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You are reading: Mary kay andrews books 2021
as she inched on her back under the rotting foundation of the house on tattnall street, hattie kavanaugh was already hesitating. about her insistence on inspecting the corroded cast-iron pipes herself, instead of taking her plumber’s word for it. Especially the money Kavanaugh and her son had already invested in this magnificent 157-year-old wreck. about not having one of those things with wheels that auto mechanics used, what were they called? vines? But most of all, she was having second thoughts about the second cup of coffee she had drunk just before she was called to the house they were restoring in Savannah’s historic district.
The call came from one of their subs, reporting the sad news that scrap metal bandits had attacked overnight, stealing copper tubing from three new air conditioning compressors. an eleven thousand dollar hit to his already out of control construction budget. and now this.
“huh, hat?” Ronnie Sewell, Hattie’s plumber, was leaning against the bumper of her truck when she and Cassidy Peletier, her best friend and construction foreman, arrived at the house on Tattnall Street that hot Saturday morning. “we have problems”.
She and cass followed the plumber to the back of the house, where he found a freshly dug trench running under the house’s brick foundation.
“I had a feeling something wasn’t right,” Ronnie said, pointing to the ditch. “I decided to go under the house and take a look.”
hattie swallowed hard. “just tell me, ronnie. what is the problem?”
“The problem is that you have 100% old cast iron pipes underneath. And you know how this flat street gets flooded, right? and it all drains to the back of this lot. the water has been accumulating there for who knows how long. well, everything is ruined. rusty, broken, ruined.”
“oh god,” moaned hattie. she looked at her plumbing contractor. she was in her fifties and had the build of a fire hydrant, with a huge belly that licked at her belt. “Are you sure? I mean, did you go under the house?”
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ronnie shrugged. “I got as far as I could. you don’t have to be a rocket scientist.”
Without a word, Hattie walked away. when she returned, she was putting on her own baggy white overalls. she took a bandana out of her pocket and tied it around her hair, then placed a pair of plastic goggles on her face.
“what?” Ronnie said, his face reddening with indignation. “Are you calling me a liar? Hattie Kavanaugh, I’ve been doing business with your father-in-law since before you were born. . . .”
“Calm down, ronnie,” snapped hattie. “I had this house inspected before we made an offer on it. nobody said anything about bad pipes. I’m not calling you a liar, but I need to see it with my own eyes. tug would tell you the same thing if he were here.”
“see for yourself then”. he turned and walked away in the direction of his truck, muttering as he walked. “Damn know-it-all girls.”
Cass leaned over and looked at the ditch under the foundation, at the puddle of mud and brick rubble, then back at her friend. “really? are you crawling into that swamp?”
“Do you want to go instead?”
“who, me? oh hell no.” Cass shuddered. “I don’t do mud.”
hattie walked over to a tarp-covered pile of lumber, selected a couple of two-by-fours, and slung them over her shoulder. he pushed the boards under the house, considered them, and then went back for another pair, placing them next to the first two boards.
cass handed hattie her flashlight.
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“Pray for me,” said Hattie, flattening herself on the boards. “I’m going in.”
mo lopez pedaled slowly down the bike lane. the neighborhood he was passing through was clearly in transition. On one side of the street, Victorian-era wood-frame or brick homes showed signs of recent restoration, with gleaming new paint jobs and manicured landscaping. there were also smaller houses, modest craftsmen’s shacks with bicycles chained to wrought-iron fences, porches filled with baskets of ferns and potted plants, and overgrown gardens. As he pedaled, an idea began to form in his head.
Savannah, she reflected, was a pleasant surprise. She had accepted the invitation to speak to film and television students at the Savannah College of Art and Design strictly as a favor to Rebecca Sanzone, the network’s deputy director of programming. one of her former classmates now worked in the admissions office at scad. Becca, of course, had been too busy to make the trip herself and had sent the invitation to mo.
“You should go,” he urged. “why sit around town and wait for these network idiots to make a decision?”
the jerks were rebecca’s immediate bosses at the local tv network. The former president of programming had been abruptly fired two months earlier, and the new one, Tony Antinori, was said to be taking a hard look at HPTV’s programming.
mo was understandably anxious. The first season of Killer Garage was considered a hit for a new show, but this second season, viewers weren’t as fascinated by seeing bikers spend obscene amounts of money building garages equipped with everything from video game consoles to elevators to kitchens. complete. The numbers, Rebecca had pointed out, weren’t terrible, but they weren’t terribly good either.
I needed a new idea, and I needed it fast. Her thoughts went back to what Tasha, the scad administrator, had told her; that savannah had the distinction of being the largest contiguous intact treasure trove of original 19th-century architecture in the country. this town was a hive of restoration and renovation activity.
His mind worked as furiously as his legs. On a street called Tattnall, she saw a trio of vehicles parked in front of a stately three-story Queen Anne Victorian home. As she got closer, she saw two vans with Kavanaugh & son, general contract stamped on the door.
mo stopped on the sidewalk and looked toward the house. a large-scale restoration was obviously underway. scaffolding had been erected on the east side of the house, where some of the old wainscoting had been replaced and other sections scraped off to prepare for painting. Piles of lumber were stacked around the patio, and pallets of roofing shingles had been unloaded on the porch.
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