The Rule of Threes, Marcy Campbell [short novels to read .TXT] 📗

fabric into his hands, a swatch of acrylic with a bold yellow chevron pattern.

“I’m thinking of using this fabric to cover the chairs in the outer office,” I said. “It’s technically an outdoor fabric, so it can take a lot of wear.”

He nodded appreciatively, running his hand over it. We were standing in front of my concept board. He leaned in, looking closely at it.

“What are these dotted lines?” he asked. “Is that where people walk?”

“Yes,” I said, tracing the lines with my wand. “When guests enter the space, they’ll come this way, to the secretary, Mrs. Abbott, or else continue down this way to the principal’s office.”

No longer would Mrs. Abbott have to bump her shins on the stupidly placed mini-fridge. My arrangement would provide a much better flow. No more shin bruises! Yes! Sometimes, it took a shake-up of the normal to find a new, better way. I couldn’t help but think of Olive, and the fact that I hadn’t even realized how good she was at drawing until Rachel flaked out.

“Okay, that makes sense,” Dad said, “and what’s this metal thing?”

“It’s just a sample of a drawer pull I like, for a new filing cabinet.” I pointed to a magazine photo of a white lacquer filing cabinet with bin-style pulls.

My dad shook his head. “Wow, Mags, seriously, I think you’ve thought of everything.”

I smiled so big, my face hurt. “You have to say that. You’re my dad.”

“Now excuse me, I don’t have to say anything.”

He put an arm around me and squeezed me close, and I squeezed him back, smelling the gel that he used, unsuccessfully, to get his messy hair to behave. When he hugged me the other day, I’d felt trapped, but not now. Now I didn’t want to let him go.

“Where do you get all these ideas from?” he murmured. “Must be from your mother because it certainly isn’t from me.”

I giggled, thinking about how Dad often came downstairs in the morning in pants and shirts that looked so terrible together, Mom would make him go back upstairs to change. Mom, meanwhile, used her realtor’s eye to merchandise countless rooms in the homes she was selling, hiding the flaws, highlighting the attributes. But if I got my design know-how from Mom, it was because she got it from Grandma. Thinking of Grandma, and of our phone call, still gave me a lump in my throat.

Dad kept an arm around my shoulders as he asked me, “How are you doing? With all the changes around here?”

I didn’t feel so huggy anymore; I ducked under his arm. “Fine,” I said. I moved closer to my concept board, pretending to study it.

“You know, we have to be honest with each other,” he said. “You can tell me anything, Mags.”

Yeah, right, I thought. Except that you don’t tell me anything, and you’re not honest. Not telling somebody something is still a lie, just a different kind.

From the hall came the thump of a basketball. I often heard Tony before I saw him, I realized. On cue, he came strutting into my room wearing that blue hoodie again with frayed jeans. Dad tried to take a swipe at the ball, but Tony jerked it away, pretended to take a jump shot, then motioned to Dad, who took a few steps toward my loft, and held up his hand for Tony to pass to him.

“I’ve got moves that were invented before you were even born,” Dad said.

“Way, way before I was born, old man.” Tony laughed.

They said these lines like they’d said them before, like it was a little private joke. I stood in the corner of my room, feeling my hands forming into fists. Were they actually trash-talking each other? Like Dad did with his basketball buddies? I used to go to some of his games at the YMCA, and he’d ask if I wanted to shoot around at home, but I never did. So he quit asking.

“Please don’t throw that ball in here,” I said. They could break something. If they hit my concept board, they’d wreck it.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said, grinning, “it’s only a problem if we miss, and we are not gonna miss.” He held out his hands, wanting my dad to throw the ball back to him.

Dad glanced at me. “You know, we really shouldn’t throw the ball in the house, Tony.”

Tony’s face fell. “Oh, okay. Well, are you ready to go?”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To the park,” Dad said. “Some of the guys and their sons are coming. I thought Tony could meet some other kids.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want to come, Mags?” Dad asked, a note of hopefulness in his voice.

This was a chance, maybe, to do something fun with Dad again, but I saw Tony look away. I knew he didn’t want me along. My dad probably didn’t either. I finally understood what it meant to be a third wheel. Besides, he said some of the guys and their sons. Where did I fit into that statement? Nowhere.

“No, that’s okay,” I said quietly. “I should finish my board.”

“You sure?” Dad asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I smoothed my hands over my fabric sample, watching Tony gleefully run out of my room, spinning the ball on his fingertip, like he thought he was in the NBA.

Mom was washing dishes. She liked to use super-hot water, so hot that the steam rose up around her like a smokescreen. She ran one of our yellow dishcloths around a frying pan. I didn’t say anything, just took a towel out of the drawer and started to dry. Mom liked to get everything dried and put away rather than leave stuff out overnight. It always bothered her when people who were trying to sell their houses left dishes out. “Such an easy solution to that problem,” she’d said on more than one occasion. Most problems weren’t so simple to solve.

“You didn’t want to play basketball with the boys?” she asked.

So they were “the boys” now, like a dynamic