The Pool Boy(25)

She waves as she gets into her car. “We’ll be in touch.”

“I look forward to hearing from you.”

I watch her car until it disappears, and then start walking. I don’t call a cab yet, because I’m going to find out why James is here building a house for the place interviewing me. It seems too convenient to be purely coincidence, but then again…I’ve heard of stranger things.

It takes me maybe fifteen minutes to get back to the house—and by that time I’m wishing I’d brought different shoes. I hear the sound of a drill from inside, and wonder if I should just ask him about it when I see him tomorrow—No, if I don’t ask him now it’ll just burrow into my brain and drive me crazy before we even get to dinner tomorrow. And if there’s something he’s been keeping from me, maybe tomorrow is off the table. I realize that it’s just late afternoon, and wonder if he came here straight from my house.

I push open the door and see the first floor is mainly completed, though the finishing touches haven’t been added yet. The sound of work is coming from the back of the house, and I wander through it, looking for him. The house is well done, with clean lines and lots of open space.

Finally, I find him. He’s on a ladder installing a heavy iron and glass light fixture to the ceiling. I don’t want to startle him when he’s working with something so heavy and breakable, so I hang back, waiting until I see that it’s secure.

Finally, he releases his hold.

“James,” I say, and just like I thought he might, he jumps while scrambling to see who said his name.

There’s confusion on his face that’s quickly replaced by a genuine smile. “Hey there. What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I say. “My interview was with The Harrison Foundation.”

He hops off the ladder and comes over, all smiles. “That’s great! You didn’t mention who it was with. How’d it go?” He kisses me, and I find myself pulling away.

“I didn’t know that you were a contractor.”

He raises an eyebrow at me, and his voice is playful. “You thought I made a living as a pool boy?”

“Caretaker,” I say, blood rushing to my face as I realize how ridiculous I sound. “You do this on the side?”

“I do that on the side,” he says. He takes off the work gloves he’s wearing and stretches. “I think I mentioned I’m filling in for one of your guys this week. I took it for the extra money.”

A bunch of little things click into place all of a sudden. “That’s how you made all those great suggestions on my design. How you knew that they would work. Why didn’t you tell me what you really do?”

He shrugs. “It never came up. I mean the way we met…we talked about you and your fight with your dad and what you wanted to do with your life. And after that—”

“I didn’t ask.” A surge of shame washes through me. I assumed because he was doing the job of a caretaker that that’s all he did—that that’s all he was qualified for. I didn’t ask because I assumed that I already knew the answer. And there are a hundred assumptions that line up behind my assumed answer that led me to those conclusions.

I’m no better than that rich girl who tried to sleep with him just for the thrill, because I didn’t care to go any deeper.

“Vera?”

“I’m sorry.” Tears start burning my eyes. I try to blink them away. I turn away from James, even though there’s a zero percent chance he didn’t already see them.

“Hey,” he says, and I feel him come up behind me. “You’re okay. I knew we were going to talk on our date. Cover all the first date topics. We’re still going to, right?” He hugs me from behind. “You’ve had a crazy week. I don’t think less of you for not asking.”

“You probably should.”

“No,” he says, “I shouldn’t. We all come from a certain worldview. Some things are built into it. And we learn those limits, we grow as people.”

I close my eyes and relax against his chest. Take the lesson, move on. Open up. Try. Okay. Actually, I won’t have to try, because I know deep down that I will never forget the shame of this moment. I will never forget the kind of assumptions I made about him.

“Okay,” I say out loud.

“Good.”

“Actually,” I say, “do you think we could have our date tonight?”

He turns me around to face him. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think I can wait until tomorrow to ask all the questions I have now.”