Debris rained down on the bed, on top of the crooked fridge, which rested exactly where Joe's body would likely have landed if I hadn't moved him.
“THAT'S WHY!” I blasted back, turning to find a door, any door, as Darla typed on her phone, pressed it to her ear, and said, “I'd like to report an emergency.”
She paused, then said,
“Our goddamned bed fell through the ceiling.”
Pause.
“Darla Jo Jennings.”
Pause. A grin.
“Why hey there, Kyle! Yeah, I'm home 'cuz of my new baby brother. But I got a more pressing problem here now. Can you send an ambulance? Our bed fell through the ceiling into the kitchen. Yeah, through the ceiling. Mmm hmmm.”
Shock covered her face.
“No, we weren't screwing in it when it happened! What kinda question is that from a 911 dispatcher?”
Pause.
“I don't give a damn if we went to high school together, my boyfriend might be hurt and I got a big old soaking wet BED in the KITCHEN of Mrs. Humboldt's old house!”
Sirens rang out in the distance.
“Joe? Honey? You hurt?” she called down to Joe, who was at her feet, dazed.
He shook his head, but one look at his arms told me he'd been scraped up. Bad.
Joe looked at me. “Kill the breakers.”
Great minds think alike. I ran to the garage, searching for the panel, cursing myself for not knowing where it was, as if I should magically have known. Logic doesn't work when your brain is on fire in an emergency, though.
The panel turned out to be unfindable.
The blur of a fire truck, an ambulance, and about ten guys in pickup trucks with roof sirens and lights took up the next five minutes as Darla answered the door, greeting each by name, the paramedics going straight for dazed old Joe and the firefighters stopping short at the kitchen.
One of them, a big, bald dude who was about my dad's age, let out a low whistle.
“What'n the hell were you doin' in bed there, Darla Jo?” he said with a laugh that was contagious, rippling through the small army of locals here for the call.
“Haha Paul. You've seen worse.”
“Not since you left town. Been quiet around here.” With a friendly look on his face, Paul turned to me, hand outstretched. “Paul Masonelli. You're Trevor, right? Cathy talks about you and Joe and Darla all the time.”
“Uh, yeah.”
A few of the other guys grunted good-byes and left.
“Did we need this many emergency workers?” I asked, Darla giving me a weird look.
“Naw,” Paul said. “Slow day. Volunteers are bored and eager.”
“Peters is always slow, Paul. They're just rubberneckers,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, well, you always were entertaining. Remember when you were making out with Ray in old Miller's back alfalfa field and your shitty little Tercel got stuck in a gopher field and we had come haul you out?”
Joe, whose arm was being tended to by a guy in a blue paramedic's shirt, wearing gloves, applying ointment and gauze, looked up and asked, “You called 911 for that?”
“Ray did. Dumbass,” Paul spat out, looking up at the ceiling. “Dang. Looks like water damage. You shut off the breaker?”
“Couldn't find it.”
Paul walked past me, into the kitchen, opened a pantry door, and craned his neck in.
Click.
Power off.
“Do you know where the breakers are in every home in Peters?” I asked, impressed.
“Yep.”
“You're thorough.”
“Naw. I'm the town electrician.”
“A few scrapes. No head injury. Don't need to bring him in,” the guy tending to Joe announced.
“Thanks, Mark,” Darla said in a grateful tone. “Your hands okay?” she asked Joe.
He held them up. “This time, they didn't break. No gerbil attached to my ass, either.”
Every guy in the room froze.
Then looked at Darla.
“WHAT?” she squealed. “Mind your own goddamned business.”
“Whatever you do in Massachusetts is your own private life, Darla Jo,” Paul said, patting her shoulder. “But once you come back here, you're fair game.”
Darla stood in front of Joe, who suddenly reddened.
“Uh, you’re in a long t-shirt and panties,” he whispered to her. I looked at Joe.
Boxer briefs and nothing else.
And I was his twin.
“Who cares?” Darla said with a flick of the wrist.
“Half the guys here have seen her naked anyhow,” someone called back.
Joe reddened even more. Darla stayed uncharacteristically quiet.
“Where are your clothes?” Paul asked, ignoring the tension, looking up through the ceiling. “In one of the bedrooms? Because I can — ”
“HOLY SHIT!” screamed a guy with a Russian accent, rushing into the room. “MY CEILING!” A stream of what I assumed was profanity in Russian came out of him.
“Hey Dmitri. Looks like your contractors did a shitass job, just like I warned you,” Paul said to the guy. Dmitri was about Darla's height and build, with super-short hair, rimless glasses, and a pained expression on his face.
“Contractors?” I asked.
Paul rolled his eyes. “Guys who couldn't put together a toothpick and marshmallow structure that stands.”
“No sue me!” he shouted at Joe, who gave him a WTF? look. “I have other property in town. You rent for free. Just no sue.”
Dmitri turned to Paul. “And you right. I no use those guys no more. You tell me who to use.”
Darla gave Paul some major side-eye. “What's going on?”
“Dmitri bought three houses here in Peters and flipped them. His plumbers were deported a few weeks ago. No clue what happened to the guys who did the flooring and roof upstairs. I did electric work on his houses and warned him, but he didn't listen.” Paul looked up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. “And now this.”
“You're lucky I didn't die,” Joe said.
“You die, you no sue.”
“You wish I'd died?”
“No!” Dmitri held up his palms. “No no no. My English not so good. You die, I in trouble. No want die. Want happy renter. I have other house you rent. Free.” He raked his fingers over his scalp, pulled out a phone, and began speaking rapid-fire Russian into it.
I pulled Paul aside. “Is this guy a scammer? We rented the place on AirBnB.”
“Naw. Dmitri's a good guy. Been here five years or so. Got a good deal on this place when Mrs. Humboldt moved into assisted living up in Mentor, near one of her kids. But he's kind of a sucker. Has a soft spot and hires the wrong people, you know?”
“Got it.”
“You can have house.” Dmitri rattled off an address.
Darla frowned. “Old Doc Oglethorpe's place?”
Paul nodded. “Yeah. And those ‘plumbers’ didn't touch it.”
“It not as nice as this house,” Dmitri announced.
“Does it have a hole in the kitchen ceiling, Dmitri?” Darla asked him. “Because anything without a damn HOLE is nicer.”
“Wet hole no good. You no have scary wet hole.”