Page 33 of Error Handling

“Chinese water torture,” he says.

I laugh.

He laughs.

And then we both go quiet. Something passes between us—a pleasant disturbance in the atmosphere. I contemplate his face, and he traces my features with his eyes.

“Hello?” a voice says.

I nearly pee my pants from fright. Christopher whips around to confront our uninvited guest.

Oh, I realize. The handyman.

I sit up.

A man stands in the wide kitchen entryway wearing a baseball cap, frayed jeans, and a toolbelt.

“Chris Butcher?” I say.

Chris

I recognize Sarah, but I don’t know her companion, nor do I understand why they were lying on the kitchen floor, soaked, and staring at each other like that. The laughter I heard through the gaping front door as I walked up the sidewalk indicated theywere enjoying themselves. Which is fine with me. I’m just here to fix a leaky pipe and possibly clean up the mess.

I’m a registered handyman with At Your Service. An employee. Sort of. I work on-call Monday through Saturday evenings. Landlords subscribe to At Your Service and then the app takes care of the logistics of finding the nearest handyman whenever an emergency is submitted. I receive a portion of the subscription fee and a flat fee from the landlord.

I just finished checking on a potential gas leak a few streets over when the app pinged me to see if I was available. Had I known the job was for Sarah I would have declined.

Maybe.

I’d written her off after our unpleasant exchange on Monday, but as the day wore on, I found myself thinking about her and the electrifying feeling I get whenever I see her. It’s unlike anything I’ve experienced with a woman, including Allison, who I was sure I was going to marry.

Even now when I look at Sarah in sopping wet clothing with matted hair, I feel something. Strongly.

She jumps to her feet and approaches. Her rosy cheeks don’t change, but her expression does, going from playful to serious. All hints of laughter and silliness disappear.

Sarah explains her predicament, that a pipe broke, and that Christopher (Christopher?)went under the house and turned something off, but it didn’t fix the problem.

Christopher walks up beside Sarah. Mud covers his clothing and dirties his face. And that’s exactly how I’ll look if I have to crawl under this house.

I hate crawlspaces, hate squeezing through them, but doing so is often a job requirement, especially with houses this old.

“You probably turned off the gas,” I say. I walk to the stove and try to ignite the burner. No flames erupt. “Let me have a lookbefore I go under the house.” I can feel Sarah’s eyes following me. Burning holes. It’s a good pain.

Christopher is Sarah’s height. Short. This satisfies me for reasons I know are petty, but I enjoy the momentary sense of superiority.

I can’t compete with Christopher’s muscles. I don’t want to. I’ve never been a fan of the puffy look.

I kneel in the water, pull my flashlight from my belt and crawl into the cabinet for a look. The smell of rotting wood overtakes me as I rummage deeper, indicating a long-standing leak that finally let loose.

After a quick inspection, I discover the culprit. The braided plumbing line leading to the faucet developed a crack, probably from being twisted too much during installation. The slow leak became a gusher when Sarah shoved one too many items under the sink, or when the house’s slow settling moved the cabinetry and torqued the line a millimeter past its breaking point. I’ve seen it all in these old Charleston houses.

I flash my light behind two old pints of paint, which don’t belong under a kitchen sink, but who am I to judge? After ungracefully shoving the cabinet’s contents to the floor with a series of clacks, thuds, and splats, I find what I’m looking for: two ancient-looking shutoff valves, accessible via a small cutout in the back of the cabinet.

I crank them both to the left while my chest puffs with pride. I feel prouder of my work tonight than I have in ages. Odd.

The gush of water stops.

Christopherneeds to learn a thing or two about plumbing. Obviously, I don’t have arealjob.