“Strange,” Harry replied, “that Thalia concocted their affair.”
“I’m telling you, Thadia was fuming. I told her to calm down. If she wasn’t such a chemical mess, I’d have given her a hit of Jack Daniel’s Black.”
Harry and Franny laughed at this, then Franny said, “Double shot.”
“She could probably knock back two and keep going,” Harry remarked. “Even in high school, Thadia could drink everyone under the table. I remember once I asked her if she liked Saint Anne’s, and she said, ‘The drugs are better than at Crozet High.’ I mean, she could be funny when she wasn’t vicious.”
“Chemistry. I hope the day comes when we can identify in childhood those people who are prone to alcoholism and drug addiction.” Toni lowered her voice. “Look, the truth is some people can drink and some can take drugs in moderation. This idea that one toot or toke and you’re captive to the weed or coke is bullshit, and we all know it.” She held up her hands. “Okay. There may be a few people out there who are lost with one swig. People don’t immediately turn into a raging cokehead, so they think they’re all right, so they drink more, they toot more, and then the trouble begins. We all know the road to ruin after that. If we’d just tell people the truth, but you know if a doctor publicly said what I just did, or a sheriff, they’d lose their jobs.”
“You’re right about that. Nothing should ever disturb American hypocrisy.” Franny deplored the current state not just of affairs but of behavior.
“Wonder if there was more to Paula setting off Thadia.”
“Oh, Harry, people are their most irrational about sex and about their children. Thadia kept saying she was going to confront Paula. I told her to drop it. No good would come of it. Plus, Paula wasn’t sleeping with Cory. End of story.”
“Ever notice how some people can’t learn?” Franny mused. “Look, I give Thadia credit for cleaning up. Other than that, she’s still a two-legged disaster.”
“Yeah, but at least we didn’t elect her to public office.” Harry grinned as the other two laughed.
Less guarded than usual, Toni threw this out: “Actually, Cory is having an affair, but Thadia, who is so crazy about him, has missed it completely.”
Harry’s jaw dropped. “You’re not going to tell me?”
“No. It will keep you busy.” Toni slapped her on the back, then left the room.
“She’s got your number.” Franny laughed.
Pud and John Benton had selected real estate agent Julie Bendel to market their daughter’s house. The next day, Julie asked Harry to accompany her to the site.
Julie Bendel, a petite fireball, put a special lock that realtors use on the door. She liked the house, as did Harry, who’d never walked all through it. Even in this difficult market, it would be an easy sell. Paula’s remodeling preserved the integrity of the farmhouse while enhancing it. She kept the old wavy handblown glass in the windows, but upstairs in the main bedroom she’d installed a large skylight, which let the light pour in. Wisely, she’d also installed louvers for the skylight, to shut off the burning sun in the summer. The floors had all been refinished, revealing rich variations in the color of the heart pine. The marble countertops in the kitchen, Paula’s one concession to flashiness, brought the room to life.
“You okay to go to the barn?” Julie asked Harry.
“Yeah, I made myself go back there when we packed up the house.”
“I wanted you to look at this with a horseman’s eyes. You’re conservative with money, and whoever buys this will probably be a middle-income person. I think it’s a great property for horses.”
“Is.” Harry walked in step with Julie.
Before reaching the barn, Julie stopped. “The distance from the back door of the house to the barn door is enough to keep the odors at bay but not so far that a trip in bad weather is a mess. I see that as a selling point.”
“Sounds about right.” Harry mentally measured off the distance, which she figured to be about fifty yards. “But if whoever buys this has good stable practices, it isn’t going to smell, anyway. Keep it really clean, toss a bit of cedar shavings in with your bedding.”
“I’ll remember that.” Julie pushed back the big sliding doors as they entered the barn. “So?”
Harry, peering into the stalls, walked along the center aisle. “Packed earth. That’s what most stall bases are, but if the new owner wants to make their life easier, he or she will dig down about a foot and a half, put in various layers of stone, various sizes, I mean, just like a layer cake. The top six inches pack down with masonry sand. Put Equigrid over that. Expensive. Fill it with masonry sand.”
“Why?”
“It keeps the horse from digging holes. Takes a lot of time to keep filling them back up, but you have to. If you don’t, it’s not good for a horse to stand on uneven ground. Out in the pasture, an animal can keep moving. In a stall, they can’t. Think what you’d feel like if you stood for six or eight hours with one foot in a hole.”
“Gotcha.”
“The rough-hewn heavy oak boards for the stalls and the dividers are great. Originally, marine oil was slapped on them. That’s why they aren’t brittle, even though no horses have been in here for years. If the new owner power-washes everything, lets it dry, then reapplies marine oil, it will be good. The only real expense is the floors, if they want to incur it. You can put down the Equigrid yourself, but it runs around one thousand dollars for a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot stall. The other thing, and this really is important: Have the new owner check the wiring. If it’s old, rewire the whole structure. So many fires are caused by faulty wiring, and there’s nothing more horrible than hearing horses scream as they burn to death.”
“God, Harry.” Julie’s face registered dismay.
“Well, one has to think about these things. If you take animals into your care, it should be done properly. I mean, would you have children and not feed them, clothe them, make sure they sleep in safe bedrooms?”
“After five children, you know the answer.” Julie smiled.
“I can understand a woman having the first one; it’s the second and the third I question.” Harry poked her.
“You sort of forget the pain in between the deliveries. Anything else?”
“No. It’s a serviceable barn, set so the wind hits the back. The fences need painting, but they’re in good order. This is a very attractive holding for a horseman.”
“Okay. Next. Ready?”
“Yeah.” Harry followed Julie into the potting shed.
“Now, she used the old tack room and one stall to make this. How difficult would it be to convert it all back?”
“The tack room is pretty much undisturbed. All Paula did was take down the saddle racks and bridle brackets. She left the wooden floors and the small baseboard heater. What must come down is that plastic barrier she put up on the stall wall. She also cut a door into the side of the tack room. That should be filled in with heavy oak to match the original wood. If you can’t find rough-hewn oak, they’ll need thick pressure-treated pine.”
Julie opened the door into the area where Harry found Paula. “Okay?”
“Julie, I made myself come here. I’m fine.”
“Sorry.” Julie stepped down into the potting shed. “Earthen floor.”
“Good. A new owner won’t have to rip anything up if they want to turn this back into a stall, and if they don’t, it’s a nice little shed. You have to remove the glass out of the back stall door, obviously. And if they keep it for a potting shed, no need to fill in the door to the tack room.”
Paula, a practical person herself, had kept the outside Dutch doors. She pinned back the top one, putting glass into the opening, which helped her force her bulbs, such as hyacinth. Four evenly spaced rows filled the space so the pots received lots of light.