Fifteen and Living in a Fixer

“Are you ever going to hang that?” Cheyenneh yells over to Charlie, who’s finishing up the fireplace mantel.

“I’m working on it.”

“I don’t mind if you hang yourself up there, too,” she says.

We have our own general contractor. General Chey. At fifteen, she has fourteen years of experience telling people what to do. She’d have more, but she had to learn to talk first. Once she started, she started telling people what to do.

She had to write a paper yesterday about what she does best. She wrote, “I give advice. I’m in high school, so there’s lots of drama. I get plenty of chances to give advice right now. I figure someone has to give advice so it might as well be me. My friends don‘t seem to mind.”

When she gives us construction advice, she doesn’t seem to be concerned with quality. “It can be crooked, it can be sloppy, as long as it’s done yesterday,” Charlie says. “Later, she’ll look at something and say, ‘Hmm, look at that. I guess this isn’t your specialty.’”

For reasons I’ll never understand, she loves this house. She often tells me, “You’re never selling this house.“

“If we weren‘t doing fixers, I wouldn‘t go near a house like this,“ I say. I’m not partial to split-level ranch houses in the oldest, poorest part of town. This is the richest town in Oregon, so it isn’t as bad as all that. Still, there’s only so much you can do with a split-level.

“Sell it to me, then,” she says. “For a dollar. Seriously. This is the perfect house.

“It’s the best house for sleepovers. We were so wild downstairs, and you couldn’t hear anything. One of my friends threw a ball at the ceiling. Even though your bedroom was right above, you didn’t wake up. We could have had boys down there and you’d never know. Just kidding.”

“That’s why I’m fixing up the downstairs last,” Charlie says.

She’s quiet for a moment, which means trouble. “Let me drive your Jeep,“ she says.

“No,“ I say.

“Let me drive the Jeep.“

No.”

“Let me drive the Jeep. Just down the street.“

“No. It‘s ten at night.“

“Let me drive the Jeep.“

“No.”

This goes on for another dozen or two rounds, neither of us raising or voice or putting much effort into it.

Charlie interrupts. “Don’t you have homework? A final to study for? Friends?”

“My friends are all going to bed. Let me drive the Jeep.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you go to bed?”

“You owe me,” she says to Charlie. “You said you’d give us a ride to Allie’s. We come to the stop sign where you turn right to go to our house, or go straight to go to Allie’s. You turned right.

“I told you ‘We’re going to Allie’s.’ You said, ‘No, we’re not.’ I said, ‘Yeah we are.’ You said, ‘No we’re not.’

“We pulled up in our driveway, the driveway none of my friends have seen because I make them drop me off down the block, and I was like, ‘Wow, I hate my life.’”

Charlie looks up from working on the mantel and says, “You’re full of crap and you know it.”

“We arrive at the sh*thole . . .”

“Stop swearing,” Charlie says. “I thought you were a Christian.”

“I am, but it‘s a sh*thole. . . we walked in the door and work dust smells filled my bubble, you know, my personal space. I look at the floor, there’s sanding dust and full garbage cans all over. There’s paint on the stairs, which I spilled last year and nobody cleaned up.

“I’m redoing the stairs,” Charlie says.

“Yeah. We walk into my room. There’s stains on the floor from before we lived here. I don’t know what they’re from. I said it was stained from when I threw up a few days ago and we couldn’t get it out. Allie was disgusted.

“At that point I basically was like, ‘Screw this. I’ll say I’m rich in a year when the house is sold.

“I don’t have closet doors, I don’t have baseboards, and the carpet is disgusting. I’ve thought of peeing in the corner of my room when both bathrooms are busy.”

“That’s disgusting,” I say.

“Okay, I’m kidding. Though how would you know?”

She’s quiet again, noticing the walls. I finished painting the two walls by the fireplace pumpkin-ish, and the rest of the room yellowish-tan marzipan. Forty dollars worth of paint makes all the difference. Even General Chey has to admit it looks good.

“Getting a little experimental on the color, are we?” she says, then runs up to her room. From her, that‘s a compliment.

She comes back down a little while later. She looks right at the mantel, as if she’s waiting for Charlie to finish before she goes to bed. “Hmm,” she says. “Not done yet.”

“I have to wait until the glue dries.”

“Get it done before I come home from school. Got it? I‘m having a sleepover.”

“A sleepover? I guess we’re getting more comfortable with living in the sh*thole, then, aren’t we?” Charlie says.

“Stop swearing,” the General says. “I thought you were a Christian.”

“I am,” Charlie says. “And this place is going to be a palace.”

“Quit talking and get back to work,” she says.

I’m glad we’re doing fixers. I can’t think of what she’d be telling us otherwise.

A little help? [] 10:57:14 PM