Hissy Fit

by Mary Kay Andrews

  An hour later we’d emptied out the truck and filled up the pump house. Will leaned against the bedroom doorway and watched with detachment as Austin and I tried to set up his bedstead.

  Austin stood the heavily carved mahogany headboard upright, and I had the equally heavy and ornate footboard, and was trying to maneuver one of the side rails into place. After two tries, I glared at Will.

  “You wanna give us a hand here?”

  “And get in the way of bona-fide professional decorators? I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

  “Get your ass over here,” I ordered, “unless you want to sleep on the brick floor your first night here.”

  After that the setting-up process went a little smoother. The two men got the bed set up, and under my direction even managed to get the box spring and mattress in place with amazing speed and efficiency.

  While they moved the dresser and nightstands into place, I made up the bed with mattress pad, sheets, a thick ecru-colored matelasse bedspread, four down pillows, and a brown and black Amish log cabin quilt folded neatly by the footboard.

  “That’s a wonderful look,” Austin said, running his hand over one of the carved pineapple bedposts. “How old is this bed?”

  “Not as old as it looks,” I admitted. “It’s a really good reproduction of a Dutch-Indian planter’s bed. It retails for about eleven thousand dollars, but I picked it up at a sample sale at ADAC for not even a quarter of that ’cause it had a scratch on the footboard. Which I just rubbed out with some Old English scratch cover.”

  “It looks okay. I just hope the mattress isn’t an antique,” Will said, slapping his hand up and down on it.

  “Brand-new, custom-made, top of the line,” I said pertly, setting a black and gold tole lamp on one of the bedside tables.

  From the bedroom we moved into the living room, while I supervised as the men unrolled a large sisal rug onto the brick floor and then positioned the squashy sofa covered in a tobacco-colored chenille in front of the fireplace, flanked on either side by two mismatched leather club chairs, with a worn antique Sarouk rug between them.

  “Now these I like,” Will said, sinking down into one of the chairs and rubbing the armrest appreciatively. “These’ll do.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” I retorted. “Wait till you see what I bill you for them. They’re the real thing, you know. I picked them up at the flea market at Cligancourt.”

  “Is that around here?” Will asked, furrowing his brow at the sound of the unfamiliar name.

  “Cligancourt is in France, right, Keeley?” Austin said. He plopped himself down in the other chair and jiggled up and down on the cushion. “How old?”

  “Twenties, probably,” I said. “They’re getting harder and harder to find.”

  “Are they supposed to be all scratched up like this?” Will asked. “Not that I mind. I was just wondering if that’s how they’re supposed to look.”

  “It’s called patina,” I said. “And people pay a lot of money to get this beat-up scratched-up look. The new hides just don’t have the same beautiful sheen as these old ones.”

  “Whatever you say,” Will said, groaning as he got up. “I hope we’re done with the heavy lifting for the day. I’ve got to check on the progress on the house, then get over to the office for a conference call by four. Anything else you need me for?”

  “Not for now,” I said.

  “I’ll check back in with you before I leave for the plant,” Will promised.

  While Will was gone, I set Austin to the task of hanging the drapes on the rods he’d already installed, and I placed the framed art on the floor, playing with different arrangements of them.

  “He’s awful cute, Keeley,” Austin said, watching Will through the window.

  “Will? Austin, you’re as bad as Gloria. She’s all ga-ga about him too. I just don’t see it myself.”

  “Then you’re not looking close enough,” Austin said. “Come on, Keeley, what’s not to like? He’s tall, taller than you, which not many men are. He’s got fabulous abs, I saw ’em when he was moving that sofa. He’s smart, and he’s rich. He’s hitting on all the straight-girl cylinders.”

  “Not mine,” I said firmly. “He’s not awful. He’s just not my idea of wonderful, that’s all. Anyway, Will is in love with another woman—which is the whole point of this ridiculous, if profitable, exercise. I’m decorating this place so she’ll love him right back.”

