Chapter 3
Chapter Three
A s soon as my alarm went off the next morning, I snatched my alarm clock off the bedside table and hurled it across the room. I was supposed to get up early to meet the new painter at Aunt Catherine’s house, but my head felt like a herd of cattle stomped all over it, so I decided to sleep in.
Eventually, I had to get out of bed to pee. While I was sitting there, I checked my phone to see if Janet had called. She hadn’t. Weird. I thought best friends were supposed to check in on you after a near death experience.
I saw a text from the new painter, though. He was waiting for me. Judging by the number of texts, he had been waiting a long time. And not patiently.
I texted him the door code and told him to get started. All the paint and supplies were already there, left behind by the last painter, painter #4, the one who quit when I asked him to touch up the hallway again because he still hadn’t painted over the paw prints.
For some reason, I couldn’t seem to find a competent painter who could get the job done, with each excuse or mishap even crazier than the last. Some people accuse me of being a perfectionist. Okay, many people. What can I say? I have high standards.
I texted the new painter I would get to Aunt Catherine’s house as soon as I could. Technically, it wasn’t Aunt Catherine’s house anymore, it was mine.
Aunt Catherine was my father’s mother’s sister. She never got married. Smart woman. Never had kids. Really smart. My father was her only nephew. When she wrote out her will, he was her only next of kin. But since he wasn’t around when she died, everything she owned went to my father’s only next of kin. Me.
Still sitting in the bathroom, I considered the possibility that getting screwed over by cosmic forces was hereditary. You see, my great Aunt Catherine got thrown under the bus. Literally. She was ninety-nine years old. Smoked like a chimney, drank like a sailor, ate like a diabetic pig. And despite it all, she was in perfect health. Except her eyesight.
One rainy Tuesday, on her way to bingo, she stepped off a sidewalk in front of a bus full of schoolchildren. Wham! What a way to go. You make it ninety-nine years in this life and then you get plowed down a week before you turn one hundred. That’s the Universe for you.
My phoned binged. The painter replied with a thumb’s up emoji in response to my last text telling him I would get there as soon as I could.
Still sitting in the bathroom, I took an exploratory sniff of my armpit. Notes of hay. Barn. Cow fart. The scent of the previous day’s disaster stuck to my body like cow flavored super glue.
I stripped out of my pajamas and jumped into the shower. I squeezed half a bottle of cucumber melon body wash into a luffa and scrubbed my skin raw. If I still smelled like cow farts after all this, at least the farts were from a cow that ate a lot of cucumbers and melons.
After showering, I got dressed and made myself a banana kale protein shake for breakfast. It was disgusting. So I dumped that and toasted two frozen waffles instead. I drowned them in maple syrup and covered them in whipped cream. Then I added half a bag of chocolate chips and rainbow colored sprinkles. There were enough calories on my plate to feed a third world country.
* * *
I got to Aunt Catherine’s house a little after noon. Aunt Catherine had spent most her life working in a factory embroidering souvenir T-shirts for tourists. The hours were long; the paychecks were small, and the vacation time was non-existent. It was like the Florida version of a sweatshop in China. Though she told me once they had a nice dental plan.
After saving every penny she could, Aunt Catherine bought her first and only house on an oak lined street in downtown Sanford. The house had a wrap around front porch and a big backyard with a pool.
I’m sure it was lovely when it was brand new. I bet when she first bought it, it was a dream come true. But after almost fifty years, without a single upgrade or refresh, it was now on the nomination ballot to be officially added as the tenth circle of hell. The foundation was crumbling, the trim was rotting, and between the overgrown weed garden, cobweb crusted windows, and creepy looking rusted fencing, it looked like the set of a horror movie.
As I pulled into the driveway, I saw a white van parked on the street in front of the mailbox. Except it wasn’t just on the street. Two of the tires had gone up over the curb and were now sitting on the front lawn. My landscape guy, Leo, had put in new sod just last week. New sod which was now being mushed by van tires. Worse, there was a trail of stomped grass clearly visible between the van and the front door. As if someone, a painter perhaps, had marched back and forth across the front lawn multiple times carrying a ladder and heavy cans of paint. The green grass was already turning yellow. I had to remind myself to breathe.
I snarled as I put Charlotte into park and turned off her ignition. Charlotte, by the way, was my car. A red-head. That is an Imola Red BMW. Premium package. Comfort package. Technology package. Top of the line all the way. Could I afford her? No. But in real estate, it’s not just the house that has to keep up appearances. Success breeds success. Or more specifically, the appearance of success makes potential clients think you know what you’re doing.
Charlotte was like the car version of a trophy wife. A lot of upkeep, secretly hated me, and as a short-term lease, would only stick around until the money ran out. If I didn’t flip Aunt Catherine’s house quickly, Charlotte would be shacking up with another owner soon.
