Bob at the Plaza

by Murphy, R.

  As for Penny Mae, I planned to compare her estimate with that of another real estate agent, which I’d made clear when I’d set up our appointment. John Davies, who worked out of Southport, would be here tomorrow.

  After grabbing his fancy corkscrew out of my cabinet drawer, David said a friendly but business-like goodbye and went on his way. I noticed Penny Mae observing the transaction with intense scrutiny.

  “What a nice guy,” she observed after we heard the front door close upstairs. She began gathering her papers. From the quizzical look she threw me, I could tell she felt like talking about David and maybe even asking a few questions about our relationship. But I didn’t encourage it and, thank goodness, she was professional enough not to pursue the matter.

  “He’s great,” I said briskly, wrapping up the topic. I reminded Penny Mae about my getting a second estimate and told her I’d get back to her, one way or the other, within the next few days. Then I saw her out into the nonstop rain onto her next appointment. As I wandered back downstairs toward the kitchen I poked my head into the bathroom, noticing empty spaces where shaving cream and masculine deodorant used to reside.

  “She’s a knock-out, isn’t she?” Bob commented when I walked into the kitchen. “Some things never change, no matter how long you’ve been away from the action.”

  “She sure is. She also seems to be very on-the-ball with lake real estate, which interests me the most right now.”

  “Penny Mae’s kind of taken with David, I think. She studied him pretty closely there when you weren’t looking.”

  Not in the mood to dwell on this particular topic, I tried distracting Bob.

  “How’s that present participle thing going?”

  “Wruff?”

  “That’s about how I feel right now, too.”

  Let’s just say John Davies underwhelmed me. Sporting a brown sweater vest and horn-rimmed spectacles, his nose constantly crinkled as if he smelled old fish, the second prospective real estate agent entered my home as if he did me a favor even coming. Like Penny Mae, he was young. Unlike Penny Mae, he was arrogant. He’d done no research, took no pictures or notes, and did not bring any comparative sales figures. Probably worst of all, to my mind, he didn’t say any nice things about my home. He spent his time dropping names about prestigious houses he had sold for very large dollar amounts on the lake and gave me the impression he’d be coming down a few rungs to handle my sale. But he’d condescend to handle the listing if I’d get the place into shape, which struck me as a rather odd request since I’d moved in less than a year ago.

  “In order,” John said, “to market this place as a premier property, you’ll need to take care of a few critical items immediately.”

  Serious home issues, like touching up the paint job on the spindles of the handrails on my deck. And replacing three floor tiles in the kitchen that had miniscule permanent stains on them. Did he honestly think I would rip up an entire floor for three almost invisible stains? Hardly. I’m sure his arrogant approach would intimidate some into working with him, but it didn’t do anything for me.

  So, by process of elimination, I listed the house with Penny Mae.

  The rain never let up. It enveloped me, like a constant toothache. Never-ending gray, never-ending damp, never-ending chill. Even pumping up the heat in the house made no difference. The damp penetrated to my bones, the same way it had the winter I studied in England. There must be something about living in close proximity to a good-sized body of water.

  Despite the rain, every few hours I’d grab an umbrella and go outside on the deck to peer anxiously at the pounding and ever-rising waves. Between the April showers and the melt-off from the hefty winter snowfall, the water level rose inexorably. Inch by inch, the waves chuckled merrily at my rock barrier and foamily chewed through inches of lakefront until, now, they churned only a few feet from the house. Where once I’d owned a twelve-foot wide swath of lakefront, I now had about four feet of land standing between me and soggy destiny.

  Damn, my sense of timing sucked. You can’t put a water-logged home on the market, much less one that’s just washed away in the swirling tides. Of course, Bob didn’t help. He’d peer over the deck rails with me only to drop origami paper boats into the swirling waters and watch them drift along until they smashed against the rocks. Much like my upcoming destiny, I feared.

  What to do? I dressed in full rain gear and slogged over to see Stan. I found him sitting at his over-large kitchen table, drinking coffee and thumbing absent-mindedly through an old hunting magazine.

  “Hey, sunshine,” he greeted me as I stepped through the door. Without even asking, he poured a cup of coffee.

  After a few minutes of chitchat, I got to the point. So far, Stan’s sturdier and taller rock wall hadn’t been breached. Mine, though, had drowned days ago, and I was genuinely starting to panic.

  “I just don’t know what to do now, Stan. I keep getting visions of my house washing away and big lake trout swimming around my living room furniture,” I said, warming my hands on the mug.

  Stan shook his head and chuckled. “You’re getting carried away, Roz. Don’t forget, your house has been standing for a long time. We’ve had high water on the lake before and it’s never flooded. Besides, even if it did flood a bit, what do you have down in your cellar?”

  “Not much,” I admitted, “my furnace and water tank and all kinds of mechanical systems. But it would cost thousands to replace them.”

  “You are a worrier, aren’t you?” Stan said in a good-natured way.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before but look, Stan, this house is the only valuable asset I have left. If I lose this, I’m totally wiped out. I’ll have nothing. I’ll be out on the street. And I’m too old and too tired to be out on the street. So please tell me, can I do anything else? I’ll try just about anything to make sure I don’t lose the house.”

