By Design (26 page)

She rattled off the specifics, and Rod dutifully wrote them down, then asked hesitantly, “Emmaline, my girl, you sure about this?”

“Completely.”

“Well, all right. I’ll set it aside, and you let me know when they want it delivered to the house.”

“I’ll do that, Rod. Thanks for everything. I owe you one.”

The night before she moved back home, Emmie left Wilma a voice mail telling him that she was going to be taking the day off. She didn’t
ask
, and she didn’t care how Wilma felt about it. In fact, they hadn’t spoken since their last bust-up. For some reason, Wilma had chosen to hit her with the silent treatment instead of another round of aggravation, and Emmie was fine with that, even though the tension in the office was so thick you could slice it with an upholstery foam cutter.

Emmie finally got in touch with Trish, just to tell her she was moving back into her home, but like a bloodhound, her bestie picked up on the scent of trouble and dragged the truth out of her. Not that she put up much of a fight. Even though Emmie had been operating on autopilot for days, Trish’s concern broke down her barriers, and she told her that she and Graham had broken up, and why. She tried to tell Trish everything that happened after that, but she couldn’t manage to get it all out, so she just stopped.

Although she turned down Trish’s offer to help her move, her friend declared, “Then I’m bringing some groceries over. And alcohol. Just the essentials. We’ll talk more then.”

“If you insist.”

Emmie’s father reacted differently, much to her surprise. He actually looked dejected that she was moving out again.

“Dad!” she chided. “You’re supposed to be glad to have your bachelor pad back.”

Her father nudged his dinner plate away. “Are you absolutely sure, Emmaline?”

“What, that I want to go home? Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” she said sarcastically. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.

“This is always your home, too, you know.”

She smiled gently. “No, Dad, it isn’t. And that’s fine. You were right, you know—I have to move on, live my own life. And so do you.”

“And whatever happened with that Graham fella?”

Emmie took a sip of her tea to stall. “Uh . . . the timing was bad,” she said lamely.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Emmaline—”

“He’s got somebody else,” she said abruptly. No use watering it down.

Bob Brewster frowned. “And he was stringing you along? I didn’t think he was the type—”

“He’s not. Graham is a good person. He’s . . . one of the best people I’ve ever met, in fact. It’s just . . . he thought he was over this other woman, but it turns out he’s not.”

“He told you this?”

“I figured it out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, punkin.”

Her father hadn’t called her that in more than twenty years. She went around to his end of the table, gave him a hug. “I am, too, Dad. But I’ll be fine. Now let’s talk about you—you should get your act together, too.”

“What! My ‘act’ is together, young lady. Has been for years. Decades.”

“I’m talking about Concetta. She seems to be a very nice lady. Why don’t you call her, see if you can get back in her good graces.” When he hesitated, she added, “What was that you said about not wasting time?”

Her father let out a sigh. “I knew that advice was going to come back to bite me in the ass.” She laughed and gave him another squeeze. “But Emmaline . . . what about . . . ?”

“What about what, Dad?”

“Who’s going to cook me my dinner?”

She cuffed him gently on the shoulder. “Dad! You can cook! I know you weren’t starving to death all last year when I wasn’t here.”

“But you’re a girl—you’re better at it.”

“Chauvinist. Get back together with Concetta, see if she lets you get away with that sort of crap.”

Friday morning dawned bleak and cold, just like most mornings in the dead of winter in the hinterlands of New York. Emmie’s cell phone rang at eight thirty, and she was still in bed—no need to wake up early just to move a handful of items into her old home, she reasoned. She squinted at the screen with bleary eyes.

“Shit,” she muttered, then answered, “’Lo?”

“Emmaline.” Wilma’s voice was as cold and dry as the winter wind rattling the bedroom windows. Just as cutting, too.

“Yeah,” she croaked.

“When we began Mr. Cooper’s project, what did I instruct you to do, at
every
step of the way?”

She sighed deeply, not caring if it came across as a loud “whuf ” in Wilma’s ear. “To clear everything with you,” she recited dutifully. “Which I have been doing right along.”

“And yet you left me a voice mail, which I only discovered this morning, that you would not be in today. But you did not give me an update on the status of Mr. Cooper’s project. This morning Mr. Cooper called, asking about bedroom furniture. Imagine my
embarrassment
, Emmaline, when I did not have any information for him!”

Emmie rolled her eyes. “What about it?”

“He asked to talk with you, and when I told him you weren’t in, he was
quite
distraught—”
Oh, yeah,
Emmie thought,
Graham was so often “distraught.”
“So he asked
me
about the furniture delivery. Yet because you did not tell me where you purchased it, I could not schedule a delivery! He says he wants it
today
!”

Oh, the horror. How
could
one bear it?
With another sigh, she said, “Relax. I’ll take care of it. He’ll get it today.” And she hung up and sank back into the mattress, pulling her comforter up over her head.

About an hour later, she contacted Rod and, true to form, he promised her they’d get the furniture over to Graham’s house before lunch.
Good ol’ Rodney,
Emmie thought.
That’s the way you do business.
The kindly gentleman could teach Wilma a thing or two or twelve about keeping one’s cool.

After the furniture delivery was settled, Emmie showered and dressed, then put her remaining clothes in her laundry basket. Unable to bear the sight of her new lingerie, she buried it deep in the pile. She was tempted to throw it all away, but since she didn’t have much in the way of underwear lately, practicality won out and she kept it. But as soon as she could, she decided, she was heading back to the mall to buy her usual old-lady underthings. After all, look at what venturing out of your comfort zone got you. Just heartache. And chafed hipbones from lace trim.

