” Dylan asked as they pulled back into the lot.

“It’ll do. They’re askin’ way too much, though. Don’t pay more than twenty grand.”

“And how much do you think I can get for a trade-in on the Prius?”

Dylan tilted his head. “You’re really serious about this.”

“Well, yeah. I’m not quite ready to haunt the John Deere dealership, but I need something more suited for farm life.”

“What about when you move back to the city?”

“You still think I’m gonna throw in the towel?” Dylan was a little shaken by Chris’s lack of confidence in him.

“You ain’t… you ain’t…. Someone like you can’t be happy out in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“It’s not like we live on Mars, Chris.”

Chris looked away. “Might as well,” he muttered.

“Look. When I first saw you I figured you were a homophobic, dimwitted redneck. The kind of guy who pisses off his back porch. And now I know you’re none of that. Except the pissing part.”

“I was kinda wasted.”

“I figured. I’ve noticed since then that you’re fully capable of using indoor plumbing. So if I can get past my assumptions about you, can’t you do the same for me?”

Finally making eye contact again, Chris said, “I thought you were one of those hipster assholes who says he wants to grow his own food but faints dead away the first time he realizes there ain’t no artisan falafel in the entire county.”

Dylan smiled slightly. “I hate falafel.”

The salesman had been hovering under the broad awning of the dealership building, no doubt thinking they were debating the purchase. When Chris opened the truck door and slid to the pavement, the salesman came trotting over. “So, whatta ya think? Pretty sweet, huh?”

Dylan joined Chris, who frowned. “I don’t know. Ford F-250’s got a bigger payload and more horsepower.”

“Yeah, but this baby’s got an Allison transmission and independent front suspension. Our customer satisfaction blows them out of the water. And—” He glanced at Dylan and then back at Chris. “—this one’ll run on B20 biodiesel.”

Chris negotiated the deal. While Dylan was inside signing paperwork and writing checks, Chris stayed in the parking lot and transferred all of Dylan’s belongings from the Prius to the truck—especially the remaining doughnuts.

P
OMEGRANATE
and Cassidy McMaster-Evans smelled strongly of patchouli and chamomile. Pomegranate’s gray hair was buzzed close to her skull, whereas Cassidy’s was waist length and still mostly blonde. Their clothing was made of hemp with, he guessed, natural dyes. They were both smiling at him expectantly across the conference room table.

“We’re so excited to see what you’ve come up with!” Cassidy exclaimed. She had a beautiful, melodious voice, like a radio announcer. Her partner nodded enthusiastically.

Dylan felt slightly nauseated. He’d filled an insulated cup with coffee before he left the house, and when he hit the city limits he’d done drive-through for a refill, so now his stomach was sloshing uncomfortably, and he was a little lightheaded. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. Matty poked his leg under the table—hard—and Stender folded his hands serenely in front of him.

“Um… I… I didn’t have a whole lot to go by in the files,” Dylan stammered. “Usually it’s good—uh, usually I like to meet with clients before I begin.”

Cassidy leaned forward. “But we didn’t want to interfere with your creative energies. We just wanted everything to flow naturally—”

“—from the creative wellspring,” Stender finished for her.

“Exactly. Too much intensity early on, too many different forces mixing together, and everything gets cloudy. Like dipping paintbrushes in water.”

Dylan had a sudden and vivid mental image of Chris’s reaction to hearing a conversation like this, and he had to bite his lip to suppress a nervous snicker. “Well, I tried. But, you know, if you don’t like stuff of course we can change things.”

There was a slight pause, during which Dylan found himself desperately wishing he were back in his own dismantled kitchen, listening to Chris sing badly and replacing the fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling with those nice pendants he’d brought home the other day.

“Dylan? Why don’t you show us the plans,” his boss prompted.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.” Dylan flipped open his laptop and keyed in his password. When the file booted up, he turned the screen around so the clients could see. “So, um, here’s the front elevation. I’m going to suggest we place the house fairly far back on the lot. Not enough so you don’t have a backyard, of course, but enough to give a little more privacy. We can curve the driveway a little too, so you have a little more sense of drama as you enter the property.”

He risked a glance at the clients. The McMaster-Evanses were peering intently at the computer—Pomegranate had put on a pair of reading glasses—but their expressions remained fairly neutral.

“I’ve gone with a side-gabled bungalow because I think it gives the house more visual depth, more interest. That gives us this nice deep porch too. I used cedar shake here, but we could also mix in some stone if you wanted. I have a source for some nice reclaimed limestone. I’ve sketched in some four-over-one sash windows. The house won’t be too out of place in the neighborhood, but it’ll still be distinctive.”

Everyone stared at the screen, and nobody said anything. After a moment, Dylan cleared his throat and pressed a button to reveal the first story floor plan. “We’re going for a great room concept here. We can talk a little more about what you’re looking for in a kitchen, but for now you can see it’s nice and open, with a couple of exposed beams in the living area. I was thinking reclaimed wood for the walls—sort of a cabin-in-the-woods feel—or maybe we could stick to drywall but do one wall in stone.”

He went on like that for what seemed like hours. Nobody interrupted him as he described the plans and explained some of the options. The clients exchanged a few glances with one another, which he couldn’t read, but mostly they looked at the computer. Sometimes one of them nodded.

“And, um, I guess that’s it,” he said at last. Although he was relieved to finish, the knot in his stomach remained.

