by Maria Padian
That’s what the weeks leading up to the Blitz are like, anyway. It’s driven Betts into planning overdrive. She creates this big work calendar, and maps out what needs to happen on every day of the thirty-day build. She’s figured out what supplies are needed each day, and who is doing what. From nails to beams to roof shingles to paint, Betts has written it down.
It’s a massive job for one person. But she has a “helper.”
“She’s killin’ me,” Mark moans one night before dinner. He lies on our living room floor, Paco licking his face. He’s too tired to push him away.
“You must taste good,” Jack observes. “He never licks anyone like that.”
“Salt,” Mark explains. “It’s from dried sweat.”
“Shower’s down the hall,” I suggest.
“I’m too tired to get up.”
From the kitchen, Mami bangs on a pot. She is the noisiest cook.
“First the smoke alarm, now the drums! Too loud, Mami!” I call to her.
“It is not my fault the smoke alarm goes off every time I cook! Just one more month and I will have a real kitchen.”
Mark props himself up on one elbow. “That smells amazing. What is it?”
“Arroz con gandules y chorizo,” Jack says. “And plátanos.”
Mark squints, thinking. He’s determined to learn a little Spanish. “Okay, so that last thing you said? Fried bananas. That I know.”
“Plátanos are not fried bananas!” Jack exclaims. “They just look like bananas.”
“So what are they?” Mark asks.
“Plátanos,” my brother and I both say at once. Then laugh.
“The rest is rice with pigeon peas and spicy Spanish sausage,” I tell him.
“Pigeons lay peas?” he asks Jack. Who giggles and loudly exclaims, “No!” I recognize the beginnings of a hyperfest. Mark, it turns out, is worse than Roz at revving up my brother. Who adores him.
That’s because Mark keeps whisking him off to the site to see the latest developments. The delivery of the porta potty. The trucks unloading lumber. And Hair Spray Day, which might possibly go down as the best in Jack’s young life. Because he finally got to do something.
Once Mami and Betts settled on the actual layout for the house, Betts chalked the outline onto the foundation. She measured everything, marking where every wall and doorway would go. Then, she handed Jack a can of hair spray.
“Go for it, kid,” she instructed him. “Wherever you see chalk? Spray. Just don’t smudge my marks with your feet before you spray. That would defeat the purpose.”
“And don’t spray your eyes,” Mark warned. “I did that once.”
“Of course you did,” I said. I had skipped the potty delivery but agreed to come along for hair spray. “You were such a train wreck of a kid.”
“I didn’t do it when I was a kid,” he said as we watched Jack get to work.
I burst out laughing.
“Hey, it’s an easy mistake to make,” he said, defending himself. “And by the way, I still beat your boyfriend in the competence department. Nice guy, Cuz, but he’s useless with a hammer.”
I smiled. Sam had signed on to help build a toolshed on-site. During the Blitz we’d use it for storage. Afterward, we could use it to keep things like rakes. A mower. Hard to imagine that now we would own stuff like that.
Sam turned out to be a danger to himself and others. He was unfamiliar with the most basic tools, and for all his coordination on a basketball court, he was a klutz on the construction site. More than once he almost nailed his thumb to a wall. He was, however, incredibly enthusiastic. Almost Aubrey-like.
“I think he’s more the hire-someone-to-fix-it type. He just doesn’t know it,” I told Mark, who bit his lip to keep from saying what he thought about that type.
“Let’s hope the crew he brings on Paint Day is a little more useful,” he said.
That’s the other part about a blitz: the crews. On most builds, Betts told us, she had to make do with whatever volunteers showed up on a workday. Sometimes only a few came, so she didn’t get much done. But for a blitz, which you finish fast? You don’t take potluck. You schedule whole crews that commit to completing, and maybe even supplying the materials for, a single task. For Paint Day, me, Sam, and Aubrey have locked down his basketball team and Veronic Convergence to paint the entire inside of the house. In a single day. Mr. Shackelton’s law firm will donate the paint. I requested lavender for my room.
