Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
He sees me coming down the porch steps and waves me over. And he’s grinnin’ like a fuckin’ fool. “My dogs are here.”
I smile too. “I hear ’em. They’re fuckin’ loud.”
Amon claps me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’ll be inside soon. The kennel people are already setting up.”
I look over in that direction, then take in the rest of the camp. “We’re… very busy right now.”
“Shit yeah. Ryan’s got bulldozers ripping up trees back there”—Amon points behind us where a bunch of hard-hat guys are yelling things—“and Nash and me are pickin’ out the men we need for reno.”
“There’s like a hundred people here, Amon. We didn’t agree on a hundred people.”
“I know. I maybe put the word out that we were hiring a little bit too good. But don’t worry. I got your place covered. They’re gonna rip it up and put it back together and you don’t have to do a thing.”
“Wait. What about the stuff inside?”
“What stuff?”
“You know, all the shit lying around.”
“I feel like there’s a reason you’re asking me this question, so maybe let’s just skip ahead to that.”
“There is. I told Lowyn she could come pick through it.”
“Did you?” He slips his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t think he could grin any bigger, but he is. “That was so sweet. Saving all that crap for your dumpster-diving girlfriend.”
I push his arm off. “She’s not my girlfriend. And it’s not crap, Amon. It’s treasure.”
“She told you to say that, didn’t she?”
I chuckle. “Nah. But that’s what she calls it. Isn’t it better to repurpose than throw it in the dump?”
“It is. I will put together a box team and all Lowyn’s crap will be packed up and put in the church. How about that?”
“Maybe she’ll come over today and look through it.”
“Well, that would be spectacular, friend. And since you’ve got nothin’ better to do, why don’t you go make that happen.” He turns, whistles loudly, and starts yelling at some guys over near the dogs.
Then he just walks off.
But he’s right. I should go make that happen.
I don’t have her cell number and when I call the house phone, she doesn’t pick up, even though I let it ring twenty-five times. I need to get that woman an answering machine. Do they even sell those anymore?
So I take a ride into town. Having already deduced that she is not at my house, I go looking for her store. Disciple is like four blocks square, so I just take a little drive through town until I find it. Then I park out front.
I get out and look at the front window for a moment, taking it all in. McBooms, it’s called. Like McBride married a boom box, I figure. It’s clever, and I always did like clever. Plus, the lettering is stand-out good. Varsity font. Like the letters on that jacket I used to so proudly wear. And her colors are bright. Yellow and orange. Well, let’s call them… pineapple and tangerine.
Yep. This is so her. I pull the door open and go inside. A little bell jingles above my head and someone calls, “Be right there!” in a sing-songy voice.
Which gives me time to take in the interior of her shop. From the outside, McBooms looks like any other building built at the turn of the twentieth century. Red brick, three stories tall, huge picture window running down the front side, and lots of many-paned windows trimmed in white on the second and third floors.
But from the inside, it’s somethin’ else altogether.
Same three stories tall, but most of the upstairs has been removed and turned into an open ceiling bedecked with large wooden beams and curved trusses that might remind a person of a railroad bridge or the inside of a church, depending on which way one leans.
There is shit everywhere. But it’s not disorderly. In the center of the massive, almost warehouse-sized room sits a living room, something right out of the Sixties with a modular, tapered-leg couch the color of dark champagne taking up a significant portion of the space. Opposite the couch sit two wood, tapered-leg chairs with cushions the color of a Caribbean sea. And in between is a minimalist coffee table in the shape of a circle and the color of walnut. There is a credenza in the kitty-corner, top open to reveal a record player inside. And across that diagonal is an old-time black and white TV on a wheeled stand showin’ off its rabbit-ear antennas.
Pulling the look together is a massive orange rug, but underneath, and running throughout the store, the floor is made up of wide-plank boards of wood so old, they look like they have stories to tell.
There is a jukebox over in the corner and another seating arrangement—this time a dinette set with a Formica top, chrome legs and accents, and in Fifties diner checkered red.