Gourdfellas (28 page)

“Pour us coffee, would you?” he said as he tipped the pan to move some runny egg to the hot surface. “That driver’s going to be here in ninety minutes, and I want everything to be perfect for our farewell meal.”

 

Glad to have the distraction of the final session of the Smith-Caterra mediation, I drove into Hudson relaxed enough to notice the changes in the landscape. The lumpy brown soil of the newly turned hay fields stood in contrast to the glossy green leaves adorning the trees. Wildflowers, yellow and white and lavender, brightened patches of weeds, and the birds trilled happy songs. It was hard to stay sad about my brother’s departure with all the glories of spring around me.

In town, I picked up my computer and printer, stowed them in my car, and arrived at the mediation center fifteen minutes early. Both men arrived exactly at four. Randall Smith sat down and started working on something in a small notebook and Tony Caterra began reading
The Hudson Register
sports section.

“Afternoon, gentlemen. Ready to get started?”

I led the way to the room, and they settled themselves at the table. Caterra picked up a pencil and doodled swirls and hatch marks and zigzaggy lines that started at the top left of the paper and marched across the page in rows. Smith tapped the eraser end of his pencil on the table in a rhythmic beat.

“Thanks for coming in for our third session. So, anything happen this week that you’d like to discuss here?” I turned to Randall Smith.

He finished the third row of doodles and then looked up. “Yes. Something happened. That something is that I got two quotes for redoing the work and they’re ten percent below Caterra’s original estimate.” He shoved papers across the table to me.

I left them there and made a point of not looking at them. As in court proceedings, mediators lived by a document-sharing rule. If one person saw it, then everyone could see it.

“We can look at those in a bit. Why did you get those estimates, Mr. Smith, and what do they mean to you?”

Caterra had a glint in his eye, a Gotcha look that I’d learned to ignore during the sessions, although it made me grit my teeth whenever that smirk appeared.

Smith snorted and reached for the papers. “They mean that for the exact same work, using the same materials Caterra promised but didn’t deliver, these two guys would charge me several hundred dollars less. So I paid extra for the privilege of being ripped off.”

“So, this week you got two separate estimates for the work Mr. Caterra did, using the same materials, and the quoted prices were less than Mr. Caterra charged. Did I understand that right?” Could it be that Smith had finally gotten past the emotional issues, the anger he felt when he thought he was being ripped off? If that had happened, coming to an agreement was a real possibility—if Tony Caterra didn’t try to glib his way out of accepting any responsibility.

Smith grunted and nodded. I turned to Caterra. “Anything come up for you this week, Mr. Caterra?”

Instead of the bluff and bluster I expected, Caterra set the pencil on the table and looked directly into my eyes. “I’ve had some time to go over my records, to check out what happened on the Smith job, and I saw some things I want to share with you.”

Share. This wasn’t a word I’d expect to hear from the man to my left. Even Randall Smith sat forward on his chair, the posture of a man eager to hear what was about to be said.

Caterra turned his gaze to Smith. “Come to find out, the materials I ordered for your job, one of my foremen thought they were for another job and took them. Then when Arnie was putting things together to go to your house, he saw these other things, assumed that’s what he was supposed to use and went ahead and loaded the truck with them. Not until last week did I know about this.”

My breath quickened. An apology would have been nice, but an admission of a mistake was certainly a step in the right direction. This was a good time to get them talking about the future.

First, I summarized Caterra’s statements. Then I said, “So, now that you’ve heard each other talk about new information you found out this week, do you have any thoughts about how you want to proceed?”

Smith squinted across the table at Tony Caterra. “You’re telling me that you didn’t know those materials were being used? You didn’t tell Arnie to go ahead and take the cheap stuff? So that you could make an even bigger profit by pulling a fast one on some redneck moron who would never know the difference. Are you saying this was a mistake and not plain bald greed?”

Greed—had it driven someone to kill Marjorie Mellon? Who would benefit?—that was the question we’d been asking for a month. The list seemed endless: Anita, and by extension Linda, anyone who would gain something if the casino was defeated, a client whose secret Marjorie had discovered.

