Beads of Doubt (2 page)

He stretched out and rolled over on his stomach, the better to have his fawn-colored belly petted.

A voice came up the staircase. “Nice to see Sinatra hasn’t changed his ways.” I looked down to find my friend Beth Fairfield watching us.

“He’s as charming as ever,” I said, patting Sinatra briefly. Sinatra originally belonged to Beth, but before he was four months old she knew he’d never work in their family. At least not with her husband Ron around. Then we caught the philandering Ron in the midst of a philander, and a month ago the two separated. It’s just a trial separation. I hope the jury makes it permanent, but I don’t say that. I also don’t let Beth hear me call Ron “Mo-Ron,” which is my very apt nickname for him. “Let me guess, you’re here early because Ron has changed his mind and wants you back. And Sinatra,” I said, making my way more carefully down the last of the stairs. Sinatra was now purring so loudly that the sound echoed all through the hall and the kitchen.

“Wrong on both counts.” I heard the little catch in her voice and it worried me. Beth and I have been friends since we were eight and met at summer camp. I may not think much of Ron, but she loved him enough to marry him and have two children, Shannan and Brian, who are now almost completely grown.

“Are you okay? I thought you weren’t coming over until the reception. What’s up?” I picked up my purse off the dining room table.

“Long story.” She sighed and I stopped to give her my full attention. “The short version is that Ron sailed in last night and announced to Shannan that they needed some time together, so he was taking her to San Francisco for a week. Starting Saturday.”

Tightwad Mo-Ron, Mr. Ultraconservative, was doing something on the spur of the moment. He should have started that habit years ago. “And what did you say?” I asked.

“You’d be proud of me. I said, ‘Oh, Ron, isn’t that sweet of you, but I wish you’d given me some notice. The Bead Tea is this weekend, and I promised Kitzi I’d stay at the Manse and help her. The two of you will have to go without me.’ Like he’d bothered to invite me.”

“Way to go, Beth.” We did a high five.

“Yes, but then I had to pack and get out of there. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Absolutely not; I’m delighted. You can have any room in the house, including mine, but I’m on a mission now, so we’ll have to bring your things in later.”

“No problem. Where are we going?” She straightened the runner on the table, which I’d mussed, and followed me into the kitchen. “What happened in here?”

The kitchen is long and wide and vanilla. The only things not antique white are the natural wood counters and the sinks, which are metal. It needs color and some pizzazz, but pizzazz takes energy and time, and after all the other work I’ve done on the house, I’ve run out of both. Today the place was particularly drab because the counters were absolutely barren. Not a piece of paper, not a dirty dish or a canister in sight.

I glanced around at the newly empty counters. “For the caterers. They’ll need every inch of counter space and more.”

During parties this is the staging area and it buzzes with activity. Caterers putting last minute touches on trays and plates of food so delicious looking they would tempt Gandhi on a hunger strike. Waiters whizzing in and out of doors, and the organizers, overseeing, double-checking, and making sure that everything runs smoothly.

Our family has always believed in not only sharing the Manse with organizations, but also helping out when someone is shorthanded. My grandparents started that tradition, and my parents and I have carried it on. As a child I liked the time before and after a party best. Before is when you can sneak a taste of one of the ripest strawberries and the most scrumptious desserts. Afterward always seemed fun to me, too, because that’s when the stories start getting told. As a child I used to beg my grandparents to let me stay here during a party. When they said yes, I’d get paid a quarter to help with the cleanup, only it wasn’t the money I was after. I loved to hear the adults talking.
“Did you see that woman in red? I heard that she . . .”
I learned pretty fast that as long as I kept my mouth shut and kept working, no one paid any attention to me. The minute I stopped to look at whomever was talking I got sent to my room.

Even now, there are times when the cleanup is as much fun as the event itself.

Beth opened the door and we stepped outside into as beautiful a clear June day as you could ask for. The tent was repositioned and apparently about to be raised. The big pecan trees fluttered above it, and the begonias in the bed to the right of it were blooming a clear pink except where they’d been run over.

