“Are you complaining about my cuisine?” Carter asked, coming in from the kitchen with a platter of food.
“Not me,” Tee said, standing up and serving me a slice of the salmon, along with the aforesaid potatoes and asparagus.
While the men served themselves, I took the time to look around the dining room. The walls were painted a soft robin’s-egg blue, and cream-colored linen curtains hung from a bay window that looked out onto a back garden. A large crystal chandelier hung over the table, which was covered with a floor-length damask tablecloth. The chairs were Sheraton, with seat covers in a blue chintz. All the artwork was of large tropical birds—parrots, macaws, flamingos, and egrets—framed in heavy gilt-edged frames.
I got up to look at the largest print. “Is this a Menaboni?” I asked.
Carter looked pleased. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “You know art?”
I sat back down. “Not a lot. But I’ve seen Menaboni prints in magazines. These are really lovely.”
“Sarah’s doing,” Carter said. “I’m just an old country lawyer. You could put what I know about art and antiques and all that mess in your hat. But she just loved that kind of stuff. Went to symposiums at the High Museum in Atlanta, read books, and when we traveled, she always made it a point to go see the art museums and antiques shops. She loved to go to auctions best of all. She’d study the catalogs, read up on the history of anything she was interested in, and go in there ready to do battle. I told her she should have been a horse trader.”
I looked over at the sideboard, a massive, dark oak piece that held dozens of pieces of blue-and-white transferware china. “Is that Canton ware?” I asked. “It looks like the real thing.”
“It surely is,” Carter said. “Those plates were Sarah’s pride and joy. She bought them at an auction in New Orleans when we were down there for a bar association meeting. Never would admit to me what she paid. Not that I would have cared.” His face grew serious. “They were the last things she bought before she got sick.”
Tee raised an eyebrow. “How does a lobbyist-slash-lawyer happen to know about all this stuff?”
I blushed. “I’ll tell you my dirty little secret. I’m a closet interior designer. When I was in law school, stressed out over studying or finishing a research paper? While everybody else was out getting sloshed at the bars, I’d hole up in my apartment and read decorating magazines. I’ve got stacks of them, everywhere. Mario Buatta is my idol.”
Carter looked puzzled. “The race-car driver?”
Tee snickered.
“No, I think that’s Mario Andretti. Mario Buatta is a famous interior designer. The prince of chintz, they call him. But I’m also a fan of Charlotte Moss and Bunny Williams. Pretty silly, huh?”
“No sillier than a lawyer wasting billable hours running a small-town newspaper,” Carter said mildly.
Tee’s smile looked forced. “Here we go again.” He stood up and started clearing our plates, mercifully ignoring my half-eaten salmon. “Coffee, Dempsey? We’re brewing Starbucks tonight. We buy the whole beans in Macon.”
I got up hurriedly. “Only if you let me help with the dishes.”
“Absolutely not!” Carter exclaimed. “I’m looking forward to hearing all about your budding friendship with Ella Kate.”
“Not until I’ve at least loaded the dishwasher,” I said.
He followed Tee and me into the kitchen. It was a small room, probably last modernized in the 1960s, but with its yellow-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor and white-painted wooden cabinets it exuded warmth and cheer.
Tee was filling the kitchen sink with soapsuds. “No automatic dishwasher at the Berryhills’,” he told me. “We kick it old school around here.”
“I happen to like doing dishes old school.” I picked up a dish towel and handed it to him. “How ’bout I wash and you dry, since I don’t know where anything gets put away.”
“Scandalous,” Carter harrumphed, sitting down on a red metal step stool in the corner of the room. “Letting a guest do the dishes.”
“Start the coffee, Pop,” Tee instructed.
In a matter of minutes, we’d washed, dried, and put away the dishes, and the three of us were gathered around the enamel-topped kitchen table sipping coffee.
“Now, tell me about Ella Kate,” Carter said, stirring another spoonful of sugar into his cup.
I held my mug under my nose and inhaled happily.
“Not much to tell. I think she’s avoiding me. Last night, she only opened her bedroom door long enough to tell me where I couldn’t sleep. By the time I got up this morning, she was gone. Although she’d taped a bill to the refrigerator door.”
“A bill?” Tee asked.
“I helped myself to some of her groceries,” I admitted. “But I paid her back.”
“What’s this about telling you where you can or cannot sleep?” Carter asked, frowning. “Dempsey, I assure you, I have made it quite clear to Ella Kate—both personally and in writing—that Birdsong belongs to your daddy. Not to her.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “There are three bedrooms upstairs. Four if you count the trunk room. I’m perfectly comfortable in the room I chose. Although,” I said wryly, rubbing my lower back, “I think my first big purchase is going to be a new mattress. The one on my bed might have come to Georgia by covered wagon.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Carter said. “All the Dempseys were tight as ticks when it came to money. And old Norbert, he was so tight he squeaked when he walked.”
“I still can’t help but wonder why Ella Kate took such a strong and immediate dislike to me,” I said.
