Ladies' Night

by Andrews, Mary Kay

  Grace’s heart skipped a little beat. She told herself it was because she was happy to see her dog. But maybe Wyatt Keeler had a little to do with it, too.

  He was dressed in his khaki Jungle Jerry’s safari shirt, cargo shorts, and work boots, and he was bare-headed, stooped over, examining some kind of weedy shrub near the right edge of the porch. He had, Grace reflected, a fine-looking butt, tanned, muscular calves and thighs, and an admirable set of shoulders across a nice, broad chest.

  “Sweetie!” Grace called. The dog turned and looked at her and, after a moment, came bounding over. She gave an excited little yip and jumped up into Grace’s outstretched arms.

  Wyatt followed in her wake, but he did not jump into her arms. “I was just checking out the yard. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “It’s a disaster,” Grace said, “like the inside of the house. If you’ve got any landscaping advice, I’d love to hear it. How’d Sweetie do last night? I hope she wasn’t too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all. I would have been here sooner this morning, but I had to bury a coyote.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “A coyote? Around here?”

  “In the park. My dad heard the parrots raising a ruckus last night. Turned out to be a coyote. By the time he got to the old amphitheater, where we have the aviaries, the damned thing had already finished off two of our parrots.”

  “Oh no! Not Cookie. Please tell me the coyote didn’t get Cookie,” Grace said.

  “Fortunately, no. Cookie’s cage was locked up tight. But our macaws, Heckel and Jekyll, weren’t so lucky,” Wyatt said, his expression grim. “Dad shot the varmint before he could do any more damage.”

  “That’s awful,” Grace said, feeling a chill go down her spine. She hugged Sweetie closer and shivered, despite the ninety-degree heat. “Could a coyote attack a dog?”

  “Maybe,” Wyatt said. “But after what happened with the macaws, I won’t let her roam around off a leash at night. She doesn’t seem inclined to go very far from me anyway, which is probably a good thing.”

  “You’re not kidding.” Grace breathed. She set Sweetie down carefully in the yard. “So. What do you think of my little project?”

  “Great house,” Wyatt said. “I love these old Florida cracker places. Not too many of them left around here.”

  “I know,” Grace said, warming to her subject. “Do you want to see the inside?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Can I have a rain check? Dad’s a little worn out from his big adventure last night. I need to stick pretty close to the park today.”

  “Sure,” Grace said, feeling a little let down.

  “This yard could be really pretty with some work,” Wyatt said, gesturing at the shrub he’d just been examining. “You’ve got some nice specimen palms in the front here, and that hedge of gardenias by the porch is in pretty good shape. Might want to spray it for aphids and trim it a little.”

  “What about this pathetic yard?” Grace asked, stubbing the toe of her sneaker into what was left of the crabgrass- and sandspur-infested patch of sand. “What could I do with it that won’t eat up my fix-up money?”

  Instead of answering, Wyatt walked away, pacing it off. He bent down, kicked at something in a patch of crabgrass, stood, and grinned. “You’ve got an old sprinkler system here, did you know that?”

  “No!” Grace said, bending down to look. “You think it works?”

  “I’d have to take a closer look,” Wyatt said. “But if the lines are intact and the system is in place, that’s half the battle. You can replace the old sprinkler heads and even buy new timers if necessary, but with those in place, you’d be able to replace the lawn with something hardier and keep it watered until it’s established.”

  “A new lawn would do wonders for the curb appeal,” Grace said. “But that’d cost thousands and thousands. And I don’t even have hundreds and hundreds. Maybe that’s something Arthur would be interested in doing down the line.”

  “Arthur?”

  “Arthur Cater. He’s the owner. He’s kind of a tightwad, but my big hope is that once he sees what I’ve done here, he’ll loosen up give me a little more money to work with.”

  “This yard isn’t that big,” Wyatt said. “I was walking around before you got here, just kind of brainstorming. You’ve got a lot of planting beds and borders that are all overgrown with weeds right now, but if you weeded and mulched them and put an edging around them, you’re left with just a nice little swath of green up front here and one in the back. The sides of the house are mostly shaded by those oaks, and they’re underplanted with some beat-up old hostas and leather-leaf ferns and begonias, but again, get that cleaned out, separate the hostas and give them some breathing room, and it’ll be fine.”

