The One That Got Away (16 page)

After a few hours of prowling, I am starving and call for a time-out so we can eat. The shade of the food barn is a blissful
respite for my sun-dazzled eyes. We load up on pulled pork sandwiches, jalapeño corn bread, and barbecue baked beans, and I sink gratefully down on the bench with my precarious plate and a cold Blue Moon and dig in. Bliss. My first sandwich disappears in instants, and as I start on the second I catch Eamon watching me, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

I pause, sandwich in midair. “What?”

“You just
decimated
that sandwich.”

I point the sandwich at him threateningly. “Don't tell me you're one of those creeps who expect women to be prissy eaters. I know the girls on your team weren't clocking world records on garden salads with dressing on the side.”

“No,” he agrees, “but the girls on my team could probably bench-press your entire body weight.”

Oh, so I'm a weakling? Because I'm not as strong as his precious ex the Butterfly Queen? I'd like to see
her
try to land a high roundhouse kick on somebody's neck. “Screw you. I do muay thai three days a week, so don't make out like I'm some kind of swizzle stick.” I take another huge bite to punctuate my point.

“Perish the thought,” he murmurs.

We devour the rest of our baked beans and corn bread in silence. Without apparent effort, he finishes nearly double the amount of the food on my own plate, after which he watches me, arms crossed, until I'm done.

“What is it now?” I demand, through my last bite of beans.

He runs a finger down my nose. “You're sunburned.”

As he carries his tray to the trash, I take a long moment to enjoy the view of his retreating back, then catch the pair of teenage girls at the table next to us doing the same thing. They wear identical looks of avid interest, like Newman when he scents a freshly opened can of Iams. God help me, is that what my face looks like when I look at him? No wonder Nicole gave me a hard time.

By the time we load the last of our finds into the Jeep, it's almost dark. My bangs have acquired a texture I believe beauty editors refer to as “beachy,” and my skin is overcooked in its marinade of sweat and sunscreen. As we collapse into our seats, Eamon holds out his hand for a high five. “Wow, what a haul. Nice job, swizzle stick.”

“Oh, you wouldn't dare.”

He waggles his fingers. “Come on, don't leave me hanging here.”

“No. I'm not going to validate you for calling me that,” I tell him.

Suddenly his face contorts with confused discomfort, and he fishes a hand in between the car seat and his ass. He pulls out an invisible dangling object and holds it up for my inspection, eyes wide with innocence. “Look, Sarina! It's your sense of humor! Do you want it back?”

Chest vibrating with suppressed laughter, I pluck it from his fingers and hold it up, as if uncertain. “Wait, where does this go? I feel like I should swallow it, but I'm not really sure I want to swallow something that's been in your—”

His laughter drowns out the rest of my words. Still smiling, he starts the car and we leave. Once we get back into town, he suggests a stop at Polvo's for fish tacos and queso since it's been so long since our barbecue. Belatedly, I remember that it's Saturday night. Saturday night means cocktails. And an icy beverage would sure hit the spot after a long day in the sun.

The front porch of the restaurant, with its garish mural, dangling garlands, and relentlessly corny mariachi music, is noisy with laughter and conversation. Every time I eat here, it reminds me of one of my early dates with Noah. Throughout the meal, he conversed with the waiter in flawless Spanish, at one point striking up an extended conversation with the guy. When it ended, he turned to me, smiling. “He's from Mexico City,” he explained.

“Mmm,” I said. “And that whole thing had nothing to do with impressing me.” But instead of denying it, he just blushed. Which was adorable. “It's okay,” I told him. “It's working.”

Two hours and three double-tall Tito's and sodas later, Eamon and I realize he's had too many to drive, so we decide to stay for a while until we sober up. By the time he pulls into my driveway, it is 1:30 in the morning.

He puts the car in park and turns to me, smiling. “I had an awesome time today, Ree. Thanks for taking me along with you.”

The car cabin is warm and dark, and sitting here with him late at night, after the most enjoyable day I can ever remember spending with a guy, is leading my mind down a dangerous path. I have to get the hell out of here.