“It’s not you, per se,” Carter told me. “I think she just flat out resents anybody named Killebrew. She and your grandmother Olivia weren’t just distant cousins. They were best friends, from back when they were little-bitty girls. I think they were roommates at one of those women’s colleges, Tift, or maybe it was Wesleyan, or Agnes Scott. Anyway, they did go off to school together freshman year, but then Olivia met your grandfather Killebrew, at a party, and the next thing anybody knew, they’d run off and gotten married.”
“Sounds romantic,” I said.
“The Dempseys didn’t think so,” Carter chuckled. “They were fit to be tied. And poor old Ella Kate was left out in the cold. Olivia was always the live wire. Without her at school, I think Ella Kate was just a lost soul. She came home to Guthrie and never did go back to school.”
“But that’s what? Fifty or more years ago? I didn’t have anything to do with that. And neither did my dad.”
“Maybe she’ll warm up to you,” Carter said.
“And maybe pigs will fly,” Tee retorted. “Look, Dad, maybe we need to be more proactive with this Ella Kate thing. If Mitch Killebrew intends to sell Birdsong once it’s been fixed up, she’ll have to leave eventually anyway.”
Carter sighed heavily. “You’re right, I know. But I honestly don’t know where she’d go. She’s got no close kin around here anymore.”
“Didn’t Norbert leave her anything?” I asked. “After all those years she took care of him? God! No wonder she hates us.”
He reached across the table and patted my hand. “Calm down, my dear. I didn’t say she didn’t have the means to leave. I can’t discuss another client’s financial affairs, but don’t you fret about Ella Kate. Between the investments she made with her own little pension money, and what Norbert left her, that old lady is sitting pretty. She just happens to like sitting in somebody else’s house. And Tee’s right. It’s time we had a serious talk with her about the future. She’s got to face up to facts.”
I put my cup down and stretched. “Well, there’s no big hurry. I don’t know how long it will take me to get the place shaped up. There’s so much to do! I guess I’m going to have to start seeing about getting some bids for things like wiring and plumbing.”
“Not to add to your worries,” Tee said, “but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna need a roofer and a carpenter too. When I
was driving down your street the other day at dusk, I happened to look up. There were bats flying into holes up under the eaves on the side of the house.”
“Bats!” I shivered. “I guess I won’t be exploring the attic anytime soon.”
“I’ll give you the name of our exterminator,” Carter said reassuringly. “And you probably need to meet Bobby Livesey. Actually, Bobby can take care of pretty much anything that needs doing over there. He’s as honest as the day is long.”
“Good idea,” Tee said. “I didn’t think about Bobby.”
“I’ll have to talk to Mitch before I commit to spending that kind of money,” I said warily. “Guess we’ll have to come up with some kind of budget for the project.” I put a hand over my mouth to cover the yawn I’d been trying hard to suppress. “So much for slapping a coat of paint on the place and hanging up the For Sale sign.”
16
When we got in the Prius to go home, Tee turned the car in the opposite direction from the way we’d come to his house. “Is this a shortcut I need to know about?” I asked.
“Nope.” He kept driving.
“Part two of the Tee Berryhill tour of Guthrie?”
“You could say that.”
At the four lane, Tee headed east. When we whizzed past the Guthrie city limits sign, I began to feel a little alarmed. As far as I could tell, there was nothing on either side of the road except for pastureland or woods. All was darkness.
“You want to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.
He turned on the radio and fiddled with the controls until he found a station he liked. Country. I should have known.
“You think I’m taking you across the county line for immoral purposes?”
“Are you?”
“Nope.”
After another five miles or so, signs of life started to appear. We passed an all-night gas station, a used-car lot, and a small strip-mall shopping center. Finally, a street sign told me we were entering Griffin city limits.
At the first traffic signal, Tee turned left, and into the parking lot of a brightly lit restaurant called the Burger Chef. The parking lot was full, and teenagers lounged around at picnic tables in front of the entry-way.
“We’re here,” he announced, parking the car.
“The question is, why are we here?”
“To eat,” he said, getting out and coming around to let me out of the car.
“But we just had dinner back at your house,” I said.
“You’re not hungry?” He raised one eyebrow.
“Okay. Yeah. I’m a little hungry.”
He steered me into the restaurant, which looked like something out of a rerun of Happy Days. The place was all chrome and Formica, with half the restaurant given over to booths with red leatherette seating, the other half to a long counter where every stool was occupied.
It smelled like hot grease and chocolate cake. My stomach growled in appreciation.
We took a seat in a booth near the front window. He handed me a huge laminated menu.
“You do eat meat, right?”
“Of course,” I said, hungrily scanning the offerings.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Tee said. “Dad’s a great guy. He’s an excellent litigator, plays scratch golf, is widely read on any number of subjects, including history and philosophy. But his cooking sucks, as you’ve just seen. I couldn’t help but notice that you managed to hide most of your salmon in your dinner napkin.”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. “Was I that obvious?”
“Only to me,” Tee said. “Dad truly believes he’s a great chef. He’s always oblivious to the fact that our dinner guests only pick at his salmon, which I cannot convince him not to keep making. Hence, our trip to Burger Chef. We roll up the streets at eight P.M. in Guthrie on weeknights. It was either this or the Canton Buffet out on the county highway.”
“This’ll do,” I said quickly.
