The plan worked for a couple of hours while he was ripping the old carpeting out. He had to pile the pieces in the backyard, in lieu of a Dumpster. Either he or Sandy would have to arrange for one soon.
Rich was happy to find the hardwood largely in good condition, although covered in gunk. It wasn’t going to look brand-new, but once sanded and varnished, the floor would have a rustic quality to match the house. Only the laundry room had a patch of water damage, making it necessary to replace some boards. It wasn’t something he’d done before, but he’d seen it on This Old House and knew he could manage.
What caused him trouble was not having a proper floor sander. His orbital sander would do fine in the tight space of the laundry room but wasn’t an option for the whole house. Unfortunately, Sandy was off somewhere at the beach having fun, and he’d managed to alienate the only other person he knew in town. For a good ten minutes, Rich toyed with the idea of calling Olly, apologizing and then asking for a favor. The idea had a strong appeal.
Rich pictured Olly framed by the door, backlit by the sun, blond hair lit up like a halo. Like the first time they’d met. He’d be cranky at first but would loosen up eventually. Rich would take him out to lunch. He might even smile, making those dimples appear.
Out of nowhere, the smell of sex assaulted Rich’s nostrils. It had to be a product of his imagination, because all the doors and windows stood wide open and he’d moved the couch to the back porch. No, he decided, he better not call Olly. And he didn’t even know Olly’s number, he belatedly realized. Well, that simplified things.
Stomach grumbling, Rich walked two blocks to the main street, and from there another two to a taco stand he’d spotted earlier. There were a couple of wooden benches out front, and Rich settled there to consume his fish burrito and horchata. All throughout lunch, Rich tried exceptionally hard not to think of Olly. By nature of the human brain, he couldn’t think of anything else. Memories kept sneaking in—Olly fondling the sideboard and looking and beaming at him, Olly in his jacket, with messy hair, face flushed. Olly naked— Fuck.
It would be a long fucking day if Rich didn’t find a distraction. He considered getting drunk or stoned, or possibly both at the same time, but he liked his liver, and the prospect of becoming a wino scared him a little.
The solution to Rich’s conundrum came in the shape of a couple of Hispanic guys in a beat-up pickup truck. From the lawnmower in the back, he correctly assumed they were landscapers. For lunch and twenty bucks, they happily drove him to the hardware store and back to the house with the rented floor sander. Even better, for another forty, they agreed to pile the scraps of the old carpet into their truck and haul them away.
Rich kept sanding till well into the evening, but it wasn’t quite as efficient at keeping his mind from wandering as he’d hoped. Pushing a buzzing machine back and forth didn’t require a lot of brain power. Worries and uneasy thoughts about things left behind in Chicago, uncertainties of his father’s legacy and Julie’s call—they mixed with unsettling memories of Olly. Rich’s mind skipped from one topic to another, unable to settle anywhere peaceful.
After dinner, he tried to read—a dog-eared copy of LA Confidential he’d found in one of Sandy’s boxes in the garage—but the words slipped through his brain without leaving a trace. The house echoed with emptiness. When his phone rang, he hoped it would be Sandy telling him she was on her way back. A chance of Olly calling crossed his mind too, till he remember Olly wasn’t likely to have his number either.
The caller was Julie. “Richard, you’re a moron,” were her first words. She sounded mad as a wasp.
His heart started beating faster. “Good evening to you too, Jules.” He forced the words out.
“Fuck you. I know what you did. Martin told me in confidence—seeing how you and I used to be involved.”
The fucker. “So the new accountant knows his job, I take it.”
His words only incensed her more. “Rich, why the hell did you do it? All that money—”
Rich cut her off. He didn’t want to go into details. “I had to. You would’ve done the same.”
“No, I wouldn’t have. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rich imagined Julie’s dark eyes sparkling with anger and hurt. He’d seen that look too often. Especially toward the end—she accused him of keeping himself hidden, not sharing. God knows she was right, but there was no point in going down that path again. “What does Martin plan to do?” he asked instead.
She huffed, and there was defeat in her voice. “Nothing. There’s no money missing, and airing the dirty laundry wouldn’t do the firm any good.”