Page 5 of Working for the Mountain Man

"Hugo." She says my name in a patient way, like she’s dealing with a small child. "What is the single most important thing the state team is going to want to see when they walk in here?"

I look at her for a moment and run a hand over my head. "The bridge documentation," I say. "The south bridge deck had storm damage and we repaired it, but the repair logs areincomplete, and the photos are on two different tablets and none of them are labelled by date or site."

"Okay," she says. "Where are the tablets?"

I point to them and she puts her coffee down, picks up both tablets, and starts scrolling. Her brow furrows immediately. "How many photos are we talking?"

"A couple hundred."

She continues to scroll through them. "And they're all just in the camera roll?"

"Some of them."

She looks up. "Where are the others?"

"There is a folder; somewhere."

"On the tablet?."

"Possibly."

"Hugo." This time her voice holds a little annoyance.

"I know," I say.

She’s quiet for a second, but then she sits down at the desk, which is my desk, the only desk, and opens the notebook again. "Is there a master list of all the sites?" she asks. "Roads, bridges, culverts, all of it? Something that shows what work was done and when?"

"There's a spreadsheet."

She looks at me, her eyes wide and filled with hope. "On your computer?"

"Yes."

"Can I access it?"

I move around the desk, lean past her to pull up the file. She smells like summer, floral and fresh. "That one," I say, pointing at the screen.

She looks at the spreadsheet, and I try not to wince. I know the spreadsheet isn’t good. It made sense when I built it, but what I use and what other people use are completely different.

"Okay," she says, after a pause that is slightly too long. "I can work with this."

"You can?"

"I've organized worse." She flips open the notebook. "I need you to walk me through the priority sites. Which bridges, which culverts, which repairs need to be fully documented for the inspection."

"That'll take a while."

"I have time." She picks up her coffee. "Unless you'd rather the state team sorts through it themselves."

I pull the closest chair out and sit. "South bridge first," I say. "Then the upper ridge culvert."

She writes it down, her hand moving fast, but the handwriting is neat. She continues to ask questions, not questions that slow us down, but questions that get to the point. When we get to the retaining wall on Ridge Road, she asks if I have the original structural report.

"Somewhere," I say.

I watch as she tries to hide her smile. "Is that different from definitely yes?"

"It's in the filing cabinet."