“What’s so funny?” George asked him, glancing back toward the house.
“Who knows,” Richard commented. “Women.”
Chapter Three
21 ACROSS: Insightful; pervasive; thorough
“I think you make him nervous,” Georgette said as she filled the glasses with ice cubes.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Cassie replied. “I think he’s just…odd.”
“Ooh, a crossword puzzle!” Georgette exclaimed. Cassie turned toward the woman just in time to see her swoop in on Zan’s puzzle. Cassie had been working on it earlier that morning. “I love crossword puzzles. Oh, but this isn’t from a magazine, is it? Did you make this up yourself?”
“Zan liked to create them. He gave me that one on our anniversary.”
“That’s a strange anniversary gift, isn’t it? And you said Richard is odd!”
Cassie shared a laugh with her. “They usually came with flowers or a beautiful dinner or a very thoughtful gift. He’d make one every year, using all the words he thought described me. It was just a thing between Zan and me.”
Cassie was glad for the interruption when the doorbell rang, and Sophie chimed in an accompanying announcement. “That’s going to be my Realtor!” she shouted over the ruckus. “Would you mind taking the drinks to the men while I meet with her?”
Tameka Plummer was even lovelier and more exotic than Cassie remembered, and she gave the woman an embrace as the Realtor walked through the door. “It’s so good to see you!” Cassie said. Turning toward her barking dog, with a stern clip to her voice, she snapped, “Sophie! Quiet.”
“This was sitting on your front step,” Tameka said, handing her a small cardboard box from Rachel Capshaw in Boston, addressed to her in very familiar, round handwriting. “Cass, James and I were so sorry to hear about Zan. You know how much we loved him.”
“Thank you so much.”
Pushing her mass of loose, copper-tinted curls away from her radiant dark face, Tameka’s chocolate eyes narrowed with sadness. “Are you doing all right, girl?”
“I have more good days than bad now,” she replied. “I still miss him, of course. But I’m getting on with things.”
“James sends his love to you. He says there’s a four-course soul-food dinner at our place with your name on it while you’re here.”
“Oh, I’m there,” Cassie answered with a chuckle.
Tameka linked her arm with Cassie’s as they walked into the house.
“Tameka Plummer, meet Georgette Hootz,” Cassie said as Georgette headed for the sliding doors with glasses in her hands.
“Tuh–mee–kah,” Georgette pronounced. “What a beautiful and unusual name. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sweetheart.”
“You, too,” she replied while Cassie pulled the door open for Georgette.
“Thanks, darlin’. ”
“So you want to put the place on the market?” Tameka asked as Cassie tugged the door shut again.
“Not quite yet, but I’m hoping we can do that around the first of the year. Right now I’d really like it if you would help me decide what improvements to make so I can get top dollar.”
“I can do that. Grab a pad of paper to make some notes, and we’ll do a walk-through. And try to remember that we’re going to concentrate on things that will give you the greatest return on your dollar when you go to sell the place.”
Appliances outdated
Consider new kitchen tile (counters okay)
Master bath—overhaul
Speak to Frank—“curb appeal”
Rethink lighting in kitchen and dining room
Paint throughout
Glass sliders—change to French doors?
As Cassie took note of the last suggestion, Tameka watched the excavation efforts on the other side of the glass doors.
“What on earth happened out there?” she asked.
“Oh!” Cassie added Fix dock to the list. “My dock apparently grew like Pinocchio’s nose, just as the Hootzes were floating by on their pontoon boat.”
Tameka’s face cracked with laughter.
“Ten minutes later we stood there and watched the thing sink.”
“Oh, goodness! That’s just…well, hilarious is what it is. I’m sorry. But as long as no one was hurt, that is funny!”
“We’ll be holding a memorial service for my dock sometime next week, but everyone else escaped unscathed.”
“Are they going to fix it?”
Cassie glanced up from her notepad and angled her head. “This is George Hootz we’re talking about. I think he’s waiting for me to offer to repair his boat. My dock is just what jumped out into the waterway before he could steer out of its path.”
Tameka laughed merrily then suddenly squinted into the sunlight and pressed her lips together. “Is that Richard Dillon out there?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I sold him his house. Terrible thing about his wife. What was her name…? Caroline, that’s right. Girl, they were the sweetest couple when they came down to Florida and started looking around. And then she had an accident right before they moved in. It was awful.” Tameka ran her hand down the front of her dress and then shook her head, leaving her curls dancing for a second afterward. “Hey, before I forget, do you want me to speak to James about helping you with your updates? Business is a little slow right now, so he’s available.”
“Oh!” Cassie remembered that Tameka’s husband was a contractor. “That would be great.”
“I’ll have him give you a call later today.”
“Thank you so much.”
Richard poked at the door with his elbow and, when she noticed, Tameka rushed toward it and finished the job. His hands were loaded down with three empty drinking glasses as he stepped inside. “Tameka?” he questioned. He set the glasses down on the counter and turned toward her.
“Richard, how are you?”
“Not too bad,” he said, pulling her into a quick embrace. “How about you and James?”
