Kyle, Zanne, maintenance overload

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle finally hits his breaking point with the groundskeeping job, and gets unexpected but very very welcome help.



It was -very- normal to see Kyle in the kitchen or dining area with books and his laptop and a somewhat beleaguered expression on his face. What was not usual was the addition of two phone books, and most surprisingly, a small pile of handwritten notes. That the notes were legible made it obvious that Kyle was not their author. Despite his attention being nearly entirely on the papers, and the phone book, he still managed to hear the footsteps, and in a fit of desperate frustration, put his head down on the table. "Shoot me? Please? I want to die. This is -way- worse than last semester's Psych homework."

"That is an awfully extreme statement to make." Zanne propped her herself against the doorway and surveyed the small paper explosion on the table. She'd been heading down to the kitchen for a snack when the whimpering noises had caught her attention. "I don't think there's anything more tedious than Psych."

"I've been shot. It sucked for way less time then this does." Literally, he'd been trying to get this done for a few days, and being shot had healed in two. Kyle left his head on the table, and waved one hand at the phone books. "I've been hung up on four times. Two because I was calling from 'that mutie school' and two because the people didn't believe that I needed roofers because I sounded like a teenager."

"Ah. Well. That can be a problem." Zanne stifled a grin at Kyle's obvious and mildly melodramatic anguish, and instead crossed the room to begin thumbing through one of the phone books. There probably wasn't a lot that could be done about the companies who refused to come out to the school because of their prejudices, but maybe the others could be persuaded. "I'm surprised that Mr. Marko didn't have someone he usually called to do this sort of thing," she remarked. "He didn't leave you a list?"

"I think he did most of it himself. Or maybe he knew people, I dunno. I'm still sorting all of his notes and stuff." Kyle answered, head still on the table. "I could do the roofing if I didn't have classes starting, maybe but there's just -way- too much." Granted, about a third of it was because he and Angel kept hanging out on the roof, so it was his own damn fault, but the rest was weather damage. "And if I didn't have to deal with the roof, I would have time to get the other stuff I -can- do done, and I really think Mr. Marko was on crack giving me this job. Big giant piles of it!"

"He'd need big giant piles of it for it to have any effect," she agreed, vaguely envious that Kyle had some kind of daily distraction. The job hunt was not going well - not if she wanted to stay in New York, anyway, - and the idea of taking some classes was beginning to sound appealing, much to her dismay. "I could give some of these others a call and see if they'll come out for an estimate, if you'd like. Retry some of the ones you've already called. What else do you need spec'd out besides the roof?"

Kyle pulled a somewhat untidily scrawled on paper from under the phone book and read off the list. "Roots growing into the pipes, they either need repaired or replaced, since they're old, but before we get mega clog and grey water everywhere. I can't do it, I don't know how to plumb. Also we're about out of warranty for two of the dryers and I KNOW they're gonna break a week after the warranty ends, because hey, Murphy's law. And we sorta abuse them. I'm pretty sure that we're gonna have to re-sod part of the lawn because we always do, but I think I can get Ms. Munroe to help me with that. And that's just the stuff I could figure out from what I know. I dunno what else and that's also a problem."

Zanne plucked the list out of his hand. "I can take a look at the pipes. We might be able to get away with just having the rotorooter guy come for now and do replacements in the spring. And I can probably do something about the dryers when the warrenties go as well. I'm fairly decent with basic home repair - plumbing, wiring, construction. Andy and I rebuilt most of our condo. It was such a disaster, I still can't believe we bought it."

Kyle gaped. And then blinked, and then shook himself. "If I built a little shrine to you, would it totally creep you out? Because I think I'm about to go do that. I have pine and everything, Yvette went all one-woman-stump-destroyer on two dead trees." The look of brain-crushing work overload was finally starting to creep off his face replaced with something halfway to eternal gratitude. "Dude, maybe -you- should've gotten my job. Pipes confuse me, unless there's Mario involved or something."

"Just don't use one of those scary dolls with the huge eyes to represent me, and we should be okay," she advised him solemnly, her eyes dancing with amusement. The poor kid. She didn't blame him for feeling overwhelmed. Being groundskeeper was a lot of responsibility to have to shoulder, especially on top of school and all of his of the extracurricular activities. Zanne smiled at him reassuringly. "I'm sure Mr. Marko knew exactly what he was doing putting you in charge. Obviously he trusted you to do right by his school. You just need to settle into the role. Give it time."

