The House of Seven Mabels (2 page)

"Let's order before we get to business," Bitsy said. "I've already asked for a bottle of the house merlot. You'll love it."

A silence fell and Jane filled it. "Bitsy, I've always wondered what your real name is."

"I'm afraid it's really Bitsy. My parents were from Savannah and Southerners often do awful things like this to baby girls," Bitsy said. It was obviously a well-rehearsed line she'd developed over the years of being asked this question. "It was part of Itsy Bitsy Baby, of course, and thank heaven they didn't give me that whole name. I had an awful time getting a passport until I

showed them my birth certificate that clearly stated that Bitsy is my real name."

Everybody laughed sympathetically, then fell on their menus for lack of a suitable subject for more chitchat.

"Jane, you must try the filet mignon," Shelley said. "I had that the first time I was here and it was so good I'm having it
again."

Jane noticed it was the priciest of the entrees. Shelley was really going out of her way to make sure Jane got her money's worth out of this meal.

The waitress, also dressed all in black, brought their drinks and recommended the filet as their house specialty, along with the vegetarian version, which made Jane's skin crawl to consider. Bitsy and Sandy ordered meatless salads, and Jane and Shelley ordered the real filet.

Bitsy immediately launched into her spiel. "I've had extraordinarily good luck to be able to afford to get into this renovation. I thought I should let you know what my intentions are. Many corporations have their headquarters in Chicago. Often they bring in their suppliers or people they want to hire and wish to impress. Shelley's husband is a good example."

Shelley looked at her blankly, wondering just what Bitsy thought she knew about Paul. He had been born poor and Polish and had built up a chain of cheap Greek fast-food restaurants. He'd clawed his way up from a run-down two-bedroom house he'd shared with his parents and

seven siblings, and when he and Shelley entertained Paul's friends, employees, suppliers, and neighbors, it was for the pure pleasure of doing so. A pleasure for him, at least. Not always for Shelley.

"The house I've selected is very close to the El line," Bitsy plowed on, "so it's handy to the city. Although I suspect most of the people who will be using the home will be chauffeured to the city anyway. I intend to provide — for a hefty fee — one or more of these corporations with the perfect home to house their most important guests when they visit."

"Sounds like a good idea," Jane admitted.

"So it has to be the height of luxury," Bitsy said, preening. "A main kitchen always stocked with elegant foods and suitable for catering. Bathrooms to die for. The best and biggest beds and the best real linens. Complete privacy between the two wings, which will both have access to the kitchen. That way two groups can stay there without running into one another. Well-stocked bars in the suites. Banquet facilities. Elegant furnishings…"

"Is that where we come in?" Jane asked.

"Exactly!" Bitsy exclaimed. "I've been in Shelley's home and it's lovely. I assume that since you live next door and are good friends, yours is lovely as well."

Jane just smiled at Bitsy's misapprehension of Jane's decorating skills. Shelley made a noise that

could have been a sneeze, or more likely a subdued snort.

"I have the paperwork to let you into the professional decorators' place downtown," Bitsy said proudly.

"The Merchandise Mart?" Shelley asked, impressed.

"What we want is sheer elegance, with a slight hint of Victoriana. Suitable to an old Victorian house, you see. But not feminine. There probably won't be very many wives coming along, but every detail must suit them when they do accompany a husband."

This seemed odd to Jane. Such ardent feminists speaking of women merely as wives. "What about that woman who is the president and CEO of eBay?" she asked.

"What's eBay?" Sandra asked.

Shelley nudged Jane. Jane didn't understand the nudge unless it meant, "Keep your trap shut," which it probably did.

"Never mind," Shelley said.
"I
think we understand."

The food arrived and they abandoned business talk temporarily. The filets were indeed the best Jane had tasted. Tiny but thick. Perfectly cooked. They sat in solitary splendor in a pool of divinely rich brown gravy, piled high with chunks of an unfamiliar but good cheese, with frilly baby celery stalks impaled on the cheese.
Anything for height,
Jane thought to herself. There were barely

cooked tiny peas to the side with shreds of mint scattered on them, and a log of scalloped potatoes, adorned with finely minced basil.

