By Design

by Denker, Jayne

  “He told you this?”

  “I figured it out.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, punkin.”

  Her father hadn’t called her that in more than twenty years. She went around to his end of the table, gave him a hug. “I am, too, Dad. But I’ll be fine. Now let’s talk about you—you should get your act together, too.”

  “What! My ‘act’ is together, young lady. Has been for years. Decades.”

  “I’m talking about Concetta. She seems to be a very nice lady. Why don’t you call her, see if you can get back in her good graces.” When he hesitated, she added, “What was that you said about not wasting time?”

  Her father let out a sigh. “I knew that advice was going to come back to bite me in the ass.” She laughed and gave him another squeeze. “But Emmaline . . . what about . . . ?”

  “What about what, Dad?”

  “Who’s going to cook me my dinner?”

  She cuffed him gently on the shoulder. “Dad! You can cook! I know you weren’t starving to death all last year when I wasn’t here.”

  “But you’re a girl—you’re better at it.”

  “Chauvinist. Get back together with Concetta, see if she lets you get away with that sort of crap.”

  Friday morning dawned bleak and cold, just like most mornings in the dead of winter in the hinterlands of New York. Emmie’s cell phone rang at eight thirty, and she was still in bed—no need to wake up early just to move a handful of items into her old home, she reasoned. She squinted at the screen with bleary eyes.

  “Shit,” she muttered, then answered, “’Lo?”

  “Emmaline.” Wilma’s voice was as cold and dry as the winter wind rattling the bedroom windows. Just as cutting, too.

  “Yeah,” she croaked.

  “When we began Mr. Cooper’s project, what did I instruct you to do, at every step of the way?”

  She sighed deeply, not caring if it came across as a loud “whuf ” in Wilma’s ear. “To clear everything with you,” she recited dutifully. “Which I have been doing right along.”

  “And yet you left me a voice mail, which I only discovered this morning, that you would not be in today. But you did not give me an update on the status of Mr. Cooper’s project. This morning Mr. Cooper called, asking about bedroom furniture. Imagine my embarrassment , Emmaline, when I did not have any information for him!”

  Emmie rolled her eyes. “What about it?”

  “He asked to talk with you, and when I told him you weren’t in, he was quite distraught—” Oh, yeah, Emmie thought, Graham was so often “distraught.” “So he asked me about the furniture delivery. Yet because you did not tell me where you purchased it, I could not schedule a delivery! He says he wants it today!”

  Oh, the horror. How could one bear it? With another sigh, she said, “Relax. I’ll take care of it. He’ll get it today.” And she hung up and sank back into the mattress, pulling her comforter up over her head.

  About an hour later, she contacted Rod and, true to form, he promised her they’d get the furniture over to Graham’s house before lunch. Good ol’ Rodney, Emmie thought. That’s the way you do business. The kindly gentleman could teach Wilma a thing or two or twelve about keeping one’s cool.

  After the furniture delivery was settled, Emmie showered and dressed, then put her remaining clothes in her laundry basket. Unable to bear the sight of her new lingerie, she buried it deep in the pile. She was tempted to throw it all away, but since she didn’t have much in the way of underwear lately, practicality won out and she kept it. But as soon as she could, she decided, she was heading back to the mall to buy her usual old-lady underthings. After all, look at what venturing out of your comfort zone got you. Just heartache. And chafed hipbones from lace trim.

  She went downstairs and found a note from her father on the kitchen table stating that he was at the senior center. She let out a rueful laugh. That was her dad, all right—still running away from stuff he didn’t want to deal with. At least his frantic dash didn’t involve cruise ships or international flights this time. Then she saw the PS that said, “Hope to be playing euchre with Concetta.” Well, that was something, anyway.

