by Dee Ernst
My heart sank. I did not want to wait months before work even started. I had all my stuff in a rental trailer that was rapidly becoming the world most expensive storage container.
I looked sideways at Mike. “But?”
He grinned. “Exactly. But, these plans are already approved. And we already have permits. As the new owner, if you were to take these plans back to the esteemed Mr. Heller and tell him how much you love them, and how you don’t want to change a single thing, why, he’d probably just stamp them again and, bingo, perfectly good house plans. And we could start middle of next week.”
I glanced at Terri who was, amazingly, quiet. Or maybe her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth because Steve McCann was the kind of guy who easily caused that kind of reaction. I saw it and recognized it, but my anxiety level was such that I wasn’t very susceptible.
I looked closely at the blueprints. Did it really matter what side of the house the kitchen was on? And as for that laundry room, all that extra storage space was probably a good idea. That closet in the guest room wasn’t big enough, but maybe just push it out a bit? I looked up at Mike, and he read my mind.
“Now, just remember,” he said, a smile playing around his lips, “that we can always tweak a few things here and there. I spoke to Susan Arnette, who drew up the plans. She’s right here in town, and she said she’d be more than happy to talk with you about picking out your cabinets, flooring, all that stuff. Very creative, Susan is. And she’d also be able to make, well, adjustments here and there if you want.”
I nodded my head. “You know what, Mike? With a few of those kinds of adjustments, these plans would be just about perfect.”
“Why, Chris, I was hoping you’d say that.” He picked up the blueprints, rolling them deftly into a nice bundle.
We stood. “Now, about money,” I said.
The brothers exchanged a look. “Yes, well, you know that Terri here had mentioned how the two of you were going to be doing, ah…” Mike said.
“What?”
“She suggested that we act as more guides in the process, and you all would be doing a large portion of the work.” Mike’s eyes were glinting, and I could see a smile starting to form around his mouth.
I turned, very slowly, to look at Terri, who seemed totally unsurprised at Mike’s statement. “We? As in, you and I?” I asked her. “Doing a large portion of the work?”
“Sure!” She seemed, as always, completely on safe ground. “We can demo and nail and paint.”
I turned to the McCann brothers and smiled politely. “Please excuse us for a moment.” I grabbed Terri’s arm and pulled her from the porch and around to the back of the house, which was overgrown, full of junk, and infested with poison oak. It was also all mine.
“Terri,” I began, “I know I said we would renovate this together, but at what point did you think we could take on a project of this magnitude? The actual demo is already done. We have now entered the construction phase. I have no experience in that, and neither do you, and I don’t think nailing plywood and sawing two-by-fours are skills you can just pick up by hanging around and watching.”
I took a deep breath. I had to. What had she been thinking? “When you talked about us doing this house together, I thought you meant things like putting up new moldings or hanging a new door, and maybe grouting or laying tile or painting. Speaking of which, didn’t you pay someone to paint your condo when you moved in?”
She remained unbowed. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to paint. Besides, Chris, you know all about houses.”
“Yes. I know how to sell them, how to stage them, and how to hire people to fix any problems they have. I don’t demo, Terri, and I don’t nail. Neither do you. And there’s not enough money in the world to get me on a ladder as high as I’d need to paint that ceiling.”
She scrunched up her face and pointed her index finger right at my nose. “Chris, didn’t you say you needed a change?”
“Yes, but—”
“And haven’t you always talked about someday having a little house of your own, done up just the way you want?”
“Not always, just on and off—”
“And isn’t Cape Edwards perfect, and isn’t this location perfect, and did I not hire the best men for this job?”
I sighed. “Yes, I guess you did.”
She lowered her finger. “Mike walked the house with me before I bought it, you know. It’s solid. It just needs to be…filled in. You may have a point about this being, maybe, too much for us to take on, especially since I’m working and only took a week off to help. So if you say so, they can do all the real building part, and we can…help them. Besides,” her face softened. “What else have you got to do?”
Well, she made a pretty good point there. This house was not just my future, it was pretty much all I had going on in the present day.
“Okay,” I said. I looked around the back yard. There was enough junk peeking out of the waist-high weeds to fill a small dumpster. But there was also a large tree providing plenty of shade, and I could see where a side walkway would lead directly to a patio, surrounded by a low stone wall, festooned with hanging lights and potted plants. “Okay,” I said again, and we walked back around to the front.
The McCann brothers, to their credit, had not gotten in their truck and driven away. The two of them were out by the curb, leaning against a battered pickup, and both straightened up when they saw us.
“What’s the verdict?” Steve asked.
“Terri said you did a walkthrough,” I said. “What did you find?”
“Welp.” Mike passed his hand over his face. “I can tell you, you’ll need all new mechanicals, new windows, a new roof and major landscape work in the back there. The porch needs new footings, so we’d just as soon tear it down and rebuild. Beyond all that, it’s some framing, drywall, insulation, a new floor, kitchen, and laundry space. The good news is you only have one bathroom.”
“And how much would all that would cost? Without any help from Terri or I?”
