The Penny Pinchers Club

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Griff made a point of taking the long way around the car to the passenger seat, stopping to brush his lips against my cheek. “That was really great what we just did. Try to keep that in mind when Laura and I pull out of the driveway and you rip into that box.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In the safety of my office the next day, I reopened the red envelope for the umpteenth time to reveal a snowy scene of a white country church on a starry night, your standard Christmas card. Inside, in Liam’s cramped block script, it said:

  Dear Kat,

  I meant what I said about you looking fantastic. Clearly, life with Griff has done you good and I couldn’t be more pleased to see you settled and happy.

  But I’ve been a mess ever since. Shortly after our meeting, your mother called me at home to set the record straight: that I should hire you since you, apparently, are opening your own interior design business. Now I feel awful since I’ve promised the job to Chloe.

  That said, being a soulless CEO type, I have absolutely no problem crushing Chloe’s hopes (I crush hopes every day!) and would love you to take on this humongous project if you can stomach putting up with my horrendously bad taste.

  It’s been twenty years under the bridge, enough time for us to hammer out a perfectly professional relationship, I’m sure. And, frankly, the impetus is not you, it’s your scary mother. There’s no telling what kind of wrath Anna Popalaski could rain down on someone who fails to support her daughter. ☺

  Naturally, I’ll understand if you would rather not. But please let me know sometime soon after the holidays. Between your mother and Chloe, I’m afraid my phone won’t stop ringing until this matter is resolved.

  Merry Christmas,

  Liam

  P.S. You left these on my bedside table long, long ago and for all sorts of reasons that need not be explained, I was never able to return them. If I remember correctly, they were your grandmother’s—right?

  Two pearl earrings with tiny diamonds lay on blue satin in the tiny jewel box, a sixteenth birthday present from my mother’s mother and one I could have sworn was stolen by several questionable movers when I was leaving the apartment I shared with Suzanne.

  He’d saved them all these years.

  The front door opened and I quickly shut the box, stuffing it into my desk drawer, the one place I was confident his note and my earrings would not be discovered by Griff.

  Much to my relief, it was only Elaine arriving with lattes for both of us, her treat. Of all the sacrifices I was making in the name of saving, for some reason Elaine was most saddened by my refusal to spend $5 on a cup of coffee and foam. Once a week she brought me a triple venti, which she produced with the kind of earnestness most do-gooders display when handing out winter coats to the poor.

  “You gave me a heart attack,” I said after thanking her profusely.

  She pulled up a seat and took a sip. “What does that say about your relationship with your boss that whenever she opens the door, you have to reach for the defibrillator?”

  “This time I have good reason.” I opened the drawer and showed her the card. “Read this.”

  Elaine flipped it open. “Who’s Liam?”

  “Liam Novak. He’s the new CEO of PharMax. We were dating when I met Griff in the dark ages.”

  “You mean the guy you almost married, the one who bought the Macalester House?”

  I nodded. The latte was delicious, so much better once a week rather than (I’m embarrassed to admit) twice a day.

  “Art handled the Macalester House deal.”Art was Arthur B. Winchester, owner of Arthur B. Winchester Properties, where Elaine was a Realtor. He was the guy who insisted she wear the ugly navy pantsuit. “I was there when he told Chloe that Liam had bought it, and you should have seen her reaction as she put two and two together. She bragged right off that with your connection, she’d be sure to get the interior design contract.”

  “Except . . .” I pointed to the paragraph about him having no worries about crushing Chloe’s hopes.

  “Oooh. She’s not going to like that.” Elaine added evilly, “Do it!”

  “You mean call and tell him I want the job? Chloe will fire me on the spot.”

  “So? If you get him as a client, you can quit first. Hell, you can type up your resignation letter on gold leaf. Look at this.”

  Nudging me aside, she went on my computer and found a newspaper article that had appeared two months before in the Trentonian. “This is why Art decided to hunt down your old boyfriend and insist he look at the Macalester House. Also, why Chloe went berserk when she realized you and he had a connection.”

  It was a boring business story about the changing of the guard at PharMax. There was a picture of the outgoing CEO who was retiring and Liam looking very professional in glasses (since when?) and a nice Brooks Brothers tie.

  “Not bad.” Elaine framed the photo with her two hands. “And you’re telling me you two were once engaged?”

  “Not actually. I . . . turned him down.”

  She regarded me with disbelief. “Because you were temporarily mentally ill, right?”

  “Because I was in love with Griff.”

  “Love. Hah! You know what I love? This.”

  She scrolled to a breakout box summarizing Liam’s new compensation package at PharMax.

  ANNUAL SALARY: $1.73 MILLION

  BONUS: $3.5 MILLION

  OTHER: $8.9 MILLION

  The figures made no sense. A salary that required a decimal point? “What’s ‘other’ mean?”

  “It means he can pay an old girlfriend so well to redo all five of his bedrooms, she never has to work another day for the Mistress of Manville.”

  “Good.” Hastily, I clicked out of the story in case Chloe burst in, as she tended to do. “Because I already called him. We’re meeting today at noon at his house.”