She went downstairs and found a note from her father on the kitchen table stating that he was at the senior center. She let out a rueful laugh. That was her dad, all right—still running away from stuff he didn’t want to deal with. At least his frantic dash didn’t involve cruise ships or international flights this time. Then she saw the PS that said, “Hope to be playing euchre with Concetta.” Well, that was something, anyway.

 

When Emmie got to her new/old home, she didn’t know what to do with herself. There was nothing to unpack, except for the boxes of salvageable knickknacks and personal items the fire restoration company had collected and cleaned. There was no food—thank goodness Trish was bringing some later—and no coffee . . . and even if there were, she didn’t have a coffeemaker. She started to make a list of the appliances she needed to buy. Graham had been right; she definitely needed the insurance money to replace not only all her bedroom furniture, but also all the items in the rest of the house that were ruined from the water and smoke damage. She sat on her couch, which had survived the fire and been cleaned beautifully, but she realized she had nothing to do in the living room.
Note: Replace TV. And iPod dock. And iPod.

She wandered from room to room with a distinct feeling of unease. What the heck—she was home, for God’s sake. What she had longed for, for nearly two months. But she didn’t feel comfortable. She entered her rebuilt bedroom, which echoed in its emptiness and smelled strongly of the fresh coat of dusky lavender-gray paint on the walls. Emmie listened to the once-familiar soundtrack of life in a half-commercialized neighborhood: a car stereo thumping, a siren wailing in the distance, her neighbor’s yappy dog berating the car and the fire engine for daring to make noise—
rarf, rarf, rarf . . . Didn’t miss you one bit, you mangy thing,
she thought.

Then she heard the sound of a truck putt-putting much closer to her home. Curious, she went out onto the front stoop, and sure enough, a large white delivery van was slowly inching up her narrow driveway, backup beeper piercing the air. The brakes screeched, the motor settled into an idling chug, and a familiar person jumped down from the driver’s seat.

The young man waved as he came around the front of the truck. It was Rodney III, Rod’s grandson, a tall, whip-thin young man who had been paying his dues on the loading dock and in the delivery truck for the past several years, as he learned the business from Rod Senior. He was waiting patiently till the older man felt Rodney III was knowledgeable enough to start working in the store. By the time his grandfather was ready to hand over the keys to the business, Rodney III would likely be an old man himself. But he was always cheerful, just as he was at this moment.

“Hi, Emmie,” he said, swinging a clipboard. The other two deliverymen climbed out of the passenger door of the cab, went around the back of the truck and, with a clank and a rumble, pulled out the metal ramp and rolled the back door up.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s your bedroom set.”

“My what? Rodney, there’s been a mistake. The bedroom set goes to West Street, to Mr. Cooper’s house.”

Rodney grinned; when he did, he looked just like his grandfather, even though he was a foot taller and far leaner than the old man. “Nope. We went to Mr. Cooper’s. He said to bring it here—signed off on it and everything.” He tapped the clipboard and leaped up her steps to show her his signature. “We didn’t even have to pull it off the truck for him to inspect. Said he trusted us. Real nice guy—paid us for the extra trip. Oh—he said to give you this.” He tugged a square envelope free from the clipboard’s clasp and handed it to her.

Shivering, although she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or nerves, she ripped it open. A small piece of paper inside read:

Emmie covered her eyes and hung her head. “Oh, no.”

“Emmie?” Rodney hesitated, then awkwardly patted her back. “Emmie? . . . Should we go ahead and unload now?”

Emmie looked up at him, and although tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes, she was laughing. She swiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand, looked at the note again, and took a quivering breath. “Yes, Rodney,” she said. She shook her head disbelievingly. “Yes. Please unload my new bedroom set.”

 

Emmie heard Trish let herself in the front door, but she didn’t move to greet her friend. “Emmie? You here?” She didn’t answer. “Hey, this looks good!” Trish called, her voice coming nearer as she made her way down the hall. Then she entered Emmie’s new master bedroom and dropped her purse and keys on the floor. “What the hell.”

Emmie was standing a few steps inside the doorway, arms crossed, hands cupping her elbows. “I know, right?”

“You lose a bet?”

“You could say that.”

Filling the entirety of her otherwise-stunning bedroom squatted some of the nastiest furniture ever to escape the twentieth century. A low king-sized bed dominated the room. Trish and Emmie could see their reflection in the mirrored headboard, which was framed by swirls of pitted brass and chipped white tubing. The white nightstands, which barely fit on either side of the bed, even in Emmie’s generously sized room, had mirrored drawer fronts and mirrored tops to match the headboard. Their legs were also made of the white tubing. The dresser and chest of drawers followed the same theme, with mirrored tops, but mercifully, no mirrored drawer fronts, although the edges were graced with gold paint, also chipped and discolored.

“It’s like living inside a disco ball,” Trish marveled. Then she nudged the dead animal at her feet. “And this?”

“Come on, white fur rugs were all the rage back in . . . okay, never.”

Trish pointed at a huge, hideous painting leaning against the wall and started to laugh. “What the . . . What’s
that
?” The image, of a woman’s face, was blindingly white overall, her colorless skin blending with the white background, the only color a shock of garish red lips and cheeks, black eyelashes and thick black eyebrows, and a teased-up rooster’s comb of black hair streaked with white.

Emmie looked at her helplessly. “Rod threw it in for free.”