I looked at him. His eyes were twinkling. “To be on the safe side, we did two proposals. Just in case.” He reached into the truck and pulled out a leather folder, extracted a sheet of paper and handed it to me.
Their proposal was very thorough. I’d looked at a lot of these in my career, and often my clients would howl in despair because although I’d explained it to them, they really didn’t understand the term estimate, and would invariably complain about every dollar spent over what they’d signed on for. The bottom number here looked substantial, but I could see that they had covered pretty much everything, down to the cost of kitchen hardware and sod for the front lawn.
I’d bought the house, cash, from the money I’d received from my mother’s insurance. I’d taken out a construction loan, using her house as collateral, knowing I’d be able to pay it off when it sold. So the actual cost of the work didn’t scare me, and seemed very much in line with what I’d seen from other contractors over the years.
I handed the paper back to Mike. “Where do I sign?”
Steve, who I already dubbed the silent brother, spoke up. “We’ll draw up an official contract after you get these plans approved.” Ah, so he was also the business brother. Mike’s role was obviously sales and schmoozing.
I nodded. “I’ll go to the zoning office first thing Monday. And where can I find you later Monday afternoon?”
Mike pointed across the street. “Right there.”
“Really? You’re building the retail space?” I asked.
Mike nodded. “Yep. Our first venture into commercial development, and I think we picked a winning project. Small, classy, and the guy who’s behind the project is just great. Now, Terri mentioned that you’re from Rehoboth, so you might have heard of him? Daniel Russo?”
And that’s when my heart dropped down into the pit of my stomach.
I looked over at Terri, whose eyes got big and wide. She swore, very softly, but just loud enough
for Steve to hear.
“What?” he asked.
Terri pointed at me. “Her ex.”
Mike’s eyes were wide. “Ex what? Husband, business associate, partner in crime?”
I cleared my throat. “Ex-person-I-lived-with. Whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in over a year.”
“Well, you’ll be seeing a lot of him now. He’s down here, checking up, about once a week. In fact, I think he’s going to be renting a place right here in town, so he can spend even more time. But—” Mike was grinning now. “This street gets busier as the season wears on. Heck, maybe if the traffic is bad enough, you won’t see him at all.”
I took a deep breath and held it. Daniel.
Daniel Russo had been, until just over a year ago, the man in my life, my friend, roommate and lover. After I left him, I realized that my love for him was not a grand passion, but rather a comfort, a safe place to be that fit in with the rest of my safe life. As my mother’s illness worsened, I moved back in with her. I knew that risk—breaking with Daniel might very well mean living the rest of my life alone. At my age, how great were the chances of finding love again? But if I was going to start taking chances, here was the place to start. So I moved from his house back to my mothers’ and never looked back.
Daniel had not wanted me to leave. At all. In fact, he more than once offered to let Mom move in with us, so I could care for her there. But Mom had wanted to die in her own house, so I packed up my clothes and books and went back to the house I’d grown up in. After Mom died, he called, then called again. I never picked up, and he finally stopped. And now he was going to be working on a project directly across the street from my new home.
I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would feel like to see him again. What would I feel? Regret? Guilt? Would I be tempted with the idea of returning to a relationship that, if nothing else, had made me feel secure? All I could do was wait and see.
I stuck out my hand. “Gentlemen, I’ll talk on Monday. It’s been a pleasure.”
Steve shook my hand and went over to get in to the driver’s side of the truck. Mike also shook my hand, but held it, and I felt a jolt that went right up my arm, bounced around my chest, then headed due south.
“Just remember,” he said. “The universe has a way of telling you things.”
“Oh? And what is the universe trying to tell me right now? That I should have put a bid on a spanking new condo instead of this place?”
He shook his head and dropped my hand, but I could still feel the tingle. “No. I think buying this little bit of scruff here will be good for you. You look like a woman willing to take a chance.”
I stared at him. “I’ve spent an awful lot of my life trying to play it safe.”
“And it brought you right here, where you don’t have much of a choice. See? It is telling you something.”
I felt a smile. “Yes. It’s telling me I’ve got a smooth-talking contractor who likes a little drama at the expense of others along with his morning coffee.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Exactly.” He leaned forward. “We got your back on this thing. Don’t worry.” Then he got back in the truck.
I watched them drive away with so many emotions going through my head I didn’t even know where to start sorting them out.
“Maybe he’s right,” Terri said. “Maybe the universe is telling you that Daniel is the one for you after all.”
I scowled at her. “Terri, you never liked him.”
She shook her head. “No, not exactly. I just never thought he was good enough for you. And he never asked you to marry him.”
“Because I made it clear I didn’t want to marry him. Listen, Terri, Daniel and I were together, but the last few years had been…tepid. I mean, we were more like friends with limited benefits. If I really loved him all that much, don’t you think I would have tried a little harder for us to stay together?”
Still…would it be awkward? Embarrassing? After all, I’d very easily put him out of my mind, and now he’d be working across the street. I walked back to my slightly tilted porch, sat on the bottom step and buried my face in my hands. “Crap.”
