Chapter 48 – First room is finished

As soon as the beams for the upper floors are delivered, the men spend every free minute laying them. All the men, including Marc.

Claire is helped with the cooking by the other women as much as possible. Elise turns out to be a golden asset in the kitchen. Jokingly, she once says that she learned to cook well thanks to the saying: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

They see little of Lana, because she has thrown herself completely into the basement room. She wants to make the space beautiful and habitable for Mimi and Noa. Reluctantly, she clears out the old stuff from the wizard’s room. She puts all the books, pots, and mysterious things into crates and stacks them at the end of the hallway.

She paints the walls in soft shades. She finds the floor so beautiful that she wants to keep it, but for extra comfort, she lays down rugs in the right places anyway. She finds several beautiful rugs in thrift stores. She also discovers a large, old closet there consisting of two parts: the lower part has three drawers, and the upper part has shelves behind one door and a hanging rail behind the other.

Next, she cleans the old rack and the chest and gets Danni and Noa to move them from the small room to the large room. At the same time, they bring the large new closet downstairs.

She leaves only the front untouched because of the movable wall.

When JP comes to see how the room has turned out, she asks him to hang a door in the opening so that the couple has a bit more privacy.

“You’ve really made something beautiful out of it, sweetheart,” he says, while giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Only… that door will have to wait a little while. I’m already behind on everything. My own clients are almost starting to forget about me because of our extension.”

He rubs his neck and looks around one more time.

“Hang a curtain in there for now,” he says then. “Lisa will surely enjoy doing that.”

Included in the mail is a formal demand for payment for Marc from the car rental company. On the advice of their legal expenses insurance, Mimi requests, on behalf of Marc, that the company provide the rental agreement and a copy of his driver’s license. Legally, the rental company is required to make that copy.

To their surprise, they soon send both, along with his address and phone number.

“That isn’t my signature,” Marc says sharply. He throws the papers on the table. “This is a forgery.”

“Calm down,” Mimi soothes. She slides the papers towards her. “If you can show where you *were*, they won’t stand a chance.”

Marc exhales audibly. “I can do that. Easily, even.”

In those days, he was on tour with the dance company in southern Europe. With the many photos taken at the time, it is easy to prove. Together, they create a good collage and send it to their legal expenses insurance. The insurance company then sends a legally substantiated statement to the car rental company. Now it is a matter of waiting to see if the company agrees to this, so that the matter can be settled.

The work on the house is progressing well. The shell is finished. The interior and exterior walls of the kitchen and upper floor are complete, including the low wall for the balustrade of Claire and Marc’s apartment. The ceiling beams are in place and the rooms have a working floor.

It is time to move the kitchen table to the dining room. To make a bit more room for the dining table, Danni has to move first. Fortunately, Lana has the room ready for Mimi and Noa.

She proudly presents the space to them, including the second-hand stove she bought.

“It just needs to be connected,” says Lana casually.

JP lets his gaze rest on the stove and sighs. “Of course. Just something else.”

“Yes, that is,” says Lana immediately. “Once it works, you can cross ‘connecting the stove’ off your list again.”

He looks at her for a moment, and then has to grin anyway. “You win.” He nods towards the heater. “For the winter. Promised.”

Mimi admires the painting on the cupboard doors: a pink ballerina on the left door, a shoemaker’s hammer on the right.

“You’ve really made something special out of this,” she says softly.

She wraps her arms around Lana. “Thank you.”

Noa nods once. “Beautiful,” he says simply.

“Lisa made and hung the curtain,” says Lana.

JP sniffs. “Yes, and that door keeps staring at me from my frame.”

“Never mind,” says Mimi immediately. “This works fine like this. Really.”

She leans against Noa. “We’ll manage.”

Noa wraps his arms around her. “We don’t need anything more.”

“If you guys hurry up a bit now,” says JP, “then Danni can go upstairs and we’ll finally have room for the kitchen table. It will be tight, but then someone will just have to sit on the stairs to eat.”

The move is arranged quickly and goes smoothly. They form a human chain once again to get all of Mimi and Noa’s belongings down the stairs. They are done with Danni’s bed and other things in no time.

Marc looks at Claire with a skeptical expression when they end up with someone under their sleeping floor again; fortunately, it is temporary.

“Just admit it,” says Claire with a smile. “It was fun with Mimi and Noa.”

Marc shrugs his shoulders. “Yes, it was fun.”