With the economy and the housing market the way they were, costs were up, materials were scarce, and good help, painters especially, were in short supply. My renovation was well over budget and let’s just say my bank account didn’t have a lot of wiggle room for cost overruns and schedule delays.
I left Charlotte in the driveway and marched down the sidewalk toward the van, taking care not to step on the newly installed, newly trampled sod. As I got closer, I could feel my temperature rising. And not just from the sweltering heat.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s just a little grass, right? Wrong. You see, everyone knows the number one rule in real estate is location, location, location. But what is less known, though almost as important, is the number two rule of real estate. Curb appeal, curb appeal, curb appeal.
Not once in all my years selling houses did a prospective buyer gush about the steel reinforced concrete foundation. In the history of real estate, not one time did a buyer offer above asking price for the type K copper plumbing. People didn’t care about what’s on the inside. It’s the outside that counts. Looks aren’t everything, they’re the only thing. What seals the deal are high end fixtures. Feng Shui furnishing. A gourmet kitchen.
Speaking of curb appeal, once I got a better look at it, the new painter’s van definitely did not have curb appeal, or any type of appeal at all. It was a hunk of junk. Dents and rust covered the back bumper. Scratches streaked the door like it had sideswiped a telephone pole. One of the side windows was cracked. Was this thing even road legal? Stenciled lettering on the side of the van read Wright Touch. Right touch? Looked like the wrong touch to me. I hoped the new guy could paint better than he could drive.
I turned back toward the house, fully intending to give the new painter a piece of my mind. That’s when I noticed the front door standing wide open. My mouth dropped. I could hear the the air compressor on the side of the house spinning faster than the engine on a turbo charged jet. Dollar bills with little wings on them were billowing out the front door.
* * *
I burst through the doorway and screeched to a halt.
What. The. Hell.
The inside of Aunt Catherine’s house looked like a murder room. Tarps on the floors. Duct tape piled on a table. Plastic sheets covered the windows so nobody could see inside.
“Hello.” The voice came from behind me. I spun around, almost face planting into a wall of flesh. Pectoral flesh. Shoulder flesh. Jaw flesh.
I looked up. A pair of eyes looked back down at me. Steel-grey eyes ringed in sea-foam green. Like tiny whirlpools in the middle of the ocean, sucking wayward ships into the depths of oblivion.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His eyes locked onto me. Sharp eyes. The kind of eyes perfect for stalking prey. And those shoulders, big enough to heave heavy sacks. He was tall, too. Enough vertical length to peer over fences. Arms etched in muscle. Arms that could shovel for days.
As soon as my life finished flashing before my eyes, my next thought was, he’s kind of cute for a serial killer. I held my breath as the serial killer’s eyes floated over me. His jaw ticked when they brushed over my chest. Like he was wondering how I would taste with a side of fava beans.
“Mary Burns?” His smile made a dimple pop in his stubbled cheek. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Mister, if I ever met you before, I sure as hell wouldn’t forget. I stood there gaping long enough to make it awkward. He knew my name, but there was no way we ever met. I wouldn’t have forgotten a face like his. A body like his, either.
“It’s Gary.”
Blink
“Gary Wright.”
Blink
“From high school.”
It took a couple of seconds to piece it together. But when I did, my mind was officially blown. I had to grab on to the doorframe to steady myself. The man standing in front of me was Gary Wright?
“We had a biology class together, remember?”
Of course I remembered Gary Wright. How could I forget Gary Wright? The memory of Gary Wright was like a toe fungus that wouldn’t go away. But not just because Gary Wright and I were in the same biology class. And not even because he squirted formaldehyde from a dead frog all over my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt when he sliced open its stomach.
I remembered Gary because of Janet. Janet talked about Gary Wright … every … single … day. Every day I had to hear about what kind of t-shirt Gary was wearing. Usually something involving Star Trek or hobbits. Every day I had to suffer through a play-by-play of conversations they had in the hallway. Janet was obsessed with Gary Wright almost as badly as I was obsessed with Jack Thompson.
“I know I look a little different,” said the imposter, pretending to be Gary.
A little different? How about a lot different. How about there was no way that the man standing in front of me was the same kid Janet was in love with back in high school. If Jack Thompson was the official high school alpha male stud, Gary was his polar opposite. A geek among geeks. Dweeb among dweebs. A loser with a capital “L.”
“You’re Gary Wright?” I continued to stare at him in disbelief.
Gary shrugged. “I guess puberty was kind.” No, puberty deserved a standing fucking ovation.
That’s when I noticed all the red. Splattered on Gary’s overalls. Dripping from … Oh. My. God … dripping from Gary’s knife.
“Um … is that blood or paint?” I calculated the distance to the still open doorway, ready to bolt, depending on how he answered.
Gary looked down at the smear of red across his chest, then grunted in amusement. “Probably both. My hand slipped when I was trying to pry open the paint.” Gary plucked a rag from his tool belt and wiped the red from his blade.
