Page 17 of A Light in the Dark
I laughed. “I’m nowhere near that skilled, but thank you. This is my boss, Mr. Accor. He wanted to see the steps.”
“They’re a work of art,” Joel replied before turning his attention to my boss and holding his hand out to shake. “We’ve met before, but it’s a pleasure to meet you again. I’m Joel.”
“Humphrey. I tried to get Valerie to use my first name once, and she looked about ready to vomit, so I took mercy.”
I bowed my head and struggled to keep from giggling, as I’d been bordering on having an anxiety attack my first day working at the company. It shouldn’t have surprised me the pair had met before, but I found them reintroducing themselves to be amusing. “I can probably manage to remind you of your first name now and then if you’d like.”
“Now that you mention it, that would be nice.” My boss shook hands with Joel and pointed at my steps. “Did you witness her building this?”
“I saw some of it. She did all the steps except for mine, and she offered to do mine near the end of her adventures, but I’d already taken care of them by then. Mine are the easiest of the lot. The only thing she didn’t do on the rest of this side of the street was install the lift. I noticed that my foundation mysteriously cleaned itself this year.”
“I own a power washer, and I’m willing to use it,” I reminded him, and I picked up my miniature set of steps and held it out to Joel. “Here, you can now say you have a set of steps, too. You can install it in your garden and give your fairies a way into their abode.”
Every year, he set up a little fairy house made out of an old planter, one that was cracked beyond repair.
Joel grinned and accepted the steps, which were no more than six inches high. “I think I shall do just that, and I’ll make sure to bring in the fairy house and the steps before the floods hit again. I thought my previous one had been high enough to escape harm, but it’s gone.”
Damn. Judging from appearances, Joel had spent hours creating his little garden masterpiece. “We can go find a nicepot at the plant store so you can make a new one. Maybe you can show me what to do with my yard. I dodged any flood damage inside the yard itself. Mine’s a courtyard.”
I had no idea why the neighbor on the street behind me didn’t have a yard; beyond my fence was a two foot section of paved space that served as a drainage canal to handle water from the rooftops. I could only hope the owners had shored their foundations to protect it from the water that typically gushed down the hill between our homes.
“My courtyard escaped damage as well. I’d invested in a drainage system, as I got tired of being flooded on all sides and in my courtyard as well.”
Birds of a feather flocked together. “I might have cried a little when cutting the check for that work.”
“I know I cried, and it was more than a little,” Joel informed me.
“Would you say a hundred and twenty thousand for a shored property is a bargain?” my boss asked, and he pointed at the sigil marking my foundation. “It was done by this company.”
“Considering my shoring, by the same company, cost me four hundred thousand, you’re getting a steal,” Joel replied. “But to be fair, mine is more expensive because my property is the corner lot at the top of the hill, it has a garage and a habitable basement, and I have a shored courtyard as well. Valerie, is yours shored on all four walls or just the exterior?”
“All four. My neighbors aren’t as well shored, so my shoring also covers impact damage if there’s an issue with their properties. My courtyard’s foundation is shored, too.” I pointed at the change of coloration in the stone marking where my property ended and my neighbor’s began. “When Imoved in, I asked about their shoring, and they showed me their sigils so I could look up who had done the work. I opted to pay more for better work.”
“Wise move,” my boss said, and he considered the steps for my home. “And these will just break away during a flood, right?”
“They will, except for the topmost step. There’s no point shoring anything other than the step closest to my door.” I went up the steps, opened the door, and showed the men my rescue rig. “I installed this on a whim, but that whim saved a woman’s life this year.”
“Can you send me the plans for that? We’ve had a few flood victims, and this would be invaluable.” My boss examined the braces for my feet along with the wrist strap. “You even have a life preserver.”
“I thought it was silly when I first got it, but it proved really useful. I don’t know if I need to replace it after use, though.”
“You don’t,” Joel informed me, and he lifted the bottom of the preserver to examine the sides. “It wasn’t damaged from the last use from the looks of it. These are designed to take a beating. I’d replace it every five years in an abundance of caution. The materials can degrade over time.”
I could handle replacing the preserver every five years if I were to stay in Stonecreek. “How did you know that?”
Joel grinned at me. “I paid my way through college working in search and rescue, so I’m pretty familiar with the gear. We replaced our preservers every five years or if there was noticeable damage to them from a rescue.”
“Search and rescue paid enough to get through college?”
“The college had some programs that cut my tuitiondown a lot, and what search and rescue didn’t pay for, I paid back with every spare cent after graduation. I killed that bill in five years, after which I started saving up for my house.” Joel leaned out my door, and to my astonishment, he flipped his middle finger at his home. “She was expensive, and I resent how needy she is.”
Upon realizing he worked to keep the mood light, I laughed. “I can’t say I’ve flipped my house off before, but I might have to start doing that when it comes time to do repairs next year.”
“It hasn’t done much to deter repairs, but I like to think I’m making a point.” Joel shot his house another sour look before saying, “My garage has to be inspected.”
That explained a lot. If his shoring with his garage needed any maintenance, he’d have quite the bill ahead of him. “I thought about having a garage, but the reality of needing to shore it every year convinced me otherwise.”
“I have certain regrets right now. Are you going to be available on Saturday morning to go to the garden store?”