  When Emmie got to her new/old home, she didn’t know what to do with herself. There was nothing to unpack, except for the boxes of salvageable knickknacks and personal items the fire restoration company had collected and cleaned. There was no food—thank goodness Trish was bringing some later—and no coffee . . . and even if there were, she didn’t have a coffeemaker. She started to make a list of the appliances she needed to buy. Graham had been right; she definitely needed the insurance money to replace not only all her bedroom furniture, but also all the items in the rest of the house that were ruined from the water and smoke damage. She sat on her couch, which had survived the fire and been cleaned beautifully, but she realized she had nothing to do in the living room. Note: Replace TV. And iPod dock. And iPod.

  She wandered from room to room with a distinct feeling of unease. What the heck—she was home, for God’s sake. What she had longed for, for nearly two months. But she didn’t feel comfortable. She entered her rebuilt bedroom, which echoed in its emptiness and smelled strongly of the fresh coat of dusky lavender-gray paint on the walls. Emmie listened to the once-familiar soundtrack of life in a half-commercialized neighborhood: a car stereo thumping, a siren wailing in the distance, her neighbor’s yappy dog berating the car and the fire engine for daring to make noise—rarf, rarf, rarf . . . Didn’t miss you one bit, you mangy thing, she thought.

  Then she heard the sound of a truck putt-putting much closer to her home. Curious, she went out onto the front stoop, and sure enough, a large white delivery van was slowly inching up her narrow driveway, backup beeper piercing the air. The brakes screeched, the motor settled into an idling chug, and a familiar person jumped down from the driver’s seat.

  The young man waved as he came around the front of the truck. It was Rodney III, Rod’s grandson, a tall, whip-thin young man who had been paying his dues on the loading dock and in the delivery truck for the past several years, as he learned the business from Rod Senior. He was waiting patiently till the older man felt Rodney III was knowledgeable enough to start working in the store. By the time his grandfather was ready to hand over the keys to the business, Rodney III would likely be an old man himself. But he was always cheerful, just as he was at this moment.

  “Hi, Emmie,” he said, swinging a clipboard. The other two deliverymen climbed out of the passenger door of the cab, went around the back of the truck and, with a clank and a rumble, pulled out the metal ramp and rolled the back door up.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s your bedroom set.”

  “My what? Rodney, there’s been a mistake. The bedroom set goes to West Street, to Mr. Cooper’s house.”

  Rodney grinned; when he did, he looked just like his grandfather, even though he was a foot taller and far leaner than the old man. “Nope. We went to Mr. Cooper’s. He said to bring it here—signed off on it and everything.” He tapped the clipboard and leaped up her steps to show her his signature. “We didn’t even have to pull it off the truck for him to inspect. Said he trusted us. Real nice guy—paid us for the extra trip. Oh—he said to give you this.” He tugged a square envelope free from the clipboard’s clasp and handed it to her.

  Shivering, although she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or nerves, she ripped it open. A small piece of paper inside read:

  Emmie—Sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, but I knew you wouldn’t accept this gift if I told you about it ahead of time. This was always meant to be your new bedroom set—my housewarming gift to you. I hope you picked something that will work in your place—I know your master bedroom and this one are a bit different. But you’ve got style and great taste, so I’m certain you’ve chosen something beautiful. I wish you all the best. Welcome home. All my love, Graham.

  Emmie covered her eyes and hung her head. “Oh, no.”

  �
�Emmie?” Rodney hesitated, then awkwardly patted her back. “Emmie? . . . Should we go ahead and unload now?”

  Emmie looked up at him, and although tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes, she was laughing. She swiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand, looked at the note again, and took a quivering breath. “Yes, Rodney,” she said. She shook her head disbelievingly. “Yes. Please unload my new bedroom set.”

  Emmie heard Trish let herself in the front door, but she didn’t move to greet her friend. “Emmie? You here?” She didn’t answer. “Hey, this looks good!” Trish called, her voice coming nearer as she made her way down the hall. Then she entered Emmie’s new master bedroom and dropped her purse and keys on the floor. “What the hell.”

  Emmie was standing a few steps inside the doorway, arms crossed, hands cupping her elbows. “I know, right?”

  “You lose a bet?”

  “You could say that.”

