Free Light on Snow by Anita Shreve Page B

paid for them already. We live in one, and I use the other for an office. I’ve got three guys working for me.”
    “Phillip still at the old place?” my father asks.
    “Phillip,” Steve says, shaking his head, as if he can’t just now remember who Phillip is. “Oh, Phillip,” he says. “No, Phillip’s moved on. To San Francisco.”
    “Well,” my father says.
    “Well,” Steve says.
    The silence that follows is a white noise inside my head.
    “Are you up here for a vacation?” my father asks after a time.
    “Yes,” Steve says, once again looking relieved. “We’re skiing different mountains. We went up to Loon and to Sunday River. Over to Killington. Where else did we go, Virginia? We’re headed home on Friday. Taking advantage of the early snow this year, you know, before the Christmas crowds.” Next to my father, Steve looks polished to a high sheen. “How about you? You do any skiing?”
    “Used to,” my father says.
    “I do,” I say simultaneously.
    “We mostly snowshoe now,” my father says. “In the woods.”
    Steve glances toward the window, as if searching for the woods. “Snowshoeing,” he says, considering. “Like to try that sometime.”
    “Yes,” Virginia says. “I’ve always wanted to try that.”
    “Must be quite a workout,” Steve says.
    “It can be,” my father says.
    “So,” Steve says, glancing around the room again. “We’ve been looking for a cocktail table. And I think, Virginia, we just might have found what we’re looking for.” He moves to my father’s table and runs his hand along the finish. I’m wondering if Steve and Virginia would be at all interested in the table if it weren’t my father’s, if my father hadn’t lost his wife and baby, if my father didn’t look as though he was on his last dime.
    “What kind of wood is this?” Steve asks.
    “Cherry,” my father says.
    “So it’s this color naturally,” Steve says. “Not a stain.”
    “No, it’s natural. It’ll darken up over time.”
    “Really. What kind of finish is this?”
    “Wax over polyurethane,” my father says.
    “What grade are you in?” Virginia asks, taking a ChapStick out of her pocketbook and running it across her lips.
    “I’m in seventh grade,” I say.
    She smacks her lips together. “So you’re . . .”
    “Twelve.”
    “That’s a good age,” she says, dropping the ChapStick in her purse. “What are you going to do over Christmas vacation?”
    I think a minute. “My grandmother is coming,” I say.
    “Oh, that’s nice,” Virginia says, slipping the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “My grandmother used to make pfeffernusse at Christmastime. Do you know what that is?”
    I shake my head.
    “So what’s the damage?” Steve asks my father.
    “They’re heavenly,” Virginia says. “They’re rolled cookies made with honey and spices and then dusted with confectioners’ sugar.”
    My father clears his throat. He hates discussing money under the best of circumstances. “Two-fifty,” he says quickly.
    I glance sharply up at him. I know the table has been priced at $400. I’ve studied the price list, tucked inside each of the two hundred brochures he had printed up on Sweetser’s advice. My father hasn’t given away more than twenty of them. Sweetser argued with him about the pricing, insisting that my father was quoting figures that were too low.
    “These are good,” Sweetser said. “How many hours did you put into that table?”
    “That’s irrelevant,” my father said.
    “Not irrelevant if you want what’s coming to you.”
    My father won the argument, and he thinks his prices fair now, even modest. My father is living on the money from the sale of the house in New York as well as my parents’ savings. Still, though, selling the table for $250 is like giving it away.
    “Sold,” Steve says.
    There is movement then, and tasks, and a discussion about the logistics of fitting the table in the couple’s car versus having it sent. In