Cottage for Sale, Must Be Moved (21 page)

Peter, on the other hand, is pleasantly blurred around the edges. He has the kind of looks that don’t change much between thirty and fifty-five. I’m guessing he’s quite a bit older than John, mostly based on his thinning gray-blonde hair and his manner, but I can’t be sure. Who does he remind me of? It bothers me for a few minutes while I watch him walk the wood over to John. Peter ambles, I realize, while John strides. They are a good team; already I can tell by the shorthand conversations and the steady work they do together. Who is it? This is going to drive me crazy. Then I realize—he is Charlie Brown! Charlie Brown all grown up and somewhere in the middle of his life. Although one could argue that Charlie Brown himself is middle-aged.

Peter might not wish to be compared to a cartoon character, but I have a deep appreciation and an abiding respect for the characters created by Charles Schulz. Especially Charlie Brown, who is kindhearted and low-key, and creates peacefulness around him. Still, Snoopy is my favorite, and not only because I got to play him once in
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
When I was just out of college and cobbling together a living, I wrote greeting cards for Hallmark. Most people don’t know that a freelance writer puts the words in their speech balloons when the Peanuts characters appear on a Hallmark card. In those days, you had to type your submissions on little three-by-five cards, giving the greeting card equivalent of stage directions—describing the character, pose, and situation to appear on the front of the card, as well as indicating what words would appear where. If Hallmark picked one of your submissions to publish, you received the handsome sum of $76 per card, and they received the right to put your words in the mouth of the character you indicated—for life. I haven’t submitted a card idea in almost twenty years; I imagine it happens electronically these days. But one card of mine—in the “missing you” category, featuring Linus in the pumpkin patch—shows up in card stores every Halloween. I’m thinking Hallmark got their money’s worth on that one.

As the men work in the ditch between house and cottage, I receive guests in the living room: Bruce, who notes it is exactly three months to the day since he was last here—on cottage-moving day—and two friends of his, a couple who are in the midst of planning their own building project. They’re not bothered at all by the construction noise and the flurry of sawdust drifting in the open space where the full-view window was about three hours ago. As we sit in the living room watching John and Peter, Bruce’s friends tell me they have been flummoxed by regulations, expensive septic estimates, and a house design that is not at all what they had in mind. They bemoan the slow and slower response times they have experienced in all facets of their planning.

“This is great,” she says. “You’re really moving right along.”

It would appear that we are. By the time they arrive, John and Peter are deep into their work and the first bit of framing for the hallway floor is under way. Seated on the couch, my guests have a perfect view through the opening and into the ditch between the two houses where the guys are working. John has set up a sawing station over by the rhododendrons. Peter measures; John cuts and carries the board to his helper. Then he scrambles over Vito’s wall and into the ditch, where together they position and attach the supports into place. We speak over the intermittent buzz of John’s table saw, the sound of compressors, the hard snap of nail guns.

In the midst of all this activity, it is hard to convince this couple that my project has been stalled out for most of the past three months, to remind myself that it has been eight months since first sight. Still, I persist in telling my story, in an effort to tell them to take heart. I hope they will find encouragement in my experience. Steady progress matters more than speed, I want them to understand. But they remain convinced that I have done something that they have neglected to do, that there must be some key to unlock their own project. When I tell the story of the list, they are sure that is the secret.

“They’re here today because of that list.”

“Yes, but—” I don’t kid myself. The list helped, and yes, I did gather up my impatience and put it to some good effect in these past couple of weeks. But I also believe this project, from the very beginning, has had a life and a life cycle all its own. I think that is true with any project, really. Or maybe—if I get philosophical—about almost anything we do. Which is not to say we can just sit back and wait for life to happen, or even for the astrology to be right. But I do believe that we benefit if we tune in a little more—to our own human rhythms, to the pace of the seasons, the movement of the stars. Push when needed and when helpful, pull back when to push will only frustrate and deter progress. But I can’t say this out loud. It makes me sound like some sort of self-proclaimed construction guru, and that I most certainly am not. Here’s what I can say, though, and here is what I really believe: The work is beginning now because this is when John can do the work. There is no magic to it. Only luck and good timing. I just happened to push him at the same time he was ready to begin.*

