“Sure,” Libba said. “As long as we have a place to get a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal in the morning, Mitch and I are fine.”
As they moved through the house, Cara marveled to herself at the good nature and calm radiated by this mother of the groom. In less than five weeks, her home would be invaded by a huge, lavish wedding complete with 250 guests, but she seemed totally unfazed by any and all requests Cara made.
“Can we take another look at the ballroom?” Cara asked, as they neared the back of the house.
Libba nodded. “Hasn’t been used since Harris’s twenty-first-birthday party. I guess you’ve noticed Mitch and I aren’t really big on entertaining. We enjoy it when we do it, but mostly, we’re out here in the country, keeping to ourselves with the horses and dogs. Or, I am. Mitch is happy as long as he’s got his big-screen TV, twenty-four-hour cable sports, and an easy ride to the airport when he needs to travel, which he does a lot for his business.”
The ballroom was another grand, high-ceilinged room in a wing that had been added on to Cabin Creek, Libba told her, in the 1950s. “Mitch’s grandparents had it built for his parents’ wedding. Back then, there was nothing around here where you could have a big party, no country clubs or hotel ballrooms, nothing like that.”
“It’s lovely,” Cara said. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran down both sides of the long room, and there was a low platform at the far end. “Perfect for the orchestra,” Cara said.
Libba rolled her eyes. “They sure are getting grand with this wedding. I wouldn’t even know where to start to look for something like that.”
“It’s a lot,” Cara agreed. “But Patricia has tracked down a ten-piece orchestra out of Charleston. I’ve heard some clips of their work, and seen some YouTube videos. They play all the standards, great dance music, all the way up to the nineties.”
“What’s Brooke think about all this fuss?”
Cara studied the other woman. “I can tell she’s not crazy about it. And to tell you the truth, I don’t understand why she bowed to Gordon and Patricia in all this.”
“I can tell you. Because her daddy bribed her,” Libba said with a snort. “Offered to pay off her law-school loans if she’d agree to a big to-do.”
“Ahhh. That explains a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to have the work, Libba, but the last time I was out here meeting with the Trapnells, I got the distinct impression that Patricia was planning on hiring Cullen Kane.”
“She was. But then Brooke dug in her heels and insisted they hire you instead. I think it was all about tweaking her stepmother—although you didn’t hear me say that.”
“What’s Harris think about all the wedding plans?” Cara asked. “Do you know, I haven’t even met him yet?”
“Those kids stay so darned busy, I don’t know how they even had time to get engaged,” Libba said. “Harris is pretty easygoing. He does love a party, though. I think whatever Brooke decides will be fine with him.”
Cara looked around the ballroom. Although the architectural details were good, it was apparent that the room hadn’t been used in years. The white paint on the walls was yellowing, and the wood trim on all the window casings was peeling. The highly polished oak floor was scuffed, and the fussy crystal chandeliers were coated with dust and grime.
Libba noticed Cara’s appraisal. “Needs some spiffing up in here, that’s for sure. I’m gonna have the painters in, and we’ll have the floors stripped and buffed. Guess I’m gonna have to bribe my housekeeper to see about those old chandeliers.”
“Some freshening up, and it’ll be glorious,” Cara assured her.
* * *
“What were you thinking about parking all the cars?” Cara asked, as they walked back toward the front door. “We’ll have valet-parking people, of course, but we’ll need to figure out where to put the cars without trampling all your landscaping.”
In answer, Libba flung the front door open and pointed to a pasture on the west side of the house. “Plenty of room over there. It’s higher ground than the east side of the property, so even if it does rain that night, it should drain quickly.”
As they crossed to the pasture, Cara was glad she’d dressed casually for the trip, in jeans and tennis shoes. Already, she’d sidestepped one horse plop.
The two women leaned over the barbed-wire pasture fence. Two horses, one black, one brown, grazed nearby in the tall grass.
Libba whistled softly, and both horses raised their heads, then ambled over, to accept their owner’s head pats and soft praises.
