Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The House Part 5

                The work hit a snag 2 weeks later. It started with stolen materials. Pipes and wires were put in the building and the next morning they were all gone. Then tools started going missing from the locked shed on the property. Then the water people were calling saying the person who had approved their water paperwork was not authorized to do so and they would need to halt the work until the paperwork could be refiled and examined, the tests would need to be done again, and another inspector would have to come by and approve it all. Finally the local community leaders decided they needed a taste and they were demanding that their approval for the project be sought, again. The construction progress was dead in the water.

Julia’s easy project she managed in her spare time started to creep more and more into her daily life as the construction company kept getting her involved. They were authorized to work and call the shots but the people in charge of approving everything refused to talk to anyone but the owner. She came to the decision that she would have to take a vacation from her regular job to manage this entire resort fiasco. Her family was not thrilled but were used to doing business and they made it work for her. She left the city behind the next day. She dropped off her bags at her usual spot and headed to a meeting with the construction company.  As she drove she realized she no longer was as charmed by the locale. She began to notice the random discarded trash along the roads, the level of poverty of the surrounding communities, and most of all the damnable amount of vultures she saw along the way.

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She eased out of her work clothes and eased into the tub. The water was toasty the way she liked it and the radio was playing soft relaxing music. Unfortunately Julia was not relaxed she was majorly miffed. Her construction company was testing her and she knew it was gender related. She had worked with this company before but her brother had been in town and had been along for every discussion. It seemed they thought he was the one that called the shots and that she wouldn’t know what was what. Over the phone she had not been aware of the real issues but when she got here and talked to them…. the story they told! They had told her ghost stories about the place being cursed, accidents that had occurred, the vultures being the devil’s minions and people and property going missing. She had been so shocked that she had not really reacted right away. She had taken all the paperwork and information with her when she left and promised to look it over and get back to them. Then on the way home she began to get angry. She was fuming mad and aggressively drove through the streets until she reached the freeway and hit the petal hard. Her fury was overwhelming her senses because her speed and aggressive driving garnered the attention of la policia. She had barely avoided going to jail. When she got home she tossed the paperwork from the construction company on the bed and nearly avoided starting to scream in frustration.

She attempted to allow the music, the bubbles, and the rum to improve her mood. The um wasn’t going down well, the bubbles were making her sneeze and the music was grating on her last nerve. She needed to relieve some of her pent up irritation but had found no outlet for it in the tub. That had been her mom’s trick, to let the frustration float down the drain, and it worked for Julia quite often but not always. She switched tactics and she went into the bedroom and began working up a sweat with exercises and boxing moves a younger brother had taught her a few years back. She did not feel completely satisfied when she collapsed in exhaustion but she felt better. She felt like she could think and she showered off the sweat and set up an office inside the room and cracked the paperwork.

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