“So, what is this going to cost?”
Dave let out his breath. “To treat for termites is only about three thousand.”
“Only?” Phoebe sputtered.
But Dave wasn’t done. “Your house runs thirty feet across. To jack up the house and replace the sill, plus labor, we’re going to be looking at about five.”
“Five thousand?”
Dave nodded.
“On top of the first three?”
“Correct. Around eight thousand in all,” he said.
Phoebe exhaled. “Excuse me,” she said, straining to keep her tone somewhere in the range of what her mother called her “good company voice.” “I’ll be right back.”
What Phoebe really wanted to do was run. A good scream would work, too. Instead, she pivoted toward the car. She swept her phone out of her purse and pressed Rob’s number. Then, thinking better of it, she hit cancel. Rob would have to know at some point. But to tell him now would mean also telling him that she’d borrowed money from the window budget to apply to the kitchen budget, both of which were already at the top. The man could shoulder a lot. But this would just be cruel.
Thinking better of it, she spun back toward the house. “Dave.”
“Yes, Phoebe.”
“Is there an alternative to the sill beam?” She paused, her thoughts spinning. “Perhaps some kind of different material? Or structural approach?”
Dave shook his head matter-of-factly. “You can’t have a house without a sill beam unless you want to all end up in the basement. And you need to spray for termites or you’ll have the same problem again down the road.”
“But we don’t have those numbers left in the budget,” she said. “I’m sorry, we just don’t.” She could be matter-of-fact, too.
Dave held her gaze. “Well, I realize that, based on our discussions of late.”
Was he raising an eyebrow, or was she just imagining that?
“This has to be done, but I suppose we could review the budget and try to make some cuts in other places. Though that means you’ll have to adjust accordingly.”
Phoebe brightened. Of course, they could adjust. She would have to let go of the claw-foot tub.
Dave was thinking out loud now. “We can try to whittle down the bathroom and kitchen tile. And the fixtures. But remember, we were hoping already to borrow from those for appliances.”
Damn, the appliances. Those, too, hadn’t made it into the original numbers. She figured they’d pick those up somewhere along the way. Maybe a bonus at work, or an unexpected savings in another line item in the house budget. After all, at Rob’s insistence they’d allowed an extra 10 percent to start with. But they’d eaten into that as surely as the termites had the beam.
Dave was waiting. “Should I go ahead and call the exterminator, or do you want to talk to Rob and call me after? Either way, the subcontractors can’t come back until it’s taken care of, and every day we lose them is a day we risk losing them to another project at another site. They get paid by the day, and they’re not going to hang around waiting if we don’t move fast.”
Phoebe’s stomach began to churn. “How long will all this take?”
“Spraying, about three days before the crew can safely return. Then the sill—probably two days. Three max.”
“So, about a week in all?”
Dave looked almost sorry to say it. “At best.”
Phoebe envisioned a paper calendar hanging on the wall, the days whipping off and blowing somewhere out across the lake. Just as her money was doing. Doing the sill repair and spraying the house were unavoidable, it seemed. Delaying things wouldn’t change that fact.
“Go ahead,” she said, staring at the cottage. How was it that all her careful planning could go so far off course? They’d done an inspection. They’d even had a structural engineer come take alook. And yet every board they pulled off of the siding or pulled up from the floor was like opening a new can of worms. Everywhere, worms.
To her further consternation she realized it was what Perry had said from the beginning: an old house is a Pandora’s box.
“Is there anything else you want to ask about?” Dave asked.
