Ryan's Renovation

Ryan refrained from adding to the exchange. He never engaged in guy-banter with his employees. Personal lives remained personal—in and out of the office.

“Your sister-in-law’s a pretty woman. I doubt she was doing any talking in the bedroom.” Another elbow landed against Ryan’s side.

“Pretty or not, her kids are holy terrors,” Eryk complained.

“So now they’re her kids and not your brother’s?”

“Hell, yes. She stays at home and raises them while my brother busts his ass to put food on the table.” The truck stopped at a light. Eryk unrolled the window, hacked up a wad of phlegm and spit it at the pavement. “You got any kids, Jones?”

“No.” Ryan fought off a pang of sadness at the memory of almost being a father. At least his siblings were making their grandfather happy in that department. His younger brother, Aaron, and his wife, Jennifer, were expecting their first child around Christmas. His elder brother, Nelson, had inherited a teenage son when he’d married his wife, Ellen.

“Count yourself lucky.” Eryk interrupted Ryan’s thoughts. “One weekend a month, Pam and I watch the nieces and nephews. We began six years ago when they were two, five, seven and ten.” He snorted. “Hell, it was easy back then. Now the sixteen-year-old has a mouth meaner than a hooker’s. Can’t drag the thirteen-year-old away from his video games. The eleven-year-old’s favorite expression is make me. And the eight-year-old—shoot, she’s the best one in the bunch. Give her a box of Froot Loops and she’s a happy camper.”

The truck rolled into the intersection. “Then tell ’em you’ve had enough,” Leon insisted.

“A couple of times Pam and I almost stopped babysitting,” Eryk added.

“Why didn’t you?” Damn. Ryan hadn’t meant to voice the question.

“Guilt. My sister-in-law almost died during 9/11. That day changed my brother. Changed all of us.”

Changed didn’t begin to describe Ryan’s transformation after the attack.

“Once a month, they go off alone somewhere,” Eryk went on. “My brother’s afraid each weekend might be the last he and his wife have together.”

9/11 had forever changed thousands of peoples’ lives. Many, like Ryan’s, for worse, and some, like Eryk’s sister-in-law’s and brother’s, for the better.

Leon slammed on the brakes when a car cut in front of them. “Anna says going off for a weekend is romantic.”

“The woman insists peanut butter and jelly is romantic,” Eryk grumbled.

“You’re a good uncle. God will reward you in heaven.”

Ryan used to believe in heaven, but after 9/11 he doubted he’d ever see the pearly gates.

“Good uncle, my ass. I put up with the hooligans because Pam wears her French-maid costume to bed Sunday night after the brats leave.”

The bawdy comment startled Ryan but didn’t stop Leon from adding, “My Helga wouldn’t be caught dead in one of those sex getups. She locked me out of the bedroom for a month when I brought her a pink thong from Victoria’s Secret for Valentine’s Day. Accused me of being a pervert. Shoot, I’m old, but I ain’t dead. I’m fond of her big ol’ butt cheeks.”

“What do your ladies wear, Jones?” Eryk asked.

Eyes trained on the dashboard, Ryan grunted, “I’m divorced.” He had no desire to chat about women, sexy lingerie or butt cheeks.

Silence ensued. About time. After the next traffic light Leon turned on Fish Pond Road. Many of the homes were old and decrepit, but a few houses had been renovated, and one property had been demolished for new construction. Leon stopped the truck in the middle of the block, shifted into Reverse and backed into the driveway of a ramshackle two-story brick bungalow.

A rusted chain-link fence surrounded both the front and side yards. Apparently, the home had died along with the owner. Weeds had choked out the grass, and the bushes barely clung to life, refusing to shed their crusty brown leaves. Even the ceramic angel, with a broken wing and arms raised skyward, begged to be rescued from her desolate resting place.

As they piled out of the truck, Eryk cautioned, “Watch the porch steps. The second one’s rotted.”

Leon studied the damaged step. “We’ll have to slide the heavier pieces off the end.”

The inside of the house fared worse than the outside. Ryan gagged on the putrid air—a combination of mold, rodent droppings and cat feces.

“Jones, you take the second floor. Toss what you can onto the lawn. Eryk, clear out the garage. I’ll be in the basement.”

Pop. Creak. Snap. Ryan gingerly navigated the stairs to the second floor. When he reached the landing, an object—big and black—dived at his head, and he ducked, losing his balance. The trip down the stairs lasted half as long as the climb up. Ryan bounced to a stop at the front door, shoulder throbbing and elbow on fire.

“What the hell happened?” Leon rushed into the room and gaped. “Stair give out?”

“Tripped.” Damned if Ryan would admit a bat had scared the crap out of him. He accepted a hand up and swallowed a moan of pain.

“Maybe you’d better break out a window upstairs and drop the stuff into the yard,” Leon suggested, then returned to the basement.

Two hours later, drenched in sweat and arms burning with exertion, Ryan wanted to quit. A half hour on the treadmill and a twenty-minute workout on the Bowflex machine three times a week hadn’t prepared him for pulling up carpet, dismantling light fixtures and shoving mattresses through windows. Adding to his misery was the fact that he couldn’t get Anna’s face—her big nose, her blue eyes, her strong jaw—out of his ever-loving mind.

Wishing he’d thought to bring along a bottle of water, he rested his hands on his knees and sucked in large gulps of air. After a minute, the pinched feeling eased in his lungs and he returned to the first floor.

Time crawled as he joined Eryk in the garage and carried load after load to the front yard. Hefting an old car tire onto his shoulder, he wondered whether the old man would call a halt to this life lesson if Ryan collapsed from physical exhaustion. There was always a possibility…. He heaved a second tire onto his other shoulder and staggered along the driveway.

“BOSS SHOW UP?” Leon took a seat at the table in the break room. After the men called it quits, Leon stole a cup of coffee and a few minutes of tranquillity before heading home to a houseful of extended relatives.

Anna placed the creamer from the fridge next to Leon’s elbow. “Bobby came in at noon, stayed an hour, then claimed he had a personal matter to attend to and left.” She allowed Leon one minute of peace and quiet, then demanded, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

How did Helga put up with the man? Climbing all 102 floors of the Empire State Building would be less taxing than extracting information from Leon. “Ryan. Did he say where he lives?”

Ignoring the question, Leon winced. “I’ve got the knees of an eighty-year-old.”

Guilt pricked Anna for badgering the poor man when he was obviously worn out. She fetched two ice packs from the freezer. While Leon adjusted the packs over his knees, Anna’s thoughts drifted to Ryan.

The new employee had been on her mind all afternoon. Leon, Eryk and Ryan had returned to the station for lunch, but she’d been tied up on the phone with the company’s CPA and hadn’t had the opportunity to ask the anyone how things were going.

She blamed her preoccupation with Ryan, not because he was a new employee, but that he was handsome and exciting in a mysterious way. Of course, she didn’t believe for a minute anything would develop between them, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

Dreams don’t come true. Life had taught her that lesson more than once.

Ignoring the voice in her head, Anna badgered, “C’mon, Leon, Ryan must have said something about himself.”

“He’s not much of a talker.”

“You mean Ryan was unsociable? Rude?”

“No. Just quiet.”

“He doesn’t appreciate us, does he?”

“Leave him be, Anna. If he don’t want to fit in around here, he don’t have to.”