Chapter 8 Lorna Now
Well, now she felt bad. when she reviewed her tone and demeanor in Micah’s office on the drive home, she could see she’d been very prickly. That damn codicil was going to be the death of her.
The rage she’d felt leaving Bodhi had dissipated, and now she felt sheepish for leaving in a snit and flouncing out of Micah’s office.
He was just trying to help her. Why couldn’t she have left in a dignified manner?
Despite the beanbag, things had been going well.
Until he brought up that “face yourself” business and defended her mother’s motives.
Everything about that trust and her mother was mixed in a thick, tar-like morass of feelings that she’d quit trying to sort out a long time ago.
She couldn’t just pull out a few bad feelings, have a look at them, and think, Okay, everything’s probably fine now .
It didn’t work that way, so she’d just allowed the toxic brew of feelings to simmer deep in the pit of her.
She probably owed Micah an apology. Too bad Deb wasn’t here to confirm. She sincerely wished Deb were here—somewhere along the way she’d lost the ability to gauge when she was being obnoxious. Deb was just... comforting. A solid person.
She took the third slot in the gravel patch. The new guy’s massive truck was missing, but it looked like everyone else was home. Fabulous. Lorna’s head was pounding with tension and Martin probably had a marching band coming over later to stomp around overhead.
She got out of her car and went inside. She paused at the mail table. Something felt off. She realized that she’d usually hear music coming out of Martin’s apartment, but the lobby was strangely silent.
She picked up the mail someone had stacked for her and went to her apartment door, expecting to hear Agnes whimpering on the other side. She heard nothing.
Inside her apartment, she dropped her purse and mail on the console and whistled for her dog.
Agnes did not come. She walked to the back of her apartment, where she could hear voices slipping in from the dog door into the backyard.
Agnes was with the boy, of course. They’d probably dug tunnels to go with their massive hole or built a spaceship out of the wooden fence.
It would cost her a small fortune to return the backyard to an oasis when she owned the house.
She opened her back door and stepped onto her small landing and, surprisingly, saw a crowd gathered—Martin and Mrs. Foster had joined Bean. Agnes was on her back, her legs in the air, and Martin was rubbing her belly.
“Hi, Lorna!” Bean waved at her from his spot between the adults. Mrs. Foster and Martin looked up, both smiling. “Oh, hey,” Mrs. Foster said with a wave of her own. “Come join us!”
Lorna almost checked behind her to see if someone had followed her out, but no, they were clearly speaking to her. She moved hesitantly toward the edge of her landing, unconvinced they really wanted her to join them. “What’s going on?”
“We found some cool rocks,” Bean said. “Want to see?”
Lorna spotted a pile of seemingly ordinary rocks.
Heaven only knew where they’d come from—probably shoring up the corner of the house.
She walked down the three steps into the yard, and Agnes, having finally turned from the sea of adoring faces, trotted over.
At least that was an improvement from other times Lorna had found her with Bean.
But after touching her snout to Lorna and accepting a head scratch, she trotted right back to the group of fun people.
Even her dog was choosing other people over her.
Bean hopped up and carried a rock in each hand to meet her halfway. “This one is metmorsit,” he said, holding up a striated rock.
“Metamorphic,” Martin corrected.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Bean said. “And this one is sedentary.”
Mrs. Foster and Martin laughed. “Sedimentary,” Martin said.
Lorna looked at the rocks Bean held out to her. They were rocks all right.
“Martin knows how to tell all rocks apart,” Bean said excitedly.
“He does?”
“I’m a geologist,” Martin said.
Lorna’s gaze snapped to Martin to see if he was joking.
Martin smiled a little. “Did you think I was a rapper or something?”
Lorna knew better than to answer that, but she did think he was some sort of musician. What was she supposed to think? He was always wearing the over-the-ear headphones and turning up the volume of his music. “No,” she said, unconvincingly.
“Oh my God, you did,” Martin said, and laughed with amazement.
“Well, I didn’t know he was a geologist until today either,” Mrs. Foster trilled. “The rocks are very interesting when you hear him talk about them. It’s hard to imagine the thousands of years that have gone into making them.”
“Miss Liz said I will learn about rocks in the fifth grade,” Bean said. “She’s a teacher.”
“Was,” Mrs. Foster said. “I’m retired now.”
And all this time, Lorna had thought she worked at a home and garden center.