Terri sat beside me and put an arm around my shoulders. “Not to worry, Chris. I’m here for you. Besides, you’ll be busy with this house.”
I looked back at the open front door. “Yes. This house. Terri, if I’ve learned only one important lesson from this, it’s to always take my own advice.”
“And what advice was that?”
“To never buy anything without looking over the house inspection report with a fine-tooth comb.”
“I did look it over.”
“But I never saw it. And when you told me that there weren’t any big issues…”
“Well, inspection found that the foundation was solid, no termite damage, no water damage and structurally the house was sound. The inspector didn’t say anything about the mechanicals or interior because, well, there were no mechanicals or interiors for him to inspect in the first place.”
She was right. Her reasoning made perfect sense. It was all my fault. If I had just asked her to send it to me anyway…
If I had fully realized the extent of the work needed, would I have said no? If I had pulled out of the deal, I probably would have found a nice, brand new condo somewhere close. And then what?
Here I had a chance to build my own place from, literally, the ground up. Something that, in the back far corners of my mind, I had always wanted to do.
And I would have a chance to see Daniel again. Did I still love him? Always. But I knew that my love for him had changed.
And then there was Mike McCann, with those twinkling blue eyes and that slightly crooked, slightly wicked grin.
Steve McCann was obviously a very attractive man, but all for the rest of that day, and the next, it was Mike McCann’s handshake that I kept thinking about, and the tiny jolt of something I’d felt that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Garson Heller re-stamped my plans and reissued the permits without my having to sleep with him, although I might very well have offered. Then I walked to Susan Arnett’s office, right over a jewelry shop on Main Street. She went over the blueprints, penciled in a few changes to the closets and praised the McCann brothers to the rooftops. She suggested I go across the Bay Bridge to Norfolk to look at flooring and kitchen appliances, but to choose my lighting from a few local people known for original and reasonable designs. She also gave me a list of antique and furniture consignment shops, as I told her I wanted a shabby, beach vibe. Then, she took my hand and squeezed it, welcoming me to Cape Edwards and telling me that everything was going to be fine. I believed her much more than I had Terri, because although she may have respected Steve McCann as a contractor, she showed no signs of wanting to jump his bones.
I walked back up the street and handed over the newly approved blueprints and all my new permits, as well as a sizable check to the McCann Brothers, LLC.
Terri, of course was working, so on Tuesday I shopped for appliances alone, picked out a bed and a couch to be delivered on demand, and since I was still obsessing about my floor, or lack thereof, wrote down the specs for my top three choices.
The entire back yard was cleared of saplings, weeds and debris to make room for the dumpster. I spent all day Wednesday watching as a truckload of lumber was delivered, along with shingles, Tyvek and all sorts of other things I didn’t recognize at all except for the fact that they looked like they belonged on a construction site. I know that Mike had tried to find the owner of the empty lot next to me, with a mind to use the lot as a staging area, but hadn’t any luck. So my little yard was crammed with material.
The work began.
And…it was pretty boring. Watching men tear old shingles off a roof gets old after about twelve minutes. Laying down plywood is also a bit dull, but at least there was, finally, a floor. And there were all sorts of strange smells that I didn’t like at all.
I had bought a small lawnmower and cut the
grass in the front yard the first night, after the crew left, so the next morning I could set up my beach chair and cooler, and from there I watched as the McCann crew swarmed like ants over the tiny house.
I also watched the progress across the street, which was way more interesting. The crew was bigger and there seemed to be a lot more activity. I waved once at Mike, in a hard hat, and a few minutes later, he crossed the street, followed by a small and rather scruffy looking dog of questionable bloodline. Mike took off his hardhat and threw himself on the grass next to me.
“Don’t suppose you have a beer in that cooler?”
I grinned. “Are you suggesting that you would drink on duty?”
“On duty? Hell, I’m barely workin’. I like to think of my position as purely supervisory.” The dog sat halfway between Mike and me, and looked alert, as if to spring at me if I made a wrong move in Mike’s direction.
“That’s Joe,” Mike explained. “My roommate and emotional support animal.”
I looked at him quizzically. “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who needs much additional emotional support.”
“I don’t, but if I call him that, he can come drinking with me. There’s not a bartender around who’ll turn away Joe.”
“And is his position over there on the site also supervisory?”
“He does a heck of a lot more work than I do,” Mike said, grinning.
I knew he was lying. I’d seen him at work, so I just waved him off. “What about my windows?” I asked.
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Susan Arnette, besides being a very nice person, is a contractor’s dream. All standard sizes. You’ll be sealed up tight by next week. I hate these rehabs where the owner wants some special order monstrosity that we have to wait six weeks for, and then we get an earful for not staying on schedule. This here house should be up by the end of the summer.”
We watched as a man came over the peak of the roof from the back of the house and began to tear off a whole new row of shingles. “Have you been doing this a long time?” I asked.
“What? You didn’t read the bios on the website?” He rolled his eyes. “We paid extra for that, you know. The McCann Story.”