Spring Collection (10 page)

The letters from Necker had started coming only a week after her mother died. After much thought, Justine decided to simply send them back unopened. To her this gesture was the only tribute she could make toward her mother’s memory, the only way she could compensate her mother for a life whose best years had been devoted to her, a life that had been completely blighted by Jacques Necker.

She had rarely been so glad to get home, Justine realized, as she sat before the fire in her parlor at the end of the cold January day. Of course nothing unusual had happened at the agency, there had been no reason for her to have such a ridiculously paranoid attack that she’d ruined her polish completely. Only sheer force of will had kept her from starting in on her cuticles with her teeth.

She relaxed finally, gathering her house around herself like a giant quilt. Everywhere she looked, in her brownstone between Park and Lexington, she saw the results of ten years of hard work and thrift. She had bought the house three years ago, when overpriced
New York real estate became less expensive than it had been during the ’80s, and she’d never regretted it for a minute, even when she made out the enormous monthly check for her mortgage. There was, Justine mused, as she sipped her tea, something so wonderfully comforting about owning a house that had stood on its own plot of land for one hundred years, a house that had been lived in by generations until she bought it from the estate of the last member of the family.

On the other hand, one hundred years of living, with a minimum of modernization, had left the house in a condition that even the real estate agent admitted needed “a little loving care.” If it had been in perfect condition, even in good condition, she could never have afforded a four-story town house on one of the best streets in the East 60s. Loving care, my ass, Justine thought, even as she admired the handsome carved marble mantel and chimney piece of the indubitably Edwardian fireplace. If her poor beautiful house were a person she’d send it off immediately to the Mayo Clinic and then to three restorative months at the Golden Door.

The roof was in good shape, she’d had to take care of that right away, but otherwise she’d lived in it pretty much as she’d found it, making only cosmetic changes, using wallpaper and fabric and all the amazing collection of quaint tat and charming Victorian antiques she’d collected over the years, to conceal the need for a great deal of basic renovation.

When she went to auctions and off-the-beaten-track little antiques shops Justine was attracted by unfashionably battered things, obviously broken and mended objects, almost-worn-out rugs and cushions, mirrors with their mercury dim with age, furniture with its gilt gone and its paint problematic, pieces that, as dealers said shrugging, had “suffered.”

Perhaps it was in reaction to the newly minted freshness and first-class quality of the girls she saw every day, perhaps it was in reaction to the rigidly immaculate, modern interiors, without a single nostalgic touch, that her mother had favored, but show
Justine a chair or lamp that needed a home to shelter it and she was a pushover.

However, there was a limit. Even Justine had been pushed to the wall by a heating system on its last legs, plumbing that went on strike every other week, and a kitchen and bathrooms so old-fashioned that her housekeepers left after a few months even though they weren’t asked to do anything except clean and leave her some dinner in the fridge. There was only so much that could be camouflaged by even the cleverest, three-dimensional collage of threadbare Victoriana, thought Justine ruefully as she waited to interview the contractor who came with such high recommendations.

Why did she
know
that he was going to rip her off? Why did
everybody
know that about contractors? Such a nationally bad reputation must surely be deserved. If there was one time in her life that Justine regretted her single state, it was now. It was a male’s divinely appointed duty and obligation to deal with contractors, not a female’s, at least not until other women started becoming contractors. She needed a husband for this, she thought, rebelliously, and for nothing else whatsoever.

She answered the doorbell. Well, she had to admit that he was punctual, but wasn’t that exactly what he could be counted on to be, wasn’t that precisely the best way to make a good impression, get the job, start the work, make gaping holes in the walls and floors of every room and then disappear, never answering her telephone calls and leaving her with a disaster that no other contractor would take on? Oh, she knew all about those tricks but she had a few of her own up her sleeve, Justine reminded herself as she opened the door.

“Miss Loring? I’m Aiden Henderson,” he said with an unexpectedly pleasant smile. Very clever, Justine thought as they shook hands, he’d managed to present himself in a way that would make an unwary person think that he was probably a decent sort.

Justine had a highly developed ability to absorb people with one glance, to judge them in a flash, to capture the instant meaning of a person’s stance, to
intuit personality as it was conveyed through the general set of the features. In the second wave, after a first impression, she’d trained herself to make an inventory of separate details.

