He wanted to drop his bag right then and stride over and—
“Mr. McBride. You’re just in time.”
Mr. Richardson held open the Barter door as though he were an usher for an evening play. “I was just about to close the doors.”
Chip blinked away images of green sweaters and dancing eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, ducking inside.
Chip felt the slap on his back as Mr. Richardson spoke. “I was hoping you’d make it.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
As he followed him past the theatre lobby, he spotted several five-gallon paint buckets and his smile faltered. “Starting to go ahead on some work?”
“Oh no,” Mr. Richardson replied, turning at the hallway. “No, I’ve just been thinking about colors lately. And some new ideas have come to mind.”
“Different from the sunset ceiling?”
“Oh, absolutely not. Well, perhaps. If this new idea works.”
“But if the bid—” Chip began to say.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Mr. Richardson said and directed him past several closed doors. “Nothing but a slight change of vision. I have no choice, after all. I’m but a slave to my inspirations.” He tapped his temple with a wink. “I’m sure an artist like yourself knows this only too well.”
He gave a hearty laugh. Chip mustered a small one.
“Right in here,” he said, motioning to the one open door. Its brass sign read Conference Room in bold letters.
Chip took a breath.
There was an oblong table in the center of the room. Sturdy. Walnut. And filling up the seats surrounding it were seven men he’d come to recognize over the years as representatives of competitive construction companies. Most important among them: his brother Pete and his father.
Chip had been to enough bid meetings in his life to know the way it was. The competing companies took their seats, and whenever the bidding facilitator was absent, the competition made small talk about the quality of the Styrofoam coffee or how the Abingdon High football team had done the previous Friday. Sometimes, rarely, someone ventured to ask how someone’s son was doing on his Eagle Scout project, or whether someone’s daughter had picked a major in college, but mostly the group pretended they barely knew each other. And at all costs, they avoided talking about the numbers on the papers in their hands.
“This tastes like Folgers to me.”
“Impossible. I take my coffee from Zazzy’Z every morning. I’d wager my wife this is Cowboy Up.”
“Well, I’d take that wager, Bill, except you and I both know—”
A stiff silence fell as the men looked up at the new arrivals. Subtly, every expression turned from open, to surprised, to a poor attempt at unsurprised. Every expression, that is, but his father’s.
Chip dipped his head in greeting. “Hello, everyone.”
“Hello,” they returned. All, again, but his father.
Chip took a look to the two remaining seats. One next to Mr. Anderson of Anderson Builds. The other beside Pete, who was suddenly busy checking his bid-sheet numbers. Chip moved to the other side of the room and sat down beside Mr. Anderson.
His father bent to speak into Pete’s ear.
Chip knew what it meant to walk into this room. He was no longer the competition of his father and brothers in theory, but in reality. Hitherto he had worked the odd job. Bathroom renovation here, eighteen-hundred-square-foot-house flip there. Nothing over a $100,000 credit line, and certainly nothing within the $500,000 range that would put him on his family’s radar.
Until now.
“So, let’s get down to it, shall we?” Mr. Richardson said, clapping his hands together. “Mr. Baxter here has stepped up to review your prerequisites for the bid, so if you could please slide your envelopes to him now.”
Obediently each man gathered the first of two envelopes in his hands and passed it along the row to him. When Mr. Baxter collected them all, he stood and left the room.
“Now,” Mr. Richardson continued as the door quietly closed. “I’d like to move forward, assuming you each have your subs’ insurance policies and information in line. After all, we’re all chums here, aren’t we?” He smiled in an easy way. “Nobody here has snuck in the back door.” His smile turned into a light chuckle, and he removed his fedora and set it on the table.
“So, how about we get to it? Go ahead and pass me the envelopes.”
Without hesitating, Chip slid his down the line. This was not the time for thinking or hesitation. He had stayed up far too many evenings the past several weeks, pushing every cinderblock