“Oh, shit,” Dan groaned upon seeing Peggy’s ample backside climbing from the truck. “Here comes the fat bitch from Hell.” He chugged his beer and opened another.
Peggy strode up to the porch staring at the two eating together on the swing. “What are you doing here drinking with this woman, Dan Wingate? Cindy’s hardly cold in her grave, and you’re sitting here sharing alcohol with this ungodly woman. I know my sweet Cindy would be so ashamed.” Peggy seethed.
“Peggy, I’m just here to show Miss Chandler how to light the pilots and prime the pump for the well. We had the closing and picked up some food while we wait for Humphry and Mayer’s to deliver her furniture.” He took a long drink of his beer.
“Cindy wanted me to go on with my life after she passed if it’s any of your damned business, Peggy.” He stood and pointed at the heavyset, graying woman. “I couldn’t say it while Cindy was alive—God only knows why, but she loved you—and I shouldn’t really say it now because the cabin’s not actually mine anymore,” he jabbed the finger repeatedly at the suddenly quaking woman and raised his voice, “but get the hell off this goddamned property, you busy-body, loud-mouth bitch.”
Peggy gasped, “Oh, my Lord. You’re a drunken, philandering beast, Dan Wingate.” She pointed an accusatory finger at Ivy. “And do you know what kind of woman you’ve sold Cindy’s house to? I looked her up online.” She glared back at Dan. “She writes trashy filth. Did you know that? Cindy is no doubt rolling in her grave to have such filth moving into her precious home.”
“Shut the hell up, Peggy,” Dan retorted. “You know damned well Cindy bought and read nothing but that trashy filth because she always passed it all right to you when she was finished with it.”
Peggy took a deep breath, turned on her heel, and stomped back to her truck, loudly reciting the twenty-third Psalm as she went.
“I’m the author of trashy filth. I admit that, but,” Ivy laughed, “not a demon to be exorcized with Holy Water and the Lord’s Prayer.”
“You’d better hang chicken feet around the property to keep that evil witch away.” Dan laughed and finished his beer as Humphry drove up in his panel van.
“Dan Wingate.” Humphry smiled and stretched out his hand. “It’s so nice to see you. I hope you’re here to help us unload Miss Ivy’s purchases, though I know you’re not very fond of antiques. But I have to tell you that Miss Cindy would have loved everything going back into her little house.”
It irritated Ivy some that everyone still referred to this as Cindy’s house. Maybe after she got it furnished and decorated, people would come to see it as Ivy Chandler’s house.
Over the next hour, Dan, Humphry, Humphry’s grandson, and Ivy carried in the antiques. Things were stacked into their appropriate rooms for Ivy to arrange later at her leisure. Dan made certain the beds were assembled so the mattresses could be installed upon their arrival. The truck from Mayer’s arrived as Humphry’s backed out of the drive.
The big pieces came in first, then the bags with the linens and accessories. Ivy looked around at the sofa and chair, the antique lamps resting upon the end tables, the boxes of china on the oak dining table, and the stuffed deer head leaning against the fireplace. She couldn’t wait to get started putting things together. From her car, Ivy retrieved the suitcases she’d loaded into it that morning from her hotel room and carried them into the cabin.
“Are you ready to go back to town?” Ivy asked Dan after the Mayer’s men left in their delivery truck.
“Don’t you need help setting all this shit up? Just tell me where you want it, and I’ll move it for ya.” He glanced around the big living room, now filled with what he considered junk. He took the bundle of curtain rods and began cutting away the plastic tape holding them together. “If you have a screwdriver, I’ll hang these for ya.”
Ivy tossed him the car key again. “There’s a tool kit in the trunk.”
“Consider it done.” He walked out onto the porch, and Ivy carried the bags of linens into her bedroom. She began separating the bedding and moving it to the respective rooms. Ivy made up the two twin beds in the guest room then returned to her bedroom.