“We’ll move these guys over to the other pasture the week before the wedding,” Libba said. “And don’t worry, I’ll get one of the men to make sure the pasture is thoroughly shoveled out and the grass mown. Don’t want Patricia ruining her Jimmy Choos on the big day.”
Cara pointed at a weathered silver barn at the far end of the pasture. “Is that your stable?”
“Not anymore,” Libba said. “That building down the pathway from where you parked the car, that’s the new stable. Mitch had it built as a fiftieth-birthday present for me. Those horses live better than we do now,” she said proudly.
Cara had a glimmer of an idea. “What do you keep in the old barn, then?”
“Random crap,” Libba said, grinning. “Why do you ask?”
“Well … sometimes, especially with a big, formal wedding, brides and grooms like to have an after-party, for the guests of their own generation. Sort of a place everybody can cut loose. We bring in a DJ, and the bride and groom usually change into casual clothes. Sometimes, we do a midnight buffet. Just something fun. We’ve done wienie roasts, barbecues, in cold weather I’ve seen couples have bonfires with spiked hot chocolate and s’mores…”
“We could probably do something like that in the barn,” Libba said slowly. “Want to take a look?”
* * *
It took both women tugging on the old barn doors to yank them open, their rusted hinges squealing in protest.
Cara’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness. The barn was redolent of mildew, leather, old hay, older manure, but somehow it was a rich, pleasant, promising scent. She craned her head and stared up at the high, peaked ceiling, where pinpricks of daylight shone through the rusted tin roof.
It looked like the barn had become home to anything and everything the Strayhorns owned that was too broken to use but too valued to discard. Cardboard boxes were stacked in corners, there was a profusion of tools, tires, old saddles, unidentified agricultural machinery, discarded appliances, broken furniture, and even a faded red Mustang, sans tires, perched on jacks. Everything was coated with a thick film of dust, and the overhead corners were festooned with cobwebs.
“That’s Mitch’s first car,” Libba said, pointing at the Mustang. “He swears he’s going to restore it someday. Maybe when he retires. We’ll see. The man doesn’t know the first thing about cars or engines.” She turned slowly and pointed out other family mementos. “Harris’s crib. The first dryer I ever owned. My mother-in-law’s favorite riding lawn mower.” She turned to Cara with a sheepish grin. “See? Random crap. Living this far out in the country, it’s easier to just stick stuff in the barn than it is to have it hauled off to the dump.
“Mitch would love to have everything in here cleared out. Except the Mustang. That’s the holy of holies. But everything else?” She shrugged. “Time to let go of all of it.”
“Except Harris’s crib,” Cara guessed.
“Precisely.”
Libba was walking around the barn, examining the walls. “Don’t know how long this thing has been standing. Mitch’s mom said it was here when she moved to Cabin Creek. And we did keep the horses here for years.” She glanced up at the glints of daylight.
“Have to get a new roof. Otherwise, I think this thing could probably stand another seventy-five years.”
It was a big barn, and roofs, Cara knew, were expensive.
“Is that something you’d want to undertake? With all the other expen
ses with the wedding?”
“We’d have to do it sooner or later, if we want the barn to keep standing,” Libba said. “Which we do. Only problem is, getting somebody reliable over here to do the work. With the economy like it’s been, you’d think people would be eager for a job, but that’s not how it is out here. The last work we had done here? I wanted to rip out the old tub in our master bath and put in a nice big glass-walled shower. Like you see in all the magazines.” She snorted in disgust. “The jacklegs we hired took six months, screwed it up so bad, Mitch kicked ’em out before the tile was even grouted. We still can’t use that shower.”
“I might have an idea,” Cara said slowly. “I know a contractor in Savannah … all they do is historic-restoration work. I suppose that would include roofs.…”
“I’d love to talk to them. Maybe they could take care of the other stuff we want to do before the wedding too. See about those leaky windows in the ballroom, get the barn fixed up.”