"What, like a creepy doll that follows you everywhere and has that one broken eye that never closes?" It wasn't Kyle's fault, he'd heard Angel singing it and it had gotten stuck in his head. "If I had time, it'd be better but seriously, this place is -way- too big for one person to keep up with, unless they're Mr. Marko." And yet, there was no way he was going to quit. Once you -had- a job, you didn't just go and give it up, that was stupid. "Seriously, I dunno how he did it."

"Er. Yes, like that." Zanne shot Kyle an odd look. "Anyway, Mr. Marko was about the equivalent of about five of us and a backhoe. Plus, he wasn't in school, like some of us sitting here. We're going to have to hire some of this out." She shrugged, and looked over the list again. There was so much on the list to do. Some of it could wait until spring,but...

A thought that had been swirling in the back of her mind finally solidified into words. "Or... I happen to be at loose ends at the moment. I could try to oversee some of this while you work on getting educated," she offered. "Fix the easy stuff, manage the contractors, that sort of thing."

"If it wasn't totally creepy and if I didn't have a girlfriend, and you know, wasn't totally eighteen and buried under what's gonna be like, fifteen thou in student loans, I would totally propose to you right now." Which was possibly too exuberant but given the last few months of frustration and Kyle slowly realizing that this job was Too Much, he didn't care. "Even once I'm done school, it's gonna need more than just me. I don't -wanna- be maintenance guy for the rest of my life."

"If you weren't all those things and I didn't already have an ex in the wings, I would accept," Zanne replied, shaking out a sheet of paper and starting to make notes on what needed to be done. "Alas, I fear our love is not meant to be. Do me a favor and highlight all of the contractors you called who thought you were crank calling them and cross out the ones who are phobic. We'll start from there."

Passing the phone book back to Kyle, she leaned back in her chair. "The trick, I think, will be getting the folks here used to the fact that they can't just rely on one person to get things done here anymore. Maybe someday all the 'maintenance guy' does will be to coordinate repairs and projects, while he sucks down a beer or two." She grinned. "Which is how I understand Mr. Marko sometimes managed things."

Kyle produced a highlighter from somewhere in the pile of papers-and-pens-and-notepads and went over the list quickly, and then added a few scrawled angry faces in red pen next to the ones that had struck him as particularly bigoted. "Dude, Mr. Haller pretty much told me I wasn't allowed to do that. I mean, okay, beer smells weird, and everyone says it's like, an acquired taste, but they tell me that about mustard too, and -that- hurts my face." He handed the paper over and then began sorting through the others. "Yvette's handling a lot of the tree trimming and shrubs and stuff, that's pretty much all covered. It's, yeah, I think uh, I mean, I like fixing stuff but it's not what I wanna do forever, you know? So coordinating is good."

"Organizing things is harder and more important people think it is. Why do you think the last person you want to ever piss off at work is the office assistant?" Zanne accepted the marked up sheet with a grin. The little frowny faces were really quite expressive. "We just need to get a system in place so that eventually the mansion will be able to run itself and it won't matter too much who ends up in the coordinating position. If we have folks here who can fix things, that's great. If not, then we'll have the knowledge and resources to look elsewhere." She twirled a lock of her hair thoughtfully. "Although it wouldn't be a bad idea to teach a few basic shop classes to the kids just in case. Prepare the next generation, so to speak."

"We probably gotta tell Professor Xavier that you're gonna be like, Organize The Fixing Stuff
Woman now, so I bet he might know how to set that up, if there's not already something sort in place. There was a like, engineering class that Mr. Summers did, but I don't know if anyone's taken it in a few years." Kyle hadn't, the math requirements had made his brain want to curl up and die just to look at them. "Can't hurt to ask though. Worst he can say is that we don't have anyone qualified and I'm pretty sure we have people who could teach basic stuff." Probably NOT Forge though. Forge was a great guy one on one, but a group of kids would make the inventor go loudly and messily crazy.

"That's more what I'm thinking of. Basic things like how to change an outlet without electrocuting yourself, or how to operate a power saw without needing a healing factor or a trip to the hospital." Zanne shrugged. She wouldn't mind offering some lessons to the kids, but she wasn't sure she wanted to actually teach a semester's worth of classes. There was her career she'd like to get back to. Eventually. "So once we talk to the professor we can get moving on this list?"

"Yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna complain if you want to do anything first and then talk to him, but I think it'd probably make him happier if we warned him first. Also, hey, paychecks are all sorts of handy and stuff." Kyle grinned, looking surprisingly less stressed and frazzled than he had when Zanne had entered the room. "Maybe he'll have some ideas about a class too? The guy does sort of run the place."