Handy for you, p.4
Handy for You, page 4
Of course that was what she should do. You couldn’t choose a paint color for a room across town in this airplane hangar of a building, under these fluorescent lights. Kari nodded to herself and plucked yellow cards out of every brand display. Considering the thick stack of cards with mounting dread and feeling weird, she detoured to the plant area and selected an African violet to take home. It would like her sunny, South-facing kitchen windowsill. Standing in the line to pay, she flipped through the stack of paint chip cards. Some of the samples looked garish in the sunlight streaming through the glass doors at the front of the store, some were barely even a color.
Deep breaths, Kari. You got this.
How ridiculous do you sound? You’re panicking over painting a couple of walls?
Smiling reflexively at the cashier, she paid for her violet and drove back home, carrying the plant back to her kitchen before going to the dining room and leafing through the cards. She had been right not to make a decision in the store. The light here did different things to the colors. The ones she had thought were too garish in sunlight now looked more muted in a room that didn’t get much natural light. She laid the cards out on the table, nearly covering the surface, scanning over the collection.
This was trickier than she had thought.
Going into the kitchen, she got a roll of Scotch tape. The colors when placed on the table were definitely different from when she held them up to the wall. Setting her jaw, she taped each card to the wall, hoping that one of them would come to life like in a magical realism film, sprouting arms to wave at her and calling, “Me! You want me!”
No such miracle occurred. Her dining room was merely shingled with a multitude of cards sporting various yellow hues. It was overwhelming.
She took a breath, held it. Let it out. No. Not overwhelming. Your house, your room, your walls. Your decision.
She scanned the cards, reaching out to pluck the ones that pulled an immediate “no” from her off the wall and dropping them on the table. Now the neat row of shingled paint samples was more of a snaggle-toothed mess. Kari forced herself to ignore the urge to rearrange them back into tidy rows and just focus on the colors. She pulled another few cards off the wall. It was down to a manageable number now, but…the easy decisions were gone. The low-hanging fruit had been harvested.
She was going to need help.
The tap on the door was so soft, Rob almost didn’t register it at first. He was trying to figure out what he should do with the paperwork from the HVAC company he had been given after the twice annual visit—file it? Trash it? He never seemed to know which things were worth saving and which weren’t. Hence the piles that never seemed to get much smaller, even after he had gone through an attempted purge. And his office looked worse now instead of better.
Well, he could get rid of the siding salesman or religious proselytizer or whoever it was at the door and get back to his least-favorite task in the world.
Being an adult was so much fun.
But when he opened the door it was neither a salesperson nor a person offering copies of The Watchtower. It was Kari.
“Hi.” Pleasure bloomed in his chest at the sight of her, only to be followed by worry. “The faucet’s okay?”
“The faucet’s great. More than great. Almost a pleasure to do the dishes.”
“Almost?”
“Almost. It’s still washing dishes, when all’s said and done.” Kari chewed on her bottom lip. “Do you have a minute, or is this a bad time?”
Pleasure bloomed in his chest. Helping Kari Halvorsen might be addictive. “Sure. I mean, no. Not at all a bad time. Come on in.” Rob stepped back from the door and waved her inside. “I was just doing my least favorite task in the world, so you’re saving me from it.”
“Least favorite task? Let me guess. Cleaning the bathroom?”
“No, because when you do that at least you end up with a clean bathroom. I’m trying to figure out what to do with a bunch of mail and other paperwork that seems to just pile up on me. I can never decide what I need to keep and what needs to go.”
“We can trade. You can clean my bathroom and I’ll file your paperwork.”
“You don’t know how tempted I am by that offer. But what did you stop by for?”
“Paint.” Kari glanced around the room, almost a copy of the one in her house next door. The entire neighborhood was made up of nearly identical ranch houses, all probably put up by the same builder in the middle of the last century. Rob was pretty sure he could navigate any of them blindfolded, even with the changes various owners had made over the years and the slight differences in size and floor plans to suit larger or smaller families.
“What about paint?”
“The stuff on the walls?” She pointed at his, which he had painted a soft beige when he moved in. “Your piece of handy-man-ery inspired me.”
Rob resisted the urge to puff his chest out. “Really? Inspired? I like the sound of that. Inspired you to what?”
“Don’t get too excited,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I went back to the home center and got a bunch of paint chips for the dining room. I think I have it narrowed down, but I want a second opinion. But I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Five minutes to help me pick a color. Also…I don’t know how to paint. Walls. I mean, it seems straightforward enough, but I’m sure it’s not as easy as it looks. I was thinking maybe you could give me some tips.”
Rob folded his arms across his chest. “No, it’s not as easy as it looks, but it’s also not hard as you might be imagining. Not like figuring out whether or not to keep or toss my semiannual HVAC servicing contract paperwork, for instance.”
“Keep it.” Kari’s eyebrows quirked in a do you really have to ask that? expression.
“See? It’s easy for you to say, but why?”
“Because you have a servicing contract. You keep records about contracts.”
“How do you know this?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know much about owning a home, but I do know about the paperwork about the lease on our office space. When we have workmen come in, I keep the records. If something goes wrong a short time later, it can be useful as leverage.”
