by Linda Seed
“What do you mean?” Martina was still holding her cell phone.
“You look like you’re about to faint. Your eyes are doing this weird pinwheel thing.” Benny made a circular motion with her finger to demonstrate.
“I just … no. It’s stupid. It’s not a real thing. Sofia’s pranking me or something.” Martina set the phone on the countertop and stared at it.
“What’s stupid? What’s not a real thing? And Sofia wouldn’t prank you. That’s more like something I would do, and I didn’t.”
Martina told Benny about the call from Alexis Sinclair’s assistant. “Who even is Alexis Sinclair? Christopher Mills owns that house, right? I mean … he did the last time I heard anything about it. Then this random person calls.”
“Hmm.” Benny went to her room and came out with her laptop. She set it on the kitchen counter, opened it, and began typing. She clicked on a search result, then turned the laptop around so Martina could see the screen. “Apparently, Alexis Sinclair is Christopher Mills’s squeeze. Google is your friend.”
The screen displayed a blog post about a San Francisco charity auction, with bits of gossip about the couples in attendance. One photo showed Christopher Mills and a tall, shapely blond, him in a tux, her in a form-fitting, low-cut silver gown. The caption identified them as tech mogul Christopher Mills and his latest inamorata, Alexis Sinclair.
“Who even uses the word inamorata anymore?” Benny mused.
“It might actually be real,” Martina said, still looking at the screen. “Alexis Sinclair. That might really have been her assistant. She and Christopher Mills might really want me to redesign Cooper House. Oh, God.”
“Do you need to sit down and put your head between your knees?” Benny asked.
“Maybe.” She did sit down, because her knees were feeling a bit rubbery. But once she was settled into a chair at the kitchen table, she started to feel steadier. Perhaps the head-between-the-knees thing could wait.
In the morning, Martina pondered how to prepare for the meeting. Of course, she had the portfolio, the resume, and the list of references she showed to every potential client. Was there more she should be doing? Was there some deal-clenching plan she should have in place?
She contemplated calling Bianca to borrow a business suit, then decided that was stupid. She’d be her most confident if she dressed as herself, not as some alternate, fictional person she thought they might want her to be.
Her usual style was artsy Bohemian chic, so she went with that: flowing ankle-length linen skirt, patterned blouse, sandals, a stack of bracelets on her left wrist, her hair—naturally dark brown but dyed auburn—wavy and cascading loosely down her back.
Why should she pretend she was someone she wasn’t just for some rich people in a twenty-two-room mansion?
Because I really want to get my hands on that twenty-two-room mansion.
She needed a pep talk on her way out the door, but Benny was out on a boat researching sea otters, and Bianca and Sofia were at the medical practice. That left Patrick, Sofia’s fiancé, who’d moved in with them earlier that year. Patrick was an English professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and he didn’t have his first class until late morning.
“Tell me it’s going to be okay.” Martina had poked her head into Sofia and Patrick’s room, where Patrick was sitting at a desk working on his laptop.
“This is the Cooper House thing, right?” He looked up from what he was doing.
“Yes. The Cooper House thing. I just need you to tell me I can do this.”
“All right.” His brow furrowed as he concentrated on what to say. “They wouldn’t have called you if they didn’t think you could handle it. People like that don’t just pick somebody randomly. They researched you, and they like your work.”
“Okay. This is good. Keep going.”
He was warming to his topic. “You deserve this. You’ve worked hard, and you’ve earned it. And if you get this job, it’s going to be because you’re the best.” He nodded, apparently satisfied with his speech.
“Thank you, Patrick.” She rushed into the room, her messenger bag over her shoulder, and kissed his cheek. “I can do this. I just hope I don’t throw up.”
“If you do, try to do it somewhere discreet,” he offered. “Maybe a big houseplant.”
Martina arrived at Cooper House on time, and she announced herself at the security intercom as instructed. The gate opened slowly, and she drove her Prius up the winding road to the house.
She’d seen pictures of Cooper House, of course. The place had been written up in the local paper several years ago when the previous owner had put it up for sale. Martina hadn’t lived in Cambria then, but she’d searched for the article in the paper’s computer archives after Alexis Sinclair’s assistant had called.
Seeing the photos was one thing. Being here in the shadow of this looming mansion was an entirely different experience.
Three stories, a steep roofline broken up by gabled windows, a big wraparound porch, a widow’s walk like a crown perched on the house’s head. White gingerbread trim, and a turret with an onion dome roof.
The house was both magnificent and unsettling with its rich details and its brooding presence.
“Martina Russo?” A woman with her hair in a tidy bun was standing in the front doorway.
“Yes.”
“Come in, please, and let’s get started.”
The woman, dressed in trim black slacks, a silk button-down shirt, and sensible low-heeled pumps, introduced herself as Margaret Nix, Ms. Sinclair’s assistant. She offered Martina coffee or tea, both of which she declined.
They were sitting in the library, Ms. Nix behind a big oak desk and Martina in a fussy chair facing it.
“Ms. Sinclair asked me to get the preliminaries out of the way before she shows you the house. May I see your portfolio?” Ms. Nix stretched out a pale hand to receive it.