My mother stood by, still with her clipboard. She looked as regal and lovely as she ever had, if a bit more worn from her seventy-some years. Think of Pat Nixon in her seventies, only more petite.

Today she was wearing tan slacks and a mint green sweater. From the back you might mistake her slender figure for that of a teenager, except she was too well dressed and her peachy blonde hair isn’t a shade or style seen on today’s youth. She turned and caught sight of us.

She and I have the same light coloring, although I’m four inches taller and outweigh her by a good twenty-five pounds. I don’t have my hair done as often, either, so mine is more blonde with what I like to call silver highlights.

“Beth, I’ve been meaning to tell you how good you’re looking,” she said as we neared her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Camden.”

My mother was right. Since the first revelation of Ron’s extramarital activities, Beth has lost twenty-one pounds with only forty-five to go. By her count. She has cut her hair in a style that looks like a modern version of the old shag, and she’s started spending money on a new wardrobe for herself. A first. Used to be that Beth spent money on everyone but herself. Today she was in beige crop pants with a sage green T-shirt. In her hand were sunglasses that looked like something purchased from the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m lovely, thank you. We are having a few problems getting ready for tonight, though.” The paper-thin wrinkle on her forehead creased a tad further. “Kitzi, I’ve asked the driver to keep the tent six feet from the flower beds. That way people won’t be forced into them if they walk around the tent.”

“Excellent idea.”

She looked down at the paper on her clipboard. “I have also told him that I expect someone to replace the damaged plants by two this afternoon.” She dropped her voice and leaned closer to us. “It’s early enough that if the plants don’t arrive, we can do the replacing before the opening cocktail party this evening.”

My mother is half terrier and half Dresden doll. She can be so precious and petite, I can’t help feeling protective. And I’ve seen her terrify a whole crew of burly workmen. Come to think of it, she’s done that to me, too. It’s when she wants everything to be “nice.” Her
nice
stands for absolutely-no-kidding-downright perfect. An impossible standard she demands of herself and the rest of us. I try to disappear when she’s in one of those moods—not to protect myself, but to keep family harmony.

“I’ll pick up some flowers while I’m out,” I said.

She noticed the keys dangling from my fingers and frowned. “You can’t possibly think of leaving right now. The caterers will be arriving, and the chairs and tables are going to be delivered. There are a thousand things to be done.”

For the moment, everything we could do was already taken care of, but apparently she was in one of her moods. I should have been tipped off by the clipboard. “Mother, don’t worry. Several of the women from the OCO will be here shortly. Plus the volunteers from the Bead Society. They’re in charge of this.” OCO is the Ovarian Cancer Organization, the official sponsors of the Bead Tea.

“Kitzi, it is our responsibility to be here and help.”

“I won’t be gone long; I just need to run out and see a lawyer.”

“What lawyer? And why in the world would you schedule an appointment today?”

“Something just came up. It’s for Houston.” My mother is a sucker for Houston, as are most older women. Especially his mother, my aunt Miranda, who always says that he is the light of her existence. When we were kids and she said it, I always thought he was a pretty dim bulb and she must live in a cave, but I never said it out loud. Well, maybe once or twice to Houston, but never to her.

“Is he all right?” my mother asked. “He’s not hurt—”

“Nothing like that. Just some legal thing with some silly deadline.” I was not going to let my mother worry about Houston taking over the Manse. If I loved the Manse, she obsessed over it. Six years ago, when the doctor told her that she needed to turn it over to someone else because it was killing her, she was devastated. As tough as it was on her, though, she did it all in her own inimitable style.

The Manse is actually owned by a family corporation created by my grandfather. Every member of the family is a stockholder, and provisions were made for new members who joined the clan either by birth or marriage. Divorce is figured in, too. I don’t understand the numbers of voting shares or the percentages, but that’s never been an issue. It certainly wasn’t the day my mother gave up residency.

