Phase One - Chapter Two: Building Bridges
Doug had apparently found the note on the kitchen table. He had a period of overreaction in which Amanda Pochoda turned her phone off altogether. This wasn't helping matters; in fact, it was making trying to accept the cabin in the woods even harder. Neither Angie nor her mother had a bed yet, just blankets on the floor. Without going back to Doug's house, there was no way of getting their stuff back. Amanda tried to compensate by buying a few necessities everyday so they could at least eat at home, but having cheap dishes didn't make up for not having a real bedroom. There was only one solution. Angie had to be sent as an ambassador.
Doug wasn't exactly glad to see the daughter of his ex-girlfriend, but he bit his tongue and agreed to be civil. Angie wasn't sure what was to become of her stuff while under Doug's ownership, but thankfully he wasn't the kind of guy to go into a destructive rage. Angie was allowed to re-enter the home and take what she could carry. Obviously it wasn't much. She couldn't dismantle her bed and carry it out. Even if she could, it wouldn't fit in her mom's car. Thankfully all of this chaos wasn't taking place on the exam weekend. The last week of regular classes was pretty much a write-off anyway. As long as Angie was able to do the review assignments she'd be set.
Amanda had to work on Saturday and despite Angie's plea to go into town with her, Angie was forced to stay in Forks. This would be the longest time she'd spent in the house and the first time that she'd be in it alone. The reason that Angie couldn't go back to Port Angeles with her mom was because the landlady had called a maintenance worker to come to the house to fix up some of the neglected details: doors that didn't quite shut, drafty windows, and a certain light fixture that hummed in a very concerning way.
Angie stayed in the kitchen with her homework. It was still very bare, but at least the Pochodas had a basic table and a few chairs. It looked less pathetic than the Wednesday they first moved in. Angie had the radio playing to keep her company. With the eerie sounds that the house made, it was too weird to leave the place totally quiet. As awkward as she figured it would be to be in a home alone with random maintenance workers, Angie was hoping that they'd arrive soon. She'd rather be freaked out by something or someone than freaked out by nothing.
Even with the radio on, Angie was able to hear the sound of grinding gravel rocks. Someone was pulling up into the driveway. Angie went to the living room window to see. Two vehicles were coming up. One was Meredith's station wagon and behind that was a white truck. That meant the maintenance guys were here. Angie was glad that the landlady was with them.
Meredith waited for the people to get out of the truck. The man that came out of the driver's side was tall with dark black, shortly cropped hair. From the window, Angie couldn't tell what ethnicity he was, but his skin had a tan copper glow to it. The second one, who had come out from the passenger side, was almost as tall as the first; his hair was also dark black but lengthier, and though he had tanned skin, when the two men stood near one another it was clear that the passenger had less redness than the driver. The three of them, Meredith included, came up to the front porch. Angie went to the front door before they got there.
"Ah, I wasn't sure if you were going to be around. Didn't see your mother's car in the road," the landlady said when Angie opened the door.
"She had to go into work today," Angie replied.
"She left you to keep the house?" Meredith asked light-heartedly.
"I guess."
"Well, this is Nelson Perdit," Meredith introduced, "he does maintenance over at the La Push resort. He'll just be looking things over, see what needs to be done."
Angie just nodded her head. She knew why he was here. She didn't need the explanation.
"Sounds good," Angie finally said. She backed up and let the visitors enter.
At first Angie was curious about the guy who accompanied Mr Perdit since he received no introduction, but up close, despite the difference in size and skin tone, it was clear that this other guy, this much younger guy, must have been Mr Perdit's son. They had the same high cheekbones, wide framed nose, and round eye shape, but that was about it for physical similarities. By the time Angie had connected the two as father and son in her head, she realized that she must have been staring awkwardly for a quite a while. Consciously she bowed her head down a little and looked away. The Perdit son had a smile planted on his face. Angie was mortified. The first guy she meets around here that's her own age and she manages to embarrass herself before they even get in the door.
Meredith wasted no time in taking Mr Perdit to the first problem area. His son followed slowly behind, scanning the house as he went. When he came over the threshold, Angie shut the door behind him. He gave Angie half a smile and she returned one to him.
"It's pretty empty in here," he remarked.
"Yeah, we're still trying to get our stuff over," Angie replied.
"Oh yeah. Where'd you move from?"
"Um, technically just from Port Angeles," she confessed hesitantly.
"Technically?"
"We move a lot."
"So why Forks?" he asked.
"I have no idea. Wouldn't exactly have been my first choice."
He smiled and laughed a bit. "I don't blame you."
"Eli," Mr Perdit called over to his son, "can you get my toolbox from the truck?"
"Yeah, sure," Eli called back.
Angie opened the door for him and left it open. She figured that they had their work laid out for them so she went back to the kitchen to try to get some more homework done.
