Текст книги "Summer Rental"
Автор книги: Mary Kay Andrews
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 27 страниц)
7
From: [email protected]
Subject: WTF? Fleas!
Mr. Culpepper, you need to get an exterminator over here ASAP. This place is crawling with fleas. Also ants and mildew. And the kitchen faucet drips. Constantly. And the mattresses suck, bigtime. Your website specifically stated that our house would have a “fully stocked kitchen.” In my mind, a fully stocked kitchen includes items such as a stove with more than one working burner and such basics as saucepans, silverware, and dishes. I do not consider five cracked, chipped, and mismatched plates and a collection of plastic NASCAR go-cups to be “serving-ware for eight.” As this is my third e-mail in the past two days, I’d appreciate it if you would take care of these things, IMMEDIATELY.
Ellis tapped the “send” button and scratched her right knee absentmindedly. Both of her ankles, her calves, and the backs of her knees were dotted with angry red flea bites. She had flea bites underneath her breasts, and flea bites on the back of her neck.
Julia had only a couple of bites, on her ankles, and Dorie didn’t have a single one. But the fleas must have made Ellis’s bedroom their home office, because that first morning at Ebbtide she woke up scratching like a maniac. She’d stared down at the white sheet on her bed, and had been horrified to see a semimicroscopic insect hopping around. “Fleas!” she’d screeched.
She’d stripped her bed of all the linens, taken every stitch of clothing out of her suitcases, even picked up the throw rug on the floor, and washed and bleached the daylights out of everything. But the fleas didn’t care.
When she’d gone downstairs that first morning, Julia and Dorie were already sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee.
“Ellis,” Julia said, pointing at the Kaper chart on the kitchen wall. “You’re not really serious about this thing—right?”
Ellis got herself a glass of orange juice and settled at the kitchen table. “Well, now that Stephen and Willa aren’t coming, I guess I’ll have to redo it, but I still don’t think it’ll be too much trouble, not if everybody pitches in.”
Julia stood and pointed at the first line of the chart with her half-eaten piece of toast. She read aloud in a high-pitched schoolmarm voice: “Monday: Julia cooks breakfast. Dorie does dishes. Willa sweeps sand from floors. Stephen takes out trash. Ellis does laundry.”
Dorie pressed her napkin to her lips to suppress a giggle, but after Ellis glared at her, she looked down innocently at her cereal bowl.
“Ellis, honey,” Julia said, nibbling at her toast. “I’m sorry. It’s ludicrous. It really is. This chart thing … what did they call it back in Girl Scouts?”
“A Kaper chart,” Ellis said quietly.
“Oh yes, Kaper.” Julia nodded. “Excellent for eight-year-olds who have to be reminded to scrub their teeth and gather wood for the campfire. But for the love of God! We’re grown women here. I’m thirty-five years old. I don’t need a chart to tell me to hang up a wet towel.”
Ellis felt her face go pink. “I just thought … well, I thought it might help the month go smoother, if things were sort of organized. Unlike you guys, I’m used to living alone and doing everything myself. I thought the chart would be kind of fun, but obviously I was wrong.” She pulled the whiteboard off the wall and walked rapidly out of the room, her back stiff. A moment later, she was back, but only to pick up her empty juice glass, rinse it out, and place it on the drainboard. Then she stalked out of the room. Dorie and Julia heard the screen door open and then slam shut.
* * *
“Shit.” Julia tossed the toast crust onto her plate. “I’d forgotten how prickly our girl can be. But really, Dorie, it had to be said.”
Dorie picked up both their plates and coffee cups and put them into the sink full of soapy water. “It could have been said nicer. Ellis isn’t like you, Julia. She didn’t grow up fighting and fussing with a bunch of brothers. You really hurt her feelings. And after all the work she did putting this together for all of us. It wouldn’t hurt to go along with her. At least for the first week or so.”
Julia sighed. “Now you’re gonna make me play nice, aren’t you?”
Dorie grinned. “Either that, or you pick up your Tinkertoys and go home.”