  Filling the entirety of her otherwise-stunning bedroom squatted some of the nastiest furniture ever to escape the twentieth century. A low king-sized bed dominated the room. Trish and Emmie could see their reflection in the mirrored headboard, which was framed by swirls of pitted brass and chipped white tubing. The white nightstands, which barely fit on either side of the bed, even in Emmie’s generously sized room, had mirrored drawer fronts and mirrored tops to match the headboard. Their legs were also made of the white tubing. The dresser and chest of drawers followed the same theme, with mirrored tops, but mercifully, no mirrored drawer fronts, although the edges were graced with gold paint, also chipped and discolored.

  “It’s like living inside a disco ball,” Trish marveled. Then she nudged the dead animal at her feet. “And this?”

  “Come on, white fur rugs were all the rage back in . . . okay, never.”

  Trish pointed at a huge, hideous painting leaning against the wall and started to laugh. “What the . . . What’s that?” The image, of a woman’s face, was blindingly white overall, her colorless skin blending with the white background, the only color a shock of garish red lips and cheeks, black eyelashes and thick black eyebrows, and a teased-up rooster’s comb of black hair streaked with white.

  Emmie looked at her helplessly. “Rod threw it in for free.”

  “Emmaline Helen Brewster, what did you do?” Trish demanded.

  Emmie wasn’t sure it was safe—structurally or health-wise—to sit on the caved-in, stained mattress, but she was beyond caring. She plopped down. Way down. “I was trying to be mean.”

  “To?”

  “To Graham.”

  “What?”

  Emmie flicked Graham’s note at Trish, who plucked it out of her friend’s fingers and read it. “You were mean to him and he got back at you by sending you this? Doesn’t seem like him.”

  “No.” She sighed. “He never even saw it. I bought it because he asked me to choose his bedroom furniture. I had something really nice picked out—an Eastlake tall-post bed, dressers with tiger maple inlay on the drawers, washstand with a marble shelf, rocking chair, the whole shebang. Gorgeous stuff. And then I saw him with Juliet and I just . . . lost it. So I switched the nice stuff with the worst thing I could find in Rod’s loft. But it turned out he really intended to give it to me the entire time—as a housewarming present.”

  Trish let out a stunned grunt and sat beside her friend. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow.”

  “Why did you let them bring it into the house?”

  “Because I totally deserve it. I deserve to stare at this nasty shit for the rest of my life, as a reminder that I’m a jealous, petty, horrible person, and Graham . . .” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “Oh, you are not. And—wait. You saw him with Juliet? Are you sure?”

  Emmie looked down at her lap and nodded. “I saw them outside Juliet’s shop. I was walking back from Rod’s, and I saw them from a distance. They didn’t see me. They hugged and . . .” Her heart ached all over again as she related what she saw. She groaned. “I’m an idiot. I blew it. If I had stood by him while he tried to help her, we might still be . . . But instead I just pushed them back together.”

  “Hey,” Trish said, putting her arm around her. “No. That’s not true. You were right—he was being stupid, letting her control him, running off to her every time she whined, putting her first instead of you. That was no way to start a relationship.”

  “But if I had waited . . . just a little longer . . . maybe he would have gotten rid of her.”

  “Or maybe not.”

  “Ultimatums are stupid things. They never get you what you want.”

  “Pssht. Sometimes they’re necessary. It’s how Rick got me to marry him.” Trish rested her chin on the top of Emmie’s head.

  “What?”

  “Oh, yeah, don’t you remember? I was dragging my heels something fierce. He had to give me a deadline. If he didn’t, I’d probably still be waffling about it.”

  Emmie laughed a little. “Twelve years later?”

  “Maybe so.”

  “No. That wouldn’t have happened. Because you, Patricia Ann Campo, are one smart cookie. I envy you so much; you always make the right decisions.”

  Trish shook her head ruefully. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she growled.

  Something in her tone made Emmie forget her troubles for a moment. She looked her friend in the eye and demanded, “What is it?”

  Trish shook it off. “Nothing. Come on, let’s get the groceries out of the car—and get away from this ridiculous furniture. And what’s that weird smell, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Emmie said, following her out of the room. “I think it’s thirty-year-old Polo.”