The son let himself back into the house and shut the door behind him. Angie watched him tote the large toolbox to his father. Mr Perdit took out the measuring tape and lined it along the bathroom door and then the door frame. He marked the wood. The door would have to be removed and the hinges replaced. He wouldn't do it now; he wanted to see the whole of what needed to be done. Meredith took Mr Perdit around and his son followed his heels like a puppy dog. Angie could hear them all muttering to one another and the sharp zip of the measuring tape retracting. It was a little distracting, but was much nicer than being completely alone in the creepy empty cabin in the woods.
Geometry, the worst part of any math class. Angie was never bad with numbers, but long answer questions were another story. She had to reread each question at least three times before she could get a good diagram doodled on the page. After about an hour of doing the calculations and writing out every detail of her work, she flipped to the back of the book only to find that her answer was completely off.
"You've got to be kidding," she sighed to herself, erasing the half a page of work she had just done. She read over the question aloud, though not loud enough for anyone in the house to have heard her. Why did she have to calculate dimensions of a non-existent bridge? When would she ever need this knowledge? She wasn't planning on being an engineer.
"Hey," a new voice in the kitchen said.
Angie looked up. It was the junior Perdit.
"Hi?" she said.
"Just giving you a heads up that we're gonna flip off the power to get a look at that hall light."
"Okay, sure."
"It's just homework anyway, right?" he joked.
"Pretty much. Who knows, maybe it'll make more sense in the dark."
"Whatch'ya working on?"
"Math. Just some dumb geometry stuff," Angie complained.
He came in and looked down at the sheet.
"Ah, long answer," he said knowingly.
"Yeah, I wish they'd just give us the diagram. It would be so much easier."
"Yeah, but who said that bridge building was easy?" he joked. "So where are you getting stuck?"
Angie was taken aback. "I never said that I was stuck," she said defensively.
He laughed, "No but your paper looks like it's seen better days."
Angie bowed her head in shame. Who did this guy think he was?
He must have taken the hint. He toned his smile down a bit. "I did this stuff last year."
So that explained it. He wasn't just a smartass.
"I've done this question like six times. There's just too many things going on, I can't keep track of them," Angie said.
"Do you mind?" he asked politely while motioning for her pencil.
She handed it to him.
He began to sketch on the top corner of her paper.
"So you've got two bridges. The support beams for each bridge come down at 32.5 degrees," as he spoke he marked the triangular supports of his bridge.
"Yeah, I get that. And the other bridge comes down at the same angle only the beams are shorter, 4 instead of 7."
"Right so what information is still missing?"
"Well it's symmetrical so it's an isosceles which means that the other corner is also at a 32.5 degree angle. I've been solving for the angle but it's always off. I think maybe the book is wrong."
"Possible, but unlikely. What you're missing is this part here," he said pointing to the original question. "There's a main support, like a table leg, so that comes down at 90 degrees, right?"
"Yeah, and the two other ones attach to it on the angle…"
"Right, but look at your question. How many triangles are you dealing with here?" he asked.
"One on each bridge…oh crap!"
He laughed. "So how many triangles?"
"It's two right angle triangles. I'm such an idiot!"
"It's tricky when they have you look at six things at once. It's trying to trip you up."
"Well it works," Angie replied taking back her pencil and writing out her formulas. Now that that frustration was out of the way, Angie became a little more conscious of how short she'd been with this actually really helpful guy. "Thanks for sketching it out," she said a little more calmly.
"No problem."
"I uh…I didn't catch your name…" Angie said awkwardly.
"Eli.".
"Angie."
"Hi."
"Hi."
The lights went out.
"Well…" Eli said being purposely awkward. "I should probably go give the old man a hand."
He left and met his father in the back of the hall where the laundry room door access was. Angie looked at the pages in front of her. There was no point to sitting around here so she went into the hallway too. She saw Mr Perdit atop a step stool unscrewing the light fixture. Eli stood close by ready to be handed the glass casing. After that the base came down and was handed down to his son, light bulb and all. Eli set everything down on the carpet.
"Light," Mr Perdit demanded.
Eli was quick at finding the flashlight in the toolbox and passing it up to his father. Mr Perdit had a look around the dark space in the ceiling.
"Well?" the landlady asked.
"I'd get a real electrician in here. It's not looking too healthy," Mr. Perdit admitted.
Meredith sighed, probably calculating how much it would cost to update the wiring.
Mr Perdit stepped down and turned to his son, "I taped the hall fuse. You can flip the others back on." He then turned to Meredith, "So aside from that, you'll need to replace the bathroom window. I can take the measurements down to the shop if you want, give you a quote. I might have some hinges, so I'll look into that. I can come do some caulking, tomorrow maybe. That door," he said pointing to Angie's room, "the wood's warped a little, it happens, I can sand it down a bit and refit it. Shouldn't be a problem." He then turned to Angie, "You have a sheet or some towels to lay down? Just to keep the dust together."
"Yeah, sure."
The kitchen and bathroom lights came on.
"Eli, I'll take top, you take bottom," Mr Perdit said.
