Christmas Bliss (21 page)

“James is a
former
priest. And I just don’t think it’s right.”

“I think it’s right,” I said gently. “And Daniel does too. We’re adults, Mama. I respect your ideas and beliefs, so I hope you’ll respect mine.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like them. Anyway, back to the cake. I’ve already bought all the ingredients. I’m making it, and that’s final. So what cake plate?”

“Just a sec, Mama.”

I put the phone down, threw myself on the bed, covered my face with a pillow, and practiced my primal screaming for maybe ten seconds.

“I’m back now.”

“Good heavens, Weezie. Is something wrong with your phone?”

“I might need to charge it. If you insist on doing the cake, just use a nice cut-glass cake stand. But it doesn’t need to be very big. We’re only having forty people, remember?”

“How could I forget? Your cousins in Pooler and over there in Swainsboro are absolutely crushed that they didn’t get invited. And I can’t even look at the women in my rosary guild, since you snubbed all of them.”

“I haven’t seen any of those cousins since my first communion. And as for the rosary guild, you’ll just have to tell the old biddies that you have a rude and thoughtless daughter.”

“What makes you think I haven’t already told them that?”

“Good-bye, Mama. See you Saturday.”

Chapter 24

BeBe

“Miz Loudermilk? You want to take a look at this kitchen backsplash and tell me if it looks all right?”

Benny, the tile contractor, was standing on the porch of the new house, hollering down at me. I was standing at the foot of the staircase, rubbing my aching lower back and wondering if I had the energy to climb those steps one more time.

It was Friday morning, ten o’clock, and I’d been awakened at seven with the cheerful whine of a table saw coming from our construction site. Not that I’d gotten much sleep. No position was comfortable for me these days, and when I did doze off, the baby managed to kick me awake soon after.

Harry had headed off to work in the predawn hours. I was starting to wonder when the nine-to-five part of his new office job was going to kick in. So in addition to running the inn I’d also become construction manager.

I hauled myself up the stairs and picked my way carefully through the construction debris in the living room.

Benny stood proudly by the kitchen counter, pointing at his handiwork, neatly laid and grouted gray and white penny tiles on the backsplash.

“Oh no.” I felt a stabbing pain in my lower back.

His face fell. “You don’t like it?”

“I liked it fine for the guest bathroom floor. This is the wrong tile, Benny.”

“Huh?”

I picked up one of the cardboard cartons he’d discarded on the floor and pointed to the label I’d written in one-inch-high letters:
GUEST BATH FLOOR
. Then I walked over to the stack of tile boxes that had been delivered earlier in the week.

KITCHEN BACKSPLASH
was labeled on the side of the box. I took out one of the tiles and showed it to him.

“Two-by-four white subway tile.
This
is what’s supposed to be on the backsplash.”

He took the tile and turned it over and over, like it was the first time he’d ever seen one.

“The penny tile looks right nice, though, don’t it?”

“Subway tile for the backsplash, please, Benny. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take the penny tile down, and you’d better do it fast before that grout sets up. In the meantime, I’ll call the tile place and reorder more tile for the guest bathroom floor. Do we have enough thin-set?”

“I reckon so.” He turned abruptly and began mounting an attack on the backsplash with a crowbar, his feelings obviously hurt.

I walked away, shaking my head, to check on progress in the nursery. Finally I had reason to smile. The walls had been painted the soft seafoam green Weezie and I had picked out. The hardwood floors had been stained and given a soft matte finish. Morning sunlight splashed on the floors, and I could feel the tension knot in my stomach begin to relax.

Tomorrow morning I’d get Harry to start moving in the furniture. I was itching to put the crib in place and dress it in all the bedding Marian had sewn for it. I wanted to put the rag rug with its pastel stripes of butter yellow, green, and coral on the floor, and I wanted to fill the wooden bookcase with all the picture books I’d been collecting for our little sprout.

In short, I was ready to nest. The painters had left a ladder in the corner. I had the curtain rods in a box out in the hall. I even had my own cordless drill. It wouldn’t take me more than half an hour to hang those rods. I eyed the ladder and pictured myself teetering on the top rung. Maybe I’d just wait for Harry to get home. If he ever came home.