  “And who is your idea of wonderful?” Austin demanded, lifting up the first panel of the heavy canvas drapes and slotting the iron drape rod through the grommets. “A. J. Jernigan? All right, he’s also rich and fabulous-looking, but we both know he’s a total and complete shit when it comes to women.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about A.J.,” I said, taking the first picture and positioning it in the middle of the wall closest to the fireplace. I pounded the tack harder than was strictly necessary, which bent it flat against the wall.

  “Why not? Don’t tell me you’re still pining away for him?”

  “I’m not,” I said sharply. “Can we just drop it, please?”

  “All right,” he said, with an exaggerated sigh. “But will you answer me one question, and be honest?”

  “I’m always honest,” I said, tapping the next tack a little more gently.

  “Hmp,” Austin said.

  “It’s about this furniture,” he said, turning from the window and gesturing at the room below. “All this stuff. You just happened to have it all in your storage bin? And it’s all fabulous?”

  “I have good taste,” I said, frowning. “And when I see a good bargain, I buy it and stockpile it. Gloria and I keep two huge storage bins full to overflowing.”

  “I don’t think so,” Austin said, pursing his lips. “I think this was all stuff you bought for one particular client: the future Mrs. A. J. Jernigan. Am I right?”

  I hung the first picture and straightened it, and with my ruler, marked off the spot for the next picture, and hammered in another tack. Damn. Another one flattened. I really needed to rework my hammering technique.

  “You bought all this stuff for you and A.J., didn’t you?” Austin asked. “The bed, the dresser, this sofa, those leather chairs. All for your little honeymoon house.”

  “You’re starting to get on my nerves,” I warned, reaching into my jeans pocket for another tack. “You may get fired if you don’t start minding your own business.”

  “I was never hired in the first place,” Austin said, climbing down from the ladder. He put his hands on his hips and stuck out his tongue at me. “I’m working for free. So you can’t fire me.”

  “Very mature. I could just ignore you,” I said. He handed me the next picture.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I bought all this stuff for a house we hadn’t even bought yet. Yes, I had everything all planned out. Our beautiful new life together. That bed, the sofa and chairs, everything. I have a whole sketchbook of designs, floor plans, fabric samples. There’s a dining room table still on hold at Powers and Sons in Savannah, and a break-front sitting in the storage vault, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t bear to get rid of. So yes, to answer your question, this was all stuff that was going in my first house as a married lady. Only my design had one serious flaw. The bridegroom didn’t work out. So I didn’t get married. Now I have a client who needed furnishings in a hurry. I furnished the furnishings. That’s what I do for a living, in case you haven’t noticed. There is no hidden agenda, no sublimated longings for another man. Just a simple business transaction. Got that?”

  Austin took the hammer away from me and took a tack from my pocket. “I’ll nail. You space. You suck at nailing. You suck at lying too.”

  29

  “Next time I need help with an installation, I’ll hire Manny,” I told Austin. But I stepped back, took a look at the wall arrangement, and penciled in the next tack mark.

  Will came breezing through the
front door and stopped dead in his tracks.

  “Wow,” he said, walking slowly back and forth. “This is awesome, guys. It really is. Better than I would have ever hoped for.”

  He rubbed the canvas drapes between his fingers. “Cool. You were right. I like ’em. But I never saw anything like ’em before.”

  “Desperation is the mother of invention, or something like that,” I admitted. “There was no time to find fabric or get anything sewn at our workroom, so I came up with this idea. These are nothing more than painter’s drop cloths. I bought the biggest ones they had, went to Farmer’s Hardware and bought industrial-sized metal grommets, and banged ’em in with a grommet-setter. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.”

  Now Will stopped in front of the art we were hanging, stared and stared again.

  “Blueprints? For bras? Where the hell did you get this stuff, Keeley?”

