Chapter 11
chapter eleven
Angelo
We were within a week of the one-month deadline I'd been imposed for finding a house.
Part of me didn't think my parents would actually kick me out if I didn’t settle on something.
The other part was reminded of it very clearly, when I woke up Tuesday morning and my father was taking pictures of some of my bigger belongings and listing them for sale on Facebook Marketplace.
My commuter bike, for example. No, I never rode it, but it was one of those things where you didn't ever need it until you got rid of it.
I wasn't a hoarder or anything. But sometimes a record player comes in handy.
The mirage of items I fit on the trailer that I hitched from New York to Florida was my business, and my business only.
I had to wrestle the musical keyboard out of my father’s strangely strong arms for a man in his mid-sixties and hide it under the seat in the cab of my truck.
This all to say, it was apparent that my time was coming to an end living in a basement or a spare room with my parents and comfortably allowing life to give me its all.
I was ready. I had been ready for years, but with the cost of living in New York City it simply didn't make any sense to go somewhere else. I was single, had a great job, a loving family, a space of my own, and even a side door to come and go out of. It was pretty much an apartment, without the bills involved. Economically, I was raking it in. Here in Florida though, my living arrangements weren’t the same.
The spare room with the flowery curtains and closet full of extra linens didn't exactly scream independence.
Neither did living out of a couple open suitcases and a dryer.
More than that, I had nowhere to bring Mia.
That was the real issue. I had nowhere to get her alone, to relax with her, to be in our own space, uninterrupted.
Especially not while we were keeping a low profile.
It was torture, not being able to whisk her away somewhere and touch her, kiss her, make her forget the world around us for a little while and make her mine.
Sure, we could fuck in the cab of my truck. We could fuck in an empty parking lot. I could get a hotel for a night, or I could invite myself over to her place and take care of her, but that wasn't good enough.
My feelings were more real than that.
Mateo gave me a day to catch up on my online classes while he "worked from home." Which could mean exactly that, or my brother was cranking his hog on camera for his other acclaimed gig.
I didn't ask about that side of his life often, but I did think about how convenient it was that he was a cybersecurity specialist given the nature of it.
Mia was indisposed all day. She'd texted me early in the morning to let me know she would be gone for a few hours taking listing photos of a property in Golden Beach for a wealth advisor who was selling his third home.
That she expected it to go for more than eight million, and it would put her well above the second-best agent at Branting for the yearly sales report, given the fourth quarter went as well as the third.
It was hard not to be impressed by her. I guess it was a tough reality for some men to be involved with women more successful than them, more esteemed, better earning, whatever. Not me. Being with Mia would be the proudest brag of my life.
My only crutch was not being able to talk to her for hours at a time. By three p.m., I'd logged my last online coursework for the week and went back outside in the yard with a beer and a toolbelt to finish my thank-you project.
The wood stain was damn near identical to the worn, worked coffee table at the center of Mia's living room.
It would blend naturally with the plants, the shelves peeking out behind green shrubbery.
I added soft copper hardware as hinges between pieces that had the ability to open and close toward the direction of the sunlight, and stacked several planks with macrame knot ties to optimize the space, like a ladder.
My parents' windows weren't the same size, but I was able to do a test run in the spare bedroom. I drilled carefully into studs, and filled the holes in the drywall with spackle before they returned home from their regular Tuesday shuffleboard at the neighborhood clubhouse.
I took a shower to wash off the stench of wood stain and sweat from the hundred-degree day. My fingernails were an alarming shade of puce, which is just as ugly a color as it was a word, and when I got out, there was a text waiting for me from Mia.
Mia
It's late, but I finally got a hold of the property guy for the house after I left him about four messages. Pulled a few strings complaining about communication, and he said it's open whenever we want for the rest of the night. Sent me the code.
Me
Meet you there?
Mia
Give me an hour
:)
Valley Green Drive was an interesting choice of street name for a neighborhood that was nowhere near a valley, nor in any shape to call itself green while in so many various stages of construction.
