Romantic Renovations

by Blake Allwood

  When I returned from my food run, Les was sitting on the front porch with his feet crossed at the ankles, watching the traffic go by.

  “Dude, did anyone recognize you?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Maybe, no one seemed to though.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  He laughed. “Not really. The world assumes the main stars of a network wouldn’t be out in public. As long as this isn’t your show, people just assume you are some guard or part of the renovation crew. Unfortunately, once my face shows up as part of this project that could change, but for now, I’m good.” He said reaching for a beer.

  I balanced the pizza box on the porch rail and sat down on the steps next to him.

  “So I’m guessing since the network didn’t tell me you were coming, this was something of a surprise to you too?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Yeah, I was supposed to be headed to Boston to join my family and let show business go, but unfortunately I have a contract.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. This isn’t really your thing, is it? I mean…” I quickly back peddled. “…you’re more into the design part of the business?”

  He laughed out loud. “No, I’m not into the design at all. That’s what my costar is supposed to be for. I’m the brute muscle for the job. And if my former co-star is right, I’m just supposed to follow directions and look pretty while doing it.” He let out a bitter chuckle.

  “You do that well.”

  “Do what well?” he asked, trying to sounding offended.

  “Look pretty doing it.”

  He rolled back his head and laughed, big and loud. “Dude, you’re funny,” he said and clapped me on the back. “So it’s your turn. Sounds like your costar was quite a tool.”

  “Well, he definitely wasn’t a good guy. We were supposed to be best friends but clearly that wasn’t the case. I brought him into this and he blew up when I took a stand for myself.”

  “Don’t you own the homes?” Les asked.

  “Yep, and I’m putting up one third of the renovation costs, but Frank’s rules were always it’s my way or the highway.”

  “That sucks man.” Les bumped my side companionably, then he turned and said, “Well, if you and I both had douchebags as partners, maybe we’ll end up making a good team. But, you gotta do something right off.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, really enjoying the big muscular body sitting next to me.

  “You’ve got to stop being a pushover.”

  I turned, surprised. “What do you mean, ‘stop being a pushover?’”

  “Well, during last season’s show, it’s clear you let the men walk all over you. Today, you stood back and let me take full control and didn’t even attempt to pull any back on yourself. If this is going to be an equal partnership, you’re gonna have to step up your authority.”

  I sighed. “I don’t really find that easy to do. I’m more of a follower than a leader.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I saw the last show. Before Frank belted you, you stood up to him and did it in a professional manner.”

  I nodded and took a piece of pizza, anxious to take the subject off of me. “Tell me about Diane Stacey.”

  “My God, Diane’s a total bitch. She would come onto the set, yelling at the crew, telling them they were worthless, then come find me and tell me the same. She would avoid meetings and miss appointments we’d set up to discuss design, then she’d come in and want to change everything we’d done while she was missing. Working with her was like working with an angry, irresponsible badger.”

  He continued complaining about her as my mind drifted. I’d seen basically the same rant on television that he was having now. I was strangely happy it wasn’t all scripted TV because I liked to think I knew a little about the guy and Diane seemed to be a horrible partner. Truthfully, I also had an ongoing fantasy that he’d toss the hateful woman aside and come for me. Although, that isn’t really what happened, but I couldn’t deny that his sitting here next to me sure made it feel like it was.

  As I was thinking the man was cuter in person than on TV, he stopped talking, eyed me skeptically and said, “You just did that to get me off the subject of you, didn’t you?”

  “Well, …and to see that rant in person.” I said tongue in cheek. He needled my ribs causing me to squirm.

  “I’m beginning to catch on. You’re a sneaky little bastard huh?” Les said in response.

  “Nope, my parents were married…to each other. I may be many things, but bastard I’m not.”

  He just shook his head, finished off his slice of pizza, and said with a mouth full of food, “okay, show me the parts of the project that need to be put right. The stuff you said the workers messed up while you were recovering.”

  As we walked around the house, I pointed out the area where they painted the trim. He took some painter’s tape and put short strips of it around the room as I pointed out problem areas. We went upstairs then and I showed him where they ripped out transom windows and put wallboard over the gaps. “Do you still have the windows?” he asked.

  “Luckily, yeah. That was one of the things Frank made fun of me for. I made them take all the windows out before renovations started and stored them in one of my other homes so they wouldn’t get broken. The guys were supposed to frame out the transoms so we could put them back in.”

  “Got it,” he said and put blue tape up over each doorway.

  When we got to the bathroom, I showed him how they neglected to take out the wall where we were going to expand the ensuite so it had not only a soaker tub but a standup shower. “Wow, that’s gonna be cool,” he said as he looked around. “I’ll have them work on this first thing cause that’s gonna double the value of this bedroom.”

  I smiled. I thought the same thing.

  He put blue tape on the wall that was supposed to be removed and then pulled a pen out of his pocket and drew a smiley face.

  I just shook my head. “So when I get the smiley face, that means you approve?”

  “No, I approve of everything so far. But the smiley face is my favorite improvement you’ve shown me.”