She tore off the plastic from the expensive pink Egyptian-cotton sheets with their delicate scalloped embroidery along the top edge. When she had them on the thick pillow-top mattress, the top sheet hung down just over the edge of the white eyelet bed ruffle. Ivy took the folded chenille spread and draped it over the back of the rocker sitting in the corner. She stepped back to admire the shabby chic furnishings, their off-white bright against the bare logs of the outer wall.
Cindy had painted the inside sheetrock walls a pale shade of sage green, and it highlighted the faux-finished furniture. A color Ivy would have chosen herself; she began to appreciate Cindy Wingate’s taste. Perhaps she too would continue to think of this as Cindy’s house for a little while longer.
With the beds made and Dan back inside, screwing rod brackets onto the walls, Ivy carried towels into the bathroom. A door opened from Ivy’s bedroom as well as from the living room into the only bathroom in the cabin. She piled the black iron-looking accessories upon the counter between the double sinks.
“Dan, would you mind taking down these old towel bars and replacing them with these new ones?”
Dan poked his head into the bathroom. “Sure, no problem.” He smiled at her with the screwdriver in his hand. “Almost feels like bein’ married again.”
She glanced at him, stunned for a moment. “I’m so sorry, Dan. If this makes you feel weird, I’ll take you back to town now.” Ivy’s face flushed with shame, embarrassed by her thoughtlessness. “I should have considered how this must be hurting you being back in her house, putting curtain rods and things up for another woman.”
“Not at all.” Dan took her hand. “This is probably the best therapy I could have asked for. Cindy’s gone, and putting things up in here for you sort of gives me closure or something.” He turned and went back to her drapery rods.
From the bathroom, Ivy moved on to the kitchen, where she began removing the newspaper protecting the delicate English porcelain. Most of the upper cabinets had clear glass panes in the doors, and she arranged the colorful dishes into an appealing display. Arranging the tea service with its sugar bowl, creamer, cups, and dainty saucers gave her particular pleasure. She felt like a little girl playing at having a fancy tea party, and it made her smile. Ivy hung dish towels over the oven pull. She added a metal tea kettle upon the repurposed antique stove, not for use but as a decorative piece.
In the center of the round oak table, Ivy spread a crocheted doily and positioned a large ceramic bowl and pitcher. These were nowhere near the beautiful set Carl had in his bedroom and were definitely from the 1960s when colonial reproductions had been popular decorative accents.
Ivy remembered her mother having one much like it in their home as a child. Humphry could sell it as an antique because it was more than fifty years old, though not of the actual period represented. It was pretty, however, and went with the look Ivy wanted to achieve in her new country home.
Her eyes took in the lovely kitchen and made her smile. The green gingham curtains weren’t hung yet, but Ivy was pleased with the accomplishments thus far. She heard Dan curse from the other room and peeked around the corner to see him standing in the doorway of the guest bedroom, alternately shaking his left hand then sucking on the thumb of the same.
“Are you OK?” Ivy called to him.
“Yeah, I was putting up the rod in here and got a damned splinter.” He sucked at his thumb again. “I kept telling Cindy we should drywall these outside walls, but she insisted on keeping the logs visible. It’s not practical. They should have been studded and insulated, but she claimed it would ruin the appeal of having a log cabin if you couldn’t see the actual logs.” He sighed and returned to his project.
Ivy had to agree with her predecessor but flushed with guilt for forcing this sweet man to recall the wonderful life he’d had here with
his late wife. Was she being cruel or, as he’d said, allowing him to find closure? Ivy began scooting the living room furniture around on the plank floor, careful of scratching the finely polished wood. When she had the tables where she wanted them, Ivy rearranged hurricane lamps, plugging the ones that had been converted to electricity into the wall sockets.
The power company had turned on the electricity sometime that morning. Having gone to the local utility office the day before and paid the deposit, she’d asked for the electricity to be turned back on as soon as possible. It had relieved her to find the meter still on the house, so there would be no need for an inspection by the county. When they’d arrived after the closing, Dan and Ivy had noticed the light on the porch glowing and the paddles of the ceiling fan turning slowly.
