Blueprints

by Barbara Delinsky

  Again she considered calling Dean. He would get the aging part. Again she considered calling Annie. She would get the betrayal part.

  I do not want this change, Jamie texted an hour later.

  Caroline didn’t reply. Texting was a cop-out.

  But another came a short time later. I did not ask for it. They just want it to look that way. I’ve been used.

  You’re not the victim here, Caroline shot back. When she calmed a bit, she typed, Who used you?

  Brian and Claire. Dad.

  What did Roy do?

  Supported the other two. He should have said NO.

  Your father? Caroline wrote back with sarcasm aplenty.

  Jamie didn’t respond as they got into the lunch hour. Caroline’s hopes rose when the phone rang, but it was Brad.

  “Jamie is panicking,” he said. “She’s had two minutes in the ladies’ room, no other time alone. She’s worried about you. She’s worried you’re furious. How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better,” Caroline said in what she thought was a commendably benign voice.

  “She feels terrible about this.”

  “Which part—the switch or her role in it?” she asked and instantly regretted it. She didn’t want to discuss this with Brad. Jamie should have called her during those two minutes in the ladies’ room.

  Apparently Brad didn’t want to discuss it with her either. What he said was focused on the narrowest angle. “She doesn’t want you angry at her. She’s agonizing down there.”

  “Well, I’m agonizing up here, but that doesn’t help either one of us, does it. Listen, I appreciate your calling, but Jamie and I really need to talk.”

  “Can I tell her you’re okay?”

  “No. That would be a lie. Hey, Brad, I have to run. Thanks for calling.”

  * * *

  Stuck in a car with her client in thick traffic thanks to an accident, Jamie was late getting back to the airport, and then reached her departure gate only after a fiasco at security during which she spilled the contents of her bag. Frazzled and no small amount exhausted, she corralled runaway print tubes from under the conveyor belt while the security guards watched in amusement. Knowing the plane was boarding, she ran. It wasn’t until her things were in the overhead bin—actually, in a bin farther back, since those over her own seat were full—and she had climbed awkwardly over the legs of a large man who chose not to stand, for some reason, that she was able to call Caroline. Her mother picked up right away, but Jamie spent so long trying to explain why she hadn’t been able to call sooner that she sounded defensive even to herself.

  “I’m landing at ten,” she concluded as the flight attendant began the instructions for takeoff. “Can I drive right there?”

  Caroline nixed that. When Jamie asked why, she said she needed time, and when Jamie insisted they had to talk, Caroline said, “Not tonight.”

  Jamie didn’t mention Brad’s call, though she knew he had made it. He had texted that it went just fine, but she didn’t know what that meant, and she hadn’t had time to call him to find out.

  So she didn’t stop at Caroline’s on her way home from the airport. She did talk with Brad, but when she tried to pin him down about his conversation with Caroline, she didn’t learn much. “She’s feeling self-pity,” he suggested.

  “Seriously?” Jamie shot back, unimpressed with his analysis and thinking that her mother had a right to feel that and more. To his credit, Brad was contrite. He didn’t offer to drive over to comfort her, though, and for a second night in a row, she was glad. He had meetings with clients Saturday morning, and she planned to sleep in.

  * * *

  In fact, she slept poorly and was glad for an excuse to stop trying as soon as daylight appeared. Though clouds covered the sky, she was able to drive to Caroline’s with the top down, but took no pleasure from it this day. The stifling air reflected her mood, which undermined the comfort she normally felt approaching the Victorian. When she thought of her mother, she ached.

  The truck was parked at the garage, but Caroline wasn’t on the porch. When Jamie stuck her head in the front door and called, Master’s meow was the only response. As she scrubbed the back of his neck, she heard a faint noise over his purring.

  Ducking back out, she followed that noise to the garage. The shrill buzz of the table saw was as familiar to her as a lullaby. The sheer normalcy of it raised her hopes.

