This Is Where We Live: A Novel by Janelle Brown

Author:Janelle Brown [Brown, Janelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Sagas, Contemporary Women, Literary
ISBN: 038552403X
Google: C_3G4hOTbQsC
Amazon: B0036S4DNI
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Published: 2010-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Jeremy

THERE WERE SEVENTY-EIGHT VARIETIES OF NAILS FOR SALE IN Home Depot, and Jeremy couldn’t fathom the differences between most of them. He stood there in the carpentry aisle, contemplating the function of the L-shape flooring nail and the PNI hardened T-nail, wondering whether he needed 1⅜-inch nails or 1¼-inch nails or whether he should just buy the 2000-piece PortaNail Complete Nailing Kit and be done with it. The thrum of a forklift reverberated off the warehouse ceiling, and a red light flashed at the end of the aisle, summoning someone who never seemed to arrive. He hated this place; it was a reminder of his own inadequacies as a man. Men were supposed to know how to buy nails, why a wet/dry shop vac was necessary, the uses of plywood versus pressure-treated lumber. Not Jeremy. Three years later, he still hadn’t opened the forty-eight-bit drill set that his father-in-law had given him for their first Christmas because, frankly, the thing terrified him.

He grabbed three boxes of nails at random and turned, nearly colliding into Barry, who had come up silently behind him. His father-in-law shook his head when he saw what Jeremy held in his hands.

“Those aren’t going to do us any good. They’re good for stapling paper together and that’s about it.” Barry shuffled over to the wall of nails and selected four different boxes, depositing them in the cart that sat, laden with lumber and drywall, in the center of the aisle. He scratched the liver spot that capped the bald crown of his head and then tugged at the sagging waistband of his pleat-front slacks. “For what we’re doing, we’ll also need a nail gun, preferably a Stanley, and some sturdy 3½-inchers. I can’t believe you two don’t own a nail gun. I could have sworn I gave you one. What have you been using, a regular old double-face?”

It was a pointed question, as far as Jeremy could tell: Jeremy had already given Barry ample evidence that he had no clue as to what was in their toolbox. If the seventy-one-year-old man was trying to show him up, he was succeeding. “I don’t know,” he said, and smiled to hide his humiliation. “I don’t think we’ve been using anything, actually.”

Barry ran his hands authoritatively over a stack of lethal-looking nail guns and chuckled. “You know, when Claudie was four years old she asked me for a hammer for Christmas? She had her very own toolbox, full of little kid-size tools, and she used to play with them just like they were dolls.” Jeremy did know this, since Barry liked to repeat this fact rather frequently, as if this one fleeting moment in Claudia’s otherwise undistinguished hardware career had bonded father and daughter together permanently. In the three days that Barry and Ruth had been in town, he’d already brought this fact up at least four times. It was quite likely that Barry’s memory was starting to go. He was starting to drive Jeremy a little nuts.

But really, Jeremy shouldn’t complain, because his in-laws were saving their asses.

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