  “From the plant.” I straightened one of the drawings. It was actually a specification sketch for an early Loving Cup number called The Enhancer. From the look of the thing, I thought it should have been renamed The Enforcer. “You didn’t have anything to hang on the walls, so I decided to frame things that would have some meaning for you. Miss Nancy let me go through all the old files and pick out stuff I thought would work.”

  Will picked up another frame. This one was a yellowing color magazine ad for Loving Cup brassieres—“We Hold You and Mold You Like Mother’s Own,” was the slogan that year. It had run in the September 1952 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. A model who looked a lot like Suzy Parker was pictured from the torso up, wearing a Loving Cup bra with bullet-shaped cups and enough strapping and hooks to harness a team of Clydesdales.

  He laughed. “This is great. I mean it. What else have you got here?”

  “More of the bra sketches, a couple more advertisements, and some old stock certificates for Loving Cup Intimates. I love the scroll-work and detailing on old documents like these. But these are my favorites,” I told him, showing him a series of three panoramic black and white photos.

  “This one here,” I said, pointing to one showing a line of dour-faced women sitting at sewing machines, “is the swing shift. It was taken in 1945. There’s a handwritten note on the back that says they were sewing garments with specially made fabric loops. Because it was a war year, they couldn’t get metal hooks and eyelets, or even rubber for elastic, so they had to come up with all kinds of design substitutes.”

  “I’d like to see one of those old designs,” Will said, picking the photo up to get a closer look. “I’ve been looking through the company archives myself, when I get time. It’s really fascinating how innovative the designers got over the years.”

  Austin leaned over my shoulder and pointed at the next photo. “A baseball team? There was a Loving Cup baseball team?” The picture did indeed show what looked like a 1950s-era baseball team, all the members wearing shirts that proclaimed them “The Bombers.”

  “I didn’t know we had a team,” Will said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised. Every textile mill in the South had all kinds of sports teams. They had regular leagues, and competition was killer. For a small town, a winning mill team was a tremendous point of pride. The whole town would turn out for big games.”

  “Miss Nancy found one of these old black and white striped baseball jerseys,” I told Will. “It’s being framed too, but it takes longer because my framer had to build a special shadow box for it.”

  “I love this one,” Austin said, tapping the third photo. It showed a lineup of young girls in ball gowns, each with carefully teased bouffant hairdos, elbow-length white gloves, each holding huge rose bouquets. The girl in the middle, who had a blond upsweep, had a tiny tiara balanced on her head, and a sash proclaiming her “Miss Loving Cup, 1968.”

  “The bra queen!” Austin exclaimed. “It’s my absolute favorite.”

  “I like this one too,” I said. I tapped my finger on the face of the girl on the far end. She was a little taller than the others, but with a regal bearing that was unmistakable, and a thousand-watt smile. “That’s Glo.”

  “Your Aunt Gloria?” Will asked. “Let me see that thing.”

  He took the photo and studied it carefully. “She was a stunner. Was then. Is now. How come she wasn’t named the bra queen?”

  “’Cause her daddy wasn’t assistant manager at the plant,” I said. “It was a very political thing, even then. Gloria said she only entered because the winner got a free trip to New York, and she was dying to go, and my grandfather said no decent girl went by herself to New York City.”

  Will kept studying the photo. He pointed to another girl, at the far right. She was younger and taller than the others, and tendrils of curls had escaped from her Aqua Net helmet. She was the only one wearing short, wrist-length gloves. “Why does this girl look familiar to me?” he asked, holding the photo at arm’s length now. “Is this somebody I’ve met locally?”

  “I doubt it,” I said, taking the picture and putting it back in the box. “That’s Jeanine Murry. She was fifteen. The youngest girl in the pageant. Gloria was eighteen.”

  Austin sucked his breath in. “Your mama! My God, you look exactly like her.”

  Will picked the picture up again. “He’s right. You’re the spitting image. Same eyes, same nose.” He took a tendril of hair that had come loose from my ponytail and tucked it behind my ear. “Same hair.”

