The Fixer Upper (24 page)

Bobby glanced over at Trey, and then away. “Son, you want to start getting the ladder and tools off the truck?”

Trey nodded agreeably and went out the kitchen door.

“He looks just like you, Bobby,” I said. “I hope he’s as good a man as his father.”

“I think he favors his mama a little bit,” Bobby said. “Lucky for him.”

“How about a cup of coffee before you get up on that roof?” I asked. “I made a big pot first thing this morning, and it’s got me so jittery I might jump out of my skin.”

“Coffee’d be good,” he allowed. I poured him a mug and he took a sip.

“Man,” he said, looking up in surprise. “That’s some good stuff.”

“French roast beans. I grind them fresh myself,” I said. “I’ll get you a bag next time I go to Macon.”

“I’d be glad to pay you for ’em,” Bobby said.

I waved away his offer.

He put his cup down and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “About Ella Kate,” he said, his voice lowered.

I leaned in closer.

He clucked his tongue. “I ain’t got no business tellin’ you about this,
but I mentioned to the wife the other day how Ella Kate’s giving you such a rough time, and she says you got a right to know some things.”

“What kind of things?”

He hesitated. “My wife’s auntie worked for the Dempseys way back in the day. Right here at Birdsong. She’s an old, old lady now. Oldest member at her church, she’ll be a hundred in July, if the Lord keeps her well.”

He squirmed again, and grimaced.

“Bobby,” I urged. “It’s not gossip if it’s true, if that’s what’s worrying you. And I swear, I won’t tell a soul what you tell me here today.”

The kitchen door popped open, and Trey stuck his head inside. “Excuse me? Dad? I got the ladder set up, and the ropes and tools rigged the way you asked me to.”

Bobby set his cup down and stood up. “That’s good, son. I’m coming right now.”

I grabbed hold of Bobby’s shirt. “Wait! Bobby—”

He just shook his head. “Not in front of the boy. It ain’t right.”

F
uelled by caffeine and angst, I finished sanding all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts by noon. Bobby and Trey were in and out of the kitchen half a dozen times that morning, but I could never corner Bobby alone to make him spit out whatever it was that he really didn’t want to tell me about the bad blood between Ella Kate and the Killebrews.

The unseasonable warm spell we’d been having was over, and temperatures had dipped back down into the fifties, so Bobby and Trey seemed glad to take their lunch break in the kitchen, after I went outside and insisted they come in.

When he’d finished with the ham sandwich and slice of pecan pie “the wife” had packed for his lunch, Bobby admired my cabinet-sanding prowess again, and proclaimed the doors ready for the next step.

“Got to clean up every bit of sawdust out of this room,” he cautioned, bringing in his Shop-Vac. “You got to get up under the cabinets, in the corners, every inch of this room got to be clean as a whistle. Can’t be a speck of dust or grit in here, once you get started putting a stain and finish on them doors, or it’ll ruin all your pretty work.”

“It’ll be as clean as an operating room,” I pledged. “What comes after that?”

He gave me a gummy-feeling piece of fabric he called a tack cloth, and instructed me to wipe down all the newly sanded wood. He gave me a can of Minwax stain, and showed me how to brush it on the doors and drawers, all of which he’d had me line up neatly on the old yellow linoleum countertops.

“What about these countertops?” I asked. “I looked at some granite the other day, but I just don’t think it’s in my budget, much as I hate to give it up.”

Bobby nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, granite ain’t cheap. But I got me another idea that might work, if you don’t mind.”

“Anything.”

He opened the door to the basement and disappeared down the stairs. When he came back up, he was carrying a heavy, water-stained cardboard box. He set it on the table with a thud, and lifted out a plain four-inch white tile. “What do you think about that?”

I took the tile and turned it this way and that. “Not very inspiring,” I said.

He scratched his head for a moment, and took four more tiles out of the box. He laid them out on the tabletop, so that the squares became interlocking diamonds. “What you think about that?” he asked. “Maybe with some gray grout? Thing is, Dempsey, Mr. Norbert and them, they never threw nothin’ away around this place. I think this here tile is left over from when they put in that bathroom upstairs, for Mr. Norbert. And there’s two more boxes of it down in that basement. More than enough to do your kitchen countertops. All for free. All we got to do is buy us a bag of grout.”

