Hissy Fit (32 page)

I dreaded returning
to Loving Cup on Tuesday, but there was no getting around it. I needed decisions on the fabrics for the parlors, the dining room, and the upstairs sitting room, and I needed them fast, if I was going to get my workroom going on drapes and upholstery. I threw the samples and my presentation boards in the front seat of the Volvo and drove slowly out to the plant.

Somehow the fun and excitement of this project had quickly drained away, to reveal just another big, expensive job. I chided myself for getting so emotionally involved in the project. So what if Mulberry Hill wouldn’t be Will’s primary residence? If Stephanie had her way—and she
always
got her way—Glorious Interiors would soon have another assignment—a big splashy mansion in Buckhead. So what if I’d invested all this time and creative energy for a house that was just for show? If the check clears, my daddy would say, your job is done.

I’d expected to find the bra plant shrouded in doom after Will’s big announcement of the previous day, but what I found was just the opposite. One of those big, portable electric flashing signs had been set up on the plant’s front lawn. “Now Hiring Experienced Stitchers and Pattern Makers. Competitive Pay, Great Benefits. Apply Within.”

Was this somebody’s idea of a practical joke? I wondered. If it was, plenty of people had been taken in. Traffic streamed into and out of the parking lot, and an off-duty uniformed Morgan County sheriff’s deputy directed me to park on the grass behind the plant because all the parking slots were full.

Inside the main building was just as busy. I had to pass through a security guard and pin on a plastic visitor’s badge just to get through
the front door—which was a first. As I walked down the hall toward Will’s office I heard phones ringing, the steady clack of computer keyboards, and from the back of the building, where I knew the factory floor had been, I could swear I heard the hum of sewing machines.

Miss Nancy was on one phone line when I went into Will’s office, and I could see all the lights on her phone console had blinking lights for calls holding. She looked up, mouthed “Just a minute,” and went back to her call. I would have taken a seat, but all the chairs in the reception area—all three of them—were already taken. Will’s visitors looked as out of place in that shabby office as a peacock in a henhouse. All three of the women were gorgeous in a vaguely exotic way. All three wore black—black leather, black denim, black spandex. They weren’t all that young, maybe ranging in age from twenty to fifty, but they had that big-city look, tattoos, nose piercings, bizarre hair, and they all carried tote bags. They looked supremely bored.

Miss Nancy finally hung up the phone.

“Well, what do you think?” she asked. “Can you believe it? I knew that boy would turn things around for us, and he has.”

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s with the sign out front, and the security guards and all these—people? I thought Will was laying everybody off.”

“Hell no!” she sputtered. “Where were you yesterday, under a rock? Didn’t you hear the announcement?”

“I left early,” I said. “I had a terrible headache. But Stephanie told me that Will had decided to set up production offshore. She said that was going to be the announcement. That he’d lined up one of those maquiladoras in Mexico to do the sewing.”

“In her dreams.” Miss Nancy snorted. “We’re going back into production as soon as we finish hiring. The gals in the sample room have already started work.”

I leaned over her desk and whispered “What’s with the chicks in black over there? Is Loving Cup expanding into bondage wear too now?”

“Those are the new fitting models,” Nancy whispered back. “Did you ever?”

“What happened to the old fitting models?”

“The old ones were all about a hundred-leven years old and had titties hangin’ down to their knees,” she said. “We sent off to New York for this bunch. Honey, we’re going uptown all the way.”

Her phone rang, she picked it up and put it down again. “He’s ready for you,” she said.

I pushed the door open to Will’s office and went in. His desk was covered with bras, lace samples, sketches, and paperwork.

“Hey,” he said curtly. “I can only give you like ten minutes. As you can see, I’m really swamped.”

“Fine,” I said. I took my own stack of fabric samples out and set them in front of him. “These are for the two settees in the parlor, the armchairs, and the drapes. Plus the fabric for the dining room drapes, and two of the upstairs guest rooms. I’ll have a better idea of what to put in the family room once I’ve found some new sofas…”

But he wasn’t really listening. “No,” he said, putting one swatch aside. “No. I like this. Not this. Too shiny. Too busy. Too cheesy. Fine. This’ll work. Okay.”

He pushed the two stacks of fabrics, the rejects and the chosen ones, across the desk toward me. “Anything else?”

“I just need your approval for one more buying trip. It’s too late to have sofas custom-made, but once the International Furniture Mart is over in High Point, I can run up there and pick up some really high-quality showroom samples.”

“Fine,” he said. “Do it.”

