Page 35 of Play Nice

“Sir, yes, sir,” I say, smiling.

“You know it’s haunted, right?”

“I’ve heard. It’s also got mice. And the worst carpets you’ve ever seen. A real house of horrors.”

“Ah,” he says, returning his eyes to the road. “It’s your house?”

Sometimes men are so dumb I envy them. Why would I confirm that information for a stranger? Might as well give him the code to the door and tell him I’ll be alone all weekend while I’m at it.

I don’t respond, and he doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. When we get to the house, he pulls into the driveway, but barely.

“Hate to disappoint you,” I say. “But the house isn’t haunted. Can you pull up, please? I have a lot of stuff to carry in.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “No, I don’t believe in any of that.”

“Of course you don’t,” I say, flashing him another smile in the rearview as my fingers find the door handle. “Me either.”

The code to the house is a mix of our birthdays. Leda’s, Daphne’s, and mine. The lock whirs and turns on its own. I carry in my bags and the boxes of stuff on the stoop, things I ordered and had sent directly.

It’s obvious from the smell of bleach that Dad cleaned.

I text him Thank you, and a second later he’s calling me.

“You’re at the house?” he asks. “I would have taken you.”

“You said you were done helping,” I say, looking up at the ceiling fan.

“I would have happily picked you up from the train and dropped you off,” he says.

“My hero!”

He goes on to report—in exquisite detail—what the exterminator and the electrician had to say. He’s already told me this once, but I wasn’t paying attention the last time, so I welcome the reiteration.

Essentially, there was no evidence of an infestation in the house, but there were droppings in the garage, where there are now glue traps that I need to check, that I absolutely do not want to check.

The electrician did find some issues, but he fixed them, and it cost, in Dad’s words, “not an insignificant amount of money.” Which could be any amount. He doesn’t specify, and when I ask, he says, “We’ll sit down with a spreadsheet.”

There are few things on this earth that interest me less than Microsoft Excel.

“I’d get someone to look at the deck and those front stairs,” Dad says.

“Who?” I ask. “Who’s someone?”

“I’ll get you some names,” he says. “How long are you staying there?”

“I don’t know. I’m taking some before photos and video today. Then maybe tomorrow I’ll go get some paint samples.”

“Do you need me to take you?”

All this angst for the past two weeks wondering if he cheated, but even if that were true, what would it change, really? Why inconvenience myself over it?

“Yes, please,” I say.

“Did you notice the door?”

“What about it?”

“It’s a different door.”