I heard a tiny knocking sound in the back of my mind. Like my subconscious knocking on the door so my regular conscious would let it inside.
Red blood.
Red paint.
Why was he opening a can of red paint?????
“So what do you think?” Gary pointed to the wall behind me.
I took a moment to gather myself before turning, drawing a slow breath through my teeth. It was one of those times when you know it’s going to be bad, but you’re not sure how bad. Like when you get pulled over for speeding in a school zone. Or right before you put your W2 numbers into TurboTax.
Next to the front door, on the wall, was a large splotch of red paint. Not the entire wall, thankfully, just enough to provide a sample of the horrors that a full painting would unleash. The paint was the color one might paint a barn filled with pigs. Or a baboon’s butt. Or a prostitute’s lipstick.
When I hired Wright Touch Painting to complete the painting work in Aunt Catherine’s house, I left a very detailed, very specific voicemail with the details of the job. I also sent a two-page email. And several clarifying texts.
After the incidents with my first two painters, not to mention the beige not greige incident with Painter #3, I even ordered and paid for all the painting supplies myself.
“Well?” Gary smiled ear to ear, like a proud toddler who brought home an ugly finger painting from daycare.
“Greige.” My voice squeaked out as a whisper.
“Excuse me?” Gary looked confused.
“Greige,” I said again. “Everything greige.”
“Greige?”
“You were supposed to paint everything greige.”
“Everything?”
It took effort to unclench my fists as I forced a smile through clenched teeth. “Greige is crisp. Greige is clean. Greige goes with anything and everything goes with greige. Greige.”
Blink
Gary looked at me like I was speaking Swahili.
I glanced again at the swath of ugly red paint. When I first walked into Aunt Catherine’s house, I thought I had accidentally walked into a serial killer’s murder room. If only that had been the case. At least then someone else would have gouged my eyes out. Now, I was going to have to do it myself.
“I figured this room could use a pop of color,” said Gary.
Slowly, I turned, taking my time to let my brain fully process the words that had just come out of Gary’s mouth. “A pop of what?”
“Color.” The smile dropped off his face when he saw my face. “You know, spice things up a bit?”
“I didn’t realize that when I hired a painter, I was hiring a decorator too.” I could feel the migraine forming. Like a serial killer stabbing me in the hypothalamus with a paint scalpel. “I was very specific when I hired you,” I said. “Greige. Everything greige. Greige in the hallways. Greige in the bedrooms. Greige in the kitchen.” I pointed to the stack of paint cans stacked against the wall. Every single can was greige. “Where did you even get red paint?”
“I had it in the van. Leftovers from another job. I figured I would put a little on the wall so you could see how it looks. I don’t know, I think it compliments your grayish-beige color nicely.”
It may have been the paint fumes, or the lingering effects of a cow hoof to my head, but at that point, I very much needed to get a breath of fresh air before my head exploded, which would have been terrible because then the rest of the wall would be colored red too. From brain matter.
I turned back around and began moving toward the door.
I never saw the ladder.
Nor did I see the can of red paint perched on the top step of the ladder.
The can of paint that was still open.
The can of paint that was not closed. You know the movie Carrie?
Yeah.
That.
* * *
Turns out, paint is even harder to get out of your hair than cow manure. While I rinsed off in Aunt Catherine’s shower, Gary fetched spare clothes from his van, which comprised an extra set of the burlap textured painting overalls and a vintage concert T-shirt. Normally, I never would have entertained putting either piece of clothing on my body, but I had nothing else to wear and I wasn’t about to get wet paint all over Charlotte.
“You like Justin Bieber?” Gary called through the locked bathroom door.
“No,” I yelled back. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my braless nipples jut out of Justin Bieber’s forehead like a set of erect devil horns, and the coarse material of the overalls chafed my cheeks. Not the cheeks on my face.
When I opened the door, Gary was waiting for me. To his credit, he tried not to laugh. To his detriment, he failed.
“Is there a specific reason you keep an old Justin Bieber T-shirt in your van?” I asked.
“Long story,” he replied.
If the overalls were baggy on Gary, they were ten times baggier on me. Luckily, Gary had duct tape. Lots of duct tape. He even let me pick my color, silver, black, or red. Gary suggested red. I told him where he could stick his red duct tape. So he handed me the black. Did you know you can use duct tape to make a belt? Suspenders too.
Gary followed me back down to the foyer, where he had already cleaned up and painted over the red with a coat of primer. “Better?”
I glared at him. By that point, my emotional stability sagged even lower than the duct tape strapped overalls. In my mind, I waved a white flag. “I’m going to call it a day,” I told Gary. “Go home and change. Into another person entirely, if possible. One who has better karma.” I pointed to the wall where the red paint was now covered over with white primer. “Greige please. Just greige.”
As I headed down the driveway, still wearing the borrowed overalls and T-shirt, Gary called after me. “Say hi to Janet for me.”