“Busy as ants in a bread box.”
“That’s a good thing. Are you Cassie’s Realtor?”
“Yep. I was just walking through to suggest some improvements to get the place ready for launch.”
“Not too much work, I hope,” he said, glancing at Cassie.
“About what I expected,” Cassie replied.
“Will James do the work?” he asked.
“Some of it, I hope.”
“Well, listen, I’d better get on the road or I’ll be late for my next appointment,” Tameka told them. “Cassie, lunch later in the week?”
“I’d love that.”
Tameka blew them both a kiss and floated out the front door.
“I’ll take these into the kitchen,” Richard said. He picked up the glasses he’d left on the counter and rounded the corner.
“You don’t have to do—” Before she could complete the thought, he already had water running into the sink and was washing the glasses. “—that. Well. Okay.”
Cassie shrugged and picked up her cell phone and then scrolled through her address book in search of Frank Mitchell’s number.
“Hi, Frank. It’s Cassie Constantine. I’m going to the nursery this week to pick up some flowers to make the front of the house a little more appealing. I wondered if you could suggest something to green up the grass a little. I was thinking of installing an irrigation system of some kind. Well, give me a call when you get this message so we can discuss it. Thanks. Talk to you later.”
“It looks like Bermuda grass.”
“I’m sorry…what?”
“Your lawn,” Richard said from the other side of the counter, as he dried the last glass. “It looks like Bermuda grass. It’s still warm enough that you could probably get away with some overseeding with rye grass. That would keep it looking a little healthier through the winter and shape it up nicely in spring and summer.”
Cassie cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Are you into landscaping?”
“Golf.”
“Golf?”
“I’m into golf. That’s what they do with a lot of Southern golf courses because of the challenges of the weather. You’ll want to be aware of the water restrictions, too, because they’re pretty stringent down here right now.”
“Water restrictions?”
“Florida is in a drought. Has been for years, but it’s gotten serious enough that they’re doling out tickets if you’re caught watering your lawn on an off day. A lot of people have given up on the idea of a lush lawn in deference to the new laws about water usage.”
“Are you serious?” Cassie had never heard of such a thing! Not allowed to use her own water?
“Your landscaper—that was your landscaper on the phone, right?”
“My lawn guy, yes.”
“He’ll know about all of this. If you put in a sprinkler system, you can get one that can be programmed to water only on a certain day at a specific time.”
Speaking of time, she thought, you certainly seem to have a lot of it on your hands.
Georgette opened the slider and poked her head inside. “Shuffleboard tourney at the senior center later today. Want to come along?”
“Thanks, Georgette, I appreciate that. But I’ve got a lot to take care of here at the house.”
“All righty. Have a good one!”
She waved as she and her husband passed the glass door and headed around the side of the house. Cassie noticed that the salvage men were sailing away down the canal, a waterlogged pontoon with a torn yellow awning in tow.
“Oh, good,” she commented. “They’re finished. Now I just have to worry about who to call to fix the dock. I don’t suppose you have any golf-related dock-repair tips for me.”
“Sorry. I don’t see many docks out on the links.”
“A shame.”
“Do you play?”
“Play what?”
“Golf,” he clarified with a chuckle.
“Oh, no. My husband loved the game, but I’ve just never been able to figure out the attraction.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he replied, shooting her one of those parenthetical grins that set her heart to pounding. Ratta-tat-tat-tat—her heartbeat sounded like an unexpected spray of automatic bullets. “So it looks like you have quite a laundry list of things to do here,” Richard continued.
Cassie wondered if he always hopped from topic to topic like that, or if she was just slowed down by that smile of his.
“Yes, it’s a little overwhelming. But I’m going to take this afternoon to get organized and make some lists to get a handle on things.”
“That’s your thing,” he observed.
“What?”
“Lists.” He pointed to the pad of paper.
“I’m an administrator. I can’t do anything without making a to-do list. What was your profession before you retired, Richard?”
“Well, I’m a list-maker, too. I was an attorney.”
Cassie chuckled. “I manage a law partnership in Boston.”
“No kidding,” he replied. “Which one?”
“Denton, Kendrick & Associates.”
“I went to law school with Michael Kendrick.”
Cassie’s hand floated to her mouth in astonishment. “You did, really?” And then came the clarity. “You went to Harvard Law School?”
“Yes, I did.”
Well, that explains a lot. Michael Kendrick’s propensity for OCD-seasoned perfection was evident in Richard Dillon, as well. The two of you could have been separated at birth!
“What a small world,” she said instead.
“Indeed.”
Cassie chewed on her bottom lip as she ran her finger down the list she’d made. “I’m thinking the painting should come first. So maybe we start with the kitchen and the bathroom…and then replace the chandelier in the dining room?”
“Okay.”
“I went to the home improvement store in New Port Richey and bought some things.”
James followed her into the dining room and waited, tickling Sophie behind the ear as Cassie rifled through large plastic bags.
