10. Archie #3
Maybe she expected me to be on the way back to my room or maybe she didn’t realize quite how small the towel she brought me is, but when Piper opens her already-large eyes, her pupils grow even larger behind her glasses.
She blinks, and her eyes drop to my hand holding the towel before slowly traveling back to my face.
"Towels should be done soon." She swallows hard, shifting her weight. "I'll fold them and take them to the bathroom when they're done."
"Great." I suppress a grin. Seeing Piper so uncomfortable almost makes up for the humiliation. “I’ll shower down here.”
I walk slowly past her on my way to the gym, not breaking eye contact the whole time. And if she's blushing because she’s seeing more of me than she bargained for when she suddenly decided to wash every towel in sight, well, that's on her, isn't it?
In the gym, I grab a beach towel among the many located in plain sight, hanging right next to the surfboards, and eagerly head into the bathroom across the hall. I’m ready for that hot shower. I turn on the water and wait for it to warm up.
But it doesn’t. I twist the handle to full hot and wait, but nothing changes—besides my body temp dropping even more. The air con vent is blasting air so icy, I think a cold shower might be warmer.
As soon as I step inside, the freezing water hits me in the chest, stealing my breath.
I’ve taken plenty of cold showers in my life while surfing in remote areas.
I tough it out when I need to. But this is brutal.
I wash and shampoo in ten seconds flat, barely rinse my hair, and jump back out.
My body shakes uncontrollably as I dry off.
Still shivering, I dart to the gym for a second towel and wrap that around my shoulders.
Piper is sitting at the kitchen table with her sketchpad and pencils when I shiver past her. “You okay?” she asks when she looks up.
“Something’s wrong with the water. It wouldn’t get hot.” My teeth chatter around each word.
"Weird. My shower was hot," she says a bit too innocently.
I look back at her, my suspicion piqued. “Really? Weird that something would break between your shower and mine. I can’t remember ever not having hot water in the house. The faucet looked fine to me, not broken.”
“Faucet?” Piper raises her thick eyebrows so high they’re visible above the rim of her glasses. “Do you understand where hot water comes from, Archie?”
I consider the question for longer than I should. I haven’t ever really thought about why the water is always hot here. I’m not about to say magic, but as far as I know, it could be.
“Yeah, must be the shower handles,” I stammer finally. “I’ll ask Sybil to get someone in to fix it.”
Piper’s brow creases. “You’re going to make Sybil in Brisbane, Australia, find a plumber for you instead of just asking Google?”
Despite the air con still blowing full blast, heat creeps down my neck. A plumber—right. That’s who you call about water problems. I know that. I just never had to put those pieces together before.
This realization comes at the same time I notice Piper is wearing leggings, a thick jumper, and socks…Inside…In California.
Socks aren’t a thing here.
Unless, of course, the air con is set to somewhere near freezing. At the same time, all the towels happen to be in the wash and the hot water breaks.
My suspicion is more than piqued now. I’m in full-pointing-fingers and yelling-Ah-Ha! mode. But I play it cool. “I thought Sybil might know who handles that kind of stuff for this house.”
“Uh huh.” Piper doesn’t even pretend to believe me before picking up her colored pencil and going back to her sketchbook.
On my way to my room, I stop first at the thermostat and check the setting. Ten degrees Celsius. Not quite freezing, but close.
“Did you mean to turn the air down this low?” I yell.
“Is it low? I never understand Celsius,” she calls back.
“For future reference, ten degrees Celsius is roughly fifty degrees Fahrenheit.” I toggle the switch to heat. “If you keep it around twenty-two, we won’t need parkas.”
“Good to know! Thanks!”
When I get to my room, rather than calling a plumber, I take Piper’s advice and consult Google. What makes water hot in California homes?
The answer I get is a water heater. Which seems obvious but also leads to more questions.
What is a water heater?
Google is more helpful with that question. Because, of course, the water has to be heated by something, somewhere. It’s not naturally hot in some parts of the world and not in others.
Where do I find a water heater?
Google fills my screen with pictures of water heaters—helpful—and a hundred places where I can buy a water heater—not so helpful. I narrow my search.
Where do I find a water heater in a California home?
I get a one-sentence answer. In California, water heaters are typically located in garages.
I smack my head. I know exactly what it is now. I’ve passed the rectangular box on the wall with all the pipes coming from it every time I walk from the garage into the house. If I ever wondered what it was, I don’t remember.
Dressed in my warmest clothes and armed with Google, I run down the stairs to the garage.
An instruction manual entitled Tankless Water Heater is in a plastic bag attached to the side of the rectangle box.
One page in, I discover that, not only is this a water heater, but it’s also one that never runs out of hot water.
As long as the heater is powered on, the water will be hot. Forever and ever.
After a little more reading, I discover that the currently blank digital face of the box should have a temperature showing. I find the power button right below the blank face and press it, understanding one thing: The box must be on in order for the water to get hot, and this box is not on.
When the numbers light up the small screen, I give a little huff of success, then press the up arrow until it shows one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit, which is what the booklet recommends. I stare it down for a minute, daring the power to go off or the numbers to go down.
Nothing happens.
Time for a test. I walk through the kitchen, past Piper, to the downstairs bathroom I just showered in. I turn on the shower, and seconds later, steam billows.
After my second shower of the day—which is also the best shower of my life—I go back to the kitchen. Piper is still coloring as though it’s her first day of primary school.
"Looks like the heater turned off for some reason," I say casually, even though she didn’t ask.
"Huh. Has it done that before?" She could have colored every page in that book of hers by now.
"Never." I stare at her harder than I did at the hot water machine.
“Weird. Glad you fixed it, though.” Color, color, color. Nothing to see here.
I open my mouth to say something else. To ask her if she knows anything about what could have happened to the water heating thing, or why she got a sudden itch to wash my outside towels, or if she always wakes up to the sound of a foghorn at five a.m. But I close my mouth and walk back upstairs, wondering if I'm being paranoid or if Piper Quinn really did wreak this much havoc before eight a.m. on a Sunday morning.
And if so, what am I going to do in return?