Commitments

by Barbara Delinsky

  Feeling a visceral delight, she guided the camera to her daughter, who was consulting with the general contractor as they watched the last of the exterior shutters being hung. That contractor, Dean Brannick, was the only male who appeared in every episode, but he had become such a fan favorite that no one minded. As he loped off, Caroline called, “Catch you in a bit, Dean,” and slipped an arm around Jamie’s waist. It was the kind of spontaneous gesture she had hesitated to show at first. Turned out, viewers loved it. Second to the female angle in appeal came the mother-daughter connection.

  The resemblance between them was strong—same wide mouth, fern-green eyes, and auburn hair—but their differences were nearly as marked. Caroline let her hair wave, while Jamie blew hers straight; Caroline was five-seven to Jamie’s five-three; Jamie wore the sophisticated neutrals of a young architect, but master carpenter Caroline, when not behind goggles and a chop saw, was known for color. Her yellow jeans were paired today with a matching tank under a slim-fitting turquoise sweater, all in contrast to Jamie’s gray slacks and jacket.

  “Talk to us, Jamie,” Caroline invited. “As the architect of record for this project, you’ve been involved since Day One.” She gestured toward the house. “Whaddaya think?”

  “I’m pleased,” Jamie replied as they walked on. “The best part of an architect’s job is seeing a house go from modest to amazing, and this one did.” Her pride showed; the camera hung on that. Cutaways of detail work would be inserted later, as would second or third takes, but for now it was all about feeling and flow. “The original structure had one and a half stories and a steeply pitched roof. By raising that roof, we were able to create three generous bedrooms and a loft on the second floor, with an expanded kitchen and a whole new great room underneath.”

  “Everything energy-efficient.”

  “Totally, from insulated floor joists to double-thick insulation and dual-pane windows.”

  “And that’s just the inside.” Caroline raised admiring eyes. “This exterior is something.”

  “I agree. The homeowners wanted to dress things up without losing the flavor of the original Cape,” Jamie reminded viewers, “so we bumped out the front foyer and added fieldstone to the facade. And new gables over the second-floor windows? Wow.” Her eyes touched the brackets under each gable. “Gotta love those corbels.”

  “Amen,” smiled Caroline, who had carved them herself.

  “Not amen,” broke in the producer with a hand on the cameraman’s shoulder to signal a cut. “This isn’t about religion. Jamie, sweetheart, repeat that last line.”

  Jamie did. This time, Caroline managed a whole other kind of smile and said, “Absolutely,” before moving on to the colors Dean had picked. The man was multifaceted. In addition to ordering supplies and hiring subs, he could handle any aspect of construction, including the egos of men who did grunt work in a world of women, and homeowners who had no clue about exterior paint. Here, cedar shingles picked up a deep gray from the stonework, while the trim was a startlingly pure white.

  “Crisp and fresh,” Jamie breathed. “And it all blends with the architectural shingles he chose for the roof.”

  “What we don’t see from here, of course…”

  “… are the triple-junction solar cell panels. They’re another aspect of the energy-efficient reconstruction of this house.”

  “All of which we’ll get to later. For now, I’m just stunned at how elegant a Cape can look.”

  Jamie laughed her agreement. “This house used to be old. Now it has a reinvigorated sense of tradition. Take these cobblestones. Dean found them in a mill warehouse in New Hampshire. They date back to the turn of the twentieth century.” She glanced at Caroline. “Remember the detached one-car garage that was here?”

  “It was an eyesore.”

  “And inadequate. The LaValles have four kids who’ll be driving soon, hence a new three-car attached garage at the back of the house. By leveling the old one, we not only removed a visual distraction but gained valuable land abutting the kitchen.” A cutaway would show the new patio, replete with trelliswork and a raised fire pit.

  After a discussion of the challenges posed by the topography of the lot, Caroline drew the camera’s eye back to the front porch. “The stone columns add an arts-and-crafts element, which enhances the curb appeal tenfold. And just look at the front door. It’s taller and wider than it was, and the sidelights make it grand. Jamie, you always envisioned an imposing entrance—”

  “Wait,” the producer cut in. “Caroline, you’re talking too much. Let Jamie speak.”

