South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [133]
There was virtually no money coming in and she was already dipping into what she’d slated for the roof. There wasn’t much in that fund. The sale of the apartment had paid for the hotel outright, with only a little left over for repairs. And now she was cold all the time and pouring heat through the building at such a rate that she was afraid her wood would run out and she wouldn’t be able to pay the gas bill to run the radiators. How quickly she’d come to the same impasse as Gladys. And how swiftly her devotion had grown to match Gladys’s too.
She closed the bedroom and bathroom doors to make the attic as small as possible and fed the stove logs and stared at the lake and painted through the hours Greyson was at school. When he got home, he helped refill the woodboxes and shovel paths to the doors at the hotel, and at 26 Bessel and then Mill Street, if Pete hadn’t beaten them to it.
The winter seemed infinite. It was possessed of a kind of quiet Madeline had never known before. It was a quiet that gave her time to paint, and to think. Sometimes instead of drawing she’d write in her sketchbook, nothing she’d ever want anyone to see. Sometimes she wrote letters to people who could never read them—Emmy, and Joe Stone, and Jackie. One night she wrote to Paul. She wouldn’t send it; it was just a way of setting down her thoughts, hopefully leaving them where they’d bother her less.
Often Greyson drew while she fixed supper in the evenings. Every time he filled Up a sketchbook, she would pick Up a new one for him at the variety store. Sometimes he was so compelled to keep drawing, in between pads, that she had to let him tear pages out of hers. It flattered her that he seemed to have copied this interest from her. Beyond that, she loved that he had this outlet for his thoughts and ideas and feelings. She knew how important that could be.
Jim stopped by to see Paul in the middle of January, just before the office was scheduled to reopen. He knocked on the back door and Paul let him into the kitchen and offered him a cup of coffee. Jim said no, and then yes, and bounced on the balls of his feet, and wouldn’t sit down, but then did.
Paul eyed him suspiciously. “Spit it out.”
“We lost the school contract.”
“What do you mean, lost it? I thought it was final.”
“They’re canceling the job. Budget cuts.”
“Hell. That’s bad news.”
“Real bad.” Jim’s leg was still jumping Up and down.
“What else?” Paul said, his eyes narrowed.
Jim said that business was not so good. Way down from last year. Not as many houses going Up. He’d been hoping it would turn around, expecting people to plan their new homes in the winter and line Up a builder for spring. It wasn’t working out, and without the school job he couldn’t keep Paul on.
“You’re joking. You just hired me, and now you don’t have enough work?”
“It’s the economy, I can’t change that.”
“Screw the economy. You don’t have any better grip on your business than that?”
“It’s nothing I have any control over. The school—”
Paul hit the table with his fist. “Screw the school. You shouldn’t have brought me all the way down here based on one job. I treated part-time seasonals better than this.” Jim’s face turned red, and he seemed about to launch into a defense that Paul knew he couldn’t stand to hear. “Forget it,” he said.
“I can give you another two weeks.”
“I don’t want another two weeks.”
“Really. That’s some attitude.”
“You’re going to talk to me about attitude?”
“I thought I was doing you a favor with this job, man. Putting you in the office, giving you a good wage.”
“A favor.”
“Well, there was no way you were going to climb around on roofs with that leg of yours, and I always felt bad for you about that. I figured I could give you a better chance than you had anywhere else.”
“A better chance.”
“You can’t tell me you were doing any good way Up there with that pizza place. And the prison, come on. You hated that. Listen. You’ll get another job. I’ll give you a good recommendation. Don’t be like this.”
Paul stood Up and opened the door. “Get out of here, Jim. And don