Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (36 page)

“
Six,” Tanesha
said.

“
Which house do
you
like?” Jill asked.
“We should start there.”

Tanesha scowled at her question.

“
Since we have the codes
to get in for all the properties, let’s prioritize,” Heather
reached over the front seat and yanked a stack of paper from
Tanesha’s hand. “Lowry, Stapleton, ooh this is nice where’s
that?”

“
Wash Park,” Tanesha
said.

“
Montview,” Heather
said.

“
By Seth’s?” Jill
asked.

“
Down the street,” Tanesha
said.

“
Are you going to live
next to the Governor?” Jill asked.

“
Cranmer Park,” Heather
said. “Nice neighborhoods.”

“
Hmmm,” Tanesha
said.

Jill pulled the SUV over.

“
What’s the problem?” Jill
asked.

“
Every house is
lovely,
big
, and
beautiful,” Tanesha said. “Each one is special in its own way. Jer
keeps telling me I deserve a big, gorgeous home, but…”

“
You don’t like them,”
Heather said.

“
They kind of suck,”
Tanesha said. “I love the Castle. You know I do. And its way bigger
than anything we’ve looked at. But what I love about the Castle is
it’s small private spaces. These things are like museums. We’re
there touring them with the realtor and Jer’s talking about all the
designer furniture he’s going to put here or there. Me? I’m
thinking – Who’s going to clean this mausoleum?”

“
He’s probably thinking
he’ll hire a cleaning person,” Jill said. “We have Rosa and she’s
amazing.”

“
I don’t know if I want a
cleaning person,” Tanesha said. “We were in one place where the
kitchen was about as big as my Gran’s entire house. No, it was
literally bigger than my Gran’s house. I asked. Gran’s house is two
thousand square feet. This kitchen was twenty-five
hundred.”

Heather put her hand on Tanesha’s shoulder
in support.

“
There we are,” Tanesha
continued. “Jer’s babbling on about how I deserve the best and what
not; and I’m there worrying about who’s going to clean it, not to
mention heat it. He says I need to get past my poverty mindset. But
seriously, how much space do two people need? That house, the one
with the big kitchen? If Jer and I and his two kids and the baby
Mommas and all their kids were all in the house at the same time?
We wouldn’t run into each other for a month. ‘We’ll get nannies,’
he says. ‘We’ll be at med school, T,’ he says. ‘We’ll get a
housekeeper and a cook. I have one in most of my
houses.’”

Tanesha snorted.

“
A cook in every house,”
Tanesha said.

“
You seem really freaked
out,” Heather said.

“
Scared,” Tanesha said.
“Maybe I’m blocking myself from wealth or whatever, but all that
fancy crap is just not me. How can we ever make it work if what I
like is way below his standards?”

Tanesha clammed up. Jill started the
car.

“
Like it’s ever going to
work between me and Jeraine,” Tanesha snorted to keep from
crying.

Heather squeezed Tanesha’s shoulder. They
drove for a few more minutes.

“
What kind of a house is
more you?” Jill asked when she pulled over.

“
You drove to my Gran’s
house to show me where I belong?” Tanesha asked. “Gee thanks. Take
the black girl back to the hood and…”

Heather cleared her throat and tapped
Tanesha’s shoulder. Tanesha stopped spewing to look at her. Heather
pointed to a little house caddy corner and down the block from
Tanesha’s Gran’s house. The house was one story with a wide porch
and a small front yard enclosed by a broken white picket fence. It
had an unloved, abandoned look. Gray paint was peeling off the
exterior brick. Black smoke stains seeped around the boarded up the
windows. A tattered blue tarp covered a hole in the roof.

“
When we played house as
kids, you used to pretend this was your house,” Jill said.
“Remember?”

“
White picket fence,”
Tanesha’s words were soft and filled with memory. “I loved this
house.”

“
It’s owned by the bank,”
Heather pointed to an aging sale sign. “I bet you could get a good
deal and still have money to fix it up.”