Dan had gone to the well house, turned on the pump, and shown her how to pour water into the top to prime it. She’d gone into the cabin then to turn off all the faucets once the water began to run through the drained pipes.
Dan turned the valve on the big propane tank sitting behind the house to allow the gas to flow and went inside and showed Ivy how to light the pilots on the gas furnace, water heater, and kitchen stove. She was happy to find the fireplace burned only wood, and Dan showed her how to work the damper so the cabin wouldn’t fill with smoke.
Ivy watched him walk into her bedroom with his screwdriver. She was eager to hang the long lace panels over the window, looking out onto the green hedge, hanging full of white five-petal roses. She’d opened the window, hoping their scent would fill the room.
“Will you hang that rod close to the ceiling? I bought extra-long drapes to give the illusion of a tall French window in here.”
Dan gave her a frown of mock frustration. “Yes, ma’am. Just let me get a chair from the kitchen to stand on and hope I don’t break Humphry’s piece of old junk with my weight.” He tossed the screwdriver onto the bed and stepped by Ivy, brushing her bare shoulder. His man-scent excited her, and her eyes followed his shapely behind as he left the room.
Get hold of yourself, Chandler. He must feel weird enough being in his wife’s house with another woman as it is. He doesn’t need to contend with some horny old cougar as well.
Dan walked back in, the muscles in his upper arms bulging as he carried the oak Windsor chair back from the kitchen. Ivy thought about Carl and how he must have labored at decorating his condo in Arizona. He must have climbed plenty of ladders or step stools to put together things the way he had.
I wonder what he had in mind for this place. I’m sure he must have had some ideas. I suppose I’ll never know now.
Ivy watched Dan’s gorgeous body as he stepped up onto the chair, careful not to overturn it as he climbed.
“You’re gonna have to hand me the screwdriver and the brackets. I have the screws in my pocket.” Ivy watched him take a measuring tape and pencil from his pocket. He used the tape to measure from the edge of the ceiling. “Does this look about right?” He held the pencil about eight inches down from the ceiling and four inches over from the edge of the window casing.
Ivy stepped back to gauge the height. If the lace puddled on the floor, it would actually look more proper to the period. “That looks great. Cindy taught you well.”
He turned and smiled down at her. “I got to admit that she did. I know all about measuring for drapes, hanging pictures at eye level, and hanging the pictures in groups with similar frames. She taught me lots of tricks.”
“If she read books like the ones I write,” Ivy raised an eyebrow and giggled slyly, “I bet she did.”
“Oh, man.” He stepped down to move the chair to the other side of the window. “That woman came up with some freaky shit after reading some of those books,” he said and laughed. “Do y’all write from experience or just your imaginations?” Ivy watched him measure and mark again before screwing the black metal bracket onto the uneven log wall.
“A little bit of both.” Ivy pushed the rod into the pocket at the top of the lace draperies. The roses in the weave had been tinted shades of pink and the foliage soft green, almost the same shade as the painted walls. Ivy had chosen them because they reminded her of the painted mirror now hanging over the antique bureau.
The shabby chic room dripped pastels. The little girl in Ivy, who’d always wanted one of those frilly canopy beds, jumped with joy, while the antique purist in her cringed a bit, looking at the mishmash of painted styles jammed together in one setting.
From the pink roses delicately stenciled on the panel doors of the tall wardrobe to the floral topiaries on the bureau, and the roses in the lace draperies, the room was a little girl’s dream room. Ivy had never been one for unicorns and rainbows, but she had always been a fool for pastel florals, lace, and satin ribbons.
Ivy handed Dan the rod with the curtains hanging from it, and he placed it into the brackets. Black fleur-de-lis finials kept the drapes from slipping over the ends. Ivy cast her eyes around the beautiful room with pride. It had turned out better than she could have hoped.
