Hissy Fit

by Mary Kay Andrews

“No. The architect said it was probably added on when the house was moved.”

  “We could have a new window custom milled,” I said, thinking out loud. “With the four-over-four configuration of the original windows. Keep the bump-out, put in a nice window seat, maybe box the whole area in with bookcases.”

  “Great,” Will said. He pulled a small spiral-bound notebook from his back pocket and started jotting notes.

  “There’s a place down in Savannah, they sell old cypress boards salvaged from the river. We can get new millwork to replicate what was here originally. You said you have some of the old baseboards and moldings?”

  “Down in the cellar,” Will said, writing as he spoke. “It’s just an old dug-out root cellar, really, but I can take you down there and show you.”

  I’d been in plenty of those old cellars too. They were always full of spiders, crickets, mildew, and mouse droppings. “No thanks,” I said, repressing a shudder. “If you’ll just have somebody gather it all up and put it somewhere dry, so I can make sketches, that will be fine.”

  He continued writing while I went through an open doorway into a large square room adjacent to the parlor.

  “Dining room,” I mumbled, walking off the room’s measurements. Another gaping firebox stood on the far wall. Three windows on the opposite wall were tall enough to walk through.

  “French doors, maybe? Opening up to this side veranda?”

  “Great,” Will said, scribbling. “The garden designer said something about a perennial garden out that way.”

  “With a fountain,” I said, nodding. “Definitely a fountain. So you can leave the French doors open and hear the sound of the water trickling.”

  I aimed the flashlight at the ceiling and frowned. The plaster here was crumbling, revealing large patches of bare wood lathe. A naked black cord dangled from the center of the ceiling.

  “The Waterford chandelier should hang here,” I said. “Unless you want it in one of the parlors?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Here,” I said. “And we’ll find a wonderful table, maybe a set of Irish Chippendale chairs. And a fabulous sideboard. There’s an auction house in New Orleans, they put pictures of upcoming items on their webpage. They always have nice things. We’ll want some Georgian silver to splash around too. It makes a room so handsome.”

  “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good.”

  “Unless your lady friend likes French,” I said, hesitating. “We can do French, of course, but personally I think a lot of Louie-Louie is going to be too fussy for a house with such masculine bones.”

  “Masculine?” he said, gazing around the room. “A house can have a gender?”

  “Absolutely. And your house is butch. See how all these ground-floor rooms are big and square? What moldings remain are nice, but fairly simple and classical. And the house itself hasn’t been tarted up with a lot of Victorian gingerbread.”

  “Victorian is bad?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Not on a Victorian-era house, like a lot of the ones you see in town,” I said. “But it doesn’t belong on an antebellum Greek Revival house like this one. Lots of times, after the Civil War was over, when people got a little bit of money, they wanted to tack on a lot of scroll-work and doodads, just to keep up with styles and show the neighbors they weren’t flat broke anymore.”

  “But not the Cardwells,” Will said. “When cotton went bad, they never really recovered.”

  “Fortunately for you,” I said. I tugged on a door in the wall opposite the windows. “What does this lead to?”

  He batted my hand away from the doorknob. “A four-foot straight-down drop.”

  “Really?”

  “It does now. There was a jerry-rigged kitchen wing, but we ripped that off this week.”

  I went back out into the entry hall and walked rapidly through the west parlor. It was the twin to the other parlor, except that it lacked the bay window.

  “Do we really need two living rooms?” Will asked.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Lots of times, in a house of this era, we make one room a formal living room, and the other one functions as a library or study.”

  “A library,” Will agreed. “I’ve got a storage shed full of books I haven’t unpacked since I moved to Georgia three years ago.”

  “Moved from where?” I asked, running my fingers across a cracked piece of marble on the parlor hearth.

  “South Carolina,” he said. “And before that, North Carolina.”

  “And before that?” I asked. “You don’t really have a recognizable accent, do you? I know you’re not really a Yankee, but you’re definitely not a cracker boy either.”

  “Nashville,” he said. “Although I went to school at Georgia Tech. Mechanical engineering, although I took a lot of textile classes too.”

  “My daddy is a Tech man,” I said. “Maybe that’s what he likes about you.”

  “That and the Caddy.”

  A doorway on the far wall stood ajar. I pulled it open to reveal a narrow rectangular room with the stubs of old water pipes protruding from the floor.

  “The bathroom?” I asked. “I haven’t seen a sign of another one anywhere.”

  “Bathroom-slash-washroom,” Will said. “There was an old laundry tub in there that the workmen hauled to the dump. This room had the only semimodern plumbing in the whole house. There’s not a bathroom upstairs at all.”

  “We’ll have to fix that,” I said. “We can probably steal some space from the library and build a nice powder room.” I pointed to another door on the other side of the room. “What’s that lead to?”

  “Originally, it was the maid’s room,” Will said. “It had been tacked on along with the kitchen wing. The architect’s plans call for a pretty sizable addition on the back here. Kitchen, butler’s pantry, laundry room, and a breakfast room overlooking a new back porch. With another full bathroom.”

