Karma kitty's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The tub was perfect, but the rooms downstairs held nothing. Karma stood in the empty parlor and read the inspector's notice again. The deadline was six days away. Water damage had swollen the walls. The kitchen had no counters. Bare studs showed where drywall should hang. The plumbing needed rerouting, and the wiring behind the walls was old and cracked. She had a finished tub upstairs and an empty shell below. Six days would not fix all of it. She sat on the dusty floor and wrote a list. Catpocino climbed from her box of coffee cans and walked across the paper, leaving one gray print. The list ran long. Rerun the wiring. Reroute the plumbing. Hang drywall. Lay new floors. Set kitchen counters. Add stair railings. Karma counted the days against the tasks and knew the math failed. She could not haul the crumbling plaster, rent a dumpster, and pass inspection before the notice came due. She needed more time, not more hours. She walked next door to Rowan's brick house. His purple door still shone from the paint she had brushed on weeks ago. Rowan opened it before she knocked, a book folded over one hand. He had traded her the clawed-foot tub for that door, and he still grinned like he had won the deal. "You've got the look," he said. "The one from before the tub." "The inspector's coming," Karma said. "I'm not ready. I don't think I can be." Rowan set the book on his window ledge. "Then don't fight the clock. Ask the city to move it." He shrugged. "I file extensions at the library all day. People forget you're allowed to ask." Karma drove to city hall the next morning. The clerk pulled her file. Karma laid out photos on the counter: the braced foundation, the new roof, the purple and black exterior, the restored tub. "I own the deed," she said. "I've done real work. I need more weeks for the inside." The clerk studied the photos. She saw a house someone was saving, not a wreck waiting for the wrecking ball. She stamped a new date on the form and slid it back. "Ninety days," she said. "Use them." Karma held the paper in the car and breathed. The deadline had moved. The forfeiture threat was gone for now. Back home, she called a dumpster company and booked a haul for Saturday. First the old plaster came out. Then the plumber, once her paycheck cleared. She knelt and pried up a rotten floorboard. Beneath it lay sound old timber, worn smooth, aged warm. She smiled. Those planks could stay. Catpocino curled on the extension form. Karma had bought herself time. Now she had to fill the empty rooms before it ran out again.