Dorie walked out to the front porch, with Julia trailing reluctantly behind. They stopped at the front door and peeked out. The whiteboard was poking out of the top of the trash can at the edge of the driveway, and its creator, Ellis, was sitting on one of the porch chairs, rocking rapidly to and fro, staring off into space. It was a gorgeous summer morning, sunny, not too humid, with banks of high, puffy white clouds overhead.
It was the second day of August, and already they’d started to bicker.
“Come on, Ellis,” Dorie coaxed. “Don’t be mad. Julia didn’t mean anything by it.” She turned and glared at Julia. “Did you, Julia?”
“Julia’s a bitch,” Julia whispered loudly, poking her head out the door. She tiptoed onto the porch and stood behind Ellis’s chair. “And just for that, Julia’s going to have to clean the latrines for the whole month, right, Dorie?”
Dorie sat down on the rocker next to Ellis’s. “Absolutely. And she gets no s’mores. Ever.”
Julia knelt down on the floor on the other side of Ellis. She wrapped her arms around her friend’s waist and laid her head on Ellis’s lap. “Julia’s sorry,” she said in a little tiny mouse voice. “She loves Ellie-Belly and doesn’t ever want to hurt her friend’s feelings.”
Ellis suppressed a smile. She patted Julia’s head and then gave it a sharp thump. “Get up, you nutjob. And don’t think you’re going to get out of cooking my dinner tonight, either.”
Julia groaned. “Thank God. My knees are killing me.” She flopped down into the other rocking chair. “So what should we do today? Our first whole day at the beach? Bike ride? Shopping? Hang gliding over at Jockey’s Ridge? I saw a brochure for the most marvelous-looking school where they actually teach you to hang glide. Remember that time we all went bungee jumping at Myrtle Beach?”
“You and Dorie went bungee jumping,” Ellis corrected. “I couldn’t even watch. I was petrified you’d be killed, and I’d have to explain to your mothers what happened.”
“Nah, you were just scared if we got killed you’d have to go home alone and drive over the Talmadge bridge all by yourself,” Julia taunted.
“True,” Ellis admitted.
“Why don’t we just hang at the beach here?” Dorie asked.
The others turned to look at her in surprise. Dorie had never been one to pass up an adventure.
“What?” she said innocently, catching their meaning. “Why do we have to do anything at all? I’m just enjoying being here, spending time with you guys. Anyway, hang gliding is expensive. You forget, I’m living on a schoolteacher’s salary. A private school too—which doesn’t pay diddly, I might add.”
Ellis jumped to her feet. “Dorie’s right,” she said. “This is perfect beach weather. I’m gonna go put on my suit. If nothing else, maybe the saltwater will heal my flea bites.”
Julia looked at Ellis’s outstretched legs. “Eww! Disgusting! Have you contacted our landlord?”
“Mr. Culpepper? Repeatedly,” Ellis said. “I sent him another e-mail just before I came downstairs. If I don’t hear from him by lunchtime, I’m going to just find an exterminator in the phone book and tell Culpepper I’m going to deduct it from the rest of our rent. And I told him how unhappy we are about the mildew and the ants.”
“And the crappy mattresses, I hope,” Julia added. “I haven’t slept on a bed that lumpy since I went hosteling in Belgium after high school. We’re paying enough rent for this dump that we should at least be able to expect a decent bed.”
“About the rent,” Dorie said hesitantly. “I really think Willa should offer to go ahead and pay her share, even though she did cancel.”
“Did she offer to reimuburse us?” Julia asked.
“Not yet,” Dorie admitted.
“Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for her to offer,” Julia said. “Even though good old Arthur is swimming in dough. It wouldn’t occur to darling Willa that the rest of us might be out-of-pocket because of her.”
“I could ask her,” Dorie volunteered. “But you know Willa.”
“We do,” Ellis said briskly. “So we won’t count on her chipping in. If she does, that would be great; if not, no biggie. Like I said, I’m seriously thinking of renegotiating our lease on Ebbtide. The place is totally not what he advertised.”
