Blueprints: A Novel (2 page)

The cameraman signaled a break. After cold drinks all around, they picked up in the basement with the security specialist, who was giving a rundown on the advanced features of a system that went far beyond security to include remote control of heating, cooling, and irrigation. Dean took the lead; he was easy on the eye and ear, and he understood electronics. When the plumbing and heating expert joined them to explain the environmental soundness of the new systems, Caroline backed off completely.

The sky continued to brighten, offering the dispersed natural light the cameraman loved. Dodging hustling crews, Caroline talked with the stone specialist, who was polishing marble in the first-floor lav, and the tile expert, who was finishing the kitchen backsplash. These scenes, largely included for DIY addicts who wanted to watch the process, would be saved or cut after the producer and her editors had a chance to log the videotape and decide how much time to spend on what.

When taping resumed in the afternoon, Caroline was in the kitchen with the homeowners, highlighting what was old, new, and repurposed, but the excitement quickly turned to the great room, where the show’s interior designer, Taylor Huff, was supervising the placement of furniture. Sectional sofas complemented cushiony chairs, whose upholstery coordinated with window valences and chair cushions in the kitchen. Then came the media specialist, who was programming the remote for a huge flat-screen TV.
Gut It!
had worked with her before; she was at the forefront of technology and reliable to a fault when it came to installation. Unfortunately, she flustered easily. Even before Claire could intervene, Caroline stopped the taping to calm the woman, then reshaped questions to help her along.

One by one, the crews finished up, and neighbors and guests began to arrive. By early evening, as the lowering sun spilled through the dining room into the foyer, production assistants were arranging nearly forty family, friends, craftsmen, and crew for the group shot that had become a
Gut It!
tradition.

Caroline was front and center. Facing the camera a final time, she said with satisfaction, “There you have it, a recap of this season’s
Gut It!
We took a sixty-year-old Cape that was too small for a growing family, too dated for a modern couple, and too wasteful in an energy-conscious town, and we turned it into a larger, younger, greener home. Now, we’re here with homeowners Rob and Diana, at the foot of the stunning winding staircase that they always dreamed of having. I’m Caroline MacAfee, the host of
Gut It!
Thanks so much for being with us this season. We hope you’ll join us next season for a whole new project.” She looked around. “Everyone set?” Facing front, she slid one arm around her daughter and the other around Diana LaValle. “O-
kay,
” she said, then, “Squish in, you guys,” when the cameraman gestured as much. Seconds of compression passed. “All eyes on the camera.” There was one click, then a second and third, then a communally held breath while the cameraman checked his playback. When he smiled, Caroline turned to her friends and raised a triumphant fist in the air.
“Yesss!”

one

Jamie MacAfee would always be her parents’ child. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-nine and financially independent. When it came to her mother and father, she was still the little girl whose life had been shaped by their divorce and her need to please them both—which was why she was increasingly anxious as she drove across town for a quick breakfast with her dad.

The streets were early-morning quiet. School buses hadn’t yet started to roll, lawn mowers remained stowed, and what other noises there might have been at seven were muted by a thick and ominous heat. June wasn’t supposed to be this hot in New England. Humidity that had been oppressive the evening before remained trapped under the dense maples and oaks that lined her route, and the silk blouse she wore stuck to her skin. Her convertible top was down. Two streets into the drive, she jacked up the air and aimed the blowers at her neck, but her anxiety remained.

It ticked up a notch when she passed the corner of South Main and Grove, where the teardown being rebuilt by her major competitor as a Dutch Colonial was starting to look a little too good.

It ticked up further when she passed an Audi A5 that looked exactly like her fiancé’s but, of course, was not. Brad Greer had left her condo at six that morning after what should have been a sweet cup of coffee in bed turned into a set-to about picking a wedding date. They had been engaged for six months, and she hadn’t done it yet. Her fault. Totally. Between taping
Gut It!
and working on a dozen projects in various stages of design, she hadn’t had time to breathe. Brad was vulnerable when it came to love, though, and it tore at her when he got all down in the mouth, as he had earlier.

