CHAPTER 3
M yra pulled into her own driveway and looked over at the house to her right.
It was, just like her own, an old shotgun-style home, but this one, unlike hers, had a second floor.
She hadn’t lived here when they’d added it on, but she could tell by looking at it that it hadn’t been built with the house initially.
The wear and tear and weathering on the outside of the house were older on the bottom floor than on the top.
She wondered, not for the first time, when they’d added on the entire second floor.
She hadn’t needed that much room post her divorce, having no children of her own and not planning on having any, either, so it hadn’t made sense to build on to her own home, but she had always liked the look of the house next door, despite the upper and lower levels not exactly matching.
She had noticed months ago that it had been put up for sale and had seen the moving truck, but she’d been so busy with work that she hadn’t paid much attention to the new owner or, really, anything else.
Technically, she had enough time now to go inside her own house and change out of her dirty and sweaty work clothes and into something more comfortable, but this was a work call, so she needed to appear in her work shirt and pants.
Deciding to go inside and at least put on a fresh work shirt, she grabbed an apple and ate half of it before she slipped her boots back on.
Finishing the apple on the way over to the other house, she dropped the core into the trash can she had in the back of her work truck to deal with later and carried her clipboard across the yard with her.
The call with Elisa Benedetti had been an interesting one.
For a minute at the end there, Myra had forgotten that she was on a work call.
It had been nice and strange at the same time.
Well, mostly nice and only a little strange, and she found herself excited to go check out the house and even more excited to meet her neighbor.
Myra hadn’t ever been the kind of person who just introduced herself to a neighbor when they moved in.
She preferred to keep to herself, but she didn’t consider herself unneighborly.
If someone needed to borrow that cup of sugar and she had it, she would give it to them.
If she was in her backyard and her neighbor was in theirs, she’d give them a wave and ask how they were doing, but that was the extent of how far she reached out without someone doing the reaching out first.
She rang the doorbell and looked at the house up close for the first time while she waited. The door opened, and she was met with the confused face of a teenage boy who had a phone to his ear.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“I’m from Davies’ Con–”
“We don’t want it,” he interrupted.
“Sorry?”
“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want it,” he stated. “Yeah, hold on a sec. There’s some salesperson at the door,” he added into his phone.
“Archie, you’re an idiot.” A teenage girl appeared next to him, looking very similar to the boy: both had blue eyes, caramel skin, and brown hair. “Sorry. Are you the contractor person?” she asked Myra.
“Yeah. I’m here to do the inspection,” Myra replied.
“Excuse my brother; he’s a moron,” the girl added.
“Shut up,” the boy replied and glared at his sister.
“Will both of you shut up?”
Myra recognized that voice from the phone earlier, and then, the owner of the voice appeared behind the teenagers, who parted like they’d done that a thousand times before so that she could move past them.
“Hi,” Elisa said and smiled at Myra. “Did you happen to bring that candy you mentioned earlier? I think they could both use a sucker to shove in their mouths so that they stop talking. ”
“Damn, Mom,” the boy replied.
“Go. Be on your phone,” Elisa said, laughing at him.
“ I tried to help,” the girl said.
“Kiss-ass,” the boy stated said as he walked away.
“Dumbass,” the girl retorted and walked off, too.
“Well, those are my kids,” Elisa said. “I know they act like toddlers, but believe it or not, they are technically adults and can vote in elections now, which should concern both of us.”
Myra laughed and said, “I should’ve brought that candy.”
“They’d just complain about it , too,” Elisa said on a sigh. “I don’t think I’ve done anything right by them, in their minds, since they were twelve.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. Twins?”
“Yeah. Adele and Archie Junior, also known as Archie, Arch, AJ, asshole, idiot, moron, and a few more, but those last ones are the names Adele calls him. I stick to AJ, Arch, Archie, and sometimes, Junior, I guess.”
“So I heard,” Myra replied with a smile.
