Blueprints: A Novel (10 page)

Maybe brains didn’t matter when there was someone else to write the words. In fact, the lead story, to which they returned repeatedly during the broadcast, was the weather. The heat and humidity would be around for another day at least, with no storms to bring relief until Saturday. Since Jamie was flying morning and evening tomorrow, this was good news.

Mesmerized in the way of morbid curiosity, she kept watching.
Beauty before age,
Theo had said, and that might work here, but not on
Gut It!

Or did it? What if Brian and Claire wanted her to host solely because she was young and attractive? What if she were as noncredible, as
interchangeable,
as these women? If so, she hadn’t accomplished anything in life, at least not where
Gut It!
was concerned. She was simply being rewarded for her age at the expense of her mother, who was being punished for hers.

It was all wrong. Caroline was a hands-on host who knew what she was talking about. Even when smiling, she had a gravitas that these two on the screen lacked.

The news ended, but Jamie was aggravated enough to be hearing voices again. Aware that she had to be up in five hours, she pulled up reruns of
American Idol
and let the music exhaust her.

*   *   *

Soon after dawn, she was on her way to the airport, and, yes, there were messages on her phone from Roy and Brad. Ignoring them, she read one from Caroline thanking her for the birthday celebration, and several from clients on project issues. Once she boarded the plane, though, she turned off her phone. Minutes later, the plane took off, and she was on her way to Atlanta, oblivious of the disaster about to unfold at home.

six

Caroline was sitting in the middle of her unmade bed, in a mess of fuchsia sheets and scattered sections of the newspaper, when she called the MacAfee shop Friday morning. Fresh from the bath, she had placed herself directly under the ceiling fan, so that it would cool her as it dried her skin.

At the other end of the line, she heard the high-pitched screech of a table saw, then the voice of the shop’s manager. “McGinn here.”

“Hey, Brady, it’s Caroline. Just checking in. Have my dowels arrived?” The dowels in question were small pins that would anchor the top to the legs of a trestle table she was building from white oak. The pins were a hybrid of wood and steel that was new enough to the market to make them a special-order item.

“Hold on. I’ll look.”

He was gone for several minutes, during which time the upstairs cats joined her on the bed—Biscuit, the youngest, to bat at the newspaper, AnneMarie, the mama’s girl, to stretch out along Caroline’s thigh. Caroline was stroking her orange back when Brady returned.

“I don’t see them. They should’ve been in by now. Want me to track ’em down?”

“That’d be great. Thanks, Brady. What’s doing there?”

“Same old. Norris and Watts are working on prefabs for the Connolly house. Turino’s cutting decking.”

“Not on-site?”

“He says it’s too hot. Me, I’d be out there anyhow. It’s pretty hot in here, too.”

Caroline didn’t doubt it. Her house seemed to be absorbing more humidity with each passing hour, and though she had every ceiling fan running on high, they could only do so much when the moisture became entrenched. Lethargy was the order of the day, not that she was about to do anything strenuous, like take a wood chisel to teak. Her wrist was still achy.

Phone calls were fine, though. She made a few more before extracting herself from the cats, pulling on a white tank and denim shorts, and trotting barefoot down the stairs. The place smelled—cloyingly—of roses. She might have tossed them, had they not been from Theo.

She poured herself an iced tea, pulled a stool up to the kitchen counter, and opened her laptop. It was a minute before her e-mail began loading. One day offline, and an amazing amount piled up. MacAfee had a digital assistant whose job was to monitor
Gut It!
Facebook posts, forward notes to whoever of the cast could best answer them, and post their replies. As host, Caroline got the most mail. For that reason, and because she liked doing it, she wrote and posted replies herself.

Today, there were questions on refinishing butcher block, building bunk beds into a gabled alcove, and replacing an out-of-code banister, but she had barely skimmed the list when Master began weaving through her legs. She managed to haul him onto her lap—no small feat with only one arm and significant cat girth—but once there, he butted her chin with his furry gray head by way of thank you, turned a circle in search of just the right spot, and settled in.