“Okay.” I got up to leave.

“Where’d you get off to yesterday?” he asked. “I went to look for you, after the announcement, but you’d vanished. Did you and your ‘date’ take off for a nooner?”

I felt the color rising in my cheeks. “I had a terrible headache. We went out to the lake, if you must know.”

“Shacked up? I thought you hated that place,” Will said.

“Not the shack. The big house, over at Cuscawilla.”

“Of course,” he said.

“Nothing happened.”

“You don’t have to make excuses to me,” Will said. “I’m your client, not your father.”

“I’m not making excuses for anything,” I said curtly. “I’m an adult.”

“Absolutely,” Will said. “Anything else I need to look at?”

“That’s it for now,” I said. “Pretty busy here today. So, you’re not closing the plant after all?”

“I was never going to close the plant,” he said sharply. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“Stephanie told me yesterday, and all those overseas trips of yours…”

“She must have misunderstood,” Will said, frowning. “The overseas thing didn’t pan out. It was an all-or-nothing deal. It wasn’t feasible to keep the plant here and do partial production over there as I’d hoped. So we’re going another route.”

“You can do that?”

“We can now,” Will said. “We couldn’t compete head-on with the big brands, Warnaco and Sara Lee and Vanity Fair. All their garments are made offshore. But what we can do is niche market. That’s where the UnderLiar comes in.”

“UnderLiar?”

“That’s the name we came up with for the underwire bra you tried on. Nobody else has it. Nobody else knows how to make it. Except us. We’ll make it here in Madison and sell it private label to Victoria’s Secret. We have no marketing, sales, or distribution headaches, or expenses. We just make bras. Very, very good bras.”

“But they’ll be sold as Victoria’s Secret UnderLiar. Does that mean the Loving Cup label is history?”

“Our people know who they are and what we do. And what they
care about most, as you pointed out to me some months ago, is having good jobs.”

“Then it’s good news,” I said. “That’s great.” I scooped my samples up and headed for the door.

“Keeley.”

I turned around.

“Stehanie really dislikes that mural thing in the foyer out at Mulberry Hill. She thinks it’s going to look stupid.”

“Stupid?” I yelped. “Kip Collins is the most sought-after decorative painter in the Southeast. His work has been published in all the big magazines. Maybe if I showed Stephanie some of the layouts, she’d see what I’m after.”

“She hates it,” Will said. “How ’bout, instead, some nice flowers? Can your guy do that? Or maybe just some nice flowered wallpaper. Maybe something with red in it? Stephanie really likes red.”

Now I was seeing red. I was seething, steaming, smoking. I’d already commissioned the mural. I’d paid Kip a third of his fee in advance for the preliminary sketches, which Will had loved, and even booked Kip’s time to come to Madison to paint. And that fabulous console table—the whole room had been planned around it.

“Red flowered wallpaper,” I said out loud.

No effin’ way,
my subconscious screamed.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I had to get out of there before I exploded.

“Hey Keeley? About A.J. I know it’s none of my business…”

I turned again, impatient now. “I thought you could only spare me ten minutes. I think probably you should concentrate on bras, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I gotta take a look at the fitting models the agency sent down from New York. They get paid a hundred bucks an hour, plus airfare and travel expenses, so every minute they spend sitting around here fully clothed, instead of having bras fitted, is costing me money.”

“Poor you,” I said.

A week later,
when I went back to Loving Cup with the most recent set of sketches for Will and Stephanie, the place was at fever pitch. Miss Nancy had installed her own assistant in the outer office, and had given herself a bigger, grander office down the hall.

Will thumbed rapidly through the sketches. “Stephanie will call you about any changes,” he said, obviously distracted.

I ground my teeth. Stephanie was no longer contenting herself with a long-distance role in the restoration process at Mulberry Hill. Every other day now, it seemed, when I arrived on the job site, her white Porsche Boxster was parked in front of the pump house, and I could hear the clip of Erwin’s nails on the polished hardwood floors. She’d already cost us ten thousand dollars in last-minute change orders—demanding that the downstairs powder room wallpaper be ripped down and replaced with a limited edition hand-blocked paper that had to be special ordered from Italy—for two hundred dollars a roll, sending the Sub-Zero refrigerator back to the distributor because she’d seen a bigger, glass-fronted number in a decorator showhouse in Buckhead, and insisting that the Stark carpet in the den, which I’d had custom colored to match the exact shade of Erwin’s coat—be changed, because, as she put it, “That disgusting color bears no resemblance to my angel. Erwin is fawn colored. That carpet is brown!”

