The Fixer Upper (21 page)

J
immy promised to put away my groceries while I ran upstairs to shower and change. I paused in front of Ella Kate’s door on my way to the bathroom. I hesitated, then knocked. “Ella Kate?”

She opened the door a crack and looked out at me.

“Did the vet call? Any news about Shorty?”

“He’s doin’ good,” she said. “They told me we can carry him home tomorrow night, probably. Unless he has a setback or something.”

“Great,” I said. “I’m so glad he’s all right.”

She closed her door without any more idle chitchat.

I had no idea where Jimmy Maynard planned for us to have dinner, but as I stood in front of my closet, I decided any place, even the Canton Buffet, would be a treat, because it was a change. I didn’t want to get too dressy, because I didn’t want Jimmy thinking that I thought this was a real date. But on the other hand, he
had
just painted half of my house. The least I could do was put on something other than Uncle Norbert’s flannel shirt and overalls. In the end, I put on a gauzy white embroidered peasant blouse with a drawstring neck, and a turquoise-and-yellow cotton skirt that fell loosely to my ankles. I felt funny about the blouse’s low neckline, so I fished around in my jewelry box until I came up with one of my mother’s necklaces. You’d have sworn it was some expensive Navajo turquoise and silver antique at first glance, but Lynda had proudly told me that the green “gems” were in reality bits of smashed Heineken bottles she’d found on the side of the road, set into aluminum strips made from flattened-out soda cans. I had dangly drop earrings to match, and when I twirled in front of the cloudy old mirror on the back of the closet door, I felt strangely lighthearted and carefree.
It was the first time since I’d moved to Georgia that I’d worn makeup—and earrings.

Jimmy gave an appreciative wolf whistle when I walked into the parlor. He put down the paper he’d been reading—the
National Enquirer
—and stood up. “Well, Miss Dempsey Killebrew,” he said. “You do clean up nice. Now I guess I’ll have to go home and change into something that won’t make you embarrassed to be seen with me.”

“Not at all,” I said. “You look fine. I just felt like dressing up tonight. It’s sort of a celebration, actually.”

“I’ll want to hear all about it,” he said. “Right after I slip into something a little more comfortable.”

We pulled into the driveway of his house, which was, as he’d promised, only a few houses down from Birdsong. “I’ll wait in the car,” I told him. I was secretly feeling a little uneasy about being alone in a house with a man who’d cheerfully told me—from the first moment we’d met—that he planned to seduce me.

“Awww,” he said. He put one finger under my chin. “I swear, I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Come on inside, I’m a real estate agent, I got to show off my place, you know.”

I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting what I saw when I walked through the door of Jimmy Maynard’s tidy brick Colonial Revival cottage.

“Wow.”

The inside of the house was light years away from the outside. It had been totally gutted, leaving exposed whitewashed roof beams and rafters, and exposed air-conditioning ductwork. The wooden floors were stained ebony, and finished with a high gloss. I was standing in one large, multipurpose room. A kitchen—all high-tech and industrialchic stainless steel—was situated at one end of the room, at the other, a wall of glass blocks sectioned off what I supposed was the only private space in the house, the bathroom and bedroom. Each wall was painted a different, bold color—tomato red, cadet blue, school bus yellow, acid green. The furniture was contemporary—and surprisingly good. I walked over to a scooped-out white leather lounge chair.

“Is this?”

“Yup,” he said with a smirk. “Eames. Walnut base. Signed and numbered, original leather upholstery. I bought it for ten bucks from a guy who sets up at a flea market at the drive-in in Atlanta. Told me he got it out of a dentist’s office.”

I walked over to the sofa, a low-slung chrome and black leather creation with characteristic strapping. A white tulip Saarinen table stood to the side of the sofa. “And this?” I asked, patting the sofa.

“Florence Knoll,” he said. “Now this, I did buy off eBay. I got it for two hundred bucks, but of course, the seller hit me up for another two hundred bucks in shipping.”

“And it’s worth?”

He showed me the teeth again. “Last time I checked? A couple thousand.”

“You’re really into contemporary furniture,” I said. “I’m impressed.”

“I’m impressed that you’re impressed. You sure you’re a lobbyist?”

“I read a lot of shelter magazines. You sure you’re not gay?”

He laughed. “Touché.”

He pointed toward the kitchen. “There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge. Pour a glass for both of us, and make yourself comfortable. I won’t be but a minute.”