I smiled. “You said the magic word, Bobby. Free.”

“All right then,” he said. “Let me get back up on that roof.”

I spent the rest of the day sucking all the sawdust and grit out of the kitchen, and then wiping down and staining the cabinets and drawers. At one point late in the afternoon, I heard Ella Kate come clomping down the hallway. I ran out and caught her by the front door.

“Ella Kate? I know you’re mad at me, and I’m sorry about that. You’re right. I was insensitive and selfish. Have you heard anything about Shorty? Is he ready to come home from the hospital yet?”

“Goin’ to get him right this minute,” she said, brushing aside the hand I’d laid on her arm.

“I’d be happy to drive you down there,” I told her. “Just let me get cleaned up a little bit, and we’ll go.”

“No need,” she said. “I got me a ride.” She turned and went out the door.

So much for détente, I thought.

I was about to head back to the kitchen when I saw a car, a black Lexus, pull into the driveway. At first I assumed it was Ella Kate’s ride, but then I saw a woman—a tall brunette dressed in a dark brown pants suit—climb out of the car. As she drew closer on the front walk, I realized my visitor was Shirlene Peppers. I also realized that her pants suit was Armani, her shoes were Manolo, and the calfskin hobo bag slung over her shoulder was Gucci. I could have resurfaced my whole kitchen in imported Italian marble, not to mention replumbed all of Birdsong, with just the money Shirlene had spent on what she was wearing that day.

I looked down at my own attire—my faded Redskins football jersey, and Uncle Norbert’s overalls. I had a blue bandanna tied over my hair, and sawdust leaking from every corner of my body. I sighed and opened the front door.

Shirlene Peppers was looking around the front porch with obvious curiosity. Or maybe it was just distaste.

“Hi there,” I told her.

“Well, hello,” she said, eyeing me up and down.

“Excuse the mess,” I said. “It’s a work in progress. And by that, I mean me and the house.”

“Love the new color,” she said, gesturing toward the front porch.

“That’s all Jimmy’s doing,” I said with a laugh. “He picked out the color, and then before I knew it, he was painting it too.”

“That’s Jimmy,” she said. “Which is why I stopped by. Do you have a minute?”

“Sure,” I said, opening the door wide. “Let’s go into the parlor. There’s not much furniture in there, but it’ll keep us away from the chemical fumes in the kitchen. I’ve been staining my cabinets.” I pointed to a splotch on the sleeve of my jersey. “Here’s the color.”

“Nice,” she murmured.

I dragged two dining room chairs into the parlor. Shirlene took one and I sat in the other. I tried to sit up and not feel as intimidated and
inadequate as I actually did. Close up and in person, Shirlene was the real deal. Her skin was deeply tanned and flawless, her makeup was minimal, but expertly applied. Her dark hair was gleaming, and today, worn in a simple twist held with a tortoiseshell comb. Her long fingers wore pale pink polish, and on her left ring finger, she wore a humongous diamond solitaire. Everything about her was high gloss and high class.

She took a deep breath. “About last night. I want to apologize.”

“No need,” I told her. “Jimmy’s harmless, I know. And I should have realized he was drinking too much. But it all happened so fast. One minute he was sober and charming, and the next minute—”

“He was a big ol’ drunk,” Shirlene put in. “But, honey, that’s his fault, not yours. Anyway, that’s not what I want to apologize for. Look. I jumped to a conclusion as soon as I saw you last night, and I feel awful about that.”

“Why?” I asked.

She crossed her legs and jiggled her right foot so hard that the stiletto heel she was wearing nearly flew off.

“Why? Because you’re young and cute and Jimmy was eyeing you like a cat eyes a big ol’ bowl of cream. So I just assumed you were sleeping with him. But I still can’t believe that’s the first thing that came out of my mouth after we were introduced.” She smiled sadly and twisted the ring around until the stone faced her palm.

“And I can’t even blame it on the liquor talking, because I hadn’t even had a drink at that point. I raised a big ol’ stink, for sure. When I got home last night, I had three messages on my answering machine from girlfriends wanting to know if it was true I’d gotten into a cat-fight at the club with Jimmy’s new girlfriend.”