  “What about the backyard?” Grace asked. “Pretty disgusting, huh?”

  “It needs work, yeah. But it’s not impossible. I’d get rid of that old tin storage shed first thing. It’s falling apart and you don’t need it anyway with that big garage. You’ve got the start of a nice fruit grove back there.”

  “Really? I just thought they were a bunch of old half-dead bushes. They’re all overgrown with moss and half the branches look dead.”

  “They need some help, for sure,” Wyatt said. “But you’ve got a couple of tangerine trees, a ponderosa lemon, a lime, a grapefruit, and a kumquat.” He laughed. “You could set up your own fruit stand.”

  “I might if it were my house,” Grace said. “But it’s Arthur’s. And it’s a rental house.”

  “Have you thought about asking him if he’d rent to you?” Wyatt asked.

  “Only since the first minute I saw it,” Grace said wistfully. “I could do so much with this place, if it were mine…”

  “But?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I told him when I’ve finished with it, it should rent for at least $1,500 a month, this close to the beach and being on Anna Maria. That’s more than I could afford.”

  “But you’re doing all this work, essentially for free, right?”

  “So that I can photograph and write about it for TrueGrace,” she said. “It’s that kind of trade-off. Essentially to get material for my new blog.”

  “Maybe you could work out some kind of arrangement with the guy,” Wyatt said. “You don’t know until you ask.”

  “Maybe…” Grace said hesitantly.

  He glanced at his watch again. “Okay, gotta go. What time should I pick her up this afternoon?”

  “Her?” Grace was lost in thought.

  “Sweetie. Remember?”

  “Oh, right.” She laughed. “Just come whenever it’s convenient. I’m gonna try to finish ripping up the kitchen floor today, and then I hope to get started painting. It’ll be a late night. So come whenever you like. I’ll be here.”

  35

  The music boomed through the empty rooms of the old house, echoing off the wooden floors and high ceilings. Grace poured a gallon of white paint into the five-gallon bucket. Yup, too dead white. She pried the lid from the can of black paint and dipped in a plastic measuring spoon. A quarter of a teaspoon to start. It wasn’t scientific, but it was the best she could do. She took the wooden paint paddle and started to swirl the black into the white. Hmm. Not bad.

  She dipped her index finger into the paint and smeared a bit of it on her Benjamin Moore paint chip. Not quite enough oomph, for lack of a better word, but not a bad start either. She added another eighth of a teaspoon and repeated her test.

  Better. Grace slipped one of her father’s old T-shirts over the tank top she’d worn to the hardware store. Its hem touched the top of her thighs and nearly reached the ragged hem of the faded blue cutoffs she’d picked up at the animal-rescue thrift shop in Bradenton. She hesitated for a moment, then stripped off her bra. It was kinky, she knew, but for some reason, she’d never been able to paint in a bra. She knotted her hair in a ponytail and tied a bandanna over the finished coiffure. She was good to go.

  She’d already t
aped off one wall of the living room and spread out her canvas drop cloth. Now, she dipped a trim brush in the bucket and brushed it onto the wall in a two-foot-wide square. She stood back and checked the effect. It did not suck. She moved her equipment to the long wall opposite the front door and painted a swatch there. Maybe?

  She fired up the box fan she’d placed in one of the dining room windows and pried open all the rest of the windows that hadn’t been painted shut. It was still hot in the house, but she was pleasantly surprised when the cross-ventilation at least kept the warm air moving. Grace still wasn’t convinced that the ancient window-air-conditioning units actually worked, and, anyway, the house still needed airing out.

  While her test paint swatches dried, Grace went back into the kitchen. She’d managed to pry up most of the harvest-gold vinyl flooring, but what she’d found underneath was a nasty surprise. Plywood sheeting. No heart pine, like the rest of the floors, just plywood. And it was speckled with bits of mastic that had been used to glue down the vinyl. Whatever she did with these floors, she’d have to get rid of all those gobs of goo. It made her back ache just thinking of it.

