Hissy Fit

by Mary Kay Andrews

  “It’s going to be wonderful,” Stephanie said, as we walked through the rest of the rooms. “And I’ve loved those adorable sketches you send every week.” She twinkled at Dianne, “Keeley does the sweetest sketches. Every room, all the furniture, the pictures, everything. And I’m in them all! In the bedroom, at the dressing table, in the dining room, pouring wine. And my little dog, Erwin, he gets star billing too. How precious is that?”

  “Very,” Dianne murmured. She was jotting down notes to herself and taking digital photos as we walked and talked. When she excused herself to find her children and see that they’d eaten, Stephanie followed me back out to the kitchen.

  “Has the bidet been delivered yet?” she asked. “I didn’t see it upstairs.”

  “No, it’s still on back order,” I said. “But I’m sure it’ll be here by deadline.”

  “Deadline.” She sighed. “Will has been dropping hints like crazy about that deadline. I swear, he has swept me totally off my feet. And I’m putty in his hands. I’ve never met a man with his energy. And determination. I’ll be so glad when he gets this overseas thing taken care of. Then we’ll really be able to sit back and enjoy all this. I think we’ll be spending a lot of weekends out here, thanks to you, Keeley. It’ll be the ideal place to entertain my business clients. And Will’s, too.”

  “Weekends?” I said.

  “And some holidays,” she added. “I know it’s a little early, and don’t you dare tell Will, but I’ve got my eye on a house over on Tuxedo Road in Buckhead. And I wouldn’t dream of hiring anybody but you to decorate it. Wait until you see it, Keeley. There’s a swimming pool, and a guest house—that’ll have to be completely gutted—and a tennis court…Oh, and I almost forgot. There are two vacant floors in my law firm’s office tower. I’ve talked to our broker, and Will can have state-of-the-art high-speed Internet access. There’s a nice reception area, and the executive suite is to die for, and of course, the best thing is, we’re only fifteen minutes from the airport.”

  “But Loving Cup is here, in Madison,” I protested. “He’s not thinking of closing the plant. He wouldn’t throw a picnic and then throw everybody out of work.”

  Stephanie went over to the back door and closed it, then poked her head into the dining room to make sure we were alone.

  “I shouldn’t tell you this and spoil Will’s surprise, but I happen to know that he is planning a big announcement today. That’s one of the things I love about him. He really talks to me about his business. Do you know how rare that is in a successful man? Will recognizes that I have a head on my shoulders—not just a pretty hairdo. That’s what all these trips to Mexico and Sri Lanka have been about. He’s lined up a maquiladora down in Mexico. And as soon as he has the financing nailed down, they’ll start producing. The new line should be in stores by next spring.”

  I was too stunned to say anything at first. “But…the underwire—Will told me he’d figured a way it could be produced here in Madison. The thread could be woven in Alabama and the fabric made in South Carolina…and the plant here would be retooled…”

  Stephanie made sympathetic clucking noises. “That was just Will being a cockeyed optimist. But the economics don’t work. He can’t compete with Maidenform and Vanity Fair and the others if he tries to keep production domestic. He feels awful about it. And the plant here won’t completely close down. Not yet.”

  Somehow I made it out of the house and managed to extricate myself from Stephanie’s clutches. I felt like I’d been hit up the side of the head with a two-by-four.

  I walked around among all those smiling, happy workers, and I felt like a complete traitor. I’d helped Will build his little Xanadu, and now these people were all going to pay for it with their livelihoods. Well, at least it was for a good cause, I told myself. Stephanie seemed to be head over heels for Will. I’d done my job.

  Out in the meadow there was a sack race in progress. As I got closer I saw that Will and A.J. and two Hispanic teenagers seemed to be leading the pack of ten contestants. The two adults were red-faced and gasping from their efforts, hopping furiously toward the finish line. Five yards away, A.J. managed to grab the lead, with Will hot on his heels, and the two kids closing in fast. I saw Will glance around, and then suddenly he seemed to lose his balance, sprawling to the ground and somehow taking A.J. down with him. The shorter of the two kids hopped past both of them, and the crowd cheered for the winner.

