Page 42 of The Treasure House

“Less creepy?” He was disgruntled. He was actually wearing clothes today, for a change—a soft green and white striped cotton T-shirt and jeans. His hair was flopping over his forehead in its usual salt-sprayed tumble, and he looked sun-kissed, like he’d just come in from the beach. Which I knew he hadn’t, because the mess of the lunch trade was still all over the picnic tables out front.

“Less creepy, but still creepy?” Jake prodded me.

His puppy barked, trying to get his attention. She licked at his neck as he struggled to unknot her leash.

“Have you named her yet?” I asked.

He scowled. “Only so she can be trained, not because I’m keeping her.”

“Oh my God. You have named her. Doris said you would.” I picked a sealant at random from the shelf. “Is this one any good?”

He scowled. “Depends. What are you using it for?” He had to unclip the puppy to get her out of the tangled leash. “And for your information, you can’t train a puppy without naming her. And you can’t not train a puppy when she chews on everything in sight,” he muttered under his breath.

I told him what I needed the sealant for.

“Pick the yellow one, it’ll be better. Wayne doing it, or you?”

“Me.” I peered at the instructions. “Wayne’s busy trying to fix the downstairs toilet.” Which wasn’t going well, judging by the amount of swearing that erupted regularly from the washroom.

“How come you call your folks by their first names?” he asked curiously.

“They’re not my biological parents,” I told him, keeping the explanation as vague as I could. And then I changed the subject. “How hard is it to seal a pipe?”

“I’ll come by after I close the store and show you.” He sighed.

“No, I have to do it now. I’m sick of mopping up every time someone makes coffee.” I put the yellow tube on the counter. “What did you call your dog in the end?”

“Hazel. And she’s not my dog. She’s leaving as soon as my sister gets here to collect her.”

“Hazel?”

He shrugged. “She looks like a Hazel.”

I considered her. She did look like a Hazel. It was something about her big brown eyes. I reached down to give her a scratch behind the ears, and she melted at my feet. “What breed is she?” I knew nothing about dogs.

“Springer spaniel,” he said in disgust. “I mean, do I look like a spaniel guy?” His gaze drifted to the photos of the golden retriever on the wall, and he sighed again, this time like a balloon deflating.

“So, I assume if you’re related to her, you know what happened to her?” I asked, watching as his puppy rolled onto his bare feet, wriggling happily.

“We’re not talking about Hazel anymore, I assume?”

“No. The woman who owned my house.” I paid him for the sealant.

“The woman who owned your house got sick and couldn’t manage things.” He passed me my yellow tube. “That’s how life works.” He grabbed a pair of plastic sunglasses off the rack. These ones were ombré neon green and yellow. He slid them on, like he was in a rush. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to clear up after lunch.”

Whoever Marly had been, she really hadn’t been able to manage things. Nothing worked properly at Tinker Street. Every time we tried to fix something, it just made it worse. When I was messing around under the sink with the sealant, I wrapped my hand around the ancient metal pipe and the stupid thing cracked. It was brittle as old paper. Just when I was cursing it roundly, Wayne exploded from out back, cursing even louder.

“You can’t be serious!” He swore black and blue, much to Flo’s glee.

“Wayne broke the toilet!” she told me brightly, sticking her head through the kitchen door. “I mean, broke it even more. You should see it.”

I didn’t want to see it. I could smell it.

“Just call a plumber,” Suni advised when she came downstairs to see what the commotion was. She was covered in dust.

“Oh my God, what’s that smell?” Alison appeared too. “It smells like something died.”

“My toilet just died,” I groaned.