I laughed. “One thing I’ve learned about Guthrie—news travels fast in a town this small.”

“Honey, you don’t even know the half of it,” she said. She uncrossed and then recrossed her legs. “I called Tee this morning, to apologize to him too.”

I tried to look uninterested.

She raised an eyebrow. “I hope he told you that we are
not
an item.
Lorrrrd, he is young enough to be my son. Not that I wouldn’t grab hold of Tee Berryhill in a New York second if I thought he was interested in an old cougar like me.”

I hooted. “Shirlene, you are totally too young to be a cougar. And as long as we’re having true confessions here, when I saw you and Tee walk into the club together last night, I jumped to conclusions too. So I think we’re even. No apologies necessary.”

“You mind my asking what Tee told you about me?”

“He explained that you were a classmate from law school, and that he was taking you to dinner to try to pump you for details about something to do with the county commission.”

She sighed. “I knew Tee had an agenda, when he asked me out, but it hurts just the teensiest bit to hear it in black and white like that. I was trying to delude myself into thinking he was fascinated with me because of the Botox and all the Pilates I’ve been doing.”

“Botox?” I leaned in to get a closer look. “Really? Wow. I never would have guessed. You really do look amazing.”

“Thanks,” she said airily. “That’s one of the few perks from having an ex-husband who’s a doctor. Wayne’s buddies at the hospital still extend me professional courtesy. I get the Botox free, and I assume Wayne’s still getting Viagra for free, because the last girlfriend of his I laid eyes on looked like she’d just lettered in cheerleading over at the vo-tech.”

We shared a laugh over that remark. And then Shirlene twisted her ring again, and recrossed her legs. “Did Tee tell you anything else about me?”

“He mentioned that you and Jimmy were married, before you married Wayne,” I said, half apologetically.

“You didn’t know that already? Jimmy didn’t tell you?”

“Actually, Jimmy did tell me that he’d been married and divorced three times, and that he had an ex-wife named Shirlene. But I didn’t really connect the dots, not even when you came up to the table last night. As soon as Jimmy spotted you with Tee, he started slamming back the bourbon, even heavier. I think it upset him, seeing you with Tee.”

She cocked her head. “You think?”

“I’m new in town,” I said. “So I’m not really up on all the local intrigue, but yeah, I just figured there was some sort of history there.”

“History? Yeah, I guess you could say Jimmy and I have a history. Don’t know if you’d call it Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra. But there’s definitely drama, and definitely comedy. Cheap laughs and cheap thrills.”

I really didn’t know what to say next. The silence got a little awkward.

“Well,” Shirlene said finally, standing up and smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle in her suit jacket. “I was dreading coming over here and facing you today, but this has actually been kinda fun, in a sick way, once we got the messy part over with.”

“Thank you for coming by,” I said. “It was really sweet of you to set me straight on some stuff.”

I walked her out to the door and onto the porch. She was halfway down the front walk, but then she turned around and walked rapidly back.

“Say, Dempsey,” she said. “It seems like I spend most of my time these days hanging out with lawyers and politicians. And all my old girlfriends are busy with their jobs, or their kids and husbands. It was great hearing a little girl talk for once. I was wondering—maybe you’d want to do lunch, or maybe dinner, sometime soon? If you don’t mind doing chick stuff with an old cougar?”

“I’d love it,” I told her. “Seriously.”

“One more thing,” she said. “From one girlfriend to another. Tee Berryhill is a great guy. One in a million. And he’s totally stuck on you. So, girlfriend? Take it from somebody who’s been around the block and made all the mistakes there are to make, relationship wise. Don’t screw this up. This is for real.”

I
t was just getting dark when I heard the clatter of ladders and tools being loaded outside the kitchen.

The back door opened and Bobby stuck his head inside. “Okay, Dempsey, me and Trey are quittin’ for the day.”

“Come on in, Bobby, and let me fix you a cup of coffee to warm you up,” I urged. The temperature had been dropping all afternoon, and the wind had started to kick up too. I’d actually been a little nervous about the thought of the two of them up on that steep roof.