I wandered over to the kitchen. The refrigerator was the one I’d lusted after, a glass-doored Traulsen. I saw the wine, and took two glasses from a rack that hung over the sink. I poured two glasses—and took my own glass over to the sofa.

The cell phone he’d left on a console table near the door rang.

“Just ignore the phone,” Jimmy called from the other room. “The damned thing never stops ringing. One of the hazards of being in real estate.”

I sat down and sipped my wine and leafed through a magazine on the coffee table. I glanced toward the wall of glass blocks, and nearly died. The blocks didn’t just separate the bedroom from the main room, they also housed a walk-in shower. There, outlined in all his wavy glory, was a very naked Jimmy Maynard, lathering up and whistling up
a storm. I took a gulp of my wine and tried hard to concentrate on the April issue of
Elle Decor
.

Ten minutes later, Jimmy strolled out, dressed in a starched button-down blue oxford-cloth shirt, knee-length black shorts, and black loafers buffed to a high sheen. He smelled like soap and aftershave and his damp hair still bore comb marks.

“Hey,” he said, picking up the glass of wine I’d poured him.

“Hey yourself,” I said. “Do you ever wear long pants?”

“Nope,” he said. “And I’ll tell you why. In the nineties, when I was in between marriages, I told myself, Jimmy, it’s time to grow up and work in the adult world. I got myself a job as a financial analyst. Worked in a high-rise tower in Buckhead. Drove a Jaguar, had an hour and a half commute every day. Made in the high six figures. And I hated every damned minute of it.

“One day, I just up and left. Took my parking pass and my security pass, and just left ’em on my desk. On my way back down here to Guthrie, I threw my necktie out the window, doing eighty on I-75. I came home, sold the Jag, bought myself a four-wheel drive, and threw out every goddarned pair of custom-tailored long pants I owned.” He preened a little and stuck out an ankle to admire himself. “Many women have told me my legs are my best feature.”

“You do have nice muscular calves,” I observed.

He sat down beside me and threw an arm over my shoulder. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, darlin’.”

I scooted away and put down my empty wineglass. “I hate to be obvious—but didn’t you promise me dinner?”

“I did,” he said. “And I never break a promise to a beautiful lady.”

Jimmy had the top down on his Jeep. He handed me a new yellow baseball cap with maynard realty embroidered across the bill. I tucked my hair up under it, and off we went. The moon was nearly full and the sky was a deep velvet blue. He drove with one hand draped across the steering wheel, and the other across the back of my seat. His
cell rang twice; both times he looked at the caller ID, shrugged, and let it go to voice mail.

“You like prime rib?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Good,” he said. “It’s prime rib night at the country club.”

He turned on the radio, and punched buttons until he came to the station he wanted. “‘The Sixties on Six,’” he said. “God, I love satellite radio.”

I recognized the song that was playing, “Under the Boardwalk,” by the Drifters, because it was one of Mitch’s favorites.

Jimmy glanced over at me. “How ’bout beach music? You like beach music?”

“Sure.”

Another grin. “You’re battin’ a thousand.”

“I grew up listening to the Drifters, the Tams, and the Platters,” I told him. “My dad’s a beach music nut.”

“Ouch. Now I really do feel like an old fart.”

“You’ll get over it.”

We pulled up in front of a sprawling one-story white stucco building nestled in ribbons of blooming azaleas. A discreet stucco sign told me we’d arrived at pine blossom country club.

Jimmy zoomed up beneath a portico, and a valet-parking kid trotted out to take the keys.

We strolled through the foyer, a tasteful affair with overstuffed sofas and glass display cases bristling with silver trophies, and into the dining room, a large, glass-walled room that looked out on the up-lit golf course.

“Mr. Maynard,” cooed the hostess, a middle-aged blonde with a short skirt and long legs. “We’ve got your regular table ready.”

The room was crowded with well-dressed people, the men in sports coats, the women in spiffy pants outfits or dresses. It made me glad I’d forsaken my overalls for the night. But nobody seemed to be looking askance at Jimmy in his shorts.

“Don’t they have a dress code here?” I whispered as we made our way through the room.

“Sure,” he said, steering me with his hand on the small of my back. “There’s rules, and there’s exceptions to rules. I try to be the exception whenever I can.”

Every other diner, it seemed, turned from their table to say hello, or got up to pump Jimmy’s hand.

