Everything Must Go

“You want one?”

It was midnight and Brody Bauer was standing in his grandmother’s pantry in a pair of gray sweatpants and nothing else. He was also holding out a Mason jar of home-canned peaches to me, and’d just fished one out with his fingers like that was a perfectly normal thing for a grown man to be doing.

“Those are Bunny’s!” I said.

“Sure, but Bunny put up forty jars of these in August, Dina. I promise you, she isn’t going to miss the one!” He held the slice out to me, and I could see that the syrup was running down his wrist. “Go on. Try one. They’re honestly the best thing in this whole damn house! Present company excepted, of course.”

“I’m working here, Brody.”

“At midnight? In your pajamas?”

Okay. So, he had a sort of point there, didn’t he? I took the peach.

I took it with my mouth and straight off his fingers.

And, if I’m being totally fair to all those involved in everything that subsequently went down, I reckon that was probably where the trouble started…

***

I’d met Bunny Bauer at the start of the week. She was in her new room at Sunnyview Senior Living, which’d a view of the parking lot and a recliner she’d already decided she hated.

“So you’re the one Marcy keeps going on about!” she said by way of greeting. “Sit your ass down. No, not there! That was Vern’s chair! It’s got a spring in it that’ll go straight up you and make you come for a fortnight!”

I grinned and sat on the end of the bed instead. Marcy, who runs all of the placements at Sunnyview, was standing in the doorway with her clipboard and pretending very hard not to listen. She’s never really been any good at that. Still, Marcy sends me most of my clients these days, so it seemed rude to complain. In fact, since about June, Marcy’s been sending me pretty much all of my work. But I’ll get to that in time.

“Nice to meet you, Bunny. I’m Dina,” I said, giving her my biggest grin. “Dina Ruiz! Marcy said you’ve got a four-bed on Ridge Avenue you’re looking to have cleared?”

“I’ve got four bedrooms, one bath and sixty-one years of collected crap to get rid of, honey. Three husbands’ worth of it!” She counted them off on her fingers. “Vern, Arnie and Lenny. Every one of them, God love them, left me a life insurance policy and a garage full of their goddamn junk. Those policies are barely paying for this place, so I need to clear the house and sell it to live in the manner in which I’ve become accustomed. So what is it you actually do, dear? Because Marcy keeps saying ‘move manager’ like I’m supposed to know what one of those is.”

“Honestly, nobody knows what it is,” I winked. “Basically, what I do is go through everything in your house, and everything gets a sticker on it. Green means you want to keep it, yellow means it gets donated…”

“And red?”

“Red’s for the dump.”

“Oh, good!” Bunny looked absolutely delighted. “But my boys will get to help, right?

“Sure. Usually the whole thing takes about two weeks, but it’s totally normal for someone to cry over a lamp. Your boys the crying type?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Two weeks? Good. I like you. I think this will work well. Now, where are you living?”

That’s not really a question I’d been expecting to hear at an initial meeting. “Sorry? What do you mean?”

“Only so many ways to say it, honey. Where are you living? Because, just between you, me and Marcy (who I’m sure is listening) you look like you slept in your car.”

“I didn’t sleep in my car!” I said, trying to smooth down my hair. “But I did sleep in my office last night. But that’s just a temporary thing.”

“And why’s that, then?”

Marcy, in the doorway, suddenly got very interested in her clipboard.

“Because my ex kept the apartment,” I said. “And most of my clients too, actually, if I’m being honest. He was a realtor, you see. Well, I mean, he’s still a realtor, obviously. It’s just that he’s not my realtor anymore. He used to send me everybody he listed, but since June, he hasn’t sent me anybody at all. So, things have got a bit complicated. Finance-wise.”

“Complicated how?”

“Well, we were together for three years. And then in June we weren’t. The apartment was in his name, so he kept it, and it turns out the clients were sort of in his name too.”

“That’s Garrett Rasmussen, for you,” Bunny said, knowingly.

“How on earth do you know that?”

“Because he’s the guy who’s listing my house, honey. Plus, Marcy’s got a big mouth. My grandson Wade picked him off some shitty website from Chicago.” Bunny sniffed. “Wade picks badly, he always has. You know, he once bought a Pontiac Aztek? And on purpose!”

“Look, Mrs. Bauer, if you’ve listed with Garrett, I really don’t think I should be the one…”

“Call me Bunny, please. And yes, you absolutely should! I already know he’s your ex. Why do you think I asked Marcy for you in particular? So, go on, what was he like? Good in bed? He looks like he would be.”

“Bunny!”

“Fine. Keep your secrets. At least for now. Okay, let’s talk about my boys.”

My head was spinning a little trying to keep up with her. “Your boys?”