  The first day she’d set up her laptop in the house, she’d been thrilled to discover she could piggyback off a neighbor’s wireless Internet. Now she clicked over to her blog again and read another handful of comments, all positive, except for one from someone calling herself Freebird.

  Wow, what happened to that showplace mansion you used to live in? Oh that’s right, your hubsand kicked you out for a real woman. This place is a pigsty and a waist of time. Save the paint and buy a box of matches and a can of gas instead.

  She was positive Freebird was really J’Aimee, who couldn’t spell to save her life.

  Leaving TrueGrace, she clicked over to Craigslist. She’d done some preliminary shopping and discovered that even the cheapest stoves and refrigerators at the big-box chain stores would put a worrisome dent in her budget. Maybe, she thought, she could find a bargain on Craigslist. Stainless steel would be nice, but she’d be happy with nearly-new good quality white appliances if the price was right.

  She typed stoves into the search bar and came up with a list of nearly two hundred possibilities, ranging from the ridiculous—“Free stove, only one burner works, door has to be duct-taped. Must pick up today.” To the sublime: “Viking 48-inch stainless steel pro series dual fuel, six burners, 12-inch steel griddle, simmer plate, convection/gas oven, electric broiler, Like new, $6,000.”

  “This is more like it,” she muttered, reading a listing for a, “Like-new GE Profile refrigerator, and electric range, removed from model home, still in warranty, $200 must pick up.” She e-mailed the owner, asking about availability, and then logged off.

  Grace walked back and forth between the paint swatches, debating whether or not the white would work. Was it too cold? Too gray? She held the Benjamin Moore paint chips up against the walls for comparison. It wasn’t Farrow & Ball, that was for sure. She would never be able to duplicate the depth of color or matte finish of the English paint, but this color? Yeah. She nodded. It was a happy, clean white, and a huge improvement over the current dirty taupey-pink walls.

  She finished taping off all the trim, cranked up the tunes on her iPod, and went to work. Grace had always secretly enjoyed painting and had done a lot of it in her early days as a single career girl and then in the first few houses she and Ben rehabbed.

  But at Sand Dollar Lane, she’d happily relinquished the job to the contractor. All those soaring cathedral ceilings and huge window walls and stairwells, not to mention the miles and miles of moldings and the window frames themselves, were too intimidating. Besides, Ben insisted it was time to have everything in the new house “first-class.”

  “You’re going to be photographing the house all the time, and we’re gonna shoot videos here, so how will it look to your readers and followers if they see streaky or chipped paint?” he’d said.

  Now, she worked quickly, rolling the paint to the beat of the music. Unlike most people, she loved the smell of wet paint, especially mixed with the leftover fumes from all the Pine-Sol she’d used to get rid of the funky white-trash odors the house had absorbed.

  She didn’t stop for lunch until after she’d finished the living room and the dining room. Then, she took her sandwich, a bottle of water, and a ripe peach out to the front porch, where she sat in an old aluminum-and-plastic-webbed lawn chair she’d found in the toolshed. Sweetie sat at her feet while she ate, gobbling up whatever crumbs Grace tossed her, then curling up in a sunny spot near the screened door for a nap.

  Grace stood up and stretched. She’d considered starting on the paint in the kitchen, but since she still didn’t have a solution for the kitchen floors—and because she dreaded the thought of painting the old cabinet boxes and drawers, she decided to move on to the bedrooms.

  It was no good trying not to play the “if I lived here game.” She’d been trying to repress the urge since day one. So while she rolled faux Farrow & Ball on the larger of the two bedrooms, she allowed herself to daydream.

  The room had two decent-sized windows that looked out to that big, deep backyard.

  If I lived here, I’d replace those windows with a pair of French doors and build a big, wide stoop that ended in a little patio made of old mellow bricks. Maybe I’d have some kind of trellis partially enclosing it for privacy. I’d plant a pink climbing rose on the trellis, and I’d have a pair of lounge chairs out here. Or maybe I’d even have a fabulous outdoor shower, with one of those giant rain-shower heads.