He hadn’t called, hadn’t texted. She would have driven to his place if there’d been time.

But there wasn’t, which brought her to her father. He was the real source of her angst. He knew she had a special reason today to be with her mother, and for Jamie, there should have been no contest. Caroline wasn’t just her mother; she was her best friend—and Jamie was all the family Caroline had. Roy, conversely, had moved on. Twice. Jamie hadn’t cared for his second wife and wasn’t sorry when the brief marriage ended, but his third and current wife, who was close to Jamie’s own age, had become a friend. Moreover, Roy was absorbed enough with Jessica and their young son to leave Jamie to her own life.

Unless he needed her for something.

Which he apparently did now.

Still, she should have put him off.

But he had been dogged last night on the phone, evading every attempt she made to discuss whatever it was there and then.
This is about work,
he had finally said with unusual gravity. Work meant MacAfee Homes, where Jamie and every other local MacAfee was employed. She offered to be at the office by nine, but Roy had been adamant about seeing her before she saw her mother.

Those were his words.
Before you see your mother.

That was what frightened her. The implication was that he wanted to talk about Caroline, but what could he say? Caroline had been a master carpenter for MacAfee Homes since before marrying Roy, and their parting hadn’t slowed her rising star. Roy’s father, Theodore MacAfee, who headed the business, blamed his son for the divorce far more than he did Caroline. Theo adored Caroline. Whenever Roy tried to exclude her from plum assignments, Theo overruled him. Likewise when Caroline wanted birch burl or some such exotic wood and Roy claimed she was over budget.

Then again, Jamie realized, Roy’s current emergency could be as simple as his wanting her to babysit two-year-old Tad while he and Jessica vacationed in Europe, which would certainly impact Jamie’s work. Being a full-time mom was hard; she had watched Jess struggle, and Jess did not have a career outside the home. But Jamie did love her father, and she was totally smitten by her half brother, which meant she could never say no.

Jamie didn’t think that warranted drop-everything-and-come insistence, but he wouldn’t be denied. The best she’d been able to do was get him to meet at seven, so that she could still see Caroline before work.

And there he was, crossing the lot at Fiona’s as she pulled in off the street. She waved through her open top and parked. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she ran quick fingers through her hair, but all she saw, to her dismay, were the freckles on her nose. So much for her expensive new concealer. The heat apparently melted makeup just as it swallowed up breathable air.

Resigned, she groped around for her shoes in the floor well and slipped them on, then slid out of the car as deftly as her short black skirt and those high heels allowed. The skirt showed off slim hips; the heels added inches she desperately needed. Pairing them with white silk, she was dressed to impress, though not solely for her dad. This was her typical take-me-seriously look for days that were filled with meetings. Most architects doing her level of work were older than she was, and while the family business gave her a leg up, it also gave her a name to uphold.

Freckles didn’t help, but there was no erasing them now. The best she could do was to put her shoulders back and set off with a pretense of confidence—only to ricochet right back when the long strap of her shoulder bag caught in the door.
That
wasn’t impressive, she mused, though it was nothing she hadn’t done before. As physically coordinated as she was when focused, when distracted, she was pathetic.

Freeing the bag, she strode forward.

Fiona’s was an upscale diner that offered the best breakfast in town, which meant that even this early in the day, it was humming. The parking lot was comfortably full; the air held the lure of hot corn muffins, chunky hash browns, and local maple syrup.

By the time she caught up to Roy, he was talking with two of Williston’s finest, on their way home after a night on patrol. They had admiring smiles for Jamie as she hurried to keep up with Roy, who was entering the diner. He immediately began working booths filled with real estate agents, lawyers, plumbers, shopkeepers, husbands and wives—all local, all friends. Williston lay twenty miles west of Boston. Home to fifteen thousand residents, it was ruled by a Board of Selectmen, but if there had been a mayor, Roy would have been it. He was always smiling, always up for a meet-and-greet, always remembering names. Theo had done this for years until age crippled his mornings, at which point Roy smoothly stepped in. As the single largest employer in town, not to mention the raison d’
ê
tre for many town shops, MacAfee Homes treasured local goodwill.