I was brought back to the present by the sound of voices. While my mind drifted to my own problems, it had happened. The moment mediators live for. The parties had begun to talk to each other as though I wasn’t even in the room. I kept out of the way and let them go at it. With an occasional steering question from me, twenty minutes later the foundation for an agreement was in place. Caterra had admitted that his worker had used inappropriate materials, was less than competent, and had been fired. After only a little back-and-forthing, Caterra agreed to come out himself and fix the leak without charge, and to use a high grade of materials without additional charge. He’d pay for three-quarters of the restoration of the furniture and damage to the dining room. Smith agreed to stop trashing Caterra to the entire county, and even said that if the problem was taken care of, he’d figure out a way to recommend Caterra to his friends and neighbors.

The greed Smith saw everywhere wasn’t really at the heart of the matter. Caterra’s disdain for Smith’s style had nothing to do with it. They’d been careless, defensive, each had dismissed the other’s concerns. Neither of them said that, though, and since mediators don’t lecture, at least not out loud, I didn’t either.

I typed up the agreement, we reviewed it, both men signed it, and I watched them walk out looking years younger than they had in that first session, when anger and resentment had filled both of them. Now, if only I could figure out how to achieve the same kind of outcome for myself.

Coming home to an empty house was stranger than I’d anticipated. I’d left the light on in the kitchen, but the rooms felt empty when I walked in. My brother had been good company, and we’d learned a lot about each other in the weeks he’d lived with me. Now we were back in our separate lives. Soon, having this space to myself again would be a relief. I’d lived by my own rhythms and impulses long enough for the pleasures of solitude to take root.

So I thought.

With the right person, and Neil apparently was a right person in many ways—well, definitely not the moonlight-and-champagne part—I could have company and also solitude. I had to admit it—I missed his company. I rummaged in the refrigerator for leftovers and found only a small bowl of cole slaw and half a sweet potato. Seth could probably whip up something brilliant with the contents of my kitchen, but I’d make do with the sweet potato and the cole slaw. Shopping would have to wait until tomorrow.

I sliced the sweet potato and heated it in the small cast iron skillet, topped it with yogurt, and carried my meager repast into the living room, where I plopped onto the sofa and clicked on the television. I should have felt good about the agreement in the Caterra-Smith case, but I kept thinking that my biggest contribution had been to be distracted enough to give them the space to work it out for themselves.

That’s not true, I reminded myself. I’d created a safe environment for them to talk. And talk they did, so much over the course of three sessions that I feared their voices would stay in my head forever. When it was all over, it came down to familiar issues. Respect. Reputation. Honesty. Compassion. But nobody could see that until they got some other things out of the way. Defensiveness. A tendency to blame others. Accusations of greed and a bad attitude.

As I was about to stab a slice of sweet potato with my fork, the phone rang.

“I have too much lasagna here.” Nora’s playful voice was a happy surprise.

“I know exactly how to fix that. Fifteen minutes?”

My friend laughed. “I was sure you’d be able to solve my problem.”

 

“Yo, Lili, wachoo dune?” Scooter Johnson wriggled his shoulders and hitched his jeans with his elbows. His eyes twinkled with delight in the game he’d started months earlier.

“Wassup, gansta? You shouldn’t take this MTV stuff too seriously. Rots your brain and other body parts, you know. Anyway, I just happened to smell the lasagna and—”

“Lili!” Nora’s smile as she came into the kitchen registered delight. “Between your brother and our work schedules and the casino meetings and all, it feels like we haven’t really
seen
each other in weeks.”

I set my bottle of Chianti Classico on the butcher block. “I know. I’ve missed you guys. I’m so glad to be here that I’ll even help make the salad.”

“You’re always welcome in our home. Especially if you offer to chop vegetables.” She pulled open the refrigerator and knelt in front of the crisper, handing out lettuce, celery, a bag of carrots, a gleaming red pepper.

