by Susan Calder
“Spending the day at his friend’s ranch,” Florence said. “Cynthia’s on her way.”
“Hey, Paula,” Sol sang, “Hey, hey Paula, I wanna marry you.”
He waited for Paula to answer his refrain, and she would if Brendan wasn’t staring at her quizzically. He wouldn’t know the 1960s song by Paul and Paula, the one-hit wonder duo. Paula wasn’t surprised to see Sol decked out in his full Stampede wear that included a white cowboy hat and shiny turquoise fringed vest. For him, she had worn her brightest bandana, fluorescent pink with silver edging.
“There’s Cynthia.” Florence pointed up the hill.
Cynthia trotted down, her chest heaving. “I’ve been running myself ragged all morning trying to reach my insurance agent. The line is always busy.” She glared at Paula. “Who do I call to go over his head?”
“Give him time. We’re all overloaded today.”
“Why?” Florence asked.
“The hailstorm yesterday afternoon,” Cynthia explained. “It wrecked my house and car.”
“Hard to believe when it was so beautiful in the mountains,” Florence said.
“Were you hiking?” Paula asked. “I thought you’d be plunged into your clean-up.”
“I worked my tail off all weekend. Don’t I deserve the odd break?”
“I bought superior padlocks for both gates,” Paula said on their way down the stairs. “I’ll install them before I go and leave you the combinations.”
“Will you check the roof for hail damage?” Cynthia asked Sol. “It might have been hit in the storm.”
“This neighbourhood only got pellets,” Paula noted.
“Why are you always so negative?” Florence asked.
“I’m being positive,” Paula said. “Small hail is good news.”
“Would you know about art?” Brendan asked Sol.
“A little,” Sol said. “Paula, how did you fare with the hail?”
“I was lucky. Sam’s friend has a gaping hole in his roof.” She looked up. “These clouds make me wish I had more tarps for them. Sam says every store he’s tried is sold out.”
“Uncle Caspar has tons of tarps in his garage,” Brendan said. “Help yourself to as many as you need.”
Brendan offered to hold the end of Sol’s tape while he measured the building’s exterior dimensions. Paula didn’t like Brendan being so nice. She unlocked and opened Caspar’s door. The damp, sooty, burnt plastic odour hadn’t improved in the past four days.
“Johnny was supposed to open the windows,” Florence said.
“Trust Johnny to take off while the rest of us bust our buns.” Cynthia left to tail the men around the yard.
“I don’t know how Caspar tolerated living like a mole,” Florence said. “I’m phoning Johnny to tell him get over here and help me shove furniture and boxes away from those windows.”
“They should have been opened up a week ago,” Paula said.
“Did you bring your estimate for our cleaning up Caspar’s?” Florence asked.
“I haven’t had time to prepare it. You’re sure you won’t change your mind? One whiff of that smell and I—”
“You agreed we’d handle it.”
“Why not leave it to the experts? It’s a dirty job. You’ve got enough on your plates upstairs.”
“Johnny and I will manage, once he gets off his lazy rump.”
“He has no experience in—”
“I told him where to buy supplies.”
Cynthia’s voice rose. “I’d like the cost of both simple repairs and upgrading.”
Sol returned to the house and finished his notes on Caspar’s windows.
“Are we going inside?” Florence asked.
“Not me.” Cynthia sniffed. “I’d never get the smell out of my clothes.”
Sol and Paula got out their hazmat suits, respirators, gloves and goggles from their bags. He apologized to the others for not bringing extras for them. Paula purposely hadn’t brought any. She suited up and put on the goggles, goofy as they made her look.
“I don’t fuss about soot on my shirt and jeans.” Florence took out a dust mask and gloves from her pocket.
“It’s about safety and health,” Paula said.
Florence pushed past her.
“And you claim to know how to handle toxic hazards.” Paula put on the respirator.
Sol’s headlamp guided them through the tunnels of furniture, appliances, lamps, books. He halted at the door to the interior staircase to type and take photos. Paula shone her phone onto the kitchen counters littered with books, boxes of cereal, radios and vinyl records. Dean Martin lounged on the top album cover.