“No, ma’am,” Bobby said. “I got tar all over my boots. I’m not tracking that all over these floors you worked so hard on. Listen, the radio says we’re fixing to have some ugly weather—they’re even talking we might get some ice and hail. We got the underlayment down, and then me and Trey tacked down some tarps, just in case we do get ice. But, now, if it does storm, we’ll lay off the roof tomorrow, and that’ll be a good time for me to go ahead and tile these countertops if you want.”

I walked outside to take a look at the sky. Just as he’d said, charcoal-colored clouds were stacked low on the horizon, and the wind was whipping dried leaves and branches. A light rain had started to fall. “Wow, this looks like the kind of snow clouds we got in D.C.,” I said, hugging my arms to ward off the chill. “Could we get snow this late, and this far south?”

“Might could,” Bobby said. “This time of year, ain’t no tellin’ what the weather could do.”

“Thanks for letting me know about the storm warnings,” I told him. “I never turn on a television or radio here, so I would have been totally in the dark. And don’t worry about coming tomorrow if the weather gets too bad.”

“Ain’t no weather too bad to keep me from working,” Bobby assured me. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.” He got in the truck with Trey and was ready to drive off.

“Hey, Bobby,” I called, running up to the truck. He rolled down the window. “You think you could teach me how to lay tile? Now that I’m done with the cabinets, I’m kind of enjoying working with my hands.”

“Oh yeah,” Bobby said enthusiastically. “I’ll bring an extra trowel when I come tomorrow. You can learn tiling easy as pie. That ain’t no problem at all.”

The skies opened up just as I made it back inside the house. The rain slashed down, and the wind rattled the windows so hard, I wondered if it was actually a tornado we were about to experience.

It occurred to me that I should probably keep an eye on the weather. But the only television in the house was the one in Ella Kate’s room. I’d noticed an old plastic-cased clock radio downstairs in the basement laundry area though.

Since I’d moved to Birdsong, I’d avoided the basement as much as possible. It was dark and smelled like mildew and spiders, so my trips down there were limited to putting laundry in the washer and taking it out of the dryer.

I sprinted down the stairs to the laundry room. The clock radio was sitting on the shelf where we kept the bleach and detergent. It wasn’t plugged in, and the cord was frayed, so I had no idea if it worked or not, but with the wind howling outside, I decided now would be a good time to find out.

Back in the kitchen, I set the radio on the kitchen table and plugged it in. The clock dial lit up immediately, lifting my spirits, and when I turned the tuning dial, I was rewarded with the soothing sounds of an announcer from WSB. I’d lived in Atlanta as a teenager in the midnineties, and I didn’t remember all that much about those times, but I did remember that my father listened to the news on WSB when we were in the car, which was always a source of contention because I always listened to 96 Rock, which he referred to as “96 Crap.”

As I listened to the radio, I set about fixing myself dinner, popping a frozen Stouffer’s lasagna into the oven. I opened the bag of precut
greens and made myself a tossed salad with the lettuce and sliced cucumber. I poured myself a glass of the Dimmlylit Cellars wine, and sat down at the table to eat my salad and wait for the lasagna.

The traffic report in Atlanta was the same as it was every time I heard it on the radio in the Catfish. Interstate 285 was backed up in all directions, traffic was bumper to bumper for a ten-mile stretch of Georgia 400, starting at Holcomb Bridge Road, and the downtown connector was impassible. I supposed traffic was the same in D.C. Maybe they were getting late-season snow too.

For the first time since coming to Guthrie, I felt really isolated. I’d been so busy working on the house, and dealing with my legal problems, that I hadn’t had time to make friends. I hoped Shirlene Peppers was sincere in her offer for some chick time, because I was ready.

The weather report came on as I was lifting the lasagna out of the oven, and the news wasn’t good. A rapidly moving cold front, ice and high winds moving east from Birmingham. The National Weather Service had posted storm warnings for Bibb, Butts, Clayton, Henry, and Jackson counties, effective until nine
P.M.

I looked at the kitchen clock. It was 6:30. I wondered where Ella Kate was. She’d left in midafternoon. She would have had plenty of time to get to Macon and back with Shorty by now. Was she caught in the storm? I had no idea who’d given her a ride to Macon. Would they have stopped on the road if the weather was ugly?

