FU: Fixer Uppers by Devon McCormack

Author:Devon McCormack [McCormack, Devon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Devon McCormack
Published: 2017-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

23

Mikey calls a friend of his who’s an exterminator and asks him if he can swing by tomorrow.

I’m nervous that the change in plans will mean Mikey and I will have to wait until another time to mess around, but he coordinates everything seemingly with us in mind. After we transfer what we can from the moving truck into Kate’s house, at least to store it while Mikey sorts out the mess, Jordan takes Kate back to their parents’ with some of the stuff that she’ll need now that she can’t move in. If it was just Kate, Mikey said there wouldn’t be an issue, but with Roger, the renovation will be extensive enough that it won’t be a healthy environment for him—not with sawdust and chemicals in the air.

While Kate, Roger, and Jordan head back to Kirk and Dara’s, Mikey and I return the truck to the rental service before heading back to his hotel room.

He doesn’t talk much on the way back. And I keep quiet because he has a lot to digest, and more than anything, I can tell he’s bothered by how he had to squash Kate’s dreams.

He pulls himself from his daze and looks at me briefly. “Sorry. I know I’m not particularly exciting today.”

“Considering what just happened, I totally understand.”

“I don’t think Kate realizes how serious this is. How much it’ll cost. The more I poked around, the more extensive the damage looked. And it’s to the foundation of the house. That friend who’s an exterminator, the one I called, used to work with me when I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity during college.”

Habitat for Humanity is a local housing project. They build homes for struggling families. Mikey hadn’t mentioned that he used to do that. Yet another thing about him that surprises me.

“He’ll come out and take a look at it tomorrow,” he continues. “See what we can do.”

“What’s the worst case scenario?”

“I don’t know. We’re talking about potentially tens of thousands of dollars in damage. I could be overreacting, though. It just looks like it’s affecting that one part of the house. I won’t really know for sure until my friend takes a look.”

“Kate can’t afford the kind of thing you’re talking about,” I say. “You know that.”

“Hell, neither can I. I’m gonna call into work and tell them I need to spend some more time out here. I can telework as long as I need to. I already finished up our big project of the year and now it’s just supervising the damn thing, getting some of the changes made. That’s the lucky part. Even if I need to stay out here to take care of some of this stuff. It’d be too expensive to get contractors, so I’ll do it myself.”

“Yourself? You can do shit like that?”

He smirks, and it’s kind of a relief because it’s the first time I’ve seen him look at ease since he saw that dust in the basement.

“What? You don’t think I can handle some repairs? I told you I worked in construction.

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