The other two women's salads likewise were works of art. Exotic greens and tiny fruits Jane couldn't identify, along with lightly cooked pearl onions, baby yellow-skinned potatoes, more frilly celery, and julienned peppers in red, green, purple, and yellow.

Even if she and Shelley turned down the job they were being offered, this was truly a meal she'd never forget.

A meal to die for,
she thought, not meaning to be prophetic.

Three

Jane
had to undo
a
button on the waistband of her knockout green silk suit on the way home. Shelley had forced her to buy it on sale a couple of months earlier.

"I'm a blimp," Jane said. "I should have worn something larger to eat so much. That raspberry chocolate torte put me over the brink."

"I told you you'd get a good meal out of the meeting," Shelley said smugly.

"Are you really thinking of doing this?" Jane said, trying not to see how fast the landscape was zipping by. She was afraid to lean over and see what speed Shelley was going.

"I think it's something we should at least consider," Shelley said. "We're to see the house tomorrow, and Bitsy says she'll have a contract for us to look over. But frankly, I'm a bit uneasy about it."

"Elaborate, please," Jane said. So far she'd thought she was the only one who didn't wholeheartedly like the prospect.

"For one thing, I don't think Bitsy has a clue what she's gotten into. Contract or no contract, it could turn into a hassle. We'll have to pay a very good lawyer to crawl over it word by word. A couple of hundred dollars up front, I'd guess."

"And?"

"I had a bad feeling about that Sandy woman. She's a tough old gal. But that doesn't mean she knows what she's doing. To find out, we might have to also pay a private investigator who specializes in construction matters. I have no idea how we'd find one, unless Paul knows someone. It's another expense. Unless we can find out about her through a credit bureau or someplace. I don't like spending money just to accept a job."

Shelley managed to coolly pass a car on the on-ramp, and Jane had to close her eyes and utter a quick prayer to the gods of traffic. She didn't want to be loaded onto an ambulance with her green silk skirt falling off.

While crossing three lanes full of eighteen-wheelers, Shelley said, "But we may fall in love with the house and have lots of good ideas for the decorating. Who can tell? We don't have to make an instant decision. Big old houses aren't renovated overnight."

"Could you slow down just a tiny bit?" Jane asked.

"Sure. If you want that forty tons of frozen beef behind me to end up in my backseat."

Jane had planned to get Todd and Katie canyout for dinner so she could go out with Mel that evening, but he had to cancel their date at the last minute. "Just as I was turning in the last of my paperwork, I was told I'd drawn plainclothes duty for a rock concert," he explained. "I must have really irritated someone up the line to be stuck with this. How about tomorrow night? If I survive?"

Jane could afford to be gracious about this. After all, she'd eaten so much at lunch she couldn't have appreciated a real dinner.

So she was stuck at home, all dolled up and nowhere to go. She put her fancy suit away and donned her most disreputable baggy jeans and T-shirt that should have gone in the trash at least six months earlier.

She'd recently given in and put a television and a bookcase in her bedroom. She'd collected all her favorite read-again mysteries from all over the house and put them on the shelves. She settled into bed with Max and Meow on the bedspread and Willard the dog snoring in the corner.

For a while, she watched a bit of her favorite channel, but the thought of a woman building her own two-story deck intimidated her. She flipped to the financial news station briefly, where they were explaining why a stock she held quite a bit of for the kids' college fees had plummeted in value. Flipping the television off, she went to the bookshelf and selected an Agatha Christie book

she'd last read so long ago she was sure she wouldn't remember the ending.

That palled when the character she recalled as the murderer appeared on page seven.

She considered taking a nice long, soaky bath, but didn't want to destroy the wonder her hairdresser had created that morning quite yet. She rejected the idea of cruising the kitchen for a snack after consuming such a huge lunch. Nor did taking a brisk walk around the block appeal in spite of the nice early fall evening.