*
OUR LATE-AFTERNOON COTTAGE WALKS
take a more direct route. Now Egypt and I can walk out the kitchen door, and instead of a four-foot drop, there is a plywood floor, the beginning of what will one day be the hallway. At the end of the almost-hall, we jump to the ground, walk another ten or twelve feet, and take a right to reach the cottage door. Egypt prefers this route, but sometimes I still take the long way around. Instead of following my lead, he races down the hallway and dives to the ground when he sees me coming around the corner. There is no mistaking the fact that he is showing off. No doubt he pities my stupidity, the fact that I cannot seem to remember there is this new way of getting from house to cottage. In truth, I kind of like going the long way, and I love to meet a kitty in midair.

John and Peter have been here on a regular basis since that first burst of activity last week. They have framed the connecting section between house and cottage, the only completely new construction on this project. The shed roof over that section is framed out too. The plywood decking they put in while Bruce was visiting is protected by blue tarps attached to the exposed roof beams. Farther down the hall, the tarps are anchored on the parallel rooftops. The light travels more slowly through the blue plastic, creating an odd feeling—not quite day and not quite night—in the passageway.

Today, John will tackle the new roofline, bridging house and cottage. Although he has now looked at the drawings that Harry and I have made, John has held to his original position: “We won’t really know what we’ll do until we’re up there, figuring it out.” I can tell he is looking forward to this bit of engineering, the challenge of making the gable work visually as well as structurally. He has peeled away the tarps, and he is up there now, calling out measurements to Peter, who is at the saw. Peter cuts as instructed and hands the wood up to John, who works slowly, methodically, section by section, roof beam by roof beam. I watch the progress, the lines of wood across the blue sky. I think of flying buttresses, cathedrals soaring into clouds. My tiny cottage is nothing close to a cathedral, but still this roof inspires awe. I love watching it appear, board by well-placed board.

At noon, John asks me about the skylight. “If you want one, now is the time. I need to plan for it in the framing.” I know I’d love a skylight, but I am not sure I can afford one. I suggest I take a trip to the Bargain Box.

“It’s worth checking,” John agrees. “Otherwise we can pick up one that fits tomorrow.” He does not add, “at full price.” John encourages me to look for a light that opens, dismisses as mythology that there is any greater propensity of a venting skylight to leak. I set off in search of the perfect, venting skylight. And miraculously, I find it. It is nestled between the twenty or thirty boxes of kitchen cabinets, an entire kitchen that has been returned. Why? I wonder, but I don’t spend too much time imagining the circumstances. (I can go against type when I am on the trail of a bargain.) Instead I find the manager to get me a price. $150. A deal. But the width is an eighth of an inch above the max John gave me. They let me use the phone at the desk to call him. I read John the specs.

“Rough opening?” he asks, and I confirm that is what it says on the box. “It will work,” he says. “That’s a very good price,” he adds, and I feel proud of my bargain-hunting prowess, perseverance coupled with sheer good luck.

“Can you fit it in your car?” Not easily, it turns out, but yes. Beach chairs and jumper cables loaded into the back seat, the skylight out of its box and wrapped in towels, the trunk tied down to protect my precious cargo, I take the back roads home.*

*
TONY AND HARRY
arrive in separate, matching Volvo station wagons on Saturday morning. Tony’s Volvo is several years newer than Harry’s, and more pewter gray than silver. It is also a more expensive model, he tells me. He tracked it down just as his Wish Angel said he would, and he is quite proud of it. Tony comes bearing donuts, and there is coffee and conversation before we start the day’s work, followed by a tour of the progress. The new roof is framed and covered with plywood now, and the skylight is in place. Two blue tarps protect the exposed wood from rain. Harry looks up at the roof-line. “Huhh,” Harry says, a downward inflection. It means he is thinking, taking something in. It is a very Harry sound. After a moment: “It isn’t exactly what I pictured.”

“But isn’t it perfect?”