  “Everybody says I’ve got the Murdock nose,” I said, turning away from him.

  “She was a stunner,” Will said. “I’ve never heard you talk about your mother. Is she still living?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, trying to keep my tone light and even. “She left my daddy and me when I was just a kid.”

  “Oh,” Will said. He looked like he’d swallowed a bug.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, taking pity on him. “But come to think of it, I’ve never heard you talk about your family either.”

  “What do you want to know?” Will asked. “My father was an engineer too, but chemical engineering. He retired from Procter & Gamble, and he and my mom live down at Hilton Head. He plays golf, she plays tennis and volunteers at the hospice. I’ve got two brothers and a sister too, and four nephews and two nieces. Should I go on?”

  “Not necessary,” I said, conceding defeat. “Anyway, as soon as we finish hanging these pictures, we’ll have it wrapped up here.”

  “I’ll get out of your way then,” Will said, glad to have an excuse for his retreat. “Just send the bill to the office.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll probably get there before you do,” I said.

  “Business that bad?”

  “It’s been better,” I said. “Summer’s always our slow time.”

  “Especially since the Jernigans have decided to screw Keeley and her aunt to the wall,” Austin piped up.

  “Austin,” I said, a warning note in my voice.

  “It’s true,” he went on. “And you know it. Ever since you called the wedding off, that family’s done whatever they could to screw you over. They’re trying to run you out of business, is what they’re doing.”

  “Will’s not interested in local politics,” I said. “And Gloria and I are doing just fine, thank you.”

  “Hope so,” Will said, his hand on the doorknob. “Remember, Keeley, don’t let the ash-holes get you down.”

  He was gone, and I turned my full attention to glaring at Austin.

  “What?” he said, squirming under the heat of my gaze. “What’s he mean by ash-holes?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Will Mahoney has a very peculiar sense of humor. That’s just his idea of a joke. But you are not off the hook with me, Austin. You had no business telling Will about our problems with the Jernigans. That’s strictly personal. And my relationship with Will is strictly professional. And that’s how I intend to keep it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Austin said. “I’m sorry I mentioned it. But it just makes me so mad. Those people think they rule the earth. I hat
e to see them pushing you around.”

  “They’re not going to push me around anymore,” I said firmly.

  He nodded understanding, then picked up the next set of pictures and stood away from the wall. “Now where do these go?”

  By three o’clock we’d finished with the installation. I left the Scotch on the kitchen counter, along with a note that said, “Welcome Home.” Then I took Austin on a quick tour of Mulberry Hill.

  “He wants it done by when?” Austin asked, when we were back at my car.

  “Christmas.” I said. “At first I told him it was impossible. It really was. But I guess I underestimated him. When Will Mahoney sets his mind to something, I think it generally gets done. Look at the house. What he’s accomplished out here already is unbelievable. When he says it’s going to be done, by God, it gets done.”

  “Money has that effect,” Austin observed.

  “It’s more than just the money. Somehow he’s got all these workers all hyped up about making this house a showplace again. I think they really believe he’ll get the plant up and running again too. And I’ll tell you something. I’m beginning to believe it myself.”

  Austin gazed out the window at the wildflower meadow as I threaded the car up the new driveway. “Are you still mad at Austin?” he asked, in a mock timid voice. “Are you friends with Austin again?”

  “Friends,” I said with a sigh.

  “Best friends?”

  “Well, yeah, now. Ever since I crossed Paige off the list.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling widely. “I’ve got something I want to tell you. I’ve been waiting for the right time, but I keep getting sidetracked.”

  “What’s this about?”

  He took a deep breath. “It’s about your mama.”

  “Oh hell.”

  “It’s just that I love mysteries. Always have. You know, when the other guys on my block were out playing baseball and football, and trying to run each other over with their bikes, I was inside reading Nancy Drew mysteries.”