“Like what kind of leverage?”
“Like, ‘You said you had fixed the thing and now it’s three weeks later and the thing isn’t working. Come fix the thing. And if you even think about charging me for fixing the thing you said was already fixed, I’m going to make your life unpleasant.’”
This side of Kari, the vengeful Viking Shield Maiden side, was more than a little hot. “Wow. I don’t think I’d want to cross you.”
One corner of her mouth tilted up. “That’s why I make the extremely medium-sized bucks.”
“I’m starting to think office managers are underpaid.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears. I’m starting to think I need to look at your unfiled paperwork.”
“Paint chips are more fun.”
She snorted. “Paint chips? Fun?”
He scooped up his keys. “When compared to paperwork? Definitely. Let’s go.”
Chapter Four
“Don’t laugh,” Kari said, letting them into her house, nerves making her belly flutter. “I have no idea what I’m doing here.”
Rob’s face assumed a comically serious expression. “No laughing. Got it.” Following her into the dining room, he looked at the wall with its paint chips. Then looked back at her, his face puzzled. “What am I supposed to be finding not-funny?”
“Do people really do this? Tape up paint chips?” She hated the way her voice squeaked, her nerves made audible.
“Of course. How else do you think they get an idea of what the color will look like on the wall? Paint looks different in different light.”
“It looked kind of…overwhelming when they were all up there.” She waved at the dining table, with its heap of discarded chips, everything from neon chrome yellow to a color so soft it was a first cousin to ecru.
Looking at the pile, Rob’s lips quirked up. He bit them together, dark eyes darting to meet Kari’s. “Nope. Not laughing.”
Kari folded her arms across her chest. “What’s so not-funny?”
“Usually people have a little more of an idea of what they want than…every yellow possible. That’s seriously impressive.”
Kari’s chest heaved and she flung her arms out, letting them slap against her sides. “See? I knew I was doing this wrong.”
“Not wrong. Just…overambitious, maybe.”
Kari massaged her temples, not knowing how to assess how ridiculous she was being. “Oh, that’s me. Such an overachiever.”
“I get the feeling you sell yourself short.” Rob turned back to the wall, with its taped paint chips curling off of it. “So, what do you want from me?”
“I’ve hit the wall. Literally, apparently. I can’t decide between this group of colors.”
He looked at them for a few moments, then swiveled back to her. “They’re almost identical.”
“I know. That’s what makes it so hard.”
He blinked. “You really think if you paint your wall this color…” He stabbed his index finger at one of the cards, pressing it against the drywall. “In six months you’re going to be kicking yourself that you didn’t choose this one?” He poked at another card. “You’re not even going to remember the difference. You’re clearly in the right ballpark for you. Eeny-meeny-miney-moe it and move on.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay.” Kari tapped the paint chips in quick succession. “Elle melle, deg fortelle, skipet går, ut i år, rygg i rand, to i spann, snipp, snapp, snute, du er ute.” Her finger rested on a chip. “That one. I guess.”
Rob stared at her. “What did I just hear?”
“You told me to eeny-meeny it.”
“And you turned into the Swedish Chef.”
“Get. Out.” Kari pointed toward the front door. “I am not Swedish.”
Rob laughed. Then saw her face and the laughter dried up. “You’re kidding, right?”
“About not being Swedish? No. About getting out? Yes.” She smiled to let him know she’d actually been joking.
“Where did you learn to do that?”
“Do what?”
“Ergen fergen,” he said, his voice swooping in an exaggerated version of a stock Scandinavian accent that sounded—yes—just like the Swedish Chef.
Kari blinked. “I learned that at my mother’s knee. Probably literally. It’s a Norwegian counting rhyme. Like eeny-meeny.”
“That’s right. When I met your niece she teased you about whining for your mom in Norwegian.” He had heard Sam say “Mor” and asked, “More what?” Kari suppressed a laugh at the memory.
“Yeah. My folks emigrated here when they were younger.”
“So you said. You speak fluent Norwegian?”
“No.” Kari’s face went hot. “I understand a lot more of it than I speak. My parents used it as a sort of ‘private language’ between them. But I internalized a few things.”
“Things like a counting rhyme.”
She thought about it. Why had she remembered it so easily? “It’s the kind of thing that gets repeated in context. And rhymes are easy to remember by design.”
“I suppose. So. We going to go get your paint?” Rob turned a grin on Kari that made her swallow hard.
“We?” Kari struggled to get her breathing back under control. She felt like she was twenty again. And she was more than twenty years away from twenty. Get yourself under control.
Rob’s face fell, erasing the eager grin and Kari felt awful. “I’m sorry. That was presumptuous,” he said.
“No!” Kari waved her hands in front of her face. “No, I was just surprised.”
“Surprised? Why?” His eyebrows lifted.
“You have your own life, your own stuff to deal with. I’m intruding on it with my being a neurotic home-owning newbie who has no idea what to do with any of this.” She waved her hands again, this time taking in the interior of the little house. His gaze tracked around the area she indicated, coming to rest on the sketch pad she had dropped on the couch.
