“It's these damned mountains. If I'm not standing in just the right place,” he said.
“Like the damned cell phone,” Anne muttered. She went back inside the cabin and switched on the old Zenith radio, turned the volume up.
Above what she thought was Neil Sedaka singing, she felt the firm click of the downstairs door signaling Nick was back.
He appeared at the top of the stairs, cradling the phone against his shoulder, slapping a rolled newspaper against his leg.
“That's all? But I thought the development might . . .”
He motioned at her to turn down the radio.
Anne leaned against the counter, studying him—the quick, authoritative movements of his hand as he spoke, the irritated glance he threw as he walked past the radio.
Nick went on to the deck, the heels of his boots thumping against the wood planks as he walked from one side to the other.
She switched the radio off but heard nothing for a few minutes, until Nick asked about the improvements he'd made to the cabin. The realtor must have said something Nick didn't like because his voice rose.
“You can do better than that, now, can't you?” he said. “Quiet place near the end of the road?”
Anne's eyes narrowed. She heard metal scrape across wood, his body lowered into a chair, the strike of a match. She smelled his cigarette. He spent the next several minutes sitting outside without speaking. But there was the distant growl of the bulldozers and the snap of trees, the hammers, the saws, heavy trucks.
Anne closed her eyes, wishing for solitude. She pulled a can of tomato soup out of the cupboard and blew dust from the top. There was the sound of rustling paper from the deck.
“If a person wanted peace and quiet, this place'd be worth the price, wouldn't it?” she heard Nick say.
Anne moved to the sliding door, looked at him sitting at the picnic table, classified ads spread across the clean surface. He shifted in his chair, flattened Anne with an all-knowing look. “Did you need something, honey?”
“No.”
3