  The closet in the bedroom was nowhere near big enough to be a real master-bedroom-sized closet. The closet in the house on Sand Dollar Lane was bigger than this bedroom.

  But if I lived here, I wouldn’t need a huge closet. I don’t need a lot of clothes anymore, so that’s a blessing in disguise. Maybe I’d look for a big old armoire or a chifforobe, or even one of those oversized entertainment cupboards that are a dime a dozen now that everybody has a flat-screen. I’d paint it a dusty, weathered gray-blue, and I could look for old leather suitcases at estate sales and thrift shops, and I could store my extra clothes there and stack them on top of the armoire. And I’d find a great bed, maybe use a pair of twin headboards, something rattan or tropical? This house seems to scream for that Old Florida/British Colonial look.

  Grace dragged the drop cloth over to a new section of wall. She didn’t really know why she even bothered using one. The wood floors were already spattered with old paint and pockmarked with nail and tack holes from the wall-to-wall carpet she’d ripped up. She’d meant to check on the price of renting a floor sander at the hardware store, but she’d been distracted by figuring out the paint situation.

  If I lived here, I’d stain the floors two shades darker, and I’d use a matte-finish poly. With the soft white walls and the sunlight coming in through the French doors, they’d have a deep, natural glow. No carpets underfoot, just maybe a striped cotton runner, or possibly a worn old Oriental in pale, faded greens, blues, and browns.

  Planning it all out in her head, listening to the music, Grace found her painting groove again. She was dripping with sweat and spattered head to toe with paint, but it didn’t matter. She was doing just what she wanted to do, how she wanted to do it, with no interference from anyone. It was a very good day.

  She was just starting to move into the second bedroom when she heard the screened door open. “Hellllooo?” A male voice echoed.

  “Wyatt?” She stripped the bandanna off her head and ducked into the bathroom to survey her appearance. Disastrous. Epic, Titanic-level disastrous. Her face was flecked with white paint, her arms and legs were flecked with white paint, and she had a giant smear of dirt on her right boob.

  “Grace?” His footsteps echoed in the living room. “Are you in here?”

  “Be right out,” she called, pulling the bathroom door shut. She found an old washcloth in the linen closet, ran the water in the bathroom sink until all traces of rust were gone
, and scrubbed her face and arms with it. She sighed. It was the best she could do. Anyway, who was she trying to impress?

  * * *

  When she got out to the living room, Wyatt was walking around, checking her handiwork. And there was a little freckle-faced boy rolling around on the floor with Sweetie, who was engaged in a spirited tug-of-war over what looked like a rag of some sort. Until she got a closer look, and realized they were actually using her discarded bra.

  “Sweetie,” Grace called, her face in flames. The dog looked up, with a bra strap clenched between her teeth. Grace scooped her up, disengaged the bra, and stuffed it into the back pocket of her cutoffs.

  She cut her eyes over to Wyatt, whose chest was heaving with barely suppressed laughter. He was studiously avoiding meeting her eyes.

  “Well, hello,” Grace said, sitting down on the floor next to the child. Sweetie jumped out of her arms and began sniffing the little boy’s shoes. “I bet you’re Bo.”

  The child ducked his head. “Yes ma’am.” Sweetie put her front paws on the child’s chest and sniffed his neck, wedging her head under his hand until he was forced to scratch the dog’s head.

  “My name’s Grace,” she said, extending her hand. “I hear you’re going to be helping take care of Sweetie.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boy said. “Does she do any tricks?”

  “I don’t know, Bo. I’ve only had her a few days. But I think she’s a pretty smart little thing. Maybe you could teach her some tricks?”

  Bo flopped onto his back and Sweetie dutifully stepped onto his chest and began licking his neck and face, which prompted a huge fit of giggles from the child.

  Finally, he sat back up and cradled the dog in his arms. “My dad taught Cookie to ride a bike and talk. Maybe we could teach Sweetie to do that.”

  Wyatt laughed. “Thanks for that vote of confidence, son, but even though Sweetie is really, really smart and cool, I think bike riding and talking is probably not in her future. How about if we just work on teaching her how to fetch a stick and sit up and bark on command?”