Free Summer Rental by Mary Kay Andrews Page B

hand. “How the hell are you?”
    They stood in the living room, chatting awkwardly. “You’re lookin’ good, Frank,” Ty said. “Bug busting must agree with you.”
    “It’s a living,” Frank said. “How ’bout you? Are those your boards I saw out in that garage?”
    “Yeah,” Ty said. “I’m still surfing. When I get time, which I haven’t lately.”
    Finally, they got down to business.
    “Fleas, huh?” Frank said, giving the living room an appraising look.
    Ty’s face darkened. “Friggin’ college kids snuck a dog in here last week.”
    “You don’t live here?”
    Ty laughed. “No, man, I can’t afford to live here. I live over the garage, in what used to be the maid’s apartment. I rent out the house.”
    “Pretty cool old place,” Frank said, running a hand over the wood-paneled wall. “It’s one of the original ones, right?”
    Ty shrugged. “This isn’t one of the original thirteen, the ones they call the ‘unpainted aristocracy.’ My grandmother’s aunt bought it in the 1920s. We’ve still got the original bill of sale. She paid eight thousand dollars back then.”
    “My dad used to have the pest control contract on the one right next door,” Frank said. “The Lunsfords. Nice folks. Clark and Margaret? Maybe you knew them? After the last hurricane hit it so bad, they sold it to some people from Virginia.”
    “Haven’t met the new owners,” Ty said. “But Mrs. Lunsford, Miss Margaret, we called her, she was one of my grandmother’s running buddies. They were classmates at Saint Mary’s, back in the day.”

    “What was your grandmother’s name?” Frank asked. “Not Bazemore, right?”
    “No,” Ty said. “This house belonged to my mom’s family. She was a Culpepper. Edwina and Garrett Culpepper. My granddad died about ten years ago. And then Nanny, she passed two years ago. Everybody called her Winnie.”
    “I remember hearing your mom passed, some years back, right?”
    “That’s right,” Ty said. “She died the year after Granddad. Hard to believe it’s been that long.”
    Frank nodded his head in mute agreement. He picked up his canister of chemicals and, pointing a long-necked wand, began walking around the perimeter of the room, spraying as he talked.
    “Your grandmother left you the house, huh? That’s pretty awesome. House like this, right on the ocean. I mean, it’s none of my business, but it’s worth some bank, right?”
    “It would be if it were fixed up,” Ty agreed. “Anyway, Nanny left the house to my mom’s only brother, my uncle, who lives in South Dakota. His wife hates the beach, and they never had any kids. He was gonna sell it, so I got the bright idea that I should buy it from them. You know, the place was a gold mine—or so I thought.”
    “Awesome.”
    “Place is a dump,” Ty said, gloomily. “A giant money pit. That’s the real reason my uncle was so glad to unload it. My grandmother never wanted to modernize anything. Wanted to leave things like they were when she was a little girl and they’d come up here from Charlotte and spend the whole summer. There’s no central heat or air. Granddad finally put in window units, back in the ’80s. No insulation, of course. In some places, you can see daylight through these old floorboards. I about froze my ass living here this past winter. In Nanny’s day, they closed the house up every Octoberand didn’t open it back up until Good Friday. The plumbing sucks, too. Only two full bathrooms for this whole big house and only one indoor shower. And the taxes? The county thinks this dump is worth two million dollars! Don’t get me started.”
    “Crazy,” Frank agreed, moving into the dining area and then into the kitchen.
    “Hey, look at this,” he chuckled, looking down the room. “This is some old school, here.”
    “And not in a good way,” Ty said, leaning on the doorframe. “That stove is shot. I just got new tenants for the whole month. Three women! Been here a day, and