“I think it’s kinda sweet,” Dorie said. “Did you know, in the daylight, you can look through the cracks in the floorboards in that bathroom under the stairs and see little fiddler crabs crawling around in the sand under the house?”
“Sweet Jesus!” Julia said. “I am never using that bathroom again.”
“Oh, Julia, quit being so damned British,” Dorie said impishly. “You grew up in Savannah, Georgia, just like the rest of us. It’s not like you never saw a fiddler crab before. Or a cockroach or an ant.”
Julia stuck her tongue out at Dorie. “Screw you. I might have grown up living around creepy-crawlies, but that doesn’t mean I want to live with ’em as a grown-up.”
* * *
Ty had been watching the waves off and on since sunrise. They weren’t really that big, but it was a break—he’d been sitting at his computer for the past twenty-four hours, researching cholesterol and statin fighters in every online medical journal he could find. He was no scientist—hell, he’d barely passed high school chemistry—but this new drug Hodarthe had come up with sounded like it could be a winner.
He’d done well the previous day with a start-up company in California that was doing interesting things using recycled glass in commercial concrete applications, so he had some funds, and he was poised to take a position with Hodarthe. But damned if he hadn’t just received another e-mail from Ellis Sullivan.
He chuckled to himself as he reread her latest missive. “WTF? Fleas!” Little old Ellis was turning out to be a real ballbuster. He found himself scratching at a phantom flea bite even as he read. She was right, though. He did have to do something about the fleas. If they got too out of hand, he’d never get rid of ’em, and they might just chase away Ellis and her girlfriends. He couldn’t afford to lose a month’s rent.
Much as he hated to, he picked up the phone and called an old high school buddy, Frank, who had gone into his father’s pest control business over in Elizabeth City. After some idle chatter about prospects for Carolina football (sorry) and the economy (way sorrier), Frank promised to head over to Ebbtide for a little bug-bombing session that afternoon. They even worked out a trade: Frank would provide pest control services for three months in return for a week’s vacation at Ebbtide.
Ty didn’t have to tell Frank money was tight; Frank knew about the jam he’d gotten himself into. Hell, everybody on the Outer Banks knew that Ty Bazemore was in a world of hurt. The first foreclosure notice for Ebbtide had been published in the newspaper in July, and every week since, the notice had run in the paper’s legal ads, rubbing salt into his already wounded ego. Six weeks. That’s how much time he had to pull off a miracle. Until then, he needed to keep his tenants happy and, somehow, raise enough money to catch up on six months’ worth of missed house payments and back taxes.
But it wouldn’t do to let Ellis Sullivan get the upper hand. So he fired off a missive of his own.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Alleged fleas.
Ms. Sullivan, if the house has fleas, you must have brought them with you. Likewise the ants. I’ve never had complaints before, about bugs or the mattresses. But Frank from Bug-Off Pest Control will be out today, after 2 pm. You’ll have to vacate the premises for at least two hours, unless you enjoy inhaling toxic fumes. If you don’t like my dishes, there’s a Walmart in Kitty Hawk. I’ll send somebody to take a look at the faucet. Happy?
Through the open door, he could hear the waves rolling into shore. He could stand it no more. He got up and strolled out to the porch.
The women of Ebbtide had pitched camp on a stretch of sand directly below. They had a jaunty striped pink-and-yellow umbrella, three lounge chairs, and a large cooler. The brunette, Ellis, and a tall, elegant blonde were playing Pro Kadima, inexpertly slapping the little rubber ball around, dashing back and forth in the sand, laughing hysterically.
The blonde was a knockout, with long, slender bronzed legs and a bright orange bikini that left little to the imagination.
The third woman was a petite strawberry blonde. She was stretched out in her chair, a pair of sunglasses perched on her little snub nose, reading a magazine. Even the loose-fitting sleeveless cover-up she wore over her swimsuit couldn’t disguise a body that was luscious—and that was a word Ty didn’t just throw around. Her pale, freckled skin was already turning pink, and it wasn’t yet noon.
