Hissy Fit (14 page)

Gloria wrinkled her nose
as I slathered lotion on my face, neck, arms, and legs.

“What is that hideous smell?” she cried. “Surely you’re not going to see a client smelling like that.”

“It’s the latest thing,” I said, handing her the tube so she could see. “Deep Woods Off!”

“I take it you’re headed out to Mulberry Hill?” she asked, looking up from the auction catalog she’d been marking up.

“Yup. I’m meeting the furniture truck over there in half an hour. With all the rain we’ve been having, those woods are swarming with skeeters.”

I crossed my fingers. “The HVAC guys got the new heat and air unit installed in the pump house yesterday, and the painters were supposed to have finished up last night, and with any luck, the floors will be dry too.”

“What did you decide to do about the floors?” Gloria asked.

“I had the old brick pressure washed, and they cleaned up really nice. Just slicked ’em up with a matte-finish polyester.”

“Good.” She nodded her approval. “What’s your client think about what you’ve done so far? Is he aware of the miracles you’ve worked on his behalf?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “He’s livid that we’re three days behind schedule. He wanted to move in on Friday, but the rain delayed everything. Now here it is Monday, and he’s been calling me every few hours for updates. Will just takes it for granted that stuff happens like this all the time. He has no idea that it’s not the normal procedure to take a nasty old brick pump house and turn it into an adorable guest house in under a week.”

“Men,” Gloria said.

“Yeah, but in his defense, he’s been incredibly busy. He’s got some new miracle bra that he’s working on, and it’s going to take totally re-tooling the plant to get it into production. And then there’s Stephanie.”

“His dream date,” Gloria said dryly.

“We’ll see,” I said. “I know they had their first date last week, and I haven’t had the nerve to ask Will how it went.”

“She’s crazy if she doesn’t jump all over him like a tick on a dog,” Gloria said. She smoothed her hair behind one ear. “That Will is just as yummy as they come. Don’t you just want to lick him all over?”

“Gloria!” I said, shocked. “Don’t be vulgar.”

“I speak the truth,” she said, winking. “And you know it.”

“He’s my client, not my john,” I said. “Anyway, he has red hair. And freckles. Furthermore, I am officially done with men.”

“Right…” she drawled.

“I mean it. I’m going to be like you, Glo. Strong, independent, a woman of substance…”

“You mean a shriveled up old maid with a healthy bank account? No. I absolutely forbid it. Anyway, what makes you think I’m done with men?”

“Aren’t you?” I looked at my aunt carefully. “Are you seeing somebody?”

“None of your beeswax,” she said tartly, going back to her catalog. “All I’m saying is, don’t judge all men by A. J. Jernigan. And don’t overlook the obvious.”

“It’s not obvious to me,” I fired back, gathering up a huge tote bag of stuff I was taking out to Mulberry Hill for the installation. I had my tool kit, with an electric screwdriver, tack hammer, pliers, scissors, measuring tape and yardstick, level, stud finder, and assorted nails, tacks, and other picture-hanging doodads. Plus some hand-sanitizing wipes, paper goods, aspirin, cleaning supplies, a huge can of bug spray, and a bottle of Scotch. Will struck me as a Scotch drinker. Not that I am. Can’t stand the stuff.

I’d also packed a cooler with several bottles of water, cheese and crackers, some peaches, a large plastic bag of green seedless grapes, and a bottle of Chardonnay.

“Looks like you’re packing for an expedition to Malaysia,” Gloria observed.

“I don’t want to have to come all the way back into town if I forget anything,” I said, slinging the tote over my shoulder. “And you do realize, I’m totally furnishing this place? Will claims not to have any belongings besides his clothes and a few books that he wants to move in with. So that means the works. Dishes, pots and pans, linens, silverware. You should see the trunk of the Volvo. I had to rig it closed with a bungee cord.”

“We’re billing for all this time, right?” Gloria asked.

“Absolutely. Hourly, plus cost-plus for all the stuff I had to buy. We’re going to have a very nice payday this month.”

“Good thing,” Gloria said. “Our billings are way behind for the year.”

“Still? I thought things were picking back up again. A.J. swore he’d tell his daddy and brother to quit trying to drive us out of business.”

“We did get the carpet in the bank laid and paid for,” Gloria said, frowning. “But it’s just slow. Very slow. And it’s nothing I can put my finger on.”

I sighed. “I can. It’s me. People in this town still can’t get over the fact that I called off the wedding. And it’s so damn unfair. It’s not my fault A. J. Jernigan couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

Gloria got up and walked me to the door. “I’ll tell you a little secret. That’s how all Jernigan men are. Every damn one of ’em.”