“It’s the Finnerty brothers,” Cara said. “I just did a wedding for Ryan Finnerty, the younger of the two brothers. He married Torie Fanning.”
“Finnerty? From Savannah? We know the Finnertys. Been knowing ’em for years. I didn’t realize they were contractors.”
“I can get you their number. They haven’t done any work for me personally, but I’m sure it would be easy enough to check their references.”
“I wouldn’t worry about references with those boys,” Libba said. She nodded emphatically. “I’ll call their mom tonight.” She looked pleased with herself. “Yes sir. Fix this place up nice.”
“Would you keep horses here again?” Cara asked.
“No. We’ve got the new stables for them.” Libba’s face took on a wistful quality. “This old barn has a lot of good memories for our family. Holly and her friends played house up in the loft. Harris and his buddies would play out here, on rainy days. It was their secret clubhouse, their army fort. He was in a kind of garage band in high school. They were awful! I wouldn’t let ’em play in the house, so they practiced out here. Mitch said he and his brothers did the same thing when they were kids.” She turned to Cara.
“Someday, I hope, we’ll move Harris’s crib back into the big house. And this barn will be full of my grandbabies, playing hide-and-go-seek, and pirate and bad garage rock.
“That is,” she said, pulling a face, “if Harris and Brooke can slow down enough eventually to give me those grandbabies while I’m still young enough to enjoy them.”
Cara reached out and squeezed Libba’s hand. “I hope they will.”
Libba sighed, and the two women picked their way through debris toward the door.
By now, both their faces were coated with a sheen of perspiration.
Libba mopped her forehead with a blue bandanna. “You can see how hot it is in here right now, and it’s only May. How are we gonna get this place cooled down enough come July?”
“It’s actually not that difficult,” Cara said. “We do tons of weddings in tents and all kinds of outbuildings these days. We’ll rent generators and big air-conditioning units.”
“Really?” Libba looked impressed. “You can air-condition a barn?”
“I did the flowers for a wedding in an airplane hangar last August,” Cara assured her. “With enough money, you can do just about anything.”
“One thing we know,” Libba said with a laugh. “Gordon Trapnell has more than enough money. And he’s bound and determined to spend it on this wedding. But you know what? I don’t want to rent air conditioners. Let’s just buy us a new system. That way we don’t have to give it back. And I don’t have to feel beholden to Gordon or Patricia.”
24
Jack ran past the town house on Jones Street three times the following Sunday morning before he finally worked up the nerve to stop.
“This is stupid,” he muttered, slowing to a walk, as he approached the house. He looked down at Shaz, who was panting heavily. “I could just tell her you need a drink. She might turn me down, but she would never turn away a thirsty dog.”
Shaz seemed to agree. In fact, as soon as they got in front of the stoop leading up to the shop, she abruptly sat, and refused to be moved, no matter how hard Jack pulled on her leash.
He wound the leash around the wrought-iron window box beside the door and rang the bell, shifting nervously from one foot to the other as he waited.
“We’ll just act like we were passing by, and decided to stop on the spur of the moment.”
Five minutes passed. He looked down at Shaz, who didn’t seem perturbed by the delay. “Maybe she’s at church.”
Shaz gave him a baleful stare.
“She could have gone out to brunch. Like a date or something. Or out of town for the weekend.” They heard a short, excited bark then, coming from the other side of the door. Shaz stood now, her ears pricked in excitement.
Finally, the paper shade on the glass shop door was pulled up. Cara Kryzik looked out at them, bemused. She wore shorts and a tank top and her hair was wrapped in a towel.
“Or maybe she was in the shower,” Cara said, opening the door. Poppy stood directly behind her, peering around her legs.
Jack felt his face redden. “You heard, huh?”
She pointed upward. He took a step back, off the stoop, and saw the open window directly above the stoop. “My bedroom. When that window’s open, I can hear everything out on the street. It can make for some pretty interesting nights.”