Aiden Henderson looked honest, he looked reassuring, he looked capable. Well of course he would, she thought with increased suspicion. What better disguise for a contractor? The honesty came from a fortuitous combination of a direct glance, friendly blue eyes, firmly set lips, an attractively broken nose, a well-shaped head of plain brown hair and plenty of it. He was nice to look at, in an outdoorsy way, but not suspiciously handsome; a noticeably big man—which, unfairly, inspired confidence, statistically the taller candidate almost always won any election—he was muscular, built on strong and generous lines, wearing horn-rim glasses—that’s where the capable and reassuring part came from. The glasses were a master touch, she told herself coldly. She’d bet he didn’t need them.

Worse, he was cannily dressed, in clothes that indicated that although he might be a blue-collar worker—or was a contractor actually blue-collar?—he had some background. A properly weather-beaten duffel coat, a decent tweed jacket, cords, an open-necked, button-down shirt in Oxford blue, all comfortably well worn—oh, no lumberjack was this Aiden Henderson. He had probably worked on the look for years.

“I admire your house,” he said, as she hung up his coat.

“How can you possibly say something like that when you haven’t even looked at it yet?” Justine asked, provoked.

“I don’t need to inspect its guts to admire it,” he laughed. “The exterior is absolutely intact. How many private houses are there left in this neighborhood like that?”

“Probably thousands,” she snapped over her shoulder as she led him to the parlor. “Tens of thousands.”

“Not really. As a rule people tear down that exterior
staircase to the parlor floor and put the entrance on the street floor.”

“Oh, they do, do they? Well, good for them. Would you like some tea?” she asked as uninvitingly as possible.

“That would be wonderful, thanks,” Henderson said, following her into the kitchen.
“Good Lord!”

“Yes,” Justine said with a private smile, “how many people still have the original stove that came with the house?”

“To say nothing of the original teapot.”

“Still admire it?” she asked.

“Yep. I think it’s something of a coup. Like time travel. Very Ray Bradbury, but in reverse. May I?” He sat down at the kitchen table.

Justine waited for the water to boil, watching the contractor out of the corner of her eye. Too obviously American for Armani, she thought, casting him automatically; too blunt for Ralph Lauren, decidedly too butch for Calvin, yet not quite the hunter-gatherer needed for Timberland. Guess Man? Not oddball enough. If she had to place him—Marlboro? Maybe. Dockers? Possibly. Or Hugo Boss? For heaven’s sake, this man wasn’t here for a modeling job, she had to remind herself as she poured water into the pot, he was a tricky, untrustworthy, highly dubious contractor.

“How long have you owned this house?” Aiden Henderson asked her curiously, calmly putting two tea-spoonsful of sugar into his tea.

“Four years,” Justine answered, sitting down at the table.

“What’s the extent of the work you’re planning to do?”

“Absolutely as little as possible. In fact, left to myself, I wouldn’t touch it, but I’ve been told that a few things seem to require attention.”

“Does your husband like living with so much Victoriana?”

“Fortunately I don’t have to answer to a husband’s taste in decor. Or anything else. Tell me, Mr. Henderson,
does your wife pick out your clothes?” she heard herself asking in surprise.

“No. She’s gone on to a better world.”

“Oh, I’m sorry … I didn’t know.…”

“She’s not dead,” he added hastily. “She’s married to a guy who gets all his stuff custom made. At Sulka. And Dunhill too, lest we forget.”

“Oh.”

“That’s life,” he said cheerfully. “At least we didn’t have any kids to mess up. You have kids?”

“Certainly not!”

“It’s not insulting to be asked, is it?”

“Theoretically no, I suppose, but since I just said I didn’t have a husband, yes, it is,” Justine said, as haughtily as possible.

“I assumed you’d been married. There’s no way you wouldn’t have been. Unless you’re gay, of course.”

“As it happens, I’m not gay, but what kind of question is that? Is that the kind of information you could possibly need from people who might decide to hire you to work on their houses?”

“Miss Loring, you have to tell a contractor everything. How else do you expect him to be able to understand your special needs? And minister to them?”

