He pivoted and I did the same, until we both were parallel with the countertop. “Hoisting and praying on three,” he said. “One, two, three.”
With all the strength I had left, which wasn’t much, I pushed my end onto the counter. Finally. My arms were shaking again. Across from me, Luke’s face was red, his shirt damp. We were both breathing hard, recovering, when I heard Ivy’s voice.
“What the hell is that?” she demanded, from the hallway.
“Our cause of death,” Luke told her. “Be sure to tell the coroner.”
I laughed, still breathless, which made me start coughing. Pretty soon, it advanced to hacking. Luke glanced around, then grabbed a glass from the bar. He filled it and handed it to me. I sucked it down, then told Ivy, “It’s a margarita machine.”
“I don’t need a margarita machine,” she said.
“With something like this, is it really about need, though?” Luke asked her.
She just looked at him. “Let me rephrase. I don’t want a margarita machine.”
“Yes, but the owners of this house do. They ordered this way back in April.” I turned, wiping a smudge from the main engine barrel. “You might use it.”
“Unless it can shoot and edit footage and help run my production company, I doubt it,” she grumbled. “Find me a machine that will do that, and I’ll pay for it myself.”
Luke looked at me. I said, “I think it just makes drinks, actually.”
“Too bad.” Ivy sighed as, from down the hallway, there was a loud bang, followed by another. She wiped at her face, seemingly not hearing it. One more bang. Finally, she saw we’d noticed and explained, “The screen door in my bedroom is busted. I get percussion when it’s windy. Which is always.”
“It’s broken?” I asked. “Why didn’t you call us to come fix it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, flipping her wrist. “Too busy dealing with arrogant artists and traitorous employees. A girl’s only got so much time in the day.”
“Wow,” Luke said, under his breath.
Ivy looked at him. “Aren’t you the pool guy?”
“Yep,” he replied. “I wear many hats.”
“That seems to be the norm around here,” she observed, nodding at me. “This one has a habit of popping up everywhere I turn.”
“She’ll do that,” he agreed. The door banged again, hard.
“Can I go take a look?” I asked her.
“Sure,” she said, walking into the kitchen and pulling open the fridge. “Knock yourself out.”
I started down the hallway, Luke following. When Ivy was out of earshot, I heard him say, “Man. She’s a piece of work, huh?”
“You have no idea,” I said. “She’s—”
I had to stop there, as what I found myself facing struck me utterly, suddenly speechless. Oh my God.
The airy, expansive master bedroom I’d helped furnish back in May had been gorgeous, with creamy, white walls, a huge bed with a full ivory comforter and pillows, and matching dresser, chair, and bedside tables with pale wood accents. A framed, mirrored mosaic hung over the bed, with a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite. The rest of the room was windows, huge, tall ones, showing the best view of the ocean. It was, seriously, one of the prettiest rooms I’d ever seen, like something from a magazine.
This room, however, was a pigsty: dim, cluttered, and smelling strongly of fried food. I couldn’t even see the ocean, due to the black trash bags that had been put up—oh, God, please not with tape, I thought—to cover the windows entirely. The comforter lay in a heap on the floor, dotted with water and Diet Coke bottles, which also covered any other flat surface, often two or three deep. The floor was equally cluttered, with piles of papers, at least two different laptops, tangles of cords, and, inexplicably, many boxes of cereal, several of which were both open and spilling. And then, there was the banging.
The screen door, I saw as I peered into the dimness, was not just broken. It was hanging by only the top hinges, scraping the house’s exterior each time a gust of wind blew up underneath it. Which, judging by the noise and the plentiful white paint chips piled up along the slim bit of view visible under the garbage bags—which were, in fact, attached with duct tape, oh dear Jesus—was pretty much constantly.
I couldn’t even make a noise. Maybe I squeaked. It was Luke who said, “Oh, boy. Someone’s not getting their deposit back.”
“The windows . . .” I pointed, my finger shaking. “And . . . the carpet. Is that . . . is that blood over there?”
He stepped around me, gingerly, then navigated past a box of Froot Loops, two empty coffee mugs, and a huge pile of clothes to examine it. “Not blood. Cranberry juice, maybe?”
“I think I’m going to pass out,” I said, reaching behind me for the wall. Instead, I hit a couple of plastic bottles, knocking them to the floor.
“Go ahead. I’m going to shut this door up before it makes me crazy.” He picked his way across the floor, over the laptops and cords, and started feeling around under the garbage bags for the door handle. After searching a bit, he pulled the bag loose. And there was light.
I bent down, picking up the bottles I’d knocked over, an action not unlike removing a tablespoon of water from a tidal wave. “Who rents an ocean-view house . . . and then covers up the view?”