Emmett watched Sam stare hard at the snapshot. He supposed there were worse ways to be outed. Sam noticed Emmett noticing him; he blinked and cleared his throat. “Your…uh, sister?”
“In spirit only.” Emmett took the snapshot off the mantle, blew the dust off the frame, and put it back fondly. “She’s leaving next week, for good. I can just see it now. Tweets and emails every half hour or so at first. Then once a day. And eventually, nothing but chain letters, and bad jokes with ten pages of forwarded headers on top. I might as well let a rotten timber fall on me now and put me out of my misery.”
“It’s easy enough to make sure that never happens.” Sam grinned at a picture of Biscuits, the family dog, in a sweater. “Toss your computer.”
“Blasphemy.”
“I sold my laptop after…when I came home from school. I don’t even miss it anymore.”
“It’s not like that. I need it for work. I might watch as many funny cat videos on YouTube as the next guy, but I pay the mortgage by trading futures.”
“I don’t know the first thing about investing.”
“Good. It’s mind-numbingly dull.” And Emmett wasn’t particularly great at it anymore, either. The horrible house had made him jumpy, and prone to sell things off before they’d peaked.
Sam angled the photo of Emmett and Rosemary away from the glare of the overhead light fixture. “Still, you could write her letters, by hand. I think hand-written letters have more personality than emails.”
“True. My cursive has sent a nun or two into heart failure.”
“People wrap up letters with ribbons. They stuff shoeboxes full of them, with their other mementoes. They hang onto them for years. Not like email.”
“You haven’t seen my inbox.”
Sam smiled. He shifted a photo of Emmett’s sister in her Madonna phase so he could see it better. “No significant other?”
“Lynn? She’s married. The wedding photos go all the way up the staircase.”
“Not her.” Emmett saw that Sam said that with studied casualness, focusing on Lynn’s bangles and crucifixes as if they were actually interesting.
Emmett might have strung anyone else along for the sake of enjoying the heavy, stilted silence…but Sam didn’t bring that pettiness out in him, so he showed mercy, and said, “The only man in my life is Bob Vila. And he never calls me back.”
Sam laughed, and used Emmett’s remark to segue out of the potential minefield of the photos. “So what’s your biggest problem…in the house?”
“All of the above?”
“How about your top three?”
While Emmett was tempted to keep indulging in his own smartassedness, Sam practically oozed sincerity. Emmett figured he might have been stupid enough to try to buy into the American dream and end up with a 150-year-old albatross around his neck, but it didn’t mean he needed to be a prick to the first person who was willing to look at it without signing a liability waiver. “You mean small stuff, or structural stuff?”
“I dunno. Anything.”
“The radiators bang. Really bang, hard, like someone’s hammering on sheet metal all night long.”
“I’m sure that’s fixable. We might need to rent some tools, flush some buildup out of the system. What else?”
“Mysterious drafts.”
“There’s all kinds of weatherproofing on the market. What else?”
Emmett sighed. “The foundation.”
Sam looked solemn. “That might be way over my head.”
No, it was under his feet. But Emmett was growing to like the idea that he didn’t need to come up with a snappy comeback to each and every thing Sam said. He didn’t need to be entertaining. And it hadn’t really registered how exhausting the whole “I’ve got a wisecrack for every occasion” façade had grown until he was able to relax it for the span of a single conversation.
“I don’t usually invite people I’ve just met into the basement,” Emmett said.
Sam hefted his toolbox from the floor. “I might as well see it. I’m probably imagining it worse than it is.”
Emmett took up the jar of nails and led the way. The door in the back of the pantry was something right out of a slasher film. Emmett opened it and flicked on the overhead light. At least that worked. For now. He winced at the lingering, cabbagey smell that rose out of the dankness. “Sorry. The Ghost of St. Patrick’s Day haunts the stairwell.”
For all its faults, at least the basement had a high ceiling. Even Sam, who must’ve been well over six feet tall, didn’t need to stoop to keep the cobwebs out of hair. He’d produced a flashlight. He clicked it, got nothing, rapped it against the heel of his opposite hand, and then a light flickered on. He began beaming it into all the nooks and crannies that Emmett always tried very hard to ignore. “Hold the flashlight a sec.”