But it was Ellis, pain-in-the-ass Ellis, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of. She’d knotted her long hair in a goofy ponytail on top of her head, emphasizing the graceful curve of her long neck. Her modest, black one-piece bathing suit should not have been alluring, but somehow it was—the high cut legs showed off her great butt, the scoop neckline revealed a promising amount of creamy cleavage. And when she ran, as she was doing now, looking like a total klutz, the suit rode up in the back and down in the front, giving him a rewarding view.
Ellis Sullivan was not by any means the hottest thing he’d ever seen on this stretch of beach. That honor, he thought, ironically, would have to go to Kendra, whom he’d first spotted the summer they were fifteen, as she did a slow, taunting stroll past him while he painted his grandmother’s Adirondack chairs on this same deck. He found himself scowling at the memory of that day.
* * *
Dorie had promised herself she’d go for a swim at exactly 11 A.M. She ran and dove into the waves, letting them take her out and under, again and again. The water was wonderful. She floated on her back and looked up at the clouds, trying to force herself to empty her cluttered mind and think of … absolutely nothing.
But the worries lapped at her as surely as the warm waves. Damn Willa for backing out on them! Dorie had budgeted this vacation down to the last nickel, counting on splitting expenses four ways. And now? Her budget was blown to hell. She had just barely enough money to pay for her share of the rent, let alone kick in her share for groceries. And then there was Stephen. It was all just too sad, too awful. He would have loved this place. The thought came to her unbidden, as did the unexpected wave, washing over her face. She stood up, sputtering and choking, the saltwater burning her eyes and throat.
She was running back to her chair when she spotted him—a man, standing on the second-floor deck of the garage right beside their house.
The other girls were opening beers when she got back. She opted for an icy bottle of water instead, and as she was toweling off, she glanced up and saw the man again. He hadn’t moved.
“Hey,” she said, running a comb through her tangled hair. “Who’s that guy?”
“What guy?” Julia said, not bothering to look around. She twisted the cap from her beer and took a long drink. “Probably one of your old boyfriends.”
“Wrong,” Dorie said. “I’ve never dated anybody from North Carolina. I had a boyfriend who went to Wake Forest, but that doesn’t count because he was from Charleston.”
“Where is this guy?” Ellis asked, standing up.
“Right there.” Dorie pointed towards the garage apartment. “He’s totally been staring at us for the past ten minutes.”
Ellis put on her sunglasses and looked.
“It’s him!” she exclaimed.
Now Julia was looking too. “Him who?”
“That’s the guy,” Ellis exclaimed. “Remember? I told you, he was standing right there, peeing off that porch, yesterday morning when I got here.”
“Gross,” Dorie said.
“He doesn’t look gross to me,” Julia said. “He looks kind of, um, yummy to me. He’s all tan and ripped. My God, look at those pecs!”
“Julia!” Ellis and Dorie exclaimed in unison.
“Excuse me,” Julia said. “Can I help it if I’ve had my fill of looking at flabby white Englishmen in the past few years? Have you two ever seen European men at the beach? They all wear those nasty little Speedos with their schlongs waving around.”
“Banana hammocks,” Dorie said, giggling. “Disgusting. Booker doesn’t wear one, does he?”
“Booker?” Julia said with a derisive snort. “Hah! Booker hates the beach. He always says if he wants to get sun poisoning or skin cancer, he’ll do it someplace with air-conditioning and decent cable reception.”
“Stephen loves the beach,” Dorie said wistfully. “He’ll drive out to Tybee in the middle of the winter, just so he can walk barefoot in the sand.”
“It’s just too bad he couldn’t come after all,” Julia said sympathetically. “Have you talked to him since we got here?”
Dorie’s eyes filled with tears. “No.…”
Ellis shot Julia a warning look. Julia shrugged.
“Oh look,” Julia said, turning back towards the dunes. “The guy! He sees us looking at him.” She gave him a coquettish wave. “And he doesn’t even care. Oh my God. He’s waving back. Who the hell is he?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” Ellis said.
