Page 9 of Sleigh Bells and Snowstorms
I parked, grabbed the groceries, and ran inside. “Nina?”
Her voice carried from the basement. “Coming!”
I took the bags to the kitchen and set them on the counter. Nina emerged from the stairway off the kitchen that led to the finished basement. She and I looked a lot alike even though she was ten years younger than me. Similar face shape, brown eyes, olive skin, and dark hair, although she kept hers shorter than mine.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is someone here? And why are you home? I thought you had to work today.” She was an aesthetician at a local spa.
“I was at work until Mr. Gardner called and said we had water shooting out of our hose bib on the side of the house.”
“That’s not good.”
“Nope. And when I came home to check, I found that water was not only shooting out of the hose bib outside, it was leaking into the basement.”
I stared at her for a long moment. No words. I had no words.
“Obviously, I freaked out. Mr. Gardner saw me losing it in the backyard and came outside. He called the water restoration guys for me. They got the water to the house turned off, and they’re down there now setting up a bunch of big fans and dehumidifiers to dry everything out.”
I could imagine Nina freaking out on seeing the leak. My sister was many things, but calm in a crisis was not one of them.
“Thank you to Mr. Gardner, I guess,” I said.
“He is a nice neighbor.”
“But this also means we don’t have water.”
“Um, yeah, about that. The restoration guys said we need a plumber to fix whatever broke before we can turn it back on.”
I let out a long breath. Water damage. A plumber. None of it was good news.
“Okay.” I nodded a few times. “This is fine. We can figure it out.”
Nina nodded along, her eyes wide and hopeful, looking to me for reassurance.
“Have you called a plumber yet?” I asked, and she shook her head. “Let’s call Jason. He’ll do a good job and won’t overcharge us.” One of the benefits of small-town life—being able to call someone you knew from high school when you encountered problems in the grown-up world.
“Good idea.” Her shoulders dropped with relief.
Moving on autopilot, I started putting the groceries away. “Do you need to go back to work?”
“Yeah. I got someone to cover one client, but I have more appointments this afternoon.”
“That’s fine. I’ll take over from here.”
“You don’t work tonight, do you?”
“I don’t work at all for the foreseeable future. As of today, we’re on strike.”
“What?” Her face went ashen, and when she spoke again, the pitch of her voice rose with every word. “You’re on strike? That means you can’t work, doesn’t it? Which means you don’t get paid. And we have water damage and need a plumber, and oh my god, Natalie, it’s almost Christmas. What are we going to do?”
“Don’t panic.”
Her voice came out in a squeak. “But the water and the plumber and the bills and—”
“Nina.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and held her steady. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“How?”
I let go. “We have the money set aside for the furnace. We can live on that for a little while.”
