The Fixer Upper Part 28

"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."

40.

It 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 a.s.sured 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 bas.e.m.e.nt laundry area though.

Since I'd moved to Birdsong, I'd avoided the bas.e.m.e.nt 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 c.r.a.p."

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 cuc.u.mber. I poured myself a gla.s.s 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 b.u.mper to b.u.mper for a ten-mile stretch of Georgia 400, starting at Holcomb Bridge Road, and the downtown connector was impa.s.sible. 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, b.u.t.ts, 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, s.e.xy, 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 h.e.l.l 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 gla.s.s 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 l.u.s.ty-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 stalact.i.tes-or were they stalagmites? I could never keep them straight-were dripping from the tree limbs.

Where the h.e.l.l 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 doork.n.o.b and it wouldn't budge, I just plain got p.i.s.sed 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. d.a.m.n 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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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 b.u.t.tonhook. 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 doork.n.o.b 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 gla.s.s 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 antic.i.p.ation.

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-gla.s.s 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.

"s.h.i.t." 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; talc.u.m 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 gla.s.s-fronted prints were stacked on every flat surface.

I picked up one of the largest framed prints, and rubbed at a thick patina of dust on its gla.s.s surface. The subject was a hand-tinted exotic bird, maybe a toucan or a mynah. I squinted at the tiny writing on the bottom of the print-was this an Audubon folio? There were five more framed prints the same size, all of different birds, in the stack.

I had to suck in my stomach to thread my way deeper into the room. The sheer volume of stuff was overwhelming. Chairs and lamps and even packing crates filled with shredded newspapers-and china and crystal-were everywhere. I could only guess that the few family items that remained downstairs were only there because they wouldn't fit up here.

Finally, I worked my way into a tiny bare s.p.a.ce in the room. I had been right about one thing. Ella Kate apparently slept in a narrow single bed with a plain, rounded-off metal headboard that reminded me of a hospital bed. It was made up with white cotton sheets and an old green army blanket. Neatly folded at the foot of the bed was a pastel patchwork blue-and-white quilt.

It looked so unlike anything Ella Kate would own that I had to take a closer look. I unfolded the quilt. The fabrics-pale blue ginghams, purple calicoes, and green stripes-were worn to a tissuelike softness. The pattern was an applique design of straw-hatted boys in overalls. The quilt was too small to fit even a twin bed. Was it a crib quilt?

On the bedside table was a framed black-and-white photograph. It was a studio portrait of a young woman. She was in profile, chin up, eyes sparkling, lips slightly parted, as though antic.i.p.ating something wonderful. Her sweater and pearls, not to mention the smooth combed bangs and ponytail, told me the photograph had been taken sometime in the 1950s, when the sitter would have been in her late teens. I recognized the subject immediately, Olivia Dempsey Killebrew. My grandmother.

There was a Victorian walnut-mirrored chifforobe on the wall beside the bed. I opened the door. Packed inside were decades' worth of clothing-a time-traveled wardrobe of poodle skirts, cotton shirtwaist dresses, tulle-skirted prom dresses with sequin-dusted bodices, cotton blouses with prim Peter Pan collars, and stretchy side-zipped Capri pants. I let my fingertips trail across the hem of a black velvet c.o.c.ktail dress with a red satin flounce at the hem.

None of these clothes could have belonged to Ella Kate, even before age and osteoporosis had started to shrink her to her present size. Ella Kate was a wren who dressed in shades of dun. These brightly colored garments had belonged to a more exotic creature. Like my grandmother.

I sat down on the bed to try and take it all in. Ella Kate had been h.o.a.rding Birdsong's furnishings and she'd created a kind of shrine to Olivia.

Sitting on a chest only a couple of feet from the bed was a pine blanket chest that held Ella Kate's television-a fourteen-inch Zenith with a set of makeshift coat-hanger and aluminum-foil rabbit ears duct-taped to its top.

