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“Within a few days,” he replied.
“Great,” she sighed with relief. “The sooner this gets done, the better. Can I leave the keys with you? I’m heading back home to New York this evening, and I’ll handle things remotely from there. I assure you I’ll be available by phone for anything you may need.”
Keith glanced at me over his shoulder, then turned back to her. “Uh, well…Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we don’t really do that kind of thing. We don’t think it’s in the best interest of our clients.”
“Youdon’t think it’s inmybest interest?” she laughed dryly. “How would you know what’s in my best interest?”
I never liked it when people copped an attitude with us, especially towards my younger brother. I stepped forward to take over from there. “Look, that’s not how we do things. If you don’t like it, you can hire someone else. But you’d have to go with a company outside of Silver Point because I don’t know anyone who’s going to take on this job while you’re all the way up in New York. There’s too much liability involved. We could do half the job only to have you decide it’s not good and you’re not payin’. No, we need you to be actively around on-site to survey our work on a regular basis.”
“Okay, fine,” she shot back. “I’ll do that. I’ll hire another company.”
Keith clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Ma’am, I gotta tell you…I wouldn’t recommend that. It will cost you at least three times as much. You can stay here in the house while we work, so we can have you sign off on everything and approve it as we go. That’s all we’re askin’, and it’ll cost you far less in the long run.”
“Oh,just stay here in the house. That’s all,” she waved, grumbling under her breath.
“I’m sorry? I didn’t quite catch that,” Keith asked naively.
“Nothing,” she sighed. “Are you sure there’s no other way? I promise I won’t screw you over. As long as there’s no trouble selling this place, I’ll consider it a job well done. I don’t know much about this kind of stuff anyway. You could be doing a shotty job right under my nose, and I’d have no idea!”
“We wouldn’t do that,” Keith smirked. “But like I said…that’s just not something we can accommodate.”
There was a long, heavy silence. It was like she couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. She almost seemed desperate to get out of here as fast as she could. To the point where I thought she just might pay five times as much to have the place fixed up if it meant she got to run off back to where she came from.
After raking her hands down her face, she answered, “Fine, okay. I’ll think about your estimate and everything you said.”
He nodded, “Sure thing. You have our number, so just give us a call once you’ve thought it over. And don’t hesitate to give us a ring if you have any questions.”
“Thanks,” she forced a smile, showing us to the door.
Keith got a few steps ahead of us, so I hung back in the kitchen to approach her. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way…But are you alright? You were looking kind of ill when we came in, and…I could tell by the look on your face in there that this stuff with the house must be causing you a lot of stress.”
I didn’t know why I asked or why I cared. Except that I would have asked the same thing of anyone we stopped by to see like that who looked as bad off as she was. So, the real question wasn’t why I asked…but why it bothered me so much?
“I’ll be fine,” she replied with a grim expression. “You’re right. It is stressful. I have a job and a life to get back to, is all.”
The words didn’t sit right with me. Her mother’s house, which she had never even bothered to visit before now, was left sitting there to rot for all those years. And now, even after her mother had died, she couldn’t be bothered to stick around long enough to get it fixed up? After that, she’d sell it and forget about it, no doubt.
But once again, I kept my mouth shut and moved along to follow my brother out the door. She barely said a word to us before shutting and locking it behind us.
8
MELODY
With the door shut behind me, I leaned back against it and closed my eyes, slowly melting down to the floor. It took everything in me not to scream bloody murder out into the empty house.
I had already booked my flight home for that evening. My bags were packed. Everything in me was dying to go home, forget I ever saw this place or came here.
But now, I was being told it would cost triple or more to have a contractor from out of town come in, all because they refused to work with someone remotely for what seemed like no good reason to me.
What a backward, out-of-touch small town. Who turns down a perfectly good job with decent money just because they “don’t do things that way”?
Where I came from, people would do just about anything for money. Hell, those two could have easily charged me double, and I would have asked where to sign. It didn’t make any sense to me.
I missed the city more than ever, so much that it hurt.
Eventually, I convinced myself to get up off the floor and cancel my flight back. I’d have to book another one after figuring out what to do. Once that was taken care of, I sank down onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling, feeling completely humiliated.
I couldn’t believe the same guy I ran into and spilled coffee on showed up on my doorstep. Of course, he just had to be with the same contractors I called and booked, because my life lately had turned into one big cruel joke. One punchline right after another.