  “Why, you minx.” Elaine collapsed in her chair and laughed. “When did our mere Kat grow a backbone all of a sudden? Don’t tell me this comes from joining the Penny Panthers, or whatever it is you call yourselves.”

  “Penny Pinchers.” I hadn’t thought of it before, but maybe my new courage was an unexpected benefit of learning how to say no to the influences of a world saturated with advertising. Then again, more likely it came from being broke.

  As I’d predicted, Chloe threw her door open with a violent crash. Except it wasn’t the front door—it was her office. Unbeknownst to me, she’d been holed up there all morning, probably listening to our every word.

  She bustled across the office, her portfolio in tow, a gorgeous Escada white ostrich shoulder bag setting off the DianeVon Furstenberg zebra wrap under her camel coat.

  Man. I missed a disposable income. Not that I’d ever been able to afford Escada. Not that not being able to afford something had ever stopped me before.

  “I’m off!” she announced, checking herself in the mirror by the door. “Brand-new client. Huugely important. Mustn’t be late.”

  Glancing out the window, she caught sight of my new Corolla and blanched. “Call the landlord, Kat. Someone’s parked in our space who’s not a client. I don’t pay $150 a month so freeloaders can dump their heaps outside my business.”

  Had it been a Mercedes I’d purchased, I guarantee Chloe would not have had that reaction.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said, twirling up a tube of Dior lipstick, “I’m sure Griff will be pleased to learn your ex is completely over you, Kat. This Novak character left a message on my cell yesterday extending his deepest apologies for not signing with me. Apparently, another designer got to him first.” Finished coloring in her thin lips, she dropped the Dior in her bag and said,“It’s a political thing. A wife of a PharMax board of trustees member who has an interior design hobby, no doubt.”

  That wasn’t Liam’s style to lie, unless he’d changed. “Did he come right out and say that?”

  “Of course not. But when you’ve owned a business in this town as long as I have, you know how things wor
k. Now don’t forget to call the Ishings while I’m out. And check on the black marble I ordered for the ITF project. I’ll be at lunch until two.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  She took a few steps, turned, and wrinkled her nose at Elaine’s latte. “There are nearly five hundred calories in one of those. Coffee straight has zero.” She raised an eyebrow. “FYI.”

  Chloe was no sooner gone than I had to pick up Elaine from the floor where she’d ended after a fit of hysterical laughing.

  “No,” she mimicked, “but when you’ve owned a business in this town as long as I have, you know how things work. Oh, lord.” She snatched a tissue to wipe her eyes. “Part of me hopes you never do leave this job. Not a day goes by when that woman doesn’t crack me up.”

  Macalester House was one of the oldest homes in Princeton, a huge mansion built around 1770, which had served as headquarters for the Continental Congress, as a public inn and, eventually, as a private inn for visiting alumni at Princeton. But the downturn in the economy and the cost of maintenance had been too much for the university, which sold it to Liam, who, according to Elaine, had professed to being a sucker for Revolutionary War history.

  I vaguely remembered that.

  Because it was only a few blocks from Chloe’s office, I risked letting my Corolla remain in one of Chloe’s precious spaces and hiked through the February snow to Liam’s new digs with the dim hope that a little exercise might drain off the adrenaline that had caused my palms to sweat like a nervous teenager.

  No biggie, I told myself. Treat him like any other client. Be respectful and attentive. Pretend that you have no idea what it’s like to sleep with him naked in the crook of his body.

  Unfortunately, the walk didn’t help. I was barely able to cobble together a cogent sentence when Liam answered the old oak door in a black turtleneck and twill pants, the Saturday morning newspaper tucked under his arm.

  “Hi there.” I waved. Then, realizing waving was stupid and unprofessional, I tapped my portfolio and said,“I’ve been doing research and I have tons of ideas. You won’t be disappointed.”

  It was going all wrong. I sounded like a Girl Scout hocking Thin Mints instead of a smart and secure designer, or an old friend.

  Liam grinned and led me into a slate foyer, graciously offering to take my coat. “You’re way ahead of me, Kat. I’m still at ‘nice to meet you.’” As he hung up my coat in the closet, I noticed he managed to sneak in a quick take of how the rest of me had fared over the years.

  My outfit was simple: slimming black pants, tan scoop-necked sweater, and seed pearls at my throat. Pearls at my ears, too. The ones he’d returned.

  “Thank you so much for not tossing these in a moment of pique. You’re right. They were my grandmother’s.”

  “Oh, do you have them on? Let me see. Lovely.”

  I froze in place as he slid his hand under my hair, his thumb grazing my neck. “I always did like it this way the best. Shows more of your face.”

  “These days,” I said, trying to make it light,“it shows more of my neck, a sight that often scares small children.” My mother always said it was an unwise woman who pointed out her own flaws. But since when did I follow my mother’s advice?

  Liam—who was wise—let that drop. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour and you can see what we’re up against.”

  I followed him through a narrow doorway with low headroom, taking note as I went of the details that were authentic, and those that had been added by well-intentioned but tired—and maybe cash-strapped—generations.

