Gourdfellas (18 page)

“Can’t. I have a mediation scheduled in the late afternoon, so I probably won’t be great company. Let me check with Neil and I’ll get back to you. Good luck with those papers.” The depth of my disappointment took me by surprise until I realized that part of it was embarrassment. Now my brother would know that I’d been stood up—in fact, he was being passed over, too, in favor of paperwork.

At least I’d have the chance to put in a couple of hours on the health care booklet. Not exactly my top choice, but it certainly would help the bottom line.

I told Neil about the change in plans with a smile and a matter-of-fact tone. “So I can get some work done and you can finish up that history of Appomatox.”

“No problem. We’ll do dinner another time. I was kind of looking forward to getting to know him, though. You know, a little chat, see how he behaves around my big sister. And you can tell a lot about a man by the food he cooks and the wine he brings.”

“Seth cooks real food in interesting ways,” I said, thinking how nearly that described the man himself. “And he doesn’t drink. Hasn’t in over five years.”

I expected my brother to react with surprise, but his eyes crinkled and he nodded.

“That’s a new part of the picture. I don’t mean . . . Mostly, I like him. He’s nice. Maybe a little slick, but nice.”

Instead of getting defensive, I shrugged and straightened a stack of
American Craft
magazines and picked two brown leaves from the bamboo plant on the end table.

“You didn’t bite,” Neil said when I finally did face him. “You must be all grown up. But seriously, be careful with him. I don’t know what it is—maybe my brotherly protectiveness. Something’s . . . I don’t know, he talks to that lady cop in the same tone of voice he talks to you.”

I thought back to the time last fall when I’d seen Michele Castro’s car in Seth Selinsky’s driveway. I’d assumed it was all about business then, but maybe Neil’s antennae were picking up something I didn’t want to acknowledge, Officer Garrison aside.

“He was trying to do me a favor, so he was making nice to her.”

That sounded good. Or, at least, plausible.

The mediation Center was bustling, and I had to scramble and cajole to find a room where we could close the door and not be overheard by half the county. I’d made a bet with myself: Smith, the homeowner, would show up by six, our scheduled time. Caterra, the contractor, would make us wait and drift in at six-thirty with some excuse about having to take care of a problem at a job site.

At six o’clock, though, Mr. Caterra was sitting in the reception area, glancing at his watch every thirty seconds and drumming his fingers on the arm of the office chair.

Was I ever going to stop thinking I knew what these guys would do, how they would behave? I scolded myself, reminded the impartial facilitator in me to be in the moment and respond to the people in the room, not the ones in my head.

From my vantage in the mediators’ lounge, I could see comings and goings, but the door hadn’t opened in several minutes. I closed my eyes, tried to picture a broom sweeping away the concerns of my day. Michele Castro kept reappearing, like a stain that was still there after ten washings. This was not a good mental state for a mediator. The next phase was to gather more information and then develop an agenda so we could talk about everything they thought was important. After that would come the fun part—helping them work toward a solution that would be mutually acceptable.

Tony Caterra looked like he was about to either explode or stalk out of the building when Randall Smith strode in, all smiles and apologies about having problems starting his truck. I was looking at a lethal combination: One man caught up in conflict-rage, the other grinning as though the whole thing was a joke.

I strode to the waiting area, offering a gracious smile. “It took me a while, but I managed to snag a room where we can talk privately. Please come this way, gentlemen.” I didn’t peer over my shoulder to see whether they were following me, or strangling each other, or staring at my receding back. When I reached the room, I stood in the doorway and they clomped in.

Noisily, they took seats. I asked Smith to describe his plumbing problem in detail and he settled down and gave an account of the leak, when it started, what conditions made it worse. He slapped a copy of the estimate on the table and pointed to a couple of items for emphasis.

“See? Replace lead pipes with copper. Stabilize pipes and caulk joints. That’s what he said he was gonna do. If he actually did that, then it wouldn’t have leaked. But, no, he took my money and did diddly. And then he turned around and gave my money to support the casino because he thought he’d get a piece of the action when the contracts went out for bid.”

