When the knock came, Rachel pushed her face against the plastic sheeting that covered her living room window. She could barely ascertain the flash of red.
A volunteer fireman occupied her porch—they all wore red mesh baseball caps outside the hall, like a flock of brutish cardinals. They always grouped together in crowds, at basketball games and at spaghetti feeds. The fraternity of the black QVFD jackets and red heads made them look like a pack of matches.
In her sweatpants and giant New Order T-shirt, with her hair still stuck to her cheek from perspiration, she answered the door.
She caught Bucky as he was about to knock again. He stopped himself before he could knock right on her face. He was distracted, staring at the mess outside the trailer house.
“What?” She was irritated. She had a suspicion that this ugly young man had come to sell more raffle tickets.
“Heard you needed a handyman.”
“You?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m not licensed or anything, but I know my way around a trailer house.”
“Jesus,” she said. Rachel had forgotten how fast word got out in Quinn, how it swept through without consideration, yet another fire through town.
“I have references,” he continued. “I waited a week before I came over.”
“Oh,” she said. She was so shipwrecked lately that she’d lost track of time. She felt that she should be carving marks in the wall with a kitchen knife to keep track of every day she spent making her amends.
“Can I come in?” He pointed to her living room. She opened the door and stepped back; her living room was a junkyard. With her foot, she pushed the gratitude list under the pillow she had been sitting on—it had been a short list anyway. One: having a job. Two: continuing her sobriety. Three: being a natural blonde.
She felt sorry for both of them. At least Bucky could blame his misfortune on his teeth. Her new home was becoming a halfway house for pathetic creatures.
He entered her living room and let out a low whistle.
“I know,” she said. “You don’t have to make me feel like shit.”
“You got some soft spots,” he pronounced, and knelt down by the giant dimple in the center of her carpet.
“You have no idea,” she said, and yawned.
Crouching down, his knees stuck out, sharp enough to be another tool. He needed a haircut. His hair was jet-black, and it curled around the back of his cap. He stood up, and he was at least six inches taller than she was; he seemed to be composed entirely of gangly limbs and jutting teeth.
“Can I make you some coffee?” She had only two mugs, one of which held her toothbrush.
“No, thanks,” he said. He quietly regarded the kitchen. The coffee could wait.
“There aren’t any problems here,” she said. “This is the one room that works.”
“Black mold,” said Bucky, standing in a dark corner, where the linoleum of the kitchen floor disappeared under the baseboard. Rachel had just assumed those shadows were bad lighting.
“What the fuck is black mold?”
“It’s the worst kind you can get,” he said. He crouched down to inspect it, dug a finger into the darkness, brought his hand over to Rachel, his whole arm extended outward as if the black mold was so dangerous he didn’t want it near his body. “I suspect the whole floor is rotten.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Rachel. “Can I spray it or something?”
“Lady, you aren’t even supposed to be breathing right now. This stuff has spores, and it poisons the air.”
“Fabulous,” she said. “I’m going to take my chances.” Bucky removed a pocketknife from his jeans and cut away at the corner. The linoleum curled neatly in his hand. The flooring underneath was the color of cardboard, but with polka dots of black growth. He examined it carefully.
“Well?”
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” he said. “I can cut this whole corner out, replace the joists. It hasn’t spread that much.”
“Wait until you see the rest of the house,” she muttered as he stomped the flooring back in place with his heavy black boot.
He followed her down the sagging hallway, stopping to tap his boot around the soft spots as the carpet cratered and the wood creaked. “This ain’t so bad,” he said. “The good news is that I don’t see any more black mold.”
“The bad news?”
“I’m gonna have to replace the entire floor.”
“For fuck’s sake,” she said.
“I ain’t gonna use new lumber,” he said. “I can scavenge from the dump and from behind the mill.”
“So, you’re thrifty?”
“Not especially,” he said. “I just know you can’t afford it.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re going to love the bathroom.”
He didn’t. When Rachel turned on the light, he grimaced.
“Fuck,” he said.
“I need a bathtub that works,” she said. “One that’s not underneath the house.”
Bucky examined the tiny room. “I can put in new subflooring and lay new linoleum and make it look pretty. Or pretty enough. But you’re gonna need a plumber to hook up the water line.”