“You don’t have air-conditioning?” It was the best comeback he could think of.
“Not right at the moment,” Cara said. “It’s on the blink, which is not at all unusual. I’ve been calling the landlord for two days, but she hasn’t called back. If I don’t hear from her by tonight, I swear, I’m gonna buy myself a window unit and deduct the cost from my rent.”
“You should,” Jack agreed. “It was in the high eighties last night.”
* * *
“It was in the low nineties upstairs,” Cara said. “Did I hear you say something about some water for Shaz? And how about you? I could fix us some iced coffee?”
As she’d promised, the interior of the shop was steamy. While Cara disappeared into a small kitchenette, he looked around.
It was a small room, no bigger than his living room on Macon Street. But she’d hung a dozen old mirrors on the exposed brick walls, and they made the room look larger. There was a large zinc-topped worktable, a small antique table with three chairs in a bay near the front window, a glass countertop with a cash register, and a large glass-doored cooler full of buckets holding flowers. An alcove hid behind a half-opened curtain, and he could see a desk stacked with papers, a computer, and a phone.
“How’s your friend Tommy?” Cara called from the kitchen.
“Alive.”
“Thanks to you.”
“He was passed out cold by the time I got him home. It was all I could do to unload him from that Camry and dump him on a lawn chair under the carport. He left a pretty sheepish message on my answering machine the next day. I think the experience might have helped him sober up—and grow up—a little.”
“And how did you get back to town to your truck?”
“I texted Ryan and he gave me a ride.”
Cara came out of the kitchenette holding two tall frosted glasses of iced coffee. “Let’s take the drinks and the dogs out to the courtyard garden. I’ve got dog bowls out there, so Shaz can have that water you promised.”
He followed her down a narrow hallway, passing a stairway that led to the upstairs apartment, and a closed door that he guessed held a bathroom.
The garden was a surprise. There were a pair of tall palm trees at the back of the garden, and these were underplanted with lush banana trees, hydrangeas, hostas, ivy, ferns, and a dozen more plants whose names he didn’t know. A walkway of mottled Savannah gray bricks bisected the planting beds. She set the drinks down on a teak table shaded by a large market umbrella, and motioned for him to take a bench oppos
ite the one she sat on.
“Nice,” he said appreciatively. “But I guess it makes sense you’d have a great garden, you being a florist.”
“It’s my escape hatch from reality,” she said. Poppy found a place in the shade of the umbrella, while Shaz roamed around, sniffing the plants, until finally spotting the aluminum bowl of water near the hose bib.
Jack took a sip of the coffee, but he was still studying her garden. There was something different about it, and it took a moment before it dawned on him.
“No color,” he said, nodding slowly. “Except white. It’s all white and green. And a little bit of yellow.”
“That’s right. I’m around color all day. I love it, but when I get away from work, my eyes need to rest. I find green and white really soothing.”
“Very soothing,” he agreed. “And it feels a lot cooler than I’d expect.”
“That’s the plan.”
He cleared his throat. “I had a call from Libba Strayhorn yesterday. She wants to talk to us about doing some work over at their place in South Carolina. I guess I have you to thank for that.”
“She’s a nice lady, and they’ve had some bad luck with contractors.”
“So I heard. My family’s known Mitch and Libba for a long time, you know. From when they lived in Ardsley Park. Harris was two years behind me in school, and Holly must be in her mid-twenties by now. I’d lost track of them, after they sold the house in town and moved over there full-time.”
“Have you been to Cabin Creek?”
“Not in years, since we were little kids. She said something about fixing up the old barn?”
“That’s right. Their son’s wedding is July sixth, and the hope is that we can have the after-party in the barn.”
He wrinkled his nose. “A wedding? In a barn? In July?”
“They moved the horses to a new stable several years ago, and once they clear out all the junk that’s accumulated there over the years, and you get the roof patched up, it’ll be great,” Cara said.
“Kinda hot.” Jack fanned his face with his hand.
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