8
Ellis marched herself right up the stairway over the dune, stopping only to slide her feet into a pair of flip-flops she’d left at the edge of the steps.
“Hey!” she called, standing at the covered deck at the top of the dunes, her hands at her hips. “Hey, you!”
“Who, me?” Ty called, leaning down over the porch railing. He could just barely see a bit of her nipples from this vantage point.
“Yes, you,” Ellis retorted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Just taking in the scenery,” Ty said innocently. “How about yourself?”
“My friends and I were relaxing on the beach,” Ellis said. “Until we became aware that we were being spied on by some pervert.”
“What makes you think I’m a pervert?”
“Yesterday I caught you pissing off that same deck. Today you’re up there staring at us. What’s your name, anyway?”
He was taken off guard by her question, and before he knew it, he was actually telling her. “My name is Ty Bazemore. Why do you ask?”
She nodded, seeming to memorize it. “Ty Bazemore. Is that it? Not Tyson, or Tyler?”
“Just Ty,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“None of your business,” she said. “What are you doing up there on that porch?”
“I happen to live here,” he said indignantly.
“Does Mr. Culpepper know you’re staying up there?”
He managed to suppress a smile. “Culpepper knows all about me.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?” she asked.
“Come to think of it,” he said, looking down at his watch, “I do.” He started to go back inside, but then he thought of something.
She was halfway down the beach stairs.
“Hey,” he called. “Why do you want to know my name?”
“So I can Google you,” she called back, not bothering to turn around. “And I intend to run the tag on that Bronco too, Ty Bazemore.”
“The perv’s name is Ty,” Ellis reported when she got back to the girls. “He claims he rents the garage apartment from Mr. Culpepper.”
“What makes you think he’s a perv?” Julia asked, thumbing through Vogue.
“He was peeing off that deck!” Ellis said. “Right there in front of God and everybody.”
“That doesn’t make him a pervert,” Julia said, dog-earing one of the pages. “It just makes him a guy. My brothers used to pee off the second-floor porch at the house at Isle of Hope when they were kids. It was like a contest. Peeing for distance, they called it.”
“My brother did the same kind of stuff. And sometimes, when Stephen’s in the backyard mowing the grass, he’ll pee behind the garage,” Dorie volunteered. “He doesn’t think I know. I think it’s kinda funny. Didn’t your brother ever do anything like that?”
“Baylor wouldn’t have dared. My mother would have had a cat-fit,” Ellis said. “I don’t care what you guys say, I’m keeping an eye on Ty Bazemore.”
“Mmmm,” Julia purred suggestively. “I’ll help.”
“Me too,” Dorie said. “He’s adorable. He’d make the perfect summer fling for you, Ellis.”
“As if,” Ellis said.
* * *
At lunchtime, the girls trooped back up the dunes to the house.
“I’m starved,” Julia announced. She was leafing through a thick booklet advertising local shops and restaurants. “Where shall we go for lunch? Seafood, right? The fish we get in England is crap. It’s the one big thing I miss about living in Savannah. Do you guys remember my mom’s fried grouper sandwiches?”
“I remember her she-crab bisque,” Ellis said. Unlike her own mother, who was strictly a meat and potatoes, canned peas, and cherry Jell-O kind of cook, Catherine Capelli had been a fabulous cook. “And I’d give anything for another plate of her spaghetti with the Italian sausage that she’d make in the wintertime.”
“And those little yeast rolls she’d make, dripping with garlic butter,” Dorie put in. “And all the different kinds of cookies she’d bake every year at Christmas. She’d fix a huge plate for each of us to take home to our families. It’s a miracle we all didn’t end up fat little piggies after eating your mama’s cooking all those years, Julia.”
“She could cook, there was no denying that,” Julia said lightly. “But you still haven’t told me where you want to go have lunch.” She rifled the pages of the booklet. “Awful Arthur’s? Barefoot Bernie’s? Dirty Dick’s?”
Ellis picked up a manila folder she’d left on top of the microwave. “Let’s see. I’ve got coupons for Mako Mike’s and Freaky Freddie’s. Buy one entrée, get a second free.”