“Caspar loved…Dino’s crooning,” Florence mumbled through her mask.
They followed the path to the bedroom. Paula jumped at a crash behind her.
“I knocked a chair,” Florence said. “A toaster or something fell off.”
“Leave it,” Paula said, as though they could hear through her mask. Who knew what else would fall if Florence attempted to reposition the object. They should be wearing helmets, like Johnny had.
Caspar’s bedroom looked unchanged since the police photographed it. They would have removed the bed and dresser to minimize off-gassing, but there was no space for them anywhere else. Paula gagged at the bedroom’s smell. She sweated under the suit. They continued to the den, which was startlingly clear. Two people could sit on the chairs and swivel. Household tools lay on the boxes of paper pushed against the window. The working computer sat on the desk.
Sol nodded at Paula to indicate he was done. She lumbered as fast as possible down the trail. Outside, she blinked in the blinding light, gulping glorious fresh air. Her filthy gloves and suit would go straight to the garbage. She couldn’t tell if Florence’s shirt was blue or green under the soot. While Paula packed up her safety gear, Cynthia asked Sol when they’d get his estimate.
“I’ll e-mail it to Paula by tomorrow and recommend some good construction firms. You’re free to choose any reputable outfit that will honour the estimate.”
“Remember, both simple repairs and upgrading,” Cynthia said.
“You bet. Hey.” Sol’s voice turned melodic. “Hey, hey Paula, let’s mosey on up the hill.”
Please, no song. Paula folded her arms for warmth. The wind was picking up. A huge cloud to the southwest looked ominously dark.
Sol suggested they stop to look at Brendan’s art. “Was your apartment last refinished around the time of your uncle’s?”
“Brendan, I hope you’ll share any money you get from your contents equally,” Cynthia said. “Those paintings belonged to Uncle Caspar, not you.”
“Sure, Cynthia,” Brendan said, “If you’ll share in the legwork of getting prices.”
They all entered Brendan’s apartment.
“I couldn’t get close enough to Caspar’s walls and floors to tell the age and condition of his finishings,” Sol said.
“The building was originally a single-family house,” Florence told him. “Willie and Hans, Caspar’s parents, bought it in 1994 and, the following year, turned it into three separate apartments. No one’s much touched it after that.”
“They were high quality finishings,” Cynthia said.
Sol squinted at Brendan’s door trim. “Average.”
“We’ll get rid of those interior stairs if we do a total overhaul,” Cynthia said. “It will enlarge the units, and new tenants won’t want relatives running up and down to each other’s places.”
“That would allow you open up the kitchen to turn this into a great room.” Paula stopped beside the staircase door. “I’d put an island right here and—”
“We can manage without your decorating input,” Florence said.
Sol opened the door to the room directly below Florence’s alcove. The corner of a bed was actually visible.
“Is this your bedroom?” Paula asked Brendan.
“My parents’. Mine’s in worse shape than this one, junk-wise.”
Florence touched the dresser top, that was free of clutter. “A family I cleaned for gave this to me when they replaced their bedroom set with something modern and garish. Hans refinished this piece. Since I didn’t care for the style, he gave it to Kurt and Dixie.”
Cynthia squeezed past Paula. “So, Brendan, the dresser belongs more to Ma than to you or your mother.”
“Give it a rest, will you, Cynthia,” Brendan said. “What’s a hundred or so dollars?”
Sol ran his hand across the wood. “Pure mahogany; and see those details.” He pointed to carvings of roses on the drawers. “I’d definitely get this appraised.”
“I hated these paw-shaped feet,” Florence said. “Too prissy.”
“The reason it’s clear….” Brendan looked at Paula. “Johnny….”
“What about him?” Florence said.
“When he was here helping me lug bicycles off the bed, he noticed the dresser under piles of crap and remembered Uncle Caspar saying he’d put something in it for safekeeping. He told Johnny to open it after his death.”