“My grandsons. All three of them will be staying at the house while it gets cleared out, but none of them can agree on what to do with it. Their useless fucking mother left them on my porch in ninety-eight with a bag of laundry and a note, so I went and raised them the best I could. They screamed on that first night and I doubt they’ve agreed on a single thing since.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. Bunny didn’t seem to need me as part of the conversation, though.

“Your ex wants it ready to list in two weeks,” she continued. “So that’s fourteen days of hard graft, Dina. And, considering your living situation, I think you should stay in the house while you do it.”

“Oh, no, I don’t live in clients’ houses,” I said. “That’s kind of a rule of mine. I don’t get involved with the families, I just do the…”

“You live on an air mattress in your office!” Bunny snapped. “Don’t argue with me about this one, honey. I’m eighty-one. I’ve had more practice.” And then she was already pressing the call button for the nurse.

***

“We can’t knock the wall down, Brody! What about the floors upstairs?”

“It’s a kitchen wall, Wade! The only thing it’s holding up is your ego!”

“Look, nobody’s taking any damn walls out of anything, you understand! What’s wrong with you both!”

I could already hear the row through my car window when I pulled up at Ridge Avenue that afternoon. Bunny’s house was a 1950s brick four-bed with a big deep porch and on it were three men doing a lot of pushing and shoving. None of them seemed to be listening to the other two at all.

The youngest-looking one was sitting on the top step with tattoos all the way down both arms. I’m not going to lie to you about this, I spent a long time looking at those arms. Much longer than I professionally needed to. The middle of them had sawdust all over his jeans and was carrying a crowbar in his hand. He kept waving it back at the house as he spoke.

“That wall’s coming out whether you like it or not, Wade!”

The tallest and oldest of them had a laptop open on the porch rail and had a much better pair of shoulders than any man with a laptop has any right to possess. I got out of the car and they all stopped arguing in order to gawp at me.

“I take it you’re the move manager,” the tall one said, coming down the steps to shake my hand. “Wade Bauer. Gran called, so I’ve already made a spreadsheet of all the big furniture. If you want to start from that, it’s all…”

“Oh my God, she doesn’t want your fucking spreadsheet, Wade!” the one with the crowbar said. “Nobody in the whole history of the universe has ever wanted your spreadsheet. I’m Brody.” His hand was warm and kind of gritty. “Ignore him. Have you seen the kitchen yet? Because I reckon that if that wall comes out, we can open up the whole back of the house, and we’ll be adding sixty grand to it, easy, I’m telling you…”

“Hi. I’m Hutch,” the one with the tattoos said. He’d definitely seen me looking at his arms. “And nobody’s touching anything in this house.”

“Well, somebody’s going to be touching something, Hutch,” Wade said. “That’s literally why this woman’s here, buddy. The house is going to be sold!”

“And I tell you that’s not settled yet!”

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I’m guessing we’re maybe not all on the same page with this?”

“Dina, that’s an understatement,” Brody said with a wry grin. “These two are never going to agree with anything!”

“Us two! You’re the one who…”

“Okay, stop, stop, all of you!” I said, wanting to defuse some of the tension. That got all three of them to look at me, at least. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Everybody gets one of these.” I dug three sheets of stickers out of my bag and handed one to each of them. “Green’s keep, yellow’s donate, red’s toss. And we’ll be starting with the kitchen junk drawer. So, go on. Scoot!”

“The junk drawer?” Wade said backing away towards the door. “Dina, there are four bedrooms that need clearing in there first! We’ve only got two weeks!”

“I know there are. But I do this first with every family, and honestly, how you sort the junk drawer tells me pretty much everything I’ll need to know about how we’ll be working together. So, all three of you, together. Inside. Go on!”

It took them more than an hour. Just on a draw.

“Okay, what’s this?” Brody said, holding up a Polaroid of a dog.

“That’s our dog,” Hutch said.

“We never had a dog, Hutch!”

“Well, then whose dog is it?”

Nobody knew, but it still ended up in the Hutch pile. And then Wade found three separate sets of keys to an old Buick and put red dots on all of them, which Hutch took off, and put the keys in his pocket. Brody said that car’d been crushed into a cube in 2009 and that Hutch was carrying around keys to a fucking cube. Hutch said he knew that, thanks very much and, also, invited Brody to bite him.

And then Wade, because we weren’t having enough chaos, went into the dining room and came back with a gravy boat. It was white china, with little blue flowers on it, and it’d obviously been sitting on that sideboard since before any of them were born. “What about this?”

“Yellow sticker. Donate,” Brody said.

“Somebody’d actually use that, though,” Hutch said. “Keep it. I’ll use it.”

“You’ve never made gravy once in your entire life, Hutch!”

“Well, I could start, couldn’t I? If I had the gravy boat to encourage me.”

“Oh, here we go,” Wade said. “And I’m the asshole for wanting to get ride of it, am I?”

“Nobody called you an asshole, Wade.”

