HER: The Arrangement

Sadie puts her hand on my back a second before I see Ann.

I’m holding a board against the fence post. She’s supposed to be handing me a nail. Instead, her palm settles between my shoulders and stays there.

“What on earth?” Ann asks from the edge of the yard.

“You’re back,” Sadie says.

She sounds happy. Her hand moves away, but not quickly. She wants it seen leaving.

Ann surveys the old boards on the grass, the gap in the fence, the two of us. Her head tilts.

“This feels like a party I wasn’t invited to.”

Sadie smiles.

I’ve seen her pleased with herself before. Usually I’ve had more to do with it.

“Grab a hammer,” I tell Ann. “We’ll find you something.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

She comes into the yard.

Sadie hands me the nail at last. I set it, drive it home, then move to the next board. I don’t mind being useful to Sadie. I mind discovering there’s an audience.

At first, she wanted my truck parked around the corner. Now she’s touching me in front of the woman whose name comes up more often than her husband’s. I doubt the neighbors have become less interested in her business. Something else has changed.

“How was your trip?” Sadie asks.

“Exhausting. You look well.”

“Thank you.”

Ann gives her another look. “Really well.”

Sadie’s smile gets wider. Mine almost does. It’s a hell of a thing to watch two women make a compliment unpleasant.

“Chet’s been letting me help.”

“Letting you?” Ann looks at me. “How generous.”

“She’s good at taking things apart.”

Sadie laughs. “He won’t let me measure.”

“Because you keep telling me it’s close enough.”

“It is close enough.”

“For a different fence.”

She reaches for the tape measure, and I hold it out of reach. She catches my wrist with both hands.

I let her take it. For a moment, I forget who’s watching.

“Sadie, would you mind getting me some water?” Ann asks.

Sadie releases me.

“Of course.”

She looks at me before she goes, as though something has been settled between us. I’m still working out what.

Ann watches her walk to the house. Only when the door closes does she turn back.

“She seems much happier.”

“That a problem?”

Her eyebrows rise. Then she laughs, and I like the sound more than I’d expected to. At the funeral, she barely looked at me. I remember that, too.

“Of course not. I worry about her.”

“She’s holding up.”

“Yes. Well. You don’t know everything.”

I put the hammer in my belt. “I know I’m not being paid to discuss her.”

“By Ethan, isn’t it?”

She’s reminding me who signs the checks. I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of looking away.

“He hired me,” I say.

“And yet you seem to be keeping Sadie very happy.”

“I try to leave a satisfied customer.”

Her mouth curves. She likes that I haven’t apologized. I like that she’s stopped talking to me as though I might need help keeping up.

It doesn’t make this a good conversation to be having.

There’s enough left on the job that losing it would sting. There’s also Sadie, who has never asked me for anything I’d call a promise. We’ve been careful about that. Careful in bed, too, about which subjects we don’t bring into it. I like her. I like that she can laugh at herself, when she forgets someone might be keeping score.

I don’t want Ann appointed to supervise us.

“Whatever you’re worried about,” I tell her, “you should talk to Sadie.”

“I do.”

“Then you’re all set.”

She looks past me at the fence. I leave the next board on the grass, enjoying her search for a response too much to help her out.

“I could use someone like you,” she says.

I laugh. “Could you?”

“There are a few things at my house.”

“What things?”

“Oh, nothing terribly difficult. I’m sure you could manage.”

She’s watching me now, not the fence. There’s nothing shy about it. I’ve been looking at her, too: her mouth, the loose hair against her neck, the way she stands there letting me do it.

I know she didn’t come down here to find a carpenter.

“You can get my number from Sadie.”

“I could.”

The back door opens. Ann glances toward it. Whatever she wants from me, Sadie is part of it. She was part of it before Ann knew whether I’d be interested.

I could make her ask Sadie for the number. Let her explain why she needs it. Keep whatever this is out in the open, where it’s less likely to become my problem.

I hold out my hand. “Give me your phone.”

Ann unlocks it, opens a new contact, and hands it over.

I enter my name and number. I like having her watch my hands. She may have started this to annoy Sadie. I’m getting something out of it, too.

Sadie comes down the steps carrying a glass. I hand the phone back before she reaches us.

“Call me,” I say.

Ann smiles. “I will.”

Sadie looks from her to me. “What did I miss?”

“Chet was telling me about his work.”

She takes the glass from Sadie and thanks her. I can hear the lie sliding into place, with just enough truth in it that I won’t have to correct her.

I pick up my hammer.

“Nothing you haven’t heard before,” I tell Sadie.