“Yo, Lili, thanks. I hate all that peeling. The only fun thing about making salads is . . . ta da!” Scooter held up the lettuce spinner and grinned.

Already, the warmth of their company was making me feel human again, and we laughed and joked our way through the salad preparation. Except for one moment, when Scooter asked about my gourds, and Connie Lovett’s wan face flashed into my mind, the charm held fast.

“We shall dine by candlelight tonight,” Nora said as she set three kente cloth placemats on the dining room table. The ebony candlesticks took the place of honor, and when she leaned forward to light the ivory-colored tapers, her face glowed with pleasure in the flickering light. I pictured Nora’s great-grandmother sitting down to a meal before a fire in the veldt, my mother’s grandmother lighting Sabbath candles in the Kiev shtetl, my father’s grandmother pushing kindling into her Venetian clay oven.

“Thank you,” I said softly. “I needed this.”

She squeezed my shoulder and handed me the silverware and three blue cotton napkins. “And I need this to get to the table. Everything’s ready.”

When we finished setting the table, Scooter presented the lasagna as though it were the crown jewels. “Esteemed ladies, dinner is served.”

“Yo, Scooter, thanks.” I sat to Nora’s left, leaving Coach’s seat unoccupied. His presence still filled the house. By some way of measuring, seven months wasn’t a very long time at all.

“You know anything about economics?” Scooter asked.

“Yeah, that you shouldn’t spend more than you earn.” I finished chewing, swallowed, wiped my mouth with the napkin. “God, Nora, this is amazing. You mean as in school subject economics?”

Scooter nodded, his mouth pursed together as though he were working on a knotty problem. “I have to write a paper on the effects of capitalism on an emerging nation. How it’s going to change the society, things like that.”

Nora paid very close attention to the intricacies of spearing a lettuce leaf. Only the tiniest of smiles at the corners of her mouth betrayed her amusement.

“You’re in, what, junior year? Man, that sounds like a college question.” I’d learned to respect the quality of the schools in Walden Corners. Maybe it did take a village and not some huge bureaucracy to make some things work properly.

“It’s an AP course. At least I’ll get college credit for it. Ms. Savin says we need to learn to think around the corners of things.” He rolled his eyes. “All I can come up with is that capitalism will create a middle class. And get some infrastructure built. You know, roads, bridges, maybe new cities. Communications.”

“That’s great. So, those are pretty big changes.” I scooped up another forkful of lasagna, and let the rich flavors fill my mouth. I had never thought of myself as a teacher, but my time with Connie and now this conversation with Scooter hinted that it might not be the harsh sentence I’d always imagined. “What about social changes, personal ones, families and stuff? You think about that?”

Nora put her fork down and watched our exchange with great interest.

“Infrastructure, that’s probably a good thing. Hospitals, schools, contact with the rest of the world. I got that far. But, damn, if it’s gonna end up like it is here . . . That casino, I think it’s just the idea of greedy people who want somebody else to pay for the schools and all that. Some social changes feel like we’re going backwards.” He shook his head.

“What do you mean?” I had an idea of his concerns, but I didn’t want to assume anything. Different generation, different combination of cynicism and idealism.

“You’re gonna take these tribal places where everyone leads a simple life and make it complicated? Like, who needs to worry about SATs, right? And the families, everyone working together in the fields or something, they’re gonna change. They’ll get into this weird head of me first and to hell with you. You know, like that greed thing again. I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“That’s a huge question. Powerful motivator, that greed. More is never enough for some folks.” At least now I understood the balance a little better—the idealism was about the same as it had been when I was sixteen.

“What about living a more fulfilling life? Having time to enjoy things like the arts—books, music, theater? Which you get by working toward a decent job, so that you’re not scrambling all the time. And what’s so great about a tribe making your rules, instead of a local government you can vote out of office?” Nora shrugged and smiled. “I’m pretty sure no system is perfect.”

Scooter frowned and said, “Well, duh. Okay, you’re saying maybe the price we pay for what we get is high but it’s worth it. Huh.”