Page 41 of A Lesson for Laurel

“Is that mold?” he asked. His tone of voice said he was just as wigged out as her.

“No clue and I don’t want to guess. Your cousin should use some cleaners in here now and again. Even vinegar would have taken care of this. Can you get me that garbage bag and a rubber spatula if you’ve got one?”

She heard him open a drawer and then another and then one came into her view, his arm reaching in to hand it over.

She started to scrape as much of it out of the drain and catch area as she could, the rubber bending and getting more than her fingers or another apparatus.

She brought out the first gathering and dropped the brown blackish mess into the bag and gagged at the smell.

“Damn,” he said. “I should take a picture of this so Abe knows not to do it again.”

“I want to say leave me out of the picture.”

“Oh no,” he said. “You’re going to be in it too and then I’ll tell you why. I won’t send it until you’re done and can see the pictures though.”

“If you say so,” she said.

She did three more sweeps and then even posed with a picture of it on the spatula and made an appalled look as she glanced at it. It was a funny shot when Easton showed it to her quickly.

“How is it coming?” he asked. “I feel as if I owe you more than a pizza.”

“No big deal,” she said. “I think we are done. Not sure if this is what caused the problem or not though. I could have just cleaned out the trap area for no reason.”

“It will help with the smell of the dishes at the very least,” he said.

She put the cap back on, then went over and washed her hands and filled up a cup of water and tossed it back into the dishwasher.

“I need to see if it drains and there isn’t much water left in there. I worked around what I could, but it might need more for me to see if it’s working.”

She added another cup for good measure and then shut the door and turned it back on and held her breath.

When the dishwasher started to run and then drain she did a little booty shake, but still opened the door to make sure the water was gone.

“Damn,” he said. “I’m pretty humbled.”

“I’m sure you could have fixed it yourself,” she said.

He lifted one eyebrow at her. “I would have tried and maybe been able to do it. Not positive. I’m better around the house in terms of outside and or hammering shit in place. My Uncle Kurt always said I didn’t have the finesse for detail work. I probably would have broken something trying to clean it out and would have had to call someone in or buy another part.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’ve got me next door,” she said, wiping her hands. She put them to her face to sniff. “Need to wash them again. Got anything stronger than this dish soap?” She gave a little shiver as the scent of God-only-knew-how-old food was lingering under her nails.

“I’ve got Irish Spring upstairs,” he said. “It’s pretty strong.”

“That will do. You need some stronger dish soap too. The cheap stuff only does so much.”

“It’s Abe’s. I haven’t bought much in terms of those things. It was in the pantry.”

“Not a big deal. We can send your cousin some pictures and tell him he needs to get his act together though.”

“He’s liable to say he’ll just call his neighbor if he can’t fix it himself,” he said.

“Look at the frown on your face. Are you jealous?”

He snorted. “I don’t know.”

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