“Me too—we found some awesome stuff,” I say, reaching for the door. “Nice job on your first Round Top.”

I watch till the lights of his car disappear around the corner, then exhale a slow breath. This is not good. This is not good at all. Despite my resolution to put a bullet in my crush, I've been using his project as a way to indulge my craving to be near him, and, instead of burning out, it's just getting stronger. I have to find a way to distance myself. Only problem is, it's the last thing in the world that I actually want to do.

I try. I really do. I promise myself that I will not initiate contact with him unless it's legitimately necessary for the project, and, over the next few weeks, I stick to it. Which ultimately doesn't have much of an effect, because he calls me or emails me or texts me several times a day. Sometimes it relates to the house; sometimes it doesn't. He calls me to settle a dispute with a friend about Georges St-Pierre's weight class. He sends me links to some clothes he is thinking of getting his two small nieces as a gift. (I think they're adorable, sporty instead of saccharine, but what do I know?)

“Eamon, I've never met your nieces,” I remind him. “And I have no idea how your sister-in-law likes to dress them. Why don't you ask your mother?”

“But
you're
a girl,” he says, as though this should explain everything.

One Saturday in the middle of October, Nicole and I head to South Congress for brunch and shopping. A slight crispness in the air is the first hint of cool weather that we've had since March, so all the boutiques have set out their limited selections of cold-weather clothing in an attempt to seduce us warm-climate dwellers
with fantasies of woolly autumnal layering. Two jackets and one studded belt later, we head down the street to my favorite SoCo shop, Uncommon Objects. Two parts pirate treasure chest and one part grandma's attic, it's a big, jumbled space packed literally to the rafters with art, vintage tableware, and miscellaneous knickknacks of the most useless and fascinating kind. Sort of like all of Round Top condensed into one slightly overwhelming space.

As we meander the aisles, a tall, chunky brass lamp catches my eye—it would look perfect in Eamon's office and I know he will love it. I email him a photo and continue browsing.

“How's Eamon's job going, by the way?” Nicole says as I put the lamp down at the register a few minutes later.

I eyeball her suspiciously, but her face is perfectly neutral. She hasn't abandoned her pet theory for a minute, but she's not going to antagonize me by getting into it again.

“It's great,” I reply. “Joe's been making good progress, and we've almost filled up the guest room at Ame's rental with furniture.” Using the nickname that his closest friends call him gives me a guilty little frisson of pleasure, and I'm sure Nicole is going to call me out on it. Miraculously, it slips past her radar.

“And what about Balm, what have you heard from them?”

“Nothing yet,” I tell her, trying to sound unconcerned even though the unusual silence from Jamie is beginning to worry me. But, of course, she isn't fooled.

“Don't worry,” she says. “It's a great design, and I've seen you present. There's no way they won't hire you.”

“I thought so, too, but they brought in some big guns to submit proposals.” I fill her in on my run-in with Roger Harris from my MaKA days.

“Roger Harris is a pretentious twit,” she says. “What the heck does he know about luxury spas? They must just be working
through their official channels or something. You know everything takes three times as long when you have to do it by committee.”

When we reach the car, she unlocks the trunk so we can load our treasures inside. “Oh, hey, I've been meaning to ask you, isn't Round Top coming up soon? I've got a corner in the living room that's just begging for a wild mustang sculpture.”

I turn to her in dismay. “Oh crap, honey, it's over. It ended last weekend.”

She dumps her shopping bag into the trunk with a plop. “You mean you went already? Without me?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry, love. All those times you came with me I thought you were just humoring me. I didn't realize you were actually into it.”

“Well, it was more about spending time with you and less about the mustang sculptures, but yeah. So you just went by yourself?”

“No, I took Eamon. We found a bunch of stuff for his house.”

She cocks her head to one side, deliberately. “Oh really!”

Here we go. With two little words, the gloves are off. “Yes.”

“I can see it would have been way too much work for you to email him photos of stuff, like you did just now,” she says understandingly.