“
No payments,” Jill said.
“That’s what my girl Tanesha would like.”

“
It almost burned down a
few years ago,” Tanesha said. “Gran saw the fire and called right
away. I was working.”

“
The plum tree’s still
there,” Jill said.

“
Plums,” Tanesha said. In
her memory, her child self said, ‘I’m going to make plum pie, plum
jam, everything plum, from this tree.’ Her mouth silently moved
with the words.

A large pickup truck pulled up behind them.
Looking in the rearview mirror, Tanesha saw Jacob and her father,
Rodney Smith.

“
Why are they here?”
Tanesha asked.

“
I was telling Jacob about
the house this morning,” Jill said. “He thought he could slip away
to take a look at it. Jacob loves houses like this. He’ll know if
it can be salvaged, how much it will cost, and how long it will
take. I thought you’d want to know for sure. He called about a half
hour ago to tell me he got the keys. Your Dad works with him. He’s
probably tagging along out of curiosity.”

“
It’s not really what
I
deserve
,”
Tanesha’s voice was low and sad.

“
Can’t hurt anything to
look,” Heather said. “We can go see all the houses you
deserve
after we finish.
I even brought fancy furniture catalogs so we could imagine putting
furniture around.”

Tanesha turned to look from one smiling
friend to the other.

“
What do you have to
lose?” Jill asked.

Nodding, Tanesha smiled and got out of the
SUV. They met Jacob and her father on the sidewalk. For Tanesha,
the next hour went by in a blink of an eye. Jacob and her father
went down to the basement while she, Jill and Heather wandered the
first floor. There were two small bedrooms toward the back, a
modest sized kitchen, dining room and a living room facing the
porch. The floors were wide planed birch, which ran from the front
door to the back.

After almost a year of helping Jacob with
this type of remodel, Jill knew this house could be really nice.
Everything Tanesha pointed out as a problem, Jill told her they
could fix it easily. She encouraged Tanesha up into the attic. The
women were standing in the attic when Jacob found them.

“
What’s the verdict?” Jill
asked.

“
The foundation is sound
and dry,” Jacob said. “It needs new water, new electricity and some
brick work, of course. This would make a lovely master suite.
Where’s the water?”

He wandered over to the corner above the
downstairs bathroom and began counting off steps.

“
Bathtub?” Jacob
asked.

“
I like taking baths,”
Tanesha said.

“
We just found another
claw foot tub,” Jill said. “It’s at the shop getting
re-enameled.”

“
Would be perfect here.
Good thinking,” Jacob continued counting steps. “There’s enough
space here for a two person bathroom. We might want to put in a
dormer so you can have some… space.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Jacob put his
hands on his hips.

“
What?” Tanesha
asked.

“
This house is begging for
you,” Jacob said. “The bank is selling it for seventy-five
thousand, but I bet I could get it for less. Should I
try?”

“
Jer’s paying for it,”
Tanesha said.

“
You should get the best
deal possible,” her father said. “The house is going to take a lot
of work.”

Embarrassed by her longing for the house,
Tanesha could only nod.

“
What color do you want to
paint the outside?” Jacob asked.

“
Yellow,” Heather
said.

“
With white trim,” Jill
added.

Tanesha smiled. Jill and Heather hugged
her.

“
I’ll write everything up
so you can take a look at it,” Jacob said. “Jeraine is a business
man. He’s going to want the details.”

“
How soon could you do
it?” Tanesha’s face spoke her longing, but she kept her voice
cool.

“
For family?” Jacob’s eyes
scanned Tanesha’s face. “Two months, maybe less. Depends on who we
can get to work for us and how much money we want to
spend.”

“
But you could make it
nice?”

“
Nice?” Jacob smiled at
Tanesha. “Let me give you a tour.”

