Page 22 of My Favorite Lost Cause
Charlie runs a hand over his face. “Or the property developer who wanted this place is pissed that I turned him down.”
Elijah shrugs. “It’s a formality, either way.”
He pulls out an iPad and starts to review his plans for the renovation. They’ll get started in the basement—underpinning the foundation will apparently take weeks—and he suggests that Charlie can get started replacing the rotting wood. Charlie was, I’m sure, hoping for a role that involved drinking and threesomes, but he hides this as he nods.
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.
Elijah bites his lip. “It’s still several months out, but I’ll eventually need to know what you want to do with the kitchen, the light fixtures, the bathrooms…I’m assuming you’ll want to overhaul a lot of that, but like I said, you’ve got months to decide. I guess if you want to help you could start stripping the wallpaper?”
Elijah’s being kind, but it sort of leaves me feeling like a kid instructed to draw pictures just so she stays out of your hair.
I can be useful. I know I can. I just wish I knew how.
I spend fifteen minutes reading online about wallpaper removal, and then ask Charlie for the car keys, which he only provides after forcing me to share my location with him.
“In case you wind up in a ditch,” he explains.
“So you can come save me?” I ask.
“Possibly,” he replies. “But mostly so the funeral home will have coordinates to find your body."
I laugh. He’s such a dick when he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t care.
I drive to the nearest hardware store, which is not near at all, for wallpaper spray, a scraping tool, and a wallpaper steamer.
When I return to the house and unpackage everything, thereal work begins. I start off hesitant but soon discover there’s no reason to be careful. The walls will need to be touched up anyway, so there’s not too much harm to be done.
Removing wallpaper is quiet and boring but also…peaceful. Once I stop thinking about how boring it is, my mind seems to float in a million different directions, some of them good, some of them bad. And in those moments when my head goes entirely blank, my gaze turns toward that looming split staircase, where the sun flows through a stained-glass angel at its center.
I still haven’t been up there—and Charlie asked me not to since he’s worried about the attic ceiling caving in. But it still feels, just as it did the first day, that the house really wants me to go take a look.
In the afternoon,I take a quick shower and drive to the store.
I can’t remember the last time I left the house with wet hair and no makeup, wearing flip-flops. At home I’m too worried about running into someone I know to go anywhere like this. Too worried about the way they’ll gossip later that I lookedsadortiredorrough, the sort of words you use when discussing someone in decline...or headed for a divorce. No one looks aghast when I step out of the car here, though. They smile or they ignore me and both those reactions are a relief. A gentle easing of some weight I didn’t even know I carried.
Charlie’s in the kitchen, freshly showered, when I return with the groceries.
“Do we still have a rental car, or do I need to call a tow truck?” he asks, pouring me a cup of wine.
“Ha ha,” I reply, though I did actually run it up onto the curb while parking. I pull chicken out of the bag and grab the cutting board I bought yesterday. “I’m making coconut currysoup for dinner, by the way. Loads of protein, turmeric, very healthy.”
“Just to be clear, the phrase ‘very healthy’ is not a selling point for me,” he replies, “but put me to work.”
I blink. “With cooking?” Not in a million years would Harvey have offered to help.
Charlie shoots me a leering gaze. “Unless there was somethingelseyou wanted me to work on. I’m incredibly good with my hands. Other parts too.”
I laugh as I return to the chicken. “No, Charles, there’s nothing else I want you to work on. I guess you can chop the onion?”
“We need music for this,” he says, pulling out his phone and choosing a playlist.
I’m about to argue. I’m about to say, “You don’t actually need music in order to chop onions.”
I stop myself because…why not? When did I become someone who thinks you shouldn’t listen to music while you cook?Probably around the same time I stopped having a glass of wine at dinner and began worrying excessively about the glycemic index of pizza crust.
Charlie’s just finished with the onion when Florence + the Machine comes on. My head nods in response to the beat almost unwillingly. He grins at me and turns the volume up as loud as it will go.
“Isn’t it too loud?” I ask.
