Joan bends down and picks up Christopher. “We like to surprise you when you come in for dinner. Don’t we?” she says, looking at Gigi.
The little girl nods. “Yes! We like to surprise you with meat loaf!”
“That’s not surprising Daddy,” Joan says, laughing.
“It is surprising!” John says. “Mommy has never made meat loaf and I love it. Especially a meat loaf sandwich.”
“What are you working on today?” Joan says, looking at the various pieces of wood in front of her.
“Legs!” John says, holding up a piece of the thick lumber. “If these can be half as good-looking as yours, I’ll be happy.”
Joan rolls her eyes. “Just what every woman wants … to have her legs compared to wood!”
“Wooden legs are beautiful!” John says. “They are stunning.”
Joan reaches for Gigi’s hand and walks to the door. “You’re obsessed, John Creighton,” she says, closing the door behind them.
“I’m not obsessed! I just know beauty when I see it, that’s all.” John looks at the piece of lumber in his hands. “Gorgeous!”
* * *
Miriam drives up to the door of Larry Maccabee’s workshop and turns off the engine. “Andrea said that Larry had a couple of tables that might work for your house,” she says, looking at Lauren.
“But what about the price? Larry’s things are so expensive,” Lauren says, getting out of the car and closing the door.
“The furniture he makes is expensive,” Miriam says, opening the shop door. “If he refinishes something, it’s usually less expensive. That’s what we need to find!” She glances throughout the shop for Larry. “Larry! You’ve got customers!” Larry pops his head around the corner, wiping his hands on a rag. “You need a bell on your door.”
“Who needs a bell when I’ve got a foghorn like you?” Lauren laughs out loud and Larry winks at her. “What can I help you ladies with?”
“When Andrea was here a couple of weeks ago,” Miriam says, walking through the furniture pieces in the shop, “she said that you had some kitchen tables that look nice. Lauren is trying to find one for that dismal kitchen of hers.”
Larry walks them toward a light-colored table with sleek, tapered legs. “I made this one out of tiger maple and finished it just a few—”
“Larry, you know as well as I do that Lauren and Travis cannot afford any tiger maple table that you made,” Miriam says, cutting him off. “Show us the affordable ones.”
“This really is beautiful, Larry,” Lauren says, running her hand over the tabletop. “How long did—”
“He knows his work is beautiful,” Miriam says. “He talks more about it than anybody else.”
Larry shakes his head, laughing as he leads them toward another table. This one is round in a darker wood with simple legs. “This one is three hundred.”
Miriam snarls her lip. “Three hundred for that? It’s so small and plain.”
“We don’t have a big space,” Lauren says. “And I think it’s beautiful. I love how simple it is.”
“I had to refinish it,” Larry says. “At some point in time, someone went crazy with nail polish on the top of it. It was covered in dings as if somebody had taken a hammer or something to it. I think it was probably set up in a space for kids somewhere and got abused. I can’t tell you how much I hate to see wood get abused.”
“It looks brand-new,” Lauren says.
Miriam sounds as if she is clearing rocks out of her throat. Lauren looks at her and Miriam bugs out her eyes. “It doesn’t look new at all. This is clearly a used table that has almost been destroyed by wild children run amok with nail polish and hammers and whatnot.”
“But the polish is all gone,” Lauren says. “And it—”
“It has been used and abused,” Miriam says, raising her voice over Lauren’s. “Larry said so himself.”
Larry laughs, shaking his head. “How about two seventy-five, Miriam?”
Lauren smiles. “That sounds won—”
“Two hundred,” Miriam says, looking like she’s chewing on lemons.
“Two seventy-five,” Larry says.
“Two hundred,” Miriam counters.
Larry looks at Lauren and she smiles, shrugging. “I think two seventy-five is fair,” she says.
“Two hundred,” Larry says, sticking his hand out in front of her.
“Really?!” Lauren says, laughing. “What just happened?”
“Skilled negotiations just happened,” Miriam says, rapping her knuckles on the table.
SEVEN
May 2012
Travis is home from work when Lauren and Miriam arrive with the table in the back of Dalton’s pickup truck. Travis refuses Miriam’s or his pregnant wife’s help in unloading the table. Setting the table down onto the driveway, he says, “This is awesome!”
“Do you really like it?” Lauren asks, rubbing her hand over the top of the table.
“I love it! It’s the perfect size. Did Larry make it?”
Miriam scoffs. “If he had, no one in Grandon could have paid for it. Do you need help getting it inside?”
“I think I got it,” Travis says, stretching his arms over the top and lifting it.
“Would you like me to take the card table that you’ve been using to the dump?” Miriam asks, following them into the house.
Lauren and Travis chuckle. “No, thanks!” Lauren says. “We will hold on to it and use it somewhere else.”
“Where would you possibly use that thing? At an interrogation? All it needs is some torture tools lying on top of it and you’re all set.” Lauren giggles as Travis angles the table to get it through the kitchen doorway. Miriam watches as he maneuvers it and says, “We will tackle other parts of the house on another day.”
Lauren hugs her good-bye. “I don’t know what I would do without you and Gloria, Heddy, Stacy, Amy, Dalton, and…”
“Oh my! This is beginning to sound like all the ‘begats’ in the Bible,” Miriam says, cutting her off. “Good-bye, my love!”
Lauren closes the front door and notices Travis bent over, looking beneath the table inside the kitchen. “It’s cute, isn’t it?”
He stands up straight, looking at her. “Yeah. You didn’t tell me about this. That’s a cool feature.”
“What’s a cool feature?” she says, walking into the kitchen.
“This little drawer underneath the table.”
Lauren bends over to take a closer look. “I didn’t even look underneath it at Larry’s, and he loaded it for us so I never noticed. Does it open?”
Travis pulls open the drawer and they both look inside. To their surprise, they see something at the back of the drawer and pull it out farther to see what it is. Lauren reaches for several small stacks of what look to be index cards held tight with rubber bands. She removes a rubber band from one stack of cards and flips through them. “They’re recipes.” Travis looks over her shoulder. “Whoever sold the table to Larry must have forgotten that they were in there.” She pulls her phone from her purse and dials Larry’s number.