  “Good,” I said approvingly. “Some people would have added on one of those monster ground floor master suites with those hideous garden tub things and a couple of dressing rooms. But that would totally mess up the scale of this house, make it look like you’d slapped a Motel 6 onto the rear.”

  “Glad you approve,” he said, smirking.

  “Want to see the upstairs?” he asked.

  “Just a quick peek. It’s getting pretty dark out.”

  He led the way up the stairs. A makeshift banister had been constructed out of cheap pine boards. “We’ve got the original out in the workshed,” Will said. “The trim carpenter’s making new spindles and refinishing the banister. It’s one continuous piece of solid mahogany. Really beautiful.”

  Another large squarish entry hall stood at the top of the stairs, with two doors on each side. I poked my head in the first room. It had the same generous proportions as the downstairs rooms, and large windows looking out into the now starry sky.

  “Nice,” I said admiringly, walking inside. I opened what looked like a closet door, but found instead a small room, maybe six feet by eight feet.

  “A cradle room,” I cried.

  “It’s not a closet?” Will asked.

  “Well, some people call them trunk rooms. But Aunt Gloria always says these rooms were used for the family’s babies, when they were still in a cradle, but too young to go in a proper nursery.”

  “But it could be used as a closet,” Will said stubbornly.

  “What’s the matter? Doesn’t your lady friend want any children?”

  He blushed. “We haven’t discussed it. But I’d like to have lots of kids. What’s the point of having a big place like this if you don’t have a whole tribe full of kids running in and out?”

  “I’d have to agree with you,” I said. “There’s nothing sadder than putting all this time and effort into a wonderful old house like this, then seeing it run like a mausoleum. We think a home that’s full of love and life is the most beautiful home of all—even if the curtains are faded and the rugs are stained, and t
here’s dog pee on the kitchen floor.”

  “Dog pee?”

  “You know what I mean,” I said, moving back out into the hallway and into the next bedroom and then the next.

  “I’m assuming the architect’s plans call for closets and bathrooms for each of the bedrooms?” I asked, following Will back down the stairs.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “The landing area will be kept as a big informal seating area, and we’ll put a master bedroom wing over the kitchen addition.”

  “Five bedrooms?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Does this woman know what she’s in for?”

  “The new bedroom wing will balance the addition on the ground floor,” Will said, ignoring my jabs. “And I come from a big family. Two brothers and a sister. And they all have kids.”

  “You’ll have room for everybody,” I agreed.

  The downstairs was now cloaked in darkness. Will shone the flashlight out in front of us as we picked our way to the front door.

  He locked the door and jiggled the knob to make sure it was secure, then took my arm and helped me across the rickety porch floor.

  “Change your mind?” he asked.

  I sighed. “I never should have agreed to come over here and look at this place. Daddy’s right.”

  “About what?”

  “Me and old houses. I’m hopeless. A total house voyeur. You know how some people attract stray dogs and cats? I’m that way with old houses. Every old wreck I see, I want to fix up and move into.”

  “Including this one?” He was steering me through the meadow, his flashlight fixed on the path we’d previously tromped into the tall grasses.

  “It’s going to be wonderful,” I said. “Even if it kills us in the process.”

  14

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” I said, once we were back in the Caddy, tearing down the blacktop toward Daddy’s house. “If we take this job, it won’t be because we’re desperate. Have you got that?”

  “Got it,” Will said.

  I kept my hands tightly folded in my lap. “Glorious Interiors is one of the top design firms in Georgia,” I continued. “We’ve been published in all the major shelter magazines. Gloria is an adjunct faculty member at the Atlanta Art Institute. Most years we turn away more work than we accept. We’re a small, boutique design firm, and that’s how we like it.”

  “Certainly,” Will said, his expression sober. “You don’t have to trot out your credentials for me, you know. I’ve seen your work. You people are the only ones I’ve even considered hiring.”

  I waved all that off. “I don’t want you thinking we’ll settle for just any old assignment. And I don’t want you thinking the Jernigans have got me running scared.”

  “I think it’s the other way around,” Will said, grinning. “The way I heard it, A.J. left the country rather than face the wrath of Keeley.”

  “If we take this job,” I continued, ignoring his reference to A.J., “and that’s a big IF, I have to consult with Gloria. But IF we take this job, I want you to understand how we work.”

  He nodded.

  “We don’t customarily bill out by the hour. Gloria and I will come up with a proposal for the project at Mulberry Hill. We’ll present a detailed program with schematics and sample boards for each area of the house. If you approve that, we’ll proceed from there.”

  More nodding.

  I sighed. “A Christmas deadline doesn’t give us any wiggle room. It severely limits our choices when it comes to any purchases that would be custom ordered. That’s not how we usually work. Not at all. But as long as you understand those limitations, I think there is a possibility that I can change Gloria’s mind, and we can take on Mulberry Hill.”

  “Great,” Will said, his face wreathed in smiles. “Perfect. When do we start?”

