Page 22 of Steve's Barmaid
“Okay, then I shall ensure you have plenty of time to talk to her. For now, should we call the rest of the bunch and get this bed and table sorted so we can start on the new roof?”
“Yes.” I waved a hand at him. “Call them all up. If we cut the rest of this into pieces, we should be able to get it out in no time.”
By the time Billie and Joey returned with a cart pulled by two hestrs, we had emptied the rest of the attic and made good progress removing the old roof. It would be a several-week project, but it would go quickly with so many of us working on it. We piled all the old furniture into the cart, and Billie and Joey headed to Osif’s workshop, promising to stop by the kitchens to get us food.
Soon, it was well past midday and work on the roof was hot but progressing nicely. Shingles flew onto the ground to join the dents in the lawn, and just as my stomach was beginning to rumble, Billie and Joey were back with baskets of food and a few blankets for us to sit on.
“I thought we’d have a picnic,” Billie explained as she spread the blankets on the grass.
I gathered that a picnic involved eating food outside on the ground. While I would rather have a chair, I was grateful to be eating outside. There was no doubt I smelled from all the manual labor I’d been doing all morning. An outdoor picnic with Billie sounded much better than sitting in close quarters with a bunch of strangers in the longhouse. Though, given the opportunity to shower, I wouldn’t mind being in close quarters with Billie again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BILLIE
The next several weeks went by in a blur. We worked from sun up to sun down. While I knew I was taking on a big project, as I saw the sheer physical labor involved in redoing the roof, fixing the windows, and adding stabilizing beams to the ceiling, I realized I wouldn’t have been able to do this without orkin help. Joey and I pulled our weight, and I was continually astonished by her physical capacity, given her tiny size. Watching her lift tables on her own was impressive. She was a force to be reckoned with. By the end of the first three weeks, we had all what I had started to think of as “the big stuff” done. The roof and exterior were finished, and finally—the doors and windows were fixed. The bar was completely clean inside and out. It was time for the interior work.
Over the last several weeks, I was with Steve constantly, but generally in large groups. We all got to know each other as we worked and chatted. Steve was funny in a quiet, unexpected way. Sometimes, his jokes would almost slip under the radar,and I would chuckle to myself. He was curious about anything and everything. He didn’t stop at questions about the humans or Earth. One day, he asked me to explain a telephone. Given his dated understanding of Earth, it took much longer to explain than I expected, but I didn’t mind. He wanted to know everything. He made me think of someone who had been told “don’t ask questions” his entire life and was now making up for it with an unending quest for more information. It was both endearing and overwhelming. I didn’t know all the answers to his questions, but he always appreciated whatever I could tell him.
One morning, while we were working together on installing window panes, Steve asked me to explain a cassette player.
“My mom said it was a way to play music but never really could get me to understand beyond that,” he said.
The wheels turned in my head. I didn’t even remember the last time I had seen a cassette tape, considering how technology had advanced since his mom had been abducted. Her knowledge of Earth stopped in 1991, so Steve’s knowledge of Earth also ended there.
“Well, it is a little box with two speakers, and noise comes out of them. You put another tiny box inside of it and press play, and it plays the songs that have been recorded onto the tape. We no longer use them, so I am unsure if I am explaining it well.”
“You mean you don’t listen to music anymore?” He was confused.
“No, we still do! It’s just that the technology has changed a lot since then. Now everything is cloud-based.”
“Music comes from the clouds on earth?” Steve looked shocked.
I did my very best to keep a poker face and not laugh out loud, having to breathe through my nose several times.
“No. Not actual clouds,” I said trying to keep my voice even. “Everything is virtual now, you don’t need to physically own a cassette to play music.”
“But how does the cloud know what music you want it to play if you don’t have the tape?”
“I really don’t even know how it works, honestly. I know we’ve advanced far beyond cassettes.” I shrugged.
It was these little interactions with him that pulled me to him. He wanted to know and experience so much and had spent so much time wanting to know so much and having no one to ask.
I was also getting to know the other Snaerfírar, and they were solid, if somewhat quiet orkin. I was usually the one that got everyone to laugh, a role I also played at home. I loved the group that we had all working toward my dream. Longing for more alone time with Steve, I concocted errands that would only involve the two of us. Whenever we worked, my eyes strayed toward him, and I hoped it wasn’t my imagination that I felt his eyes on me, too.
It was a few more days of solid work after the roof was finished when we ran into a problem—we hadn’t picked out any interior furnishings. Osif wanted me to have the final say on all the bar decor and tasked me with meeting with the appropriate merchants. I was ready to ask Joey to spend the morning shopping with me when, to my pleasant surprise, Steve volunteered. I gave Joey a furtive look, and she just gave me a barely perceptible smile back.
I had a list of all the things that I wanted to look at and it would take all morning, if not all day. Here I was, finally presented with some time alone with Steve and I was nervous. I had developed a major crush on him, but nothing was going to happen if we were never alone.
“Ready for a day of shopping?” asked Steve.
“I mean. I canshop. Are you sure you can keep up with me?” I teased.
“I shall even carry parcels,” he said with a straight face.
I laughed. “Alright, let’s be off.”
It was a bit of a walk to the town center as the bar was right on the edge of the village. Suddenly all of my thoughts shriveled up, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to talk to Steve about. We walked in companionable silence for awhile until, much to my appreciation, Steve spoke.
