What. an. asshole.
How dare he come in here, telling her what to do and how to do it, like he’d been put in charge of her life and finances when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t any of his damn business how she got the money to buy the building; it wasn’t any of his damn business that she’d bought the building. This was America, and she could buy and sell buildings all day long if she wanted to.
She picked up her hammer and began banging again, right about where she thought his kitchen for the bakery would be. Not that the man had exactly given her a tour of the joint, but it made sense it’d be right – bam! – about – bam! – here – bam!
She sat back on her heels and stared at the wall in satisfaction, the rotting 2x4 she’d been whacking at finally detached and out of the way. It was in slivers, beat to smithereens, but she’d won, and that was what mattered. It was all going in the trash anyway, so it wasn’t like it had to look good while being pitched into the dumpster.
A part of her really wanted to continue banging as loudly as she could, but she didn’t actually have another rotten 2x4 to remove, plus there was the pathetic fact that her arm was getting sore from lifting the heavy hammer.
She shouldn’t have sold the carpentry set that she’d been using most of her life – unlike what she’d bought from the hardware store just down the street, her own tools had fit her hand just right, and hadn’t worn her out just from lifting the damn things in order to pound on something. But her set had been given to her by her dad and every time she looked at it, the memories of him showing her how to hold a hammer and how to measure a piece of wood accurately had…
Well, they were overwhelming. Wonderfully touching memories that she wanted to treasure but they mostly made her just crawl into bed and inspect the backsides of her eyelids for days at a time, and if she were stronger, she wouldn’t have had to rid herself of everything but she wasn’t strong – that much was perfectly clear to everyone, even herself – and so it had been sold to a little girl, blonde hair in pigtails. The kid had fallen in love with the purple and pink case that Cady’s dad had made for the tools, and had begged her dad to buy the set for her.
“Your dad might be dead tomorrow. Don’t waste your time with him. Treasure every moment,” Cady had wanted to tell the little girl, but who told a little girl a thing like that? And so she’d simply sold the set to the kid and then closed her garage door and crawled into bed and stayed there for another three days.
And now Cady had to make do with the carpentry supplies she’d bought from Long Valley Hardware. She’d picked up screwdrivers, screws, nails, a measuring tape – all of the essentials – but when she’d come to the hammer display, she’d balked. She’d asked the crotchety old man behind the counter if he sold smaller hammers than the ones on display (which all looked more like sledgehammers to her than regular hammers) and he’d simply looked at her like she was nuts and then ignored the question.
Great customer service ‘round here. First, muscle-bound men practically attack women and then grumpy old men ignore women. Great start to this plan, Cady. Why did you think this was a good idea again?
With a groan, she pushed herself to her feet and headed for the sink, cleaning up before starting in on Phase Two of her plan – scrubbing everything to within an inch of its life. The place could only look better after some elbow grease was applied to it. There was charm here, sure, but it was well-hidden under a layer of grime an inch thick.
She’d die before she admitted it to the jackass next door, but she’d already been unpleasantly surprised by a few problems that she hadn’t noticed during her hurried inspection of the business before she’d bought it.
For starters, she’d found some really old wiring that appeared to have been installed at the turn of the last century, and after a quick Google search on her phone, she’d confirmed it – she had something called knob-and-tube wiring in a couple of different spots in the store. Not all of it – some of the wiring looked like it’d at least been installed since her birth – but according to her Google search, knob-and-tube wiring was nothing short of a death trap.
Just then, Skittles nudged her leg, begging for some lovings, and Cady picked him up, snuggling the calico against her chest. “I bought this place for a good price so I’d have enough money left over to do extensive remodeling, right?” she told her purring cat. Skittles began kneading her shoulder with his claws, clearly delighted at having been picked up. Cady tried to ignore the fact that she’d just turned into a human pincushion and continued on. “Between the life insurance, the settlement, and the sale of Mom and Dad’s home and both of their cars, I have a nice financial cushion. I refuse to let myself become intimidated now. Ouch!”
She yanked Skittles away from her shoulder, forcing him to extract his claws from her skin.
“I happen to like my skin,” she told him seriously. He meowed, unhappy at being dangled up in the air instead of snuggled against her. “Well, I’m unhappy, too. I already smashed my thumb using that damn oversized hammer; I don’t need your help in beating me up.” He meowed again, piteously, and with a sigh, she snuggled him back up against her abused shoulder. “I don’t quite know why I like you,” she said, even as she scratched him under the chin, right where he loved it best. His purrs of pleasure vibrated their way through her chest.
She turned in a circle, looking at the storefront she’d bought. There was a part of her that questioned this particular life choice – okay, a very large part of her – but she also knew that if she didn’t make a radical change, an over-the-top, can’t-come-back-from-it change, that she’d slide right back into her bout of depression. She had the money; she probably could’ve hidden away in her childhood home for the rest of her life.
But what kind of life would that be?
It was better that she pushed herself out of the nest, even if the fall to the ground was scary as hell.