“I’ve got another assignment for you,” Will said, leaning back in his chair.

“What now?”

“Aw, this is a fun one,” he said, laughing. “No change orders, I promise. We’re gonna have a dove hunt out at Mulberry Hill, and I need you to help make the arrangements.”

“Since when did you turn into the great white hunter?” I asked.

He reached in his top desk drawer and took out a glossy sporting goods catalog. Cabela’s. I sighed. He was gone for good.

“I used to do some bird hunting growing up,” he said. “Till my folks moved to the city, and we couldn’t keep a dog anymore, and I didn’t know anybody with land to hunt on. I’ve been thinking about taking it up again. Get me out of the office, out onto the land.”

“You’ve got the land to hunt on now,” I admitted. “I think my daddy used to go dove hunting out there, years ago. He knew somebody who had permission to go on the property.”

“A big dove hunt used to be a yearly tradition back in the day,” Will said. “Every year they’d have a big hunt breakfast the first day of dove hunting season. The Cardwells invited folks from all around. People really looked forward to it. I’ve been talking to the fellas at Ye Olde Colonial, and they think it would be a good community gesture if I started the hunt up again.”

“Since when do you eat with the breakfast club guys at Ye Olde Colonial?” I demanded. “Aren’t you kind of young for that group?”

“I’ve been stopping by for a while now,” Will said. “Anyway, we can’t have it the first day of hunting season. I’ll be out of town. We’ll do it October 20.”

“I don’t know anything about dove hunts,” I said.

“Don’t you worry about the hunt part,” Will said. “I just want you to take care of the arrangements. Nancy’s already hired the caterer. We’ll have scrambled eggs and grits, sausages, bacon, fried apples, biscuits, all that kind of thing.”

My stomach growled at the mention of all that food. “Sounds good.”

“I need you to line up a tent, not as big as the one for the picnic. I think we’ll only have maybe a couple dozen guys. And tables and chairs. And I want some hay bales scattered around, you know, nothing fancy, really, but folksy. Outdoorsy. It’s gotta look good. I’m gonna invite some business associates. One of the executive
VPs from Victoria’s Secret is a big quail hunter, and he’s coming down.”

“October 20,” I said, making a note of it in my planner. “Folksy. Outdoorsy. I think I can handle that.”

“Oh, uh, Keeley,” Will said offhandedly. “Let’s just keep this dove hunt on the Q.T. from Stephanie, okay? As far as she knows, I’m meeting with some out-of-town clients that day. The less said about it, the better.”

“You want me to lie,” I said. “To Stephanie.” That would be a day brightener.

“Not lie, exactly,” Will said. “Just not give her all the details. She’s a city girl, you know, and she doesn’t eat meat. She’s so tender-hearted, such an animal lover, I just think the idea of a dove hunt would upset her unnecessarily.”

“Right,” I said. I wondered if he’d ever noticed Stephanie’s predilection for pricey leather shoes and boots and suede jackets.

I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh. It’ll be our little secret.”

I was getting good at keeping secrets of my own.

The minute I’d driven away from Cuscawilla that night with A.J., I’d started regretting what had almost happened. For all his apologies and sweet words, I knew it was over between us. I’d had too much to drink, and when I sobered up I realized that my hormones had nearly led me back to bed with someone I no longer loved.

I knew I was over A.J., but what I didn’t know was how to break the news to him, or even how to keep him at arm’s length.

Now I was out at Mulberry Hill, checking on the delivery of Stephanie’s beloved bidet. My cell phone rang and I flipped it open.

“It’s me,” A.J. purred. “I’ve been thinking about you all week, baby.”

“I can’t talk,” I interrupted. “I’m in the middle of a business meeting.”

“I think we’ve got some unfinished business of our own,” he said.

Joey, my plumber, was circling the wooden crate the bidet had arrived in, scratching his head and puzzling over the thing.

“It’s a bidet,” I told Joey.

“What’s that?” A.J. asked.

“A bidet,” I told Joey, who was still awaiting enlightenment. “It’s for feminine hygiene. You know, like in Europe, they have them?”

“I’ve been to Europe,” A.J. said, annoyed. “Stop trying to change the subject. I want you. Right now. Naked…”

I felt my face go scarlet. “I’m talking to the plumber right now,” I said urgently. “I’ll have to call you back.”

Half an hour later A.J. called again. Joey had uncrated the bidet and was trying to decipher the installation directions, which were in French.