Martina handed it over. “Ah … I have a list of clients who can serve as references, and my work was featured in Central Coast Home magaz—”
“We’re aware.” Ms. Nix cut Martina off in the middle of a word. She smiled with only her lips. “That’s how you came to Ms. Sinclair’s attention. If you don’t mind, I’ll just take a moment to review this.”
“Of course.”
Martina sat awkwardly, her hands in her lap, while the woman flipped through her portfolio. She wished she’d accepted a cup of tea so she’d have something to do with her hands while she waited.
After a few minutes, the woman gave Martina the non-smile again. “And your references?”
Martina pulled a file folder out of her bag and handed it over.
“Will I get to meet Ms. Sinclair or Mr. Mills soon? Because—”
Ms. Nix held up one finger to silence Martina without looking up from her reading.
Martina was beginning to wonder whether the woman would deem her qualifications unsatisfactory and usher her out the door. Instead, she closed the portfolio and the file folder, handed them back to Martina, and stood up.
“If you’ll excuse me for just a moment.”
She walked out of the room, leaving Martina alone.
Martina had never been able to resist inspecting an interesting space—let alone one where she’d been left unsupervised. She got up and walked slowly around the room, marveling at the built-in oak bookcases, the fireplace, and the antique rug that stretched nearly wall to wall over the gleaming wood floors. Having taken all of that in, she turned her attention to the books—volume after volume filling the floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
Was Mills a reader? Was Alexis Sinclair? Were these just for show, or did someone love them? Had they come with the house?
She had just pulled a leather-bound book off a shelf and was leafing through it when the door opened and another woman walked in—one she recognized from the internet as Alexis Sinclair.
“Oh, those dusty old things.” She walked over to Martina and extended her hand stiffly, probably in a wa
y intended to best show off her manicured nails. “Alexis Sinclair.”
“Martina Russo. It’s lovely to meet you, Ms. Sinclair.”
“Oh, call me Alexis. I’m so glad you could come. I can’t wait to hear your ideas for the house. It’s just a wreck, isn’t it?” She smiled expectantly, as though waiting for Martina to agree that the house was little better than a teardown.
If that was what Martina was expected to say, she couldn’t do it. “Well, I’m sure there are ways it could use some updating, but … what I’ve seen of the house is magnificent.”
“Oh!” Alexis laughed as though Martina had made a particularly witty joke. “We’ll see about that once you’ve had the tour.”
Martina could have been honest and told Alexis that, as much as she wanted to tear the place down to the studs and start from scratch just for the experience, the house didn’t need it. Now that she was here, she saw with some disappointment that there was very little she would change about Cooper House. True, she wouldn’t mind playing with the overly modernized kitchen a bit to bring it more into harmony with its Victorian roots. But otherwise, she would barely touch a thing.
But this job could make her career. And if she’d learned one thing as an interior designer, it was how to tell rich people what they wanted to hear.
So, as the two of them went from room to room, assessing the state of Cooper House’s aesthetics, Martina made all of the right noises to impress her hostess.
“The master bathroom is a bit small and dark, isn’t it?” she observed as they made their way through the second floor.
“Oh, darling, yes. What would you suggest?”
Martina poked around in the bathroom, peeking into a closet, then going out into the hallway and looking into the next room. Then she returned to where Alexis was waiting for her.
“If you’re not using the bedroom next door for anything essential, I’d suggest expanding the bathroom to create a true spa experience. Deep soaking tub, expansive walk-in shower with multiple showerheads, a heated towel rack, radiant heating under the floor tiles. We could put in a big window here”—she indicated a space on the wall—“and add a large dressing room here.”
“A dressing room?”
From the way Alexis’s face had transformed, Martina knew she’d said the magic words.
“Oh, yes. We can put in shelving for your shoes, drawers for your lingerie, plenty of space for hanging clothing, a full-length three-way mirror with lighting, an upholstered bench in the center, and”—Martina scrambled to imagine what else a woman like this might want—”of course, a large vanity over here, where you can sit comfortably and do your hair and makeup.” She motioned to where this mythical station of narcissism might be positioned.
“Wonderful.” Alexis clasped her hands together between her breasts. “Chris just doesn’t understand why I can’t make do with the existing bathroom.” She rolled her eyes. “Men have no idea.”
In fact, Martina also had no idea why Alexis couldn’t make do with what she had, but this was no time to tell her that. Martina wanted the job, and she knew what she had to say to get it.
She also knew this wasn’t Alexis’s house—it was Christopher Mills’s place. Mills would be writing the checks for Martina’s work, so Alexis wasn’t the only person Martina would have to impress.
“What about Mr. Mills?” Martina asked as they moved on from the master suite to the in-home gym. “Will he be joining us?”
“Oh.” Alexis waved a hand as though her boyfriend—the owner of the home they were talking about—were of no importance. “I’ll have you pop in to say hello before you leave.”
As though Martina’s meeting with Mills would be merely a casual social hello rather than a make-or-break event in her career.
“I can’t wait,” she said.