“You're very astute, Nicole. It was much more efficient for him to come with me and see things in person, instead of sitting in Austin with his phone lighting up every ten minutes.”

“Certainly. And did he enjoy himself?”

“He was happy as a pig in shit. He is a born thrifter.”

“Adorable! And did you enjoy
yourself
?”

“I always enjoy Round Top,” I say sweetly.

“It
sounds
like fun!” she squeals. “Gosh, the two of you hanging out together all day, cruising the field in search of goodies…eating tailgate barbecue, swapping stories, taking turns cracking
each other up—it almost sounds like what I remember a great date being like, back when I was still single and kicking!”

“I know, we thought so too! That probably explains why we wound up screwing in the back of the Jeep before we drove home!”

A middle-aged guy passing on the sidewalk does a double take.

Nicole pulls a fascinated face. “Excellent! As good as you remembered?”

“Even better! Except, he's so tall, the conditions were a little awkward, you know?”

She wags her finger at me, a smile of pure evil breaking across her face. “Oh, see, I just busted you, missy. That little detail right there tells me you actually thought about what it
would
be like.”

I can feel every inch of the massive blush that floods my face. “You know that you're terrifying, right?” I mutter.

She beams. “It is my mission in life. To terrify my friends.”

I wait for her to return to the attack, but having forced me to admit to the Jeep fantasy, she's apparently decided she has broken me sufficiently for the moment. I give her two weeks at the outside before she brings it up again.

The following Thursday, Eamon doesn't show up for our weekly site meeting, which is highly unusual. He is radio silent on text and email. After lunch I give in to concern and try him on his cell. After it rings a few times, he answers, voice soggy.

“Hey!” I say, unreasonably glad as always to hear his voice. “What's the matter, you hungover?”

He groans. “I wish. I'm sick as hell. I think I've got the flu.”

Men are such drama queens when they don't feel good. “Sack up, Roy. Pop a DayQuil and you'll be back in business. We missed you at the site meeting this morning.”

“I've already taken everything in my medicine cabinet. I'm serious, Mahler, I feel awful.”

“What's the matter? Is it a stomach flu, or original flavor?”

“Original,” he replies. “I'm not snotty, but I feel all feverish, and everything
aches
.” His voice grows a little petulant, and I can't repress a smile.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “Where's that championship spirit? You recovered from a massive car crash, and a little flu's kicking your ass? Don't tell me you're getting soft in your old age.”

“I don't want to talk to you anymore,” he complains. “If you think of it, call me later to make sure I haven't died.”

I'm still smiling as I tuck the Honda into a parking space outside Balm, where I'm due for a quick drive-by visit. To make sure everything is humming along smoothly, I like to drop by each of my job sites unannounced a few times a week, in addition to the regularly scheduled site meeting (when, impressively, the site somehow never fails to be a buzzing hive of activity).

Joe Martinez, however, has worked with me for too long to be surprised or alarmed when I materialize in front of him without warning.

“Hello, Sarina,” he says. “Everything looking good today?” And it is. I'm pleased. During demo, they figured out that, with a little creative redistribution of some plumbing pipes from the floor above, we'll be able to add an extra seven inches to the height of the new treatment rooms. It's going to make a big difference in those small spaces. Over the cacophony of hammering, we talk through a couple of other minor updates he has for me, and then I'm ready to head back home.

“Oh, by the way,” says Joe, holding a piece of dangling electrical cable aside so that I can pass, “who was that guy who was here earlier?”

“What guy?”

He shrugs. “I don't know. Came by himself and took a bunch of photos.”

This sounds ominous. “Was it a building inspector?”

“Nah, too fancy. Tall, skinny. Nerdy glasses.”

Oh no. I know exactly who it was.

And there's only one reason I can think of why he would have been here.

I feel like I just got kicked in the chest by a Clydesdale. My eyes drift around the room, settling on one of Joe's workers, who is shifting some stacks of steel wall studs into a corner, out of the way of traffic. Reaching down, lifting them up. Reaching down, lifting them up.

“What's wrong?” says Joe. “You're staring at Ivan like he kicked your dog.”

