Page 11 of My Favorite Lost Cause
It feels a bit like hope.
Charlie shakes his head, his pessimism unchanged. “All six rooms are in terrible shape.”
“I don’t care,” I say on a breath. “Don’t you see what it could be? I’ll help you. We’ll bring it back.”
He tugs at his hair. Frustrated with me, no doubt, but making far more of an effort to hide it than Harvey would. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you here, but renovating this place will cost millions. All my money is tied up in the stock market and that team I’m funding in San Antonio. And we’re only here for a week. How much do you even think we’d accomplish? A job like this will takeyears.”
“I’ll help,” I blurt before I’ve thought it through. “And I have my trust fund. I can use that. And Henry loves you. I’m sure he’d?—”
Charlie stops me with a gentle squeeze of the bicep. “Maren, I’m not using your trust fund, and I like Henry, but I’m sure as fuck not asking my stepmother’sex-husbandfor a loan. You see how incredibly awkward that would be, don’t you?”
I guess he has a point. But I have a point, too, albeit an entirely intuitive and possibly illogical one.
This place isn’t meant to be torn down. Somehow, in the next six days, I’ve got to convince him to save it.
7
CHARLIE
Maren has clearly watched one too many movies in which a couple of people with hammers build an entire home in a day’s time. And despite her earnest promises about helping me, she’s probably never even changed a lightbulb.
She emerges from the kitchen with that same optimism.
“The stove works,” she concludes. “And the refrigerator could use a good cleaning, but it’s running.” My mother had so much faith in my return that she didn’t bother shutting off the power. Not her wisest move.
“Excellent. So I’ll still spend millions rehabbing this house, but we can hang onto the appliances from 1970. That’s great news.”
“It won’t be millions,” she argues, heading to the laundry room to my left. “And some things matter more than money.”
This is the kind of thing the Fischer girls with their trust funds say quite often. “You know who says that? People with a lot of money.”
She blows out a weary breath. “You’re so cranky today. Is this because you’ve had to go twenty-four hours withoutalcohol or because you’ve had to go twenty-four hours without sex?”
I glance at my watch. “It’s actually only been sixteen hours for one, and eight hours for the other. So no. And I’m not cranky. I’m just trying to provide a counterpoint to the lack of logic coming from your side. Mare, this is not happening.”
“We’ll see what the engineer says,” Maren tells me cheerfully, opening the washing machine door as a truck rumbles over the gravel in front.
I stride toward the heavy wood door. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“We’ll see,” she replies as if itisa negotiation, one in which she holds all the cards.
A lifetime of being hot has created this problem. She’s so accustomed to getting her way that she can’t hear the wordno. And there’s a weak part of me that has always struggled with saying it to her myself—she’s gotten her way with every-fucking-thing she’s ever asked of me, but crashing in my apartment for a weekend and saving a centuries-old house are incredibly different requests, and one of them requires a year of my life and at least a million dollars.
So I’m gonna have to get better at saying no. Fast.
When I reach the porch, the engineer is getting a bag out of the cab of his truck. I’m half inclined to tell him he doesn’t need to look around at all, and then he turns toward me and?—
The guy who’s my height and has the build of a college quarterback is the same skinny kid I worked with here for an entire summer. “Elijah?”
His eyes crinkle. “Long time no see, Charlie. You got old, man.”
I laugh, shaking the hand he’s extended. “So did you. How are things? I had no idea Oak Bluff Construction and Engineering was you.”
“Yep, it’s me,” he replies. “Sorry about your mom. I just heard.”
Yeah, you and me both. “Thanks.”
Elijah’s eyes widen when Maren steps up beside me, which is a pretty standard reaction when Maren steps up anywhere. There are lots of women who look better in magazines and TV than they do in real life. Maren is the opposite—the sort of beautiful you can stare straight at yet not quite believe is real. Her eyes are bluer than Photoshop could make them, her skin creamier, her hair shinier. You want to take a second look, a third, just to figure out the trick.