Caterra sat back, arms folded across his chest, his button-down collar crisp and white against his tan neck, his expression impassive. The man looked as though he spent a lot of time on a golf course.

“What work was actually done?” I asked. “And what materials were used?”

Caterra detailed what his workman did on the four days it took to finish the job. He used words like “S-ring” and “compound this” and “elbow that,” the kind of tactic that some men try when they think they’ll be able to throw a verbal monkey wrench into the works because the mediator is a woman. I was not impressed.

“So far, what I’m hearing is that the two of you had an agreement. Mr. Smith, you agreed to pay Mr. Caterra his standard hourly rate plus the cost of materials and make the work site accessible at normal working hours. Mr. Caterra, you agreed to fix the leak in Mr. Smith’s bathroom, to clean up after each day’s work, and to let him know if the cost was going to exceed your estimate. Did I understand that correctly?”

The two men offered grudging acknowledgement that I’d described their arrangement properly.

“Did you ever specify what materials would be used on the job?” If I was right, unspoken assumptions had contributed to the conflict—maybe this would uncover them.

“Never came up.” Caterra offered one of his smarmy grins. “What’s the difference? I hear he’s planning to sell the house anyway if the casino wins, so it won’t matter to him.”

I wondered whether the man slept at night, what with all those rationalizations dancing in his head.

Smith kept his cool. “We didn’t talk about materials, not exactly. But if the leak never got fixed, it doesn’t matter whether he used chewing gum and chicken wire or solid gold pipes. He cheated me. He took my money but he didn’t give me what I paid for. Bottom line.”

Yes! Smith got it, and he’d said it out loud. Would Tony Caterra think it was important to do the right thing even if no one was looking? I had my doubts—but he was still entitled to help in working out a resolution they could both live with.

“Mr. Caterra, have you ever had to go back to a client and fix a job in which the original problem wasn’t solved the first time out?”

His head moved slightly, a barely perceptible nod that I took to be agreement.

“What did you do in that case?” I asked.

Caterra ignored my question. He slid his folded hands along the table and said, “Look, Randy, I did a job for you. You messed up the work by dumping stuff down the sink that I’d just fixed. I don’t owe you anything. You need to learn how indoor plumbing works.”

The tension level jumped through the roof, until Smith’s snort of laughter filled the room. “Great, sounds like you’re auditioning as a comedian for a high school talent show. Now if we can get back to business . . . nothing was ever dumped down that sink. You find some oil, I’ll pour it on my . . . never mind. I collect all my old oil and junk in large plastic jugs—bleach, laundry soap, that kind of thing. Admit it, Caterra, the guy you sent has messed up two other jobs and you’re scrambling just to save your butt and your business. Well, see, I’m not the one gonna eat it because you hired some birdbrain and told him to cheat me blind so you could put extra money in your pocket. So, are you gonna make it good, or am I taking you to court?”

Tony Caterra stared at Randall Smith for what felt like a century. Then, without saying a word, he pushed his chair back, stood, and headed for the door.

I was almost grateful. These clients seemed more interested in having a pissing contest than they did in working things out. I would give them all my energy for as long as they wanted it, but I wouldn’t be terribly upset if they decided to take another route to resolution.

“Mr. Caterra.” He stopped at the sound of my voice. “Would you like to continue this mediation or would you rather take your chances and let a judge decide how things should be worked out?”

Caterra frowned and stood there, saying nothing.

“Mr. Smith, what would you like to see happen?”

Smith smiled, shook his head, then said, “No kidding, I have a lot of answers to that question that I won’t bring up in front of a lady. I’ll go to court if I have to. Maybe we should all go home and cool off and try one last time.”

Tony Caterra grunted his assent, and I did my best to appear pleased that they were at least willing to try to give mediation one last shot.