  The compliment caused my heart to swell. Frank had never complimented me; he basically just made me feel like shit. Embarrassed at my gushing response, I darted out of the ensuite and headed up to the third floor before he noticed.

  Les followed close behind. We climbed the ladder into the attic, and I showed him what I thought of as ‘my fantasy project’.

  “They were supposed to add a stairwell up to this floor using some of the unnecessary square footage that’s in the hallway below us. I wanted this to become an office or bonus room, but Frank overruled me saying we needed to get done and move on to the next house.”

  My cheeks burned as I gushed out my thoughts about the project. If he hadn’t seemed to respect my ideas, I wouldn’t have felt confident to bring this up, but his interest propelled me forward.

  “I don’t like to rush through these homes without giving them their proper due.”

  I felt myself blush deeper thinking I was being overly sensitive. When I glanced over at Les, he was leaning his back against the wall staring at me.

  “Why did you agree to do twelve homes in a year?” he asked.

  “Well, ‘cause that’s what Frank came up with. The value of homes in Seattle have quadrupled in the past few years, so Frank just thought we should clean them up, make them pretty enough to sell.”

  “But doing patchwork isn’t your idea?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Les, Frank lectured me about being sentimental, and I have no reason to be. My grandpa was a cold-hearted man. But, these old homes, they have so much character. I can almost feel the people who lived in them and loved them all these years. This house is just over a hundred and twenty years old. Built in 1889, it feels like it deserves some respect.” I could feel my speech pattern kicking up in speed, but I wanted to get the words out before he had a chance to shoot do
wn my thoughts and feelings, “I mean, I know it’s ridiculous and I’m letting sentiment cloud my business sense, and just so you know, I am working on that, but it’s tough. As far as the attic space goes, would it really cost that much more to blow it out and turn it into a usable space?”

  Les surveyed the space then went over to where a couple of floorboards were loose and pulled them up. After that he examined a couple beams before he turned to me and nodded. “Yeah, it’ll cost about fifteen grand to pull that off. But it seems to me if you have your heart set on it, that’s how it should’ve been designed.”

  I gaped at him with a feeling of excitement. “How much time will it add to the bottom line?”

  “About two weeks.” he answered honestly.

  My heart sank, “fuck, we don’t have two weeks.”

  He shrugged. “Unless you rewrite the script.”

  I looked at him funny. “What do you mean ‘rewrite the script?’”

  “Bennett, this is your show. They are your houses and frankly, it’s your money, especially since I’m guessing your ex-partner isn’t gonna feed any more into the projects. My attorney and my agent looked over your contract - which by the way, she said she wants to talk to you about - and you have the freedom to rewrite that whole twelve houses in twelve months thing. Why don’t you put your energy into making these homes what you envision them to be, and leave the rush work to people who don’t give a shit?”

  “You don’t think that’d put my audience off?” I asked.

  “No, what I think will put the audience off is slapping paint on a gaping wound and pretending like it’s been renovated.”

  “I thought that too. Frank said I was being ridiculous. People wanted to see a pretty product and didn’t give a shit about quality.”

  Les’s expression darkened. “Clearly Frank was wrong about things, this being one of the biggest. It’ll take less than a month before negative reviews from the people who buy your homes start to get out. When they do, the press is going to be nasty. You’re going to get a reputation for shoddy workmanship and be cancelled before you even get started.”

  I nodded but banked my excitement, determined not to get my hopes up only to have them dashed later when I learned Les might be wrong. “What you’re telling me is good news, but I need some time to digest it. We can put the attic on the back burner for now. The rest of the things that need to be fixed are pretty basic. Let me show you.”

  We walked through the rest of the house and I showed him where the workers had sheet rocked around a two by four, like they were going to leave the damn thing sticking out permanently; even Frank wouldn’t have allowed that. There were basic repairs where the mud and tape were coming loose and there was an area that didn’t look like it’d been sanded before someone painted it, and a few other things I thought of as insignificant.

  Every spot I pointed out, Les marked with tape. When we were done, he smiled. “Now, wanna come back through with me and let me point out what I’ve seen?” he asked.

  I was sort of taken off balance because I was so used to Frank calling me nitpicky. I never imagined someone else might see things that I didn’t.

  “Sure,” I followed him back to the area where I showed him the paint on the woodwork.

  Les began explaining what needed to be worked on. As he explained the home’s needs, I couldn’t help but smile, Les and I were on the same page. The last house we’d sold was crap and it embarrassed me. Luckily, the owner had taken it as is and signed a waiver the attorney required as part of the contract process. The fact we had to have a waiver at all though made my insides churn. Les had basically confirmed that I wasn’t being ridiculous and that it wasn’t uncommon to want the homes to be well done and up to par before we sold them.

  By the time we got back to the porch, the pizza was cold and the beer was warm. But I was so happy I didn’t mind either one. I laid back against the house and sighed. “Les, this may be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

  When I glanced over at him, he had a funny look on his face which quickly morphed into a grin. If I hadn’t been so punch drunk happy, I’d have thought his expression was sexual.