I pull my eyes away from his worker. “Bad news, Joe. That tall skinny guy was bad news. Nothing to do with you,” I add, as he frowns. “Just very bad news for me.”

They gave the job to Roger Harris
. I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around it. How could his design possibly have been better? I know Roger's work—it's functional, tasteful, perfectly decent work. But it isn't
great
. It isn't striking, or original, or creative, it's just…adequate. And this is what they want for the future of their brand? Adequate?

I hiss out a frustrated sigh and collapse on the grass. I didn't feel like going home after Joe's accidental revelation, so I headed to my favorite spot in Austin—the shady, grassy hillside overlooking the Barton Springs Pool. Down in the pool, kids are splashing and shrieking in the chilly, sunlit water; if I were in a better mood, I'd sit on the pool deck and dangle my legs in. But that would
require me to be pleasant to the people around me, and right now I don't think I'm capable of that.

Roger Harris
. Ugh. Why? I cast my mind back to the presentation, trying to identify any misstep I could have made, any question I answered weakly, but there's nothing—the design was excellent, and I presented it well. I walked out of there with the same feeling I used to get when I knew I'd aced a presentation in college—and I'd never once been wrong before. So why didn't this go my way?

Jamie's voice, when she answers the phone, is squeaky with guilt. “Hi, Sarina!”

“Hi, Jamie. How are things going?”

“Oh, you know, busy,” she peeps. “The addition is looking great! Joe told me about the ceiling in the treatment rooms, so I went ahead and approved that change order. Totally worth it!”

“Yeah, we were pleased when we figured that out. Listen, I hate to be a pest, but I'm just wondering if there's been any decision regarding the contract for Dallas and Houston. Are there any questions I can answer for the investment team, anything like that?”

“Oh gosh,” she says, sounding so uncomfortable that I almost feel bad for her. “Thank you for asking, but you know what—unfortunately, as much as we all loved your proposal, we've decided to go with somebody else. It was such a difficult decision, I can't even tell you. I was pulling for you all the way, but at the end of the day I wasn't alone in making the decision, so…”

I breathe in through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to demand to know exactly
when
she was planning on sharing this information with me. “Okay. Well, thank you for telling me” (eventually), “and thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit the proposal.”

“Oh, honey, of course,” she says, abruptly letting go of her stilted professional manner. “Believe me, I reeeeeaaallly wanted it
to be you. Loved your ideas, loved the green walls, loved it all. Loved it, loved it, loved it.”

“Well…then, do you mind if I ask why you decided to go with the other architect?”

She sighs. “Money. If it was just about the design, it was you all the way. But the cost…just your rough estimate that you included was thirty percent higher than the next person's; and after we gave the proposals to a GC outfit that one of the investors knows, they roughed it out even higher.”

“Well, but,” I say, carefully modulating my voice so that I don't sound like a whining child, “we could value-engineer it with the GC. I had always envisioned that we would do that.”

“I know, and I asked him about that, but he said the cost of the design was just too high. He said it wasn't only materials or finishes; apparently just the base cost of installing the gray water system, and all the irrigation and specialty lighting for the plants, was a huge number that wasn't going to go anywhere.”

I pop my mouth open to argue that we didn't have to irrigate with gray water, it could be just regular plumbing lines, but the futility of it hits me in the face like a two-by-four. This is no longer a possibility; they have hired someone else. Who was on my job site, taking photos and notes on
my
work, so that he can replicate the details
I
designed because he's not creative enough to come up with his own.

“Okay,” I say, the fight going out of me like air out of a balloon. “I understand.”

“I really am just gutted, Sarina,” Jamie insists. “The guy we hired, he's all right, but he's not great. But he
is
experienced, and the investors liked that too.”

“Well, now
I'm
a little more experienced,” I say, unable to keep a slight tinge of bitterness out of my voice.

She clucks. “It
stinks
. But for what it's worth, I recommend you to everyone, doll. Everyone. My friend's husband is looking
to open a retail store downtown somewhere. It's not much of a budget, but it might be interesting…”