She was always dressed in capri pants and Crocs, with her gray hair pulled back into a ponytail.
How had this happened? How was it that faceless neighbors Lorna had lived next to for nearly two years were only now becoming known to her? Also, did Bean know everyone?
“Did you get your letter from Mr. Contreras?” Mrs. Foster asked.
“A letter? No.” Unless it had come today—she hadn’t gone through her pile of mail.
“Rent is going up,” Martin said. “We’re thinking about banding together to fight it.”
“Another two hundred and fifty dollars a month,” Mrs. Foster said, looking slightly traumatized.
Lorna was surprised to hear it. It wasn’t as if their current rent was affordable—she already thought it was overvalued by 20 percent. “Two hundred and fifty a month is outrageous,” she said.
“Right?” Martin said. “He shouldn’t be charging what we’re paying now. There are so many things in disrepair.”
“Right!” Lorna emphatically agreed. Maybe she and the geologist had more in common than she’d perceived.
“Then you’ll help us fight?” Mrs. Foster asked.
Whoa. “Fight? I think he should just sell it.”
Mrs. Foster gaped at her as if she’d just blasphemed the Almighty. “But if he sells it, we’ll be out.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be living here.”
“Look!” Bean said. “Martin gave me a geode.” He held up a rock.
“Hold on, bud,” Martin said, and looked at Lorna. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing, really.” Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? She’d just revealed herself. “I just think this should be a house. A family house.”
“But it’s an apartment building.”
“But it was a house before that.”
Martin and Mrs. Foster were staring at her so intently that Lorna almost confessed her scheme.
“What kind is this one, Martin?” Bean asked. He was holding up another rock, clearly oblivious to the adult conversation.
“Metamorphic,” Martin answered. “Sure, it was a house,” he continued to Lorna, “back when there were horses and buggies. But now it’s four separate apartments, and it would take a lot of money to put it back together.
No one is going to do that. Because no one could afford a house this size in the middle of Austin.
The property taxes alone would be more than some people pay for an entire house.
Which is why it’s been split into apartments.
But it should be affordable apartments, because this ain’t the Ritz. ”
“No, it is not,” Mrs. Foster agreed. “He still hasn’t fixed the leak in my bathroom.”
Lorna made a mental note to complain about the leak in that bathroom to Mr. Contreras. This house had enough problems without adding mold to the list.
“But I understand where you’re coming from,” Mrs. Foster said.
“You do?” Lorna asked, surprised.
“Sure!” Mrs. Foster continued. “It clearly needs some work, but it’s a beautiful old house.
Unfortunately, I think that time has passed.
Martin’s right—it would be cost prohibitive to make this into a family home again.
I think we should at least talk about working together to stop such a sharp rent increase. ”
Lorna didn’t know what to say. Her headache squeezed like a vise, and she rubbed at one temple.
She understood what they were saying. She felt bad for her neighbors—no one liked to be priced out of their home.
And yet, as inexplicable as it was to anyone but her inner self, Lorna had to have this house.
They would never understand that it was almost a matter of life and death to her.
Metaphorically speaking, anyway. She had this crazy notion that she would have the normal life she craved if only she had this house.
All she had to do was go back to the way life was and redo the last thirty years.
She looked at her dog, who was now nosing around the rocks, knocking over the piles that Bean was busily putting up again. “Aggie!” he admonished her, then followed that up by petting her as he reset his piles.
“Maybe we should wait until Seth is available later this afternoon so we can all come to some agreement,” Mrs. Foster said.
“My dad and I are going to Ranger Explorers tonight,” Bean said. “I’m getting a new badge for LEGOs. I have a whole box of badges.”
“Sometime this week?” Martin asked, shifting his gaze between Lorna and Mrs. Foster.
“Ah...” Lorna tried to think a way out of this. “I’d like to call Mr. Contreras and talk to him first.”
“Oh, would you?” Mrs. Foster asked, and let out a breath. “That would be so helpful. Could you do that today or tomorrow? Then we can talk about what you learned and decide how to proceed. Is there anything you need from us before you talk to him?”
“Umm... no, I don’t think so.” Lorna rubbed her temple again. She could now add queasiness to her headache. She was going to call Mr. Contreras, but not about the rent hike. “I should run,” she said, pointing to her door. “Agnes, are you coming?”
“She likes Aggie better,” Bean said. “I did an experiment.”
Agnes began to wag her stub of a tail.