Summer Rental (43 page)

“What do you think?” she asked. “Too fussy?”

“Very pretty,” Ellis said. “But is all of this necessary?”

Julia shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt, right? And anyway, we’re kind of having fun. It’s like getting ready for a big, important party. Besides, this is not all selfless. If Simon’s people use the house for the movie, Booker gets a nice finder’s fee. And if they make a movie here, maybe I can snag a job working for the set dressers. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

“If, if, if,” Ellis said worriedly. “So much riding on this.”

“The house is going to look fabulous,” Julia assured her, steering her towards her own room. When Ellis opened the door, she almost didn’t recognize the space that had been hers for nearly a month. The yellowing sheers at the windows had been replaced with simple, white-cotton curtains with ball fringe, caught back on the sides with lengths of rope. The threadbare bedspread was gone too, and in its place was a quilt in soft sea-glass shades of blue, green, and aqua. Three fat pillows were plumped at the head of the bed. The cheesy art in the room, blurry prints of lighthouses and duck
s, had been replaced with large, atmospheric, black-and-white photographs of Ebbtide, the dunes, and the beach right outside their back door.

“Booker?” Ellis asked, touching one of the frames.

“Yup. We had some of his shots printed at Kinko’s, and then we stuck ’em in frames from Kmart,” Julia said. “He does nice work, doesn’t he?”

“They’re gorgeous,” Ellis agreed. “Do you think he’d sell me copies of some of these? They’d be a great souvenir to remind me of Nags Head and Ebbtide.”

Julia gave her a curious look. “Do you need a souvenir?”

“Too soon to tell,” Ellis said. “Now, give me a job.”

“Easy. Booker says the thing that will sell the producers on the house is the amazing light, and the location, of course. So we need to wash all the windows, which it doesn’t look like has happened since the Reagan administration.”

“I’ll hit the inside windows, but I’ll have to get Ty for anything requiring ladders,” Ellis said.

She went down to the kitchen and filled a bucket with ammonia and water, and found a stack of old newspapers to wipe the windows. While she was texting Ty, Dorie walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, her cell phone in hand, a stunned look on her face.

“Anything wrong?” Ellis asked, her heart racing. “The baby’s okay, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. The baby’s fine. I’m just … shell-shocked, I guess. Stephen just called.”

Ellis sat down in the chair opposite Dorie’s. “What did he want?”

Dorie had both hands resting lightly on her tummy. “He said he was just checking in, he wanted to see how I’m doing. He asked about the baby, you know—if I’m showing yet, if it’s kicking yet, et cetera.”

“That’s kinda sweet,” Ellis said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“He’s hired a divorce lawyer and started proceedings,” Dorie said, her lower lip trembling. “And … he wants to buy out my share of the house.”

“Really? That’s good, right? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Dorie’s eyes filled with tears. “I guess. It’s just sort of sudden, you know? I thought I was going to have to be the one to get the ball rolling, because Stephen is such a procrastinator, but all of a sudden, he’s in a big hurry to get all these papers signed and get shed of me.”

“You were the one who was insisting on the divorce, Dorie,” Ellis reminded her. “And you just told me yesterday that it’s time for you to get on with your life. You’re even dating. Sorta.”

“Connor and I aren’t really dating,” Dorie protested. “I didn’t even let him buy me dinner last night. I paid for my own.”

“Have you kissed him?”

Dorie blushed.

“Maybe Stephen wants to get on with his life too,” Ellis said.

“Oh sure, he gets to have his life all neat and perfect,” Dorie said. She looked up at Ellis. “He’s leaving Our Lady of Angels. He’s been offered a job at Savannah College of Art and Design, in the development office. He says it’s a big pay raise, and something he’s always been interested in. I guess that’s how he can afford to buy me out.”

“That and the fact that he has a rich boyfriend,” Ellis reminded her. “Anyway, a raise means he won’t be making the same crappy salary you make. If he’s working at SCAD, it’ll mean he can afford to pay a decent amount of child support.”

“It doesn’t seem fair,” Dorie said bitterly. “He’s the one who screwed up our lives. He got me pregnant, and he cheated, and he walked out. Now, he gets the house, he gets a great new job … and what do I get?”

“You get to be a mom,” Ellis said softly. “That’s more important than a house, or a job, or money. Right? You get what you’ve always wanted: a child. None of that other stuff matters. You will be a fabulous mother, and Stephen will always have to know that he walked away from sharing a life with you and his child.”