“You guys go,” Dorie said. “Maybe I’ll just fix myself a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.”
“Peanut butter and jelly? At the beach? Are you nuts?” Julia said.
“I prefer to think of it as being thrifty,” Dorie replied. “I mean, c’mon, Ellis, aren’t you the tiniest bit worried about your situation? I know you’ll get another great job, but I just think I’d be crazy worried if I were you.”
“I’ve got some irons in the fire,” Ellis said blithely. “But I’ll be all right. As long as I’m sensible about my spending, which I usually am anyway.” She opened the refrigerator door, secretly relieved at the twenty dollar bill she’d save by eating lunch at home. “Look, I stopped at the seafood place up the street when I got in yesterday and picked up some shrimp. They claimed it was right off the boat. And I brought a can of Old Bay seasoning. We can steam some shrimp in beer.”
“What else have you got in there?” Dorie asked, leaning in to look. She held up a head of romaine lettuce, a cucumber, and a tomato. “Great. I’ll throw a salad together while the shrimp are cooking.”
“Oh, all right,” Julia relented. “We’ll stay in for lunch. But tonight, we’re going out for dinner so I can get my fried grouper fix. And it’s my treat, so don’t even try to argue.”
They took turns showering, and when lunch was ready, they sat companionably around the enamel-topped kitchen table. They discussed plans for the afternoon, while Ellis checked her e-mail.
“Hey,” she announced. “Old man Culpepper finally answered my e-mail. A pest-control guy is coming over to spray the house at two. But he says we’ve got to stay out of the house for a couple of hours afterwards.”
“Suits me,” Julia said. “I’ve got a new book, and the beach is calling me back.”
“Guess I’ve had enough sun for one day,” Dorie said, holding out her sunburnt arm.
“Me too,” Ellis agreed. “I saw a movie theater up the street. Why don’t we catch a matinee?”
“A chick flick!” Dorie’s green eyes lit up. “I’ll bring my biggest pocketbook and we’ll sneak in our own Diet Cokes like we did in junior high. And we can stop and buy a giant box of candy at the Dollar Store.”
“Well…” Ellis said. “You know they always have those big signs that say ‘outside food and drink prohibited’.…”
Julia set her beer bottle down on the countertop. “Who cares? They just put those signs up so you’ll have to buy their five-dollar Cokes and seven-dollar tubs of popcorn. Nobody pays any attention to those signs.”
“I do,” Ellis said stubbornly. “What if we got caught? How embarrassing would that be?”
“Who’s going to catch you?” Julia wanted to know. “It’s not like they have ushers in movie theaters anymore. And even if they did, what do you think is going to happen if they catch you sneaking in your own stuff? Huh? You think they’re gonna revoke your driver’s license? Seize your jujubes as contraband?”
“Never mind her, Ellis,” Dorie said. “I’ll carry the Cokes and Milk Duds in my purse.” She paused then, remembering that her redrawn budget had no room for movies—let alone seven-dollar boxes of popcorn.
Ellis noticed Dorie’s sudden look of concern. She opened the manila folder again. “I went online and downloaded some Movie Lover’s passes. If we get there before 1:30, our tickets are only two bucks. And there’s one for each of us.”
Julia rolled her eyes. “What is with you two with the coupons and early-bird specials? We’re on vacation. We’ve all worked hard and we deserve to be good to ourselves. If you’re that hard up for money, just say so.” She grabbed her pocketbook.
Ellis saw Dorie bite her lip and look away. “Thanks anyway. We’ll pay our own way,” she said, her voice deliberately even. “And if you don’t want to be seen with a couple of coupon-clippers, we’ll understand.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean … well, you know.” Julia hastily craned her neck to look out the kitchen window. “It’s kind of clouding up out there. So if you’ve got a spare coupon, I guess I could go. Anyway, I figure I laid down a pretty good base coat this morning.”
