CHAPTER 14
Pap
“Little more to the left,” Lowe tells Floyd through gritted teeth as they try to pull my old dishwasher out. It’s finally bitten the dust and I hate to do dishes, so I bought a new one.
“I’ve got no more left,” Floyd grumbles, but then pulls harder and it sort of pops free.
“There we go,” Lowe murmurs, and both men easily slide it out into the middle of my kitchen floor.
Tagging a flashlight off the counter, Lowe flicks it on and shines the light into the space. “Pap… there’s water damage on the floor. That might need to come out.”
“Just tell me what I need to do to fix it, and I’ll pay you to do it,” I tell him as I peer in at the stained subflooring.
Lowe hands the flashlight to Floyd, who without a word squats down and starts evaluating the damage. As the owner of Floyd’s Hardware Emporium, I’ll be buying all the materials from him and he knows his stuff.
“Pap,” Lowe says, and the tone of his voice makes my eyes take extra long to slide to him.
“What?”
“This is an apartment,” he says pointedly. “You don’t own it. It’s not your responsibility to make these repairs.”
“Mary Margaret doesn’t have time to be bothered with that—”
“She’s your landlord,” Lowe cuts in. “That’s her job.”
“I’ll pay to fix it and buy the new dishwasher,” I maintain adamantly.
“I really hope she appreciates this,” Lowe mutters as he squats down beside Floyd. “If you’d just get off your butt and ask her out on a date, you wouldn’t have to do stuff like this to get her attention.”
I don’t respond to that, mainly because my grandson thinks he has it all figured out so I let him believe that. It’s true… I’m a little sweet on Mary Margaret Quinn. She’s my landlord as she owns a lot of the property here in town, but I’m not doing this to prove anything to her. I’m taking care of the dishwasher and any accompanying problems because Mary Margaret took a big risk in renting this building to me more than twenty-five years ago when I came to town.
This was the South and the Bible Belt moreover. Putting a bar right in the middle of town was an eyebrow-raising prospect back then. Mary Margaret was the only one who let me have my chance, and so if I can make life easier on her by keeping the little apartment over Chesty’s off her plate, then I’ll do it.
“Where were you last night?” Lowe asks as he watches Floyd push down on the subflooring to determine how bad the water damage is.
“Just tired,” I answer, hoping that’s enough. I was really, really tired, which has been happening more and more lately, and I was napping at damn five o’clock in the afternoon.
Lowe doesn’t accept this fully, turning to me slowly as he stands straight. “You okay?”
“Yup,” is all I say. There’s enough finality in my tone and challenge in my eye that he knows I don’t want to talk about it anymore. But that doesn’t stop him. His eyes harden and he opens his mouth to pry into my business, so I shut it down quickly by saying, “Heard Gill and Travis gave you some trouble.”
Lowe blinks, then gives a sigh, knowing that’s the only thing I’m willing to talk about regarding my absence at the bar yesterday.
“It was nothing,” he says casually. “Just running their ignorant mouths.”
“Well, glad it didn’t blow up. You know I don’t like fights starting in my bar.”
“Says the man who just about ten years ago put one of your customers in a headlock, dragged him down the length of the bar, and threw him out the door,” Lowe says dryly as he turns to look over Floyd’s shoulder.
That was true.
Some drunk redneck doing some seasonal farm work started throwing around a very colorful word that I’m personally opposed to. After I asked him to stop using it twice, and he refused… well, I just helped him out the door.
Which reminds me…
“If those boys start running their traps again making objectionable comments and they don’t stop it, you do have my permission to make them stop. Got me?”
“I know,” Lowe says without even looking at me. He knows what to do when the boundary is pushed too far. “I’ll handle it.”
“When you going to bring your girl by for a drink with me?” I ask Lowe, and he narrows his eyes at me.
“Not my girl,” he says blandly.
“But soon, right? Lantern Festival this weekend. Nice and romantic.”
Lowe rolls his eyes at me, and I grin as I watch him and Floyd decide the flooring feels a might mushy and needs replaced. This will involve cutting out the old floor and putting in new.
“I know you don’t have a lot of free time to do this,” I tell Lowe. “I can get someone else. I’m sure Floyd can recommend someone.”
“Not really,” Floyd says, scratching his stomach. “Lowe’s the best. He’s the only one I’d recommend.”
“I’ll make the time, Pap,” Lowe admonishes me.
“Well, I know you’re working on Mainer House. Plus, you got your own job and then you’ve got a personal life, and—”
“Zip it,” Lowe growls at me with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll hit it tomorrow mid-morning after I take care of something at Mely’s house.”
“Ooooh, Mely,” Floyd says in a grade-school-girl kind of way as he nudges Lowe. “I knew there was something there. Can hear it in the way you say her little nickname.”
“Oh, grow the hell up,” Lowe snaps as he shoves Floyd on the shoulder.
Floyd shoots me a grin. I decide to join in the fun. “I’m thinking she’s totally your girl. You definitely need to bring her by to meet me so I can welcome her to the family.”
“It’s not like that,” Lowe maintains.
“Pretty sure they’ve already been kissin’,” Floyd says with a nod toward our target.
“You’d be totally guessin’,” Lowe growls.
“Something’s there,” I remark thoughtfully. “He went from vandalizing her house to calling her ‘Mel-e-e-e-e’.”
Lowe’s face turns red. “Seriously, don’t you two have anything better—”
“You know,” Floyd says, now really getting into it. “You should just get that girl to fall in love with you, then you’d get Mainer House back.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Lowe tells Floyd.
“No, seriously,” Floyd continues, and now I don’t think he’s teasing anymore. “You want Mainer House to stay in the family. You’re marryin’ age and single as they come. That northern lady is right pretty, and I know you like kissin’ her. Court her, get her to fall in love with you, marry her, then you get Mainer House back. And want to know what the best part of it is?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” Lowe responds dryly.
“The best part,” Floyd says with relish as he lightly punches Lowe in the shoulder for effect, “is that if it turns out you don’t really like her, you can divorce her and you’d probably get the house in the divorce settlement. I know Judge Bowe would give it to you.”
Definitely a stupid idea, but that’s the way Floyd’s brain works. I mean, we are talking about a man who thinks it’s his divine duty to protect the town with his shotgun.
But Floyd’s right about one thing. Judge Bowe would keep that house in the Mainer family for sure. He’s a man who respects tradition so if Lowe were to ever get that house by marriage, he’d probably get to keep it if things went south.
“Okay, I can’t even deal with you,” Lowe says, throwing his hands up with a glare at Floyd. He turns to look at me. “I’ve got to run over to Walmart to grab a few things I need for tomorrow.”
“Oh, hell no. You are not going to Wally World to buy stuff you can buy at my store,” Floyd snarls, and while he’s normally a huggable bear of a weird guy, he looks genuinely pissed. “You need stuff to work on Mainer House, you buy it at Floyd’s. You need to fix your Pap’s floor, you buy it at Floyd’s.”
“You got Kool-Aid?” Lowe snaps at him.
Floyd blinks slowly in return. “Huh?”
“Didn’t think so. You got gelatin capsules?”
“Um… no?” Floyd answers like he’s not sure if he carries that stuff.
“Red food dye?”
Floyd shakes his head.
“Then you don’t carry what I need,” Lowe says, and I chuckle at how deftly Lowe’s managed to get Floyd to stop talking about marriage, divorce, and property settlement.
“Why you need that stuff?” Floyd asks suspiciously.
“Got a practical joke to play,” Lowe says, and his eyes start twinkling with wickedness.
Now that’s definitely my grandson right there.