Page 48 of Passion in Bloom

“Shit.” She sat back, holding up the busted-off handle to the valve shutoff.

“What the hell?”

“It gave way!” she sassed as she scooted back from the dual cracks in the pipes blasting water at us.

“You didn’t have to yank it like that.”

“I know how to yank!” She smirked. “I mean turn. You turn the handle. You don’t yank.”

“You broke it off!”

She thrust the rusty handle in my face. “Not by sheer force. Look at how old this thing is!”

Bickering aside, we tried to tackle the waterworks together. She tried to fend off the water from under the sink while I did my best to open the small access door to the shutoff for the shower. In the small room, we were on top of each other. Soaked and cranky. Quarreling but on the same page of stopping the water.

“Call Todd!” she shouted over the chaos.

“He’s not going to be able to stop this,” I replied.

She stood, drenched and spatting water out as she glared at me. “Well neither are we!”

“The crew isn’t even out there today.”

She frowned, seeming to strain to listen to something in the distance. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” I wiped the water from my face, squinting at her.

A weird gushing noise sounded from outside of the bathroom, and I winced. “Oh, fuck.”

Together, we darted out of the bathroom to find the kitchen area flooded. The sink pipes had burst too, sending a waterfall into the air. With this trajectory, the water sprayed out toward the living room, too.

The couch. The carpet. The TV. The table. It was everywhere.

Heather squeaked in alarm, rushing back to the bedroom. I hustled to the sink, splashing through the inches of water. It streamed out from the cupboard beneath the sink as well as spraying up and outward.

I shoved the door open to kneel and find a shutoff there, but it mut have been moved to somewhere under the cabinetry at this reach.

“I’m calling,” Heather said.

I turned back to see her with her phone pressed to her ear.

“I’m calling Todd. He’s got to know how to shut off a main something somewhere!”

For the next twenty minutes, we alternated in what had to look like a freaking National Lampoon’s disaster. Water wouldn’t stop spraying. Everything that wasn’t damp was soaked.

We switched, holding up towels to stuff and plug the cracks, only to have the other openings spray out with more force. If she wasn’t on hold trying to reach Todd, I was.

Eventually, he answered.

“The pipes busted!” I said on speaker.

“Which one?”

“All of them!” Heather shouted in reply.

“Ah, fuck.” Todd grumbled some more. “I’ll be on my way.”

Twenty minutes later, he showed up. I was glad that Heather pulled on her pants, not that it really hid anything. Our clothes were soaked and the garments clung to us, squishing and dripping as we moved.