Opening Sneak Peek

Chapter One

Claire

At five forty-seven, the man in room twelve asked Claire whether she could make the rain stop.

He stood across the reception desk in a damp golf shirt, holding a folded umbrella away from his trousers.

“For everyone,” she asked, “or just your room?”

He considered this. “The parking lot would do.”

“I’ll see who’s on duty.”

He laughed, which made the rest of the conversation easier. His wife had left her medication in the car, and the umbrella he had borrowed from the stand would no longer close. Claire gave him another one and took the broken one behind the desk.

The phone rang before he reached the door.

She answered it with the umbrella caught under her arm. Beside her, Leah was studying the reservations screen with the expression she usually reserved for suspicious food.

“Yes, we have your booking.” Claire clicked through to the weekend. “Two nights. And you requested—yes, I can see that here.”

The umbrella opened.

Leah ducked.

Claire closed her eyes for a moment.

“No, that wasn’t directed at you.”

By the time she finished the call, Leah had wrestled the umbrella shut and secured it with three rubber bands.

“We should charge it for a room.”

“Put it somewhere I don’t have to look at it.”

Claire checked the clock.

Five fifty-six.

Her class started at six fifteen. She had to get across town, find the studio, and change the shoes she had been regretting since lunch.

Leah turned the monitor toward her.

“The Martins are arriving early tomorrow. Their room won’t be ready.”

“We can keep their bags.”

“They asked about changing rooms.”

Claire set her handbag down again.

There were three rooms she could move around. Four if the couple upstairs checked out when they had said they would. She reached for the mouse, already arranging people in her head, then noticed Leah step aside to make room for her.

“What would you offer them?”

“The bags. Coffee. Maybe tell housekeeping, but not promise anything.”

“That sounds right.”

“And if they don’t like that?”

“Offer the coffee again.”

Leah smiled. Claire picked up her bag.

At the door, she looked back. Leah had taken the mouse and was typing.

Claire went out before she could think of something else.

---

The pottery studio occupied a former storefront between a frame shop and a place that repaired vacuum cleaners. She nearly missed it. The windows had fogged at the bottom, and the lettering on the door was smaller than she expected.

Inside, a woman with silver hair pinned loosely at the back of her head looked up from a pottery wheel.

“Claire?”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re fine. Aprons are on the hooks. We’ve just started.”

There were seven other people, all looking toward the woman. Claire could feel the warmth in her face as she took an apron and carried her bag to the only empty stool.

The man beside it moved a bucket out of her way.

“Thanks.”

He nodded and turned back to the demonstration.

She tied the apron over her work trousers. One loop slipped free. She did it again, tighter.

“I’m Ruth,” the instructor continued. “And if your clay goes somewhere you didn’t intend, take your foot off the pedal before you try to negotiate with it.”

A woman near the window laughed.

Claire put her phone in her bag.

For the next fifteen minutes she watched Ruth make something look possible.

Then she sat down at her own wheel and discovered that watching had accomplished very little.

The clay pushed against the heels of her hands. She leaned forward. It lurched beneath her fingers, and a thin stripe of muddy water landed on her apron.

Ruth crouched beside her.

“Bring your elbows in. Give your hands some support.”

Claire tried again.

“Better. Now ease away.”

For a moment the clay revolved without wobbling.

“Oh.”

“There you go.”

She looked around, wanting someone to have seen it.

The man beside her was looking at his own hands. He had rolled the sleeves of a faded blue shirt above his elbows, and there was a smear of clay halfway up one forearm.

His wheel shuddered to a stop.

“Was that deliberate?” she asked.

“No.”

“Good. I thought I’d missed a step.”

He looked over at her, smiling now.

She liked his face better when he did that.

Ruth came back to help them open the clay. Claire followed carefully, finding the center, pressing down, stopping when Ruth told her to. Later, with Ruth’s help, there was something in front of her that could reasonably be called a bowl.

A heavy bowl. Possibly one that would require two people to carry it.

Still.

She worked a wet finger along the uneven rim.

His bowl had begun leaning toward hers.

“I think yours needs a ride home.”

He glanced at her wheel. “Yours offering?”

She laughed, and the rim beneath her fingers buckled.

“Well, now look.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You absolutely were.”

He smiled. “I was waiting until you liked me better.”

She looked down at her bowl before he could see quite how well that had landed.

“Oh, yours is doing it too,” she managed.

He looked back just as one side of his bowl folded inward.