Emmett obliged. Sam had paused at an old pipe so covered in crud it was hardly identifiable as a part of the plumbing. “See this?” He pointed at a hole Emmett had never even noticed. “There’s supposed to be a cap over it.” He crouched and sifted through the crusty remains at the base of the pipe. “It must have rusted out. It’s letting out sewer gas—not dangerous or anything. Just annoying.”
Emmett considered adding the epitaph “Not Dangerous, Just Annoying” into his will, if he ever wrote one.
Sam pulled a tape measure out of the toolbox and measured the hole. “I think this is still a standard size.” He flashed a smile over his shoulder, and Emmett wondered that the sincerity in it didn’t turn him to ash…or a pillar of salt. Or perhaps a pile of the crud that mysteriously appeared no matter how often he swept the basement. “Maybe if we get a few of the easy things fixed, you won’t feel so overwhelmed by the place. Build up some momentum to get going on the bigger projects.”
“Look, back there in the store, I meant what I said. I really am broke. I could maybe pay you minimum wage, but even that’d be stretching it.”
“Hey, I said I’d do you a favor, right? Don’t even talk about money with me. I’ve got collection agents hounding me to the point that I tossed my cell phone. I had to give up my apartment and move in with my mother, who can’t talk about anything else day and night. I’m so sick of money I could scream.”
Emmett tried to imagine what Sam might have done to incur those kind of debts. Gambling? Credit cards? Maybe a brand new convertible that he wrapped around a tree? None of those seemed like him, what little Emmett knew of him, anyway. “How did you—?”
“I screwed up.”
Very direct. How refreshing.
“Look,” Sam said, “sorry, it’s not your problem.”
“I shouldn’t have pried.”
“You weren’t prying. I just don’t like to talk about it.”
“Not another word. We can find some more bad smells if that’ll make you feel better. I think the old saw ‘misery loves company’ is one of life’s greatest truisms.” He pointed at the south wall, which looked particularly untrustworthy. “Or how about some termite damage to cheer you up?”
Sam shook his head and smiled despite himself. “I hate to disappoint you, but everything you’ve shown me so far is fixable. There’s some sagging, but everything’s mostly square and plumb. We jack up the beams a couple of inches, pour a new post….” He stopped mid-sentence and stared at the far wall.
“And what?”
Sam took the flashlight back from Emmett and crossed to the east wall, where decades of rusty farm tools hung. Emmett had never disposed of them, since he figured all the sharp and pointed edges would shred the inside of his garbage bin. It was easier to just leave them hanging there until time and oxidation completed their transformation to the ubiquitous basement crud. “You’re not gonna suggest a little steel wool and elbow grease will clean those up, are you?”
Sam dropped the flashlight beam to the floor. There was a gap there, half-hidden by a rake that looked like a prop from The Grapes of Wrath. “That’s not good,” Sam said.
Emmett looked away. He�
��d thought he would be relieved once Sam’s relentless optimism hit a roadblock…but he’d been wrong.
Sam set the toolbox down and knelt to get a better look at the gap. Emmett glanced at a flaking scythe that hung right above his head. “You’ve had your tetanus booster, right?”
Sam’s earnest young brow furrowed deeply. Emmett resisted the urge to scream “What?” at the top of his lungs. Sam licked his fingertip, then held his hand in front of the crack and scowled. “How can you have a draft coming in from down here?”
THREE
“The whole place is drafty,” Emmet said. “I never really thought about it.”
“This is the basement.”
“So?”
“So the drafts would come in by the ceiling. Not the floor.”
Just when Emmett thought he couldn’t possibly feel more stupid, a new and spectacularly ridiculous thing surfaced that made him feel even lower. He got down on one knee beside Sam—his jeans had been snagged by a stray nail earlier that day, so they’d be trashed within a few more washings—and he put his hand to the gap where floor met wall. There was definitely a draft.
“Does it have something to do with where the house sits in relation to the hill?”
