A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [43]
The central-heating and air-conditioning project had begun three weeks previously, at which time afternoon temperatures rarely surpassed the high seventies. To date, a forced air furnace had been wrestled into the cellar, several hundred feet of silver paper tubing coiled and snaked across the cellar floor, and random holes had been cut into the ceiling on every floor. There was as of yet no sign of an actual air-conditioning unit, and the temperature now rarely dropped below the high seventies. Cici couldn’t help wondering, as she followed the contractor down the stairs into the brick-floored cellar, whether the reason he was taking so long with the job was because the cellar was the only place in the house where it was cool enough to work.
“The situation is,” he explained as they descended into the bare-bulbed dimness, “this house wasn’t built to carry air-conditioning. Probably wasn’t even built for electricity. Looks like the wiring was added later. How old is this place, anyway?”
“A hundred and six years,” replied Cici.
He gave a low whistle. “They sure don’t build them like this anymore. Solid. Anyway, here’s your problem.”
He made a sharp right at the bottom of the stairs and crossed to the fuse box on the wall. He opened the door, switched on the high-powered beam of his flashlight to illuminate the inner workings, and stepped back to allow her to appreciate the problem for herself.
Cici looked at the fuse box, looked at him, and said, “Okay.”
He said, “You’re gonna have to run a new wire. We can’t hook up anything to this. There’s no room.”
She stared at him. “You couldn’t have discovered that before you cut holes in the ceiling?”
He shrugged. “Generally, when we come to do a job, we’re counting on electricity.”
Cici frowned impatiently. “Look, I don’t mean to be unreasonable, but it has been three weeks and it’s getting hotter by the day. How long will it take you to run the wire and install the air-conditioning unit?”
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “You’re gonna need an electrician for that.”
Again, she stared. “But—you’re a contractor, right? Isn’t that what it says on your card? Heating-and-air contractor? Isn’t that what contractors do? They contract with whoever they need to get the job done?”
He snapped off the flashlight beam. “Call me when you get the wiring done.”
And he left.
The electrician said, “Miz Burke, can I just show you one thing?”
Cici, who was on the third from the top rung of the stepladder with a roller dipped in glossy white exterior paint poised against the ceiling of the front porch, glanced down at him. He was greasy-haired, ruddy-nosed, and the script across the pocket of his half-tucked blue work shirt suggested that his name was Cal. He had, however, introduced himself as Lenny, of Lenny’s All-Electric in Silverton County.
Lenny had brought a crew of three with him, and so far they had walked around the perimeter of the house together, muttering and nodding, squinted upward at the roof a good deal, and done a lot of leaning against walls while Lenny/Cal had taken readings with his voltage meter. Previously Cici had been asked to interrupt her painting to look at the fuse box, which was in desperate need of being upgraded to a circuit breaker system, and the outside meter, which apparently was improperly grounded. Every time she looked at the estimate, which originally had been requested only to cover running the wiring for a heat pump, went up another thousand dollars.
Cici carefully climbed down from the ladder, wrapped the roller in plastic film, covered the paint tray, removed her gloves, and followed Lenny/Cal inside.
At eleven a.m., the temperature was already eighty degrees—seventy-eight inside with all the windows and doors open. By noon it would be uncomfortably hot on the ladder, and by one the paint