Free How to Build a House by Dana Reinhardt

spaces every house needs.
    Captain comes by. “Whatcha doing?”
    His job’s been easy. He’s spent the morning on top of the foundation, marking wall lines with chalk.
    I’m working on the interior walls that will intersect other walls. They’re called butt walls.
    Captain knows this.
    “Working,” I answer. “What’s it look like?”
    “But what are you working on?”
    “A wall.”
    “What kind of wall?”
    I roll my eyes at him. “You are such a juvenile.”
    Teddy steps in front of me, mock-protectively.
    “She’s building a butt wall. Gotta problem with it?”
    Captain puts up his hands. “No, boss. No problem at all.”
    He sits down. Frances and Marisol wander over, with Seth trailing behind them. Ever since it became clear that Frances and Captain are teetering on the edge of coupledom, and ever since Marika let Seth rub in her sunblock and then never spoke another word to him, Seth has been circling Marisol.
    It’s noon. We break for lunch at twelve-thirty. This is when the heat hits its peak and it becomes almost impossible to work.
    “I’m fomenting a coup,” says Frances. “And when I’m the almighty, powerful leader, there’ll be no work between eleven and two.”
    “Did you just use the word fomenting ?” asks Captain.
    “Yes, I believe I did.”
    “Fomenting?”
    “It’s a word educated people use.”
    Teddy chimes in. “It’s one of those words that seems to exist only in relationship to another word. Like, you only ever hear fomenting with the word coup.” He lifts his T-shirt to his face and wipes the sweat from it. “Like how you only hear pro fusely when you’re talking about sweating.”
    This strikes me as unbelievably kind. He’s bailing Captain out. Trying to keep him from looking stupid in front of Frances.
    But Captain’s unfazed. He’s used to Frances’s sarcasm.
    Marisol removes her baseball hat and sighs. “I miss San Francisco. In the summer a fog settles in and it gets so cold you have to wear a fleece jacket.”
    “I miss Salt Lake City,” says Seth, whose round face is an unhealthy shade of purple. “The actual Salt Lake our city is named for smells like sulfur and is filled with gnats, but right about now I’d jump in headfirst.”
    “If it’s just a little cool-off y’all are after, I can make that happen,” Teddy says. “There’s a pond about a ten-minute walk from here.”
    “We’re on the clock until twelve-thirty,” I point out.
    Captain jumps up. “So what, Girl Scout? Desperate times call for desperate measures. And this heat is des-per-ate.”
    “Let’s go,” says Frances.
    “Lead the way,” says Marisol.
    Teddy turns to me. “I can’t do this without my double- y partner. You in, Harper?”
    I take off my goggles. It’s a small miracle nobody mocked me. I’ve been wearing them for the entire conversation. “Oh, all right.”
    The pond is almost too warm, but it still feels great. Frances and Marisol and I formed a huddle and determined that we were all wearing less-than-revealing sports bras. So we took off our T-shirts to a loud chorus of whistles from Seth, Captain and Teddy. They’ve removed their shirts too, even Seth, who looks fine. Not fine , but he looks okay without his shirt on. I’d tell him that if I wasn’t certain it would mortify him.
    Frances suggested that the guys strip to their boxers, but Seth looked like he’d rather kill himself, Captain said he was going commando and Teddy confessed to wearing briefs.
    “Briefs, dude?” Captain asked.
    “Sometimes a man needs a little extra support.”
    So we all jumped in wearing our shorts.
    After swimming around for about half an hour, I get out to dry off, and for the first time since I’ve been here, the midday sun feels good. Teddy gets out of the pond too and sits next to me on the grass.
    “That was nice,” I say.
    “Yeah, it was.”
    “It’s so beautiful here.”
    “You think so?”
    “I do.”
    “I guess I used to think so too.”
    One of