The Art of Saying Goodbye - Ellyn Bache [97]
Mason sits motionless for a moment, his dark eyes misted. “What about today?” he says. “She’s hanging on by a thread.”
Ginger stares at him. The Sunday after Thanksgiving? Deliver and install a spa on the Sunday after Thanksgiving? “Let me work on it. It might take some doing.”
From here on the screened porch, she looks out into the yard and sees the exact spot, close to the house, where the spa ought to go. Well, why not? Labor will be hard to hire, but most of the neighbors are home. If she buys the patio blocks for the foundation at Home Depot, someone with a truck can pick them up. It doesn’t take much skill to lay patio blocks. If necessary, she’ll get Eddie to show them how. She heads across the cul-de-sac to her house, her mind racing. She phones Andrea, who phones everyone else.
One of the great selling points of the spas Ginger carries is that they can be installed without a plumber. Basically, they can be filled with a garden hose. That feature seems especially attractive today. “Eddie, come help me,” she calls when she gets into the house. “Rachel and Max, you too.” Already she’s mentally running through the inventory of spas stacked in the storage yard behind the store. Already she’s selecting a small one that needs only a regular outlet, not a 220.
“You think you’ll be able to rouse Donny from in front of the TV?” Eddie asks when she tells him what she’s up to. Even with the smaller outlet, a spa requires its own dedicated line. Donny, their electrician for years, is skilled but a bit lazy. Getting him out on a holiday Sunday, a football Sunday, is going to require tact, cajolery, maybe even bribery. Trying to find someone else would be impossible.
“I’ll go to his house, if necessary,” Ginger says. “If necessary, I’ll pay him an outrageous Christmas bonus right now, on the spot.”
“Show me where you want the trench to bury the power line, and the kids and I will start digging it,” Eddie tells her. Max might be helpful, but the idea of Rachel wielding a pickax to break up the hard dirt is so ludicrous, both of them smile.
Ginger phones Skip Carson, who drives their forklift to move the spas around and operates the special trailer they use for delivery. He’s not happy to hear from her. “This is for my neighbor who’s dying. Waiting isn’t an option. Please, Skip.” She has no qualms about guilt-tripping him into it.
“No way you’re going to get Trip or Butch today. I can’t lift those things myself,” he growls.
“I’ll find you the muscle power.” She’ll recruit the husbands from the neighborhood. She’ll promise them a fine workout without even going to the gym.
Before the morning is over, Ginger feels she’s called in every favor anyone has ever owed her. Normally she doesn’t like to get too far behind on favors, but instead of feeling bereft, today she’s filled with an unfamiliar sense of exhilaration. Much as she enjoys her work, until now she hasn’t realized how dry and dusty it sometimes gets, too familiar, too routine. Today, everything is easy, years of skills reaching this culmination, this impossible task.
Pick up supplies from the showroom, stop at Home Depot, check in with Skip. Usually she would jot down a list; it’s part of what keeps her organized, but she doesn’t need one. The tasks are etched neatly, indelibly, in her brain.
When she gets back to Paisley’s just after noon, the yard is full of neighbors laying the patio blocks that have just been delivered. Mason, who has changed into a T-shirt and shorts, works among them with feverish energy, his summery outfit optimistic even for this unseasonable warmth, but beads of sweat dotting his upper lip, a satisfied intensity in his expression that makes Ginger think he’s as grateful as she is for something do. So many of them look this way, thankful for the weight of stone in their hands, the feel of soil in a shovel. Even Iona Feld, swinging a pickax alongside