“Sorry! Sorry!” I fake a smile as though everything were fine, and I dart off into the bathroom that’s two steps away.
Tile shards are everywhere. It’s a categorical disaster zone.
“You’re right, Alex. This is so, so not okay. Head upstairs. There’s a not-destroyed bathroom at the top, on your right.”
“I hope it’s safer. This one was treacherous and wrong.” My new friend stomps to the intact facility on the second floor.
The sound of Paul’s footsteps as he enters the house makes me cringe, and I keep my back to him.
“Well, this bathroom looks different from the last time I stopped by.” Paul is generously nonjudgmental. “Do you feel better now?”
I grab a dustpan and brush and furiously start trying to clean the mess. “Nope. Not much…”
His footsteps recede, and he’s thoughtful enough to give me more than a few minutes before handing over a trash bag that he retrieved from the kitchen. When he leans down to help, I shake my head.
We are both silent, even as I take the bag and do a sloppy job of scraping tile and dust into it. When I have cleared most of the debris, I sit up and rest my hands on my knees, coughing on the gross air I’ve created and forced myself to breathe in. It’s a good way to hide my tears.
“I’m angry too,” Paul says. “And I miss him too. Mike was like a brother to me. Hewasmy brother, blood or not.” Paul doesn’t pretend to hide behind the dust. He is okay with raw emotion and pain. There’s a long stretch of quiet before he says anything else. “Your father, he loved this wacky house, so let’s take this on, okay?”
It takes putting four more scoops of tile shards into a trash bag before I agree. “Okay.”
I brush myself off and stand. “This bathroom is all wrong. Not, you know, only because I busted it up. We can go into details later.”
Paul now has a clipboard and paper and pen in hand, and I immediately feel better. Something about this non-technological approach makes me trust him even more. So, I begin the house renovation tour.
“Danny gave you a list, right?” I continue with more confidence than I thought possible. “The stairs are awful.” My heart is pounding, and I wish I could look at Paul like a normal human. But I’m so fucking broken, and I’m so fucking full of trauma. “We could at least knock out the current railing and replace it with a cool railing, right?” I march ahead from the bathroom and into the open main living room. “Kind of rustic farmhouse without being too trendy because everyone is doing that shit. And I was thinking about how much light there’d be if we smashed out the wall at the bottom of the stairs here and did a slick iron sliding door. It’d be so nice to walk out onto the back deck and see the creek. Also, the living room needs way more light. What if we added in at least three more windows in the same style? Nice black frames? And let’s paint these wood walls and the ceiling white. We’ll still see the beautiful horizontal panels, but it’d be less damn depressing in here. Danny said to keep the floor.”
Paul grins as he makes his notes. “Danny is right. And your mom is not going to love the cost of this shit.” Then, he looks at me. “But I’m on board.”
My stomach twists into knots. I almost forgot about my mom’s rather major role here. “Um, let’s hold off on telling her abouteverythingright now. Maybe share the basics. We can kind of ease her into renovations. I watch a lot of HGTV. These are probably dumb ideas. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You’re doing great. Don’t stop. I’ll break this list up into must-haves and wants. We’ll go from there. So, what about the roof? That has to be done as soon as possible. Summer rain could cause leaks and damage. Not to mention that the exterior of this house needs to be scraped and painted.”
It’s funny how easy it is for me to make decisions. “So, scrape and paint. Let’s keep the color scheme as is. Black roof, white house, black shutters. It’s timeless. Oh, but how about a tin roof? Wouldn’t that be awesome? Great for resale. And it would be intoxicating when it rains. But the door has to be a fun color. I’ll think on it.”
He nods. “And possibly the fireplace might need a bit of work? Just a thought.”
I plop down on one of the ancient couches in the living room and eye the second mess that I created. “Eh, I don’t know. I mean, I did like the idea of a rustic-farmhouse design, so we could leave it as is.”
“Very funny.” Paul sits on the other sofa. “We’ll see. This is more broken farmhouse. Listen, I know we have more to talk about—” he starts.
“I can’t even deal with the weirdo kitchen right now. But that has to be gutted.”
“Agreed.” He shifts in his seat. “So, there’s the issue of the timeline. Your mom is acting as though this overhaul will only take a few weeks.” Paul sighs heavily. “Cyndi won’t listen to me. I’ve been telling her for years that this house needs major work and renovations if she wants to sell it. She’s agreed to some stuff, but not a ton of other stuff.”
Paul waits while I rub my forehead, sigh, run my hands through my hair, and kick my feet against the unattractive coffee table, and finally, I toss my head back against the old sofa cushion.
Then, I make a decision. “Don’t worry about my mom. I’ll take over, but let’s not tell her that.” I roll my head to face him. “I have money,” I say with reluctance. “My dad had all this old inheritance money himself, and he left a ton to both me and my sister. Mine has been sitting in an account for years, accumulating interest. I’ll spend it where my mom doesn’t want to. This house deserves to be as beautiful as it can be.”
Paul scrawls some notes before looking at me. “So, you’re my new boss?”
I can’t help but smile. “Apparently. Well, maybe only for the wish-list stuff. Try to avoid giving my mom too much information. She doesn’t want it anyway.”
“Deal. There’s one other thing.” His hesitant tone is freaking me out.
“Oh man, what else?” I shut my eyes and wait for the next blow.
“I was going to ask if there’s any chance that I can get one of the omelets that everyone is talking about?” A sneaky smile emerges as he continues to write. “In exchange, I’ll set renovations in motion today.”
