Pride goeth before the flirting.
“Here we are.”
Out in the hall, she pushed a door wide, and got hit in the face with a wall of strawberry: Pink walls, pink stall, pink sink, pink pink. And the air freshener on the counter as well as the hand soap and the lotion followed the Nesquik theme.
As Daniel coughed behind her, she was not surprised. “Candy likes the smell.”
“There certainly is a lot of it to go around.”
“And here is the patient.” She hipped the stall door open. “We’ve been having trouble with it—well, since nineteen seventy-three if you go by Candy’s timeline.”
When Daniel came forward, she eased back against the tile wall—and still there wasn’t enough room. So she got a brush of his soft shirt on the back of her hand, and more of that cologne in her nose.
Which canceled even the fake Fruity Pebble air freshener.
There was a scrape and a clunk as he removed the back of the toilet and toggled the handle. And Lydia absolutely did not look at the fit of those Levi’s in the rear.
Really. She didn’t.
“You’ve got two issues,” he said. “One, the stopper is so old, it’s cracked and can’t make a good seal. Does this leak a lot?”
“Yes. I hate the waste, and when it gets really bad, I turn the water off underneath.”
“Yeah. And the second problem is that the chain arm is shot.”
“Do we need to get a new toilet?”
“I wouldn’t replace this. These old boys are worth their weight in gold. The new low-flush versions don’t work well with old pipe systems because there’s not enough water volume to them and this leads to stop-ups due to low pressure. Looking at this building, I’m guessing it was built in the late sixties, early seventies. So in addition to fifty years of buildup, you’ve got terra-cotta pipes running out to your leaching field.”
“Is that bad?”
“Tree roots. Big trouble.”
“I feel like you’ve just diagnosed our plumbing with tuberculosis before the era of antibiotics. Be honest, are we terminal?”
“You got slow drains?”
“Now that you mention it, Rick struggles with that in the clinic.” She went over to the sink and ran some water. “How’s this look?”
He leaned out of the stall. “Slow.”
Daniel ducked back in and there was some sloshing. A clank or two. The sound of a chain. Flushing. A grunt and some water running.
As he came out, he held his hands together and went to the sink. Using some of Candy’s strawberry soap, he washed things vigorously.
“ ’Scuse me,” he muttered.
When he sneezed into the inside of his elbow, she shook her head. “You’d swear we’re trying to kill you with fragrance. And God bless you.”
“Thank you.” He snapped two paper towels out of the dispenser and dried his palms in the same powerful way, clapping his hands. “Here’s the plan. I’ve jury-rigged the toilet, but it’s not a long-term solution. I can look online for a set of replacement guts, however, and keep it working well enough.”
“What about the rest of the system?”
“Well, that’s a larger conversation.”
“By the word ‘conversation,’ do you mean ‘expensive.’ ”
“Yeaaaaaaaah.” He tossed the paper towel wad into the trash bin, nailing it perfectly so that the force of impact triggered the pink top to spin in its moorings. “But that’s above my pay grade. You’re going to need a proper company to auger the pipes—although then you run the risk of cracking a hole in something while you’re trying to fix drains that are slow but not broken. It’s like what you said, balance.”
“So we’re okay now?”
“For a while. And as long as you don’t put a huge load on the system, you could skate along as you are for a year or two. Sooner or later, those roots will get you, though.”
“And what happens then? Do we have to dig up the whole thing?” As he nodded, she shook her head. “I wonder if there’s a plumbing deity somewhere out there I can pray to.”
“You want me to build you a shrine to Drano?”
“Will you?”
“Lumber, nails, and we can buy bottles of that bald guy in bulk and make an altar. It’ll be great.”
Lydia stared up at him for a moment. “You know, I feel like you’re perfect for this job.”
“I’m a can-do kind of man, what can I say.”
“I’m going to check your references. But if it were up to me, I’d say you’re our prime candidate.”
“Thanks, that’s good to hear.” He held open the door into the hall for her. “You’ve got my cell phone. You can reach me anytime. I’m staying with a buddy in Glens Falls, so if you need me back, I can be here in about two hours. Unless it’s raining.”
“You lose the top to your car?” she said as she stepped out of the pink bathroom.
“Motorcycle.”
As nineties-era romantic movies shot through her mind, she pictured him in a slo-mo shot with a Whitney Houston soundtrack. “Ah.”