Drop Dead Gorgeous (36 page)

The world amazes me.

The first person I saw when I went through the door was Sally, perched on a ladder, wiping down the top of a huge carved headboard that was leaning against the wall. It was a gorgeous piece, the wood blackened with age, and if it fell on anyone it would likely kill them. No way would I have sex with that thing looming over me, though I guess going out with a bang isn't a bad way to go.

She didn't look around, so I had to go over and knock on the headboard to get her
attention."Blair
!" Her mobile face expressing both pleasure and concern, which isn't an easy thing to do when you think about it, Sally left her rag draped over the top of the headboard and climbed down the ladder. "Tiny told me about your condo, and your throat, and everything. Poor baby, you've had a rough week." Once on the floor, she hugged me tightly in sympathy.

Sally was about five-two and weighed maybe a hundred pounds, a tiny dynamo
who
was never still. Her dark red hair was stylishly shaggy and spiky without being over the top, and she'd had interesting blond streaks put in it to frame her face. The broken nose that she sustained when she drove into the side of the house while trying to hit Jazz had left a tiny bump on the bridge of her nose that somehow looked good. She had worn glasses before, but the glasses were actually what had broken her nose when the air bag deployed; since then she'd switched to contacts.

I hugged her in return. "Is there somewhere we can talk? I have something to show you."

She looked interested. "Sure. Let's go over here and sit down."

She indicated some folding chairs that were haphazardly grouped in the middle of the auction floor. Later they would be arranged in neat rows for the bidders. We took two of them,
then
I reached in my tote bag and pulled out the invoices from Sticks and Stones and handed them to her.

Puzzled, she looked at them for a couple of seconds before it registered what they were, then her eyes widened in shock and fury. "Twenty thousand dollars!" she yelped. "He paid… he paid
twenty thousand dollars
for that
dreck
}"

"No," I said, "he didn't pay that for the
dreck
. He paid that for you, because he loves you."

"Did he send you over here?" she demanded furiously.

I shook my head. "I'm interfering all on my own."

Well, also because Wyatt had forced me to, but that was between us.

She stared down at the invoice, trying to get her mind around the amount. To her, the furniture and artwork Monica Stevens had used to replace Sally's prized antiques were worth maybe a couple of thousand, tops. To say the two looked at style from the opposite ends of the spectrum was to understate the case.

"He
knew
how much I loved my antique pieces," she said, her voice breaking a little. "And if he didn't, he should have! Why else would I have put so much work into repairing them and refinishing them? It wasn't as if we couldn't have afforded different furniture if I'd wanted it!"

"But he didn't know," I pointed out. "For one thing, you didn't work on the pieces when he was at home. And for another, I have never in my life seen a man more clueless about style and decorating than Jazz
Arledge
. That orange couch in his office—" I broke off, shuddering.

She blinked, distracted. "You've seen his office? Isn't that
place
horrible?'"
Then she shook off the disturbing image. "That doesn't matter. If he'd listened to me
at all
during the thirty-five years we've been married, if he paid any attention to the house he lived in, he couldn't possibly have thought—"

"That's just
it,
he literally has no clue about different decorating styles. He didn't know different styles existed. To him, furniture is furniture is furniture, period. I think he sort of gets the concept now, but only in the vaguest way, like he knows there are different styles but he has no idea what they are or how any of them look. It's a language he doesn't speak, so he doesn't understand what you're saying when you talk about antiques."

"Surely to God he knows that 'antique' means
old
."

"Maybe," I said doubtfully. "Look, can he tell the difference between navy blue and black?"

She shook her head.

"Most men can't. They don't have the necessary number of color rods in their eyes to tell the difference, so even if you put a navy blue sock beside a black sock they look the same to a man. It's the same principle. It isn't that Jazz isn't interested, that he's ignored what you
like,
it's that his brain isn't wired to see style. You don't ask a wingless bird to fly, do you?"

Tears glittered brightly in her eyes and she looked down at the invoices in her hand. "You're saying I'm wrong."

"I'm not saying you're wrong to be upset about the furniture. I would have been, too."
Understatement, there.
"But you were definitely wrong to try to hit him with the car."

"That's what Tina said."

"She did?" Mom was in my corner! When had that happened?

"When you were in the hospital," Sally said, as if she'd heard my thought. "She said that seeing how much pain you were in even though you hadn't actually been hit by that car changed her mind. She said that hurt feelings were one thing, but physical injuries were way more serious."