  “I don’t see any sandbags at your place. Have you tried those?”

  “Sandbags? We don’t have any sand here.”

  “Come and see.” Stan gestured to me to follow him into his living room. The large bed Mary had slept in for many years had been removed, replaced by a couple of well-worn easy chairs. We walked through to the windows on the far side of the room, and Stan pointed out a miniscule pile of sandbags sitting in the rain. “I’ve been filling those from the shale the waves wash in. If things start getting dicey with my rock wall I plan on piling a few sandbags to stop the breach, so I’ve been getting them ready. I have a bunch of empty bags down in the cellar and I’d be happy to share them. Aaron’s going to be here this afternoon, but I could come over tomorrow and help you start filling them. It’ll be messy, but you could pile them up on the lakefront you have left outside your cellar. It might be worth a try.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ll do anything at this point,” I said fervently. I followed Stan into his surprisingly dry stone cellar, and he counted out twelve burlap bags for me from his pile.

  “Start with these,” he said, handing them to me, “and if we need more, we can probably get them from the fire department. I could call them if you’d pick up the bags with your car.”

  “Sure, no problem.” I said. “Just let me know when you want me to get them. And thanks so much for helping me with the shoveling tomorrow.” I added, “I bet you had no idea what you were getting into when I moved in next door, did you? You probably would have run me off with a shotgun if you’d had any idea how much work I’d cause you just by moving in,” I said with an apologetic note in my voice.

  “Now you’re just being silly, Roz. We help each other out here. That’s how we all get by in the country. You being from the city, you probably just don’t understand that yet. But you will, if you live here long enough.” Stan held my damp raincoat while I shrugged into it, handing me my still-dripping umbrella. I didn�
��t have the heart to tell him about my future plans. I’d miss this old coot who, despite his slower ways, knew more about how to survive than I ever would. To both of our surprise, after he handed me my burlap bags and opened the door into the teeming rain, I leaned over and kissed his raspy, unshaven cheek. He ducked his head. “Oh, get along with you. I’ll be over tomorrow. Stay dry, sunshine.”

  Since a couple of hours of murky daylight remained, I decided to fill a few sandbags to see how laborious this next project would be. I donned my lakefront-working daffodil outfit and topped it off with a bright-yellow rain slicker. Now I looked like a miniature mountain of butter with black-booted feet. Bob glanced up from his martini when I pounded through and just shook his head.

  Downstairs and out onto my dwindling strip of lakefront. After a few minutes standing in the rain, trying to shovel wet shale into a collapsed burlap sack, I could understand why this would be a two-person job. Even if one person only held the mouth of the sandbag open, it would still move the process along. I started timing it. About fifteen minutes to shovel enough shale to fill a sack. It would take me about three hours to fill the bags I had, so I’d have to run down to the fire station tomorrow for more. Once I’d filled the sandbag, it was too heavy for me to lift, but I could push and roll it into place against the outside cellar wall. After an hour of shoveling and rolling, I had two sacks against the wall. The filling and tugging took a lot longer than I estimated.

  I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or rain running down the back of my neck as I filled my third sandbag, when a loud voice yelled in my ear, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing out here?” I jumped and turned, wiping water out of my eyes, to see David. He looked as red as I did, except his color came from anger, judging by the voice.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I yelled back. “I’m making sandbags to save my house.” David swiped for my shovel and I tried to stretch it out of his reach, but failed. “Give that back!”

  “Like hell I will! Why on earth don’t you call me for this kind of thing!”

  “Because we’re broken up, you jackass! I can’t keep calling you.”

  “You make me crazy, woman, you know that? You shouldn’t be out here in the rain shoveling shale.”

  The pent-up angers and silences of days crackled around us like lightning. I grabbed the shovel back and shouted above the crashing waves.

  “Oh, yeah, why not? Who else is going to do it?”

  David looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Volunteers at the fire department, you dope!”

  I stopped yelling and repeated in a quieter voice. “Fire department?” I took off my useless rain-sheeted spectacles and wiped more water off my face. “Stan said I could get more sandbags there, but he didn’t say anything about volunteers. Why would they do that?”

  David took a deep breath as if trying to stop himself from throttling me. “Look, let’s get out of this rain. I’ll call Frank―he’s the head of the fire department volunteers―and see if they can help. You don’t have to do this on your own, Roz, jeez. I honestly don’t understand why you just don’t ask for a help once in a while.” His voice faded as he turned, then he reached back quickly and snatched my shovel again and stomped toward the stairs.

  I stood for a second, cold rain dripping down my back, and then followed.

  Bright and warm, the kitchen felt like another planet. A quick glance showed no sign of Bob. David and I dumped our boots and raincoats right by the door. Without asking, David walked over to the stove and put on the kettle, then tossed me a dry dish cloth while he mopped his face with paper towels. I slumped, exhausted, into my chair at the table.

  “What are you even doing here?” I asked.

