"It's your body."
"That's right. It's my choice. And I really want something permanent."
She went upstairs and Michael could hear her faintly, talking with her shrink.
"He's somebody — he's — really special. That's all I can say."
Dr. Meyer is suspicious. He always hits you with a halfminute of dead air when he's suspicious. "Special?"
"For instance, I'm changing my birth control. Most guys would just be thinking of themselves, of their own pleasure. Michael is really concerned about me, though. I'm not used to that."
Almost a full minute of dead air. Laura jerks a knot in the cord, begins to pull it apart.
"Let's talk about David," says Dr. Meyer.
If he cut the mortises and stained all the framework this morning…
It was still warm in Redondo. And Big Sur. He knew a guy ran a store in Big Sur.
And a lady who had a house in Carmel.
Laura came down. She borrowed one of his heavy wrenches to smash garden snails on the sidewalk. Often after talking to David or her shrink Laura went out after snails.
She was in the garden a long time. Michael finished the mortises, put on his dust goggles and hooked the power sander up. He liked the buzz of the sander, he could get inside it and think.
The last one, Diana, had been a major hassle. Phone calls, nighttime visits, holding his check up so he'd have to come in person. Wanting to hash everything over again and again. She could talk a thing to death, talk it past death, Diana. She was an analyzer. She had a collection of every stuffed animal she'd ever owned, dozens and dozens of them, and she still remembered all their names.
The van would make it fine if he skipped the coast road and stuck on ioi. And if he decided on Big Sur or Carmel he could cut over before Salinas. The sanding went smoothly, he switched to a finer-grained paper.
"You're sanding already," said Laura through her nose when she came back in. Sawdust was another thing she was allergic to. She had only told him that yesterday, when he tried to wrestle her onto the floor again. "Doesn't that mean you're almost done?"
"Not really. There's a lot left to do."
She heated soup she had made for their lunch. She had put too much barley in it. Michael ate slowly, quietly. Laura finished quick and watched him. It was how she made love.
"Do you know what you'll do after this job?"
Nope.
"Nothing lined up?"
"Uh-uhn."
He pressed the back of his spoon against the barley to squeeze some liquid out.
"Are you ahead of your rent and all?"
She had offered before to put him up for a while, to move his stuff in. He'd been having a landlord hassle.
"No, I'm all set. Something will turn up when this is finished."
"Listen, have you ever done any big remodeling? I mean like knocking out walls?"
She had talked about letting each of the boys have his own room. It was a big job, a long job.
"No."
"You think you'd like to try it?"
"Maybe. Someday."
Laura made him a cheese-and-sprout sandwich to go with his soup. He didn't ask but she got impatient watching and had to do something with her hands. She was a nervous lady. All that caffeine.
"Are you going to come over tonight? The kids will be in bed by eight."
The doctor had given her an appointment for Monday. He had a cancellation, so she wouldn't have to wait so long.
Michael told her maybe, that he had a little side-job he might have to check on.
Laura sits on her bed changing her shirt. When the walls are being knocked out she'll fix up their beds in the playroom downstairs. Yes, they'd like that. And it will be good for Michael to have a major job. To design it himself, to have the whole upstairs to play with. And maybe then he could put the darkroom in shape, maybe build a little studio like she had in New York for her retouching work.
And they could use her bed. No more making it on the couch downstairs in hushed tones like high-school kids. Aaron and Isaac could get used to having Michael stay over, but they wouldn't be able to hear.
When she left, Michael dumped the rest of his lunch in the organic-trash basket and covered it with coffee grounds from her Melitta. Laura took a half-hour to dress for the Co-op. She wore jeans and a white-cotton Indian shirt. She looked great.
The front right tire on his van was looking pretty bald. And the spare wasn't much better.
"I'm gonna buy everything on my list," she announced, "no matter what their damn signs say. They're always warning you off the lettuce or the mangoes or whatever it is you want. I wish they'd sell it or not sell it and shut up about whether it's good for you or not."
She hugged Michael before she left. Rubbed herself up against him, more like a promise than a good-bye.
"I've got to stop by the butcher. But we should have an hour before they bring Isaac home."
Michael watched from the living room as she wound her old Fiat down the hill and into the fog.
Laura downshifts, leans into the corners. The driving is more fun out here. And having a yard, even with all the fog. She likes the way the houses hang on to the hills, the way the plants grow whether you fuss with them or not. The way everything seems to take care of itself. Berkeley is easy. Like Michael. Like Michael compared to David. David with his intensity, his hang-ups, his world view.
"You got to float with the current," Michael always says. "Just float with it and you're bound to stay on the surface."
You had to watch out for the undertow. Michael went up to her room. She had made the bed with two pillows. That was new, she used to keep the other in the bathroom linen closet. There was a picture of him, wedged into the frame of her dresser mirror, an Instamatic she'd taken when he dropped by for Isaac's birthday. A picture of him and Aaron and Isaac. That was new, too.
The van wasn't that bad. He'd just put on new shocks. He knew a guy ran a car clinic, let him use the tools and bay for free.
He could pick up the hardware on his way home, bring the stain along. If he worked late…
Michael dusted the cabinet frames and swept up. He laid fresh newspaper around them. He got the bucket of special stain from his van, the one-coat penetrating stuff from his last job. Diana had asked for it. He'd have to pick up more to do the drawers and doors at home. It cost an arm and a leg but it was quicker than two days of shellacking and one for satin varnish.
He got his brushes out, started laying it on.
If he worked late tonight he could stain the doors and drawers too, and put the hardware on. All but the hinges. Laura was getting a permanent filling in her root canal tomorrow morning, then seeing her bankers in the afternoon. The move out had left a lot of financial loose ends. If Michael could hustle his butt…
The lady in Carmel ran a pretty loose ship. He had built her a studio. And he knew a lot of people in Big Sur. It would be good to get down there, lay low for a while. Coast.
Laura picks through the avocados, trying to find a perfect one. She smiles. Tomorrow morning she'll get him. Catch him poring over the plans in the kitchen, thinking he's the only one up. She loves to see his face that way, all serious, like a boy pretending to build a rocket ship. Tiptoe down the stairs, across the living room. It won't need retouching. No, it will be him, there in the kitchen with their plans. She'll lean slowly into the kitchen doorway and snap! She'll have him.
She'd come in tomorrow and it would be finished. He'd leave a note. She'd already paid him, that was good. He'd put the drawers together at home tonight, with lip fronts so he wouldn't have to cut rabbet joints. He'd pick the hardware up and put that on. It would look really good, she'd come in and there it would be, all done. It was a nice set, one of the best he'd ever built. And he wouldn't bill her for the stain.