“You didn’t have to, Brody. You’ve got a face that does it for you.”

Brody put the gravy boat down, a bit harder than anybody should, and took a step toward his brother.

“Hey! No!” I got between them, which in hindsight probably wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, given that they both had at least a foot on me. “Nobody’s stepping anywhere. Nobody’s calling anybody anything. You three can kill each other in your spare time, but right now you’re on mine, and on my time we sort things, okay? So, sit down. All of you. Now!”

And they all did, even Wade.

“Okay,” I said. “Look, when it’s a… precious heirloom and the family can’t agree on it, I have a rule to ask the person it actually belongs to.” I got my phone out to call Bunny and put her on speaker.

“What is it, honey?” she said.

“Bunny, hi. We’ve got a question about a gravy boat? It’s white, with little blue flowers on it?”

“That thing? That was Arnie’s mother’s,” Bunny said. “I never liked her. Toss the damn thing in the trash.” And then she hung up.

I met each of the men’s eyes and then put a red dot on the gravy boat. Hutch looked longingly at it like I’d just put the muzzle of a gun against a puppy.

“Huh!” Wade said, after a second. “I’ve been trying to get decisions out of this family since Friday, and you’ve just got one in a phone call!”

Brody was also grinning and, on his way past me to the back door, he gave me a little swat on the backside with his sticker sheet and said, “Nice work, Coach!”

I didn’t actually mind that at all.

It all went sideways again, though, when I went back out to the car for my overnight bag.

“Hang on,” Wade said, following me down the porch steps. “Why’ve you got a bag?”

“Because I’m staying here for the sort. Didn’t Bunny tell you?”

“No, she did not.” He turned around to the porch. “Did she tell either of you?”

“Nope,” Brody said, looking far too pleased about it, I thought.

“Wade, she can have my old room,” Hutch said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine! Her ex is the listing agent, for God’s sake. That’s a conflict of interest, isn’t it? Plus, we don’t even know her. Gran’s eighty-one, she’s not exactly…”

“Okay, that’s enough!” I said. “Your grandmother hired me, and she says I’m sleeping here for two weeks. So if you’ve got a problem with that, go and call her yourself!”

“She doesn’t always…”

“Then call her, Wade!”

He didn’t call her.

“God, that was pretty hot,” Brody said, under his breath.

“Shut up, Brody,” Wade said. He sighed, but then he took my bag off me, and he carried it as far as the front door before he seemed to realize what he was doing and handed it to Hutch who carried my bag upstairs for me. He put it in the little bedroom at the end of the hall. I figured this one’d obviously once been his, because there was still a band poster on the wall and a dent in the plaster at about fist height.

“The door doesn’t shut properly,” he said, sounding a bit apologetic about it. “It’s never really shut. Brody broke it years ago and nobody ever got around to fixing it.”

“Oh, that’s fine!” I said. “I’ll just put a chair against it.”

“You could do that, sure. Might be fun if you didn’t, though…”

***

I hadn’t slept in an actual bed for four months. And it seemed like I’d lost the trick of it.

So, I lay there in Hutch’s old room, under his old band poster, and with the door that wouldn’t shut standing about four inches open onto the dark hallway. Obviously, my thoughts wandered a little onto those arms, and them, around the bit where I was thinking about how those tattoos would look holding me down, my hand had wandered inside my pajama shorts. I was already wet.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Dina!” I whispered. But then I kept going anyway.

I started lazily touching myself, sliding my fingers up and down over my clit, but then, for some reason, it was Wade instead, telling me exactly what he wanted to do to me. And then, it was Brody’s hand in my hair and my hips came right up off the mattress. I was soaking my fingers and that door was still open onto the hallway…

“Oh my God!” I said to the ceiling. “All three of them? Really? They’re your client’s grandsons!”

I took my hand out of my shorts and lay there for a minute, hot and achy and more than a little mortified. There was no way I was getting to sleep like that, plus I needed a drink, something cold. So, just after midnight, I gave up trying and went down through the kitchen, and found the pantry light on.

And Brody in there. With the peaches.

And then, well… then he was feeding me one of them.

It was cold and sweet and his fingers, when I sucked on them, tasted of syrup. He didn’t take them away straight off, either. He let me have the peach, and then he just left his thumb on my bottom lip, all sticky.

“You probably should put the jar down, Brody,” I said.

He slowly put it down on the second shelf, somewhere between a tower of Cool Whip tubs and about nine cans of beets. And then I kissed him. Or he kissed me. Honestly, I’m still not sure. His mouth was sweet and his hands were sticky when they came up the back of my pajama top. He walked me backward until the shelving was against my spine, the collision making every can on it rattled. Then he pressed his sticky palm to the front of my pajama shorts and just held it there.

“Is that okay?”

“Fuck, yes, that’s more than okay, that’s… please don’t stop doing that…”