My eyes widened. “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t mean A.J.’s daddy. I don’t believe it. The way people in this town talk? I would have heard something like that. Anyway, GiGi wouldn’t put up with Big Drew’s foolin’ around on her.”

“I mean all of ’em,” Gloria said firmly. “I kept my mouth shut before,
since you were marrying into the family. I really thought maybe A.J. was different. But he’s a hound just like all the rest of ’em. A.J.’s granddaddy, Chub? Back in the sixties, when this was still a dry county, there was a place, a roadhouse out there off of 441. It didn’t have an official name, everybody just called it BeBo’s. I was just a little kid, but my mama said nobody nice would ever step foot in BeBo’s. It was where the locals went to drink and dance and whore around. And guess who owned it? Chub Jernigan. And the woman who ran it, her name was Cherie. She was Chub’s mistress. Big Drew wasn’t any better. You know Angela Baker, that ditzy brunette who used to work the drive-up window at the bank? How do you reckon somebody with only an eighth-grade education kept a job at a bank?”

“Angela Baker used to always give me green lollipops when I went with Daddy to make the dealership’s bank deposit,” I said. “Are you saying she was screwing around with Drew?”

“Yes ma’am, and she was just the first in a long line. GiGi knew about it too. She only made Big Drew fire Angela after he tried to promote her to assistant manager.”

“You’re making all of this up,” I accused her. “I’ve lived in Madison my whole life, and I never even heard a whisper about a place like BeBo’s. Or about Chub Jernigan. He was on the County Commission, Glo. And so was Big Drew too. And A.J.’s granddaddy was a vestryman at Church of the Advent. There’s a stained-glass window in his honor. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”

Gloria gave me a sad smile. “It’s not something that gets talked about a lot in polite society, but if you don’t believe me, ask your daddy. He eats breakfast every morning of the year, practically, over there with Big Drew and all the rest of the men at Ye Olde Colonial. I bet he knows a lot worse stuff about the Jernigans than I do. Not that he’d ever say a word to you about it.”

I felt tears rising in my eyes. It was one thing to catch your fiance screwing your best friend, but this was too much. Before the wedding debacle, I really liked A.J.’s family. GiGi had been a dream
client. She’d treated me like a real daughter. After my first “official” date with A.J., she’d taken me out to lunch at the club and beamed at me across the table. “I couldn’t be happier about you two,” she’d said then. “A daughter, finally, after all these years.”

And Big Drew was funny and sweet and thoughtful. He’d given me a pair of diamond earrings as an engagement gift, and told me they’d been made out of a pair of Chub’s old cuff links. The thought made me shudder. I bit my lip and brushed away a tear.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Gloria said, giving me a hug. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that stuff. It all happened a long time ago. But I figured you’d probably hear about it sooner or later. And it just makes me so damn mad that the Jernigans are still taking this wedding stuff out on us and our business.”

“It’s okay,” I said, pulling in a deep breath. “You were right to tell me. I’m a big girl. It just came as a shock, that’s all.”

“Thank God you didn’t marry into that bunch, after all,” Gloria said briskly. “I’m not about to let them drive us out of business. Now, I don’t want you worrying about this. I’m sorry I even brought it up. Everything will be fine. This Mulberry Hill job’s gonna put us on the map. You wait and see.”

The shop’s front door opened, and Austin popped his head inside. “Hellooo,” he sang out. “Keeley, are you ready to roll yet? Janey’s minding the store over at my place, but she says she can only stay till five-thirty ’cuz her Wal-Mart shift starts at six. So let’s get going. I cannot
wait
to see what you’ve done with that old pump house.”

Gloria raised one eyebrow. “You’ve roped Austin into this?”

Austin stepped inside the shop. He was dressed in a pair of immaculate white zip-front coveralls, and he had a white canvas painter’s cap perched backward on his nearly bald head. Red Converse high tops finished off the outfit, which he’d accessorized with a red bandana tied jauntily at his throat.

“I roped myself in, Glo,” he said. “I’m Keeley’s junior apprentice
trainee for the day. She’s going to teach me all the tricks of your trade. And I am absolutely aquiver with anticipation.”

“I told him,” I said. “It’s dirty, brutal, agonizingly painstakingly awful work. And that’s just for the window treatments. But he wouldn’t be talked out of it. And I could actually use his help, if we’re going to get everything done in one day.”

Gloria tsk-tsked. “I’d do it myself, if I could. But I promised to take some wallpaper books and flooring samples over to Mozella this afternoon.”

