Page 28 (1/2)

"Might take a little work," Keller said, "ain Here’s what I got inhis plans for its transfor a second floor onto the back half of the house, converting it into as known locally as a caun That last, he conceded, was on the a difference in the ho at," Donny said

"The down payment took o for uys like Dwayne and Luis to work on spec But he figuredto roll the dice, and when it’s done and he sells it, I’d be in for a third of the net profit"

"Which probably translates into a good deal more than twelve dollars an hour"

"If the job doesn’t take too long, so the carrying charges don’t et a buyer who’ll close in a hurry and pay a decent price"

"I’d say you et a buyer’ And what could you possibly say but yes?"

"That’s what I thought The only downside is I won’t be bringing hoht"

"No payments on the loan for the truck, and no contributions to the household budget"

"It’s a hell of a situation," she agreed "If it wasn’t for sex, you’d be no use to me at all"

It wasn’t until her father’s ashes were scattered and the sickrooed that Julia moved upstairs, to the bedroom she’d occupied as a child Keller kept his own roohts in hers

The job in Gretna ran behind schedule and over budget, which didn’t really surprise anybody Bothat daybreak and keeping at it until they lost the light Donny’s cash didn’t last as long as he’d hoped, and after he’d maxed out his credit cards he had to obtain a 5,000 loan from his father-in-law "The old bastard asked me what I could put up for collateral, and I said, ‘How about your daughter’s happiness?’ You can guess how that went over, but hell, I got the , especially when Donny decided to go the whole route, and they designed and built the second-floor addition "It felt like building a house," Keller told Julia "Constructing one, you know? Not just re"

When the last of the as done, with the lawn sodded and new shrubbery in place, he brought Julia to see it She’d been there earlier, with the work barely under way, and said it was hard to believe it was the same house Outside of the beams and rafters, he said, it barely was

They went to the Quarter for a celebration dinner, although the real celebration would coed restaurant they’d gone to before, ordered essentially the same meal, and didn’t finish their wine this time, either They talked about the job, and its satisfactions, and the likelihood of Donny’s getting the price he was going to ask for it

If the profit was all Donny anticipated, he told her, they’d do this again, and next time Keller would be a partner She said he was that already, wasn’t he? A full partner, he explained, putting up half the purchase price, paying half the expenses, and netting half the profits Donny was already looking for their next property, and had several under consideration

"Well, he’s a Wallings," she said "They’re enterprising"

First, though, Donny had two cash jobs lined up, a condo paint job on Melpomene and sos was practical, Julia said, in addition to being enterprising And before they undertook either of those jobs, Keller said, they were going to have a few days off

"Well, of course," she said "He’s an Orleanean, isn’t he?"

When they got ho

"Because your whole ot to the car The weather was fine so that couldn’t be it Did I say so? No? Then as it?"

"I didn’t think it showed"

"Tell me"

He didn’t want to, but neither did he care to keep things froht so atfellow and… ohpasthis car around But I reot in trouble because he went to San Francisco, where sonized hiot the whole page "We should probably stay out of the Quarter," she said

"That’s what I was thinking"

"And other places tourists tend to go, but it’s really mostly the Quarter No more Café du Monde, no more Acme Oyster House For oysters, Felix’s has a place uptown on Prytania that’s just as good, and they don’t get as crowded"

"During Mardi Gras--"

"During Carnival," she said, "we’ll stay hoether, but we’d do that anyway Poor baby, no wonder youra scare, because it didn’t last long enough to amount to all that much By the ti to be afraid of But I’ve got a whole new life, and it fits love, and I cut every tie to the past e shoved that car into the river"