3
Martina had a lot of things running through her head as Alexis led her to meet Christopher Mills, tech genius, the man who would decide whether her own career would suddenly be launched into the stratosphere.
For one thing, she wondered why the man was letting his girlfriend make all of the decisions about redesigning his house. Was Alexis more than a girlfriend? Surely they had to be serious if he was giving her this kind of influence.
For another thing, she wondered how much input he would want into the redesign process. He owned the place—he must have opinions on what it should look like and how it should function. If he didn’t, that would raise more than one red flag. The last thing Martina wanted was to put months of work into the job—with the corresponding cost to her client—and then find out that he hated it.
Her other questions had more to do with her own curiosity than with any professional concern. Last she’d heard, he was living in Silicon Valley, but if he wanted a complete update of Cooper House, did that mean he was here to stay? What was he like? Would he resemble the tech moguls she saw on the news or in books? Was he socially awkward? Did he wear the same clothes every day?
All of this was playing through her mind as Alexis ushered her down a long hallway on the second floor and into a large room dominated by built-in glass cases containing a multitude of small, colorful items.
At first, it didn’t register what those small, colorful items were.
“Martina, I’d like you to meet Christopher.” Alexis led Martina to a man who was standing near one of the glass cases, holding one of the small objects. “You’ll have to excuse him; he’s playing with his toys.”
“His … excuse me?” Martina took a closer look and saw that the objects were superhero action figures—hundreds, maybe thousands of them. The man in front of her was holding what Martina recognized from the movies as Ant-Man. Now that she thought of it, she might have remembered reading something about the action-figure room. She extended her hand. “Mr. Mills, I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Call me Chris.” He shook her hand and put the little figure back into its spot in the case between Spider-Man and the Human Torch.
“I’ll just leave you two to get to know each other,” Alexis said. “I have to find Margaret to discuss my schedule. I’ve been so busy.” She rolled her eyes to indicate the sheer magnitude of her overtaxed state. “Martina, we’ll talk soon.”
Then she was gone, and Martina was left alone with Chris. She assessed him as he rearranged a couple of his action figures, closed the glass door, then turned to her.
At around five-foot-eight, he was only slightly taller than Martina. He was young—probably no older than thirty-five or thirty-six—with medium brown hair cut short, blue eyes, a slim, athletic build, and a smile that said something about you amused him, though you might be better off not knowing what it was.
He gestured toward a pair of club chairs separated by a small table. “Please, have a seat.” Once they both were settled in, he asked, “So, how did things go with Alexis?”
“Very well.” Martina nodded enthusiastically, as though she and Alexis had bonded like sisters. In fact, Martina had taken an immediate dislike to the woman, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’d failed to connect personally with a client. There was no reason it had to interfere with the job.
They chatted a bit about Cooper House, its history, and—answering one of Martina’s questions—Chris’s plan to stay there indefinitely.
“So, how soon can you start?” he asked.
Martina’s mouth fell open. She realized how she must look and hurried to compose her features. “I … ah … I can start right away. But, don’t you want to check my references? Review my portfolio? Discuss my ideas for the—”
He waved her off. “Whatever Alexis wants is fine. Except”—he shifted a bit in his seat, as though the topic made him uncomfortable—”don’t change this room. It’s off-limits.”
Martina looked around. Aside from the glass cases of action figures and the chairs in which Chris and Martina were sitting, the room contained a sofa—older and more worn than the other furniture in the house—a big-screen TV, a wet
bar with refrigerator, and a large oak desk covered in computer equipment.
There wasn’t a hint of Alexis in this room, and, apparently, he wanted to keep it that way.
“Of course.” Martina tried to keep her curiosity in check. She’d gotten the job, so the less she said at this point, the better. Still, she couldn’t seem to help herself, so she phrased things as delicately and tactfully as she could. “So, you must really trust Alexis’s judgment on this. How long have you two been together?” Martina peeked at his left ring finger and found it bare.
“Oh … a few months.”
A few months? And he was handing over the redesign of his house to her? She tried not to show her surprise—or her dismay. “I see. And … what does Alexis do professionally?” The woman had a full-time assistant and had talked about being intolerably busy—was she a CEO? A corporate lawyer? Was she someone high-placed in the entertainment industry?”
“Alexis doesn’t work,” he said.
Martina was getting a lot of practice controlling her facial expressions—a skill that was proving to be essential in this conversation. “Oh. It’s just, she has Margaret, and she talked about being very busy.…”
“She’s very busy being Alexis.”
Was that twitch of his mouth a smirk? Martina was sure it was.
“And,” he continued, “being in a relationship with me is apparently an exhausting full-time job. So. What’s the first step in getting this project underway?”
Martina, like Alexis, had a full schedule. She checked on a job she had in progress in Cambria’s Park Hill neighborhood; she called the general contractor she worked with to talk about his schedule; and she went home and worked on the CAD program on her computer for a while, putting together a proposal for a kitchen redesign in Pine Knolls. Then she checked out the real estate websites, something she regularly did to scope out what was being bought and sold. She had relationships with several Realtors in Cambria who passed her name along to clients who either had to get a house in shape to sell or who were buying a fixer-upper that needed some professional loving care.