Rise: How a House Built a Family(67)

Room by room, we arranged imaginary furniture and lamps, making sure every room was perfectly labeled. When we were standing in the den, which was the last room to mark, I stood in the exterior doorway, supervising the marking.

“There’s the hardworking lady,” a deep voice said from directly behind me.

I jumped and the clipboard went clattering across the floor, with me running after it and spinning to identify the voice at the same time. My legs tangled and I went down on my butt, heart racing and ears thudding.

Past the doorway stood a trio of young Hispanic men, visible only from the middle up because the floor was four feet off the ground and we hadn’t built steps yet. They stood in a triangle, each carrying a fishing pole. The point man’s tongue fluttered through apologies while the two taller boys flanking him stared with true concern and not the slightest hint of humor—which was a lot more than I could say for my own giggling offspring.

I held my palms up and attempted a smile. “I’m fine. Just fine. You surprised me, that’s all. I didn’t know anyone was out there.”

“Yeah, we are going fishing,” the point man said, ducking his head. “The neighbor there says we can.” He nodded across the pond.

We had seen them fishing and had never thought it was a big deal. And since we had also seen them a quarter of a mile down the road having barbecues and listening to music, we assumed that they walked by our house to get to the pond. But I had never considered that they walked through our backyard. It was hard to remember that this had all been a field a few months ago, and using a well-worn fishing path would be a hard habit to break. It was fine with me if they kept using it while we worked, but I was jumpier than the average girl.

“We sit over there and watch you working every day and we say, ‘That is one hardworking white woman,’ and it’s true. You are building a big house, right?” He ducked his head again.

I laughed, maybe harder than I should have, but I couldn’t help it. Not only had they scared me half out of my mind, they had just made the most beautiful reverse-stereotype statement in history.

“Do you work in construction?” I tried to keep the eagerness out of my voice, but on the inside I was on my knees with my hands folded in prayer. I could certainly use skilled additions to my work crew.

The tall boy of maybe sixteen behind the spokesman, who looked about fourteen, answered this time. “Oh, no. We don’t know nothing about making things like this. We are at the Chico’s Restaurante on Highway 7. Juan is a cook. Maybe you’ll come by sometime?” he asked.

“I love the cheese dip there!” Hope said.

I nodded, even though I had never had their cheese dip or anything else. “Good luck with the fish today.” I pointed at their fishing poles.

“Maybe you’ll join us?” They waved and walked away.

Drew pulled me to my feet as though the bizarre encounter hadn’t happened. And since I was the one humiliated on my butt, and embarrassed to have three strange teenagers tell me that I was a hardworking white woman, I was equally willing to let the whole thing go. “What’s next on the list?” he asked.

Hope marked the last outlet in the den, using a lot more paint than she needed. We were all feeling a little restless.

“We’re getting more and more stuck without the roof.” I held my hand up when I saw the look in his eye. “No. We are not going to try to build it ourselves.” I chewed my bottom lip, afraid of what was about to come out of my mouth. “Why don’t we start the plumbing?”

“How?” Drew asked.

I had no idea. I turned to a fresh page on my clipboard and walked to the garage, where the main water line came in under the foundation and up through the slab. “It’ll be easy. We just trace a path from where the water comes in and pass it over each place we want water. We do this all the way up to the attic where the water heater will be, and then back down with the hot water. I’ll mark down how many of each turn we need. Make sense?” I didn’t look up to see if it did.

In a column down the left side of my paper I drew pictures of connectors (I would later learn they were called joints) that looked like “T”s and plus signs. Under those, I wrote “faucet,” “sprayer,” “toilet,” and each of the appliances that needed water. I held it up to the kids. “See? We just make hash marks by each item for a count, and then I’ll take this to the plumbing-supply store tomorrow. I found one in Little Rock that will give me a contractor’s discount if I show that I pulled the permit.” I had no idea if my method was close to a proper plan, but we had watched some plumbing videos and decided to use plastic PEX pipe, so I had at least a vague idea of the process and what the pieces looked like.

We made the hash-mark counts, and even though it was earlier than we would quit on an average work day, there was little else we could do. Everyone was quiet on the ride home, feeling restless under our time crunch. Waiting for other people to do work was the worst part of building the house. When it was our fault that things didn’t get done, we were a lot more forgiving.

I didn’t stop at the mailbox when we pulled in front of our other house, the one we lived in but didn’t feel at home in, and I drove a little too fast up the driveway and into the garage.

“I need a vacation. Someplace with too much sun and sand,” I said, half under my breath. And too much tequila, I wanted to add. I had never been much of a drinker, but it sounded like a great idea just then. It had been more than a year since I’d had time to go out and have a margarita and a plate of fajitas. I couldn’t remember the last movie I’d watched in a theater. One of the early Harry Potter films, four, maybe five years ago?