Page 3 of Finding Basil (Foggy Basin Season Two)

Chapter Two

The movers came, and the first box he opened after directing them to come through the back door was the one with the wine.

He had a nice collection, having gained the itch for wine after a tasting where he’d met a beautiful sommelier in Napa after a work conference a few years back.

Taking out one of his favorite reds, a smooth Shiraz from Australia, he poured it into a whiskey glass and sipped it quickly as he stared at the boxes.

Sitting on the horribly ugly couch, he wondered if he’d acted rashly. Well, of course he had, but he’d never know until he gave it a shot.

After the second glass of Shiraz, he fell asleep on that ugly couch and woke the next morning more rested than he ever had. “You’re ugly, but comfortable,” he grumbled.

The things he should have grabbed were his French press, grinder, and coffee beans.

Groaning as he looked at the boxes, wishing for the one containing those to jump out at him, he decided to head to town instead.

Driving to find coffee seemed much less annoying than tearing through boxes to find his coffee.

He got up and grabbed his bag to shower and change, but as soon as he got to the upstairs bathroom, he discovered the faucet didn’t work. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The thing was ancient; the hot and cold were separated, and the faucet itself crusted with mineral deposits.

“No shower. Well, this is gonna be fun.”

He placed a call to Cordelia, but being it was before nine, he’d had to leave a message.

“Cordelia, it’s Herb Buffet. There is no water coming out of my shower. Help!”

After he ended the call, he changed his clothes and washed his face. The pressure wasn’t great coming out of the bathroom sink faucet, but at least the crust in his eyes was gone.

Heading to town, seeing the scenery roll by his windows, he forgot completely that he was having second thoughts the previous night. Even the trees looked happy, leaves and branches gently swaying in the breeze.

Split-rail fences were borders for the cows that leisurely grazed the green grass; horses ran over a small hill, their silhouettes lovely in front of the misty backdrop of the sky.

He felt like the world had slowed, letting him finally catch up to living, instead of just working and heading home to a lonely apartment that overlooked a river that he couldn’t enjoy except from a distance.

A gas station was off to the right side of the road, and he knew most had coffee. He pulled into the lot and saw a couple of young women filling their tank while simultaneously watching one girl’s phone, laughing at whatever they were seeing.

It was a cheerful scene, and one he’d never noticed in the city, but then again, he always had his face in his phone, reading emails and answering texts from his interns.

After walking into the gas station, his nose led him to the coffee on the back wall. A man of about his own age behind the counter pushed his glasses up his nose after nodding to him and bidding him a good morning.

He poured a large cup full of coffee and added sweetener and creamer before applying the lid and carrying it over to the counter. On the way, he grabbed a box of donuts and a bag of jerky, satisfied they would carry him through the morning until he could unpack his food.

“Will that be all for you?” the clerk asked, while again pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, it is. Listen, I’m new to town. Where is the best place to buy groceries?”

“Here,” he said, totally serious.

Herb had seen the prices of the goods. If there weren’t another grocery store, he might fly through his savings just on food. “Oh. Oh, sure. Thanks.”

“That’ll be twenty-five twenty-three.”

He had the cash, so he used that instead of his card and nodded to the man after he paid. “See you again soon, I think.”

“We’ll be here.”

Sipping the coffee once he got back in his Jag, he sighed as he saw the other cars in the lot and on the road. All SUVs or trucks.

His own driveway from the main road was dirt; most all the roads off the main road were dirt. His Jag was never tested for mud since he’d had it. He couldn’t imagine what a winter would be like, snow, mud, ice…

Herb’s phone rang as he contemplated getting rid of his dream car, and he answered happily, ready to not think about that. “Hello.”

“Mr. Buffet, you called?”

It was Cordelia. “I sure did. My shower isn’t working. The water won’t come on.”

“Oh? Well, I’ll send the plumber out this morning. He can check over all the plumbing for you if you’d like, saving you some time, hopefully.”

“Sure, sure, that would be great. Listen, where do you all shop around here? Please tell me not that gas station.”

“No! Ken Johnson is a good enough man, but he charges too much for everything else because he keeps his gas prices low. I’ll send you a list to your email of all the shopping around here.”

“Thank you. One more thing, I thought the appraiser said the house was sound. Am I going to keep finding problems?”

