“You might want to rent a carpet cleaning machine. IfIcan smell it, potential buyers can, too.” She waved a hand at the cookies. “This is a nice touch. Didyoubake them?”
“My friend did. She can make anything. Cakes, cookies, pastries—you name it. These are her Polish cinnamon cookies. Please, help yourself.”
Joan shrank back. “Inevereat sweets.”
A wail echoed from down the hall. Joan murmured, “Oh, my,” and made a quick exit.
Natalie used the lull in action to pick up the cookie crumbs in the living room. She’d just deposited them in the trash when she heard a toilet flush. This was followed by a rush of running water, which seemed to go on for a very long time.
Finally, Steve exited the bathroom, carrying his son in his arms. The little boy’s shorts were gone, and his face wasstreaked with tears and snot. He met Natalie’s eyes and then buried his head in his father’s chest.
Natalie glanced from the boy’s naked bottom to Steve’s red face. “Is everything okay?”
“I wanted to take a quick look at this place on the way to a birthday party for this guy’s best buddy, but I’m gonna have to come back another time. My boy has a funny tummy, and I need to take him home. Sorry, um...”
“Natalie. Natalie Scott.”
“Nice touches here and there,” Steve said, bolting through the front door. “Love the flowerpots and the cinnamon air freshener. Bye now.”
Natalie tried to focus on the compliments, but dread propelled her down the hall. She was ten feet from the bathroom when she was assaulted by the smell of shit.
“Nononono,” she moaned.
At first glance, the bathroom seemed okay. But as her gaze sharpened, she noticed brown streaks on the hand towel. Smears on the faucet.
“No.”
Natalie clamped her hand over her mouth and approached the toilet. Steeling herself, she used the tip of her pinkie finger to raise the lid.
The toilet was stuffed with a mass of water-saturated paper. It pulsated at the bottom of the bowl like a nebula, barely visible under the swirls of fecal flotsam. The seat and lid were shit-speckled.
Retching, Natalie raced back to the kitchen. She drank water straight from the tap and wiped her mouth on the tea towel. Sucking in deep breaths of cinnamon-laced air, she looked out the window and watched the yellow balloons tied to the For Sale sign straining against their tethers. As her nausea abated, her anger swelled.
“Bastard.”
She hurried out to her car for her bucket of cleaning supplies. If another agent showed up now, she’d never live it down. Word would get back to Sid that the McCreedys’ house had smelled like cookies and diarrhea. Her career as a Gold Coast agent would be over before it began.
“Asshole!” she growled as she yanked on her latex gloves.
Natalie had cleaned up plenty of shit in her lifetime. Dog shit. Cat shit. Diaper blowouts. Toilet training mishaps. It was bad enough to clean up after her own kids. Cleaning up another child’s shit was a different level of nasty.
She cleaned the smears on the sink and toilet handle first. There was nothing she could do about the towel, so she shoved it into the bottom of her bucket and started searching for a plunger.
She didn’t need to flush the toilet to know that it was clogged. Dipshit Steve had used half a roll of toilet paper wiping his baby boy’s ass.
Finding no plunger under the sink, Natalie frantically dug through the cabinet in the master bath and then flung open the door to the linen closet. There, crammed between a stack of old paint cans and a dust-coated box of maxi pads, was the plunger.
With the plunger in hand, Natalie stared down at the toilet bowl in dismay. If she tried to unclog it now, brown water would cascade over the side and onto the floor.
She wished Steve was in the room with her right now. She’d like to use his face as a plunger.
“Asshole.”
Sweat gathered in Natalie’s armpits and dampened the hair at her temples. She dropped to her knees and, holding her breath, reached into the water to grab a fistful of paper. She dumped the dripping mass into her bucket and went in for another handful.
The transfer was messy. Droplets of brown water dotted the seat. Toilet paper fragments floated in the bowl like loose fish scales.
With the biggest obstacles gone, the water level dropped. Natalie prayed she could simply flush the rest.