How to restore salvaged barn board
. She started with that. Her right thumb was a problem, since the bandage holding it in the proper position for her wrist kept hitting the space bar at the wrong time. Other than the occasional twinge, though, the typing caused no pain.

Caroline loved this part of her job. There were times when that still surprised her. Born and bred a carpenter, she had never dreamed of doing anything but working with tools. But now this—writing letters, giving advice, sharing her knowledge with people who turned around and put it to good use? Life was good.

The doorbell rang. Easing Master to the floor, she left the kitchen. And there, at the far end of the hall on the other side of the screen, was Claire Howe.

Caroline’s first thought was that Claire would
not
like what she was wearing. She rarely did. Not that the woman was a sharp dresser herself. Tall and lean, she seemed oblivious to her sloppy appearance, as in ill-fitting skirts and half-tucked blouses. And sneakers? Even Caroline knew that flats or low heels were better with a skirt.

Not that Claire needed clothes to exert command. Her deep voice did that all on its own, and if not her voice, her eyes. They rarely blinked. The intimidation factor didn’t bother Caroline, but she spent her share of time on the set soothing others who suffered a bruising Claire stare.

But they weren’t on the set now. This was Caroline’s turf.

“Claire. Hi.” She smiled as she opened the screen. “This is a surprise—and before you say anything, I watched the tape. It’s amazing. Our best season yet, don’t you think?”

Claire didn’t reply. She was eying the bandaged hand. “That looks serious.”

Caroline turned the wrist back and forth. “Not to worry. This is by design. My doctor has a perverse sense of humor. And thank you for the birthday flowers.” She glanced toward the living room, where the arrangement from Brian and Claire positively burst from its vase. “Come.” She gestured. “You have to see these.”

“I can certainly smell them,” Claire remarked as she followed Caroline into the living room. She glanced at the flowers, said a dismissive “Pretty,” and returned to Caroline with cautious eyes. “You look calm. Does that mean you’re okay with everything?”

“With what?”

“The change.”

“What change?” When Claire’s eyes darkened in annoyance, Caroline tried to think of something she might have forgotten. The woman certainly wasn’t talking about menopause; she never got personal. Caroline could only think of one possibility. “You mean the underwriting change?” A new sponsor would be on board for the fall. But Claire’s frown said it wasn’t that. Uneasy, she said, “Spill it, Claire. It’s not like you to hesitate.”

“It’s not like Roy to lie,” Claire shot back.

Ooooh. Caroline wasn’t touching
that
one. “Please,” she invited, “what
is
it?”

With a low chuff, Claire looked away, then almost angrily back. “We’re changing hosts.”

Pause. “Excuse me?”

“We’re making a change in who will host the show.” The words, enunciated in pairs, were barely out when she declared an irritated “I was not supposed to be the messenger here. We discussed this at length. Roy said Jamie already told you.”

Caroline was doubly confused. “I was with Jamie yesterday. Twice. She didn’t mention any change.”

“Well, I don’t know why not. She was the one who offered to tell you. This has been in the works for a while. We’ve been prepping her behind the scenes. She’ll be taking over as host.”

Caroline was floored. “Ex
cuse
me?”

“Jamie is the new host. We want a new face.”

Caroline recoiled. “What’s wrong with mine?”

“Nothing, Caroline,” Claire said in a pedantic way, clearly still annoyed, “except you’ve been hosting for a while. It’s time for something fresh.”

Caroline had an awful feeling. “Define fresh.”

“Young. Our backers feel strongly about this, and focus groups tell us that Jamie is the one they like best.”

“At least they have good taste,” Caroline managed to say. Jamie would make a great host, but that wasn’t the issue. The word “young” was echoing, echoing, echoing. She felt blindsided, gutted just as she had been when Roy had told her she was no longer “young” enough to be his wife. “Oh boy,” she muttered. “This is Roy’s doing.” It was the only thing that made sense. He loved everything about
Gut It!
’s success except her role in it.

Claire was strident. “Roy does not make the decisions here. He may know about marketing for your family business, but television is not his world. No, Roy didn’t initiate this, but he’s been on board from the start.”

From the start? Like months and months? And Jamie knowing, too?
That thought had her reeling.