“You draw?” He pointed at the pad, his eyebrows lifting.
“A little. I was thinking of doing some Scandinavian motifs on the walls. I was sketching some ideas out.”
“May I?” He angled his head toward the pad, his eyes on her face.
She liked that he didn’t just walk over and pick it up. Didn’t assume anything. Maybe that’s why she kept opening up to him.
“Sure.”
Rob moved to the sofa, lifted the sketch pad. A lovely, simple motif of flowers and scrollwork sketched in blue pencil adorned the page. It was simple and solid, but comfortable somehow. The kind of adornment that seemed suitable to a Northern climate. Stark, but it reminded you of spring. In fact, it reminded him of something, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
He looked back at Kari, whose foot seemed to be trying to drill into the floor, her sneaker-clad toe swiveling into the hardwood in a nervous motion. “This is beautiful,” he said.
“You think?” Her anxious expression eased a touch.
“I do.” He glanced around the room. “Where would you put it?”
“Mostly over doors and windows.” She strode across the room and stood beside him, sweeping her hand to indicate the arched entry to the dining room. “Like there. But also maybe a modified version there.” She turned and indicated the front door and the area over the picture window. “I could pick out pieces of the motif and recombine them for different purposes.” She took the pad from his hands and paged back. “Like this.”
A mark on the page marred the motif she showed him. As if someone had bumped her arm. “What happened here?” he asked.
She craned her neck to look at the page, then her eyes flicked down to the floor. “Sam texted.”
“She did? That’s great.” Rob took in Kari’s averted gaze, the tense set of her face. “It’s not great?”
“No, no. It’s good.” Despite her blithe words, her eyes looked haunted.
“What’s the matter?”
Those haunted eyes flicked up to meet his gaze, then flicked away again. “Sam has a boyfriend. And…I didn’t even know.”
Damn. There was that sheen of moisture across her eyes again. He hated seeing it. “How long have they been seeing each other?” he asked.
“A month? I mean…it makes sense. We talked a couple of weeks before my trip, and then when I got back…” She waved a hand to indicate the topic she obviously didn’t want to re-hash. “You know. Her life wasn’t on hold just because she wasn’t speaking to me. Which I understand. But I’ve never not been in her life. And this seems serious.” She took a deep, shuddering breath and said in a rush, “So I invited them over for dinner.”
Comprehension flooded through him and he wished he could hug her again. Wished he had the right even to ask. “Hence the sudden need to paint your dining room?”
She shrugged. “Maybe? I’ve wanted to paint since I bought this place. It needs color. Life.”
“So let’s give it color. And life.”
She gave him a hard look. “Let’s? As in you and me?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
She shifted, her gaze ranging around the room, not meeting his eyes. “You want to do this with me? It’s not your house.”
He spread his hands out in front of him. “I got caught up in your enthusiasm. Consider me your assistant. If you want to.”
She pinned him with a hard stare. “Why are you so invested? You hardly know me.”
That stopped him. Why was he so invested? “Um. I like you?” It was the truth. A little too close to the bone, but he found he didn’t care just now.
Kari’s eyelids fluttered, her face going blank for a moment. “Uh. I like you too,” she said. That shouldn’t have triggered such a warm feeling in his belly, but it did. “But I’m starting to feel like you’re doing me too many favors.”
“How many is too many?”
“When the ledger is firmly balanced on your side. You’ve fixed my sink and helped me sort my paint situation. I’ve made you a sandwich.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“I am. I come from a long line of people who don’t get beholden.”
“Okay then…” His brain whirred into overdrive, seeking something that would balance her ledger. “File my paperwork? Since you seem to want to do it so much.”
“What?” Kari gave him a suspicious look. Which he guessed he deserved.
“I mean…You know what to do with furnace receipts and…mail.” It was true, after all, pathetic as it might sound. He was useless with paperwork. What he should file and what he could safely throw away. Liz had been good at that stuff and disdainful of his uselessness there. Maybe that’s why he hated it so much.
She folded her arms over her chest. “Mail frightens you?”
“I don’t know what to toss, what to keep.” Her face remained stony. “It’s true,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Maybe that sounds pathetic to you, but it’s true.”
She nodded. “Okay. Fine. I deal with your mail trauma and you teach me how to paint a room.”
“Deal.”
“I am so glad I brought you with me,” Kari said, her eyes wide as she surveyed the cart. He had started by measuring the room to gauge how much they’d need. Then he followed it up with knowing what sort of paint to get—Kari could have handled the indoor/outdoor distinction, but would probably have frozen, at least initially, in trying to decide what finish to get.
“Eggshell,” he said. “If we were doing a kitchen or bathroom, something a bit glossier and easier to wipe down, but not for the dining room.”
Then he had known to take the can to the paint counter and have them custom tint it based on the color on the paint chip. She probably could have figured that out too.
But then he had filled the cart with paint trays and rollers and roller covers and brushes and blue tape and a tarp and…her eyes had pretty much glazed over at that point. She barely knew what she had in there.