Roy made it happen. That he was strikingly handsome didn’t hurt. With his keen brown eyes and perpetual tan, he looked younger than fifty-two. The gray that had spattered his hair a decade before had miraculously turned sandy, and, though Jamie didn’t know for fact, she would bet that his forehead was medicinally smoothed. Not that she criticized him for it. He put in the effort to stay in shape—had likely gone running at dawn that morning, even in the heat. Now, dressed in a crisp blue shirt and fine gray slacks, he had a fresh-from-the-shower sheen.

For Roy, it was all about looking young—young body, young face, young wife. The irony, of course, was that with Jamie always trying to look older than twenty-nine, they were occasionally taken for brother and sister. Roy loved that, and while Jamie was proud of her father for his efforts and, yes, for his looks, she found the brother-sister comparisons awkward.

This day, she didn’t get a formal greeting from him—no hug or kiss, no
hey, honey, thanks for coming
—just a possessive arm around her shoulder, drawing her into the small talk.

But small talk wasn’t her strength. She could speak at length about architectural design, energy efficiency, or repurposed barnboard, but she wasn’t good at keeping track of whose mother was sick, whose son had gotten into college, or which tree service would take down the rotting pine in the center of town. Roy knew all that and more, in part because Jess picked up gossip at the local hair salon and shared it with him. Jamie would have forgotten it in two seconds flat. Not Roy. He remembered every last detail, pulling out whatever was appropriate in a way that endeared him to his audience.

Today, the talk was of the weather.
Beastly hot … not right … fierce storms coming.
Jamie smiled and nodded, but after a minute began to shift from one high heel to the other.

Her mother was waiting. Today was her birthday. And she’d had surgery on her wrist less than twenty-four hours before. Jamie had texted her earlier but wanted to
be
there.

Finally, Roy guided her to a free booth. Fiona’s wasn’t so much a single railroad car as a square of four cars framing an open kitchen. The decor was a virtual history of the town, Fighting Falcon–blue wall after wall of framed high school senior class photos dating back to the mid-1900s, and laminated front pages of the
Williston News,
n
é
e the
Williston Crier,
memorializing the town during major events like the fire of ’56, which wiped out half the town center, the blizzard of ’78, which paralyzed town life for weeks, and the ’04 Red Sox capturing their first World Series title in eighty-six years, which had been out-of-the-park
awesome
for a town in which two team members had lived. More old newspaper clippings covered the tabletops and were covered in turn by a thick sheet of glass, but the clutter ended there. Benches were upholstered in a soothing gray, place mats woven to match. Cloth napkins, knotted around silverware, filled a slim tin by the wall. Jamie automatically reached for two as they slid into the booth, passing one to Roy, who placed his cell beside it.

They were barely seated when the waitress brought the mud-strong coffee he liked and a pitcher of cream. Once both mugs were filled, Roy ordered his usual three-cheese omelet, Jamie her usual egg-white frittata.

What she really wanted was a side of the thick, sizzling bacon that smelled so good, but ordering it was out of the question, (A) because it was unhealthy and (B) because Roy would have felt the need to discuss that, and the last thing she wanted was to distract him.

Cupping her mug, she leaned in, anxious to hear what was on his mind. Before she could ask, he confided in a hushed voice, “See that guy behind me at the end of the row, the one with the red hair? He’s a Barth.”

Not urgent news, Dad, and nothing to do with Mom.
But Jamie glanced at the redhead in question. “Barths are blond,” she said for lack of anything wiser.

“Not this one. He’s buying the house on Appleton and plans to live in it. He just moved back from California with his wife and kids and is rejoining the business. The Barth Brothers teardown at the corner of South Main and Grove? It has location, magnitude, and visibility. They’re making a statement with it. They want to make inroads here.”

“Why here? Williston’s our base. They have the North Shore. MetroWest is ours.” MacAfee Homes had dominated the suburbs west of Boston since before she was born.