Every other stage and its crew, from roofing to flooring, are also scheduled. Tomorrow, on Blitz Kickoff Day, the walls go up. Mark has been working round-the-clock with Betts to get everything ready.
As he slowly picks himself up from the floor and heads to our shower for a predinner desalting, he groans. “I may not survive to tomorrow’s wall raising.”
Jack gasps. “But you can’t miss tomorrow! It’s the most important day of all!”
Mark ruffles Jack’s hair. “Just kidding, little man. I’ll be there.” He winks at me, then trudges down the hall.
Jack looks relieved. He’s so literal. “He can’t miss Uncle Dickie!” he says. “He must have forgot. Remind him when he comes out.”
“I’m sure he didn’t forget, bud,” I assure my little brother.
How could anyone forget? For our wall raising, Betts called in the Marines.
The day we made window boxes, I had thought Betts seemed unusually interested in Uncle Dickie. But here’s what I didn’t realize: she’d been plotting a blitz from the beginning. And she knew the key to blitzing was rounding up support. Calling in all your people.
When she heard about Dickie, she knew she’d struck gold. So when she and Mami and Mr. Lyle were brainstorming possible crews for each stage of the Blitz, and Betts mentioned Dickie, they tracked him down. Then he tracked down other guys from Daddy’s unit, and eight of them managed to secure leave for the wall raising.
They’re at the site when we pull up, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother exit our car so fast. Even though we’re early, the place is already hopping. It’s like a county fair with power tools. And hard hats. Everyone has to wear these ridiculous plastic hard hats that wouldn’t protect you from a falling acorn, but Betts is adamant about safety. Her one rule.
Mami finds Uncle Dickie and drags him over to me and Jack. He and the other guys only just flew in this morning. It’s been years, but I’d recognize him anywhere, and not just because he’s in that picture I snatched from Daddy’s “effects.”
“Well. Would you look at these two. Holy cow, Rita, they’re huge.”
I feel Jack press in behind me, unexpectedly shy.
Not me. Just the sound of his familiar voice is all the encouragement I need. I hurl myself at my father’s best friend, who wraps his strong arms around me. It’s all I can do not to cry.
“Hey, young lady,” I hear him say. “You ready to build a house with your uncle?”
It starts with a prayer. Our pastor from St. Bernadette’s gives the invocation, blessing all present, and our tools, and this land, and this day, and pretty much the mud and the mosquitoes even, so while he’s off on a blessing tear, I look around. It’s not just the Marines.
Uncle DeWitt and Aunt Carrie are here: Mark encouraged them to come for the Blitz kickoff, and they plan to help until the walls and roof are up. All four of the Shackeltons are here—“We’re going to be neighbors!” Aubrey keeps semiscreeching, she’s so excited. The entire Habitat board is here, along with Mrs. Brenda and a bunch of other people from our church.
And of course, Betts. She stands beside me while everyone prays, wearing these badass steel-toe boots and a hard hat that looks like it’s seen some years of use. Kind of like her. While everyone murmurs along with Father, I feel her push something into my hand.
A real leather Carhartt tool belt. It’s brand new.
And has my name embossed on it.
“Happy Blitz Day,” she murmurs to me as everyone chimes in “Amen!” “I figured you earned this.” Before I can manage a thank-you she stalks off, calling the building volunteers to gather around so she can give them the rundown.
I’m assigned to a group with Uncle Dickie and a few of the guys from Dad’s unit. We’re going to frame an exterior wall in my soon-to-be-bedroom, probably the simplest of the walls because it only has one window. As another group sheathes the floor of the house, we gather all the materials we’ll need and go over the plans with the master carpenter supervising our crew. It’s all a little distracting. Especially because I keep watching Sam.
Mark assigned him to carry stuff. For anyone who asks. In other words, he’s the Site Gopher. It’s probably the least accident-prone job he could have, unless he whacks someone in the head with a beam. Which is a real possibility. At any rate, whenever I catch sight of him, he’s smiling enthusiastically and scurrying off to . . . carry something. So adorable.
