He sinks his hand into the plastic bag and fishes out an envelope with the National Tiny House Competition logo on it. He tears it open and extracts two papers. One he hands to me without bothering to read. The other he studies for a long moment before passing it to me too. “Money. Bank, you have to.”
It’s a check. My eyes home in on the number. Good grief. “Is this the fifty thousand from the competition you get to spend on your build?” How hasn’t he banked it yet? He’s been funding this with his own cash so far. He stands to lose a lot more than me at this rate if things go south.
He’s only off a dollar or two? We’ll see about that. This can’t wait. I’ll have to sort out the finances. My day ahead looms. I’m going to enter every last item on every last receipt into the system and file them in the folders he bought. I close my eyes with a whimper. “How much do you think you’ve spent?” I can bet him right now he’s spent way more than he thinks.
He shrugs. “T-twenty thousand, f-four hundred and se-seventy-two dollars?”
Right. I write it down. “Off by one or two dollars?”
“You tell me.” He smiles and it’s loaded with an unspoken challenge that hangs between us as he saunters off.
He does the same tour of the trailer I did earlier, then he buckles on his tool belt and runs his fingers through his hair. He folds his arms and stands back for a moment, taking in the whole. After a few minutes, he nods, and walks to the pile of studs.
That was Raiden Logan thinking, mapping out, and planning exactly what he’s going to do today. All I want is to carry on where we left off yesterday and work with him to put up the frame, but with a sigh I turn to my box of receipts and start sorting them into piles according to size. This is part of the job requirements, and I can’t balk at it now. One thing’s for sure: Raiden isn’t going to lift a finger to do any of this.
The whole morning, I have the pleasure of surreptitiously watching Raiden systematically work on the frame. Between every invoice I load line by excruciating line into the accounting software on my laptop, I look up to see where he’s at.
His progress is faster than mine because he isn’t distracted by my quiet typing like I am by his incessant drilling. Weird how that can work on your nerves when you’re not the one holding the drill.
For the rest, I have some doubts here. I have to go through the terms and conditions of the competition sooner rather than later, to make sure we’re adhering to the rules of the build. For all I know, there are rules as to how the money should be allocated. If only we had a proper procurement system, but at least we have something online now. Should this box of receipts go up in flames, which I wish it would, we’ll know what we’ve spent.
It’s already past lunchtime when I record the last invoice—for hurricane ties—and run the total. Twenty thousand four hundred and seventy-three dollars. And twelve cents. Almost precisely what Raiden estimated. It’s freaky and a little chill runs down my spine.
I lean back in my chair and stare at him as the light beams down from the top barn window. The whole trailer seems to be cast in a soft golden glow. I pick up my phone and take a couple of photos from afar, then stand to get more detailed photos. Eventually I’m close enough to distract him, and he looks up. Click-click-click.
“Twenty thousand four hundred and seventy-three dollars, and twelve cents,” I say.
His eyes light up and he smiles, a genuine smile of delight, and I catch the moment on camera.
“Told you so.”
“You sure those were all the expenses?”
“Yep. Cleaned out my truck.”
I can see him crumpling up and tossing receipts over his back into that cardboard box as he got the first stages of the project going. He’s a bit of a loose nut, but kudos to him for knowing where he is money-wise. From what I’ve seen these last two days, Raiden has very little need for paperwork, calculators, or any type of mental assistance when it comes to numbers. Good for him. As for me, I have other plans beyond spending my days number-crunching. “I’ve been thinking we should start an Instagram account for this project.”
He’s busy but glances at me. “What for?”
Well, for us. For me. I’m only getting to do this once. Next summer, when I’m pulling sixteen-hour days at Wess & Rover shoving around furniture in some wannabe’s seaside mansion, I can look back at the images with nostalgic longing because working with him was so much fun.
This is day two of probation. Only twelve to go after this one. “Could be nice for your friends and folks in Boston to follow our progress?”
“Cash will come. Later.”
Cash McGraw. There were a few emails and invoices in the box bearing his name. “Okay. Then for my folks and friends back home. They can’t pop over on a whim.” My folks would never pop over on a whim. They’re also not wondering what I’m doing up north. So far, the radio silence continues and the message I typed up for my dad still sits in my drafts, unsent. “And for the public at large. People like to follow this type of thing. I’m not sure what you’re planning to do after this competition, but even if it has nothing to do with tiny houses, it would be a nice scrapbook of sorts.”
“S-s-start my own business, I’m p-planning to.” He doesn’t look at me as he plucks screws from his tool belt and drills in that rhythm I’ve been listening to for the past few hours.
“A tiny house business?”
He nods but doesn’t look up at me. “With or without wheels. Doesn’t matter.”
I wave my phone at him. “Well then, this would be good promotion and branding for you. And with the reality TV show, it’s an awesome way to launch a business and get the word out.” Not that he’s any good at getting words out or keeping tabs on the paperwork necessary to start a business. I look down at my phone and force the negative thoughts from my mind.
It only took one evening at Sharky’s to catch on to the negative Raiden vibes in this town. All around me last night, I’d picked up on whispers and snatches of conversation about late-night joyrides. Stolen mailboxes. A table of guys had cracked up over memories of a bonfire gone wrong, one of them saying that nothing less could be expected from a pothead.
Nope. Raiden doesn’t need any negative vibes from me, not here, not at work, not even in my head.