Page 14 of The Lipstick Flip

“Like I’d let you touch a chainsaw,” I said.

He squawked and slapped my leg.

I settled into a squat next to him. “Hold it like this. Then you’re going to lie on your side. Keep the blade against the wood, but don’t press it too hard because you don’t want it to catch.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I just told you how. Lie down.”

With a surprisingly pretty glare for me, Noah got on the ground. He wiggled around, adjusting his position. And then he set the blade against the trunk and gave it another of those half-hearted pushes.

The saw skipped across the wood.

“See? I can’t do it. Here, you do it—”

I cut him off with a sharp noise. I adjusted his hands on the saw. His fingers were warm under mine. And the metal cold. Pine needles brushed the backs of my hands, and a shiver started at the base of my spine and ran all the way up.

“Like this,” I said.

Noah gave it another try, and this time, the saw bit into the wood. He glanced over at me.

“Well, don’t stop,” I said.

He grinned like I’d made a joke, but then he turned his attention back to the saw and went to work. I let him go. There was something peaceful about sitting there, the trees around us, the sharper smell of freshly cut pine mixing with the softer scents of sap and fallen needles and the duff exposed under scraped-back snow.

When the saw started to turn in Noah’s hands, and when the strokes came more slowly, I said, “Swap out; I’ll take a turn.”

The first look Noah sent my way was, for the tiniest moment, the fight-me face. But then it vanished, and he scooted out of the way, and I dropped down on my shoulder and went to work.

It wasn’t like I’d been lying around all day eating bonbons; I’d worked on the house pretty much from the moment I got out of bed. But there was still something satisfying about doing this. I didn’t have to pretend not to hear Noah’s family. I didn’t have to try to figure out what was going on inside Noah’s head. All I had to do was work, and it was work I was good at.

Before long, I was more than halfway through the trunk. I did a little more, and then I thumped Noah on the shin. “Your turn.”

He didn’t complain or anything. He just took my place; if he was still worried about getting pine tar on his clothes, or whatever he’d been fussing about, he didn’t show it.

I stood above him, holding the tree—we were far enough through the trunk now that it wanted to fall, and if it did, it would bind the saw, so I kept it upright and steady as Noah worked.

He flopped onto his back. He put an arm across his forehead. “I’m dead.”

“You’re close,” I said. “You finish it. Here, I’ll get it on camera, and you can show your family.”

That look floated to the surface again, and this time, it lasted longer. But he never said anything. He rolled onto his side, and a moment later, the scrape of the saw started up again.

“Almost—” He panted. “—got it.”

I had the phone ready, and I started recording. Sure enough, a moment later, there was a crack, and the tree sagged, and Noah screamed, “I did it!”

Not shouted.

Screamed.

As I lay the tree on its side, Noah hopped to his feet. He started jumping in the air, pumping his fists, screeching. “I did it! I did it! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Every time he jumped, he tucked his feet to the side, like he was a cheerleader.

Laughter erupted at the end of the row of trees. Under the strands of lights, a group of teenagers were pushing each other, muttering, staring at Noah.

No, staring at us.

More laughter followed. And then one of the boys cried out, “Oh my God,” in the campiest voice imaginable, and another one did a little jump like Noah’s, tucking his legs in the exact same way, and they all busted a gut about that too.