the upstairs bedrooms where my crew chief, James Miles, is working.
He glances over to me. “I don’t know.” Then he cuts his eyes to the other men who are around. “I wouldn’t want you to break a nail, pretty girl.” The laughter from his buddies isn’t mean-spirited. This pretty girl thing has been a running joke for more than a year.
“Ha-ha.” I hold up my hands and wiggle my fingers with my short nails. “No risk of that.” I pick up a sledgehammer that’s resting against the wall. “Put me to work.”
James points at the sledgehammer. “They teach you how to use one of those things in beauty queen school?” More laughter.
I rest the head of the mallet on the ground, place my palm on the end of the handle like a cane, and pop a hip. “Nope, but they did teach me to smile when idiots say stupid things to me.” I flash him my biggest and brightest smile.
There’s a beat of silence, then the whole room cracks up.
Too bad I couldn’t employ that strategy with the jerk downstairs.
“Good one. I see what you did there.”
The laughter that fills the space is easy and harmonious and the best thing about this job. These guys could give two figs about what I look like or what I used to be. All that matters to them is that I do my job in such a way that it doesn’t make theirs harder.
James hooks his thumb over his shoulder. “Come with me. The cabinets in the master bath need to be taken out.”
I salute and follow him down the hall.
“Got some issues you need to work out?”
“Yep.”
“That bad?”
“You have no idea.”
“Brad?”
I blow a stray hair from my face. “Men in general, present company excluded.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
I heft the hammer. “Demolish first, talk later.”
His yellow teeth peek between his lips. It’s only a slight parting of his mouth, but with James, that’s as good as a belly laugh. “I understand.” He reaches into his carpenter’s apron and withdraws a pair of safety glasses. “Here, you’ll need these.”
“You don’t need them?”
He shakes his head, and his gray shoulder length hair sways back and forth. “I need to sort out these measurements.”
I take the glasses and head into the bathroom. I roll my shoulders to loosen the tight muscles after my run-in with Cash. Holy hell. Cash King owns this house. “What am I going to do?”
“What?” James asks from the other room.
“Nothing. Just thinkin’ out loud,” I yell back.
“Think quieter. I’m doing math in here.”
“You got it.” I slip on the glasses, pull a pair of work gloves from my pocket, and get to smashing.
I swing at the bathroom counter like James taught me, using my legs and not my back. The vibration of the hammer hitting wood zings up my arms. Sweat pops out around my hairline. Soon the back of my shirt is wet and sticking to me. I love every minute of this work. It proves my body is tough and made for more than how it looks.
This reno is a lot like my life. I’ve had to smash it apart to build it into something I’m proud of. Something better, stronger, that reflects who I’ve always been on the inside. The part of me that only a few people have cared to see or get to know.
I swing the hammer again and take out another section of cabinet and drawers. If I’m honest, that’s why I’m so upset and why a small, broken piece of my heart has always belonged to Cash King. We grew so close while working on that science project, we both shared things that mattered, and I believed that he saw more than what was on the outside. Something in his eyes every time he listened to me talk told me he did. I’ve never experienced that kind of soul-searching stare since.
But I was wrong. He hurt and disappointed me when he started that vicious rumor, and he’s done it all over again by not giving us the grant to save the rec center.
When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.
My favorite Maya Angelou quote shoots through my brain. She was right, and Cash King has certainly shown me who he is more than once. The problem is I can’t get the image of a thirteen-year-old boy standing up to his abusive father, then driving his battered mother to a women’s shelter to save her life out of my head.