“A friend of yours?” Dickie asks. He couldn’t help noticing.
“We’re dating,” I confess. “I’m also friends with his sister.”
“Like I was friends with your mom’s sister,” he says. With one of those faraway smiles adults use whenever they trip down memory lane. Usually I try to change the subject because that smile always means a boring story from their past is next. But I’m starving for any old thing he wants to tell me. “You know, you and Jack wouldn’t be walking this earth if it wasn’t for your aunt Blanca.”
“I thought it was because of you,” I say.
“No, ma’am. It was Blanca. I was at a bar in San Juan with some friends, and she came up to me and asked if I knew the handsome guy with the green eyes sitting across the room. Who just happened to be my friend Charlie Crawford. I thought she wanted me to introduce him to her. But no, she thought he would be perfect for her sister. I told her yeah, I knew him, so she scribbled down her address and told me she was having a party the next night and I could come. If I brought him. Well, I did. And you know the rest. But none of it would have happened without Blanca.”
I’ve missed this. I’ve missed these men and their deep laughter and their stories. I miss how I always felt so safe around them. Like everything was right in our little world.
Mami has done her best, but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of safe.
By midmorning the floor is sheathed and we can lay out all the pieces of our wall, like a giant puzzle, in the room where it belongs. Once the pieces are arranged, we nail them together, basically building the wall while it lies flat. Then everyone lines up, takes hold, slowly lifts, and walks it into place.
Ours is the first wall up, and everyone applauds. Because it’s starting to feel like a house. A room. I stand before the gaping hole of a soon-to-be-window, and realize: this is my view. Those blue mountains and pool-table-green hills will greet me every morning. They’re not going anywhere, and neither am I.
I have felt my father’s absence in every room I enter, in every new town we’ve called home, for a long time. But this afternoon, in this muddy cow pasture, surrounded by family and friends? I feel Charlie Crawford like I feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair.
I feel him all around this place.
31
If you google “Habitat for Humanity time lapse,” all these cool videos pop up on YouTube. Clouds fly overhead as days pass; trucks whiz in and out delivering stacks of lumber; people race around like ants; and the walls, roof, and shingles magically appear. Usually in under three minutes. Like SimCity on steroids.
In real life? It feels faster. Especially if you blitz.
All Betts’s planning pays off, and crew after crew knocks out one stage after another. Before we know it, it’s time to paint, and a bunch of guys from Sam’s basketball team and pretty much all the VC girls are coming. Those who aren’t sixteen yet can’t work on-site (despite my pleading, Betts refuses to bend this rule), so Aubrey recruits them to help her set up a post-painting pool party at the Shackeltons’. When I step out that morning, the sun burns bright and it’s already steamy. The pool is going to feel good.
Mark is parked in the road, truck idling, waiting for me. For all his complaints about Betts slaying him, he’s an Early Bird who seems to run on an endless-charge battery. He’s also very chatty, and when I come out he’s talking . . . or something? Hard to tell . . . with some girl who’s leaning so far into the open driver-side window I can’t see her head. When our aluminum door slaps shut, she straightens.
It’s Roz.
Our eyes lock, but I’m too surprised to even manage a “Hey.” She’s too . . . whatever . . . to say “Hey,” so before either of us exchanges a single word, she wheels around and rushes back to her place, slamming the front door behind her.
We’ve been dealing with each other like this for weeks now. Random sightings. Near misses. And no talking. Not even a text.
I knew Mark was intrigued. That whole first night at our house, he’d pumped me for information about the “cute neighbor.” As best I could out of Jack’s hearing, I’d filled him in, from Gloria and Shawn to the Roz Rules and the Rock. In all fairness, I’d also told him about all the fun we’d had. The clothes she’d lent me. The rides and favors. But always, I’d come back to the Rock. And the impossibility of our friendship continuing now that I was seeing Sam.
