Page 117 of Keepsake
“Good morning,” I said quietly as her eyes studied me. “Happy Christmas Eve.”
“Is there coffee?” Lark asked breezily. “Or shall I start another pot?”
“I made plenty,” Jill Wainright said. “But I haven’t started breakfast yet, because I didn’t know your plans.”
“I thought Zach and I would go out for breakfast,” Lark said. “Seeing as I have the morning off from psycho day camp.” She turned to me. “Since it’s Christmas Eve, they only want to see me for the afternoon session. And, hang on…” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and came to stand beside me. “Smile.”
I smiled. Sort of. And whether I was ready or not, Lark took a selfie of us. “What’s that for?”
“Dr. Becky is a fan of yours,” she said, tucking the phone away. “I think she’s got a major crush, so I thought I’d show her your handsome face.”
I laughed, in spite of all the tension I felt. “That’s…flattering.”
Reaching into a cupboard for mugs, she patted my chest. “You should be flattered. She thinks very highly of you.”
“Why?”
Lark pulled a stainless steel carafe from its berth in a high-tech coffee machine. “Because you took such good care of me, and you never show any fear. Grab the milk?”
“Fear of what?” The smell of the brew was comforting. I could almost handle the parents if it meant I got some of that. I looked around for the refrigerator, not finding it anywhere.
“Most young men would run screaming from a girl with a raging case of PTSD. The fridge is right there.” She pointed at one of the paneled wooden cabinets, and I realized that her refrigerator had been camouflaged to look like a fine piece of furniture. Rich people were weird.
I located the milk and turned around to find her father watching me over the edge of his newspaper. Yikes. I felt my neck start to heat, because whatever he was imagining I might have done with his daughter was all true and then some. Under his roof.
He looked a little too tame to whip out a shotgun, though, so at least I had that going for me.
“So,” her father said.
Lark handed me a milky mug of coffee and I took a gulp. For fortitude.
“If you go out for breakfast, who’s going to help me put this thing together for Jimmy?”
Lark frowned. “Is it really all that tricky?”
“There’s about a million parts.” He looked at his wife. “Next year I’ll choose the presents and you can put ’em together.”
“I have an idea.” Lark put a hand on my arm. “Is there any way you’d take a look at this toy we bought my cousin’s son? And afterward I can take you out for waffles.”
“Sure?” If it got me out from under her parents’ gazes, I was all for it.
Her father came with us to the living room, though. There was a big, beautiful Christmas tree in there I hadn’t glimpsed last night. I’d only had eyes for Lark. And on the rug beside the tree were the parts for a shiny metal convertible. It was going to be a big car—like three feet long. I saw a seat and a pedal apparatus for a child to sit inside and drive.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s so cool.”
“I thought so, too,” her father admitted. “Until I saw the parts spread out everywhere. The instructions are only pictures, no words. I spent a half an hour and got three pieces attached. The fourth part won’t go on like I thought it should.”
He handed me the schematic, and I took a quick glance at it. The chassis was to be built first, and then the body could just be pieced onto it. Then I looked at Mr. Wainright’s work, and saw that the axles were reversed. “All right. I assume there’s an allen wrench for this?”
He handed it over, but then he groaned when I took his work apart and reversed the pieces. “Was that the problem? Shit.”
Laughing, Lark sat down beside me and held my coffee mug. “Sorry, Daddy. Remember my potter’s wheel that never quite worked?”
“That wasn’t my fault,” he grumbled, and she laughed.
It took me about fifteen minutes to assemble the chassis, with Lark’s assistance. Next I added the wheels, the pedals and the steering column. “These pieces are really nicely tooled,” I said, running a hand over a body panel. “Like a German car.”
Lark flipped over the schematic and squinted at it. “Huh. This company is in Munich. Good guess.” To her father she said, “Zach works on tractors for the Shipleys, as well as on cars.”