“I’m sorry. Come in,” Elisa said, moving aside in order to let Myra in. “You’re here for work, but you’re also apparently my neighbor, so I don’t know if I should offer you a drink and a snack or just let you get to work.”
“Oh, I don’t want to put you out. I can see you’re busy.”
Myra walked inside the house, and Elisa closed the door behind her.
“With them? No, they’re always busy on their own. They are about to go to college, so I’m the annoying mom asking them if they’ve packed, if they have everything, or if they plan on giving me five minutes of peace and quiet anytime soon.”
Myra smiled and said, “I can check things out tonight and get out of your hair. It won’t take long. I can’t guarantee we can do the actual work, like I said on the phone, but you can take my quote to someone else, if that’s the case, and they should match it.”
“My sister-in-law told me you were known for hurricane stuff. ”
“Have I done work for her?”
“No, but a friend of hers,” Elisa said. “I don’t remember the name she gave me, but I can ask. Anyway, if you can’t do it, is there someone else who’s good at this?”
“Everyone in New Orleans, if I’m being honest,” she said. “You kind of have to be if you’re in my line of work and live below sea level, but yeah, I’m known for it specifically. I like doing what I can to bring places back after the water tries to take them from us.”
Elisa tilted her head, gave her a soft smile, and replied, “That’s really nice.”
“Well, I don’t do it for free, so I don’t know how nice it really is.” Myra laughed off the compliment because Elisa’s blue eyes and that caramel skin were really getting to her.
She needed to remember that Elisa had just mentioned a sister-in-law, meaning she was married and not at all available. Her kids were in the living room right now, for crying out loud. Myra shook herself out of it as Elisa turned and walked them in the direction of the work that needed to be done.
“So, should I follow you around or just let you do your thing?” Elisa asked.
“Either is fine. I need to check out some things and take some notes. Is it okay if I take pictures?”
“Of course,” Elisa replied. “Do you want something to drink? I feel like I should ask again.”
Myra smiled at her and said, “I’m okay, but thank you.”
“Okay.”
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“When’s dinner?” Archie asked.
“In about an hour.”
“I’m starving,” he said.
“Grab a snack,” Elisa replied.
“Do we even have anything?” he asked.
“I’m fairly certain there is at least one bite of food in this house. ”
Myra chuckled under her breath at Elisa’s comment and got to work on the inspection.
“Do we have any of those cookies?” he asked.
“You ate them all,” Adele noted.
Myra turned and realized that she’d walked in as well.
“Not all that long from now, you two will be on your own. Can you actually take care of yourselves, or do I need to worry? You realize that food won’t magically appear in your dorm rooms, right? You have to shop for it and maybe even cook it.”
“ I’ll be fine, but I don’t know about him,” Adele replied. “At least I can cook.”
“I can cook,” Archie argued.
“Grilled cheese, mac and cheese from the box, and probably something else with cheese in it,” Adele said.
Myra checked a few things off on her form and made a note about the condition of the wood.
“Dinner is in an hour. I’ll start cooking soon. Will you get out of here and let Myra work in peace?”
“Who’s Myra?” Archie asked.
“The contractor. She’s standing right there,” Adele said and rolled her eyes at her brother.
“Oh, right. How was I supposed to know her name? Mom, can we talk about me going to Dad’s tonight?” Archie asked.
“Tonight? You were just asking me about dinner.”
“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 taking one car. 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. It will be, 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.”
“Okay. Thank you,” Elisa said.
“No problem. I’ll let you get to dinner now.”
“Do you want to stay?”
“For dinner?” Myra asked .
“Sorry; that must have sounded weird,” Elisa replied, shaking her head at herself. “Like I said, you’re my neighbor but also possibly my contractor, so…”
“Not tonight. I need to get home. But maybe another time?” Myra said with a smile that she hoped told Elisa that she meant it.
“Yeah, okay,” Elisa replied.