Normal work, simple. She stayed nearby while I worked, not hovering exactly, but not leaving either. « You always this calm? » she asked. « Only when people are watching. » « That’s not true. » I looked over at her from the ladder.
« How would you know? » She leaned one shoulder against the wall, arms folded. « Because men who need attention don’t tell a room full of strangers to stop talking. » There was something in the way she said it that made the whole conversation feel less casual than it should have been.
Once I finished, I packed up slower than necessary. She noticed. « You in a hurry? » she asked. « I’ve got paperwork. » « That sounds tragic. » I smiled. « Part of the business. » She glanced toward the kitchen.
« I haven’t eaten. Stay for 10 minutes and let me at least feed you before you go do something tragic. » I should have said no. It would have been cleaner, easier, but I was already tired, already curious, and the truth was I wanted to see what she was like when nothing was broken.
So, I stayed. The kitchen was huge, but she didn’t act like somebody showing off a huge kitchen. She opened the fridge, looked inside for a second, then said, « This is the embarrassing part.
I own a house that could host 30 people, and somehow there’s almost nothing in it. There’s always eggs. » She turned and looked at me. « That’s a very electrician answer. Eggs solve more problems than people think. » That got a real laugh out of her.
Not polite, real. In the end, she had the cook’s prep from earlier, and 10 minutes turned into almost an hour at the counter with plates we both pretended were temporary.
The conversation slipped out naturally after that. Easier than it should have been. She asked about my work, my van, how long I’d been doing calls on my own. I asked the safe questions back.
How long she’d lived there, whether she always worked from home, why the house felt like a hotel nobody had checked into. That one made her smile, but only a little.
« Because most of it is for other people, » she said. « Meetings, dinners, things I’m expected to host. I spend most of my time in about three rooms. There was no self-pity in it.