  Caroline couldn’t hear her over the noise of the saw. Nor would she catch movement, with her goggles distorting her peripheral vision. She wore a T-shirt so faded that it looked gray and very old, very worn jeans. With her hair in a high knot and protective gloves on her hands, she was carving a piece of wood at one of three worktables. If her wrist hurt, she was ignoring it. The intensity of her forward stance suggested full concentration.

  Jamie was wondering how to get her attention without making her jump when it struck her that Caroline knew she was there. Her jaw had grown tighter. Likewise her forearm. And rather than surging and ebbing as she shaped the wood, the whir of the saw was steady, determined, angry.

  Not good.

  “Mom,” she called, then did it again. Finally, with a sigh, Caroline silenced the saw and straightened. After raising the goggles, she removed her gloves—gingerly when it came to the right one. The bandage on her wrist was gone, replaced by a Velcro support.

  “That’s an improvement,” Jamie said in a tentative voice. “Is it okay?”

  Caroline brushed at the wood, smoothed it with her hand, and bent to eye it from a different angle. “It’s fine.”

  But her mother was not. What little Jamie could see of her face looked pale. Her failure to look at Jamie spoke volumes. “You’re angry at me.”

  “I’m angry at the world,” Caroline declared in a resigned burst as she straightened to her full height. Jamie might have appreciated her honesty if those so-like-her-own eyes hadn’t met hers then. They were guarded to the point of being foreign. “Should I be angry with you?”

  “For not telling you myself? Yes,” Jamie readily confessed. “For Claire’s decision? No. I had no part in that, Mom. Didn’t ask for it. Don’t want it.”

  “Have you told that to Claire?”

  “No. She won’t return my calls.”

  “Did you tell Roy?”

  “Yes. He said they’d just hire an outside host and that I’d be jeopardizing the show.”

  “He’s right.” She didn’t blink. “It’s our family that’s associated with Gut It! One of us has to host it, and they don’t want me to do it.”

  “But that’s not right,” Jamie cried. “They’re discriminating against you because of your age. You have to fight.”

  “Oh, I plan to,” Caroline informed her, “but will I win? Doubtful. Let’s open our eyes here, Jamie. When I look at the rest of the entertainment field, this isn’t unique.”

  “But you love your role on the show. You haven’t been this happy since—”

  “—the divorce.” Caroline raised her chin and said, “So here’s a question for you. I’ve gone out of my way all these years not to put you in the middle, but I need an honest answer. How hard is your father pushing for this?”

  Jamie did feel sandwiched. She chose her words with care. “He says he wants it for me. He keeps telling me how good it would be for my career.”

  “Brad clearly agrees with your father. And they’re right. This would be a great move for you. You’ll make a fabulous host—and you’re ready. It didn’t occur to me, not once during the Longmeadow taping, but when I look back on it, you hosted more scenes than you ever have before.”

  “It didn’t occur to me either, Mom,” Jamie came back in a beseeching voice. “That’s what I’m trying to say. It’s only in hindsight that I can see what they were doing. I didn’t plan it.”

  “Jamie!” Caroline shouted. “You were instrumental in choosing the next project and securing new sponsors. You brought in Taylor Huff, who is your contemporary. You even narrated s
egments on the hand-crafted built-ins that I made. How could you not see what was happening?”

  “Did you see it?” Jamie asked. Her stomach was churning.

  “No, because you’re my daughter, so I wasn’t threatened. Besides, I wasn’t in on your meetings with Claire. But you did tell me you were meeting with her. As I recall, it was practically every Tuesday morning.”

  That was damning, Jamie realized. “Honestly? I just thought she wanted my perspective on things. I thought she was picking my brain.”

  “You also took her shopping.”

  “For shoes, because she has zero taste.”

  “You went to a concert with her.”

  “Because you hate Nine Inch Nails, and she got complimentary tickets.”

  “You told her you and Brad were honeymooning in Paris. You didn’t even tell me that.”

