Page 80 of Where You're Planted

The guys turned around slowly, their eyes the last part to peel away from the TV as the game finally broke to a commercial. They were young, early twenties maybe. One was tall and trim, wearing shorts and a muscle tank that exposed his stark farmer’s tan and one flat nipple. The other guy was his odd-couple counterpart, short and thick, fully covered in pants and a sweatshirt, its hood pulled up over his messy hair.

“I’m here to pick up a water heater,” she said. “My name is Tansy.”

“System’s down,” the trim one said, already turning back.

“What?”

“The system ain’t working right now,” the second kid told her, looking her up and down with interest that didn’t thrill her but which she figured made him slightly more likely to help.

She flashed him a bright smile. “I’m not following what exactly that means. The system is…” she began, wondering if he meant a point of sale system, a computer inventory, or something else.

“Down,” he finished confidently, as though he’d just aced a pop quiz.

“Okay.” She rolled her lips between her teeth. “What is the system?”

“The computer?”

“Are you…asking me or telling me?” she asked in exasperation.

“Dude,” he said to the first kid, pulling him back to face her. “Tell her what’s wrong with the system.”

“And we’ve already established that it’s down,” Tansy cut in.

“We got locked out of it because we got the password wrong.”

“Okay,” she said patiently. This was getting her nowhere, so she tried a new tack. “Yesterday, I called for an electric water heater, and the guy who answered said there were at least five on the premises and that he’d pull one for me to pick up today.”

“Who’d you talk to?” Before she could answer, the muscle tank kid turned to the hoodie kid. “Didyoutalk to her?”

“It was someone named Greg,” Tansy said.

“Freaking Greg,” they both said. Then, the kid in the hoodie added, “That’s our uncle. He’s a dick. Thinks our dads shouldn’t sell this place, but he wasn’t even Grandpa’s blood kin,” as though this was crucial information. It was not.

She waved a hand. “Is there a water heater here or not?”

The first kid said, “I mean…probably.”

“Probably?” Tansy breathed deeply through her nose. “What does that mean?”

“If Greg said there was, then yeah, there probably is. It’s just that Greg ate some gas station sushi last night, and he’s been home on the can all day,” the one in the hoodie said, breaking into a laugh at the end and low-fiving the other guy.

The amount of detail she was getting about Greg right now compared to the complete lack of actual, relevant information was enough to make her scream. “Can someoneelseget the water heater?”

“Normally, yeah. Problem is, the system’s down, so we can’t find it.”

The game came back on, and both of them turned.

“Wait. Please. I drove two hours. Why can’t you find it?”

“Because Grandpa liked to put lawnmowers with freaking harmonicas and rocking chairs with soccer balls. There’s seventeen buildings of crap thrown all in together like that. Luckily, everything’s in the system with exact locations, butunluckily, after Greg ate the gas station sushi, he told us the wrong freaking password and got us shut out.”

“So…” Tansy huffed, at a loss. “You don’t know which of the seventeen buildings it’s in.”

The door opened, and Jack came in. He joined Tansy at the counter with a quizzical look, glancing from her tense face to the guys already turning back to their game and then around the room. “What’s the holdup?”

Tansy gestured helplessly, unable to even begin to explain this to him.

“Hey,” he barked.

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