They sat looking at it.

“Strong finish,” she said.

He took his foot off the pedal.

“I wanted somewhere to keep one very small sandwich.”

Ruth arrived between them.

“I heard laughing. That’s usually when I lose a pot.”

Claire pressed her lips together.

The man looked up. “Can this be saved?”

“Do you want my honest answer?”

“No, I’m quite new.”

Claire laughed again, and this time she left her hands in her lap.

---

At the sinks, the water ran gray over her wrists.

She had a line of clay beneath each fingernail and a damp patch against her stomach where she had leaned too close to the wheel. Her shoulders felt as though she had been carrying groceries.

The man was rinsing a sponge at the next sink.

“I’m Owen, by the way.”

“Claire.”

“Did you save yours?”

“Ruth said we’d see what it looks like next week.”

“She gave me a bucket.”

“Maybe she thinks you’re ready for something larger.”

He shook his head, smiling into the sink.

She took a paper towel, dried her hands, and realized her phone had been silent for nearly two hours.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The pavement reflected the light from the frame shop, and someone farther down the block was rolling a trash bin over the uneven sidewalk.

Owen held the studio door while she adjusted her bag.

“See you next week?”

“Yes.” She looked back at him. “I need to find out whether I made a bowl or an ashtray.”

“I’m hoping to make something with an opening.”

“Aim high.”

He laughed and let the door close behind them.

At her car, Claire searched for her keys in the pocket where she always kept them. They weren’t there. She tried the other pocket, then looked in the first again.

From across the lot, Owen lifted a hand.

She lifted hers.

Her keys were in it.

Chapter Two

Owen

The window latch was still on the kitchen table.

Owen moved it to put down his coffee, then moved it again to open the newspaper he hadn’t finished reading on Sunday.

Wednesday.

He looked at the date on the front page to confirm it, although he knew perfectly well what day it was.

His phone rang.

“Tell me you’ve got the long clamps,” Ben said.

“In the truck.”

“Both?”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing yet. I’m calling ahead.”

Owen carried the coffee to the back door. The rain earlier in the week had brought down another scattering of leaves. They had gathered against the porch step he needed to replace.

“Come by and get them.”

“You home tonight?”

“Class.”

A brief silence.

“The pottery?”

“No, the other class I’ve been secretly attending.”

“I’m asking because you tend to get interested in things that can fall on you.”

“This could still fall on me.”

“Any good at it?”

“Not even a little.”

Ben laughed. “I’ll take the clamps out of the truck.”

“Bring them back.”

“You make friendship sound so transactional.”

“You’ve still got my ladder.”

“And yet you keep taking my calls.”

After they hung up, Owen drank the rest of the coffee standing in the doorway.

He had an hour before he needed to leave. Enough time to fit the latch, if the screws were where he thought they were.

They weren’t.

He found them in a saucer on the counter, beside a little packet of seeds he had meant to plant in the spring. The latch needed cleaning before he put it back. He could do that and still—

He checked the time.

There would be time on the weekend.

He put the screws in his pocket so he wouldn’t lose them again, then went upstairs to change his shirt.

---

He was early.

Ruth looked up from a shelf of pots.

“Enthusiasm. I like it.”

“Traffic was good.”

“You’re the first one here.”

He hung his jacket on a hook.

At his wheel, the bucket was clean, the tools laid out on a folded towel. The stool beside him had a small tear in the vinyl seat.

He hadn’t noticed that last week.

He sat down and rubbed a thumb along a dried spot of paint on his wrist. A woman came in with a tote bag. Then the couple who had spent the first class apologizing to each other.

He looked at the door each time.

Ruth carried over two covered boards and set them on a worktable.

“How was your week?”

“Good.”

“Make anything?”

“Mostly repairs.”

“That counts.”

He was about to ask whether she wanted help with the other boards when the door opened again.

Claire stepped inside, pulling one side of her hair free from the strap of her bag.

She wore jeans this time. Dark green sweater. No expression of having narrowly avoided a catastrophe.

When she saw him, she smiled.

He could have stayed home and finished the latch.

“Anything survive?” she asked.

“Mine’s been donated to science.”

“Very generous.”

She hung up her bag and sat on the stool beside him.

Ruth lifted the plastic from one of the boards. Claire leaned forward.

“That one?”

“The broad one,” Ruth confirmed.

Claire considered it.

“It’s a serving bowl.”

