Recipe for Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page A

leaving.”
    “I’m going to be stuck at the restaurant till close, but I stopped home and walked and fed the beast, so the night is yours. How was the day?”
    “Up and down. Finished the Osborne house and they love it.”
    “Congrats, baby, that is fantastic! I’ll bring home a bottle of bubbles. What about the down? Hack and Smurf being their usual charming selves?” I am always tickled at his nicknames for Mac and Murph.
    “Yep. And it looks like Liam probably just snagged my dream project right out from under my nose.”
    “I’m sorry. I hate that for you.”
    “Oh, and apparently my name is now America.”
    “Nipple Barbie or Pinky Tuscadero Barbie?”
    “Spinner Barbie.”
    “Wow. You have got to start thinking about an exit strategy, that place is a toilet bowl. I just hate that you even have to talk to those assholes, let alone work for them.”
    “I know you do.” He hates it worse than I do, and I love him for that.
    “I have some ideas about that; we’ll talk about it later. Gotta go. Love you!” I can hear him shouting something at someone about basil as his phone hangs up.
    A normal person would look at this gift of a quiet evening alone as decadent relaxation just waiting to happen. You might think this would be a great time to cozy up to the DVR and indulge in some serious binge watching, to finally catch up on
Downton Abbey
and drool over the houses, but as tempting as that is, there is something even more tempting.
    I press the button on the garage door and watch it open smoothly, the set of converted antique carriage-house doors, with their leaded glass windows and beautiful old wood with iron strapping, now a thoroughly contemporary convenience. I steer Lola inside to the left, giving wide berth to the old doors and windows and other salvage items that are stacked carefully in the middle of the expansive space, big enough for three SUVs plus storage. The door closes behind me, and I grab my big key ring out of the glove compartment, letting myself in the back door and dropping my coat and bag in the roughed-in mudroom. I breathe in the intoxicating scent of old house and new wood, make my way carefully through two dark rooms looming with odd shapes, and finally flip the lights. The place is a complete disaster. Plaster walls with gaping holes down to the lath, hardwood flooring covered with adhesive from badly applied carpeting, the world’s most hideous brass pineapple chandelier putting out a gloomy yellow light.
    It’s the most beautiful sight in the world.
    I head directly to the bathroom, inching sideways past the old claw-foot tub that’s sitting in the dining room, partially blocking the entrance of the wide hallway, and find my supplies right where I left them three days ago. Boxes of basket-weave-pattern white marble tiles with gray accents, sacks of thinset mix and pale gray grout powder. I grab a nearby bucket, dump thinset mix into it, and add water with the small hose that I’ve attached with duct tape to the wall faucet that used to feed the tub. Using a mixing paddle on my power drill, I watch as the mixture throws up a cloud of dust before coming together into a thick paste. I already installed the electric radiant heat floor system last week, and now I can carefully tile over it, thinking of how much someone is going to appreciate getting out of the shower onto a toasty floor on a day like today.
    I can feel the stress of the afternoon leave my shoulders. It all disappears here. The Mannings and what that job will be for the next eighteen months. Mac and Murph, doling out minimal praise for the Osborne build, as if any monkey could have brought that job in three weeks early and nearly $15K under budget. Liam, throwing his arm around Oliver Jacobsen’s shoulders like they are old friends, blowing smoke up his ass about how he is going to bring the drawings off the page and into a perfect expression of his vision, or some such crap that will ensure that he will get that