Page 8 of August
“I know. It’s a two-hour drive. I can eat here and then go.”
“Why?”
“Because all of my friends are there. Literally, all of them. And there’s a party I want to go to. If I leave after dinner, I’ll get to Dad’s by, like, nine or something, and I can drop my stuff off and go. I’d come back tomorrow.”
“If you’re going, I want to go, too,” Adele added. “I can just hang with Sarah and Olivia. They’re watching movies all night.”
“You’re driving yourself, then,” Archie replied.
“First of all, if you’re both going, you’re takingonecar. Second of all, you can’t wait until the weekend?”
“The party is tonight,” he replied. “Some of my friends are leaving for school before me, so there are going to be a lot of these, like, send-off party things coming up. I just don’t understand why we had to move here. Why couldn’t we just wait?”
“AJ…” Adele said. “Come on. You know why.”
“Still. Mom, you were in the guest house already. Why couldn’t you move in there permanently? I don’t think Dad would’ve cared. We would have–”
“That’s enough,” Elisa interrupted. “Both of you, go. Just be anywhere but here right now. If you really want to go to your dad’s, fine, but you’re taking one car. Call me when you get there and when you’re back from the party.”
“Text?” Adele asked.
“Fine.” Elisa let out a deep breath. “Just go.”
Myra hadn’t wanted to eavesdrop, but she had heard the whole conversation while she’d been taking photos of what she was seeing and making her notes on the work that would need to be done. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t really be worth her time rescheduling another job to be able to take this on, but the work, while not all that extensive, would need to be done soon, or Elisa would have actual rotting wood to contend with that could jeopardize the structure of the house.
“Sorry you had to hear that,” Elisa said to her, sounding like she was closer to Myra than before.
Myra turned around and replied, “No problem. Kids, huh?”
“Do you have any?” Elisa asked.
“Uh… No,” she replied. “My extended family is big, so I’ve been surrounded by them, though.”
“Well, mine are a handful, but they haven’t always been. The divorce is still something they’re dealing with.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Myra replied.
“Yeah, me too,” Elisa said. “So, how bad?”
“I have a few more things to look at, but it’s not bad,really. Itwillbe, so you should take care of it sooner rather than later.”
“Okay. Well, that’s the plan. I’ve only been putting it off this much because I needed to get the rest of the house done so that they felt like they had a home to come back to when they’re off school for breaks.”
Myra knew she shouldn’t take this job. It wouldn’t make her any money because now that she had heard Elisa’s kids acting like little entitled assholes, she couldn’t charge her the real price she would charge someone else, and she would give her everything at cost, too, because she was a neighbor. Elisa was also beautiful and kind, and there wasn’t an official discount for that, but Myra wanted to help her out.
“I can do the work in the evenings and on the weekends for you, but I can’t move another job for this one. I can get one of my temps to do it for me, but I’d rather do it myself since we’re neighbors.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Elisa replied. “I can just take the quote, like you said, and find someone else you’d recommend if you’re too busy to take it on.”
“It’s okay. It’s not much work, really, and it’s something I can do on my own, so that’ll cut down the costs for you. Can I get you the official estimate tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Elisa replied.
“And I can work for an hour or two after you have dinner or something so that I’m not making noise while you’re trying to eat.”
“Don’t worry about that. They know we need this for the house, and they’re usually on their phones during dinner anyway.”
Myra nodded and replied, “I’ll type up the estimate and email it to you tomorrow. You can just call the office or email us back to approve it, and we’ll go from there.”