I sighed. I'm not one to downplay hurt feelings, but considering everything that had
happened
the past couple of months I had to agree. "She's right. You didn't catch him in adultery, you know. He bought furniture you don't like."

"So get over it."

I nodded.

"And apologize."

I nodded again.

"Damn, I hate apologizing! It isn't just this. We've said things since this happened that we shouldn't have said…"

"So get over it." I could barely even whisper by then. It's amazing how whispering can strain your throat.

"The heck of it is
,
I didn't intend to hit him at all. We'd been arguing and we were both mad, but I had an appointment and had to leave. He followed me out, still arguing. You know Jazz, know how stubborn he is. He had a point he wanted to make, and intended to drive it into the ground. I started backing up and he was still standing there, waving his arms and yelling, and I was so mad I shoved the gear shift into Park so I could get out and yell in his face, except I didn't shove it all the way up, and my foot was on the gas, and, well, right then I wouldn't have minded if I had hit him, but it wasn't deliberate. The next thing I knew the air bag was in my lap, my glasses were broken, and my nose was bleeding." Ruefully she rubbed the tiny bump on her nose.
"A broken nose at my age.
And now I'll have to live with that
dreck
."

Smiling, I shook my head. "I talked to Monica. She'll take the furniture back and work with you to redo your bedroom the way you like. She does other styles, too, you know. I think you'll even like her. Plus I told her Mom would spread the word to her real estate clients that Monica isn't a one-note
Joanie
, that she can do things other than steel and glass."

"If she does, I've never seen it," said Sally doubtfully.

"That's because most of her clients are people who like her signature style. She wants to branch out more, attract other clients. Redoing your bedroom will be good business for her."

"I'm not willing to pay one more cent to her.
Twenty thousand dollars!"

"She isn't asking for more money. She isn't the bad guy here. There isn't a bad guy."

"Well, crap."

If I could have laughed, I would have, looked at each other in perfect understanding.

"I'll call him tonight," she said, and sighed. "I'll apologize. I'm an eagle and he's a penguin. He can't fly.
Got it."

"I took him to see a piece Mr. Potts was refinishing, a big armoire. Mr. Potts told him he'd already put in around sixty hours on it. Jazz will never know furniture, but now he has a better appreciation of how much work you put into your bedroom."

"Oh, God, Blair, thank you," she said, grabbing me and hugging me again. "I hope we would have worked it out on our own, eventually, but you've speeded up the process."

"It just needed an outside view," I said modestly.

Chapter Twenty-seven

All that talking had done a number on my whisper, so I stopped at a pharmacy for a jar of Vicks ointment, intending to give it a try. I would smell like a cough drop, but if this stuff would help my throat I didn't care how I smelled. I intended to have the Big Talk with Wyatt that night, so it would help if I could, well,
talk
.

I was on my way to a third fabric store when Wyatt called my cell and told me to come back to the police department. He was in lieutenant mode; his tone of voice made it an order, not a request.

Frustrated, I changed directions. I remembered to watch and see if any of the cars behind me changed direction, too. None did.

I wasn't going to be able to put this wedding together on time. The Fates were against me. I accepted that, now. I wouldn't be able to find the material for a gown, the wedding cake maker wouldn't come through, the caterer would bail out, and all the silk flowers that were supposed to be woven through the arbor would get some mysterious silk rot and fall to pieces. Wyatt hadn't even
started
sanding and repainting the arbor. I might as well save myself the wear and tear on my nerves and give up.

In a pig's eye, I would. The stakes were too high. It was either do it, or find myself in some drive-up wedding chapel in Las Vegas.
If we
got married.

This was driving me nuts.

When I got to the police department, Detective Forester met me in the parking lot. He must have been waiting for me, because he said, "You're going to the hospital with
me.We
have permission to look at photographs and review film, if it still exists. The hospital chief of security is checking that out as we speak."

The front passenger seat of his car was piled high with notebooks, files, reports, a clipboard, a can of Lysol, and some other official stuff. I wondered why he needed the Lysol, but didn't ask. I picked up the stuff out of his seat, slid in, and held everything on my lap while I buckled up. The files looked interesting, but I didn't have time to read them. Maybe he'd have to stop and get gas or something; I could give them a quick look-see then.