Page 23 of Leave It to Us
“You need veggies, Tami, to keep your iron up.” That was Yvonne, with her mother-hen self. When Tami glanced over her shoulder again, she saw her sister opening a cabinet, in search of coffee grounds, no doubt.
“I don’t like them raw,” Tami complained. “Maybe some fried onions?”
Lana nodded. “I can do that.”
“These cabinets need to be painted,” Yvonne said as she closed and opened another one, smiling when she reached in and pulled out a container of coffee. “Put that on your list, Tami. And those rugs in the family room and main living room—they need to come up. Maybe have the wood floors buffed instead. People aren’t big on rugs anymore, anyway.”
“That’s true.” Lana nodded and whisked the eggs. “But let’s not go overboard. Robyn said there’s only fifty thousand in that escrow account. We just need to do enough cosmetic things that’ll get us a good return in the sale. I was looking online at more houses in the area, and some of them are going for around 1.5 and up to 2 million. Especially on the Intracoastal Waterway like this one.”
“Well, like I said, I don’t think we should half step with this. There’s a reason Grandma Betty wanted us to come down here and get thishouse fixed up. And I’m sure she didn’t mean for us to do the bare minimum and then run right back to the city,” Tami objected.
“Well, just what do you think she meant, Tami? Since you act like you knew her better than we did, when we’re the older ones, so we knew her longer,” Lana said.
“But you didn’t talk to her as much as I did,” Tami countered. “And who was the last one to come down here to visit for the whole summer? Me.” She huffed. “And for three years straight, I might add, while the two of you were off in college. You never even looked back to her or this island for a summerlong visit after you graduated from high school.”
“That’s not true,” Yvonne interjected as she grabbed the coffeepot and carried it over to the sink. “I talked to Grandma Betty several times a year. Sent her gifts on her birthday and at Christmas. And then we were all here every Thanksgiving, just like she asked.”
“That’s right,” Lana said. “Well, I may not have talked to her that much because I just got busy, and I’ve never liked talking on the phone. But I did send her cards and things throughout the year. We didn’t just walk away from her.”
Tami disagreed, and she was just about to say so when Yvonne screeched. She turned in her chair to see what was wrong, and her eyes widened as water shot up into the air like a geyser.
Chapter 11
YVONNE
Yvonne threw her arms up in the air, coffeepot still in one hand as cold water splashed her.
“Dammit!” she yelled, and then tried to look around the spray of water to see where it was coming from.
Well, obviously it was coming from the faucet—sohoworwhymay have been the better question.
“Oh, shit!” Lana was suddenly next to her, reaching for one of the handles by the faucet and then turning it.
There was a squeaky sound as she did that to no avail; water continued to splash them both.
“What are you two doing? Just turn the faucet off!” Now Tami was approaching, giving a directive that she, for whatever reason, thought they weren’t already attempting.
Yvonne tried the other handle even though she’d only turned on the one for cold water. It spun around like it was a toy, and again, nothing happened. “It’s broken. How can a whole damn faucet be broken?”
Her answer came when the handle she’d been turning slipped free of her grasp and rolled over the counter. By now, she was basically drenched. She could feel the front of her hair hanging down in her face,her shirts—the denim one she’d left unbuttoned and the tank—were sticking to her chest, and the top half of her pants was wet.
“The whole thing is broke,” Lana added.
Tami, now standing between them, pressed her hand to where the water was gushing out like Niagara Falls. But that only made it spray in different directions, all of which still managed to land on them. Yvonne tried to move to the side to get out of the way and at least put the damn coffeepot down, but her foot slipped on the wet floor. The next thing she knew, she was falling.
“Oh, wait, you fell,” Tami said, her words—which once again stated the obvious—ending on a chuckle.
“Oh damn,” was Lana’s follow-up. “Help her, Tam!”
“I’m trying,” Tami said as she turned and extended a hand to Yvonne, now lying flat on the floor, the coffeepot having rolled somewhere in the distance.
Yvonne took Tami’s hand, trying not to let loose the litany of curses running through her mind, but Tami’s hands were wet and, thus, slippery, so instead of being helped up, as her hand slipped from Tami’s, her sister lost her battle with the slick floor in those silly rubber flip-flops she was wearing. Tami fell into a heap, just barely missing Yvonne.
Lana burst out laughing while water was still giving her a second shower for the day. On the floor, Tami laughed too, and Yvonne tried her best to scowl.
“It’s not ... funny,” she said, her voice breaking with a little chuckle. Then, because the sound of her sisters laughing amid the drenching of the kitchen was something she hadn’t had on her to-do list but was still more entertaining than she’d experienced in a long time, she cracked up too.
That’s how Jeremiah and the contractor found them when they walked into the kitchen—or at least, Yvonne surmised it was Jeremiah and the contractor, since the first things she saw were feet—one setwearing rubber-soled casual tie-ups and navy-blue slacks, the other in beige steel-toe work boots and light-wash jeans.