“You make it sound like a Hallmark card,” Dorie said, sniffing. “What if I screw this up? I know I made a lot of noise about wanting this baby, but Ellis, I’m terrified. I don’t know if I can do this all by myself.”

“You won’t screw up,” Ellis said. “And you won’t be by yourself. For better or worse, you have to let Stephen be a father to this baby. And you’ve got Willa, and Nash, and the rest of your crazy, screwed-up family. And Connor, it sounds like. And us. You’ve got us, Dorie. You know that, right? We’ve got your back. Always have. Always will.”

“Willa!” Dorie said. “I almost forgot. Willa knows about the baby. Stephen ran into her this morning, and he just assumed I’d told her, and so he
said something about her being an aunt. He said she nearly dropped dead of a heart attack.”

“If only,” Ellis said. “Oops.”

“So now I’ve got to call her and tell her the whole sordid story,” Dorie said, slumping in her chair. “And then she’ll tell Phyllis, and there’ll be this big shit-storm.”

“You could just do an end run and call your mother yourself,” Ellis suggested. “Sort of a preemptive strike.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dorie said glumly. “I’ll face Phyllis when I get home. And not until.”

Dorie propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her fists. “I am
not
looking forward to having this conversation with my sister.”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t called you,” Ellis said.

“Oh, she has,” Dorie said. “Repeatedly. I just haven’t chosen to call her back.”

“Coward,” Ellis said.

“Yup, that’s me.”

*   *   *

“He’s here,” Julia announced at six that evening, walking into the kitchen where the girls were congregated. Dorie was making guacamole and Ellis was squeezing limes for margaritas. Madison was coating the rims of newly purchased glasses with a mixture of lime juice and salt. “Booker just pulled into the driveway. He and Simon are walking around outside, talking.”

“Look,” Ellis said, dropping a halved lime onto the countertop. “My hands are shaking. I can’t believe how nervous I am.”

“Relax,” Julia said, tossing her hair. “He’ll love the place. Hell, I love it, now that we’ve got it all pimped out like this.”

“You did a great job, Julia,” Dorie told her, tossing the diced avocados with some of the juice from Ellis’s limes. “I never thought this house could look so good.”

“I’d make a movie here,” Madison added. “Hell, I’d live here, now that you’ve fixed it up like this.”

“It’s no biggie,” Julia said lightly. “Any idiot could do what I did. Clean windows, waxed floors, some potted geraniums and ferns on the porch.…”

“All the furniture rearranged, new curtains in all the windows, new rugs, new art, flowers in every room, the deck pressure washed, the whole yard landscaped, porch rails repaired,” Ellis said, ticking off the day’s accomplishments on her hands. “I’m exhausted just talking about it. And I think Ty’s totally overwhelmed by the change. I think he’s actually starting to think this movie thing just might happen.”

“It will happen,” Julia vowed. “You wait and see. Booker says Simon is not easily impressed. So if he’s here, the deal is almost certainly going to happen. Where is Ty, by the way?”

“Showering,” Ellis said. “Or more likely, asleep standing up in the shower, after all the work you had him doing today.”

“It’s all going to pay off,” Julia said. “I guarantee.”

“I believe you,” Ellis said. “The trick now is to make Ty believe.”

*   *   *

The dining room table was littered with glasses, empty Corona bottles, shards of chips, and globs of salsa and guacamole—not to mention Dorie’s empty caffeine-free Diet Coke cans. It was ten o’clock. The women, worn out from trying to make a good impression, had all scattered to their rooms. Simon had been wined and dined, plied with shrimp and grits and fried green tomatoes, all served up by Julia, Ellis, Madison, and Dorie, turned out in low-cut sundresses that showed their gleaming summer tans and welcoming Southern smiles.

Simon was in his late forties, balding, the remainder of his white-blond hair gathered into a tight little braid at the back of his head. He wore a snug-fitting black T-shirt with the word
FAÇADE
in white letters across the front; black linen shorts, which Julia cuttingly referred to as “manpris” behind his back; and high-top black sneakers worn unlaced.

He’d toured the house for two hours, looking in every nook and cranny, not saying much. Following that, he’d been driven up and down Croatan Highway by Ty and Booker. He’d stood on the bay side, watching the sunset with a practiced eye, and taken a cursory look at two other old houses Ty had found that might work for other locations for the movie. Now he leaned back in his chair and looked across the table at Ty, who was still sipping his first and only beer of the night.