Wandering through the house, Jacob painted a
picture of Tanesha’s perfect home. They’d fill the hole in the roof
with skylights and add a dormer for the bathroom. They’d add
hardwood floors to the attic and easily fix the floors everywhere
else. He’d open up the kitchen and put in the same countertops Jill
had in their loft. He had a great alley-find dining table that
would fit perfectly in the dining room. And those windows? He’d
restore the leaded glass transoms and put in double paned windows.
As Tanesha listened, she saw her dream come to life. By the time
they reached the front walk, she almost believed she already lived
there.

Jacob and Rodney hugged the women good-bye
and sent them off to breakfast. They were on their way back to the
job site before Rodney made a noise.

“
You’re not going to tell
her?” Jacob asked.

“
Tell her that we lived
there before I went to prison?” Rodney asked. “Tell her that her
Momma and I planted that plum tree? Or maybe tell her that her
Momma sold the house to pay for my pointless defense
attorneys?”

Rodney shook his head.

“
No,” he said. “I’m not
going to tell her. This is her fresh start.”

“
Are you all right with
her living there?” Jacob asked.

“
Yellow with white trim,”
Rodney smiled. “I was very happy there. I’m sure she will be
too.”

“
If you don’t want her
there, this is the time to say something,” Jacob said. “I can lose
the paperwork, over price the bid, or…”

“
I want my baby to be
happy,” Rodney said. “I love what you said, ‘This house is begging
for you.’ I felt that too. It’s like coming home. She and that
house belong together.”

“
You’re a good man,” Jacob
said.

“
A good man who is not
going to tell his daughter she was conceived in the house she now
wants to live in,” Rodney said.

“
So I’ll make it
happen?”

“
Do your magic,” Rodney
said.

Smiling, Jacob dropped him off at his job
site. This was just the kind of mess that Jacob loved cleaning up.
On the way back to the office, he bought the little house and
arranged for the initial work to begin. Jeraine would fuss some but
in the end, he would love living there. Sam met him at the door of
Lipson Construction.

“
You look happy,” Sam said
.

“
Making magic,” Jacob
said. “Say, you want to see a cool house?”

Laughing, Sam followed him into the
meeting.

~~~~~~~~

Wednesday afternoon – 1:15 P.M.

“
Delphie?” Charlie
called.

“
We’re out here,” Delphie
met him at the back door. “Anjelika went to pick up her
father.”

“
I wondered if you needed
some help in the garden,” Charlie said.

“
Sure,” Delphie shifted so
that Charlie could see. “I have Katy and Paddie. They’re helping me
dig up the potatoes.”

Katy and Paddie were sitting in the middle
of a garden bed. Covered in dirt, they were digging, laughing and
playing with garden spades. Charlie smiled at the kids.

“
Why don’t you join them?”
Delphie asked. “Your friend can help when she gets
here.”

“
My friend?”

“
Hey Pan,” Charlie turned
toward the girl’s voice. Tink was standing in the alley outside the
gate.

“
Tink!” Charlie
waved.

“
She can stay with us for
a while,” Delphie said. “But I think she’s better off at a shelter
where she can get therapy and go back to school.”

“
Aden said she couldn’t
stay with us,” Charlie said.

“
This is my house, not
his,” Delphie said. “It’s up to me who stays here or
doesn’t.”

Charlie’s eyes flicked to Delphie and she
laughed at herself.

“
She’s better off at a
shelter,” Charlie said.

“
She is,” Delphie said.
“But this afternoon, Tink can harvest with us.”

Charlie ran past the gardens and the bee
yard to the alley. He let Tink in the back and gave her a brief,
self conscious hug.

“
You’re all better,”
Charlie said.

“
Except for the fact that
I’m sober,” Tink said.

“
But…”

“
I’m kinda weak. The
seizure is a big deal. I’ll probably have them now. So no drugs for
me, but I feel better than I have in a really long time,” Tink
said. “Thanks for visiting me, Pan and, well, saving my life. I
guess I started to get better right after you were
there.”