Stop it, I told myself. Ella Kate would not have spent a minute worrying about me if our roles were reversed. The only reason she ever checked up on me was to reconfirm her opinion about my decidedly loose morals.

Morals. I plopped a slab of lasagna on a plate, and sprinkled it with canned parmesan cheese. All day long, I’d deliberately kept myself too busy to think about Tee Berryhill. Now, a long evening stretched ahead of me, and thinking about my short-lived romance seemed inescapable.

Me and Tee. Tee and I. What was the matter with me? I’d had what I now knew was a schoolgirl crush on Alex Hodder—a married, totally inappropriate, and totally dishonest scoundrel—for nearly two years, and all it had gotten me was woe and sorrow.

Suddenly, a wonderful, adorable, intelligent, sexy, available man had inexplicably decided he was falling for me. Why had I deliberately pushed him away the second we’d become intimate?

It wasn’t as if this was my usual pattern. I’d had boyfriends since my teen years. Those romances had died natural deaths. I wasn’t commitment phobic. I didn’t fear intimacy. So—what the hell was wrong with me? How had I managed to mess things up with Tee so fast?

My cell phone was sitting on the kitchen counter. I had Tee’s number. What was to keep me from calling him and apologizing for being such an idiot? I picked up the phone and studied it. There were no missed calls. What was to keep Tee from calling me? From trying to persuade me that we really could have something together?

I checked the phone again. I had four bars. Full reception. Nothing was keeping us apart. Technically speaking. Nothing except that lump in the pit of my stomach. I took a bite of lasagna. It sat there, on top of that lump, and gave me instantaneous heartburn. Or maybe it was just the heartache talking. I dumped the plate in the trash and poured myself another glass of wine.

Inactivity, I decided, was not a good thing for me. I rambled around the house looking for something to do. I’d read all the magazines I’d brought with me from D.C., and the moldering old books I’d found scattered around the house—crumbling hymnals,
Reader’s Digest
condensed books, and Ella Kate’s stack of lusty-busty romances—had no appeal.

I walked around the kitchen and admired my handiwork. When I got to the cabinet doors, I came up with a plan of action. Bobby had diligently removed all the old paint-clogged hinges and hardware from the cabinets and drawers before I’d refinished them. They were in an empty margarine tub downstairs on Norbert’s workbench, where Bobby had promised to clean them up with paint thinner—“good as new.”

Why shouldn’t I clean them up myself tonight? I went back downstairs and fetched the hardware, the can of paint thinner, a wad of steel wool, and an empty one-gallon Folger’s coffee can.

Upstairs, I donned a pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves and poured about an inch of thinner into the coffee can, nearly swooning from the
strong fumes. I dumped in half a dozen sets of hinges, just to see what would happen. The thinner started to cloud up with old paint, which I took as a good sign.

I sat down to wait, and it occurred to me that the rain had stopped. I opened the kitchen door and stuck my head outside, and a needlelike sliver of ice impaled itself in my scalp. In fact, it was now raining ice. I went out to the front porch to check conditions there, and found that the front walkway was already slicked with a thin layer of deadly looking black ice, and tiny stalactites—or were they stalagmites? I could never keep them straight—were dripping from the tree limbs.

Where the hell was Ella Kate? I considered calling the Berryhills, ostensibly to consult Carter about Ella Kate’s possible whereabouts, but down deep I knew I really just wanted to hear Tee’s voice. And I was not ready to give in to that temptation. Yet.

I paced around the house. WSB was already announcing school closings for tomorrow and widespread power outages in metro Atlanta. But we were a good sixty miles south of Atlanta—and the storm—weren’t we? The announcer suggested that listeners trace the storm’s progress on WSB.com, or tune into WSB-TV. Which would have been helpful if I’d had Internet access, or a television.

My thoughts turned again to Ella Kate. Or rather, Ella Kate’s television set. She had the only one in the house. I was genuinely worried about her welfare. What would be the harm in going into her room, just to turn on the television to see what the StormTracker radar systems were showing?