Mark was disgusted. He said girls get in fights over the stupidest things. And that was it.
Or so I thought.
I climb into the truck and he pulls out.
“Good morning, Cuz!” he begins. “Already feels like a scorcher! Good thing we’re done shingling the roof. Wouldn’t want to be up there today.”
I don’t reply.
“I heard Bojangles’ is donating coffee and breakfast biscuits this morning. Love me some Bojangles’!”
Still silence from me.
“Hey, did you know—”
“Tell me I did not see what I just saw,” I interrupt.
I wish I could say Mark looks surprised. Instead, he looks anything but. He’s like a kid wearing a mustache of chocolate, sitting alongside an empty brownie pan.
“That depends on what you just saw.”
“Were you . . . making out . . . with Roz Jenkins?” I demand.
“Might have been,” he says. Without an ounce of remorse. Which really pisses me off.
“Are you kidding me?”
Now he looks surprised. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Kidding. Because you sound angry and you have no right to be.”
God, I hate the way he pronounces “right” like “rat.” “I told you about her. And still, in spite of what she’s done, you go and get involved with her? Behind my back?” I’m so mad I can barely see straight.
“First off, Cuz? It’s a free country. I can hang out with who I want. Second? I didn’t do anything behind your back. I did it right in front of your house.”
“Can you stop joking, please? I’m serious.”
“So’m I.” His voice has dropped a notch. “Just because she’s not your friend doesn’t mean she can’t be mine.”
“Friend?” I can barely keep the sneer out of my voice. “That looked like more than ‘friend.’”
“Some friends come with benefits,” he adds. And smiles. Still joking.
I try a different tactic. “Mark. This thing with Roz? It’s been really hard. Even before the Sam stuff. I needed to make a clean break from her. You getting involved complicates things.”
He doesn’t answer straightaway. He’s quiet, thinking. I can’t decide what’s worse: when he talks nonstop, or when he gets serious and silent.
“How long has this been going on?” I finally ask.
“A few weeks. I was waiting for y’all to c
ome home one evening when she wandered over. She doesn’t much like hanging out with her mom’s boyfriend. But you know that.”
I try to ignore the obvious dig. And the stab of guilt in my gut. No one knows better than me how Roz feels about Shawn.
“Can I ask you something?”
I don’t like the way that sounds.
“Why didn’t you ask her to join the painting crew today?”
The idea of including Roz with Sam’s crowd is so ludicrous I almost laugh out loud.
“Yeah, and while we’re at it I’ll invite Oprah and the president of the United States to swing by.”
“I hear that Oprah is a big Habitat fan.”
“You know what I mean. C’mon. We’re not speaking.”
“That’s stupid talking right now. Give me a real reason.”
“We’re really not speaking.”
“Sure it’s not because you’re a snob?”
I’m so surprised by that I’m not even mad. At first.
“Since when is the girl from the mobile home park whose brother gets the free lunch at public school a snob?” I demand.
“Since she decided her old friend wasn’t good enough to introduce to her new friends,” he says.
He has me there. I didn’t want to introduce Roz to everyone. But that’s because she’s . . . difficult. Hell, Mami is the least snobby person I know, and she practically forbade me from seeing her.
“Mark,” I say, “she threw a rock at me and Sam. We could have been seriously hurt. Backing off from her doesn’t mean I’m a snob. It means I have basic survival instincts.”
He flashes a give-me-a-break look in my direction. “Sometimes people throw rocks because they don’t know how else to get attention. As a former rock thrower myself, I can tell you, doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”
We’re pulling into the site now, and I have never been so relieved to see the place. Mark slips out of his truck as soon as he parks, slamming the door and leaving me alone in the cab. I take a few deep breaths. But the tears come anyway.
I miss her. She was my hilarious, badass, knows-my-story-but-loves-me-anyway friend. But what Mark doesn’t get is that you could only be her friend: everyone else was a dork, or an asshole, or rah-rah, or superficial. He doesn’t get that she was the biggest crab dragging me down into the bucket.