  Chapter 22

  Despite her long weekend, Emmie overslept on Monday morning. By a lot. When her eyes focused enough to read the time on her new alarm clock, she jumped out of bed in a panic. The last thing she needed was to piss Wilma off even more.

  But it seemed she had. The very second the front door bell jangled as she entered, her boss stalked out of his inner sanctum and struck a pose, arms crossed, a piece of paper in his hand. Not good. Not good at all.

  Emmie glanced his way, then tried to act nonchalant as she hung up her coat. “Hi, John,” she said, crossing to her desk. She busied herself with turning her computer on so she wouldn’t have to look at him while she recited the lie she had concocted on the way over. “Sorry I didn’t call—I was, you know . . . out getting . . .” And then she trailed off as the day’s calendar loaded. There it was, already shaded out, as the time had passed: the meeting with Scrapbooking Wife and Plasma TV Guy.

  Crap. Crappity crap, crap, crap. Was it that day already? On the one hand, she was glad she had missed it; on the other, apparently it hadn’t gone well—Wilma’s gargoyle grimace communicated as much.

  Her boss held his pose in the middle of the room. She tried to keep her attention on her computer screen as if nothing was wrong, but that wasn’t going to work. She decided to dive in and get it over with. “How was the meeting with the Hudsons?”

  Bingo. Wilma waved the piece of paper sharply, slicing the air with its edge. “Would you care to tell me what this is all about, Emmaline?”

  “I would if I knew what it was,” she said disingenuously. He couldn’t have her drawing. She had made it disappear—took it out of her work bag and hid it in her old bedroom at her dad’s. So what was he holding?

  Wilma got just close enough to slam it down on her desk, then stepped back as though she might take a swing at him. Somewhere in the back of her mind it occurred to Emmie that he might be frightened of her. But she didn’t have a chance to examine the thought, because her attention was arrested by the piece of paper before her. It was her concept for the Hudsons’ remodel, only a little smaller, and black-and-white. A photocopy.

  She looked up at her boss; his nostrils were pinched, as were his lips, and he was breathing heavily. She asked carefully, “Where did you get this?” But she knew. At the end of
her disastrous meeting with the Hudsons, she’d left them alone long enough for Scrapbooking Wife to run her drawing through the copier while she was mucking about in the kitchenette. That woman didn’t trust Emmie to leave the drawing in their file (well, she had been right about that), so she had made a backup.

  Wilma said, “Mrs. Hudson said she wanted this design.” He gestured at it with disgust. “Which she thought I had created. I assured her I had done no such thing, but she insisted the original had been in their file, you told them that it had been done for someone else, and you were trying to get more money out of them by acting reluctant to commit to this design unless they paid extra.”

  Emmie’s jaw dropped. “John . . . no. I swear—”

  “Are you contradicting a client, Emmaline?”

  “You bet I am!”

  “I certainly didn’t draw this. So that leaves you. Now, did you push your design on the Hudsons? Or have you been moonlighting, working for one of their neighbors?” he demanded.

  Emmie rubbed her forehead. He was expecting her to confess to one false scenario or the other, but all she said was, “No.”

  “No?”

  Emmie felt queasy. “I did not draw this for the Hudsons. Or anyone else. I did it for myself.”

  That stopped Wilma in his tracks. It was clear from the expression on his face that he didn’t understand that in the slightest.

  “I do have ideas, you know, John. In this case, after our meeting with the Hudsons, I put them down on paper, just to get them out.”

  “And then you waited until I was out of town, called them for a meeting, and proposed your concept over mine.”

  “No,” Emmie insisted again. “They called and wanted . . .” She couldn’t continue. She couldn’t stand there and explain what had happened that morning. Wilma wouldn’t believe it. Hell, she couldn’t believe it, and she had been there. So instead, she said, “I never meant for them to see it.”

  “It’s terrible,” he sniffed. “Amateurish. A five-year-old could do better.”