  Caroline felt an inkling of annoyance. She wasn’t doing any more than she ever did, but the point was too petty to argue. Thinking that she was ready to be free of Claire Howe for a few months, she said, “Okay. That’s fine.” She glanced at Jamie, who nodded.

  “Let’s start fresh with the front porch,” Claire instructed, at which point Jamie re-created her mother’s narration. Since there was no formal script, the words were slightly different, and Jamie’s manner of speech reflected her age. She tripped once, but started again and went smoothly on.

  They were heading inside when Caroline was distracted by the women in the shrubbery beds. Stopping Jamie with a hand on her arm, she called, “Annie.” Annie Ahl was the show’s landscape designer. Wearing mud-crusted boots, gloves, and a satisfied expression, she stepped out from between a pair of newly planted junipers. The pixie cut of her pure silver hair suited her diminutive size.

  Caroline was looking beyond the junipers. “Do I recognize those?”

  “Good eye,” Annie said in the high voice that had nearly nixed her place in the show. Like the cameraman and his feel for light, though, her instinct for design was too good to pass up. She was the senior landscape architect at MacAfee Homes, and Caroline’s close friend. “We removed those azaleas last fall to protect them from the mess of construction. They wintered over in my nursery, and now here they are, back home. They actually bloomed two weeks ago. See the last of the flowers?” There would be a cutaway of those. For now, the camera stayed on the talent. “Naturally, we’ll have to wait to see how they do here next spring, but I’m confident they’ll make it. They’re hardy.”

  “And they have company now.” Caroline took in the new plantings.

  “Uh-huh. One row—”

  “Not uh-huh,” Claire cut in. “I’ve asked you not to say that, Anne.”

  Annie said a particularly high-pitched, “I’m sorry. It’s just natural.”

  “I like natural, but not uh-huh. And watch the voice. It’s too high.”

  Caroline had never once read a complaint about that on their Facebook page, which she personally monitored. But Claire was the boss. In a voice that wouldn’t reach the woman, she told Annie both of those things. Once Annie gathered herself, they resumed.

  “When I first saw this house,” she said perfectly, “the shrub beds were long and narrow, which was typical of beds at the time the house was built. I wanted greater depth to complement Jamie’s new designs, so we widened and reshaped them. The taller shrubs in back are Andromeda, holly, and yew. I’ve planted juniper in and around the azaleas, and we’re just now putting in perennials.”

  “Good job, guys,” Caroline called to the two still planting, and let Annie go.

  As she and Jamie climbed the stairs to enter the house, Caroline pointed out the solid walnut front door with its raised panels and bronze hardware. In the foyer, they saw Dean coming down the hall from the kitchen. “We’re just tweaking the security system,” he said. “Want to see the control room?”

  The cameraman signaled a break. After cold drinks all around, they picked up in the basement with the security specialist, who was giving a rundown on the advanced features of a system that went far beyond security to include remote control of heating, cooling, and irrigation. Dean took the lead; he was easy on the eye and ear, and he understood electronics. When the plumbing and heating expert joined them to explain the environmental soundnes
s of the new systems, Caroline backed off completely.

  The sky continued to brighten, offering the dispersed natural light the cameraman loved. Dodging hustling crews, Caroline talked with the stone specialist, who was polishing marble in the first-floor lav, and the tile expert, who was finishing the kitchen backsplash. These scenes, largely included for DIY addicts who wanted to watch the process, would be saved or cut after the producer and her editors had a chance to log the videotape and decide how much time to spend on what.