They each removed a hinge while Angie took hold of an old table cloth and laid it in her bedroom doorway.
"Hope you don't have dust allergies," Eli joked to Angie as Mr Perdit was piecing together the parts of a sander from his toolbox.
"I guess it's safer back with the geometry," Angie said to Eli.
"Good luck," he said with a playful smile.
"Yeah, you too."
From the kitchen Angie could hear the sander go off. It wasn't long before Meredith sauntered into the kitchen too, probably to seek cover from the flying dust. It didn't take long, barely even a minute. When everything went silent, Angie and the landlady peered into the hallway to see Mr Perdit smooth the door and the door frame by hand.
"And that should do it," Mr Perdit announced with satisfaction. "Eli, you want to shake the sheet outside? Carefully."
"Sure."
His son obediently held up one corner at a time, gently shaking the scarce contents towards the centre.
"Want a hand?" Angie asked.
Eli didn't say anything but he didn't object either. Angie took two corners and he took the other two. Together they carried it outside and shook it out, trying not to breathe the little pieces in.
"So I'll be able to have a bedroom door now?" Angie asked.
"That was your door?" Eli asked her.
"It's supposed to be."
"So when do you officially move in?"
"Uh, three days ago."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, I know, it looks like we've been here a whole three minutes," Angie confessed.
"Roughing it a bit, aren't ya?"
Angie gave a pathetic half smile and gathered up the table cloth until it was in a ball against her stomach.
The awkward pause was cut short by the sound of crunching gravel. Her mom was home.
Angie watched for Eli's reaction. Most people generally did a double take when it came to her mom, especially if they knew she was her mother. But Angie was the one who was surprised. Eli seemed unmoved. He just had a generally cheerful personality.
Amanda parked a fair distance from the two vehicles in the driveway, giving them room to back out later. She opened the back door and pulled out a large box. She struggled to get hold of it but once she got it she held onto it as if her life depended upon it. She shut the car door with her hip and walked up the drive.
Eli bounded off the porch towards the lady of the house.
"Need a hand with that?" he asked politely.
Amanda could barely see him past the rectangular box. "Oh, hello," Amanda said awkwardly yet friendlily. "No thank you, I've got it."
Eli wouldn't take no for an answer. He took hold of it.
"Oh, okay, then," Amanda said awkwardly as she released it to the strange teenage boy. "Just inside the door then."
She walked behind him as he went back up to the house. When she got to the porch and saw her daughter standing there, she said perkily, "Hey pumpkin. Who's the kid?"
"His name is Eli, he's helpful," Angie replied very matter-of-factly.
"Apparently. Is he part of the maintenance crew?"
"Yeah, his dad just fixed my door."
"Oh good."
Amanda wasted no time in finding Meredith standing over Mr Perdit. She caught them both off guard. Meredith was friendly, but Mr Perdit just kept screwing the hinges back in place and was intending to be ignored.
Amanda would not be ignored. Immediately she began to introduce herself. Her optimistic nature was very often unexpected by those meeting her for the first time. Meeting the Perdits was no exception. She didn't have a sarcastic undertone like her daughter did. In fact, it was as if Amanda was completely unaware of the dismal environment currently surrounding her. Right away she tried to take up conversation with Mr Perdit, resulting in completely ignoring the landlady's contributions on who Mr Perdit was, what he did for a living, and what he was actually contributing to the cabin.
Mr Perdit seemed more than a little awkward around Amanda's intensity. Angie could only laugh inside. Amanda's friendly voice and flirty voice were often mistaken one for the other. This one was just the friendly voice, but only Angie could identify it as such.
Mr Perdit kept all personal answers short.
Yes, he is married.
Yes, he and his family lived in La Push.
Yes, he went to college and was a certified carpenter.
No, he had no intentions of moving off of the reserve.
Yes, the resort is lovely.
Amanda Pochoda could natter on and on about himself all day long. She could also list-off millions of questions that Angie often felt never needed to be asked. Angie had a greater sense of personal space. If someone wanted you to know their life story, they would probably just tell you. Angie didn't believe in digging into people.
While Mr Perdit was trying to change conversation to address the structural needs of the rental house, Eli had the biggest smile on his face, trying very hard to hold back the immense laughter building up inside of him. He knew his dad to be the shier type. Being flirted with a bubbly young white woman he just met was, to say the least, awkward. If his dad knew how to blush, he would have been red as a tomato by now. That was one of the ways Eli and his father differed. Eli's cheeks always went pink, but Nelson Perdit (and his father, Moses Perdit) had a great deal of calm in them that seemed to keep him totally serene, even if he didn't actually feel the intensity of emotions.
Angie couldn't let the group continue to suffer. It was time to pull her mother back.
"Hey, Mom," she interrupted, or at least tried to. Amanda basically brushed her daughter off with the typical adult phrase "I'm talking." Angie just shook her head and shrugged. She looked over at Eli who still had the largest smile planted on his face. This was not a great start.
