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“That’s good to know.”
“If you buy those, I can call install ’em for you.”
Ugh. How much will all of that cost?She chose not to search to find out, at least not right now. “You don’t mind?”
“Not at all. Whatever I can do to help bring the place up to code, I’m willing to pitch in.” Actually, his expression said he was freakingdelighted.His eyes sparkled at the prospect of another project.
Maybe it’s okay to ask.
“Since you offered, on this page, they need precise measurements of every single room in the place. Do you think—?”
“I’ll ask Rowan to give me a hand when they have a minute. We’ll take care of it.”
Henry Dale’s easy use of Rowan’s preferred pronouns made Iris curious, though. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, I can postpone my important business meetings.” Henry Dale pretended to get on his cell phone. “Mildred, cancel my two o’clock and push my three to four. Unfortunately I won’t be able to buy MySpace today after all.”
Iris burst out laughing. “Sally’s rubbing off on you.”
“Hardly. My sense of humor is much sharper. Anyway, what did you want to ask?”
“Some older people complain that they don’t understand and refuse to honor nonbinary pronouns, so I was wondering—”
“Everything comes down to manners,” said Henry Dale. “Maybe Idon’tunderstand, but here’s an example—you meetsomebody who says, ‘My name’s Bradley, but everybody calls me Buzz.’ So you call ’em Buzz. You don’t need to understand, do you? They don’t have to share their life story and justify that name. It’s just good manners, so for me, it’s that simple.”
That made a lot of sense, given what she knew about him. “Thanks for telling me.”
“It wasn’t a secret, that’s just how I feel.” Henry Dale had inspections on his mind, though. “Oh, you’ll likely need a fire extinguisher too. Maybe check into how many the house needs to get licensed.”
More dollar signs flashed before her eyes. Iris tried not to panic.I have some room on my card, but I thought renting rooms would help me get out of debt.The barter system had made good sense when she agreed to it; otherwise, the house wouldn’t look nearly as nice as it did now, but there was still a lot of work to be done.
I can’t believe we’re jumping through all these hoops because of one grouchy neighbor.
Nobody else on the block seems to care.
To her surprise, Henry Dale reached over and patted her hand. “I know it seems like a lot, but try making a list. And write down easy tasks for motivation. I enjoy drawing a line through the ones I finish. Maybe it’ll help you too.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Iris decided.
Doing that also let her procrastinate filling out the licensing application, so she obviously decided to make the checklist first:
Price fire alarms
Price carbon monoxide detectors
Price fire extinguishers
Buy all of the above
Repair rotten gingerbread (somehow)
Fill out forms
Turn in forms
Bribe someone who works for the city
Spin straw into gold???