Sam glanced at the ceiling, puzzled, to get his bearings. “No—that’s impossible. You’re at the bottom of a hill. Not the top.”
Emmett figured he’d better stop asking questions before Sam needed to explain concepts like gravity to him. Or to define what air was.
“I’d thought maybe the foundation had shifted over here,” Sam said, “but now I don’t even know—“
Emmett stuck his hand through the tangle of horror flick farm equipment and knocked on the wall. He and Sam looked at one another sharply. It didn’t sound like concrete. Or stone. Or moldering skulls…or whatever the rest of the basement had been constructed from.
“It’s probably a root cellar,” Sam said. “My aunt Jean had one in her place—before she sold it and bought a condo.”
“Great. A root cellar. The fun never ends.”
Sam rapped on the wall in a few more places between the gaps in the tools. “Someone probably walled it off, and then figured it was easier to set the tool hooks into wood than stone.”
“So long as it doesn’t stink.” Emmett got down on hands and knees and gave it a sniff. “If there are any corpses walled up in there, they’re at the leathery stage.” He stood and stretched his back.
“That’s it?” Sam said. “You’re not going to check it out?”
“What do you think we should do—tear that thing down? What if it’s a load-bearing false wall? We could end up with the hall closet crashing through the floor.”
Sam attempted to give Emmett a hard look, but succeeded only in flashing adorable dimples instead—dimples that ate away at Emmett’s resolve as surely as rust corroded his pipes.
“Seriously,” Emmett said. “Would could possibly be good in there?”
“Who knows? Maybe someone tucked away a stash for a rainy day and then died without cashing out. And if it’s old,” Sam flaked the paint on the wooden wall with his thumbnail, “the dimes and silver dollars would be real silver, and the bills would be antiques.”
How silly, Emmett thought. Nothing good had come from the horrible house in the two long years in which he’d owned it. Why would it start now? And yet…dimples, and those big, brown, guileless eyes. Emmett was at the mercy of Sam’s whims. He pulled a three-pronged hand tool that was either a cultivator or a baby-disemboweler from the wall. The ancient clamp that held it to the wall gave off a tiny metallic wail as it released. “I should’ve had you sign a waiver,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Emmett fetched a tarp that had once covered a shipment of new drywall, back when he still had money…and hope. They piled the tools onto the plastic and Sam dragged them aside, while Emmett admired Sam’s physique. Sam seemed very good at anything that involved movement. Or standing there. Or doing anything at all.
Emmett cut his eyes away just as Sam looked up. “Well?” Sam said. “Want to lay a bet on how many silver dollars we find in there?”
Could he bet zero? Emmett didn’t know. It seemed more important to humor the kid. “What does the winner get?”
Something flickered over Sam’s pure-as-the-driven-snow expression. He wet his lips. Subconsciously…probably. “Loser cooks dinner,” he said, and it was his turn to look away fast.
Because it sounded suspiciously like a date. Emmett eased forward —the lighting threw shadows like crazy—to see if Sam was blushing. He was. “You’re on.”
Sam pulled a small prybar from his tool box and handed it to Emmett. “See if you can pull these nails without breaking off the heads.”
“Ten silver dollars,” Emmett guessed. He slid the prybar under an old nail, pushed, and the nailhead popped off. He supposed Sam couldn’t help but have seen, but Sam didn’t mention it.
“Only ten? What about hundreds? Thousands?”
Emmett popped off another nailhead, but couldn’t think of any appropriate swear words. If there’d been any doubt at all that he was besotted by Sam, the lack of colorful curses springing to mind was all it took to convince him. “You didn’t let me finish. What I meant to say, before I was so rudely interrupted, was ten thousand.”
“Oh, I see. All right. I’ll guess two hundred and fifty thousand. A quarter of a million.” Sam pulled a nail. It screeched, but came out whole.
“Only a quarter? Pessimist.” Emmett struggled with a nail and rocked it free. It was a shortish nail.
“You gonna go higher?”
Emmett put on his best Dr. Evil voice and placed his pinky to the corner of his mouth. “One million silver dollars.”