“My special needs are for heat and hot water,” Justine said, laughing in spite of herself.

“I can guarantee you that much,” he told her. “That’s basic. But you’ll probably find that your needs go further.”

“Ah ha! This is where you talk me into making all sorts of unnecessary changes I can perfectly well live without.”

“No way. We can leave it at heat and hot water,” Aiden Henderson replied seriously. “I get paid ten percent over labor costs to get fair bids on the job, pick out good workmen and supervise them. I’ve got so much work that the only reason I’m here is as a favor for those friends of yours who insisted that you needed a contractor. ‘Desperate’ was the word they used, to be
precise. ‘She’s quite desperate, Aiden, you absolutely have to make time for her.’ ”

“Where did you go to college?” Justine asked impulsively. Anything to make her seem less in need of his services.

“University of Colorado. I’m from Denver.”

“Football team?” she rapped out, accusingly. A cowboy, that explained the whole all-American look.

“Nope. Track and boxing. Ski team too, of course.”

“Of course. How silly of me not to have known that you couldn’t possibly
not
be on the ski team.” She frowned beautifully at him.

“That’s a complicated sentence. What’s it supposed to mean exactly?”

“Probably envy of people with nothing better to do than go up and down mountains and get credit for it. I started working right out of high school,” Justine said with a hint of a pout.

“Doing what?”

“Modeling.”

“Yeah, I thought so. In fact, I had a picture of you on my bulletin board in the dorm.”

“Well then, if you knew, how come you asked?”

“It’s been, let’s see, well, I’m thirty-six, so that makes it about sixteen years ago. You were just a gorgeous kid. You’re so much more beautiful now that it was remotely possible you weren’t the same person.”

“Only hot water and heat.”

“Still think I’m trying to hustle you? Listen,” Aiden said earnestly, “let me find you another contractor and let’s start all over.”

“Start what?”

“I think you know what.”

“Oh, really!” Justine said, trying to sound mocking.

“Yes, really.” He took off his glasses and looked at her steadily. “Really and truly.”

“No,” Justine said flatly. She was only being sensible, she reflected, only acting on her judgment, which couldn’t possibly be affected by the small scars above
one eyebrow and another slightly larger, on his chin, which endowed him with a veritable Harrison Fordesque degree of trustworthiness. Sports injuries? That boxing team? Car crash? She was dying to know, Justine realized in horror.

“No? No what?” Aiden asked, slightly confused as to the precise nature of her rejection.

“I don’t want another contractor. Consider yourself hired.”

“Fine. Now, can I take you out to dinner?”

“That’s another matter entirely.”

“What’s the answer?”

“I’d love it.” Her first impressions were famously infallible, Justine reminded herself, with what were left of her wits, and it was wrong, even un-American, to be prejudiced against a person because he was a member of a dubious profession. It was like not exercising your right to vote because you don’t trust politicians. There had to be some good apples in the barrel, didn’t there?

“Tomorrow?”

“What’s wrong with tonight? I’m starving. My microwave doesn’t work,” Justine lied piteously.

“You can’t possibly operate a microwave in this kitchen. If you did the fuses would blow.”

“Well, that makes me a hardship case, doesn’t it?”

“Only on the Upper East Side. Northern Italian? Thai? Cajun? Tex-Mex?”

“Do you still … eat meat?” Justine wondered. For some reason she wanted to keep him here in the kitchen, on her home territory.

“Yep. And I still drink martinis.”

“I think I need a steak. I feel sort of … weak.” She was flirting, Justine told herself sternly, flirting helplessly, as if a team of horses had run away with her. She’d been flirting since this man walked into the house, although he certainly couldn’t have any idea of it. And she didn’t even feel ashamed of herself.

“So do I. The best kind of weak.”

Justine stared at his hands, fighting a lost battle to make her doubts still seem legitimate. But Aiden’s
hands looked warm and safe. Gentle. So big and so gentle. She loved his calluses. She wanted to hold his hands. Justine picked up Aiden’s glasses from the table and peered through them. Shit, she couldn’t see a thing, they weren’t fake. She put them down and realized how vulnerable he looked. Vulnerable, gentle, bringer of heat and hot water … who could blame her for deciding to hire him?