Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Nine
“Neither.” I lean back against my aunt’s black galaxy granite countertop and let out a go-ahead-and-break-my-heart sigh.
“Yeah.” He grimaces—no doubt as a show of support before bringing down the hammer. “That’s what I figured.”
Silence stretches between us as I wait for him to break the bad news, and he waits for…I don’t know…his own reality show on HGTV where he’s the anti–Property Brothers, giving only awful prognostications of construction hell? I shake my head and blurt, “Give me the worse news first.”
I figure that way, the bad news won’t seem so bad—or at least, that’s what I’m hoping, praying, willing to sacrifice a baker’s dozen virgins under a full moon to make come true.
He shoves his fingers through his hair and contemplates the weird stain on the granite. “Inside or outside?”
Just shank me in the eye already.
“You mean there’s worse news in both areas?” Tears of frustration start gathering like vultures over roadkill, but I blink them all back with steely determination. I won’t cry. I will not do it.
“Yeah, I get that a lot on old houses like this.” He gives me a hangdog look that comes off as totally sincere, which somehow makes it worse. Then he rips off the Band-Aid and starts reading the list of disasters he wrote down on his phone. “The supports on the front porch are almost completely destroyed by the massive tree currently squatting there. Tree roots are what’s cracking the walkway up to the porch, so I won’t be able to lay new cement until the dead tree still standing is taken care of. On the plus side, once you do that, we can also fix that nasty driveway crack before it gets any worse.”
I already feel my bank account gasping for air, and it isn’t the only one.
“Is that it?” I ask when I can finally force words out of my too-tight throat.
He gives me a pitying look. “The garage door is warped, which is why you found it tricky to open with the remote. You might be tempted to get away with just keeping it closed, but I’m betting the HOA is going to ding you on it if they haven’t already. So that really does need to be replaced sooner rather than later. On the plus side, fixing the door should take care of your problems with the opener, so we won’t have to replace that.”
Little victories. “How much is a garage door?”
“To match the ones in this neighborhood?” He winces. “About twenty-two hundred dollars.”
What in the hell is it made of? Gold?
“What if I don’t care about matching them?” Or can’t afford to?
“Gotta match them. H—”
“OA regulations.” I barely resist the urge to bang my head against the granite—at this point that might be just plain old mercy. Truthfully, though, the only thing stopping me isn’t manners—it’s fear of a concussion. I sure as hell can’t afford these repairs and an emergency room bill right now. “Yeah, I get it.”
“The fence in the backyard needs to be replaced, and I have no idea what kind of magic is keeping that chicken coop out back standing, but that’ll have to be demolished, in keeping with the HOA regs. You also need to rebuild the flower boxes out front—it should only be six or seven hundred dollars to do all of them, though. And a lot less if you do them yourself.”
I have never built anything in my life—besides Karl’s law practice, though that’s a different story. But if it means saving a few hundred dollars and also keeping the uptight jerk from across the street off my ass, then I’m all in. If there’s an app to remind people to breathe, surely there’s an app to teach them how to build stuff—hopefully a free one.
“Is that it?” I ask for what feels like the hundredth time.
“For the outside, yeah.” He nods. “Except for the shutters, obviously.”
“What’s wrong with the shutters?” My stomach pitches as visions of voracious termites dance before my eyes.
He holds up a don’t-shoot-the-messenger hand that does nothing to comfort me, even as he says, “Nothing, technically. Your aunt must have had them redone pretty recently because the paint is in good shape and so is the wood.”
“Then why would I want to do something to them?” I swear, if he’s just trying to jack up the price on me, I’m going to… I don’t know what. Something terrible that involves putting a curse on his silky, flowing locks, that’s for sure. Or, you know, about three feet south of them. “I’ve got more than enough to do already.”
“Yeah, you do,” he agrees, a little too fervently for my comfort. “But I’ve done a lot of work on houses in this area, and I’m pretty sure…”
He drifts off like he expects me to fill in the blanks for him, but honestly, I have nothing. If he wants me to repaint perfectly good shutters, he better give me one hell of a good reason why.
I guess Mikey figures out that I’m not getting it, because he smiles sympathetically before saying, “The color, Mallory. You have to repaint because of the color.”
“What’s wrong with blue?” Frustration and fear make my question louder than I meant it to be. “It’s one of the most popular colors in the world—”
“Nothing’s wrong with blue,” he interrupts. “As long as it’s navy blue or grayish blue. What you have is—”
“Periwinkle.” I narrow my eyes and clench my teeth. Of course I know I’m fudging a bit with the color, but I just need a little break right now. A tiny one. Minuscule, really.
But Mikey has obviously missed the memo, considering his eyes are brimming with amusement. “If by periwinkle you mean violet, then yes, periwinkle. Which is—”
“Against HOA regulations in this area. Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though. I swear there is a part of me that wants nothing more than to set up a bonfire on the front driveway and burn every copy of the HOA regulations I can get my hands on. Most of the copies likely being digital doesn’t change my fantasy in the slightest. Nor does the fact that bonfires are most probably against HOA regulations, too. Honestly, an illicit bonfire seems like exactly what this uptight neighborhood needs.
God, I miss New York. And sweet baby Jesus, do I hate the fucking suburbs.
“Which brings me to the next point. I’m not sure you’re familiar with the rules but…” He hesitates before squaring his shoulders like he’s going into battle. “You’ll have to go through the HOA board approval process for the paint colors you choose before we can actually begin the painting. Could take up to a month to get approval, I’d imagine. So best to start that sooner rather than later.”
“Seriously?” I demand when I can finally see past the murderous red haze currently blanketing my vision.
And I have to admit, points to Mikey for not even wincing when it came out sounding more like a shriek than a word. Probably because he knows I’m not mad at him—he seems like a really lovely guy—but this entire situation is enough to make a good woman go bad in the anti–Hallmark movie kind of way.