“You’re half Italian,” Dorie pointed out. “You were born with a base coat. Unlike me, with this darned red hair and freckles. I swear, I think I get sunburn from my night-light.”
* * *
Ty saw the women load up into the red minivan and head off down Virginia Dare Trail. It was only a little after one. He waited five minutes, and then another five, just to make sure they weren’t doubling back. Then he picked up his toolbox and key ring and, whistling, headed over to Ebbtide.
He stood on the porch, hesitant. Beach towels were draped over the rocking chairs, and three bathing suits—the orange bikini, a lime green flowered one-piece, and the black one-piece, were pinned to the clothesline. Three pairs of flip-flops were neatly lined up by the front door. He fit the key in the lock but still didn’t turn it. It didn’t feel right, somehow. But it was his house, damn it. He was the landlord. Ellis Sullivan had been nagging about a dripping faucet and fleas and ants. So he had a legitimate reason to be in the house.
Then why did he feel so creepy?
Because some neurotic chick accused him of spying on her and her friends? When did it become a crime to stand on his own deck and enjoy the sight of a pretty woman? It was a public beach, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like he’d taken a pair of binoculars to peep into some unsuspecting woman’s bedroom.
He squared his shoulders, unlocked the door, and marched inside. He went directly towards the kitchen. He could hear the faucet dripping from the hallway.
The kitchen looked a hell of a lot better than the last time he’d been in it. The floor was swept, the counters and stove top sparkled, and damp plates and glasses were neatly stacked in the dish drainer, a clean dish towel draped across them. He could smell the Old Bay seasoning they’d used to cook shrimp, but there were also faint undernotes of flowery perfume and coconut-scented suntan lotion.
Ty put his toolbox on the counter. He opened the cupboard under the sink and shut off the water. Then he dug out a pair of Channellocks from the toolbox and went to work. A washer. It just needed a washer. He was putting his tools away when he noticed the dishes stacked on the open shelves. Or what there were of them. He could have sworn there had been dishes for eight when he’d gotten the house ready back before Easter. Now, there were, as Ellis Sullivan had claimed, only five dinner plates. Five chipped, cracked plates. Three cereal bowls, none of them matching. What had happened to all the china he’d stocked the house with back in the spring? He opened one of two drawers. The silverware was pretty skimpy too. There were no knives to speak of. In the cupboard, he found a couple of small saucepans, none with a lid, and the world’s smallest cast-iron skillet.
And what about the range? He turned all the burners to high and held the palm of his hand over them. Only the smallest eye, at the back of the stove, worked.
His shoulders slumped. His old man had taught him how to do basic plumbing and rudimentary electrical repairs, but he didn’t have any idea how to fix this stove. It had been in the house since his grandmother lived here, at least since the 1970s. It was unlikely he’d find somebody who could fix it, since you probably couldn’t even buy replacement parts for the thing anymore.
He was standing there, staring at the half-broken stove, when the doorbell rang.
“Ty Bazemore!”
He wouldn’t have recognized Frank Patterson if he hadn’t been wearing a BUG-OFF PEST CONTROL uniform shirt, with the name FRANK embroidered in script above the left breast. They’d gone to high school together, where Patterson quarterbacked for the football team and Ty had played tight end.
“Dude!” Ty said, pumping his old teammate’s hand. “How the hell are you?”
They stood in the living room, chatting awkwardly. “You’re lookin’ good, Frank,” Ty said. “Bug busting must agree with you.”
“It’s a living,” Frank said. “How ’bout you? Are those your boards I saw out in that garage?”
“Yeah,” Ty said. “I’m still surfing. When I get time, which I haven’t lately.”
Finally, they got down to business.
“Fleas, huh?” Frank said, giving the living room an appraising look.
Ty’s face darkened. “Friggin’ college kids snuck a dog in here last week.”
“You don’t live here?”
Ty laughed. “No, man, I can’t afford to live here. I live over the garage, in what used to be the maid’s apartment. I rent out the house.”
“Pretty cool old place,” Frank said, running a hand over the wood-paneled wall. “It’s one of the original ones, right?”