I sank down on the bed, and remembering my original quest, turned on the TV. It was already turned to WSB. The weatherman stood in front of a map of Georgia, droning on about power outages-twenty thousand customers in DeKalb, seventy thousand in Fulton. Trees and power lines down. The Georgia State Patrol had closed off Interstate 75 south of the airport, all the way to Macon, because of icy overpa.s.ses and numerous wrecks. The state department of transportation had dispatched dozens of sand trucks, but a spokesman was urging people to stay off the roads.

The next shot was of a miserable-looking blond reporter, huddled into a hooded coat, standing on an overpa.s.s at I-75 and the Lakewood Freeway. An unseen hand held an umbrella over her as she described an eight-car pileup on the roadway below.

"s.h.i.t." The storm was worse than I'd thought. And if I-75-one of the heaviest-traveled roadways in the state-was closed all the way to Macon, then the secondary roads would be in even worse shape.

Where was Ella Kate? I could only hope that whoever had given her a ride to the animal hospital had had the good sense to pull off the road and wait out the storm.

I made my way to Ella Kate's window-that same window from which she'd peeked out at me the night before-to check on conditions on the street outside Birdsong. The streetlight at the curb shone down on the icy, abandoned street. The trees in the front were bent double from the weight of the ice. n.o.body was foolhardy enough to be out in this weather.

Maybe, I thought, if trees and power lines were coming down, I should think about moving the Catfish into the garage. I dreaded going out in the ice, but I dreaded even more being stuck at Birdsong without transportation.

That's when it struck me. The driveway was empty. The Catfish was gone. And so was Ella Kate.

41.

I pressed my forehead against the cold window gla.s.s and shut my eyes. Ella Kate had gotten herself a ride, all right. She'd been so furious after our fight that she'd decided to drive to Macon by herself-a final show of defiance.

There was no time to sweep up the broken cat figurine or to try to hide the fact that I'd trespa.s.sed on the elderly woman's privacy. I didn't bother to shut off the television or the light, or even close the door.

I ran downstairs and got my cell phone.

He answered on the first ring.

"Dempsey? Are you all right? Is your power out? We just had a huge oak tree come down in the backyard here. It hit the shed, and most of my mom's roses are flattened."

"I'm fine," I said breathlessly. "It's Ella Kate. We had a fight this morning, and I was supposed to take her to Macon to get Shorty, but she was still so mad at me, she told me she'd get her own ride, and I just thought, well, she got a friend to take her-"

"Hang on," Tee said. "Slow down. Where is Ella Kate?"

"That's just it," I babbled. "I only just now realized it. Tee, she took the Catfish! She left this afternoon, before it started storming. She wasn't even wearing a sweater, and it's freezing out, and she's so shriveled up, I bet she can't even see over the steering wheel. She hasn't come back, and I just saw on WSB that there are trees down everywhere, and all kinds of wrecks, and the highway patrol has closed off I-75. And she's out there! I don't even know where to begin to look, and I don't have a car-"

I was sobbing, but I didn't care.

"We'll take Dad's Mercedes," Tee said. "Dress warm. I'll be there in five minutes. And don't worry. Ella Kate's old and skinny-but she's too d.a.m.ned mean to die in an ice storm. Not yet anyway."

After I hung up, I ran upstairs and put on a pair of Norbert's long johns, and over that my heaviest pair of wool pants. I put on a pair of cotton socks, and over that a pair of hunting socks, and over that my only low-heeled boots.

Getting dressed calmed me down some. I called the animal hospital where we'd taken Shorty, but all I got was a recorded message telling me that it was after hours, and in case of an emergency I should dial the on-call vet.

I repeated the number to myself while I stabbed it into my cell phone.

"h.e.l.lo? Is this the vet from Mid-Georgia Animal Hospital?"

"Actually, this is Verna, Dr. Shoemaker's a.s.sistant," the woman said. "Do you have an emergency?"

"I do. My, er, cousin brought her c.o.c.ker spaniel, Shorty, into the hospital yesterday. He ate my panties. Ella Kate was supposed to pick him up this afternoon, and she left, but she hasn't come back, and I'm terrified she's caught in the storm-"