“Does no one in this godforsaken suburb have anything better to do than get up in everyone else’s business? I mean, really? Is there no PTA for these people to terrorize?”
Mikey chuckles, an adorable dimple appearing in his left cheek. “Personally, I like the violet shutters. And after seeing the rest of the house, I’d say the neighbors should count themselves lucky they aren’t hot-pink zebra stripes.”
I bust out laughing, exactly as he no doubt intended.
“Part of me wishes they were.” Visions of my grumpy neighbor’s face bright red with the vapors when he spots my zebra-striped shutters make me giggle.
“Me too. I mean, if you’re going to rack up the violations, you might as well do it for a good cause, right?” He grins engagingly.
“Damn straight.” I think about the kitchen drawer full of violation letters I discovered last night, and the amusement slides away as quickly as it came. “So do you have an estimate on how much all this will cost? And a timeline for getting at least the outside done?”
Some of those violation letters are third or fourth notices. I haven’t taken the time to read most of them yet, but I’m nearly certain that means I’m on an even more truncated timetable here than the six months the probate lawyer talked about.
“First, let me say I’ll take ten percent off the top, since you’re a friend of Angie’s.”
I almost tell him that I’m not exactly a friend of Angie’s—or anyone’s for that matter—but the truth is my sad, gasping bank account and I both need every bit of a discount we can get.
“Thank you,” I tell him, even though it rankles that I need favors when Karl and his girl toy are living it up in Manhattan in my condo, at least according to his Instagram account—otherwise known as Karl’s Midlife Crisis—in full color. “I appreciate it.”
“Of course. Anything I can do to help, I’m here for. Angie’s my favorite sister-in-law, after all.”
“Favorite?” We start walking toward the garage door. “How many do you have?”
“Just one. But she’s still my favorite.” It’s a corny line—completely ridiculous and also completely endearing. Just like the rest of him.
Okay, maybe I can pretend I never heard that awful voicemail greeting. Not that I’m thinking about how h-o-t the contractor is, but snap judgments aren’t exactly the best, either.
“I’ve got a crew finishing up a job a couple of streets over. They should be done next week. I was going to give the guys some days off, but I can get them over here instead. We can knock almost everything out in a few weeks—the porch will take the longest but still only a couple of weeks.” He gives me another encouraging smile. “As far as the cost, I’ll send you a detailed bid later, so you can decide what you want to work on and when. But I’d give a rough estimate of $25,000 in repairs.”
As the blood drains from my cheeks, he steers me out of the kitchen and to a nearby couch, and we both sink down onto the floral fabric.
“Now, before you panic, I think the damage caused by the fallen tree might be covered by your homeowner’s policy, and that’s half the expense. If you can provide me with your aunt’s insurance carrier, I can make a preauthorization request, see what we can get covered. It’s a long shot but worth a try.”
“That would be amazing,” I say, already doing mental math, trying to figure out just how far I can stretch my meager savings. The exterior is going to cost a pretty penny, but if homeowner’s insurance covers half, maybe it’s doable? Not really. And that leaves almost nothing for the interior. “What about the rest of the house?”
“The rest of the house?” He shakes his head. “To be honest, from what I can tell, most of the interior is in pretty good shape. But I won’t be able to give you a real, comprehensive answer until you start clearing away the junk. There’s so much upstairs that some of the rooms are practically impossible to get into.”
He isn’t trying to be rude or confrontational, but his words still sting. Mostly because I know he’s right but also because I had no idea Aunt Maggie had gotten this bad. Sure, everyone in the family knew she was eccentric, but this level of hoarding is a mental-health issue. Guilt works like battery acid on my insides. Of all the people in our tiny family, I should have realized something was going on.
I always thought it was charming the way she gathered up the unopened fortune cookie papers “for souvenirs” after our monthly lunch or how she always asked for the cork from our bottle of wine after girls’ night. I didn’t know it was just more stuff she felt compelled to save.
How could I not have known? More, how could I not have asked? Or visited? She always said she wanted to meet in the city because it was exciting, and I agreed with her. The last thing I wanted to do was come back to the burbs or, more honestly, back to my parents’ criticism.
All of which adds up to it being twenty years since I was here last. Two decades when my favorite person in the whole world kept hoarding and hoarding and hoarding. She never made it to reality-TV bad—the downstairs is mostly clean except for the closets, drawers, and cabinets—but, like Mikey said, the upstairs bedrooms are piled with junk, junk, and more junk.
Knowing this was happening only an hour train ride from my place in the city makes me a shitty niece. More, it makes me a shitty person who took the path of least resistance because it was easier, made fewer waves, and deep down the idea of even a little confrontation makes my bones turn to liquid.
“If you want me to be able to give you a solid estimate on what needs to be done inside, I’d suggest getting a dumpster. You can have one delivered to your driveway, and you can add to it as you sort through each room. When you’re done, I’m happy to come back and take a look.”
“How much does a dumpster cost?” I ask, because even though I hate the idea of throwing away stuff that meant something to Aunt Maggie, I know I can’t live here like this.
“I’ll add it to my estimate. In the meantime, look into getting someone in here to deal with the tree and we’ll be in business to start as soon as you’re ready for us.”
“Sounds good.” I force a smile I’m far from feeling. This place is turning into as big a mess as my former life, and that sucks, especially considering how much it felt like a potential lifeline when Aunt Maggie’s will was read.
“Oh,” Mikey says as he turns to go. “One more thing. Stay off that porch until we can fix it. And post a few signs to warn everyone else to stay off it, too. No telling when it’s going to collapse completely, but if I were you, I wouldn’t tempt fate.”
Why do his parting words sound more like an omen than a suggestion?