“Mozella? She’s going to do the beauty parlor over again?”

“I know,” Gloria said, shaking her head. “It’s only been a year since we redid the shampoo room and the bathroom. It’s fine just like it is. I think maybe she’s just feeling sorry for us and is giving us make-work. But if she wants to spend her husband’s money, it’s not my business to tell her not to.”

“Y’all,” Austin said, tapping his foot impatiently. “Can you talk this girl chit-chat later? I can hear that pump house just crying out for my artistic license.”

“Go on,” Gloria said, waving us out the door. “Make magic. And don’t forget to take pictures.”

The shoulder of the highway at the entrance to Mulberry Hill was lined with a dozen or so battered pickup trucks and cargo vans. New asphalt road had been paved over the old mud road, and huge piles of fresh-cut timber and underbrush were stacked on either side of the shiny black pavement. The shaggy old boxwoods had been closely clipped, and a couple of Mexican workers were putting the finishing touches on whitewashed brick pillars marking the entry to the new drive.

“So this is it,” Austin said, craning his neck to see down the road ahead. “I’ve been by this spot millions of times, and I never dreamed there was a mansion back in here.”

“This was a kind of lovers’ lane when I was in high school,” I said. “But you couldn’t drive back in very far, because they had it chained
off. Don’t expect too much now. There’s still a lot of work to be done to the big house.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Tell me when we’re there. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

The Volvo breezed down the nice level road, and I was grateful for all the clearing the landscape designer and his crew had accomplished. I made the sharp turn, the meadow came into view, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Waves of Queen Anne’s lace; orange daylilies; scarlet, white and purple cosmos; black-eyed Susans; and other wildflowers I couldn’t name spread out before me. The sides of the meadow had been fenced with a simple white fence, and on the right side of the field, a sturdy brown mule munched on a bale of hay that was stacked under one of the water oaks.

“Very nice,” I murmured.

“What?” Austin demanded. “Are we there yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m just admiring the landscape. Thank goodness Will had the sense to let it mostly alone.”

He raised the fingers of one hand and peeked out. “Oh heaven!” he exclaimed. “Do you know what kind of arrangements I can make with all these little goodies?”

At the end of the meadow the green lawn had been resodded, rolled, and manicured to golf course perfection. A new boxwood hedge marked the transition from meadow to lawn, and the front of the house loomed ahead, its façade covered with a network of bright yellow scaffolding, where workers scraped away at the remains of the old paint.

“That’s it!” Austin said, his voice reverent. “Mulberry Hill. It’s divine, Keeley.”

“Not yet,” I said, smiling to myself. “But it will be.”

As we got closer to the house, another cluster of cars parked around to the side came into view. More trucks and vans, and a big old yellow Cadillac.

Austin jumped out
of the Volvo before I’d even turned off the motor. He craned his neck and shaded his eyes with his hand to look up at the worker who was reframing the old balcony over the front portico.

“Divine,” he said. “Like out of a Hollywood movie. I keep expecting Scarlett O’Hara to come running out the door in a hoopskirt. It’s like Tara or something.”

Will strolled up just in time to hear Austin’s gushing.

“Better,” he said, sticking out his hand to shake Austin’s. “The O’Haras didn’t have Glorious Interiors on the payroll.”

“Austin,” I said, setting my tote bag on the ground. “This is our client, Will Mahoney. He suffers from flights of fancy and delusions of grandeur. But he’s loaded, so we try to overlook his lesser qualities. Will, this is Austin LeFleur. Austin is the most talented floral designer in Georgia, and he’s helping me out with the installation today.”

“Oh, Keeley,” Austin said. “Stop. You’re embarrassing me. I’m just a flower fluffer, that’s all.”

Will and Austin shook hands and checked each other out. I glanced around the construction site. “Hasn’t the truck gotten here yet?”

“Your driver called a little while ago,” Will said, gesturing to the cell phone clipped to his belt. “He’s running about thirty minutes late.”

“The story of my life,” I muttered. I hefted the tote bag back onto my shoulder. “Never mind. Let’s take a look at the pump house. Have you checked it out yet?”

“Waiting on you,” Will said. He turned toward the Volvo. “Does all this get taken inside?”

“Every bit of it,” I said. “Plus what’s on the truck.”

The three of us loaded ourselves down with boxes and bags, and we picked our way through piles of bricks, sand, and lumber, around to the back of the property.

The steady summertime rain had subsided just long enough to make the air as hot and sticky as a wet wool blanket, and a cloud of mosquitoes hovered around my face. My shirt was drenched by the time we made it to the pump house, and my face, where I’d missed applying the bug repellent, stung from numerous mosquito bites.