  Jamie was livid. “She mentioned Paris. She said it would be a good place to honeymoon. I agreed with her because there was no point in arguing, but if I haven’t picked a date for my wedding yet, how can I plan my honeymoon? Claire is a bitch, Mom. She’s making trouble.” She had a bizarre thought. “Are you jealous?”

  “Of Claire Howe?”

  “Of her thinking she’s my friend. She isn’t because (A) I have no time for friends and (B) you’re the only friend I need.”

  “I’m not jealous. I’m just looking at the evidence and thinking that there’s no way you could have spent that amount of time with her without knowing on some level what she was planning. You’re too bright to have missed all the signs. You had to have known, even subconsciously, but you said nothing to me. This is my life, Jamie. Shouldn’t I have been involved in the conversation?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t my call, Mom. I guess I’m not so bright, but I did not know what they were doing until Thursday morning. I said I’d be the one to tell you, because Claire is abrasive and Dad is a bulldozer”—her voice rose—“but was I seriously supposed to tell you when you were recovering from surgery? And on your birthday? Was I supposed to tell you on your birthday that you were being replaced because of your age? Give me credit for sensitivity, at least.”

  “But you do want this job.”

  “Not at your expense. If it didn’t mean replacing you, of course I’d want it. It’s a dream opportunity. Who wouldn’t want it?”

  “There you go.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Call it subconscious, but you were lobbying for it.”

  “No, Mom. I’ve been doing what Claire wanted me to do. I’m the dunce here. I just went along.”

  Caroline stared at her before whipping the goggles off her head and tossing them on the table on her way to the door. “Poor Jamie. She didn’t plan any of this. Well, poor Jamie is the one who stands to gain here.” She stormed toward the house.

  “You sound like Grandma.”

  Caroline whipped around. “Who was paranoid at the end because she suffered from dementia. Hah! The truth comes out—I am an old fool.”

  “Mom,” Jamie moaned as Caroline whipped back and strode on, “I can’t do this. I hate confrontation.”

  At the back steps, Caroline whirled around again. “Life lesson here. Confrontation is what happens when you are less than honest and you get caught.”

  Jamie was losing it. Her relationship with her mother was more important to her than anything else in the world. “Okay,” she said, trying desperately to stay calm, “I’ll do anything to make this right. I don’t care about Gut It! Let it be canceled. Is that what you want?”

  “Excuse me? Are you putting the burden of that on me?”

  Jamie threw her hands in the air. “I can’t win. What do you want me to say? Okay.” She was beyond reason. “I wanted this. I planned it. Is that what you want me to say? It’s not true, but do the words make you feel better?”

  Caroline trotted up the back steps. At the door, she shot a look back, but her gaze was so forbidding that Jamie couldn’t take another step. All she could do was to watch her go inside and close the door.

  * * *

  Driving back home, Jamie was beside herself. For the first time in her life, something stood between her and her mother. It wasn’t a person or even a wall, but more like that screen door slapping hard in her face. She could still see her old mom—same wavy hair, same green eyes, same strong arms—but now on the far side that she couldn’t reach. Anger was so not part of her mother’s usual behavior that Jamie didn’t know how to begin to handle it.

  “How’d it go?” Brad asked, sounding concerned. He had been trying her, but it wasn’t until she was inside her clean, neat, sleek white condo that she found the wherewithal to call back.

  “She totally blames me.”

  “This is not your fault,” he said innocently enough.

  “No? I played into Claire’s hands. I played into Dad’s hands.” She began wandering. “I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t, and she’s right, I’m the one who stands to gain from this. She used to trust me. Forget that now.” Her feet stopped moving. “When you called her, Brad, what did you say?” Whatever it was hadn’t helped, but she needed to know.

  “I told her how worried you were.”

  “About her.”

  “Yes. That’s what I got from you.”

  She felt a spike of frustration. She knew that Brad wasn’t good with parents, but this was as much about his understanding Jamie as anything else. “Did you not tell her that I think this change is a mistake?”

  “It isn’t a mistake. It’s a carefully crafted move to improve the show’s ratings—”

  “—which haven’t declined. So it’s a preemptive move.”