“Jamie is good, Caroline. She won’t let you down.”

“Her ability isn’t the issue.”

“It was Jamie’s idea to make a contest out of choosing the fall house.”

“She’s definitely savvy about marketing gimmicks, but how does that correlate to hosting
Gut It!
?”

“She’s of the generation we want. It was her idea to bring Taylor Huff on as interior designer this spring. Taylor is thirty. Focus groups liked her, too.”

“Who all were
in
these focus groups?” Caroline cried. “
College
kids?”

“Accept it, Caroline. It’s a fact of life, and it isn’t just television. Every entertainment platform puts a premium on youth.”

“What about Oprah? She’s not thirty. Neither is Katie Couric or Cokie Roberts or … or Diane Sawyer.”

“You’re no Diane Sawyer.”

“And
Gut It!
is no
This Old House,
” Caroline shot back, because one put-down deserved another. But there was little satisfaction in it. Something inside her was withering. “I’m just gone from the show, then?”

“Oh no,” Claire said quickly. “
Lord
no. We want you to stay on as master carpenter. You’ll still anchor certain segments, especially if the wedding takes place during the taping, and Jamie and Brad are in Paris.”

“Paris.”

“Am I speaking out of turn? I thought they were honeymooning there.”

The woman certainly knew how to stab and twist. Caroline felt the pain but refused to show it. “They haven’t decided,” she replied, though suddenly wasn’t certain.

“Well, whatever. When it comes to
Gut It!
we want you to do everything that you’ve been doing.”

“Like smoothing things over when you offend people on set?”

Claire stared. “Do you have a point with that?”

“Absolutely,” Caroline said, perhaps brashly, but what did she have to lose? “I do a lot more on set than hosting, and it’s because I am who I am at the
age
I am that I’m able to do it.”

“And we appreciate your efforts. But the person facing the camera is going to be Jamie.”

With that bluntness, Caroline was blindsided all over again. How to process this, when it didn’t make sense? She and Jamie shared everything. Besides, hadn’t Jamie just said she didn’t have time to plan a wedding? Add hosting responsibilities to that—unless she was
already
factoring in hosting responsibilities?

“There’ll be a learning curve,” Claire went on. “She understands that. But you have to agree that this will lead to big things for her career. Her name will be front and center. She’ll be a celebrity in architectural circles.”

“I’m not arguing with any of that. But why
now
?” Jamie was twenty-nine. Caroline had been midforties when she took the helm.

“Because our new sponsor feels strongly about it. Jamie was instrumental in securing this sponsor, by the way. She was in on all the meetings last winter. It’s about demographics. We want to aim for the twenty-five- to forty-year-olds.”

“Well, that’s very PC,” Caroline said in a burst of pique, “but they’re not the ones spending the money.”

“Increasingly, they are. Advertisers know this.”

“They should tell
that
to those twenty-five- to forty-year-olds, who either have low-paying jobs or—if they were lucky enough to go to college—huge debt to repay. In the ten years our show’s been running, what was the youngest age of a homeowner?” In response to silence, she said, “Correct. Forty. Which is at the very top of that demographic. The average age of homeowners has been fifty. Our fall homeowners are nearing
sixty
. Do advertisers want that to change, too? Should
Gut It!
start focusing on redoing the one-bedroom condo that the average thirty-year-old might be able to afford?”

Needing fresh air, Caroline left the living room and went out the door to the porch. Oh yes, the heat was brutal, but that wasn’t why she was sweating. Claire was poison. She wanted the woman out of her house. But even the porch was too close. She went halfway down the walk, where she put her hands on her hips and waited.

Behind her, the screen slapped. Hit by a new wave of bewilderment, she turned as Claire approached. “Was it something I did? Something I said? Something I
wore
?” Not that she was about to change her look. Viewers loved her color. She constantly got mail on that.

Claire said nothing.

“Just my age,” Caroline concluded in defeat.

After another moment’s silence, Claire waved away a fly. “So … are you okay with this now?”

They had come full circle, but Caroline was more confused than ever. “How could I be okay with it? I totally disagree with this decision.”