“Wow,” I said, getting my first look at the site in a week. “Unbelievable.”

The thick bramble of kudzu, wisteria, and poison ivy that had previously engulfed both the brick structure and the ground around it had been hacked away. A rustic patio of old brick skirted the little house, and a new tin roof gleamed in the sunlight. Will’s masons had built a new chimney of stacked rock taken from a creek on the property. Windows that had last week been broken and caked with grime had been stripped, reglazed, and painted, their frames a deep green-black to match the paint on the arched front door. A pair of ancient black cast-iron pots stood on either side of the door, planted with fragrant topiaries of rosemary.

“The pots?” I asked, turning to Will, who was watching me with barely suppressed anticipation.

“Kent Richardson, the landscape designer, found ’em out in one of the sheds,” Will said. “He says they were old boiling pots, used to do laundry. He planted them up and put them here. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“They’re great. The perfect touch.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and shifted my load of gear and pushed the door open. Cool air floated out to greet us.

“Heaven,” I said, pushing the door wider to let Austin and Will inside. “If nothing else, you’ve got air conditioning.” I pulled my shirt away from my body to let the air cool me down.

“And fresh paint,” Austin said, inhaling deeply. “There’s nothing like the smell of fresh paint.”

Will felt on the wall for a light switch, and three old black pendant fixtures that had come out of a torn-down Atlanta saloon made the dim room come alive. He set the boxes down against the wall and walked around.

The pump house had originally been nothing more than a one-room brick hut, twelve feet wide by twenty feet long. With almost no time for an extensive remodeling, I’d come up with a plan to divide the long, high-ceilinged room into two areas. The front half would be Will’s living and dining areas, with a new double-sided stacked rock fireplace the focal point of the seating area, and the dividing wall between the living area and the only bedroom. We’d fitted a tiny galley kitchen in the left corner of the living area, and behind it, on the other side of the heart-pine dividing wall, was the bathroom and the bedroom. Because the area was so small, only two hundred and forty square feet, and dark, with only four smallish windows, we’d whitewashed the exposed brick walls, but left the brick floors their natural color. After the main house was ready, the pump house would be used as a guest house.

“Not bad,” Will said, looking up at the exposed heart-pine ceiling beams. He bent down and ran his hands over the slate hearth by the fireplace. “Not bad at all.”

I gave him a sharp look. “Not bad? It’s a friggin’ miracle. Your foreman should get some kind of combat pay and performance bonus for pulling this off this quickly.”

“He has,” Will said, straightening up and dusting his hands on the seat of his worn blue jeans. “Let’s see how the new bathroom looks.”

Even the new door to the sleeping area was old—a weathered cedar number we’d discovered in another of the sheds on the property. Cleaned up and fitted with a heavy black iron doorknob, it swung easily on its new hinges.

Sunlight filtered into the bedroom from the windows near the roofline, and the polished brick floors gleamed with a dull sheen. The three of us stepped inside the room. Will crossed over to another of the cedar doors set into the heart-pine dividing wall and opened it. We’d used more of the heart-pine boards for the bathroom walls.

The room was tiny, but efficient. One of the carpenters had built a primitive heart-pine vanity, with a hammered copper sink set into it. There was a commode, and a shower stall with glass block walls.

“Everything a guy could need,” Will said approvingly. He gave me an appreciative thump on the back. “You done good, Keeley.”

I nodded my own approval. “I just designed it, Will. Your guys did the work. And even three days past your impossible deadline, they did a fantastic job.”

“I could move right in,” Austin said.

“Me first,” Will said.

“Right. I guess we’ll go ahead and start unpacking the kitchen stuff while we wait on the truck. And Austin, if you’ll find a stepladder, you could start hanging the drapery rods.”

“Draperies?” Will frowned. “I thought this was gonna be pretty basic out here. Why do I need something as fancy as drapes?”

“Not really drapes,” I reassured him. “Just a little something for privacy. And to keep the morning sun out of your eyes. Wait until you see. I promise, you’ll like them.”

While Austin got started on the rods, I moved the boxes and bags of cooking equipment into place. With only three compact cabinets and three drawers, it didn’t take long to set everything up.

Will lounged against the wall near the refrigerator, watching me work. When I’d put the last fork and spoon away, he clapped his hands.

“Great. Want to see how the work’s coming on the big house?”

I glanced over at Austin, who was just screwing one of the black wrought-iron rod holders into the wall over one of the living room windows. “Go ahead,” he called out. “I’ve got this covered.”