“Open what?” Cynthia asked. “The dresser? A package?”
“Johnny doesn’t know. He never looked in the drawers and forgot about it until now.”
“Caspar didn’t tell me about anything like this,” Florence said.
“Me neither,” Cynthia said. “Uncle Caspar saw Ma way more than he saw Johnny. I bet Johnny made this up to get attention.”
Brendan glanced at the patio door. “Johnny says that, while I was away, he and Uncle Caspar used to sit on my deck and, in his words, shoot the shit. Caspar liked the view from here and Johnny….”
Liked getting away from Florence, he had told Paula.
“During one of their talks, Caspar mentioned the package or whatever,” Brendan continued. “So, while Johnny and I were supposed to be moving the bikes, he starts dumping everything from the dresser drawers onto the bed we’d worked our butts off to clear.” Brendan gestured to the towels, clothes and linens on the bed. “We didn’t find anything significant. Johnny shoves all the stuff off the dresser top, in case, for some reason, the package is there. That’s why the top is clear. Now he wonders if he was drinking when Caspar brought up the subject and misunderstood.”
“Johnny could barely stagger upstairs after those evenings of shit-shooting,” Florence said.
“This is weird,” Cynthia mused.
“Johnny thought Uncle Caspar was acting kind of strange that night,” Brendan said. “Saying these morbid things.”
“Like what?” Paula said.
“Why do you ask so many questions?” Florence asked.
“Caspar got to brooding about my father’s death,” Brendan said. “He told Johnny that, with Dad gone, the weight of the Beckers was on his head and he had to do what was right.”
“Nonsense,” Florence said.
“On Caspar’s head or on Johnny’s?” Paula caught Florence’s this-is-none-of-your-business glare. Most likely Caspar had been referring to his own head and the package, or whatever, had been his attempt to lift that weight. So what if Florence barked at her? “What do you suppose Caspar meant?”
‘No clue,” Brendan said. “Johnny doesn’t know either.”
“If you come across this package,” Florence told him, “you should open it with us all present.”
“I agree,” Cynthia said.
“Why?” Brendan asked.
“It might be a priceless antique,” Cynthia suggested. “Like this dresser.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Sol said. “I was thinking you might get seven or eight hundred.” He stepped over a cedar chest and opened the patio doors. “Great view.”
The downtown highrises, Calgary Tower and the Saddledome spread before them under the cloudy sky.
“It’s even better from my floor,” Florence said.
“That’s why I think we should either sell or upgrade and rent the apartments,” Cynthia said. “The view is wasted on you, Ma.”
“I enjoy it.”
“How could you with Uncle Caspar’s trash blocking the windows?”
“Johnny and I spend most of the summer on the balcony,” Florence said. “When are you bringing the kids over to watch the fireworks?”
“I don’t know when I’ll have the time, and the Stampede’s almost over.”
“Less than half over,” Paula said for no reason except to join in the family squabble she was glad wasn’t hers.
Sol jotted a note on his tablet. “I’d judge the smoke smell in here as minimal.”
“The rotten odour of dead mice obscures it,” Brendan said. “The airing helps with both.”
“What about the roof?” Cynthia asked.
“I’ll get my ladder from the truck,” Sol said. “Have I missed anything, Paula, aside from….” He shifted to singing voice. “Will you marry me sometime?”
Brendan’s puzzled gaze darted from Sol to Paula. “Are you two together?”
Sol advised Florence to get competitive prices for a similar quality door and to buy a door of her choice, paying for any upgrade. He went up to the roof and, to Cynthia’s disappointment, he judged it free of hail damage. “Five to ten years before needing replacement.”
“We’ll have The House business settled long before then,” Cynthia said. “I’ve got to run. Thanks Paula and Sol. I know you put yourselves out to fit in our appraisal.” Cynthia’s smile made her look pretty and ten years younger. “Hey, hey Paula,” she sang. “Hey, Paul. I remember that song. Johnny and I skated a routine to an instrumental version the year we competed in the ice dance. Remember, Ma? We took third at the locals.”
