Chez Stinky (5 page)

“The main dwelling may not make it through another winter,” he replied. “The roof was not constructed the way most contractors would do it today. The roof metal was laid directly upon the roof stringers with just a layer of plastic between the metal and the insulation. That’s typically how you roof a barn, but not a home that is heated. For a house, generally you would have a layer of plywood sheeting and tar paper under the metal. The trusses also aren’t close enough together, so ideally you would remove the roof, add more trusses, tar paper, and the wood sheeting. As it is now, you have issues with condensation, and over the years the plastic has decomposed, so there are just little pieces left. There may be other issues as well, but going up into the attic revealed that the roof is definitely a problem now.”

“I don’t know what a stringer is, but it all certainly sounds expensive to fix. Is repairing the house something that the estate could pay for? If I sell the place, I can’t sell it if the roof is about to cave in. I think that’s the type of thing anyone buying a house would want you to disclose.”

“Stringers are the strips of wood that hold the trusses together. The roof metal is attached to them. And yes, the money is available for repairs if you opt to live at the property yourself. If you are going to sell the property, it may be more cost-effective to tear down the house and just sell the land.”

Tear down the house? That seemed extreme. And it felt wrong, like she was throwing away all that her aunt had worked to create her entire life. Plus, what about the animals? It was their home, too. But making Chez Stinky
her
home seemed like an extreme step. Kat liked her comfortable life. Sure, her job might not be the most interesting one in the world, but it paid the rent on her apartment.

“How soon can they get rid of the smell? I think I need to go back up there and talk to your friend myself,” she said.

“If I have your authorization, he can start today.”

“Will the smell be gone by next weekend? Right now, I have to work and I have a big deadline.”

“Yes, I’ll tell him your plans.”

Kat thanked the lawyer, hung up, and turned back to the dense text of the Big Bad Proposal. Some of her most vivid childhood memories centered around the house and the land surrounding it. She spent long summer days hiking with her aunt through the trees and helping Aunt Abigail in the gardens around the house. Kat figured she probably wasn’t much help, but her aunt spent hours patiently explaining what all the herbs, vegetables, and flowers were and why she had planted them. Kat had asked a million questions, but Abigail loved to talk about growing things. She had shown Kat how to plant seeds and cover them with soil. Once the seedlings took root, Abigail also showed her how to identify the bad weeds from the good plants.

Kat shook her head. “What am I doing? I have less than 24 hours to edit 350 pages.” She picked up her red pen and set to work.

On Monday morning, Kat was exhausted. For the first time since college, she had pulled an all-nighter. Back then, some of her classmates seemed to be able to thrive on less than eight hours of sleep, but Kat was not one of them. The process of dragging herself into the office felt like she was slowly swimming through molasses. But the good news was that after editing all night, the Big Bad Proposal was marked up. All she had to do today was put the changes into the computer. Kat yawned mightily and went to the office kitchen for another cup of coffee.

Maria walked up and did a hip bump against Kat. “You look like death, girl.”

“Why thank you. I feel lovely today as well,” Kat answered with a smirk. “I’m guessing your Sunday was better than mine.”

“Yeah baby. I got a new magazine, and I followed the instructions for one of those home spa days where you use up all the stuff in your refrigerator as natural beauty products. I made a mask out of mayonnaise and a hair gel out of honey.”

Kat looked at Maria’s hair more closely. Her normally bouncy curls were oddly stiff with a crystalline sheen as if her hair had been frozen in a sugar storm. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to leave that type of thing
on
your hair.”

“Well, I didn’t finish the article.”

Kat raised her eyebrows and said, “You might want to wash your hair when you get home.” She headed back to her cubicle and sat down just as the phone rang, making her jump and jarring her dulled senses. All the caffeine was making her twitchy, but it wasn’t doing its job to keep her awake.

“Hello, this is Kat.”

“Hiya. My name is Herbert Fowler. I’m a friend of Larry Lowell. But you can call me Bud. Everybody does.”

“Larry Lowell? Oh, are you the person looking at the house in Alpine Grove?”

“Yep, that’s me. And I gotta tell ya, that’s one bad smell you got there, lady,” he said with a snort.

“Yes. I noticed. Can you make it go away?”

“Yeah, but it’s gonna cost ya,” Bud said with a slurp. It sounded like he was shifting chewing tobacco around in his mouth. Finally, he spat out, “I gotta find the varmint and then cut out the wall and then dee-spoze of the thing in a sanitary way.”

Considering how disgusting she found chewing tobacco, Kat hated to think what Bud would regard as sanitary disposal. She didn’t exactly have a lot of options. “That sounds like a good plan, Mr. Fowler. Did you talk to Larry about this? I need to know the cost as well.”

“Yep. He said that I need to talk to you ‘cuz you gotta come up with the money for the dee-spoz-al.”

Kat said, “I think Larry is supposed to take care of it with the money from Abigail’s estate.”

“Nope,” Bud said with an emphatic slurp.

