Relative Chaos (2 page)

I eyed the boxes. "Home Shopping Network?"

"Those were back-ordered," Millie said. "I haven't watched HSN
in weeks."

"You won't have time for TV now. We'll be too busy." I gave her a
bear hug, then backed off to meet her eyes. I cherished my childhood
memories of this house-what I thought of as the clutter-free era.

"Do you know how thrilled I am that you asked for my help?" I
said.

"Figured you'd be ready to dig in," Millie said. "Been harping on
me since you were seven."

I grinned. The same year I'd insisted on going by Poppy instead
of Penelope or, heaven forbid, Penny, which in my mind was just as
dumb as calling someone nickel, dime, or quarter. The nickname
had stuck.

Aunt Millie had known me as a pushy little girl, and she had me
pegged now. I was as eager to dig in as a kid in a sandbox. I opened
my tote and pulled out a work apron with handy catch-all pockets
and my Mutter Killer logo embroidered across the bib.

I looped the apron over my head and reached around to tie it in
back. "You'll be thrilled when all these dust-catchers are gone," I
promised. "Just wait and see."

Her words on the phone earlier-"I need you to come over here and
help me clean this place out"-were the best words I'd heard since the
judge pronounced, "Your divorce is hereby granted" last year.

For the first time all month I was glad my business wasn't booming. When I finished with Aunt Millie-maybe a couple of months
from now-I'd advertise in Fort Bend Lifestyles magazine to drum
up new clients.

I picked my way around Millie's recent acquisitions and peeked
into the dining room. I couldn't remember when I'd last seen the
maple table I knew was hidden under gobs of papers, books, photos,
and clothes. I scanned the room, noting a 1987 Federal income tax
form that stuck out from a basket of petrified and permanently
wrinkled laundry. A five-foot column of Houston Chronicle newspapers in a corner threatened to avalanche.

The scent of cinnamon wafted in from the kitchen-Aunt Millie's
yummy cinnamon buns, I'd bet. A special childhood memory, and, with the big five-oh approaching like a freight train, I relished those
memories more than ever. I headed for the kitchen, already tasting
the soft, yeasty-

Walt a second. Baking was Aunt Millie's antidote for stress. What
did she have to be stressed about when she knew I was on my way
here to help?

I backtracked to find her standing by the HSN boxes, stroking
Jett's silky black fur. The cat rolled onto his side, loving the attention, but Aunt Millie's shoulders drooped. I knew she would love the
house after I finished organizing things, but no matter how badly I
itched to get started, I'd have to take this in baby steps.

I walked over to Millie and gently touched her shoulder. "Remember that time I caught my prom dress in the car door and nearly
ripped the skirt off?"

Millie smiled and nodded. "You were traumatized. Convinced
your life was ruined forever"

"What I remember is that you dropped what you were doing to fix
the dress. You made everything all right. That's what I want to do for
you now."

"I know," Millie said.

"Then how about we get started? We can take it nice and easy.
Tour the house, then sit down and map out a game plan."

Millie ran her knuckles down Jett's back and took a deep breath,
then turned to face me. "Oh, I already have a plan in motion. I just
needed an extra set of hands. Come on into the living room, and you'll
see."

"O-kay." I consider myself a darn good professional organizer,
but I like doing things my own way, using my own logical sequence.
I suppressed my instinct to point this out and followed her, sniffing
as a new odor hit me. "Maybe we can open some windows. It's a little
stale in here, don't you think? Or"-I inhaled deeply-"is that
paint?"

"Part of my plan." Millie slid double pocket doors aside to reveal
the living room.

Light streamed through the windows overlooking Riverside Estates Golf Course, accenting the freshly painted walls and a zillion
floating dust motes. A man in a sage green T-shirt and worn jeans with a tool belt slung low on narrow hips stood on a ladder, an electric drill poised in one hand.

"Who's this?" I said, annoyed by the stranger's presence and the
fact that everything in the room had been shoved away from the walls
to form a humongous mound of clutter over and around the furniture.

"Wayne McCall," said Millie, "meet my niece, Poppy Cartwright."

Self-conscious, I pulled off the hard hat and shook out my shaggy
blond hair.