“Very nice work,” he agrees.

Thanks to a window that has been removed, there is now a narrow opening into the cottage from the hallway, which means we no longer need to go outside to get inside again. We slide sideways through it, landing in the cottage living room. There is repainting to do in the yellow room. In my rushed departure to Paris, I’d passed the wrong paint chip to Tony. I returned to Crayola Mellow Yellow, not mellow at all. Buttercup was what I wanted, bright but not so screaming yellow. Tony stayed an extra day when I got home and painted one wall Buttercup. I think the new color will work. I’m a little nervous, though. Yellow is such a difficult color to get right.

“It is a little much,” Harry agrees about the three walls that are still the brighter shade.

“Especially in full sun,” I tell him. “You know, I didn’t realize it right away, but I painted my bedroom this sort of blazing lemon yellow when I was a teenager.”

“Really?” Tony asks, “and you remember?”

“It was a hard color to forget, especially against the hot pink shag carpeting.”

“Very seventies,” Tony says.

“And very fourteen. Do you think the new yellow is okay?” I ask the guys.

“Yes,” Harry says. “I even like the old yellow. But I can see where it might be a bit much. And I’d take a pass on the pink shag this time.” He grins.

I move back into the office. “I like how it looks from here, the blue wall and the yellow wall in the distance,” I say. “And I like to stand in the yellow room and see the yellow shutters on the side windows of the house. It looked great when the primroses were in bloom in the side garden.”

Tony leans in to look. “That is nice,” he says. “Buttercup?” he says, lifting up the new gallon of paint. I nod. “I’m on it,” he says. “I’ll put a coat on, then I’ll join you guys in the hallway.”

We leave Tony to the painting and slip back into the hallway. “What’s with this light?” Harry asks, and I point to the tarp covering the skylight.

It’s a funny space, this hallway, the blue filtered light and the combination of being both indoors and outdoors at the same time. There is no door yet at the end of the hall, and the section of hallway where the French doors will be is wide open to the elements. On both sides of the hallway, the walls are covered with wooden shingles, red cedar on the house side of the hall, white cedar on the cottage side. The shingles make the hallway feel narrow and uncomfortable, and disheveled in the way you feel when you really need a haircut. This feeling is reinforced by the asphalt shingles on both roofs, more outdoor materials that have found their way inside.

The view outside isn’t much better. If you look down the hallway to the backyard, you see trash barrels and an expanse of dirt where there was once a lawn. If you stand where the French doors will one day open to the deck, the stretch of sandy hillside beneath you is decorated with construction debris, the odd lump of concrete.

As we begin to strip the wooden shingles off the walls, I envision the hallway with the skylight open and lots of knotty pine boards on the walls, doors leading to the deck. It’s a bit of a stretch to hold this image as we pry and yank and sweat. At first Harry works with me on the walls. We try working at different levels to stay out of each other’s way, and on different sides of the hall. But we keep bumping into each other, sometimes mid-yank. After awhile, we decide it will be better if he works on stripping the roof while I keep working on the walls. He climbs up the ladder on the house side. I work low, peeling shingles from the cottage wall.

One coat complete, Tony joins us, climbs up to the cottage-side roof, begins to strip roofing. “There’s two layers over here,” he says.

Harry moans. “One layer’s bad enough.” Tony hands down a sample for me to inspect. Under the layer of light gray are what may be the original shingles; they are brick red. The shingles on my house are the same aged color. I point this out, excited. Another piece of evidence for the “separated at birth” theory of house and cottage, or at the very least, another indication of their innate compatibility. One of the next items on John’s agenda is to reroof both house and cottage. He’s been after me to select a shingle color, and I’ve been leaning toward a red roof.

“I’ve never done a roof in red,” John said when I told him. He’s done lots of roofing in his construction lifetime, and it worries me a little that none of his customers have requested this color. “It’ll be a first,” he said.

“Am I making a mistake?” I asked him.

“Not if you know that’s what you want.” A sensible, non-committal reply. I am pretty sure he thinks I’m nuts to make my roof red.