Chapter 1: Park the Cars, Handyman
Brent Hollis held out a twenty-dollar bill to my husband like he was feeding a parking meter.
“Here’s twenty bucks,” he said. “Park the cars, handyman. The valet guy bailed.”
Forty people stood on the deck of my sister’s brand-new lake house, holding glasses of rosé, and every one of them heard it. Somebody laughed. Then a few more did, the way people laugh when they’re relieved it isn’t them.
Sam didn’t move. He stood there in his tan canvas work jacket, the one with the oil stain on the cuff he can’t get out, and looked at the twenty in Brent’s hand. He didn’t take it.
“I’m a guest, Brent,” he said mildly. “Holly’s sister invited us.”
“Sure, sure.” Brent grinned and tucked the bill into Sam’s jacket pocket himself. “Consider it a tip. You fixed our garbage disposal last spring. Least I can do.”
My face went hot. I stepped forward. Sam’s hand found mine, warm and rough, and squeezed once. Let it go.
He always lets it go.
My sister Courtney floated over in a white off-the-shoulder dress, her diamond catching the sunset. Five bedrooms. A boat lift. A three-car garage, and the only car parked crooked in her driveway was our old green pickup, the Ford with a hundred and ninety thousand miles on it.
“Hol, you look so cute,” she said. “Is that dress from the hospital thrift shop? It’s so you.” She lowered her voice, not very far. “Also, your truck is leaking oil on my new pavers. Could Sam maybe park it on the street?”
“I’ll move it,” Sam said.
“Oh, you’re a doll.”
My mother appeared at my elbow with a plate of shrimp. Lorraine has never once arrived anywhere without an opinion.
“Holly.” She looked Sam up and down, the work boots, the jacket, the stubble. “You could have married a doctor. You worked with doctors. Twelve years. And you married a handyman.”
“Mom.”
“I’m only saying what everyone’s thinking.”
Sam took the twenty out of his pocket, smoothed it flat, and dropped it in the tip jar on the caterers’ table. One of the servers, a teenage girl, smiled at him. He winked at her.
That’s my husband. That’s why I married him.
At sunset Brent tapped a microphone at the edge of the deck, the lake glowing pink behind him.
“Friends! Family! Thank you for coming to see what hard work buys.” Laughter. “And I’ve got news. Lakeshore Pointe, a hundred and twenty luxury condos right there on the north shore, is ninety-nine percent done. All we need is one signature on the land lease from Ashgrove Holdings.”
He raised his glass toward the dark water.
“The mysterious owners of half of Briar Falls. Nobody’s ever met them. But they’ll sign. Money talks, and believe me, I speak fluent.”
Everybody cheered. I looked for Sam.
He wasn’t beside me anymore.
I found him from the upstairs bathroom window, where I’d gone to cry for exactly two minutes and fix my mascara. He was at the far end of Courtney’s long driveway, next to a black sedan I’d never seen in Briar Falls in my life.
A tall, thin old man in a navy three-piece suit and a bow tie stood by the car. He was holding out a thick leather folder.
Sam took it. He opened it under the porch light of the gatehouse and read for a long time, his jaw tight.
I cracked the window an inch. The lake was quiet. Voices carry over water.
“The council votes Thursday,” the old man said. “They’ll need your answer before then.”
Sam closed the folder.
“Thank you, Arthur,” he said.
“Of course,” the old man said, and opened the car door for my husband the way you’d open it for a king. “Good night, Mr. Whitcombe.”