So, Cynthia was capable of the Becker charm when she recalled her glory days. For her, life after skating had been far from a jump and spin. She was twice divorced and raising two teenagers, one of whom might be anorexic, on the income from a part time Joe-job. She felt constantly short of money and on a treadmill of overwork and underappreciation.
Paula wondered what Caspar had meant by the weight of the Becker family.
Chapter Fifteen
“Did you talk to Isabelle about her rent?” Erin asked.
“The minute I raised the issue, she got defensive.” Paula knelt to blot the carpet stain with a sponge. Erin’s basement looked like a storm had blown through and scattered the visitors’ tote bags and clothes, dropping plates, glasses and cutlery on top.
Habib, the basement tenant, was up in the kitchen scouring frying pans with stuck-on food from the freeloaders’ cooking. Without asking him, they had taken his supply of meat out of the freezer, leaving the half they didn’t use to thaw all day on the kitchen counter.
“That’s about as good as we can get this stain,” Paula said. “The wet vac might remove the rest.”
Sam was supposed to have returned the machine half an hour ago. He’d spent much of the afternoon vacuuming Henry’s house. Paula and Erin dumped half-full glasses of pop into the basement sink spotted with soap scum. They collected as many dirty dishes as they could carry.
“You really have to talk to these people,” Paula said.
“All they do is call me a prig.” Erin’s voice trembled.
“Why doesn’t Habib set them straight? He has to live with them down here.”
“They laugh him off, same as me.”
“Well, you’ll be done with them by Friday.”
“Unless they stay over for the weekend.”
“Don’t let that happen. Say to them—”
“Mom, I’m dealing with this my way. Don’t tell me how to do things.”
Hadn’t her daughter asked her for advice and help?
Erin was dressed in yesterday’s T-shirt and pants with black ribbons. Her beige-blond bob looked like it could use a shampoo.
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Paula asked.
“Worrying keeps me awake at night.”
Paula nudged Erin’s shoulder. “These idiots aren’t worth it, honey.”
Salt, Erin’s pu
ppy, came bounding down the stairs.
“I’d pick you up, bud, if my hands weren’t full,” Paula told him.
Pepper met them at the top of the stairs. Their old family dog had stayed with Erin in the house. Last week, Pepper had sprained her paw while chasing the frisky Salt. The paw’s improvement was the one good note in Erin’s house.
“I looked at apartments near the university,” Erin said. “They’re pricey, and other students are snapping them up, but I think I can afford a small studio.”
“Apartments?” Habib looked up from drying a pot. He glanced from Erin to Paula. “Are you planning to sell? I really like it here.”
“Even with your new room-mates?” Paula asked.
“That’s temporary.”
Erin raked her fingers through her greasy hair. “There are too many hassles with owning a home. Leah wants to sell it, too.”
“To get the money to help start her business?”
“I told her, Mom, you should take any profits, I don’t want them.”
After real estate fees, Paula doubted there would be any capital gains for her daughters. Liquidating this asset would enable Paula to contribute an equal share to her joint expenses with Sam, if and when they lived together. Sam was fine with putting in more, but she wanted them to be equals financially, in spite of his higher salary.
Paula, Erin and Habib wiped pots and pans and stashed pizza boxes and take-out containers in garbage bags.
“Give your unwanted guests an invoice for your meat,” Paula told Habib.
“They don’t have a lot of money,” he said. “They’re students.”
“So are you.”
He draped the dish cloth on the stove handle. “I’ve got to go meet Isabelle at the Coca- Cola stage. The Murmurs are on tonight. Erin, you’re sure you don’t want to come?”
“No thanks.”
“The Murmurs sound quiet,” Paula said.
“They’re wild; more about heart murmurs.” Habib checked his cellphone for messages and chuckled at a text.
“What is it?” Erin asked.
“Isabelle. Seems she liked her first solo meeting with a claimant.” Habib smiled at Paula. “I’m glad you and Nils gave her that break.” He went downstairs to get changed.