“I thought a copper backsplash would be nice in the kitchen, so I got these tiles. I think I’d like to try installing them myself, and I can help with the painting, as well. I ordered a new refrigerator, a new gas range with this very Tuscan copper hood, and a dishwasher—this one has no power at all—and they’ll come to install everything on Friday.”
Cassie caught up with herself, realizing that she was talking a mile a minute, and she smiled at James and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m on a whole other wavelength with all these details.”
“No problem,” he replied, but she knew he was probably hoping she would just get to the part that involved him. He was too sweet to say so, though, so he just stood there, attentive and quiet.
Tameka’s husband was a really handsome man, over six feet tall, muscular, with dark cinnamon skin, a completely bald head, and a great, confident smile. The two of them made a gorgeous couple, in fact. They looked like a commercial for the middle-class African-American lifestyle.
“They loaded the tiles for the kitchen and bathroom floors into the trunk of my car,” she told him. “I got large alabaster ceramic tiles for the kitchen; they kind of look like natural stone. The ones for the master bath are glazed porcelain with a mosaic pattern. If you could carry those in for me, along with the cans of paint, we can go over everything and decide where to start.”
James took her car keys and headed through the kitchen door to the garage while Cassie unpacked the copper scrollwork chandelier from its box.
“That’s really nice,” James commented, as he rolled in a utility dolly loaded with boxes of tiles. “These go in the bathroom, right?”
Cassie looked into the top box and nodded, admiring the deep blue, wine, and gray hues of the oversized mosaic tiles. “Oh, I like them even more now.”
James smiled and pushed the dolly forward and down the hall. “The wall sconces and the faucets,” he said over his shoulder, “they’re for the bathroom, too?”
“Yes,” she called back before following him.
Sophie marched behind James, first one direction and then the other, like an obedient soldier. Once those tiles were unloaded and lined up against the bedroom wall outside the master bath, James did the same with the boxes of kitchen tiles, piling them underneath the dividing counter on the dining room side, with Sophie still at his heels.
“Cans of paint,” he announced. “Terra Cotta Glaze goes in the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“Café au Lait?”
“Dining room.”
“Seafoam Blue.”
At once they both replied, “Bathroom.”
James was an amiable workmate. He had everything in its proper corner of the house in less than thirty minutes and then began sorting out the supplies for painting and grout.
“Where should we start?” she asked him from the dining room floor, surrounded by the hammered copper tiles with the gun-metal glaze for the backsplash in the kitchen.
“Looks to me like you have your heart set on starting with the kitchen,” he answered, his hand on his hip as he looked down at her.
Cassie giggled. “Zan was Greek, and he liked those very clean lines, pale blues and greens, and lots of white. I’ve always wanted a Tuscan kitchen with those rich, bold colors. Now I get to do that.”
“For someone else,” he said, laughing.
“For me, until someone else buys the place,” she returned.
“That’s a lot of work for just a few weeks of enjoyment.”
“I didn’t say it was logical. So if you’re going to try to make sense to me, you can just go home right now, buddy.”
James chuckled, offered his hand, and pulled her up to her feet.
“Let’s get started then.”
It was nearly 6 p.m., with James rinsing out the paintbrushes in the sink, when Cassie finally stepped back t
o admire their work. The terra cotta walls complemented the light wood of the cabinets, and the small, square copper tiles on the backsplash added interest and texture to the room.
“I’ll get an early start on the floor tomorrow,” James told her. He gulped back several swigs of water from a glass nearby. “We should have it ready for the appliances by Friday.”
“James, thank you so much for all your hard work today.”
“Glad to do it,” he told her. “But I have a feeling about this house.”
“What do you mean?”
“I expect you’re going to fix it up so nice that you won’t want to move out.”
“Oh no,” she assured him. “That won’t happen. By the time this is all finished, I’ll be happy to turn it over to someone else and get back to my life in Boston.”
“If you say so.”
Once James was gone, Cassie threw together some red seedless grapes and sliced oranges on a plate, warmed up some Brie, and pulled out the whole-grain crackers she’d bought at the store that morning. It seemed like a fitting supper to match her emerging Tuscan kitchen. As she ate, Sophie stretched out on her side and took a nap while Cassie pulled out her crossword puzzle with the thought of chipping away at the clues.
21 Across. Insightful, persuasive, and thorough.
It sounded as if Zan was describing an attorney or a Boy Scout rather than his wife. Frustrated, Cassie folded up the crossword again, and she made a promise to herself to make some plans the very next day to do something unexpected.
But what? she asked herself. Not that it really mattered, as long as it wasn’t something insightful or thorough!
Cassie glanced at the tiles stacked under the counter and then did a double take. She’d forgotten all about the box from Rachel that Tameka had carried in when she’d arrived at the house the previous day. She tossed a grape into her mouth and then lugged the box over to the table, tearing into it. She pulled away the crumpled Christmas wrap that doubled as packing material. Just as she suspected, the box was filled with holiday gifts. On the top was a small envelope with Cassie’s name scrolled across it in large round letters.
She paused to spread some cheese on a cracker and pop it into her mouth before opening the card.
Love Finds You in Holiday, Florida Page 4