“Do you know every single person here?” I asked as he pulled out my chair for me.

He scanned the room. “Hmm. Nope. There’s a couple of people I don’t recognize. Yankees, probably.”

The waiter brought over a large tumbler of ice and a beaker of what looked like bourbon. “Here’s your Knob Creek, Mr. Maynard.” He looked at me. “And for the lady?”

I shrugged. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

Jimmy laughed and patted my hand. “You’re a fast learner, Dempsey Killebrew.”

The waiter brought a basket of warm bread, and salads, and I dove into mine without any prompting.

“I love a lady who appreciates good food,” Jimmy said, leaning back in his chair to watch me eat, and ignoring his own salad.

“I’m starved,” I admitted. “I’ve been living off what my mom calls ‘bird food’ for days now.”

By the time the huge platters of prime rib and baked potatoes arrived at the table, I’d polished off all of my salad and half the basket of rolls. Jimmy, on the other hand, merely picked at his salad, while downing two beakers of bourbon. There hadn’t been time for him to eat, because every minute or two, his cell phone rang, or an old friend wandered up to the table to say hi and trade golf jokes.

“This is Dempsey,” he’d say, by way of introduction. “Oh yes,” came the invariable response. “Can’t wait to see what you’ll do with Birdsong.” And after an awkward pause, “Hope the thing in Washington works out.”

After the third variation of the Birdsong theme, I sighed. “Everybody in this whole damned town knows all about me.”

Jimmy stabbed a piece of beef and chewed thoughtfully. “You’re a hero, Dempsey. From what all we hear, the FBI tried to push you
around, and you told ’em to stick it up their W-two. This is still the heart of Dixie, darlin’. We may make noises about the New South and all that mess, but what we really mean is, ‘Fergit, hell.’ So you’re kind of a celebrity. Don’t sweat it. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”

I was about to tell him how little I was enjoying this particular ride when I saw a familiar figure get up from a table in the far corner of the room. I’d have known that mane of silver hair and erect posture anywhere. As I watched, he pulled out the chair for his dining companion, a striking brunette of about fifty, dressed in a low-cut black sweater, pearls, and well-cut black slacks. The woman stood, gave him a warm kiss on the cheek, and they strolled through the room, hand in hand, stopping at one table to chat.

“That’s Carter Berryhill!” I said in surprise.

Jimmy turned and strained his neck to see. “Yup.”

I felt a stab of something—jealousy?—in the pit of my stomach. “Who’s that woman with him? I’ve never seen her before.”

“That’s because she hasn’t been around for the past year or two,” Jimmy said calmly. He took another bite of beef. “Damn, they do a mean prime rib here.”

“Jimmy!” I rapped my knife on my water glass. “Pay attention here. Who is that woman who was kissing Carter Berryhill?”

He put down his fork. “Why, that’s just ol’ Veronica Lanier. Or maybe she goes by her maiden name now, which I never did know, since she gave poor ol’ Hammond Lanier the heave-ho. Your buddy Carter was Veronica’s divorce attorney, which was good news for her, because between Carter and Tee, they made sure that Veronica got the gold mine, also known as all the Coca-Cola stock, the house in Highlands, and the newspaper, and Hammond got the shaft. Poor dumb bastard.”

“Wait. That’s the woman who owned the paper—and she didn’t want to pay the Berryhills’ legal fees, so they ended up taking over the
Citizen-Advocate
?”

“Same one,” Jimmy agreed. “Well, not the exact same. I think ol’ Veronica’s had some work done. I know she’s been livin’ down in Florida, but those grapefruits she’s sportin’ tonight were just oranges before she took Hammond to the cleaners.”

I gave him an annoyed look. “You’re a pig, Jimmy Maynard.”

He chuckled and took a sip of bourbon. “So I’ve been told.”

“Tee told me they had to take that woman to arbitration after she disputed their legal fees. You’d think the Berryhills would have a grudge against her. But here’s Carter, playing kissy face with her in dark corners at the country club. I totally don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to get it,” Jimmy drawled. “But from the looks of things, ol’ Carter’s gonna be getting a little sumthin’ from Veronica. Hell, maybe she’s working off those legal fees you’re so worried about. I say good for Carter. There might be snow on that roof of his, but there’s still some fire in the furnace.” He grinned that bad-boy grin of his, drained his drink, and signaled the waiter to bring another.