  When taping resumed in the afternoon, Caroline was in the kitchen with the homeowners, highlighting what was old, new, and repurposed, but the excitement quickly turned to the great room, where the show’s interior designer, Taylor Huff, was supervising the placement of furniture. Sectional sofas complemented cushiony chairs, whose upholstery coordinated with window valences and chair cushions in the kitchen. Then came the media specialist, who was programming the remote for a huge flat-screen tv. Gut It! had worked with her before; she was at the forefront of technology and reliable to a fault when it came to installation. Unfortunately, she flustered easily. Even before Claire could intervene, Caroline stopped the taping to calm the woman, then reshaped questions to help her along.

  One by one, the crews finished up, and neighbors and guests began to arrive. By early evening, as the lowering sun spilled through the dining room into the foyer, production assistants were arranging nearly forty family, friends, craftsmen, and crew for the group shot that had become a Gut It! tradition.

  Caroline was front and center. Facing the camera a final time, she said with satisfaction, “There you have it, a recap of this season’s Gut It! We took a sixty-year-old Cape that was too small for a growing family, too dated for a modern couple, and too wasteful in an energy-conscious town, and we turned it into a larger, younger, greener home. Now, we’re here with homeowners Rob and Diana, at the foot of the stunning winding staircase that they always dreamed of having. I’m Caroline MacAfee, the host of Gut It! Thanks so much for being with us this season. We hope you’ll join us next season for a whole new project.” She looked around. “Everyone set?” Facing front, she slid one arm around her daughter and the other around Diana LaValle. “O-kay,” she said, then, “Squish in, you guys,” when the cameraman gestured as much. Seconds of compression passed. “All eyes on the camera.” There was one click, then a second and third, then a communally held breath while the cameraman checked his playback. When he smiled, Caroline turned to her friends and raised a triumphant fist in the air. “Yesss!”

  Two

  Jamie MacAfee would always be her parents’ child. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-nine and financially independent. When it came to her mother and father, she was still the little girl whose life had been shaped by their divorce and her need to please them both—which was why she was increasingly anxious as she drove across town for a quick breakfast with her dad.

  The streets were early-morning quiet. School buses hadn’t yet started to roll, lawn mowers remained stowed, and what other noises there might have been at seven were muted by a thick and ominous heat. June wasn’t supposed to be this hot in New England. Humidity that had been oppressive the evening before remained trapped under the dense maples and oaks that lined her route, and the silk blouse she wore stuck to her skin. Her convertible top was down. Two streets into the drive, she jacked up the air and aimed the blowers at her neck, but her anxiety remained.

  It ticked up a notch when she passed the corner of South Main and one Grove, where the teardown being rebuilt by her major competitor as a Dutch Colonial was starting to look a little too good.

  It ticked up further when she passed an Audi A5 that looked exactly like her fiance’s but, of course, was not. Brad Greer had left her condo at six that morning after what should have been a sweet cup of coffee in bed turned into a set-to about picking a wedding date. They had been engaged for six months, and she hadn’t done it yet. Her fault. Totally. Between taping Gut It! and working on a dozen projects in various stages of design, she hadn’t had time to breathe. Brad was vulnerable when it came to love, though, and it tore at her when he got all down in the mouth, as he had earlier.

  He hadn’t called, hadn’t texted. She would have driven to his place if there’d been time.

  But there wasn’t, which brought her to her father. He was the real source of her angst. He knew she had a special reason today to be with her mother, and for Jamie, there should have been no contest. Caroline wasn’t just her mother; she was her best friend—and Jamie was all the family Caroline had. Roy, conversely, had moved on. Twice. Jamie hadn’t cared for his second wife and wasn’t sorry when the brief marriage ended, but his third and current wife, who was close to Jamie’s own age, had become a friend. Moreover, Roy was absorbed enough with Jessica and their young son to leave Jamie to her own life.

  Unless he needed her for something.

  Which he apparently did now.

  Still, she should have put him off.

  But he had been dogged last night on the phone, evading every attempt she made to discuss whatever it was there and then. This is about work, he had finally said with unusual gravity. Work meant MacAfee Homes, where Jamie and every other local MacAfee was employed. She offered to be at the office by nine, but Roy had been adamant about seeing her before she saw her mother.