The silence was very heavy. Pomegranate removed her glasses and tucked them into a case, which she put in the small embroidered bag that hung across her chest. She and Cassidy locked eyes so hard and for so long that he began to wonder if they were capable of telepathy. Dylan jiggled his leg, realized what he was doing, and stopped. Matty poked him again. And Stender looked as if he was meditating on the phenomenology of being.

“It’s nice,” Cassidy finally said.

Pomegranate nodded. “Very pretty. And that fancy dog door—that’s a nice touch.”

Silence fell again. Dylan suddenly became aware that he had to pee really, really bad. Finally, Stender unfolded his hands and smiled serenely. “If you’re pleased with what Dylan’s given us so far, we can schedule another meeting for next week. We’ll be able to hammer out a few of the details and get some cost estimates.”

The women looked at each other again and then at Dylan. “It’s very nice,” Cassidy repeated, and Dylan’s heart sank. “But it’s not… I’m sure it would be lovely for someone else.”

For the first time, Matty stepped in. “Is it the materials that bother you? ’Cause those are super easy to switch out. Or maybe you’d like some more traditional room spaces….”

“It’s not that, dear.” Cassidy patted Matty’s hand. “We were hoping… well, we were hoping to make a statement, I suppose. Other than ‘We have tons of money’ or ‘We have impeccable traditional taste.’”

How about “We spent a little too much time eating ’shrooms,”
Dylan thought. What he said was, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Cassidy sat up very straight in her seat. Her fingers played with the collar of her muddy green blouse, then stilled. “It’s about irony. The introduction of the exotic into a mundane setting.”

“The house still has to be livable, of course,” Pomegranate added.

Her partner smiled and nodded. “And we don’t want to be run out of Beaverton on a rail. But we don’t want to live in the same house as everyone else, no matter how nice it is.”

Dylan hung his head. If someone had clued him in on all this to begin with, he could have created something completely different. He could have saved his job.

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet your expectations,” Stender said. He didn’t sound especially upset, and his smooth face was unworried.

Cassidy said, “I’m sure Dylan tried very hard. The energies just weren’t right. Sometimes the Goddess is with us, and sometimes she has other plans.” She leaned forward, placing both her palms on the smooth wood of the tabletop, and looked intently into Dylan’s eyes. “You seem like such an earnest young man. I bet you work very hard.”

“I… I do.”

“It’s not all about hard work all the time, honey. You need to sit back sometimes and let the powers flow through you. Stop worrying about being… prudent. Be brave! Go wild a little!” Her laugh was like tinkling bells. “If Pom and I had gone the safe route we’d probably still be selling our futons at Saturday Market and living out of our Vanagon.”

“Uh… thanks,” Dylan said, because he couldn’t think how else to respond.

“Would you rather I turn the project over to someone else?” asked Stender, and Dylan ducked his head again.

But Pomegranate tsked. “No! We’d like to give Dylan another stab at it. He’ll come through. I know he will.”

Dylan lifted his head and gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you.” But relieved as he was to be given a second chance, he had a terrible feeling that it was only a temporary stay of execution.

Chapter 12

M
ATTY
was sympathetic and comforting and supportive all at once, patting his back and chirping assurances until his head hurt and he feared he might snap at her. Stender said very little. After the clients left, he steepled his hands again and inclined his head toward Dylan’s laptop. “You’ll be on it right away, I take it?”

“Of course.”

“Your remodeling won’t get in the way?”

“This project will be my first priority.”

At that, Stender nodded and stood, then sailed out of the conference room and back to his office. Dylan wanted to bang his head on the table, but Matty was still there, blabbing on about creativity exercises and removing the barriers to the flow experience.

“I gotta go,” Dylan said, a little abruptly. He stood and snapped his laptop shut and scooped it under his arm.

“Are you sure? We could have a drink or something. Heck, we can have a bunch of drinks. If you get too buzzed to drive home you can always crash at my place. My couch is free.”

“Thanks, Matt. But I have a dinner date.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Date?”

“Just Rick and Kay.”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “Dyl, I don’t know how you’re ever gonna meet—”

“Not this again. Please. Not now, okay? I really have to go.”

She made a face that reminded him of the one his mother had made when she was disappointed in him. But she stepped out of his way and watched silently as he left the room.

Probably nobody else in the office gave a damn about his presentation, but still, he felt as if every eye was on him as he made his way down the hall and, heavens be praised, to the men’s room. A minute or two later, he was forced to tolerate an instrumental version of “Come As You Are” playing in the elevator. He had used a parking garage a block and a half away, and he kept his head down as he dodged other people on the sidewalk heading home from work. He was so preoccupied with his own failure that he nearly got run over by a light rail train as he crossed the street, and then a bicyclist rang her bell and cursed at him as she zoomed by.

He trudged up the stairs to the garage’s third floor. For a moment he was lost and a little confused because he couldn’t find his familiar green Prius, but then he remembered that the big gas-guzzling monster at the end of the row was his. “Stupid,” he mumbled to himself. He unlocked the truck and went first to the passenger side, tossing in his laptop bag and the big accordion folder of various papers Stender had handed over to him. He slammed the door shut, but before he went around to the driver’s side he paused and pulled his phone from his pocket. He really wasn’t up for socializing. He’d call Rick and beg off, promise to reschedule the following week or the week after. Hopefully Kay wouldn’t be too pissed off.