  I was standing at the iced tea dispenser, handing out cups of ice when A.J. and Will came limping up. Will took the glass of iced tea I handed him, gulped it down, and then motioned for another. “A.J.?” I said, offering him a cup.

  “Nah,” A.J. gasped. “I think it’s Miller Time for me.” He headed off for the kegs on the far side of the tent.

  Will gulped the rest of his tea and threw the cup in the trash. “You and Nancy did a great job organizing all this in such a short time,” he said. He mopped at his glistening forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Miss Nancy did all the hard work,” I said. “I just showed up.”

  “And made it all work,” Will said. “Don’t sell yourself short. If you ever get tired of interior design, I wish you’d come to work for me. You’ve got a great eye for design, and you’re detail-oriented. Of course,” he added, picking at the strap of my bra that was sliding off my shoulder, “you don’t know squat about bras, but I could teach you that.”

  I slapped his hand away. “The way I hear it, you’re not exactly in a hiring mode these days. So if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll keep the job I have.”

  “Huh?” Will said.

  “Stephanie tells me you’re going to make a big announcement today,” I said. “On Labor Day, of all times. You certainly do have a flair for irony.”

  Will looked down at his watch. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment. And yeah, I guess it’s about that time. I’ll give everybody a little more time to eat, then I’ll take the stage.”

  He gestured toward the food tent. “I’ve seen you bustling around all afternoon. Let’s go over there and get a plate before all the good stuff gets gone. Nancy will have my hide if I don’t have a slice of that fresh apple cake of hers.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging and heading toward the food.

  I started looking around for A.J. He wasn’t in the crowd of men milling around the beer keg, and he sure as hell wasn’t taking a pony ride. After fifteen minutes of circling the meadow, I decided to look in the house. I checked all over the place and finally found him, coming out of the bathroom in the pump house.

  “Hey,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. “It’s okay to use the bathroom in here, isn’t it? I didn’t want to mess up the fancy ones in the house.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I think I’m ready to leave now.”

  “Can I just look around in here?” he asked.

  “Why not?” I said. “I’m sure Will would want you to. That’s one of the reasons for this whole shindig. To show everybody how rich and successful and tasteful Will Mahoney is.”

  A.J. walked around the sleeping area, touching the walls and looking out the windows. He paused at the bed, with a puzzled look on his face.

  “Have I seen this bed someplace before?”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed the fabric of the quilt. “I’d love to have a big old bed just like this someday.”

  “You almost did,” I told him. “I bought it for us. After the wedding was called off, it was just sitting there in storage. It was way too big for my place, and Will needed furniture in a hurry for this place, so I sold it to him.”

  A.J. thumped the mattress. “There’s a metaphor in all this, but I’m damned if I want to bring that up just now.”

  I walked out into the living area, and A.J. followed. He was really fascinated with the pump house. I think men love the solidity of brick and mortar and heavy beams. He walked back a
nd forth, admiring the rock fireplace, and examining all the old framed art; the advertisements, drawings, and black and white photographs.

  He tapped the glass on the photograph of the beauty queens. “That’s your Aunt Gloria, right? My daddy always says she’s one of the best-looking women he’s ever met.” A.J. laughed ruefully. “And considering the source, that’s a high compliment.”

  “I’m sure.”

  He was still staring at the photograph. Now he looked from it to me, and then back at the photo again. “Is this…?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s my mother.”

  “I think this is the first picture of her I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Your daddy never had any around the house.”

  “No,” I said. “It was pretty painful for him.”

  “She was a beauty,” A.J. said. “Like her daughter.”

  “Thank you.” I hesitated. “I met Mama’s cousin Sonya a couple of days ago. She moved from Madison to North Carolina the first time the bra plant closed down. She says I’m Mama made over.”

  A.J. stood very close to me. His finger traced the outline of my eyes, then my nose, then my lips.