  Those were his words. Before you see your mother.

  That was what frightened her. The implication was that he wanted to talk about Caroline, but what could he say? Caroline had been a master carpenter for MacAfee Homes since before marrying Roy, and their parting hadn’t slowed her rising star. Roy’s father, Theodore MacAfee, who headed the business, blamed his son for the divorce far more than he did Caroline. Theo adored Caroline. Whenever Roy tried to exclude her from plum assignments, Theo overruled him. Likewise when Caroline wanted birch burl or some such exotic wood and Roy claimed she was over budget.

  Then again, Jamie realized, Roy’s current emergency could be as simple as his wanting her to babysit two-year-old Tad while he and Jessica vacationed in Europe, which would certainly impact Jamie’s work. Being a full-time mom was hard; she had watched Jess struggle, and Jess did not have a career outside the home. But Jamie did love her father, and she was totally smitten by her half brother, which meant she could never say no.

  Jamie didn’t think that warranted drop-everything-and-come insistence, but he wouldn’t be denied. The best she’d been able to do was get him to meet at seven, so that she could still see Caroline before work.

  And there he was, crossing the lot at Fiona’s as she pulled in off the street. She waved through her open top and parked. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she ran quick fingers through her hair, but all she saw, to her dismay, were the freckles on her nose. So much for her expensive new concealer. The heat apparently melted makeup just as it swallowed up breathable air.

  Resigned, she groped around for her shoes in the floor well and slipped them on, then slid out of the car as deftly as her short black skirt and those high heels allowed. The skirt showed off slim hips; the heels added inches she desperately needed. Pairing them with white silk, she was dressed to impress, though not solely for her dad. This was her typical take-me-seriously look for days that were filled with meetings. Most architects doing her level of work were older than she was, and while the family business gave her a leg up, it also gave her a name to uphold.

  Freckles didn’t help, but there was no erasing them now. The best she could do was to put her shoulders back and set off with a pretense of confidence—only to ricochet right back when the long strap of her shoulder bag caught in the door. That wasn’t impressive, she mused, though it was nothing she hadn’t done before. As physically coordinated as she was when focused, when distracted, she was pathetic.

  Freeing the bag, she strode forward.

  Fiona’s was an upscale diner that offered the best breakfast in town, which meant that even this early in the day, it was humming. The parking lot was comforta
bly full; the air held the lure of hot corn muffins, chunky hash browns, and local maple syrup.

  By the time she caught up to Roy, he was talking with two of Williston’s finest, on their way home after a night on patrol. They had admiring smiles for Jamie as she hurried to keep up with Roy, who was entering the diner. He immediately began working booths filled with real estate agents, lawyers, plumbers, shopkeepers, husbands and wives—all local, all friends. Williston lay twenty miles west of Boston. Home to fifteen thousand residents, it was ruled by a Board of Selectmen, but if there had been a mayor, Roy would have been it. He was always smiling, always up for a meet-and-greet, always remembering names. Theo had done this for years until age crippled his mornings, at which point Roy smoothly stepped in. As the single largest employer in town, not to mention the raison d’être for many town shops, MacAfee Homes treasured local goodwill.

  Roy made it happen. That he was strikingly handsome didn’t hurt. With his keen brown eyes and perpetual tan, he looked younger than fifty-two. The gray that had spattered his hair a decade before had miraculously turned sandy, and, though Jamie didn’t know for fact, she would bet that his forehead was medicinally smoothed. Not that she criticized him for it. He put in the effort to stay in shape—had likely gone running at dawn that morning, even in the heat. Now, dressed in a crisp blue shirt and fine gray slacks, he had a fresh-from-the-shower sheen.

  For Roy, it was all about looking young—young body, young face, young wife. The irony, of course, was that with Jamie always trying to look older than twenty-nine, they were occasionally taken for brother and sister. Roy loved that, and while Jamie was proud of her father for his efforts and, yes, for his looks, she found the brother-sister comparisons awkward.