As if he knew I’d been thinking about him, the cell phone in my pocket buzzed. Speak of the devil.

“How’s it going?” Harry asked.

“About the way it usually goes,” I said. “The tile guy installed the kitchen backsplash—using the tile that’s supposed to go on the floor of the guest bath.”

“Damn.”

“But on the other hand, the baby’s room is ready for furniture and drapes. I hope you don’t have any plans for tomorrow morning.”

“I’m all yours,” Harry said. “But I do have a little bad news. I can’t meet you for your doctor’s appointment this morning after all. Remember Wayne Templeton? The thoracic surgeon from Syracuse? He’s in town and he’s insisting I take him fishing. I’d really rather not, with everything else going on, but I just can’t see turning down the kind of money he’s offering to pay for one fishing trip. If I go, I’ll cut out of work around lunchtime.”

“Go catch your fish,” I said. “I’m a big girl. I can go to the doctor all by myself.”

“I like going with you.”

“It’s strictly routine. All they’re going to do is take my blood pressure and weigh me. And that’s not a number I want to share with anybody. Especially you.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind. This is absolutely my last charter. I’m not crazy about going with Weezie still out of town…”

“I’ll call you after I leave the doctor’s office,” I said, cutting him off. “All I ask is that you make sure your phone is charged.”

*   *   *

Michael Garbutt wheeled himself away from the exam table, washed his hands, and made a note on the laptop computer open on the desk.

I clutched at the cotton sheet draped over my mostly naked torso and struggled to sit up again.

“Your blood pressure is up,” he said, running down the notes on my chart.

“No wonder, after I had issues with my contractor this morning. It’ll probably come back down after I make sure he gets the right tile for my bathroom floor,” I said.

“Harry’s not your contractor, I hope,” Michael said. He and Harry had been long-ago high school classmates at Benedictine Military School in Savannah, and had somehow survived their wild teen years. Michael had surprised everybody in town when he came home from his freshman year of college and announced his intention of becoming a doctor.

“I wish Harry was my contractor. But no, he’s too busy with the new job. I’m kind of overseeing things on the new house, and it’s not going very smoothly.”

Michael brushed a lock of graying blond hair off his forehead, looked over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses at me, and frowned. “Tell Harry I said he needs to fire you from being a supervisor. Your blood pressure is up, and that’s not good. Bebe, I’d really like you off your feet, if possible.”

“Not possible,” I said, cutting him short. “I’ve got the inn to run, plus the new house to finish. And my best friend is getting married Sunday. Honestly, Michael, the blood pressure is just temporary. It’ll probably go right back down after I leave here.”

He made some more notes on the laptop and turned back to me. “Also? The baby’s started to drop a little.”

“Already? But I’m not supposed to be due till next month.”

“First babies come when they want to come,” Michael said. He pointed his pen at me. “I want to see you back here Monday morning. If your blood pressure’s still elevated, I’m putting you to bed.”

“Fine.” I stuck my tongue out at him and began to gather my clothing.

“Harry’s not doing any fishing since he took the new job, is he?” Michael asked.

“He was taking a charter client out today, but he claims it’s his last run,” I said.

Michael made some more notes on my chart. “It better be. He’s gonna be a daddy again pretty soon here.” He laughed at the very idea. “You know, some of the guys in our BC class are having grandbabies right about now.”

“And some of the guys in your class are also totally bald with hip replacements and bad hearts,” I reminded him. “Harry’s young at heart.”

He patted my shoulder. “More importantly, he’s got a good heart. You guys will be great parents. Just remember—take it easy for the next couple weeks.”

Chapter 25

Weezie

I stood on the top step of the town house and looked out at the street. The previous day’s snow had turned to slush and the sky was the color of a dirty dishrag. But I buttoned my coat, slung a huge plastic tote bag over my shoulder, and donned my gloves, scarf, and hat. Today was my last day in the city and I was determined to do some New York–style junking, weather be damned.

I’d done an Internet search for nearby vintage and antique shops, and I had a list of likely addresses, along with directions to get where I was going. More important, I’d finally broken down and bought a pair of inexpensive boots—and heavy woolen socks.

