Chapter 53

August 10, 1979

At 11:00 in the morning, the temperature was already 82 degrees but it felt like 92 and the forecast suggested that temperatures would be reaching the high 90s by the late afternoon. Tim was seated on the step before the front door, waiting for their university guest, Dr. Frank Hennequin, to arrive. The visiting professor was an historian specializing in studies of the French support of the American Revolutionary War. Tim wasn’t sure what to expect, but the professor was staying there until June of next year.

He wasn’t alone while waiting for the visiting professor. His dog, Woody, was out there as well doing its best to demand his attention. The puppy was in a playful mood that morning. The mixed breed mutt was approaching six months old with feet too big for his body. He was energetic and enjoyed playing fetch with a tennis ball. Most of the time, Woody would bring it back to him, but the puppy was easily distracted. Then it would get tired and flop down for a short rest.

At the moment, Woody was over by the side of the house making sure that the grass was well watered. He was at the age where he was still squatting rather than taking the classic three point stance with a leg cocked. Tim waited for the puppy to finish.

“Come here, Woody!”

The dog padded over to him. When it reached him, he flopped down and looked up at Tim.

“Getting tired?”

The puppy didn’t answer, not that Tim expected him to. Tim reached over and ruffled the fur on the back of the dog’s neck prompting a vigorous wagging of the tail. It felt right to reach over and pet the dog. He’d only had him for a month, but they were already best buds. All he had to do was call and Woody ran right to him. He was a smart dog and learned basic commands easily. Already he came when called, sat on command, and rolled over after a little gesture; and he had only chewed up one pair of sneakers.

Tim checked his wristwatch wondering how much later it would be before Dr. Hennequin would show. The man was 30 minutes late already. Of course, he was flying in from France via New York and airlines weren’t necessarily the best at keeping to schedule.

Grumbling, he said, “It’s hot as hell out here.”

It was another quarter hour before a car pulled up in front of the house. Dr. Ellis, the professor who was sponsoring this visit, got out from the drivers side and a young man boiled out of the passenger side. The man looked about 30 or so. Tim was expecting someone a little older.

“Let me get his luggage out of the car and I’ll introduce you two,” Dr. Ellis called out as went around to the back of his car. He opened the trunk and pulled out two large suitcases. The young man was over there grabbing them and turned to face the house with an expectant expression on his face.

“Dr. Hennequin, this is your landlord, Mr. Tim Blake. Tim, this is Dr. Hennequin. He’s going to be staying here for this upcoming school year.”

Tim reached out and said, “Nice to meet you, Dr. Hennequin.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Let me take one of your bags. We’ll go inside and I’ll show you around the place.”

Of course, Woody had to greet the visitors as well. As soon as he went to stick his nose in Dr. Ellis’ crotch, Tim barked, “Sit, Woody!”

The dog sat and looked up at him. Tim reached over and petted the dog. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a little doggy treat and tossed it to Woody. The dog snapped it out of the air.

“That’s a well trained puppy,” Dr. Hennequin exclaimed. “How old is he? Six months?”

“Yes, he’s six months. I’ve had him about a month. He’s smart as anything,” Tim said while picking up one of the pieces of luggage.

He opened the door and ushered the other two in. Woody followed them in like it was his house.

“Let’s get these bags put away and then I’ll give you the nickel tour,” Tim said while leading them upstairs and directly to the bedroom where he set down the bag. “This is the master bedroom. There’s a guest room across the hallway. There’s a bathroom between the two rooms.”

“It’s a nice room,” Dr. Hennequin said. “It’s nicely furnished.”

Tim and Benny had not given much thought to the fact that the university would be having guests staying in the house. Since they wouldn’t be normal residents with their own furniture, it meant they would have to furnish the place. That had prompted a last minute rush to a discount furniture place and to Wal-Mart to get minimal kitchen wares for the place. They were almost done when they realized most guests wouldn’t have towels, sheets, pillows, and the rest. They had spent the deposit and first two months rent furnishing it. They still had to furnish the other house before their second tenant showed up in a week. Of course, he hadn’t finished the work on that house yet. It was getting tight time wise.

“Thank you.”

“It all looks new.”

“It is. We just finished restoring the house.”

“I thought it was new,” Dr. Hennequin said.

“We tore it down to the frame, inside and out.”

“I’m impressed. I saw this neighborhood a couple of years ago when I first moved here. It was a disaster area,” Dr. Ellis said.

Tim nodded his head. “It was pretty bad. I’ve restored all of the houses on this street over the last two years. We’re almost done with the last house.”

Tim showed Dr. Hennequin around the upstairs. The young man listened and asked questions. Based on the questions, it appeared that he had once lived in a place where plumbing was a real issue. He asked how to turn off the water in the bathroom, checked under the sink to make sure he knew where the knobs were, and satisfied himself that they actually worked. He opened the little access hatch on the wall of the closet that gave access to the shutoff valves for the shower.

“Let’s go downstairs.”

When they got downstairs, the first thing they saw was Woody chewing a tennis shoe. Tim laughed and asked, “Where did you get that?”

