Second Chance November 26

The story starts here

Karin left the Piermont Complex in a daze of confusion and frustration. She drove in this daze to her office, changed into her work clothes and went to the house on First Street. She carried the bathroom tiles into the apartment and put them in the bathroom. Roger’s guys were still at the house.

“Look at this fabulous tile I found,” Karin said when she saw Roger. He took one from the box and examined it.

“These will go well in this room. I can lay them this weekend if you want.”

“That would be perfect. I’ll have the bathroom painted tonight.” Karin said.

“Did you call Consumers?”

“Yes, they’ll have the power on sometime between now and Monday morning.” Karin said. “The lady I talked to said maybe they could get someone out here today or tomorrow, but Monday morning at the latest.”

“That sounds about right. We’ve been running our tools off the generators all week. We’ll have everything just about done when they turn the electricity back on.” Ralph said with a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Yeah, it seems like that’s how it always goes.” Karin agreed. Ralph laughed a slight guttural laugh.

“We’ll work with what we’ve got,” Roger said. “We’re charging the power tools on the truck or at home at night to save on the generator.”

“Do what you have to do.” Karin said. “I don’t need power to paint, and there’s plenty of painting to do.” Karin turned from Roger, and started to sort out the paint that she had brought over earlier in the week. She had decided to coat all the walls with a neutral beige color and the trim with a gloss white. She’d bought both in five gallon buckets.

“I’m going to start with the upstairs,” she told the guys. “That way you guys can keep working down here and I won’t be in your way. Do you need to do anything else up there?” They shook their heads.

“No, we’re all done upstairs except for laying the flooring, and we’re about to call it a day anyway.” One of them told her. Karin tucked a bag of rollers and brushes under her arm and grabbed a bucket of each color paint and headed up the stairs. She made quick work of the paint job, with head phones on and her favorite old metal ballads blaring through the speakers.

Several hours later, when Roger and the guys had cleaned up and gone home, she was still painting as it started to get dark. She didn’t want to quit, so she ran downstairs to see if the guys had left their generator so she could plug in some flood lights and keep working. A few minutes later, she had the generator going, extension cords running and trouble lights brightening up her work space. She could paint all night if she wanted to, or at least until the generator ran out of gas. She made a mental note to go out and pick up a few gallons of gasoline before going home for the night.

Karin had painted the entire upstairs apartment and was cleaning up her supplies when Jay walked in the door. He startled her and she gasped when she saw him.

“I thought we had a dinner date.” He said.

“Really? After this afternoon, you still thought we had a date?”

“Yes.” He said and she groaned. “What did I do?” he asked.

“Jay, from the day I met you, it’s been one mislead after another. I was a fool to think anything would be different now. I just can’t take any more surprises.”

“How did I mislead you?” he asked gently, moving toward her. She turned her body to avoid letting him touch her. She worked on cleaning up the painting materials and moving the painting buckets down the stairs. 

Jay grabbed the buckets from her hands and carried them for her. She started to resist his help, but then decided to let him carry the buckets. She gathered up the rest of the materials and turned off all the lights.

Neither of them spoke on the stairs, but once they were behind the door of the downstairs apartment, Jay began to speak.

“Karin, I can’t fix what I don’t know about. You have to tell me what I’ve done wrong.”

“Jay, ten years ago you left me to go out with someone else, you left town without even talking to me. I was devastated, then you showed after all these years and all those old feelings were still there, but so is everything else. The issues with your parents and all the secrecy about your job and…” Karin stopped and pursed her lips. She could feel tears coming into her eyes, and it made her angry. She gathered up the extension cords and prepared the materials for the next day.

“…and what?” Jay said softly after several minutes of silence.

“And you knew I was going to send a proposal to the Piermont Group. You didn’t think it worth mentioning that you are on the board that is going to decide the fate of my career and financial future?”

“I’m sorry.” Jay said. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want my being there to affect your decision to apply.”

“What?” Karin asked and rolled her eyes. She pushed passed him and walked out of the building. He stepped out of the doorway and she locked up. “What you just said makes no sense… no sense at all.” She turned her back to him and walked to her car.

“Karin…” She held up her hand.

“Don’t bother.” She said. “It’s late. I’m going home. I suggest you do the same.” She closed the car door and drove away.

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