  Don’t kid yourself Mr. Plain Jane, I thought. Les Cooper is a famous muscled god and you are nowhere even close to his league.

  After the sun went down, we went inside and sat next to a propane heater one of the crew members had brought. We chatted about how to make the show flow better and about how Les recommended we direct the film crew. “Tomorrow, I’ll remove some of the tape we’ve set up and we’ll basically have the same conversation again, which is you showing me the areas that you think needs to be fixed. This will help you gain the viewer’s respect and make you appear to know what you’re talking about. They will love the attic conversion too.

  Tomorrow also needs to be about us developing our working relationship. If you decide you’re willing to throw out the twelve-months, twelve houses thing, we’ll announce our new focus on quality rather than quantity.”

  By 10:00 PM, it was dark inside and out. We’d both drank several beers and were sitting in companionable silence when we heard someone trying to get in the back door.

  I could barely see Les, but he leaned toward me and put his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he whispered, got up and began making his way toward the sound. I followed behind him until we got to the kitchen. He pointed for me to hide behind a large box of unassembled cabinets as he slipped behind the door. I jumped when I heard glass breaking and saw a hand reach in through the broken window to unlock the door.

  The dude opened the door then and slipped in, slowly closing it behind him. The second he was in the room, Les was on him, putting him in a head lock and putting those impressive muscles to good use.

  “Drop whatever weapon you have!” I said as I came out in front of him.

  “Fuck!” he gasped and dropped what appeared to be a crowbar.

  “You got any other weapons?” I demanded while Les held him tight. It looked like he was trying to shake his head but when he couldn’t, he said no. “Les, let him go, but if he moves, knock him out.”

  Les slowly released him but was yet to say anything. I went to the side wall and flipped the light on and unsurprisingly found myself eye to eye with the guy who’d called me a “faggot” earlier in the day.

  “Damn, your man here tried to kill me.”

  “Yep, and he’d have gotten away with it too, considering you are standing in the middle of my house after you were fired.”

  When the man’s eyes met mine, instead of anger, which I’d expected to see, I saw fear. Good, he should be afraid.

  “So, you came back to trash my house?” I surprised myself with the vehemence in my voice.

  The man didn’t say anything but did have the grace to stare down at the ground.

  “Les how much did that door cost?” I queried, arching an eyebrow at him.

  Les appeared confused but the expression left him soon enough. “Probably five hundred or so.”

  “Let your buddies know this is the last chance for everyone. You’ve used up my patience for doing dumb shit. You have until 7:30 AM tomorrow morning to have five hundred dollars in my hand or the cops will be here by 8:00 AM to get our statement of how we stopped a burglary. Got it?”

  The guy nodded while I used my phone to take a picture of him standing wide-eyed in front of the broken door.

  “Oh, and if Frank had anything to do with this, you let him know I’m reporting this to the network. He’ll not be getting another chance either. Now run away,” I said, surprising myself with the strength in my voice and then being even more shocked that it worked when the guy did as I instructed and bolted out the door.

  “Wow, you’re tougher than you appear.” Les said, raising an eyebrow.

  I smiled. “You said I needed to be more authoritative and besides, it’s easy to be tough when you’ve got muscle behind you.”

  He chuckled, came over and felt my biceps. “We’ll get th
ose pumped up soon enough and then you can be your own muscle.” I gulped. Was my celebrity crush really flirting with me?

  “Yeah right!” I laughed it off, but damn if I didn’t love the tingles that shot through me when he touched my arm.

  Les

  We both left after the break-in. I knew from experience word would get around quickly that we’d caught the fired crew member trying to wreck the place. The fact we were here waiting for him would most likely create respect and solidify our authority with the team. Once they got to know us better, the crew would probably have turned his ass in before it happened, but we were still in the “us against them” stage, and that would take some time to change.

  Respect. That was the first step, even if it was based on fear for their buddy and their jobs. Once we built a rapport with them, then we could really start to build our team.

  The next morning, the dude showed up right before 7:00 with $500 to replace the door he’d broken the night before. When I saw him, I quickly moved toward where he and Bennett were standing and I heard Bennett say he’d better not see the dude on any of his properties again.

  I was pleased when the guy just nodded then disappeared.

  When he turned around, he saw me and smiled. “Well, that went much better than I’d expected.”

  “You scared him shitless.”

  “No dude, you scared him shitless, I just followed through.”

  “Whatever. Well, let’s go meet our cameramen and go over some of our expectations. Oh, what’s your decision on the twelve-month thing?”

  “I hate it. I’m all for getting rid of it and never mentioning it again. Besides, I prefer to do this right. I want to show the world an exceptional finished product rather than to be chasing my tail making a mess which other people have to put right.”

  That’s what I’d hoped for. If I were going to put my name on something, I really wanted it to be quality work. My family’s reputation depended on it.

  The camera crew were right on time. My little stunt yesterday seemed to have worked.