  “That’s how successful ventures work. They have to stay one step ahead.”

  “This isn’t a corporate venture. It’s a family show. Does that not count for anything?”

  “It’s more than a family show.” He barely paused. “By the way, did you hear the forecast? Bad storms are moving in.”

  Jamie couldn’t have cared less about the weather. “Gut It! is about MacAfee Homes, and MacAfee Homes is about family. When it comes to the show, Caroline is the matriarch. She’s the glue that holds it all together.” With a quick breath, she begged, “I need you to hear me, Brad. I don’t want this job. Maybe in the future, but not now. My mother earned it, she does it well, and viewers aren’t complaining about the way she looks. If they’re firing her because she’s too old, that’s grounds for a lawsuit.” She paused, got no reply, finally asked, “Don’t you think?”

  “Actually, they’re within their legal rights. Her contract runs from year to year. They’re not kicking her off the show. They’re just shifting the cast around. And I mentioned the weather because if we get torrential downpours, having dinner in Boston tonight may not be smart.”

  Their reservation was at a restaurant on the waterfront that had opened earlier that spring, but Jamie couldn’t think about dinner just then. “Claire admitted it was about age.”

  “It might be, but this is entertainment. Actresses audition for roles all the time and fail to get them because they’re too old. Do you see them suing? I looked into precedent, Jamie. Caroline can sue, but the case will be tossed out before it ever reaches a court, and she’ll be out fifty grand for the attempt.”

  “MacAfee will cover it.”

  “We won’t. I asked.”

  “Asked who?”

  “Theo. Roy wanted to know. Neither one of them wants that kind of publicity. Listen, I know you’re upset, but stand back for a minute. If she can’t win this, wouldn’t it be better to accept the inevitable?”

  “You mean, go out with dignity?” Jamie mocked.

  “Yes,” he insisted with more enthusiasm in that single word than in any of the others preceding it, which annoyed her all the more.

  “Okay, Brad. You stand back. Suppose I take this job. Suppose I hold it for a dozen years, and maybe the show has moved through a handful of mutations but is still going strong, and we’r
e married with three kids—”

  “Two kids.”

  “Three kids, and I’m over forty and maybe not so slim after the kids, and they decide they want someone twenty-five so they’re easing me out, how would you feel then?” Silence. “How would you feel if they did that to you?”

  “I’m in a different field.”

  Jamie simmered. “The correct answer would be ‘I’m a man. That would never happen to me.’ And you’re right. But how unfair is that? Your dad is bald, so you could well be bald. Think MacAfee buyers will ask for a younger lawyer? No, they will not, because your age gives you authority. It suggests knowledge and experience. Well, the same is true of Caroline MacAfee.”

  “Jeez, Jamie,” Brad burst out, sounding bewildered, “what do you want me to say?”

  Jamie could think of a dozen things, but she refused to spoon-feed him. Either he felt the cause or he did not.

  Right now, though, she wanted to get off the phone and go to yoga. There was a class at one, and after a disastrous time earlier with Caroline and now a disappointing discussion with Brad, she needed a break. Granted it was barely ten. One was a ways off, and the class wasn’t far. But she had plenty to keep her busy, starting with the drawings for a residential project, for which she needed to visit a stoneworks company that MacAfee hadn’t used before but that carried the fieldstone she desperately wanted to use on this house.

  “Gotta go,” she said.

  “We have to keep talking. We don’t agree yet.”

  “Brad, we’re not going to agree on everything. I need to go to yoga.”

  “Watch the weather.”

  “Okay. I’ll call you later.”

  * * *

  Concentration was a problem. She couldn’t sit still to work on the drawings, didn’t see the fieldstone she wanted, and when she got to yoga, the instructor was so like Caroline in age and looks that Jamie had to keep her eyes shut. Without a visual example, she was distracted and kept reverting to shallow breathing.

  Brad had been right about the weather. By the time her class was done, the morning’s clouds had darkened to slate. Her mood was correspondingly grim. She needed Caroline.