  “Right away,” I said. “Assuming my aunt agrees. Can you meet me back out at the house tomorrow morning? I’ll need a set of the architect’s plans for our files. And then we’ll want to measure everything off, photograph the house for our ‘before’ pictures, and walk the property.”

  “Tomorrow? Sorry. There’s no way I can do that tomorrow. I’ve got meetings at the plant all day.”

  “What about the day after that? We really have to get started immediately if we’re going to make any headway on this thing.”

  “Can’t,” he said. “I’ll be halfway to Sri Lanka by then.”

  “Sri Lanka?” I could feel my eyebrows shoot up.

  “To look at a place we may contract out to do our stitching.”

  “Why wouldn’t you do the stitching right there at the Loving Cup plant? You’ve got sewing machines and all those people there. Half of them aren’t even working full-time.”

  He looked away.

  “Hey!” I said, alarmed. “You’re not thinking of closing the bra plant, are you? My God, things are bad enough over there. You didn’t buy it up just to close it out, did you? What are you, one of those Wall Street scavengers or something?”

  His lips pressed together in a thin white line. “I’m not a Wall Street raider. That’s not the kind of operation I run.”

  “What kind of operation do you run?” I asked. “Look. This is a small town. It may look pretty prosperous to you, but there are plenty of people who depend on Loving Cup to make a living. They’ve been hanging on by their toenails, hoping things would get better, that the assembly line would be geared back up and shifts reinstated. They would hope,” I said, my voice betraying my bitterness, “you were going to do that. They would have thought you were going to save the plant and save their jobs.”

  “I am doing my damndest to keep the plant going,” Will said. “But to do that, things have to change radically. We have to make a better product. We have to do it more efficiently, which means some of the manufacturing will have to be done overseas.”

  “In sweatshops?” I asked, my voice getting shrill.

  “With contract labor,” he said, the pitch of his own voice now barely audible.

  “I see.” I opened the passenger door and started to get out.

  “You only see what you think you see,” he snapped. “Let’s make a deal, shall we?”

  I turned around to face him. “What kind of a deal?”

  “You take care of decorating Mulberry Hill, and leave the running of Loving Cup Intimates to me.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But remember, this is all subject to my aunt’s approval.”

  “Understood. Now. One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve told me all the reasons you’re not taking this job. You still haven’t told me why.”

  The early evening breeze had disappeared without a trace. The air had gotten hot and muggy, and the collar of my shirt was soaked with perspiration. I flipped my hair off my neck and piled it on top of my head, clipping the barrette up high.

  “Because it’s impossible,” I said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “It’s going to cost you,” I warned.

  “The best always does. I don’t have a problem with that.”

  I looked over at our house and sighed. The front porch light was on, but all the upstairs lights were off. Tomorrow was a workday. I was fairly sure Daddy was sprawled out in the recliner in his den, asleep in front of the Braves game. It had gotten too dark to ride my bike back to town, and I hated to wake Daddy up to get him to give me a ride.

  “There’s something else I need from you,” I said, hating to ask.

  “What’s that?”

  “A ride back into town.”

  He started the Caddy’s engine. “Not a problem.”

  The rush of air felt good now. I hung my head back to let the wind whip through my hair.

  “You never told me anything about your woman,” I said, suddenly remembering how he’d avoided answering most of my questions about her.

  “She’s not really my woman,” he said.

  “Yet you want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars redoing this ho
use for her.”

  “For us. And she will be mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

  I shivered. “That sounds pretty creepy. You’re not stalking her or anything, are you?”

  He gave me an annoyed glance.

  “Well, what’s her name?”

  “Stephanie Scofield.”

  “You said she’s a lawyer?”

  He nodded.

  “How did you meet her?”

  “That’s not important.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Look. If we’re going to design this house so she’ll fall in love with it—and you—I’ve got to know something about her. Like, what colors does she like? What’s her taste in furniture? Is she a collector, or one of those clutter-buster types? Is she outdoorsy? Does she cook? Like to entertain?”

  He scratched his neck. “She’s blond.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you can tell me about her? Come on, Will. You must know more than that. You’re a smart guy. Tell me about her.”

  We were on Main Street now, but instead of going straight, toward the studio, Will turned the car into the Minit Mart parking lot.

  “I need a beer,” he said abruptly. “You want anything?”

  “Right now?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It’s hot. I want a beer. Can I get you anything while I’m inside?”

  “A bottle of cold water,” I said finally. “No. Make that a beer too. Amstel if they have it.”

  He nodded and went inside.

  He’d left the motor running, so I turned up the radio and closed my eyes and let my head loll back on the Caddy’s headrest. He’d tuned the radio to a country station, and it was apparently oldies hour because Tammy Wynette was belting out “Stand By Your Man.” It was impossible not to hum along. So there I was, humming with Tammy when a car pulled up in the space next to where we were parked. I glanced over and felt my face start to burn.

  A short woman with a blue bandana tied over her hair hopped out of the white Toyota. She had her back turned to me, but even with that scarf I knew the car and I knew that cute little butt in those tight cutoff jeans. I sank down in the seat. I was not in the mood for a confrontation with Paige. Not tonight.