The F-Word

* * *

The morning turns out to be fun.

As intended, Bailey deals with the paperwork—it’s fucking endless—while I deal with the teak. We unload it. Uncrate it. Check it over, inch by inch. Then we move it—it takes three of my guys plus me. The doors are going to the rear of the house where they’ll open onto the Zen garden. Yeah, I know. I’m mixing cultures. Thai temple gates, Japanese garden, but it’s all good. It all goes together just fine.

Burt puts the little box of attaching stuff on the floor next to me.

“Here we go,” I say.

I look up. Everybody’s eyes are on me. Well, no. Not my PA’s. Bailey is staring at her smartphone. Is she finally checking out that message? I’m kind of surprised she’s doing it at a moment like this and I find myself waiting until she finishes reading, taps in a reply, then just stands there until, obviously, a response comes through. She must have turned off the sound but I can tell she’s had a reply because her mouth goes all tight and grim.

I clear my throat.

“Here we go,” I say again.

Bailey looks up. Looks around. Damned if she doesn’t blush again.

“Sorry,” she says, jamming the phone into her pocket.

I take a deep breath and get to work.

To my relief, Bob’s done all the prep work exactly right.

The doors fit into the space he prepared as if they’d always hung there. The screws, the special tools he’d ordered…Perfect.

I work slowly. Carefully. It takes me two hours to hang the doors. By the time I’m finished, most of the crew is standing around behind me.

I step back. “Done,” I say.

“Fuck,” one of the electricians whispers, and that just about sums it up.

The doors are not just spectacular; they look as if they’ve come home.

There’s a faint smattering of applause. For the centuries-old work, not for me, which is just how it should be. Burt produces a case of cold beer. We pop the tops and drink to what’s rapidly starting to look like the best project we’ve done yet—and that’s saying something.

We joke, laugh, kibitz for a few minutes. Then the guys get back to work and Bailey and I head for the truck.

“Those doors,” she says as we drive away. “I mean, wow.”

I flash her a smile. “Really something, huh?”

She nods. “The Schecters will be happy.”

“They’d better be.”

We both chuckle.

“They’re flying in early next week,” I say. “They want to see how things are going.”

“Well, they’re going to be delighted. Which reminds me. You had a call from that couple, the one that wants a colonial on those hilly four acres in Rye.”

“It’s the wrong house for the wrong lot. Besides, if they’re set on something that traditional, they don’t really want me. Give them a call. See if you can set up something for—”

A phone rings. Bailey’s. Definitely not mine. Mine plays the opening chords to Wild Horses.

Hers plays Beethoven.

“Excuse me,” she says politely and she takes the phone out of her pocket, checks the screen and puffs out a little breath of air as she puts the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom.”