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Anyway.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“Something wrong with the house?” I asked, pointing at its crumbling foundation.
She sighed. “What isn’t wrong with this house?”
“Oh. Right. I see what you mean.”
Old Man Wagner had lived there since his childhood. And I think that’s the last time anyone spent a cent on the place. Then, this young couple bought it when he died—the redhead and Larry (or whatever his name was). Word in the neighborhood was that they planned to fix it up and sell it for a profit. I hoped they knew what they were getting into.
Renovating a house was not for the faint of heart.
“I’m sorry, but can you tell me what your name is again?” I asked her.
“Jayma. Jayma Kersey.” She pointed to the spot she’d been checking out just a minute ago. “This piece of the house here, I think it’s called the foundation. It’s kind of falling apart. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it.”
Since her hostility had subsided, I was feeling friendly again.
“Oh, yeah. That’s dry rot on the house. And the foundation below it is cracking.” Anyone could see that.
But I guess it took her by surprise because she looked like somebody had slapped her.
“Dry rot? Now I’m not exactly sure what that is, but it sounds bad.” She shook her head. “Shit.”
Whoa. She knew way less about house renovation than I thought she would, considering she was about to get into a big one.
“I mean, it should be something your boyfriend can repair fairly easily.”
Her head snapped toward me and she glared. “Um, yeah,” was all she said.
Okaaaay…
“I can loan him some tools, if he needs them,” I offered. I thought that was pretty neighborly.
“Oh, um, that’s okay. He’s away. On business.”
She bent again to pick at the rotted wood, and I got a glimpse of the top of her thong above her trousers.
God, I was an asshole. The woman had a boyfriend.
If he’d had any sense at all, this boyfriend, he should have been able to fix a little dry rot. On the other hand, whenever I’d seen him, he’d seemed kind of douche-y. Like overly impressed with himself, especially after he found out I was a working class kind of guy. But he was the fool who moved into the money pit with no apparent do-it-yourself skills. He was going to pay through the nose for what he could have learned with little effort. Not that it was my problem.
Me, I was just the contractor next door. Not that he knew that. Because he rarely spoke to me.
“Hey,” Jayma turned to me and said, “want to come in for a beer?”
I looked around to make sure she was actually speaking to me.
“Um, sure.” I was done working for the day. Why not?
I hadn’t been inside the house since long before Wagner had passed, but I sure hadn’t been expecting to find what I did.
Chunks of the plaster were missing from the walls, exposing the horizontal lath boards. I knew they’d eventually be replaced with drywall, but a house in that condition could have any number of behind-the-wall problems. Like old electrical, insulation, mold, pests. You name it.
I followed her through what must have been a living room, sidestepping the sawhorse covering a huge hole in the floor. The kitchen looked serviceable, with a 1970’s fridge and stove, but the enameled sink looked original, and the linoleum floor was worn in a few spots to the subfloor. I took a look around. Just as I’d remembered it, the house had good bones, but it was in need of some serious TLC. A cat hissed from the corner of the kitchen and took off running.
“Is a Stella okay for you?” she asked, pulling two beers out of the fridge.