She’d had her lawyer send out meeting notices to all the family members, and everyone showed up as if it were a funeral. There were canapés and drinks for all, until it was time to call the gathering to order. Mother did that, proud and as tall as she could stand at the head of the table. She explained that she could no longer care for the house and she was ready to turn it over to someone else. There was no self-pity; I was the one feeling teary eyed. As I looked around the room, several others seemed sad, too, although one or two seemed eager.

Then Mother pulled out a stack of bound presentation folders and passed them around for all of us to see. It was an inventory of the contents of the house, and the results of an inspection. I skimmed through the papers, as did the others. Muttering started and expressions turned to surprise. Even I was stunned.

Oh, I knew the house needed a coat of paint and some other things, but I was so used to seeing it that I just didn’t notice. That inspection brought reality crashing down on all our heads.

According to the report there was a serious foundation problem that had caused cracks in the walls and had jammed many of the windows. The plumbing was rotting. The water was not up to drinkable standards, and there were leaks inside some walls. The leaks had caused mold, and the old aluminum wiring was considered a fire hazard.

Those were just the major problems.

All in all, the cost for repairs was so high that the corporation didn’t have the funds to cover it. People started muttering. Uncle Larry, the senator, said, “How reliable is the company that did the inspection?”

“Very reliable,” my mother responded. She sighed but her head remained unbowed. “I’ve been fighting these problems for years, but there’s never been enough time or money to get it all done. I’m afraid one of you has some work in your future.”

Except one by one they all declined. No one wanted to spend that much of their own funds on the Manse. Some didn’t have the money, and others didn’t want to part with it. Some lived away from Austin, and the remaining few didn’t want the responsibility. In the end it came down to my brother and me. Stephen was rubbing his forehead, thinking hard. At that point in his life he was going through a divorce, his second, and I knew that money was tight.

He dropped his shoulders in defeat. “I decline.” He looked at my mother. “I’m sorry, Mom, I just can’t.”

She nodded, then turned to me. A quote, I think from Dale Carnegie, kept running through my head: “If it’s to be done, you are the one.”

I loved the Manse, but I had my own house that I’d recently remodeled after my kids had gone off to college. It was fresh and sparkling, with the peace and tranquility that comes when the workmen finally leave.

I had looked at my mother and seen the hopeful expression on her face.

“Lillian,” my uncle asked, “where will you go if you leave the Manse?”

She hesitated and finally said, “I’ve been looking at houses, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that an apartment might be best. Or a duplex.”

That had been the deciding factor. My mother had dedicated her entire life to others, and I was not going to let her spend her senior years in an apartment with a sea of asphalt parking lot around her and some rapper upstairs blowing out his speakers.

“I’ll take over the Manse,” I said, stepping toward the conference table. “You can move into the gatehouse, Mother. We’ll remodel it first, so you have somewhere nice to live.”

Everyone cheered, grateful that they hadn’t gotten stuck with the job. Or the Manse. The bar was reopened, and I was toasted repeatedly.

Within days I was hard at work, selling my house, finding a contractor, making up plans for modernizing, all the while letting my training business slip because of all the time it took.

I wrangled with carpenters, plumbers, and electricians to keep it architecturally authentic, while making sure it was sound and functioning smoothly. I fought off termites, black mold, and the city council that wanted to “annex” half the grounds for some electrical substation. I even cleaned almost every inch of it on my hands and knees.

In the end it was all worth it. The Manse is now beautifully restored, and I’ve added modern conveniences to boot. The kitchen isn’t up to par appearancewise yet, but it will be eventually. We’ve turned the gatehouse into a little charmer. Before it had been nothing more than a large toolshed with a small mudroom. Some of the walls hadn’t even been finished. Now it is elegant and charming. There are pegged hardwood floors, a fireplace, a small but colorful kitchen, a spa bath, and a brick patio out back. We’ve put up window boxes and added a flower-bordered walkway from the front gate. Mother and I did much of the planting and decorating together. She calls it her nest, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her losing it.