  Since it had been an inn for so long, the house carried the air of a temporary way stop instead of a home. There was a small, built-in front desk, for instance, and the living rooms, while functional, were clearly meant to accommodate small groups of strangers instead of family gatherings. Plus, there was a lot of Princeton black and orange that would definitely have to go.

  Shortcuts had been made to cut costs. The shoe molding was inferior and nicked. The plaster walls that should have been bare to display their artistic glory were papered. The wide pine floors were badly in need of refinishing and were, in the kitchen—painted! But the worst sin by far was that it was decorated in a Victorian style, not in its original mid-Georgian.

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the bedrooms, cleared his throat, and said, “Might as well save the upstairs for later. I’m sure you’ve seen enough to give you an approximate idea of what’s needed.” We moved into a small sitting room with a fireplace and two lead-glass windows.

  Relieved from not having to see where he slept, either alone or with some other woman, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “You’re right. This is a big job. I’m assuming that being a history buff you want to restore it to its original finishes.”

  “That’s why I bought the place even though it screamed money pit. When I die, I can return it to the town as an authentic example of Georgian architecture.” He leaned against the fireplace and looked around. “I don’t know what they were thinking with this cheap bead board.”

  “They were thinking protection and preservation.” I tapped the oak hearth. “Rip that off and there’s eighteenth-century brick under there. That’s what they did to the inn where we used to stay in Lumberville, remember?”

  It was a bold reference to not only our past, but to one of our more romantic evenings at the Black Stallion overlooking the Delaware, the site where we’d made love for the first time, prompting an earnest young Liam to declare his love for me afterward, kissing each one of my fingers and toes.

  What had my subconscious been thinking, bringing that up?

  He studied me for a second as if trying to judge my intentions and said, “Exactly. Funny, I’ve been thinking of that place, too. If you’re free some weekend, we should drive down there and get a few ideas.”

  “Sure.” I shrugged like it was no big deal we’d be revisiting the place where we’d fallen in love. Getting back on track, I said, “There’s a lot of structural stuff I’m assuming you’ll want to tackle right away.”

  “You said it.” He gestured to a brown stain indicating a burst pipe. “New roof. New flashing. Redo the outside to expose the original brick. Electrical touchups. Plumbing issues. After that, I’ll let you take over. I know it might be impossible, but I’d be over the moon if we could stick to period pieces.”

  “Are you kidding? Absolutely!” I gushed, immediately imagining me scouring shops in Brandywine, Pennsylvania, for the perfect hutch. “It’ll require tons of research. Hours at the Historical Society researching paint tints and molding styles. And, of course, antiques.”

  Liam smiled at my enthusiasm. “Of course. As I remember, you and I were good at finding those. I still have a few at my parents’ house. Paige was never a big antiques person.”

  For a second, I lost my mind and, like a dim bulb, said, “Paige?”

  “My . . . ” He hesitated. “My ex wife.”

  “Oh, right.” I was such a Sagittarius, forever talking without thinking. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

  “You mean the divorce?” He went over to the window as if preoccupied with a broken sash. “That was years in the making. It wasn’t good from the start, you know.”

  I didn’t know, but I could have surmised it since he’d married her a few months after we broke up.

  “People keep saying to me isn’t it a blessing we didn’t have children and I suppose on some level they’re right.” He lifted the broken window and checked its underside. “And I think Paige would agree that we never did because we understood this marriage wouldn’t last. That said, I now find myself in my mid-forties, divorced, without kids, and I have to admit it’s raised the question of whether I should remarry sooner rather than later.”

  I thought of his bedroom upstairs that he’d stopped short of showing me. How many young things at PharMax would love to be married to a man of his wealth and stability? Would love to give him the houseful of children he’d a
lways craved?

  “Well, that’s where men are lucky,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can have kids—like Tony Randall, who fathered a child at eighty-four.”

  “So I have some time, is that what you’re saying?”

  “At least forty years, if Tony’s any yardstick.” I laughed at the idea of a Tony Randall yardstick. “Anyway, I expect you’ll be remarried and perhaps a new father within a year, my friend. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, Liam, but young women are crazy for successful men who have bulging bank accounts. You guys are all the rage.”

  He closed the window gently and, in a much brighter tone, said, “You know, I do think I read that someplace.”

  “It’s women who get the short end of the stick when it comes to finding men at our age. I am not looking forward to that at all.”

  Whoops!

  It just slipped out, like the line about Lumberville or the question about Paige. My subconscious, as often happens, was out to sabotage me. Probably seeking retribution for suppressing it for so long.

  “Not,” I added quickly,“that I have any plans to be single anytime soon.”

  “Right.” He checked his watch. “Hey, it’s almost one. Wanna grab some lunch? I mean, not here. I never cook. I was talking about going down to Marc’s Deli.”

  Okay, until that question, I’d been doing fine. Except for the reference to our first sexual encounter and the slip about becoming divorced myself. Other than that, I’d settled down and become perfectly comfortable—as long as we were discussing authentic moldings and the best way to refinish old pine floors and steering away from more touchy issues, like how I’d dumped him on that beach.

  But going out to lunch on Saturday when I should have been home with Griff crossed an invisible line, even if we managed to sneak in shop talk.