“Nah,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “I’m going to do everything myself. It will take longer, but I’ll save money.”
“You know how to do all this?” she says, gesturing to the mess around him.
“What I don’t, I’ll figure out,” he says. “Can’t be that hard, right?”
Ann doesn’t answer. When it came to renovating her home, there was so much she didn’t know.
Does Roy realize what he’s gotten himself into?
CHAPTER 6
ROY THANKS ANN FOR the glass of water. Before she leaves, she hesitates. She’s been wanting to talk to him about something, but she isn’t sure if now is the right time. She takes a deep breath.
If not now, when?
“Let me ask you something,” she says. “Can you come out onto the porch with me?”
He follows, taking a drink as he walks. Out on the porch, Ann points to the wooden railing that runs around the perimeter—half on her property, half on his. The paint has long since flaked off and the handrail and the balusters are rotting. A few have come loose from the railing and lean at uneven angles.
“I’ve gotten a quote to replace all of these porch railings,” Ann explains, hoping Roy will be okay with what she has to say. “To do it right, we really need to replace all the wood at once.”
This is one of the last pieces of work she wants to do on her property. She’s waited until now because she needs the consent of the next-door owner to do it.
“It will look like crap if it’s only on one side,” she says. “All the wood should match.”
“Let me take care of it,” he says. “I’ll save us both some money.”
Ann was afraid he would say this. On the list of repairs Roy needs to make on his side of the property, fixing the porch railing can’t be a high priority. Judging by how slowly he seems to be making progress on his own side—he’s only there one or two days a week—she doubts he would get to it anytime soon.
“I’d really love to have this taken care of,” she says. “And I’ve seen the work this guy does. It’s fabulous. If you’re okay with it, I’m willing to pay for your half.”
“I couldn’t let you do that,” Roy says, looking around, as if thinking about what the work would entail.
Ann feels nervous; she likes Roy, but she doesn’t want to give in and let him do the work. She hasn’t seen any of his craftsmanship yet—only his demolition—but he doesn’t strike her as capable of professional-level work. And she thinks the quote she’s been given is very reasonable.
She doesn’t want to get into a fight with her new neighbor, though.
“Let’s just put the idea on hold,” Ann says. “You’ve got bigger jobs on your to-do list. And this porch has looked like crap for a while now. It can wait a little longer.”
Roy looks around again.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “You go ahead and get your contractor to do the work. I’ll pay half. It’s a good idea. It will make the place look better while I concentrate on more important things.”
“You sure?” Ann says, relieved.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Who knows when I’ll get to it anyway.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I really appreciate this.”
“We’re neighbors,” he says. “We’re in this together.”
CHAPTER 7
ONE MORNING IN MIDSUMMER Ann is sitting on the porch, drinking a cup of coffee and admiring the craftsmanship of the new railing and balusters, when Roy pulls up in his pickup truck. It’s the first time he’s been back since she had the work on their porch done.
Seeing him pull up, she has a moment of panic. She has a crazy thought that he’ll forget he consented to the work. Or that he’ll object to not having given input on what it would look like. Or that he’ll find some problem with the craftsmanship.
“Wow,” he says as he comes up the walk. “This looks great!”
Ann smiles, relieved, and invites him to sit down. She’s been anxious to talk to him about his plans for the homeowners’ association. The next meeting is coming up, and she’d like to at least show up being able to say that she and Roy have discussed a plan of how to proceed.
But Roy declines her invitation to sit. He says he has work to do.
“I’m sorry I’ve been MIA,” he says. “I’ve been tied up with other things. I’m trying to buy another house.”
“Another one?” Ann says, unable to hide her surprise.
“Yeah. It’s not far from here.”
“You sure you can handle three houses?” Ann asks, wishing he would focus on repairing the houses he already has before buying another.
“Actually,” he tells her, smiling sheepishly, “this will be eight.”
“Eight!” Ann exclaims, her eyes going wide.
He shrugs, as if it’s no big deal. “They’re so rundown that the prices are a steal,” he says. “I got one for less than two thousand bucks. This one,” he adds, gesturing to the property adjoining Ann’s home, “was only sixty-eight hundred.”
Right, Ann thinks, but the reason they’re all so cheap is because they need a lot of work. Having seen the inside of Roy’s property, she can only guess how much it’s going to cost him to fix it up. The house might have been inexpensive, but the renovations won’t be.
Roy doesn’t appear concerned. He seems his usual enthusiastic, unflappable self.
He walks down to his truck and hauls a bundle of long extension cords from the passenger seat. He drops the end of one coil in the front yard and then begins to walk down the sidewalk, unspooling it as he goes. “Just going to run this down to my other house so I can use the electricity,” he explains to Ann.
He doesn’t ask Ann if he can plug the extension cord into one of her outlets, which would certainly be easier than linking several cords and running them down the block. She considers making the offer, but refrains. She wants to be neighborly, but she’s afraid if she gives an inch, he’ll end up taking a mile. Would he expect to use her electricity whenever he was making repairs? Would he want to use it even when she wasn’t home?
She likes Roy. She does. He seems like a nice guy who means well. But so far she’s been unimpressed with his ability to actually get anything done.
A few minutes later, Roy comes walking up the sidewalk again, smiling. He doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least that she didn’t offer to let him use her outlet. He takes a few tools out of his truck—a hammer, a level, a chalk line—and carries them into the house. He comes back out a moment later and starts unloading sheets of plywood from the bed of his truck. He wrestles the sheets one by one through the front door.
Again, Ann thinks about offering to help, but this isn’t the kind of work she’s used to doing. She can paint and patch drywall, but carrying a four-by-eight board that probably weighs forty pounds is exactly the type of thing that she hired professionals to do.
A few minutes after Roy gets the last sheet inside the house, the circular saw fires up, carrying its squealing sound outside.