Number 11 was also one of only two houses on the road. The other didn't have a roof yet. It was all cement foundation and framing wood, some tarps in the rock rubble driveway covering raw construction material. The one we were seeing was at least fully functioning from the outside.
As soon as I pulled into the driveway, the skies started to open up.
For the first time, Mia was there waiting for me with a stack of paper covering her head like an umbrella, her short heels sinking into the gravel, a skirt hugging her hips and billowing at her knees, and a pink blouse lying unbuttoned to the center of her chest.
A crack of thunder rolled angrily and I jogged toward her, scooping her up quickly at the waist, sending her into a fit of giggles, then depositing us both at the front door.
Mia rummaged for her cellphone to find the message with the code, fumbling it, the rain only getting more threatening and her makeshift awning of paper becoming more maché by the second.
"Need some help?" I offered, amused.
She whined out a laugh, abandoning the paper and letting the rain fall onto her perfectly dry hair.
It curled in an instant, little ringlets swirling at her temples, frizz collecting droplets.
Her shirt became as soaked as mine and the material made it borderline transparent despite the soft floral pattern.
"Dammit." Her fingers shook on the keypad that was collecting rain as well. I nudged her aside to take a turn with the code, still needing to enter the procession of numbers twice before it finally beeped and clicked open for us and I ushered Mia inside.
When the door closed, the slam echoed throughout the house.
"So." She clapped her hands together, rocking on the balls of her feet and looking around. The walls were barren, some painter’s tape left behind on the bottom step of a winding staircase in front of us.
It smelled like freshly laid sheetrock, chalky and nostalgic to me, but procedural to anyone else.
The floor tile had been started, but not finished.
There were boxes of it still set to the side.
"At least we don't have to take our shoes off. "
The rain thudded louder on the roof, and it was incredibly humid with the electricity and central air being turned off with no one living there. The house itself was enormous. It just wasn't finished.
"Tommy is the property owner. He said the plan was an entire street of houses to accompany the new golf course they laid out, but they got stuck waiting on permits too long, the initial contractors backed out, and they moved on to other projects in the development.
This one is basically done, but the interior obviously needs to be finished.
He figured the right person, at the right price, would come and do the work. "
"I mean, turn on the water and the electric and it's a fine house as it is."
"You can't live in this house as it is." She rolled her eyes and put both hands on her hips. I noticed for the first time that I could make out the white lace bra beneath her wet blouse as the material clung to her skin.
"I could. This is all cosmetic. It's a project, sure, but nothing is keeping me from finishing a bedroom and a bathroom, getting the kitchen in working condition, and worrying about the details at a later date."
We walked into the kitchen. Dust had settled on countertops and across the ground, but the wood flooring was new, solid.
Cabinets were installed, alongside a deep stainless-steel basin sink.
In the living room was a sunken area for eventual couches and a huge wood burning fireplace with none of those sharp corners and stone I hated around it.
More than that, there were windows from floor to ceiling, big and mighty, the main attraction in the house.
Outside you could see grass as far and wild as it gets in the backyard, the property lined with orange trees that were littered with a crop that poked out in bright bursts through the gray and rain.
It was a blank slate. Rife with magic and the possibility of everything I’d ever dreamed to fill it.
Mia and I stood there quietly, watching rain fall and splatter against the panes of glass, trickling down in a slow dance. "There's so much potential," I finally said.
She took a deep breath. "But why? I showed you houses that were move-in ready. Nothing to be done, completely state of the art, great neighborhoods with neighbors and canals. If you want a golf course, I can find you one. This is…it's a mess, Angelo."
"It's not a mess." I turned toward her. "It's a canvas. They need the right guy to do it, and I'm that guy."
"Can we at least see the second floor before we start imagining a building project? We don't even know if there's doors on the bedrooms. The listing conveniently left those photos out."