“Where did he get it?”

“He must have left it here when we finished bringing in the furniture last night. We were kind of rushed to get the house finished and furnished. Woody made sure to supervise the whole process,” Tim said with a smile.

“I’m sure he did,” Dr. Ellis replied dryly.

Tim took Dr. Hennequin around the first floor, spending most of the time in the kitchen. Again, the young man dove under the sinks to check out the plumbing. Tim watched him rather shocked at the behavior. Still, it was nice to know that the guy would take care of any plumbing issues.

Dr. Hennequin asked, “You say you took it down to the frame. It looks like all of the plumbing is new.”

“It is,” Tim said.

“Who did it?”

“I contracted it out to a licensed plumber.”

“He did a good job,” Dr. Hennequin said.

Tim said, “I don’t want to seem nosy, but why the interest in the plumbing.”

“One of my colleagues spent a year in America. He said that the apartment above his flooded several times and ruined his clothes.”

“You won’t have that problem here.”

“I’m glad.”

There was a knock on the front door. Tim went over to it and opened it. One of his work crew was standing there holding a box. Making a gesture to the box, the man said, “Boss, the light fixture was busted. The electricians say that you need to take it back to where you bought it and get it replaced.”

“Okay. I’ll take it back. Put it on the porch next door and I’ll pick it up.”

“Your place or your rental place?”

“The porch of the house next to where you’re working,” Tim said.

“Okay.”

“Woody. Go with him and supervise.”

Woody followed him out of the house. Tim watched the puppy go with a smile. At least he was taking the tennis shoe with him. The tennis ball was left some where on the lawn. Tim would have to find it when leaving. The puppy was well trained in some things; but he left other things just lying there, everywhere he went.

“So are all of these houses yours?” Dr. Ellis asked.

“No. The houses on each side of this one are mine. This one and the one two houses up the street belong to Benny.”

“So you’re not really our landlord?”

“Yes, I am. Benny owns this place and I own the other rental next door, but I’m still restoring it. Our company manages all of our rental properties.”

“You started a company just to manage these two properties?” Dr. Ellis asked.

“We also own an office building that we’re leasing out. We have a lot of other business activities, including property restoration and software.”

“Software?”

“Benny writes software and sells it.”

Dr. Ellis was surprised and impressed by Tim. He had assumed that Tim was the son of the actual owner. The only other person who owned a business at that age was a guy who’d just opened a pizzeria near where he lived. This appeared to be a lot bigger of an operation than that.

Dr. Hennequin was impressed with the house and satisfied that his stay wouldn’t be in some hovel as he had been warned about. The house really did have that new house smell. He appreciated the work desk that was located in the corner of the living room. It would give him a place to work on his papers.

It wasn’t long before Tim left after handing off the keys to the place. He hoped that the renter wasn’t going to wreck the place. While Tim was in the house that was being repaired, searching for the receipt for the lighting fixture, Dr. Ellis left. Tim found the receipt and headed out to the lighting store. He wasn’t gone long.

Upon his return to the house, he was pleased to find Lily screwing down an electrical wall plate over an outlet. It had taken several weeks before she started joining him in working on the house. Now, she was over just about every day. The few days she didn’t show up were usually for a very good reason.

Benny came out of the kitchen where he was finishing up some of the last minute details. He didn’t look all that happy.

“What’s the matter, Benny?”

“The refrigerator sounds like a gravel truck.”

“That’s not good.”

“I’ve never tried to return a refrigerator. Can you even do it?” Benny asked.

“I’ll call the guy at the appliance store and have him come over to look at it,” Tim said shaking his head. It seemed like everything that could go wrong on this house was going wrong.

“As far as I can tell, everything else is working okay. We’ve got hot water, the oven and stove work, and the dishwasher goes through the cycles.”

“Good. I’ve got to run by the lighting supply place and return a lamp. Apparently it was broken when the electricians opened the box.”

“Better hurry. You don’t want to have to pay them to sit around for you to get back.”

Tim exhaled loudly. The light fixtures were supposed to have been installed three weeks ago, but the electricians had been called away for some rush job after a fire somewhere. Now they were here and impatient to finish, blaming him for the fact that they weren’t done. Fortunately, they had put in cheap fixtures when wiring the place, so they hadn’t had to work in the dark. Now they were removing the cheap stuff and putting in things that looked halfway decent.

“I’ll be right back,” Tim said.

Benny went over to where Lily was putting an electrical wall plate over the light switch. “Let me do that. Why don’t you go to the store with Tim?”

“I guess,” Lily said although she wasn’t smiling as brightly as when she was normally gifted with a reprieve from construction work.

One of the things that she had discovered that summer was that she really didn’t enjoy doing construction work. She had hung around and doing what she could just to be close to Tim. She took every opportunity to run errands or help out in some other way. She didn’t like painting, holding boards in place, or being around the radial saw when it started cutting boards. The fact that she hung around was more telling of her interest in Tim, than anything else. Benny recognized it and actively sought out errands which she could run with Tim.