 

The night was warm and clear, but I drove home in a personal fog, my head clouded by worry. I hadn’t been arrested, hadn’t been charged, but I was a suspect in a murder investigation. I had made a pact with my friends to learn as much as we could about the people on both sides of the casino issue, hoping that we’d come up with a juicy prospect. But the idea of spying on my neighbors left me feeling itchy, as though I would have to take a long, soaking bath to wash away the grit. The only tangible result that had come out of our plan was that my to-do list had grown longer and my sleep shorter.

I still had to finish the writing job that had taken over Neil’s borrowed computer and make arrangements for the New Hampshire gallery to ship home my unsold pieces, which made me a little nervous because gourds are fragile things. Still, I couldn’t take two days off and go up there myself and leave Neil alone and ignore Michele Castro’s warnings not to leave town.

True, some bright spots glimmered—Neil had offered to go online and pay my bills, a chore I hated because it was so tedious and always reminded me of the state of my checking account. And I’d had my roof fixed by a nice young man who had done some work for Nora. He’d been courteous, diligent, thorough—from the evidence so far, the opposite of what I’d seen and heard of Tony Caterra. I hoped he wasn’t going to turn out to be a walking cliché, every homeowner’s nightmare, the kind of person who probably had to move to a different state every three or four years because he skated a little too close to the edge of the law and community ethics in order to pocket an extra twenty percent.

My gourd studio shimmered like a tantalizing mirage, a promise at the end of a long road marked by obligations. Maybe if I was lucky I’d even get to spend a couple of hours with the gourd seedlings that had been growing in their special trays on the sun porch. They would need transplanting in a month, and I had to find someone with a rototiller to turn the soil. The list of service people that Tom Ford had left was useless—for some reason, he seemed to feel that paying twice the going rate was insurance that a job would be well done.

By the time I got home, I was tempted to throw my hands up, pay homage to my mother’s wisdom by downing a couple of shots of Scotch, neat and effective, and then passing out on the sofa in the hope that tomorrow might be a slightly better day. But the sight of Neil, and the sound of his voice chattering about the calls he’d gotten from the in-field coach, from our brother Charlie, and from Melissa, distracted me long enough for the impulse to pass.

I wandered out to the sun porch and ran my finger along the tender tops of the green shoots that had poked up through the rich potting soil.

I pictured Tom Ford, medium height, thinning hair, laugh lines radiating from his hazel eyes. He held a glass of sauvignon blanc in one hand and a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
in the other as he lowered himself to the wicker rocker that used to fill the sunniest corner of the porch. He’d kick off his topsiders and smooth the collar of his teal Izod shirt and then gaze out at the expanse of green lawn, thankful for the haven of his three acres on Iron Mill Road. Just for a little contrast, a Johnny Cash song would be playing on the stereo—he’d turn the phone off, so that he could watch the sun set behind the pines.

Or not. The Tom Ford who had called last week was much too caught up in business to relax so completely.

I checked the soil to make sure the seedlings were getting enough water and then went inside to set the dinner table. My cooking skills did extend to pasta, and my automatic pilot took over as I boiled water for the linguini, chopped shallots and red peppers and asparagus for the primavera, sliced cucumbers and celery to go in the salad, and set a hunk of Parmesan on a plate. I was about to carry the salad bowl out to the table when Neil came into the kitchen.

“Lili, I need to talk to you.” Concern clouded my brother’s eyes. “I hear you when you get up and wander around in the middle of the night. I see the light from under your door at three in the morning. I can’t tell exactly, but it seems like you get maybe four hours of sleep a night. And not all at once, either. So maybe I should go home so that you can—”

“Whoa, Neil. You know that has nothing to do with you. This bout of insomnia started before you came. The pharmacist gave me this herbal thing and suggested that I drink warm milk. It’s not really working. Yet. Maybe I need to take more of it.” I hugged him, hard enough to make him reach out for the wall for support. “You actually make it better, not worse. Having you here is . . . I don’t know, it’s good for me. Less lonely.”

He backed away and leaned against the stool. “But you don’t talk to me. You listen to my woes, you make dinner and do the laundry, you joke about how I should take up tap dancing, but you never tell me what’s bothering you.”