McCall gave me a once-over with the intensity of someone who
planned to work with a police sketch artist later. "Right. The clutter
lady."

"I don't clutter." My forced smile felt more like a grimace. "I unclutter. Organize. Purge and toss." I gave Millie a pointed look.
"Which we usually do before we start remodeling."

"To each their own," McCall said.

Judging by his lined, tan face and the sprinkling of white through
his dark hair, I guessed him to be near my age-old enough to know
we'd stir up plenty of dirt clearing out this room. Dirt that would
settle on his cream-colored paint job.

McCall turned back to his work-screwing a metal shelving strip
to the wall. I cringed at the buzzing drill that reminded me of a
childhood spent in the dentist's chair.

"Where'd you find this one?" I whispered.

Millie ignored my question. "Wayne's a godsend. He did the painting for me, and now he's putting up bookshelves."

I took hold of her arm and pulled her with me into the hallway.
Even out here, a good ten yards from the drill, I felt as if the bit was
boring into my brain. "I'm serious, Aunt Millie. Where did you get
him? I hope this isn't like the time you picked up that electrician
who turned out to be a registered sex offender."

"Don't be rude, Poppy"

I sometimes thought Aunt Millie needed a bodyguard 24/7.
"Where-lid-he-come-from?"

"Well, if you must know, Kroger's," she said.

"He approached you in the grocery store?"

"Not exactly. I was leaving with my groceries, just like any other day, but then a man jumped out from between cars and snatched my
purse."

I had heard nothing of this. "Your purse was stolen?"

"Would have been," Millie said, "but Wayne saved the day."

"Really?" I couldn't keep the skepticism from leaking through.

"He was right there-he'd left the store right behind me. Saw the
whole thing and ran the guy down."

Leaving the store or following her? I wondered. "I'm surprised
you never mentioned this."

"I told the story so many times, I forget who knows and who
doesn't," Millie said. "Anyway, Wayne got my purse back. He's a
hero, even though the thief got away."

"And now he's painting your house," I said. "Makes perfect sense
to me"

What did she know about this man she'd brought into her home?
Next to nothing, I'd bet.

Aunt Millie inched back a step, wearing her familiar warning expression. I'd sure seen enough of that look growing up. I had to back
off or risk being fired before we even started.

"Okay, then." I pasted on a smile and hooked elbows with Aunt
Millie. Walking her back into the living room, I spoke the words she
needed to hear if I wanted to get this show on the road. "I'm glad
you found such good help, and those shelves will be perfect."

Though you ought to donate all these old books to the library and
put the space to better use.

"I'm glad you think so," Millie said, gloating.

I took a calming breath and scanned the mess. "Let's set up a
sorting area for these other, um, belongings."

Magazines, more newspapers, broken straw hats, skeins of yarn,
silk flowers, junk mail, cat toys.

Internal heavy sigh.

"No time to sort," Millie said. "Wayne picked up twelve dozen
boxes for me"

"You ready for those?" McCall started down the ladder. "I'll
bring them in."

"No!" I lowered my voice and tried to sound pleasant. "We don't need boxes, Aunt Millie. Not yet anyway" Not twelve dozen. What
was she thinking?

My face was beginning to ache from forcing a smile. "First, we
categorize your things-those you use frequently, those to throw
away, donate, store...."

"I'm storing the whole mess," she said, throwing her arms in a big
circle. "Rented two of those extra-large units at the Simply Storage
place over on Highway Six. Think that'll be enough?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" I rubbed my aching temples. "You can't store
all of this junk as is." I struggle against the urge to order my clients
around, but this was Aunt Millie, and I couldn't take any more nonsense.

McCall pinned me with deep brown eyes. "Look, Mrs. Klutter
Killer, if she wants to store her stuff, she stores her stuff. You shouldn't
force people to do what you think they ought to do."

"I wouldn't force anyone," I said coldly. Who did he think he
was?

McCall raised his eyebrows in silent reply, then went out the back
door, presumably to fetch boxes.

I looked for a place to sit, didn't find one, then crossed my arms
over my chest and faced Aunt Millie. "I thought you wanted to be
organized-with my help."