“Here’s what I want,” A.J. continued. “You. Naked. Chocolate. Are you getting the drift here?”

“Excuse me, Joey,” I said. “I think this is the, uh, lumberyard, about those studs I ordered for the shower enclosure.” I took the phone and walked rapidly downstairs.

“I’m the stud you ordered, all right,” A.J. growled.

“Stop this,” I whispered. “I’m trying to work. I’m up to my eyeballs in plumbers and plasterers and electricians. Will is out of town for the next few days, and when he gets back, I’ve got to have the chandeliers hung and the master bath finished, and I’ve got a damn dove hunt to organize now. I cannot see you tonight.”

“So Will’s out of town?” A.J. said. “I’ve got an idea. What do you say I meet you out there at his place tonight. Say, eight? I’ll stop and pick us up a nice bottle of wine, and some dinner. You can tell me about your bad old day and the mean old carpenters. And then we can take that fancy bed of ours out in the pump house for a test drive.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I could feel my already elevated blood pressure spiking. “You are not coming anywhere near this place tonight. I am not meeting you, and we are definitely, positively, not getting anywhere near my client’s personal bed.”

“Your bed then,” A.J. said.

“No.”

“Mine.”

“God, no.” The thought of bumping into Drew and GiGi gave me the willies.

“Cuscawilla.”

“No!”

“I’m running out of real estate here, darlin’. Hey, I know. The shack. Nobody goes out there anymore. It’s got a gate and it’s locked up tight. But I know where Kyle keeps the key.”

“Yuck!” I said. “Look. I really have a killer day ahead of me. I can’t see you tonight. I’ll call you. I promise.”

He hung up.

Fifteen minutes later I was back upstairs, trying to salvage some college French to help Joey with the bidet installation. The cell phone rang again. Joey gave me an annoyed look.

I took the phone out into the hallway.

“Phone sex,” A.J. said. “I’ll start. First, I unzip—” I closed the phone, turned it off and put it outside in the Volvo. Turning off A.J., I thought ruefully, would not be this easy.

Hours and hours later, Austin came over with Chinese takeout. We sat in my living room eating moo goo gai pan while we dissed about all the terrible design dilemmas on
Trading Spaces.
And I told him about A.J. I knew he would tell me I’d made a hideous mistake, but Austin was the only person I could talk to about A.J.

“Once you take up with that rascal again, where will it end?” Austin wanted to know.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “The thing is, I know what he did to me was selfish and demeaning. And I know I’m pathetic and needy. I know it! But that night, after the picnic, at Cuscawilla, I was this close…”

Austin shook his head slowly. “Why?” was all he said.

“Something he said. In the pump house. He was looking at that old beauty queen photo. You know, the one with Mama. He’d never seen a picture of her before. And I told him what Sonya said. About
how I was her, made over. And he stopped me cold. He said I’m
not
like her. I wouldn’t do what she did, lie and cheat and run around. And I just loved him for that right then. Because he was right. I’m not like her. And then he said the thing that made me open my eyes. He said he isn’t like his daddy. He’s known for a long time about Drew’s womanizing, and he’s always resented him for it. And he asked me to give him another chance. So he can prove that’s not who he is.”

“Very touching,” Austin said.

“You don’t believe it?”

“No. But don’t go by me, honey. I will never understand straight men as long as I live.”

“So that’s what did it. He basically talked his way into my heart.”

“And your pants,” Austin said. “But you didn’t go all the way. Why not?”

“It didn’t feel right. I wasn’t…swept away? I can’t really explain it. And then, somehow, A.J. got on the subject of the good old days, and how we used to go out to the shack and fool around…”

“You didn’t!” Austin said.

I went right on. “And A.J. mentioned that Kyle has finally talked Drew and Vince Bascomb into selling those cabins and all their lake lots.”

“Interesting,” Austin said, nibbling on a bit of chicken. “Did you happen to tell him what Sonya told us about his father and all those other couples using Bascomb’s camp as their little love nest?”

“No. But when A.J. mentioned Mr. Bascomb, I just got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know, I had this image of all of them sneaking around. Rutting, like Sonya said. It was just so lurid.”

“A real passion killer,” Austin said sympathetically. “Thank God you came to your senses.”

“The other thing A.J. told me is this. Mr. Bascomb has an inoperable brain tumor. Austin, he’s dying. A.J. says that’s the only reason he agreed to sell. Because he’s broke and he’s dying.”

I sighed. “I think I’d better go talk to him, while I still can.”