“For what?” Owen asked.

“Something substantial.”

He looked again. “One biscuit?”

“One excellent biscuit.”

Ruth left them looking at it.

“Did you practice that?” he asked.

“On the drive over.”

He laughed, and she looked pleased with herself.

---

By the end of the evening, Owen had made a short cylinder with a rim that rose on one side.

Ruth said to leave it alone.

He obeyed, although he was fairly sure he could improve it.

Beside him, Claire was wiping her wheel. There was a streak of clay on her cheek near her ear. He opened his mouth, considered how he would explain where it was without pointing at her face, and picked up his sponge instead.

“I’ve got something on me, haven’t I?”

“A little.”

“Where?”

He touched his own cheek.

She rubbed the wrong side.

“Other one.”

She rubbed again.

“Worse?”

“Broader.”

She looked at him for a second, then started laughing.

He handed her a clean damp corner of his towel. She took it and got the mark.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He rinsed his sponge. The room was getting quieter around them. One of the other students said goodbye, and Ruth reminded everyone to take their aprons off before they left.

Claire untied hers.

He could ask now. There was no particular reason to wait until they were outside.

He dried his hands slowly enough that she had already picked up her bag before he spoke.

“Have you eaten?”

“Does a handful of pretzels at four count?”

“Depends how attached you are to calling it dinner.”

Through the window, she glanced toward her car.

“What did you have in mind?”

“There’s a place two blocks over. Good sandwiches. Other things, if you’ve had enough bread.”

“I’ve had enough pretzels.”

“That narrows it down.”

She shifted the bag higher on her shoulder.

“Okay.”

He reached for his jacket.

The screws fell out of his pocket and scattered across the floor.

Claire watched him look down.

“Were you planning to assemble dinner?”

Chapter Three

Claire

The restaurant had six booths, a row of stools at the counter, and a handwritten sign announcing that the soup was tomato.

Someone had crossed out tomato and written still tomato beneath it.

Claire pointed as they passed.

“Good. I don’t like surprises.”

“You may want to reconsider eating with me.”

“Are there more screws?”

“I got most of them.”

“Most?”

“Ruth said she’d keep an eye out.”

A waitress waved them toward a booth by the window. Claire slid in and placed her bag beside her.

The vinyl seat was warm from the person who had just left. Outside, a delivery driver was trying to persuade a stack of boxes through a door that wasn’t quite wide enough.

Owen took the other side and picked up a menu.

There was a small pale scar near the knuckle of his thumb. She noticed it when he flattened the menu against the table.

“You come here a lot?”

“Sometimes.”

“That sounded evasive.”

“I’m working out what counts as a lot.”

The waitress arrived with water.

“Usual, Owen?”

Claire sat back.

He looked up at the waitress. “Thank you, Beth.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Beth glanced at Claire, who was doing a poor job of keeping a straight face.

“I’ll give you a minute.”

When she left, Claire opened her menu.

“So what’s the usual?”

“Grilled cheese. Tomato soup.”

“Still tomato.”

“It’s consistent.”

She ordered the same thing.

He seemed pleased by that, although he hid it by moving the salt away from a wet ring on the table.

“What do you do when you’re not being personally defeated by clay?” she asked.

“Restore houses.”

“All of them?”

“Feels like it some weeks.”

“Old houses?”

“Mostly. Windows, trim. Whatever somebody took out in nineteen eighty-six and now wants back.”

“Avocado bathrooms?”

“I try not to get involved in those disputes.”

She liked how he answered. He gave her enough to ask another question without seeming to have prepared anything.

“Do you like it?”

“Usually.”

“What’s the part you like?”

He set down his water.

For the first time since they had sat down, he didn’t answer immediately.

“Figuring out how somebody did something. You take a piece apart, and there’s a mark where they changed their mind. Or a repair you’d never see if you weren’t looking.”

“Someone else’s problem-solving.”

“Sometimes someone else’s terrible idea.”

“Those are my specialty.”

“What do you do?”

“I manage a hotel.”

He nodded toward her, as though something had fallen into place.

“What?”

“You were dressed for work last week.”

“You noticed?”

The question came out more directly than she intended.

He looked at her.

“Yes.”

She reached for her water.

“It was a long day.”

“Was today better?”

“Today nobody deployed an umbrella behind the reception desk.”

He waited.

“I feel I should explain that sentence.”

“I was hoping you would.”