As I ran upstairs, I promised myself that I would enter her room, check the storm’s progress, and leave immediately. She would never have to know. Anyway, I rationalized, this was Mitch’s house—and mine, by default. I had every right to be in any room of the house that I pleased. What if the storm caused the wiring in the television to short out, or go haywire, and start a fire? My going into Ella Kate’s room was strictly a matter of household safety. The life I saved could be my own. And if the theoretical fire spread—to the neighbors, or the rest of the block—wouldn’t I actually be performing a heroic deed?

That’s what I told myself. But when I tried to turn the doorknob and it wouldn’t budge, I just plain got pissed off. Who was this angry old lady anyway? She was a squatter here, a freeloader. What right did she have to lock doors and declare parts of my house strictly off-limits?

I knelt down on the floor and tried to look through the keyhole, but the room inside was dark. Damn you, Ella Kate, I muttered to myself.

I went to my own room and got a slim penknife that I’d found in the top dresser drawer. I tried jamming it into the lock, but the blade was slightly too wide.

Back downstairs to the dreaded basement. From Norbert’s workbench I gathered up three sizes of screwdrivers, a rusty ice pick, and a long implement with a mother-of-pearl handle and a hooked end that I guessed might have been a buttonhook. I went into the laundry room to see if there were any other potential lock-picking tools lying around. And then I spotted it, hanging from a rusty nail beside a worn-out rag mop. A huge metal key ring, bristling with old-fashioned skeleton keys.

I dropped the tools and took both flights of stairs two at a time. In the detective novels I’d devoured as a teenager, the last key on the ring would have opened the door. Or broken off and jammed the lock. But tonight, the first key I chose, totally at random, worked like a charm.

The doorknob turned easily. I swallowed hard and pushed the door open. The room was pitch black and musty smelling. I felt around on the wall for the light switch, and immediately knocked something to the floor. I heard the crash of shattering glass just as I flipped the switch.

A torrent of sensations washed over me—dread, guilt, apprehension. No matter what I told myself, this was breaking and entering. It was intrusion. It was irresistible. I shivered in anticipation.

In my mind’s eye, I’d imagined many times what Ella Kate’s inner sanctum looked like. One version had it decorated like a wild west bordello, with red-velvet-flocked wallpaper, chandeliers dripping with cut crystal, and a gilt-edged canopy bed with a mirrored ceiling. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I’d imagined her in a nun’s cloister, with plain white walls; a hard, narrow cot; and only a wooden kneeler and a Bible rack illuminated by a single guttering candle.

None of those scenarios matched what actually met my eyes when the light came on. The room was crowded, wall to wall, floor to ceiling, with furniture and knickknacks, so that it looked like an antiques warehouse. Pushed up against the wall with the light switch was a walnut highboy dresser. Its top was littered with cat figurines—glass ones, porcelain ones, clay ones. Dozens of cat doodads. I looked down. Lying on the floor in about a hundred pieces were the remains of one of those kitschy kitties, the one that I’d knocked over.

“Shit.” I’d have to get a broom and dustpan to hide the evidence of my crime. Later.

I wedged myself into the room through a narrow opening that Ella Kate had fashioned as a path. It was a tight squeeze. Ella Kate weighed maybe ninety pounds. I did not. Next to the walnut highboy was a matching dressing table, its top covered in old perfume bottles; talcum powder cans; and a highly polished sterling silver mirror, comb, and brush set. Stacked on top of each other, next to the dressing table, were the rest of the missing chairs from the dining room.

I guessed that the only reason the table was still sitting in the dining room was because my ninety-pound freeloader hadn’t been physically able to haul it up the stairs and shove it into this room.

Here were more of the missing furnishings: an ugly maroon plush-covered sofa; a mahogany piecrust occasional table, stacked upside down atop a walnut drop-front secretary; and a pair of dusty armchairs. There were more dressers—plain oak ones, a tall cherry bachelor’s chest, even a fancifully painted pine dresser. I saw at least three more bed frames, including a pair of carved pineapple four-poster beds and a high-backed carved Victorian full-size bed. Mattresses were upended against the walls, wedged in by tables and bookcases. Paintings and glass-fronted prints were stacked on every flat surface.