“It was listed as is, Mr. Buffet, but the foundation isn’t bad, and that is the biggest worry in these old houses. I can also email the findings to you again, but I sent that along.”

She had. Herb remembered that, but he glanced at it and promptly deleted the email. “Right. Thank you, Ms. Meadows. I appreciate you sending it again, for my records, of course.”

Pulling up to his house, he laughed as he remembered how happy he was to have bought the place. Well, it was too late for buyer’s remorse. He owned it, and now he had to also own his mistakes.

After the coffee was long gone, he had unpacked most of the kitchen boxes and the books, setting them on the wooden shelves in the living room. He contemplated where to mount the television but didn’t have time to decide as the plumber knocked on the door.

Herb jogged to the door and opened it to the big-gutted man with the gray chest hair sticking out of his open collar. “You Buffet?”

“I am.”

He was standing off to the side of the hole in the porch, staring down at it. “I’m Rob Gentry. You know you got a hole here?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Might wanna fix that.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” he joked, then, as he laughed, Rob Gentry moved his eyes to Herb’s face.

“Ain’t no joke if someone falls in it.”

“Right. I’ll call the contractor later.”

He let Rob into the house and showed him the bathroom upstairs, then left him to it so he could continue to unpack.

He was halfway down the stairs, however, when he heard it. A loud hissing, then he saw the water flowing down the worn wooden stairs under his sneakers.

“Line broke clean in half,” Rob Gentry hollered from the bathroom.

“Did it?” he whispered. “Well, I’ll be.”

He went back up to see Rob staring at it instead of jumping into action to get it to stop spraying all over the room.

“Can’t you do something?”

He was scratching his chin as he said slowly, “Well, sir, I can if you know where the main shutoff is.”

He wouldn’t know that if someone offered him a million dollars to tell them. “I have no idea.”

“Prob’ly in the basement. I’ll go down there and check.”

“Please!”

The door to the basement was in the kitchen behind the round metal kitchen table, and as Rob went there, Herb got into a box to pull out every towel he owned to try to drink up some of the water before he had water damage.

Not that he knew what water damage was, but he heard that on the news during floods. It didn’t sound like a good thing.

He was about to pull out his wavy dark blond hair when he found the towels and headed up the stairs that looked more like a waterfall at the moment. Finally, though, once he got to the top, the water went off, and he sighed in deep relief.

Rob sauntered back up the stairs as Herb was laying out towels. “There’s a hand pump out back that goes directly into one of the wells. You can pump ya some water for now for drinkin’ and such.”

“What? You mean the water in the house must stay off?”

“Well, sir, I can get it back on quick enough, but I don’t think you want that water spraying all over. Water damage ain’t good for a house, no, sir.”

“Can’t you just fix the faucet in the shower?”

“Well, sir, I’ll tell ya. Once I got down there in that basement, I got me a good look at the pipes. Not a one of them worth the metal that’s rusting out.”

Leaning back on the wall in the upstairs hall, Herb groaned, “What will that entail?”

“Full plumbin’ overhaul, yes, sir.”

Herb realized he really needed to go over that appraisal, so he’d stop getting these surprises. “Damn. That’s…a lot. How much?”

“Oh, well, that will take some figuring, but the size o’ this house and dependin’ on what kind of pipes you want, could be a couple thousand up to ten thousand.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Copper is what you’re gonna want, see? It’s the best thing, but if you want PVC, well, it’s cheaper. Not as good, o’ course, but it’ll do ya.”

He’d do some research but he knew he’d end up getting the copper if for no other reason than to avoid another plumbin’ overhaul , he’d spend the money. “How soon can you get started?”

“Tomorrow soon ‘nough?”

“That would be great. And, well, I’ll take the copper.”

“Figured ya would. I’ll be back in the mornin’, say, around six?”

“Six A.M.?”

“Yes, sir. Early to bed, early to rise and all that there.”

Herb was cautious, afraid of offending the plumber, of all people, so he asked as nicely as he could, “Could we maybe do…I don’t know…eightish?”

“Ish? I don’t do ish,” he grumbled. “I’ll be here at eight.”

As soon as he was gone, Herb poured himself a nearly full tumbler of scotch and sat on the ugly but comfortable couch, staring at the fireplace. He wanted to make a fire, but it was too warm, and it was a real fireplace. He didn’t know if he could start an actual fire.