“I’d like to know how much this will cost. And can you take a credit card? I need to have the smell removed so I can spend some time there this weekend.”

“Nope. I deal in cash. I’ll know what it costs when I do it.”

Kat rolled her eyes. “All right, please call Larry with an estimate, so I have some idea. I’ll talk to him and he can get the money to you. But you promise to get rid of the smell, right?”

“Yep, no problem.”

Kat hung up the phone and laid her head down on her desk. How could getting an inheritance be so expensive? Just bulldozing the place and forgetting about it was looking appealing.

Kat awoke with a start and looked up. Chris was peering over her cubicle wall down at her. He thumped the top of the wall with his hand. “So, are you having tea with the tillerman or what?”

Kat blinked a few times at him trying to think of a suitably snotty retort to his latest musical reference, but she was too tired to come up with anything. How long had she been asleep? “No Chris. What do you want?”

“How’s my proposal? I need it, you know,” he said, tapping his index finger on the cubicle top again for emphasis.

“We already
had
this conversation Chris. I know. I’m working on it.”

Chris nodded and continued tapping the cubicles as he wandered off down the hallway. A quiet non-flattering expletive was uttered by the editor in the next cubicle as Chris walked by. Sharon loathed Chris with a fierce passion that was a little scary.

A few years ago Kat had read that the secret to technical writing is an ability to tolerate boredom. Yes, her job had many boring moments, but this was the first time she’d literally fallen asleep at her desk. How embarrassing. With any luck, Chris wouldn’t blab to Mark about it. Finding a job as a writer wasn’t easy, and she’d had to take a pay cut to get this one after she’d been laid off a year ago. Glancing up at the clock on the wall, she pressed her lips together. It was already midday. Sadly, napping tended to cut down on editorial productivity. There was no way she could finish the proposal by herself. Time to call in reinforcements.

She strode to Mark’s office and faced the back of his big leather chair. It looked like Mark might be observing something out the window or maybe playing with the toys on his credenza. Kat was sure she didn’t want to know. She knocked on the door to get his attention.

Mark spun around and gaped at Kat with sheepish look on his face. “Oh, hi.”

Kat raised her eyebrows. What exactly
had
he been doing? “Hi, Mark. I need to get help on this proposal. I made all the edits on the paper copy, and I think that if we divide it up and several people put the changes into the file, we can get them all in and make the deadline. Can you get everyone together and tell them this is important?”

Mark nodded his head and looked down at his fingernails. “Didn’t I tell you? Over the weekend, I went out for a beer with one of my buddies at the agency. He gave us an extension. We don’t have to have it done for another month.”

Kat’s eyes widened. “And you’re just telling me this
now
?” she fumed. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? Like when I came in after getting no sleep last night. Or even better, you could have called me over the weekend. You have my number. It’s not like you don’t call me with meaningless drivel all the time. You must have me on speed dial. Whenever you have one of your brilliant ideas, you call me.”

Mark brushed a lock of hair off his forehead and looked out the window. “I had stuff to do. I was busy and forgot.”

“And I
didn’t
have stuff to do? I just found out my aunt died!” Kat spun around and stomped out of the office. She was
so
outta here. Clenching her fists, she stopped and said over her shoulder, “So did you let Chris in on this little tidbit of information? Maybe you should. Oh and by the way, I’m taking the afternoon off.”

Kat marched down the hallway back to her cubicle, gathered her belongings, and left the building. Wound up on caffeine and fury, she was practically vibrating. Gripping the steering wheel in her little Toyota, she replayed the conversation with Mark in her head. Yes, she needed money to pay her rent, but being jerked around by that self-absorbed idiot was no way to live her life. She was smart and willing to work hard. Why was she settling for this?

Back at her apartment, Kat flopped down onto her bed. As if she could sense Kat was mentally and physically exhausted, Murphee didn’t complain about food. Instead, she jumped up on the bed, curled up by Kat’s side, and started purring. Kat stroked the cat’s long black fur and her body started to relax. Maybe she should fix up Chez Stinky after all.

Kat was jolted awake by the sound of her phone ringing. She couldn’t think of anyone in the world she wanted to talk to right now, so she rolled over and put her pillow over her head to shut out the noise. Murphee leaped off the bed with a disgusted meow.

“Sorry Murph,” she mumbled. The answering machine could take the call. That’s why she had one, after all. Kat just wanted to get some sleep.

When she woke up several hours later, Kat walked over to her answering machine and noticed that the red light was blinking. She pressed the play button.

“Ms. Stevens,” the voice on the machine said, “This is Jean Hartland. I’m the apartment manager for this building. I’m calling to see if you got the letter we sent you. Just in case you did not receive it or haven’t had a chance to read it, I’m informing you that the apartment complex has been purchased and the new owner will be converting the units to condominiums. You will need to find a new place to live and move out of apartment 152 within three months, so the new owners can begin remodeling the units. I’m sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your cooperation. If you are interested in purchasing the apartment, please give me a call. We can offer you advantageous terms if you would like to stay here.”