Dan took his screwdriver into the bathroom and began replacing the old towel bars, toilet paper holder, and shower rod with the new black ones. Ivy thought she might replace the faucet sets with the black antique-looking ones she’d seen at the Home Depot once. The farmer’s sink in the kitchen would look great with one of those big black gooseneck faucets and the four-pronged porcelain handles she so admired. The cabinet doors in the kitchen should have porcelain pulls to match those on the pie safe to bring it all together.
Ivy hung the fluffy white towels upon the new towel bars and hand towels on the rings beside each sink. She slid the shower rod through the pocket of a curtain that matched her bedroom curtains. She hadn’t been certain about making the bath too girly, but what the hell. It was her house. If she liked and wanted girly, so be it.
“Do you have any other pictures or what-nots you want hung in here?” Dan asked as he shoved the screwdriver into his back pocket.
“Not at the moment.” His handsome face, beginning to sprout some late afternoon stubble, made her smile. “Once I get all the major stuff situated, I’ll go back to Humphry’s for the finishing touches.”
“You’re fixin’ to become that old man’s favorite person.” He chuckled. “He’s a real charmer to women with fat purses.” Dan returned to the living room, where Ivy saw him lift the deer head to mount on the river-rock fireplace above the heavy oak mantel. It went up quickly as a hook had already been mounted there that he knew about. “You should get some mounted bass and maybe some stuffed ducks or a turkey for in here.” He nodded to indicate the living room.
“I was thinking about doing up the guest room with that sort of thing,” she called back to him as she hung toilet paper. “I got those blue and green plaid drapes and bedspreads for in there. A couple of mounted fish on the wall would be great to give it that hunting retreat look. I’ll put it on my list. I think I saw a couple at Humphry’s place.”
“Figures,” he grumbled and furrowed his brow.
15
The sun had set when they got into the Lexus to drive back into town, both exhausted.
“Do you want to stop for dinner?” Dan asked her as they backed out of the drive onto the narrow asphalt road.
“Can there possibly be anyplace better than that BBQ we had for lunch?”
“There’s a pretty good steak joint downtown,” Dan offered.
Ivy looked down at her dusty jeans and dustier t-shirt that had not been dusty at all when she’d changed into them before their lunch on the swing. “I’m not really dressed for a fancy steak place. How about Chinese?”
“There’s a Panda Express over by the movie theatre. Is that OK? They don’t serve beer.”
“That’s alright,” Ivy replied. “I’ll be driving back in the dark and don’t need to be drinking.”
“That’s smart.” He turned down a street and into a strip mall with a brightly lit movie theatre as the anchor unit. Restaurants, coffee shops, an ice
cream parlor, and a used book store flanked the tall structure on either side. Cars filled the parking lot. Dan parked close to the Panda Express, and they walked in together. Most of the tables were full, and many people recognized and waved at Dan.
The woman behind the counter greeted them and filled their plates with fried rice, broccoli beef, and orange chicken. Ivy asked for crab puffs and an eggroll as well. Dan got them Sprites while she paid for the food. Ivy didn’t mind. She figured she owed him for all his back-breaking labor. He hadn’t needed to stay after getting the pump going and lighting the pilots, but he had, and Ivy didn’t know what she would have done without his assistance. She certainly wouldn’t have drapes on all the windows, that was certain.
“Thanks for all your help today, Dan,” Ivy said as he sat and handed her the Sprite, a napkin, and a plastic fork. “I really don’t know what I would have done without your help today.”
“It’s no trouble.” He forked up some beef that dripped savory brown sauce back onto his heaping plate. “I figured I owed you anyhow.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I was really rude to you back at that truck stop.” He handed her a crab puff from his plate. “And I ate your chips.”
“Do you actually pick up many women at truck stops that way?” Ivy asked with a sheepish grin as she popped a bite of tangy orange chicken into her mouth with some rice.
“Not usually. Most places are crawling with lot-lizards that only the most desperate pay to stick their cocks into. I don’t mess with that trash, but you looked beautiful and lonely sittin’ there in that booth.” He sucked up some soda. “I thought I’d give it a go, but you shot me down.”
Promises: Do You Know Where the Poison Toadstools Crow? Page 10