Jane wasn't herself. She prided herself on never being bored. There was always something she'd like to do. Watch an old movie, try out some craft she'd seen demonstrated, or, if at wit's end, get out a big jigsaw puzzle. And somewhat less frequently, work on the novel she'd been plugging away at for years.

Mike
was at college, Katie was out at a movie with friends, and Todd was working on his homework in his room. He'd finally decided it might be a hoot to become a good student. This should have cheered her up.

But it didn't, and she realized that she was subconsciously brooding about this job Shelley was so interested in doing. Shelley would be good at it. Shelley's house was as lovely as Bitsy had said. Jane's house was merely a comfortable old place with lots of old family furniture and ornaments she was sentimental about. She had no real confidence in her tastes.

She'd recently had her front hall repapered with something dark she loved at the wallpaper place, but once hung, it made the hall look like a dismal tunnel in one of those video games the kids were so fond of. She half expected a red-eyed monster to leap out of the coat closet.

She had to admit to herself that she'd taken an instant dislike to the Sandra woman. She tried to analyze why that was. It wasn't because the woman wasn't attractive. She had other friends who weren't beauties but had marvelous personalities.

It wasn't even that the woman had never heard of eBay, though she found that peculiar. Jane herself haunted eBay and had found replacements for all the chipped or cracked dishes of her grandmother's set of good china.

Was it the feminist angle that got under her skin? Jane would hate to think that was it. She considered herself a feminist. After all, she'd raised three children by herself after being widowed young, and they were turning out wonderfully. She'd done a good job without a husband. Thanks to having had a financial stake in her late husband's family pharmacy, she'd learned to handle money well. When Mike left for college, she'd had to learn to do a lot of hard work around the house he'd formerly taken care of for her. She'd even gotten a ladder and replaced the stairway light fixture. That was a pretty independent thing to do, even if it scared her to death, perching in midair that way.

That was what feminism meant to her. Being able to take good care of yourself and your children. So why did she feel that a couple of women renovating a house wasn't right? She sensed that Shelley was a bit wary, too. That worried her.

She was no closer to an answer when Katie came home from the movie.

"Vegging out, I see. Your hair looks great. How are you going to keep it that way?" Katie asked, sitting down next to
the
cats, scratching both their outstretched necks and wiping the fur off her hands onto her mother's bedspread.

"I probably can't, but thanks. I went to the day spa you suggested. You should have warned me, however, how much a cut and color cost. Katie, let me tell you what Shelley and I did today and see what you think."

Jane outlined the scenario. The old Victorian house in such disrepair, what Bitsy and Sandra had said, the odd restaurant full of women and a few frightened men. The plan that she and Shelley would be in charge of the decorating. "You?" Katie laughed. "What do you know about that?"

"Not a lot, but I could learn by taking this on."

"May I go along?"

Jane was surprised. "Why would you want to?"

Katie shrugged. "My room's been exactly the same all my life."

"Yes. Messy," Jane said.

"I'd love to look at paint chips and cool molding and a neat bed. One of those sleigh things. You know what they are?"

"As it happens, I do," Jane said, half offended.

"So what's the question?" Katie asked.

"I'm reluctant and I can't figure out why," Jane admitted.

"What's Mrs. Nowack think?"

"She likes the idea better than I do, but she has some misgivings, too. To be perfectly honest, I don't think either of us like the people we'd be working for."

Katie grinned. "Remember what you told me when I wanted to change classes because I couldn't stand the way the algebra teacher was always blowing her nose revoltingly?"

"That was different. She was the best algebra teacher in the whole school system. She'd won all sorts of awards."

"Maybe these women you don't like have done that, too."

Jane crawled to the foot of the bed and gave Katie a big hug. "I'm so glad you're growing up so well. Someday you'll be telling me what to do — and God help me, I'll probably listen."

"About time," Katie said, hugging back. "Just make sure you have an escape clause. Give it a shot, Mom. You might enjoy it."