“It’ll work,” he said succinctly. “Not perfect, but we can make it work. When can you be out?”

“Out?” Ty said blankly.

“Move out,” Simon said. “We’ll need access immediately. Didn’t Booker tell you?”

Ty rubbed his eyes and yawned. “He said you wanted to start shooting in September?”

“Shooting, yes,” Simon said impatiently. “But we’ve got to get our crews in here right away. This place, if you don’t mind my saying so, needs a lot of work.”

“I thought you wanted an old house,” Ty protested. “Booker said…”

“We need to make it look even older than it is,” Simon said. “The art director wants the house to be weathered blue shingles. Like on Cape Cod.”

“But this house doesn’t have shingles,” Ty said.

“It will when we’re done,” Simon said. “Also, Joe wants awnings. Striped awnings, for Chrissakes. We need a gazebo on that deck of yours, overlooking the water, and that piece-of-crap garage? That’s going to be a barn. A faded-red barn.”

“It’s a garage,” Ty pointed out. “It doesn’t look anything like a barn.”

“It will,” Simon said. “When we’re done, you’ll wonder where the cows went.”

“Oo-kay,” Ty said slowly.

“So you can move immediately?”

Ty blinked. “Why can’t I stay in the garage apartment?”

“Because it’s going to be a barn,” Simon said, speaking slowly, as though he were dealing with someone with a marked learning disability. “We’re going to make a movie in it, remember?”

“Let’s back up,” Ty suggested. “First off, my tenants, you remember my tenants? Julia, Ellis, Dorie, Madison? They have this place rented for another week yet. I can’t just kick them out.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” Simon said pleasantly. “For three months. We’ll throw in a housing allowance for you, as long as you don’t try to gouge us. How does that sound?”

Ty swallowed and tried to look uninterested, although his pulse
was racing, his throat was dry, and his heart was hammering so hard he was afraid to look down at his shirtfront. He took another sip of the warm beer as a stalling tactic.

“The girls stay ’til the end of next week, as planned,” he said finally. “They have a rental agreement, and I won’t break it. Your people can work around them, can’t they?”

Simon shook his head. “They’ll stay out of the way?”

“Of course,” Ty said. “Who’ll be doing the work on the house, the construction and painting and all that?”

“A crew,” Simon said. “Maybe you can help us line up some decent locals? Union, of course.”

“Maybe I can be the general contractor,” Ty said easily. “I’ve done all the work on the house up to now, but I’ve got buddies who are carpenters, painters, electricians.

“About the money,” Ty said. “I’m gonna need a big deposit.”

“How big?”

Ty felt a vein in his neck bulge, but chose to ignore it. “Half up front.”

Simon shook his head vehemently. “Not happening.”

“Okay,” Ty said, taking another swig of beer. “No hard feelings. Maybe you can find another house on the water with somebody willing to turn a garage into a barn in, like, a week.”

Simon eyed him. “Are you dicking around with me?”

“Yeah,” Ty said. “But I need twenty-five thousand dollars up front, along with a signed agreement, and all the usual stuff I’m sure you people do with insurance and bonds and all. Or it’s no deal.”

Simon pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’ll get back to you in the morning. You wanna give me a ride to my motel, or are you gonna charge me extra for that too?”

“No charge,” Ty said smoothly. “It’s my pleasure.”

“One more thing,” Simon said. “What do you know about that lot next door? The one with the burnt-out house? That might work for us too.”

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Ty said.

46

The trucks came rumbling down Ebbtide’s driveway around two o’clock on Tuesday. Ellis had just come up from the beach, and now she stood on the front porch, with a red Solo Cup of iced tea, watching the parade approach. The first one was a lumber company tractor-trailer, piled high with pallets of wooden shingles, plywood, rolls of roofing, and lumber of every description. Right behind it came a big box van with
RELIANCE AIR
stenciled on the doors. It was followed by two beat-up cargo vans, which were followed by a red pickup truck, which was followed by Ty, in his weatherbeaten Bronco, mi
nus the surfboard.

Ty parked the Bronco close to the street and jogged down to the house, directing the drivers where to park. Finally, he walked up to the porch, greeting Ellis with a brief kiss.