The Bargaining Read Online Free PDF

plate.
    â€œI wouldn’t call it near, but yeah, it’s south of here. My first historic project. If I can flip this sucker into a bed-and-­breakfast, oh the investment potential! It’s a little off the beaten path, but I’m thinking it should appeal to the outdoorsy types.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything about historical renovation,” Dad says. A statement of fact that should be discouraging, but April just shrugs.
    â€œIt can’t be that much different than what I’ve been working on,” she says. “Pull out old plumbing. Put in new ­plumbing.”
    â€œRight. That’s all there is to it,” Dad says, and now he pushes his plate away too.
    â€œOh, don’t get surly. I know you know everything there is to know about HVAC and heating and cooling,” April says,making my dad’s business sound somehow adorable. “But I’ll never learn if I don’t try. And I’ve wanted a historical project for ages. I can’t wait to pick out light fixtures! I’ll have to do some serious antiquing.”
    Every time she starts a new sentence, April lifts out of her seat a little. I keep thinking she’s going to stand up and start running laps around the table, but she stays put for now.
    â€œThat’s great, babe,” Dad says.
    Babe? I can’t . . . I just can’t.
    â€œYou don’t do fake enthusiasm very well,” she says, but smiling. Because nothing bothers April.
    I see Rob take advantage of their exchange to spit his last bite into his napkin while April stares at my dad the way Mom never did.
    As though summoned, my phone lights up, rattling the whole table while my mom’s picture adorns the screen. In front of the empty chair at the end of the table, she looks like a dinner guest arriving late, after everyone had given up hope she was ever coming.
    We all stare at the phone until it stops buzzing, the missed call indicator the only thing left when she’s done interrupting.
    April picks up where she left off, some of her earlier enthusiasm diminished, but the breath behind her voiceis still electric, as though she’s talking on top of a layer of ­carbonation.
    â€œRenovation starts in June.”
    â€œWhat?” my dad says.
    â€œCool,” Rob says.
    I say nothing.
    â€œI know. I know. You have your big job in Vancouver, so you’re defecting for the summer,” she says to Dad.
    Then she turns to Rob. “Soccer clinic goes until August fifth. You’ll leave before we do and come back after we come back.”
    We?
    She turns to me. She smiles. She knows I have nothing. “Which is why Penny will be coming with me to Point Finney.”
    And now it’s my turn to answer.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œNow before you say no—” she says.
    â€œNo,” I say again.
    â€œYou think you can renovate a place in two months?” Dad’s eyes bulge in that way they used to when my mom would correct his grammar. “Anyway, you and I should be the ones talking about this, not you and Penny.”
    â€œSeriously?” And now I see, for possibly the first time ever, a pissed off April. “So when you said to treat her like family, you meant treat her like your family?”
    Dad leans in. Finally, a familiar look. I actually find a little comfort in the recognition. “We’ll talk about it later.”
    â€œSee, that’s where I think you’re wrong. We won’t talk about it later. We’ll kill the conversation right here, at least if you have anything to do with it,” she says, skirting dangerous territory with Dad. If I learned anything from his fights with my mom, it’s that he doesn’t respond particularly well to being told what he’s doing.
    The tinnitus is creeping in again.
    Rob leans over to me. “Do you like soccer?”
    â€œNope,” I say.
    â€œDo you like soccer better than being in here right