Chapter 4: The Spare Room

Eli's apartment sat above Corrigan Auto Restoration on Dock Road, up an outside staircase that rang under my boots.

I carried two suitcases and a jar of sourdough starter wrapped in a dish towel.

He carried the rest and took the stairs two at a time.

He never once looked back to see if I was keeping up.

The door opened on a kitchen with a scrubbed wooden table and a coffee maker older than I was.

There was not one picture on the wall.

"Bathroom's there," he said. "Bedroom's yours. I changed the sheets."

"You said the spare room."

"The spare room has an engine block in it."

I looked at him.

"It's a nice engine block," he said.

I laughed, and it surprised me, and he looked at the floor with something close to a smile.

The bedroom had a bed, a dresser, one lamp and a window over the lake.

The sheets smelled of laundry soap and, faintly, of him, metal and cedar.

I set the starter on the dresser and stood there for a while.

By nine I had eaten two of his grilled cheese sandwiches at the kitchen table.

He had told me three things about himself.

He restored cars for collectors, he didn't own a television, and he hated olives.

"Everyone hates olives," I said.

"Preston doesn't."

"Preston ate olives at every party for seven years and told me they were disgusting once we got in the car."

"That tracks."

"You don't have to be nice about him."

"I wasn't being nice."

I ate my sandwich and decided I might like him.

At ten he went downstairs, "to finish a bumper," and I washed the plates and stood at the window.

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