Page 66 of August
“Oh. Yeah, sorry,” Myra said, taking a piece of it from the basket.
“He means he put it in the oven,” Adele teased. “It’s from a box.”
“You took a bag of lettuce and put it in a bowl,” AJ said.
“I made the lasagna with Mom while you were playing some video game.”
“Lasagna isn’tthathard,” he teased.
“Then,youmake it next time, and your sister and I will play the video games,” Elisa tossed back.
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’m, like, a Renaissance man like that: I can play video games, soccer,andcook. I’ll just add a few more things to my list of talents and call Wendy back up. She’ll go out with me then, I bet.”
Adele choked on the soda she’d just taken a sip of.
“Are you okay?” Myra asked her, worried.
“Yeah, fine,” she replied in a scraggly voice.
“Uh… Let’s talk about school,” Elisa suggested.
Myra turned to her, and Elisa gave her a look that told her she would tell Myra something later, so Myra moved on, too.
“Whataboutschool? We haven’t even started yet,” AJ noted.
Adele continued to try to clear her throat.
“Just… What do you plan on studying? I’m sure Myra would like to know.”
“Shewould?” AJ asked. “Well, I don’t know yet anyway. I’ll be playing soccer, so something easy.”
“Easy?” Myra asked. “What’s easy in college?”
“Did you go to college?” Adele asked.
“I did,” Myra replied. “Construction management.”
“That doesn’t sound easy,” Adele noted.
“It wasn’t,” Myra replied. “A lot more math and science than most people think.”
“Yeah?” AJ asked.
“Yeah,” Myra said. “If you turn around, you’ll see all the work we’ve been doing. We’re replacing some old, damaged wood, but we have to do it very carefully because some things are load-bearing, and if we removed them without planning, the second floor could cave in on the first.” Myra pointed with her fork. “And that wood has to be at a certain angle. If it’s even one degree off, it won’t fit snuggly in there, and we’dbe right back here, potentially with even more damage later. A house is really just a giant puzzle, and I like trying to solve it.”
“I never thought of it like that,” AJ replied, seemingly considering what she was saying. “Can I maybe watch you do the work sometime? I have no idea what I’ll do if soccer doesn’t work out, and I need a major.”
Myra looked over at Elisa to check first, and when Elisa just smiled at her, she replied, “Sure.”
“Cool. I can learn how to build things, too. Then, Wendy will definitely go out with me.”
Adele’s fork scratched across her dinner plate.
CHAPTER 22
“But if you don’t clean it out first, it just does the same thing again,” AJ said to Myra.
“This house wasn’t the worst I had seen. Far from it,” Myra replied as she pointed to something that Elisa couldn’t see from her position at the kitchen sink with Adele. “That’s good. When hurricanes come to town, it’s not just bad for a week. Even if a house doesn’t flood, there’s still potential for mold damage if things get inside through leaks. It looks like your mom caught it early enough and did the right thing. Now, we’re just pulling out all the damage and replacing things or cleaning it if it’s not that bad. It would’ve been a lot worse if she had waited.”