  “No,” he said. “There’s a lot of your daddy in you. And probably some of her. But mostly you’re just you. You’re not a carbon copy of anybody else. You are uniquely one of a kind, Keeley Rae Murdock.”

  He bent down and touched his lips to my forehead with the gentlest, the lightest of kisses.

  Outside I could hear the hum of voices, kids laughing and screaming. The bluegrass band segued out of “Rocky Top” to a dramatic fanfare, and then Will’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

  “Welcome everybody, to our Loving Cup company picnic,” he boomed. “Now, if everybody will just take a seat, I have some news I want to share with all of you.”

  The band played another fanfare.

  “Let’s go,” I told A.J. “I’ve got a headache.”

  56

  “Let me get you some aspirin,” A.J. said, looking concerned. “You’ve been running around in the heat all day; you probably have sunstroke or something.”

  I gave him a grateful smile. “Maybe some aspirin and a Diet Coke. Gloria says the caffeine helps a headache because it dilates the blood vessels in the head.”

  We were out on the highway, headed away from Mulberry Hill. My head really was throbbing. I felt sick and, worse, betrayed. I couldn’t understand how Will Mahoney could be so cavalier about going back on all his promises to keep Loving Cup going.

  “Since we’re out this way,” A.J. said cautiously, “we could just run over to Cuscawilla. Mama’s got a whole pharmacy in the bathroom there. And she’s still got cases of Diet Coke. She always kept it around because of you.”

  I smiled wanly and kneaded my forehead. “I guess that would be all right. Just for a little while. I’ve got to work tomorrow, you know.”

  “Just for a little while,” A.J. promised. “I’ll doctor you up and then take you right home.”

  But he didn’t of course. We found the aspirin and the Diet Coke, and A.J. got me a damp washcloth and put it on my forehead. I only intended to lie on the sofa in the darkened den for a little while, until the headache went away, but when I woke up, it was after seven o’clock.

  I was just sitting up when A.J. came in to check on me. “Feeling better?” he asked, sitting down beside me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “The headache’s gone. Guess you better take me home. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you like that.”

  “It’s okay,” A.J. assured me. “I watched the Braves game on the television in Mama and Daddy’s room. Braves are beating the tar out of the Mets, 6–0, bottom of the seventh.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Where are your parents? Don’t they usually spend Labor Day weekend out here with all your dad’s golf cronies?”

  “Nah,” he said. “They’re up in Highlands, with all my dad’s golf cronies up there.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t have to rush off in the heat of the day, do you?” A.J. asked. “Let’s get some wine and sit outside on the patio. It’s finally started to cool off, and there’s a breeze coming in off the lake.”

  “That sounds nice,” I agreed. I secretly dreaded going back to the apartment right now. I loved my little nest, but sometimes, on nights like this, the walls seemed to crowd in on me, and I started to wonder why I was still living in a cramped efficiency just upstairs from the store. I was thirty-two years old. By now, I always thought I’d have a home of my own. And a husband and a garden, and a porch swing…I got up and hurried out of the den.

  The patio at the Jernigans’ Cuscawilla house was something out of House Beautiful. I knew, because GiGi had found a picture in an old issue of the magazine, and insisted that I order that exact same set of Palacek wicker furniture, all sixteen pieces in that particular line, for the new patio. We’d even ordered the same fabric shown in the magazine. GiGi had balked, but I had managed to talk her into some pillows made of a coordinating fabric, and even some antique cast-iron urns that hadn’t been pictured in the HB spread.

  I slipped off my shoes and sat back on an oversized chaise longue and looked out on the lake. It wasn’t quite dusk yet, and fireflies danced in the shrubbery at the water’s edge. A party barge chugged by, strung with twinkling white lights, and a woman’s silvery laugh floated across the water.

  A.J. came out of the house with two goblets and a bottle of white wine stuck in a silver ice bucket. He poured me a glass and perched himself companionably on the edge of the chaise.

