Page 98 of The Fix-Up

“There’s the sister I know and love.” I pulled the project I’d been working on each night before bed. Well, most nights. Okay, some nights. “Will the light bother you if I keep it on for a little while?”

“Nah. I was going to read a little anyway.” She looked over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re crocheting again. Yay. I need another scarf. To add to the four others you’ve given me.”

I scowled. “I’ll have you know those scarves were made with love. And I’m just crocheting until I finish this.” I held up an unidentifiable shape made of bright-pink yarn. “It’s a slipper for Mom for Mother’s Day.”

“Let me guess. It’ll match the one you gave her for Mother’s Day, what, two years ago? You know most people think slippers should come in pairs.”

I looked down my nose at her. “This kind of quality takes time. It will be worth the wait.” Having an attention span only slightly longer than a gnat, I could only get one finished before Mother’s Day that year. But I wrapped it up with a note that said the second one would be coming soon. Two years was soon, right?

Aggie cackled. “I love you.”

“Same.”

“Question.” Aggie sat up and plunked Fred the Sad Bicycle Clown from the nightstand. “Can we talk about this?”

“That’s Fred. Keeps me company at night.” He still gave me the creeps, but I was getting used to him.

“Boy, do we need to get you a man.”

“Ha. Ha. Someone in Ollie’s family was really into them. There’s a lot of these in Gil’s room. Fred isn’t the creepiest. By far.”

Aggie studied the figurine for a while, even flipped it over like she was looking for a maker’s mark. She pulled her phone out and began to scroll around on it. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“What?”

She held up the phone to my face. “Fred had some aging on him, and if you look at it closely, it’s really well done. Definitely hand-painted. It reminded me of something I’d seen at work. It turns out Fred is by a famous artist.”

“No way.” I took the phone from her. An online auction site was pulled up to a page of figurines similar in style to Fred, all by the same artist.

“Every one of his figures are one-offs.” She leaned over to look at the phone with me. “Look how much his other ones are worth.”

“Holy crap,” I breathed. “Does that say three thousand dollars?” I scrolled further. “That one sold for fifty-five hundred.”

Aggie held Fred up. “This dude is a gold mine.”

“No way.” I stared into Fred’s soulless eyes. “But he’s so…creepy.”

“You said there’s a whole room of them.”

I nodded.

She bumped me with her shoulder. “Not so creepy now, huh?”

FORTY

Love is caring for someone. It means that you really like someone.

—BOONE K., AGE 5

Since he’d introduced himself to Gil, Teddy had been showing up more frequently, now during business hours and always when he spotted Gil through the window. He’d sidle up to a stool at the counter and, over a glass of iced tea, he would chatter away. I’d heard most of his stories already—about Ollie and the antics they got into. Occasionally, he’d bring up Gil’s grandmother, hoping, I think, to engage Gil in some way. But Gil kept his distance, always polite but never anything more.

“You know, he doesn’t mean you any harm,” I said one day as we were closing. It was a hot day in late April but Iris had volunteered to walk to the bus stop and pick up Oliver anyway. Probably to get out of cleaning up. “He was Ollie’s best friend and your grandmother’s brother. Maybe give him a chance?”

Gil grunted in reply.

“I was thinking if anyone knew the story of what happened between your grandmother and Ollie, he’d be the one. But I guess you’d have to actually sit down and talk to him.”

He scowled as he scrubbed down a table in the dining room.

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