“Lindsey Henderson… the porch repair, right?” I asked.
“And animal removal,” she told me. I paused.What?
“I don’t fuck with animal removal,” I reminded her. “There’s no way in hell I’m going under any porch to drag some beast from hell out.”
“Has anyone today told you that you’re a dramatic little shit?”
“I don’t remove animals, Roxy.”
“I know, and that’s why Michael from the County will be meeting you there,” Roxy said, her voice loud enough to drown out my grumbling. “He’ll get the animal out, and you need to look to see if it did any damage under there.”
“Great,” I muttered. Glitter and animal shit all in one day. “What’s Nyla doing?”
“Oil changes and a bumper replacement.”
“Good.” That was a solid day—minus the wild animal part.
“There is an inquiry I wanted to talk to you about,” Roxy began, and I glanced at her. “There’s a woman who emailed about having her barn looked at.”
“I hate barns.” I groaned. The look on her face told me that she remembered this. “I hate barns, and I hate anything that goes in the water.”
”I know, but,” her voice trailed off as she got up and rounded my desk. I scooted back to give her free rein over my computer. Within minutes, she had an aerial view of the farm pulled up for me to look at, and I knew why she was going to push the issue. It was the old Marquette place—also known as: the most expensive piece of property in Wilde Bay, even more so than the rich vacation area of town. “The Marquettes sold their farm. Whoever bought it is looking to hire someone. It’sgoodmoney, Mav.”
With my lips pressed together tightly, I merely nodded. I put a lot back into the community, including offering leeway to those who needed it. The stack of late accounts that Roxy followed up on weekly grew with every passing month. There were a lot of them that would probably never get paid. She called me apushover; I just knew what it was like to have nothing. Not everyone could fix their homes or cars themselves.
“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “Tell her we’ll come look at it tomorrow morning, but don’t give her a name in case I don’t want to go do it. I might just send Zach out to do it for me.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t promise anything,” I told her. “There’s a good chance I’m going to say no.”
“I figured.”
“Farms are a pain in the ass.”
“I know.”
“I don’t like jobs that just keep compounding more shit on top of each other.” Once upon a time, I didn’t have that rule. But every single time I took on a farm repair, a one-week job turned into months on end with more trouble than it was worth. And in the end, I didn’t even get paid remotely what the job was worth. It was the only time I was bothered by that shit.
“I know,” Roxy said one more time. “But I just ask that you keep an open mind. Please. It’d be great if we paid some bills.”
“All my bills are paid,” I replied quickly. And everyone who worked for me was paid. I just refused to hound people who couldn’t afford it.Roxy didn’t mind, though.“And you’re off tomorrow, right? First day of school?”
“Tell me,” she demanded, slapping a hand on my desk, “how do I have a first grader? A first grader, Mav! How?”
“Time is a cruel mistress or some bullshit like that,” I said. “I offered to build a frame to shove him into, keep him from growing. Hell, I’ll still do it.”
“I feel like that qualifies as child abuse.” She laughed while I made a sound, pretending to debate it.
“All right,” I began, getting to my feet, “I’m going upstairs to try scrubbing myself raw to get this damn glitter off.”
After taking over the shop, I’d renovated the room upstairs into an employee area. Part of it included a shower area because sometimes none of us wanted to leave while covered in grease and dirt. It wasn’t used often, but at least it was there.
“Good luck with that, Pixie Dust.”
“Don’t make me fill your house with Legos,” I threatened pointlessly.
“Carson would have a field day if you did that,” Roxy commented as she breezed out of my office. “I’ll make you a pot of coffee while you’re upstairs.”
