Page 18 of The Homewreckers
Hattie stood her ground. “It has a certain kind of shabby charm to it. Don’t you think?”
“No,” Cass said. “Absolutely not. Shabby is not charming. We’ve already been down this road.Hello?Tattnall Street? Does that ring a bell with you?”
“That was different. We should have known better than to pour so much money into such a big house. I should have known better. This house is only about a quarter of the size of Tattnall Street. I mean, how bad could the place be?”
“How bad? Do you see that tarp on what’s left of the roof? Hell, there isn’t even a front door. God knows what kind of critters have taken up residence in there. Or people. Could be axe-murdering squatters.”
Hattie kept walking toward the house, but Cass stayed where she was.
“Do not go in that house, Harriet Kavanaugh,” Cass warned. “Do not. I am not following you inside that house of horrors. No, ma’am. Just stop where you are.”
Hattie was ducking under the two-by-four. “Don’t be such a scaredy-cat. Come on. It won’t hurt to just take a look around.”
The porch floorboards groaned with each halting step Hattie took. “Don’t collapse,” Hattie whispered. A sheet of plywood had been nailed across the spot where the front door should have been.
She peered through a salt-caked window to the left of the door and got a dim glimpse of a front room with a jumble of furniture.
Over her shoulder, she yelled to Cass, “I can’t hardly see anything from here. I’m gonna go around to the side of the house.”
Cass crept closer. Right up to the edge of the porch. “I don’t like this place.”
Hattie walked carefully around to the west side of the porch, stepping over the rusted skeleton of a bike.
On this side of the house a twisting green wisteria vine had breached the crumbling wooden railing and snaked across the floor and up the clapboard siding. Panicles of pale purple flowers dripped artistically down the wall.
“Wisteria. Ugh.” Hattie had seen the damage the invasive vine could wreak on trees and outbuildings in her own yard in Thunderbolt. She continued around to the back of the house, keeping her eyes focused on the sagging porch floorboards.
“Wonder what these foundation piers look like,” she muttered to herself. She glanced backward and saw Cass, clambering over the wisteria vine. “There you are. I thought maybe a snake got you.”
Cass shot her the middle finger. “What’s it look like back here? Can’t be any worse than the front of the house, right?”
“I think there’s definitely foundation issues,” Hattie said, pointing at the floor.
“The river’s back here somewhere,” Cass said, gesturing. But a thick screening of bamboo, palmetto, and scrub pine completely blocked out any view of the water.
Cass walked over to the far edge of the porch, testing each step with the toe of her sneaker, and stopped when she came to a doorway with a window.
“Hey,” she called, pressing her face to the dusty glass. “C’mere. If this doesn’t convince you this house is a loser, then I give up.”
The first thing Hattie noticed was the kitchen ceiling. Most of the plaster from it was now arrayed across the countertops and floors.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “What do you wanna bet there’s a leaky bathroom upstairs, right above this kitchen?”
“I never bet on a sure thing,” Cass said. “But what about the rest of this horror show?”
The room was lined with knotty pine cabinets. Most of the warped cupboard doors hung open, exposing shelves bristling with dishes, glassware, and canned goods. The countertops were harvest-gold laminate. The floor was a checkerboard pattern of avocado green and harvest-gold roll vinyl. The stove and refrigerator were avocado green and spotted with rust.
“If they had a contest for fugliest kitchen, this one would win first place,” Hattie said.
“We’ve wasted enough time here,” Cass replied. “You saw the sign. It’s condemned. Let’s just go back to town, and see if Mom came up with any serious contenders.”
Hattie reluctantly followed Cass around to the front of the house. She took one last look over her shoulder before starting down the driveway toward the truck. “There’s something about this house, Cass. It’s a hundred years old. It’s crying out to be saved.”
“Not by us,” Cass said.
Cass’s phone rang just as they were about to climb into Hattie’s truck. “It’s Mom.” She tapped the speaker button and answered.
“Hey, Mom, what’s up?”
