Everyone Called Me His Girl, but He Said It Was Nothing novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Frank's Girl

Hayes, the carpenter who learned his trade from her father, buys her breakfast and tells her who he really is, and Gavin texts that Adele is in the ER.

He bought me breakfast at a diner on Wickenden Street because I hadn't eaten since the shrimp.

I put my father's toolbox on the seat next to me and kept one hand on it.

He ordered black coffee and eggs and watched me do it.

"You don't remember me," he said.

"I remember a tall kid who let me sand a drawer front when I was ten."

"You said I was doing it wrong."

"You were."

"I was," he said, and his mouth moved.

"You held the block like it owed you money."

"Frank said that."

"Frank said everything," I said.

For a second the diner went away.

My father had said everything, and loudly, and most of it was a joke he'd told before.

"Hayes," I said.

"He called you Hayes the Hammer, because you hit everything twice."

"I got better."

"He said you were the best hands he ever trained."

Hayes looked into his coffee.

"Did he?"

"Every summer."

"I didn't know he was sick," he said.

"I found out two years ago."

"There was a plaque on a pew at his church with his name."

"I went to the secretary and she said he had a daughter in Providence, and she had an old address that ended up at that building."

"So you came to find me."

"I came to find Frank's girl," he said.

"I didn't know whose building it was until the doorman asked who I was here for."

He stopped.

"Rhea."

"I should tell you my last name before you hear it from someone else."

"Ames," I said.

I didn't know why I knew.

It was the way he'd looked at the doorman's desk.

"Warren Ames was my father," he said.

"Gavin is my half-brother."

"Adele married my father when I was ten."

I put down my fork.

"Gavin told me he had a brother who left."

"I did."

"He said you never called."

"I called for three months," Hayes said.

"The house phone."

"Adele answered every time."

He said it flat, without asking me to be sorry.

Then he looked at the toolbox, and at the duffel bag, and at my face.

"You walked out of that building with your father's box and a bag."

"What happened?"

So I told him.

I told him about the dinner and the shrimp and the car.

I told him I'd signed a paper that called my father's insurance a gift.

I said it all in a low voice with my eyes on my plate.

When I stopped, he had finished his eggs and hadn't moved.

"Five years," he said.

"Five years of the tea."

"The tea," I said.

"And the sea bass, and the cake with the sugar cut, and the seven a.m. text if I was late."

"Does she pay you?"

"No."

"Does she say thank you?"

"She says dear."

He nodded slowly.

"That's about right."

"That's how she says it to people she's using."

I gave a short laugh that surprised me.

"You're not going to tell me I should have known."

"I'd be a fool."

"I lived there from ten to seventeen, and I didn't know until I was seventeen."

"What happened at seventeen?"

"Another day," he said.

"You've had enough for one morning."

"Maybe I want to hear it."

"Then you'll get it," he said, "when you've slept."

He paid before I could reach for my bag.

"Frank would have told you to stop paying interest on somebody else's house," he said.

"He'd have said it louder."

I smiled for the first time in two days.

"He would."

Outside, the cold air made my eyes sting.

He carried the toolbox without being asked.

My phone started to buzz in my pocket.

I took it out.

It was Gavin.

"Mom is in the ER."

"Her stomach."

"Please come."

I read it twice.

I could feel Hayes beside me, not looking at the screen.

"Go if you want," he said.

"I'll drive you."

"Or I'll go home and say nothing."

I thought of Adele on a gurney.

I thought of my notebook, and the seven a.m. text, and her small tired smile.

My father had been a man who stopped at every accident on the highway.

"I'm going," I said.

"Not for her," I said.

"For me."

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