Sam burst out laughing.
“I’d split it with you.” It seemed impulsive, even as Emmett said it. But he didn’t care.
“No, that’s crazy. It’s your house.”
“I would totally split it.”
Sam worked at the board he was prying free and didn’t meet Emmett’s eye. Impulsive? Maybe. But wildly romantic, too.
Emmett added, “And I’m holding you to making me dinner when I win. So don’t even think about backing out.”
“I do nuke a pretty mean hot dog. You’d better like relish.”
Emmett paused to debate whether it was too ridiculous for him to try to be flirty with a remark about holding the onions in case he wanted to kiss somebody when Sam wedged his prybar under the wood, tugged, and pulled the board well away from the wall. A chorus of screeching rusty nails sang out. The board swung down, a broad board, at eye level, and darkness gaped beyond. Sam and Emmett both stared into the dark that seemed too profound to disturb by calling into it and waiting for an echo. Then Sam picked up the flashlight.
He aimed it into the hole. “It’s not a root cellar,” he whispered. “It’s a tunnel.”
Emmett was so baffled that he didn’t realize he’d slung an arm around Sam to get a look at the supposed tunnel until he’d already done it—and registered a few things. Solid. Firm. Warm.
Totally embarrassing.
He waffled so hard about taking his hand back he didn’t even see, not at first. Not until Sam bounced the beam off the ceiling. “This leads into the hillside.”
“It’s probably just a tornado shelter,” Emmett said in an attempt to be reasonable. “A turn of the century tornado shelter. Think about it—Wizard of Oz, Kansas…It’s a twister, Auntie Em. I’m sure there’s nothing in there but scratchy blankets, sensible shoes, and a few jars of dust that used to be preserves.”
Now that the first board was off they had something to grab, and the others came easily. Emmett loosened boards with the prybar, and Sam tore with his hands. Neither of them spoke, not until there was a gap big enough to fit through. “Do you have another flashlight?” Sam tried to sound casual, but his voice was trembling with anticipation.
Which fanned the flames of Emmett’s i
magination. “Batteries are dead. I have tea lights.”
“Go get them—and don’t worry. I won’t go in without you. You should be the first one to see. It’s your house.”
“I get it. You can stop reminding me.” Emmett hurried upstairs and pawed through the kitchen junk drawer where an unopened pack of tea lights was buried among the kitchen gadgets he never used and about a thousand twist ties. He found a saucer from his mismatched collection of dinnerware to carry it on, and a box of wooden matches for lighting the pilot that was always blowing out.
By the time Emmett got back to the basement, Sam had pried off all but the lowest board.
“So…” Emmett said. “What are the chances I light a match down here and we both explode?”
“Natural gas is the flammable one—heating gas. Not sewer gas, at least not at this concentration. Sewer gas mostly just stinks.”
Natural gas stunk too—or at least the utility company added something to it to ensure it stunk, so that people didn’t blithely go about their business in the midst of a gas leak. Still, Emmett could think of worse ways to die than being blown to pieces beside a handsome young man just as the first blossoms of hope germinated in his hardened heart.
He put the small candle on the saucer and lit it. They didn’t explode.
It was hard to gauge the depth of the tunnel; the candlelight and flashlight beams bounced back from a veil of cobwebs that obscured the path a few yards in. It was about six feet high with stone walls and crumbling mortar, and the concrete floor, Emmett noted, was lighter than the flooring of the rest of the basement.
“Come on,” Sam whispered, though hopefully there was no reason to whisper. What could they disturb? Rats? The tunnel didn’t smell like rodent urine. It smelled like dust. Sam nudged Emmett with his elbow in encouragement. Emmett noted Sam had picked up the jar of nails and was clutching it to his chest like the Holy Grail.
The two men fit in the tunnel side by side—barely. They approached the first veil of cobweb and Sam cleared it with the end of his flashlight. The light danced wildly off the unknown ahead, and tendrils of cobweb drifted down to crackle and singe in the flame of Emmett’s candle.
Moolah and Moonshine Page 2