Two years too late but who cares? I had to write something for this.
It’s rare that Phil will work Saturdays, but Mrs Regalado is on a tight schedule for downsizing, is an older lady with no other family close by, and is willing to pay extra (off the books), so Phil is more than happy to come in and help. She also makes amazing pastries he gets to sample (despite his wife’s pointed, purse-lipped looks at his midriff when he gets home) and he can’t possibly say no to those, so here he is.
He starts at a more leisurely time of 9:15 on Saturday morning, because he’s a man that likes to get things done early and has been for the last twenty years, and this allows him to get started on the drywall in the guest bedroom, which hasn’t been used for some time and is feeling all its age and neglect. Mrs Regalado wants it pristine for when she sells it.
He realises he’s forgotten something in the van around 9:30, and so he tromps downstairs to go to the van and fetch it, when two men leisurely stroll in.
“Imelda!” the bearded one exclaims, swooping in to kiss her on both cheeks. “Raggiante come sempre!”
That’s not quite Spanish – Phil’s stepson’s biological father is Mexican, and Mrs Regalado is… some flavour of Hispanic (she’s never cared to specify and Phil feels slightly embarrassed for not knowing more precisely), but it sounds similar.
“Buongiorno, Imelda,” says the other one, far less boisterously but with the same cheek kisses, and Phil does recognise that; Sandra wanted to go to Venice three years ago, and so they had. That’s Italian.
The two Italian men take seats at the breakfast nook like they belong there, greeted warmly by Mrs Regalado. Phil knows for a fact that they can’t be family. Mrs Regalado specified she didn’t have any family closer than Arizona, and anyway, people don’t usually call older family members by their first names. Perhaps they’re friends? Scratch that, they definitely are, but it seems bizarre that two men in their early thirties might be friends with a woman well into her sixties.
Mrs Regalado turns to the stove and starts making breakfast, while the men chat in rapid Italian, though Phil can’t quite figure out whether she’s included in the conversation or even understands any of it.
He goes to fetch his forgotten tape measure.
Next Saturday the same thing happens, except Phil is working on the downstairs bathroom by now, and he only knows because one of the men laughs, loud and buoyant and carefree. Phil pokes his head from the door, curious despite himself (a good contractor minds his own business, after all) and it’s the bearded man, wiping away a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t, to Phil, look Italian, but then again Phil’s experiences with actual Italians from Italy are limited entirely to that one week in Venice where Sandra tried to beat some culture into his and Enrique’s heads with marble statues and the price of a single gondola ride nearly toppled him into an early grave. The other man, the quieter one, does, but that might just be the nose. He has the eeriest eyes, and just as Phil is thinking that, those eyes meet his. They’re piercing, magnetic and yet deeply disconcerting in their pallor. Phil has to look away first, embarrassed, but the man was wearing a small smile, so perhaps he didn’t mind that much.
It doesn’t really matter, because Phil still gets his own pastry and cup of coffee, which is very nice.
The job, all in all, takes five weeks, and by the end, the place is immaculate in the way something entirely blank and soulless is. Phil isn’t much of an interior designer, but Sandra has what he would proudly call artistic flair and she likes their house full of colour and knickknacks and comforting things. It sort of breaks his heart, what he sometimes has to do to places so people can sell them, especially a charming old building like this one.
“Oh no, che peccato!”
It’s the bearded man, now standing in the living room, frowning at the newly-white walls.
“Il terracotta era cosà accogliente,” he says, shaking his head.
Phil can’t understand the words, but he knows exactly what the man is on about. He’s only here for the last few odd jobs before Mrs Regalado moves into her much smaller, much more modern apartment, so he feels at liberty to stand next to the man, clearing his throat.
“People have no imagination now,” he says, shaking his own head with a sigh. “They need a blank canvas.”
He has no idea if the man understands him in the slightest, but by the frown, he probably does.
“Cruel, to a house that has withstood so much,” the man says, in flawless English with only the lightest, most unplaceable of accents. Phil wonders what the house’s history is, then, and how this man knows it.
“Joe, andiamo, dobbiamo incontrare Booker e Andy all’aereoporto,” says the other man, shrugging on his jacket. He meets Phil’s eyes again and nods, still wearing that small smile.
“Arrivo!” the bearded man (Joe, apparently, solving a mystery Phil wasn’t actively looking for answers to). “Let’s hope the next people are kind to it.”
And with that they’re kissing Imelda warmly on both cheeks and heading out the door.
“It has so much potential!” Davina says, gesturing around them, practically vibrating with anticipation. She will be dreaming of paint swatches and fabric samples for the next three nights, itching to make this house a home.
“We’ll take it!” Sonny says enthusiastically. Anything for Davina.
It’s an exhausting week of moving what they can when they can, bits and pieces, and finally taking the Friday off to do one last big move. Their friends help, and while everything is still in boxes only half of which are labelled (both of them can be kind of scatterbrained, sometimes), it already feels like it’s theirs. Like they belong. The house is warm and inviting, old and lived in and loved, and that’s what drew Davina to it.
They get pizza, eating it tiredly on their hastily unwrapped sofa that’s in entirely the wrong place, and collapse into bed not long after, utterly exhausted, comfortably enveloped in their new four walls, and looking forward to a lie-in the next morning, which is a blissfully unburdened Saturday.
They’re awoken, with a jolt, by the sound of voices downstairs. Davina’s eyes go huge with terror, and she grips Sonny’s wrist hard enough that even her dark knuckles turn paler. Neither of them wants to call the cops, and yet the only explanation for the noises can be intruders of some kind.
(Although, they’re not exactly keeping quiet, their voices carrying easily up the stairs, and it doesn’t seem like they’re speaking English.)
Sonny swallows. He’s never had to deal with something like this before, and he’s terrified, but the instinct to protect is stronger. His baseball bat is packed away somewhere, he has no idea where, and there’s no time to look for it, so Davina shoves her hairdryer at him instead. It’s a chunky thing, it could do damage if he swung it hard enough, and it will have to do.
Barefoot, he slowly tugs the door open, grateful for new, silent hinges and plush carpet that completely muffles his steps. Davina follows, her steps catlike. Sonny winces at every creak of every stair as they creep down them, but the voices don’t even falter, still the same volume, and clearer now: two men, deep in mellow conversation, in…
“Is that Italian?” Davina whispers, remembering when her father used to play opera in the car when he’d drive them to school (highly embarrassing, and her brother Shaun would desperately beg for him to be like all the other dads and play literally anything else).
Sonny presses a finger to his lips. They’re almost at the doorway to the kitchen. He steels himself with a deep breath, and leaps in, hairdryer aimed like a gun at the intruders.
There are two men there, a bearded one holding Radiator like a baby (the traitorous beast purring like her namesake) as he sits at the breakfast nook, and one with frankly astonishing green eyes, wearing an apron neither of them recognises, standing at the stove.
“Pensavamo che avreste voluto la colazione,” the man at the stove says brightly, gesturing with a spatula to the table set for four. His other hand is closed around the handle of a pan, and the smell is, frankly, delicious. Sonny’s face burns when his stomach rumbles, earning himself a smack on the arm from an outraged Davina.
“Trasferirsi di casa mette fame,” the other says, nodding, and Radiator chirrups brightly at the tickle under her chin.
Sonny lowers the hairdryer, staring at them. Davina splutters.
“Who are you people?!” she demands.
“We come with the house,” the man at the stove says in soft, but accented English, as if that makes the slightest bit of sense. “Do you like shakshuka?”