By the time she finished, their food had arrived, and she had confessed that the umbrella incident was mostly her fault.

“I had it under my arm.”

“While you answered the phone.”

“It was an efficient system.”

“Right up until it opened.”

“There were no injuries.”

“Put that in the brochure.”

She laughed with a piece of sandwich halfway to her mouth and had to put it down.

The cheese had crisped where it touched the griddle. The soup was hotter than she expected, and she waited before trying it again.

Owen tore the corner off his sandwich.

“Do you enjoy it? The hotel?”

“I do.”

She sounded defensive. He hadn’t asked anything that required defending.

“I like the people. Most of the people. I like knowing how the place works.”

“What’s the best room?”

“Seven.”

“Why?”

“It gets the morning light. And there’s a big chair by the window that somebody tried to replace once.”

“You stopped them?”

“It’s an excellent chair.”

“Ugly?”

“A little.”

He smiled. “Those are usually the good ones.”

Her phone vibrated against the seat.

She glanced down.

Are you busy?

Natalie.

Claire picked it up. Her thumb was already moving toward the call button when she stopped.

At dinner. Everything okay?

Across the table, Owen was moving his bowl out of Beth’s way so she could put down extra napkins.

The reply came quickly.

Yeah. Call me tomorrow.

Claire set the phone inside her bag.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes. My sister.”

“Older or younger?”

“Younger. She’d want that established.”

“By much?”

“Enough for her to bring it up.”

He laughed.

“Do you have siblings?”

“A brother. He lives a couple of hours away.”

“Are you close?”

“We are. He thinks I should sell my house.”

“Ah. Family.”

“He may be right.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“How much time have you got?”

She glanced toward the counter. Beth was pouring coffee for a man with a paperback open beside his plate.

“Apparently until tomorrow.”

---

His house had been unfinished for nine years.

Not unlivable, he assured her. There was heat. A kitchen. He appeared to feel the need to list those things before she could form an opinion.

“I wasn’t imagining you sleeping in a wheelbarrow.”

“Good.”

“Though you might get to the kitchen faster.”

He shook his head.

There was a kitchen window he wanted to fix. A porch. Some work upstairs he had started before taking a job that turned into another job.

She asked him what was finished.

He looked surprised by the question.

“The front room.”

“Tell me about that.”

He did.

The floor had taken longer than he expected. He had found the light fixture at a place that sold pieces from demolished buildings. There was a chair he’d had since his first apartment.

“Ugly?”

“Very.”

“Then you understand room seven.”

He smiled at her over the rim of his glass.

Beth came to collect their plates.

“Anything else?”

Claire started to say no. She had work tomorrow. There were towels in the dryer, probably twisted into something that would require another wash. She had promised herself she would get to bed at a reasonable time.

Owen looked at her.

“Coffee?”

She considered him instead of the towels.

“Decaf.”

“Two,” he told Beth.

“You can have regular.”

“I’d be awake until Friday.”

“Me too.”

Outside, the delivery van had gone. There was nothing much happening on the sidewalk now, just a couple passing under the streetlight with a dog that wanted to investigate every tree.

Claire loosened the fold of her sweater cuff. A little dry clay flaked onto her jeans.

Owen noticed.

“We’re going to find that for days.”

“Worth it.”

He looked up.

She brushed the clay away.

“The class.”

“I knew what you meant.”

She wasn’t entirely sure she had.

---

It was after nine when they stepped outside.

The air had cooled, and she tucked her hands into her sleeves while he waited for the door to close behind them.

“Thank you,” she said. “That was considerably better than pretzels.”

“A low bar. I appreciate you setting it.”

They walked back toward the studio lot. He kept beside her at an easy pace, pointing out the uneven edge of a paving stone as they approached it.

At her car, she found her keys on the first try.

Progress.

He stopped a little way from the door, leaving her room to open it.

“I’d like to do that again.”

She looked at him.

“Me too.”

“Can I get your number?”

“Yes.”

Neither moved for a second.

Then he took out his phone, and she gave him the number. He read the last four digits back to her.

Her own phone sounded inside her bag.

“What did you send?”

“Just my name.”

She checked.

Owen.

There it was. Something she could keep.

She put the phone away.

“Good night, Owen.”

“Good night, Claire.”

He waited until she was in the car before walking toward his truck.

At home, she took the towels out of the dryer and shook them loose one at a time. They were wrinkled, but they were dry.

She folded them on the kitchen table, still smiling at something he had said.