Chapter Five
On the third time the man went down to his truck for more roofing material, he brought back two bottles of water, handing one over to Gina.
“Thanks. I’m Gina. You haven’t told me your name.”
“The roofer,” he said quietly.
“Okay, good.” Gina wasn’t sure what to say, or do with the man. He seemed harmless enough. Not attacking her with his hammer, anyway. “I wasn’t expecting you. You’re the second visitor I’ve had this morning. Or third, I suppose. Busy place for Christmas morning.”
“Three?”
“A fellow named Felix dropped by with pomegranate preserves. He chased away a homeless man that had used the front porch as his bed for the night.” Gina wanted to try some humor to lighten the mood. “Three wise men visiting the inn on Christmas morning, I suppose.”
When he went back to hammering nails, Gina gave up on making friends and returned to pounding nails, also.
Half the house had been done by then. He emptied his bottle in a hurry, and took off his cap to wipe his brow with a handkerchief. The sun was low in the sky when they finished for the day. Once he had the ladder stowed on the ground the way he wanted, the roofer went to his truck and got in. Gina followed him there.
“Thanks for working on Christmas. Sorry I was so slow. I’ve never done anything like that before. When are you coming back?”
He took her hand and pressed his thumb on the blisters that had come up. He gave her another bottle of water from a cooler.
“Get a hat.”
With that, the man started the engine and drove off toward the little bridge over the stream.
“Okay, I guess I have more things than plants to figure out with this job.”
***
Remembering Felix’s rule to use only one burner on the stove at a time, Gina made a dinner of beans and Vienna sausage, something she found stocked in the cabinet. Wishing she had a bottle of wine to rinse away her qualms about her new job, she sent a few text messages back home, mostly to Ana. While waiting for replies, she jabbed a sewing needle into her blisters. When her phone rang with a call, it wasn’t from her sister.
“Joey, Merry Christmas. What’s up?”
“When are you coming home?” he asked.
“A year from now. You already know that.”
“Gina, just come back to me.”
“Seriously? I’m supposed to leave a landscaper’s dream job in Hawaii and go back home to Cleveland in the middle of winter? Are you nuts?”
“What’s wrong with a white Christmas? Kids are playing with sleds, making snowmen, building snow forts. You like that kind of thing, Gina.”
“Hey, how’s that lake effect working for you? I heard you got a foot of snow just since yesterday, and another foot is on its way.”
“There’s nothing so special about that place,” he said in his whiniest voice yet.
“You haven’t been here,” she said. “Look, we’ve been over all this. I didn’t break up with you just to come here. We’re done, Joey. It was fun for a while, but it’s time for both of us to move on.”
“You’re going to marry one of those island guys?”
“Oh, gawd. You sound like my mother, you know that?”
“I got a lot to offer, Gina! Just come back to me.”
It was turning into a replay of a few nights before, the first time she tried breaking up with a guy she barely dated, and liked even less. “I’m not here to find a husband, and I’m not going home to marry you, Joey. Time to move on.”
She couldn’t end the call fast enough. Wondering if she should turn off the phone or if her sister might still call her, she waited to hear from Ana. When the text came, Gina smiled at the thought of her little sister in a police uniform.
Can’t talk. On my first real stakeout.
Realizing it was after midnight back home, Gina set aside her phone in trade for a pictorial book on the trees and shrubs of the Hawaiian Islands. After reviewing that and making notes of the trees she’d found that day, she started drawing a new map of the estate. Using the color pens she’d brought with her, she was just finishing at midnight. Setting aside everything, she went to take a shower.
Turning the handles midway, she kept her hand in the spray while waiting for the water to turn hot. After adjusting the hot to full blast and turning the cold off, she figured she was destined to a cold shower again that night.
“At least the pipes aren’t frozen.”
***
Gina was woken in the morning with a text message from her sister. Ana was already taking a lunch break at home, mid-way through her shift.
Make any busts? Gina asked in a return message.
Wrote a jaywalking ticket to Mrs. Scapone. She said you’re supposed to call Joey.
Next time you write her up, tell her to tell Joey to quit calling me!
It was warm in the bedroom with the sun coming in through the windows. After opening the louvered windows, she went through the house opening others, along with the back door. Going to the front door last, she opened that to find someone curled up on the porch. He looked like the same man from the day before, with tousled hair, thin blue trousers, scuffed leather shoes, and the same windbreaker.
“Not you again.” She nudged him with her toe to wake him before stepping back. She didn’t want to pick a fight; she just wanted him to go. “Time to go, bro.”
After another nudge from her foot, he rolled over onto his back and looked up at her. His face was as much of a mess as his clothes, with wrinkles too deep for a young man. Other than dark eyes and black hair, she couldn’t tell what sort of heritage he had. At home, he would’ve been pegged as Italian without a second guess. Not