"I do," she said, "but right now there's not enough time."

"What do you mean, not enough time?"

Millie chewed her lip, avoided eye contact, then said, "Janice is
coming to visit."

"Here?"

"This weekend."

My snooty cousin Janice, Millie's daughter, hadn't visited since
Uncle Hal's funeral three years ago. Even then she refused to set foot
in her mother's house and took a flight straight back to her husband
and her Wall Street job as soon as the service ended. Far as I knew,
she spoke to Millie only on birthdays and Christmas.

"Janice is coming here, to your house?"

Millie nodded, and her eyes began to tear.

Janice coming home after all this time? "What does she want?"

"I-I'm not sure," Millie said, her voice trembling. "Probably to
check out my will, make sure she's still inheriting. But I'm so glad
she's coming, whatever the reason. And that reminds me, we need to
find the papers from my lawyer in here somewhere" She scanned the
mass of clutter. "If we don't, I'll have to ask Dawn to send out another set"

No one should have to put up with an uncaring, uppity, daughter
like Janice-especially Aunt Millie. My son, Kevin, had caused me
plenty of concern over the years, but I never doubted that he loved
his family. My cold, calculating cousin was a different story.

I put an arm around Millie's shoulders. "We'll find the papers, but
I wouldn't let Janice's visit interfere with your organizing the house.
She grew up here, and I'm sure she won't expect things to have
changed"

"Oh, but she will," said Millie, crying now. "I told her."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I was totally organized, that the house was all cleaned up,
and she wouldn't even recognize the place."

Uh-oh.

"I swore on your Uncle Hal's grave it was true."

Millie cried harder, and I drew her close. Now what? I wouldn't
want the catty, holier-than-thou Janice to prove me wrong either.
And if that meant boxing up and storing Millie's junk, then so be it.

"We can compromise." I released Millie to make eye contact. "I
have plenty of time to help you between now and the weekend. We'll
organize the most important things, then box up and store the rest.
What do you say?"

Millie nodded and pulled a tissue from the breast pocket of her
plaid shirt to dry her tears.

"But you have to promise we don't keep everything. I mean, there's
no good reason to hang on to magazines back to the seventies."

"Okay," Millie said.

"So we'll trash the older ones."

"Right"

"Even if you haven't read them yet"

She nodded her agreement.

"We'll need a slew of garbage bags."

Millie managed a smile. "I have some of those heavy ones out in
the garage. Left over from the kitchen remodeling."

"Perfect. I'll be right back."

"In that blue cabinet by the workbench," Millie called after me.

I moved fast, hoping to return before she had a complete emotional meltdown. She was usually such a strong lady, and I wanted to
slap Janice for hurting her.

Plenty of time for that later.

Outside, the day was cool but pleasant, perfect Gulf Coast February weather any northerner would envy.

Maybe that's why Janice was coming to visit-to escape the
frigid New York winter.

Nah. She wanted something.

Two women riding a golf cart down a nearby path waved to me,
and I waved back, thankful that Millie lived in this friendly Sugar
Land neighborhood. Small consolation for having such a nasty daughter, but some emotional support was better than none.

Anyone acquainted with Aunt Millie knew better than to open the
overhead garage door. The inside was stacked floor-to-ceiling with a
lifetime's worth of belongings that she, for some obsessive reason,
couldn't part with junk that would spill onto her car parked outside without the door's support.

I entered the garage through the side entrance and flicked on the
overhead light, then wasted a few seconds staring. A tower of empty
shrubbery containers leaned against a wall next to boxes full of clothes
hangers, piles of discarded shoes, and moldy lawn-furniture cushions. Ick.

I scraped past straggly potted plants Millie had dragged inside during a brief freeze we had around New Year's and squeezed through
the rat maze, regretting that I'd left my hard hat in the house and feeling claustrophobic with the stacks pressing in on all sides.

The rubble blocked daylight from the garage's lone window, and
the ceiling fixture's dim bulb didn't help much. Might be easier to
run down to Home Depot and pick up some bags, but I liked the idea
of using what Millie already had, so I forged ahead toward the blue
cabinet next to Uncle Hal's workbench on the back wall.