Page 6 of Meeting Up with the Mason

I said, “At which point the ‘chip’ part of your name becomes unfortunately literal.”

“I’ll leave a sandblaster in the truck.” He did sound worried. “Regardless, it’ll get done, and it’ll look great.”

I said, “You’re doing it, so that part’s a given.”

Chip froze, and I tried to cover with a laugh. “I mean—you helped pick out great paving stones.”

Was he as embarrassed as I was? I didn’t know anything about him other than he was an awkward Ph.D. student with a sharp sense of humor. What if he was married and had five kids?

He said, “Well, it’s got to look good for the next fifty years.”

Fifty years from now, he’d be a professor emeritus of Ancient Mesopotamia, gray at the temples and still with eyes that crinkled when he smiled and a sharp-witted retort for every remark his grandchildren served up.

How could I let that go? What if…?

Chip said, “I’ll let you know when they’re delivered, and I’ll keep you posted after I get started.”

I said, “Actually, I’m flying out. To supervise.”

Chip’s brows furrowed. “You said you weren’t. It was all going to be remote. Plus, there’s Tropical Storm Darcy.”

“Things changed.” Specifically, the mason changed. “I can arrive Monday, and I’ll stay until Thursday when you’re done.”

My heart pounded, but I could do this. Aunt Sophie had wanted me up there to vet contractors. Now I could vet the actual work. Fly out there on Aunt Sophie’s dime, work remotely from the vacation home, and meet up with the mason.

Chapter 4

Chip

Seven o’clock Monday morning, a walkway loomed before me longer than the Silk Road.

Two-hundred-sixty-one square feet of rock and dirt. A company truck loaded with equipment. Four pallets of paving stones. And Chip MacElroy, graduate student extraordinaire.

I was in so much trouble.

First order of business: demolition. I began prying up the wrecked stones and piling them in a wheelbarrow. Whenever it got full, I wheeled it the long way around (where the slope wasn’t as steep) and dumped it where the pavers would be easy to load into Dad’s truck.

As if a ton of stone could be “easy.”

Eight o’clock. This was a mistake. I would never get an entire walkway finished, not in three days. Not in three hundred days. Dad had been in construction for thirty-five years and was bang on the money: this job wasn’t worth it.

I downed half a water bottle and checked the phone. Alyssa had texted an hour ago. “Getting on the plane!”

I scrolled back through our messages. We got off topic so easily, lots of jokes and observations. Still, her coming to supervise? Doing that despite the tropical-storm-turned-hurricane kicking around the Atlantic right now? Alyssa didn’t trust me. She hadn’t planned to come to the Cape until hearing her brand-new paving stones would be laid down by some scrawny academic.

At least when she got here, she’d see I wasn’t scrawny. I’d worked summers for Dad since forever. Sure, at the beginning that meant paperwork and answering phones, but I’d climbed my share of ladders and hauled lumber. I’d gone on two archaeology digs, and there’d been lots of manual labor there. I wouldn’t blow away in a stiff breeze.

Think about it, I wanted to tell Alyssa. Every day, this Ph.D. student loaded a backpack with books and then hauled a thousand pounds of paper around campus.

Time to prove I could do it by actually doing it. I brought up an audiobook about agricultural developments in the Uruk empire and had the phone read aloud while I worked.

One stone at a time, the old walkway came up. One chapter at a time, I learned about irrigation farming.

Noon. I stripped off the gloves and broke for lunch in the shade of a maple tree.

A white Toyota Camry turned the corner and stopped in front of the house.

Heart hammering, I stuffed the remains of my lunch back into the thermal bag. Alyssa? I was damp with sweat and must have dirt smudged onto my face. Not the first impression I’d wanted to make—except this wasn’t the first. Alyssa had been impressing me for the last ten days.

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