Eight blocks away from the town house, I found what should have been my street of dreams. Both sides of the street were lined with antique shops. My pulse raced at the concentration of vintage goodness.

The first storefront I stopped at had a window filled with artistically stacked old wooden packing crates. Spilling out of the crates, amid shreds of brown paper excelsior, were more pieces of old Jadeite than I’d ever seen in one place.

There were green Jadeite divided dinner plates, chop platters, coffee mugs, and soup bowls. There were nesting sets of mixing bowls, cups and saucers, cream pitchers, and sugar bowls. Hundreds and hundreds of pieces. There were rare Jadeite pieces I’d only ever seen on eBay listings or in Martha Stewart’s magazine, pieces like canister sets and spice jars. The shop was called Miscellanea.

I pushed through the heavy plate-glass door and was hit with a telltale odor. Not the scent of mildew or mothballs I always hope for in a junk shop. No, this was an expensive-smelling lavender-scented aromatherapy candle. I turned toward the window display, snaked my hand behind the burlap coffee sack backdrop, and brought out a sugar bowl. One glance at the laser-printed price tag told me I was in the wrong place. The price for the sugar bowl? A hundred and fifteen dollars. I quickly tucked the bowl back in the window and turned to go.

And bumped into the salesclerk. She had on a white lab coat like the clerks at the Clinique counter at Macy’s, and a name tag identifying her as Esme. “Do you do Jadeite?” she asked.

“Um, I sometimes
buy
Jadeite when it’s affordable. I’m a dealer,” I added apologetically.

“Then you know how
amazing
these pieces are,” she said, gesturing toward the window. “It’s dead stock, from an old warehouse in Indiana. Those are even the original packing crates. I can sell you one of those for three hundred fifty dollars—but I’m warning you, they won’t last at that price.”

“Well, I’d love one, but I’m flying home tomorrow, and that’s not exactly a carry-on piece.”

“We ship all over the world,” she offered.

“Thanks, it’s all lovely, but I don’t usually
do
crates.” Then I fled the premises.

*   *   *

I window-shopped the rest of the block and quickly discovered that New York junk was priced from five to ten times higher than what I could sell things for at Maisy’s Daisy.

It was fun to look, and I got great ideas from the artistic displays in all these high-end shops, but after a couple hours of the look-but-don’t-buy routine, I was getting nostalgic for good old rusty, crusty Southern junk prices. Wasn’t there
anything
here that I could afford?

I wandered for what seemed like miles. The cheap boots were rubbing blisters on my heels, and the sky was looking threatening. I was about to wave the white flag and splurge on a cab ride back to the apartment when I spotted a cobblestoned lane so narrow I wondered if it was an alley rather than a street. I stood in the entrance to the lane and peeked down it. There were storefronts, but most of them were darkened.

In the middle of the block, though, I saw a large old neon sign in the shape of a lady’s high-button boot. The name LaFarge & Sons blinked on and off, beckoning me to investigate.

The shop window was caked with what looked like Reagan-era dust. The display was a haphazard jumble of stuff from a cavalcade of decades—1980s-era mannequins dressed in polyester disco stacked on top of shiny 1930s-era mahogany sideboards, shoved up against 1950s metal high school chemistry lab tables on top of which were stacked 1920s oak pressed back kitchen chairs.

A set of tarnished brass sleigh bells attached to the door jingled merrily as I stepped inside and into another era—and zip code.

The interior was dim, lit only by a scattering of vintage chandeliers hanging from the high pressed tin tile ceiling. Furniture had been shoved into random corners, and everything was stacked four and five items high. Dust filmed every surface, cobwebs festooned every corner.

I smiled. No pomegranate-scented candles flickered, no chic salesclerks hovered. I flipped over an ugly 1960s florist vase and saw a yellowing masking-tape price tag. Fifty cents!

The echo of my footsteps was the only sound in the high-ceilinged room. I wandered around, touching battered dressers and rickety chairs. My general impression was that the phantom shopkeeper had been pillaging garage sales for the past fifty years and then dumping his finds into this space.