Short Story: The Crooked Shelf

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

by Cynthia Cummins and Kathy Long

We hope this is the first in a nice long series. Cynthia Cummins and Kathy Long are co-authors. We made up this tale together on a videoconference call, then refined the transcript to make a short story. To watch the original video, click this link.

Beverley had an old-fashioned name. She knew that because all the girls she’d grown up with had names like Zoe, or Ashley, or Britney. But she was Beverley with an E before the Y.

Beverley came into her kitchen one sunny morning and saw that the green ceramic vase she had bought at a flea market a few weeks ago had crashed and fallen first onto the countertop and then onto the floor. There it was – in pieces on the floor of her kitchen.

It had slid off the crooked shelf.

Two years ago she had followed the latest trend and installed open live-edge shelving in her kitchen. Her husband, Jeff, had a hard time with the contractor they hired to do the job. Nothing but complaints. And sure enough, one of the shelves was crooked right from the get-go. Rather than fight about it, Beverley and Jeff lived with it.

When she discovered the broken vase mess, Beverley thought immediately about the contractor, and how this would land with Jeff. She’d had her own “issues” with the contractor’s work, but she hadn’t voiced any concerns at the time. It had been easier to let Jeff be in charge, since he was the man. Now, as she stood in the kitchen with her bare toes just inches from the shards of pottery, she realized she hadn’t said anything to her husband while the project was going on was because she had been attracted to the contractor.

The attraction. What had really impressed her from the beginning was that the contractor spelled her name correctly — B-E-V-E-R-L-E-Y. She knew this because he had left a note one day, saying he was running to Ace Hardware for nuts or bolts or something like that. She liked that he knew her name at all, because he’d been “all business” about installing the shelf. Measuring. Focusing.

She thought now that maybe – because she was attracted – she had distracted him from measuring and focusing. Maybe that’s why he didn’t put that one shelf up straight. She’d noticed it at the time, but Jeff hadn’t. She didn’t point it out. She was a bit sick of her husband always managing things. It was a snarky relief to let him manage the installation of a crooked shelf. She knew Jeff didn’t know the first thing about handyman jobs. She knew that Jeff knew that she was constantly judging him. She knew she could judge him plenty – later – about not having noticed the crooked shelf. Five straight shelves. One crooked shelf. What a disaster.

When she first met Jeff, she'd liked the way he took control of things and always seemed to know what to do. But now that they had been married for a long time, it was clear to her that he didn't really know what to do — he just thought he knew. It was important to him to be the one directing things. So, he had directed the contractor from the minute the guy walked into the kitchen and got out his measuring tape.

There was Jeff, blah blah blah, telling the contractor how things had to be. All that Beverley could focus on — and this caught her by surprise, blindsided her — was the contractor taking his measuring tape off his tool belt. She was fascinated by the tool belt itself. She noticed the place where the hammer would go, the pocket in front. She wondered what you might put in it, how the leather got worn in places. She saw how the tool belt sat comfortably on his hips. He had on a pair of painter’s pants, like she used to wear back in high school. She’d never really paid attention to how they fit anyone else.

That brought her back to her youth and how she had married too young. She and Jeff had gotten together at the end of high school. She got pregnant quickly, so they ended up getting married. It just happened that way. By the time the contractor installed the crooked shelf, she was 40 years old, her two kids had already gone off to college, and she felt like she was just starting to understand something about life.

The contractor was older than her — probably in his 50s. She was bothered that she was already putting him on a pedestal in their first encounter before she even knew him. Why was she doing that? It was physical attraction, she knew. It was also the satisfying design of the tool belt and that he had been wise enough to own such an item. But she also knew that he knew how to do some things! Jeff didn’t know how to do things.

The contractor’s name was Billy. It struck her as strange that an older man of middle age would have a child’s name, but Billy was easygoing like a real man, not like a boy. He was as reliable as the truck he pulled up in — a Ford F-150, the bestselling truck in California for quite some years. She only knew that because she had heard people talking at the CVS register one day, debating about the new electric F-150. Billy’s truck was a beat-up gas-fueled F-150 in an old-fashioned shade of green. Forest Service green, comforting and easy and reliable, just like the name Billy.

During his first day of work, she’d gone outside to walk to the organic grocery two blocks away and passed his truck in their driveway. She liked how his truck was organized, with compartments, a bed liner, drawers for screws and nuts and bolts. She was pleased and soothed by how neat everything was.

Although she’d had kids young, she had continued to go to school – with help from her parents – and was an engineer herself. So she could relate to the organized truck and Billy’s neat toolbelt. She liked that there were people like Billy who did very practical things, while she was writing out detailed schematics and plans. Jeff, meanwhile, consulted his iPad about everything, constantly dragging his index finger all over the surface like he was finger painting. But nothing ever came of it.

The crooked shelf project had lasted off and on over a month. Whenever Billy came to work, they’d have a few minutes over coffee — usually alone, or with Jeff meandering around the house talking to Siri. He’d ask things like “Who starred in the 1970s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers?” Beverley could ask Billy real questions, like, “Did you see the sunset last night? The orange color?” And Billy would answer. She felt like both she and Billy appreciated those conversations.

She guessed that Billy didn’t have many people to speak with about quotidian things like sunsets. He might not even know what “quotidian” meant. He looked lonely. Sometimes when Beverly saw his face in the morning, her loneliness increased in measure with his. It was a connection that meant something to her, even though it went unspoken.

Then the job was finished. Billy was paid. He was gone. Life as usual resumed — Jeff and Beverley, work, trips to the grocery store, chats with Siri, the crooked shelf. But weeks later, the shelf must have gotten worse. The vase she had filled with gravel from the driveway and lavender from the planter bed had fallen and shattered. She realized she might have been testing the shelf by adding the weight of the gravel. Maybe she was testing her marriage.

Jeff blamed her but didn’t have a reason for it. She felt irritated, decided to call Billy. She texted Billy, and sure enough, his truck pulled up just as Jeff was leaving. Beverley, in her bathrobe, had left the gravel and the lavender and the broken shards lying there. She sat numbly on the sofa, unable to even pick it up. Billy entered, looked at the shelf, saw the mess on the floor. Beverley began weeping.

Billy told her, “Come outside with me.” She followed.

They walked into the trees behind the house. It was so quiet. Like a miniature forest right in the middle of Pleasant Hills Village. There were evergreen and deciduous trees. There was birdsong. There were wild blackberries growing. He picked a handful of berries, ate a few himself, handed some to her. She ate them — they tasted sweet, calming. She felt grounded, like everything might be okay.

They went back inside, in silence. Billy worked. She showered, checked her email, made some calls, stared at her sweaters in the master bedroom closet. At lunchtime, she emerged from the bedroom to find the kitchen shelf straightened. Billy said goodbye and promised to send an invoice.

Jeff returned around 4 with a level in his hand. He laid it on the shelf. The bubble was off-center. Even Beverley could see that from where she stood on the other side of the kitchen island. “Well, this is what you get these days,” he said.

They passed the evening quietly enough — hamburgers on the grill, Netflix, bed. The next morning was the same: Jeff talking to Siri, Beverley in her bathrobe. He went to work. She drove to Target, bought a new vase, filled it with gravel, added a bunch of fresh lavender, and set it on the crooked shelf.