  We sipped our wine and watched the sun dip across the horizon. Lights came on in the other houses across the lake, and we could hear faint strains of music.

  “Been a funny summer, hasn’t it?” A.J. mused, his arm slipping around my shoulder just as naturally as if it had never left.

  “Very,” I agreed.

  “I’ll be glad when it’s over,” he said. “Weather will start cooling off. And I’ll be taking off.”

  “Really? You going on a trip?”

  “Sort of.” He grinned like a kid who’d found the toy in the Cracker Jack box. “I’m going up to Chicago for a few months. A college buddy of mine thinks I’d do great at mortgage brokering. He’s going to train me, show me the ropes, then get me set up.”

  “For real? You’re leaving Madison?”

  “For a while. I think it’s high time I got out from under my daddy’s shadow. I’ve been kind of bored for a while now, and this seems like a good opportunity. If it goes well, I’ll be back by spring, and set up my own office, right downtown.”

  “Wow,” I said, squeezing his hand. “That’s terrific, A.J. I’m so proud of you. And I think it’ll do you good to get out of here for a while, kind of stretch your wings.”

  “Just for a while,” A.J. said, stroking my hand with his thumb. “I’ve got a lot going on back here, you know.”

  “I’ve got a busy fall too,” I said, trying to change the subject. I finished my glass of wine, and before I could resist, A.J. poured me another. “Will wants Mulberry Hill totally completed—and I mean right down to the last fish fork and salt cellar—by Thanksgiving.”

  “Can you do that?” A.J. asked. “I mean, usually a big job like that takes you guys months and months. Hell, it took six months for us to get new furniture and drapes for the conference room at the bank when GiGi decided we needed a redo.”

  “We’ll be pushing it,” I admitted, taking a sip of wine. “The thing is, I think Will wants everything ready because he’s about to pop the question to Stephanie. And I know for sure that she’s expecting a ring any day now.”

  “The boy works fast, I’ll give him that,” A.J. said admiringly. He nuzzled my neck. “It took me a whole year to get up the nerve to ask you. And it wasn’t like we hadn’t known each other our whole lives, practically.”

  I sat up, spilling a little wine. “We didn’t know each other all that long, A.J. You were ahead of me in grade school, and then you went off to boar
ding school, and then Washington and Lee. I really didn’t get to know you until after GiGi hired me to redecorate The Oaks.”

  “And it didn’t take a month after that until you’d tricked me into going to bed with you, you sly little vixen,” A.J. said, laughing.

  I took another sip of wine and punched his arm, feeling warm and giddy and carefree for the first time in weeks. “Who tricked who? Anyway, you promised you’d take that secret to the grave. I am still mortified that I allowed you to seduce me like that.”

  “Aw, don’t be mortified, Keeley,” A.J. said, landing a kiss on my shoulder. “That’s a memory I will always cherish, darlin’. You, up on that ladder in my bedroom…”

  “And you looking right up my skirt,” I giggled, brushing away the hand that had managed to find a resting place on top of my left breast.

  “Hey,” I said, standing up. “You know what I just realized? I bet the reason I had that headache is that I haven’t eaten all day.”

  “No shit?” A.J. said. “That barbecue was amazing.”

  “I didn’t eat a thing,” I said.

  “Come on,” he said, standing up and tugging me by the hand. “Let’s go see what GiGi’s got out in the kitchen. We can raid the fridge. Just like that first time you stayed over.”

  “You promised not to mention that again,” I reminded him.

  “Not the sex, just the raiding,” A.J. said.

  I sat at the kitchen table while he unloaded the weirdest combination I’d ever seen: jalapeño stuffed olives, a slab of cold lasagna, and some green plums. But washed down with another bottle of Chardonnay, it tasted just fine.

  When it was all gone, we went back outside and watched the show the stars were putting on. By now A.J. had squeezed himself in beside me on the chaise longue. “I’m still hungry,” he said, after a while. “Let’s go back inside and see if we can find some dessert.”