The sounds of nail guns and power saws competed with tinny salsa music from a boombox perched on the back of a pickup truck and grew louder as we approached the back of the house. I was amazed at the progress here too. Concrete footings had been poured for the new wing, plywood subfloors had been laid, and yellow pine framing outlined the skeleton of the walls and the high pitched roof. Half a dozen men in hard hats clambered over the two-story addition.

“Where did you get these guys?” I asked.

Will grinned. “They’re all laid-off Loving Cup plant workers. Miss Nancy’s idea. She said, since I was, quote ‘spending so GD much money on my mansion, why didn’t I give some of the GD guys a chance to earn a decent paycheck.’ She called ’em all up and told ’em to get their GD asses out here. Said if they wanted to show me how hard they could work, this would be the way to do it.”

“That sounds exactly like Miss Nancy,” I said.

“Come around to the front,” Will said, taking my elbow to guide me through a labyrinth of scaffolding. “Careful. The guys are working so hard and so fast, trying to make up time lost because of the rain, they forget to look to see if anybody’s down below.”

A chunk of two-by-four went whizzing by my head, and I jumped to get out of the way. “GD! I see what you mean.”

At the front of the house I noticed for the first time that a newly laid set of brick steps flowed gracefully up to the porch, where the old rotted-out floorboards had been ripped out. New concrete-block underpinnings had been laid, and a mason was lying on his back, applying brick to the concrete veneer. Sturdy new framing was in place, and now the porch extended all the way around to the east and west sides of the house. Two men were busy nailing new floorboards to the support beams.

Will gestured toward the doorway. “That got here yesterday. The guys hung it just before you arrived.”

I’d bought the front door online, from an architectural salvage yard in Jackson, Mississippi. It was a nine-foot-tall solid cypress door
that had come out of an old convent in Louisiana, and it even had the original ornate brass hinges and doorknobs.

Electricians were busy in the front parlors, snaking rolls of conduit through small holes in the plaster walls. We walked down the center hallway, and Will opened the door that had formerly opened into nothing. Now though, sunlight flooded the hallway, and we stepped out into the newly framed addition.

“Hey, Mr. Mahoney,” one of the carpenters called down.

Will looked up and waved. “Good work, Jerry. Keep it up and we’ll be roofing by the beginning of the month.”

“You’re dreaming,” I said. But we both knew I was impressed. He started climbing the temporary stairs to the second floor, and I followed behind.

“Speaking of deadlines,” I said, “how did your date go last week?”

Will reached the top step and stepped out onto the plywood planking for the second floor. He walked over to the outer wall and looked through one of the window openings. “Hmm?”

“Your date? With the future mistress of Mulberry Hill?”

“You mean Stephanie?” He didn’t turn around. “Fine. Great. Fantastic.”

I stood beside him and looked out the window. From here you could see the shiny new roof of the pump house, and a couple of other outbuildings that had been reroofed. Everything else was a carpet of green.

“Is she everything you expected?” I asked, digging for details.

“Better,” he said.

He was a virtual font of information. I decided to try another line of questioning.

“What did you two talk about? Was it awkward, like a blind date?”

“Not really,” he said, shrugging. “We talked about what people usually talk about. Her work. Mine. What we like to do in our spare time. What we’re reading. What we like to eat and drink. Like that.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Stephanie drinks cosmopolitans.”

He turned to look at me and frowned. “Is that some kind of put-down? Anyway, how’d you know?”

“I worked as a cocktail waitress at the country club one summer after graduation,” I said. “Stephanie just looks like a cosmo drinker. Girly, kind of.”

“And what do you think I like to drink?”

“Easy,” I said. “Single malt Scotch. And Sam Adams beer.”

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “How’d you do that?”

“The Scotch was just a good guess,” I admitted. “But I was with you when you bought Sam Adams. Remember?”

He looked puzzled. “No. When was that?”

“At the Minit Mart. The night we came out here and you showed me the house? And afterward, you stopped at the Minit Mart for a beer…” I felt my face start to burn at the memory of that night, and my discomfort had nothing to do with the hot Georgia sun beating down on our heads. “And we ran into Paige Plummer. She was going into the store just as you were getting into the car…”

He scratched his beard and looked over at me, all sweetness and innocence now. “Oh, that night. I remember some of it. I remember stopping at the Minit Mart. And I remember that Paige chick. Oh yeah. I remember kissing you. That was nice. Very nice.”

I turned my back toward him, hoping he wouldn’t see my flaming red cheeks. “But I’m damned if I remember the Sam Adams beer,” he said, chuckling.