  “I stopped by because I realized I didn’t have my penknife and I need it at the winery. Since your car’s in the driveway I thought you’d be here, but you didn’t answer when I called so I started looking around. And I found you, standing out in a monsoon, like a drowned chicken.” He shook his head in exasperation.

  “It’s not a monsoon, and I’m not a drowned chicken,” I protested, drying off my face and glasses. “Stan gave me a few sandbags and since I had some daylight left I thought I’d try filling a few so I’d know how hard a job it would be.” I paused for a minute, then admitted ruefully, “It was pretty difficult, actually.”

  David continued to shake his head, incredulous. “I never saw anything like it―you standing out there, shoveling shale in a downpour. You really don’t have a clue how to survive in the country, do you?” Seeing the mutinous look on my now-dry face, he got off the topic. Pulling out mugs and tea bags, he said, “I’ll call Frank in a minute and see if there’s anything he can do. I volunteered at the fire department before I put in the vineyard, and I know we helped out a couple of times in situations like this.”

  “Funny that Stan didn’t mention it.”

  “He might not know. I don’t think he ever volunteered there and we don’t get high water like this very often. Besides, you keep forgetting that he’s a hale and hearty guy who can fill those sandbags in minutes and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could lift them up without too much difficulty. I’m amazed you could move yours. How’d you do it, by the way? They must weigh sixty, seventy pounds.”

  I glared at him. “I pushed them. And rolled them. But I got them into place, didn’t I, smart guy?”

  The head-shaking continued. “Here. Drink this. I’ll see if I can reach Frank.”

  And then it was done. Just so happens that tomorrow night the volunteers would have their regular monthly meeting and Frank thought that filling and positioning a couple hundred sandbags would be a great emergency-preparedness drill for his lake team. They must be awfully good sports to think spending three hours in the rain throwing sandbags around would be a good time, I remember thinking to myself. Before David hung up with Frank, I took the phone and asked what I could do to help tomorrow night.

  “Well, you’re not on the crew, so I can’t ask you to work with the sandbags themselves. Insurance issues. But getting us something to drink or eat would always be welcome,” he answered.

  “Beer, maybe?”

  “No, no, no, we can’t drink alcohol during our sessions. Coffee, sodas, some cookies, maybe. You know, snack stuff.”

  “I’ll take care of it. And Frank, please tell everyone that I can’t thank them enough. I’m blown away at how kind everyone is to do this for me.”

  “It’s not a problem. This provides a very good drill. The team meets at seven and we’ll spend some time filling sandbags at the county stockpile, so we’ll probably be at your place about eight, eight-thirty. See you then.” Frank clicked off.

  I held the phone, staring at it for a moment.

  “Everything okay, Roz?” David asked.

  I turned to him, handing back his phone. “I’m having a hard time letting it all sink in. I’ve been nuts about this flooding situation for months and in a day or two it will probably be taken care of. By people I don’t even know, and the only payment they’ll get for all their hard work will be a cup of coffee and a few cookies.”

  “You just don’t understand living in the country. We only survive if we help each other. I can’t imagine what your life in cities must have been like if you’re having such a hard time with this. One day, someone you don’t know will ask for help and you’ll do it. Besides, don’t forget they’re a volunteer organization―you could always make a donation to say thank you. Anyway”—David patted his pockets and glanced around the kitchen, then wandered into the living room, still searching—“I never did find my penknife. My dad gave me that knife and I use it all the time at the winery. It must have fallen out of my pocket and I don’t have a clue where it wound up.”

  I ran my hand under the sofa cushions. No luck. Upstairs, David got on his knees and checked under the bed and, sure e
nough, he found the knife, and far too many dust bunnies. Must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d dropped his pants a few days ago.

  “Okay, I’m all set, then. I’ll join the guys at the fire department tomorrow night and help fill the sandbags, so I’ll see you when we get here. Now, you should get out of those damp clothes and just take it easy tonight, Roz. Everything’s going to be fine.” With those final words, and another disbelieving shake of his head, David slipped into the raincoat he’d left by the door and stepped into the rain.

  Too tired and numb to do much, I made a shopping list of all the snacks I planned to buy for tomorrow.

  Stan loaned me his large cooler the following day when I brought him up to date on my news. “They’re good folk,” was his only matter-of-fact comment.

  I spent the rest of the day buying ice and every kind of soda I could find, and baked three different kinds of cookies.

  Bob shimmered in just as I pulled two fragrant cookie sheets from the oven. “Company coming?” he asked.

  “You could say that,” I answered, working quickly to skim off the cookies before they hardened, and went on to explain the volunteer drill.

  Bob responded with a little too much nonchalance for my tastes. “See? All your worrying for nothing. I knew everything would be okay. Something always turns up.”

  “Yeah, sure it does,” I shot back testily, throwing the cookie dough onto the cooling sheets with more force than necessary. “All it takes is a bunch of people risking pneumonia and exhaustion, working their butts off to help a perfect stranger.”

  “Well, I can see you’re in a mood today. Why don’t I just come back tomorrow after all the excitement has died down and you’re feeling better?” Bob offered in a blithe tone and popped out before I could tell him what I thought of his proposal.