He nodded and closed his menu. “So. Burgers or chicken fingers?”
“Burgers.”
“French fries or onion rings?”
“French fries.”
“Chocolate shake or malted milk?”
I hesitated.
“Don’t tell me you’re watching your weight,” he said.
“That’s not it. I like ’em both, but I haven’t had a malted milk in years.”
“I recommend the shakes. They rock.”
The waitress came over, took our orders, which were identical, and left.
He folded his arms on the table and smiled enigmatically.
“What?”
“I’m trying to figure out a way to tactfully ask you what the hell you’re doing in Guthrie, Georgia.”
“You already know the answer to that. My father inherited Birdsong. He sent me down here to get it fixed up and ready to put on the market.”
“You’re a lobbyist with one of the biggest law firms in D.C. Your boss has been implicated in a public-corruption case involving the alleged bribery of an influential congressman,” Tee said.
My face fell. “Who have you been talking to?” I whispered.
“We do get CNN down here,” Tee said matter-of-factly. “Plus, I Googled you. And then I ran a Nexis search. I found out you’d left Hodder and Associates. The blurb I read said you’d left ‘to pursue new interests.’”
“I was fired,” I said flatly. “You want to know the rest?”
“If you feel like telling it. I told you I was trying to be tactful.”
“You’re not very good at tactful, are you?”
“I’ve been told I’m a straight shooter.”
“That’s one way to put it. Okay. Since you asked so nicely. After I was fired from Hodder and Associates, it was clear that no other firm in town would hire me until this thing with Alex is settled. I couldn’t afford to pay my share of the rent on the apartment I shared with two other girls. My father has remarried and doesn’t need any more complications in his life. My mother lives in California and makes jewelry out of smashed-up headlights and I really don’t care for her boyfriend. So that’s what the hell I’m doing in a place like Guthrie.”
“Alex?”
“Alexander Hodder. My boss. I’m…that is, I was, sort of his protégée. So, to an outsider, it might look as though I’m involved in this mess. But I’m not. Not really. I mean, yes, I made the arrangements for the senator to hire that wakeboard instructor, and for him to get a massage, but I totally had no idea that anything, you know, fishy, was going on.”
Tee nodded. “And was anything fishy going on?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Okay, well, in hindsight, it has since dawned on me that a sixty-something-year-old with two knee replacements might not have been entirely interested in taking up wakeboarding. Or that the massage the congressman wanted was not therapeutic. I was naive.”
He tapped his fingertips on the tabletop.
I sighed. “Okay. I was incredibly stupid. But that doesn’t automatically mean I’m a criminal.”
“Hopefully not,” Tee said. “What does your lawyer say?”
I looked away.
“You don’t have a lawyer?” He looked incredulous.
“Do you know what a criminal-defense attorney in D.C. charges? My dad has offered, but I haven’t been charged with anything. Anyway, I was afraid if I hired a lawyer, it would look like I’d done something wrong. And I haven’t. Not deliberately. I’m a policy wonk,” I said, feeling my lower lip start to tremble. “Not a pimp.”
He smiled. Tee Berryhill had very nice eyes. Kind eyes. With very long curly lashes. “What does this Alex guy say? Does he think you need a lawyer?”
Unbidden, tears started to well in my eyes.
Just then, the waitress arrived at our table. She set my cheeseburger platter, all the way, down in front of me. I picked up a French fry and dabbed it in the little white paper cup of ketchup, and took a bite, and burned the devil out of my tongue.
I gasped and reached for my milk shake. T
ears streamed down my face.
“Hey!” Tee said. “Are you all right?”
I sucked a mouthful of cold chocolate and let it sit on my blistered tongue. I nodded miserably. “Burned my tongue.”
He busied himself arranging the lettuce, tomatoes, and purple onion rings just so on top of his hamburger patty. He splurted mustard and ketchup generously on top of the bun, closed the sandwich and took a bite. He chewed energetically. Swallowed. Took a sip of his own milk shake.
“This Alex guy,” he said finally. He paused and ate a French fry. “I guess it would be pretty tactless of me to ask if you were sleeping with him?”
“I wasn’t!” I blurted out. “He’s married. I’m not that kind of person.”
“I didn’t think so,” Tee said. “I mean, you don’t strike me as someone who would, uh, well, anyway, that was a bad question. Forget I asked.”
I took a bite of my own cheeseburger. It was delicious. But now my tongue was starting to throb. I took a long sip of the milk shake.
Tee ate and I sipped. People ebbed and flowed around us. Somebody put some money in the jukebox. Country music. God, hadn’t they heard of rock and roll out in the boonies?
My shoulders were starting to throb. My back ached and my calf muscles were screaming. I was suddenly drained of energy.
Tee finished his burger, signaled for the check, and paid for both our dinners. I didn’t even bother to offer to pay for mine.
He turned the radio off, and we rode in silence for a while.
“Since we’re asking personal questions,” I said. “What was that thing your dad said at dinner? About it being a waste of billable hours running a small-town newspaper?”
“Oh that. It’s just his way of needling me about the Citizen-Advocate.”
“That’s a newspaper?”
The Fixer Upper Page 10