Building Home

by Dee Ernst

  “He does. All I have to do is convince him.”

  She signed for our drinks with a flourish. “If he needs any help, wants any names, or needs a connection anywhere, have him call me. I’m no fan of Amy McCann, and seeing her go down would be better than two martinis on a hot, summer night.”

  I watched her walk out, and sat, finished my wine, and thought.

  First, I had to talk to Celeste and ask her to hold off if Amy McCann approached her.

  Then I had to talk Daniel into building his dream project here. Although I liked the idea of him staying on his side of the street, it made sense that he was the one to save Celeste’s trees.

  And then I had to find a way to either get Mike McCann out of my head or convince him that the two of us were a great match.

  I mentally moved the Mike project up to position one, finished my wine, and walked back to Terris.

  Friday morning was rainy, and when I pulled up to the Coop, the parking lot was crowded with cars bearing out-of-state plates. Good for Celeste, I thought.

  Then I went in and saw that although the place was crowded, there was no line at the counter of people buying. There was a pretty young girl sitting there, looking bored.

  “Where’s Celeste?” I asked.

  She jerked her head toward the back. “She hasn’t come over yet. Probably around noon.”

  “Is she okay?” I asked.

  The girl shrugged. “Yeah. She’s fine. She closed last night.”

  I nodded my thanks, walked out through the parking lot and around to the side of the building, where the entrance to the tiny apartment was hidden behind a huge rhododendron.

  I knocked and heard a muffled, “Come in,” and pushed open the door.

  Celeste was sitting at her kitchen table, a tiny cup of espresso in front of her, reading the newspaper. She looked up. Her face was drawn and white, and she looked old and very tired, but she smiled broadly.

  “Christiana, dear, what a surprise! Here, sit. Can I get you some espresso? Coffee?”

  She started to get up, but I hurried over, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, and patted her shoulder. “No, Celeste, please, don’t bother.”

  She got up anyway. “It’s no bother. Regular coffee, yes? And maybe some toast? I have jam from last year. Strawberry. Not my favorite, but Connie, she likes the strawberries.” She was moving slowly between the giant gas stove and the refrigerator, her back hunched, her black hair obviously uncombed. “Is everything okay? Do you need something?”

  “Yes, Celeste. I do. Can you please sit?”

  But, of course, she couldn’t, not until I had a cup of coffee in front of me and a thick slice of toast, slathered with strawberry jam.

  She was finally back in her seat. “Now. What can I do for you?”

  “You can put off Amy McCann for a while,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you know about that?”

  I paused. I really had no business sticking my nose in here. After all, this was a decision that was made by Celeste and Connie, and there was a real possibility that my advice would be unwelcome. “Well, I know that you want to sell, and that Amy is probably the one who’s going to come after you.”

  She nodded. “Yes, that’s true. In fact, I’m meeting with her next week. Friday, I think. I have to check. At some lawyer’s office, so I think she’ll make a very good offer.”

  “You never mentioned it.”

  She shrugged her frail shoulders. “I didn’t want to bother you, dear. There’s really nothing else to be done. We need the money. Amy can get it for us. End of story.”

  Her coffee was strong and delicious, and that jam… “Listen, Celeste, you know what she’ll probably do once she gets all this, right?”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. She’ll cut down all these beautiful trees. She’ll drain my duck pond and make everything flat and concrete. This has been a little piece of heaven for me and Connie, but what else can I do?”

  I reached across the table and took her hand. “If I could find another buyer who would give you a fair price but not bulldoze all the trees, and maybe even leave a few acres untouched, well, would you take that deal?”

  She squeezed my fingers. “Of course. But honey, nobody likes to go up against Amy. She’s very shrewd, you know.” She leaned forward and dropped her voice. “She can be a real bitch.”

  I drew back, surprised. “You know her?”

  Celeste shook her head. “No, but after I found out that Mike married her, well, I got curious and asked Marie Wu about her. Do you know Marie? Lovely woman, and so smart! Anyway, Marie told me all about her, and she sounded very…formidable.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve heard as well. So, you’ve known Mike a long time?”

  Her eyes glittered. “Since he was a kid, full of himself and thinking he could take on the world. He still has a rather high opinion of himself, but now he’s earned it. He’s a good man.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think so too.”

  “You like him,” she said. “I could tell. What happened to that fellow you were living with?”

  I shrugged. “I left him to take care of Mom.”

  She sighed. “I don’t think you ever really loved him all that much. When you talked about him, you never had the kind of smile on your face that you had when you I saw you with Mike.” She waggled her finger at me. “You can’t tell me there’s nothing going on there. I saw you two.” She rapped her knuckles against the tabletop. “Chemistry.”

  I felt a smile. “Oh, really?”

  “Oh, yes.” She folded her hands and raised an eyebrow. “Are the two of you an item?”

  I shook my head, aware that my cheeks were probably turning red. “No, Celeste. We’re not.”

  She made a face. “Well, do something about that! And after being married to Amy, he deserves a good woman like you. I don’t know why he married her in the first place.” She leaned forward again. “I think she put the fix on him.”

  I was grinning now. “The fix?”

  “She’s a witch.” She sat back. “She did something to him. Even he’ll tell you. When I asked him why, he couldn’t give me a reason.”

  “Maybe he was embarrassed to give you the reason?” I suggested. “Men do all sorts of things for, well…”

  She threw back her head and cackled. “You might be right there, Christiana.”

  When we both stopped laughing, I took her hand again. “I think I know someone who could really do a wonderful job with this property. Can you wait? Maybe just a few weeks?”

  She nodded. “Of, course, dear. We’re paying the bills, and we can continue that. But I don’t want Connie to be in that place any longer than necessary.” She frowned and twisted her lips. “But what am I going to tell Amy? We haven’t agreed to anything, but I’m sure she thinks she’ll make an offer and…well, she’s gonna be one pissed off lady if I try to shake her off.”

  Maybe it was all the caffeine. Maybe it was the sugar rush from the jam. “If Amy McCann gives you a hard time, you just send her to me, okay?”

  She looked relieved, and a few of the wrinkles around her mouth smoothed out. “I will.”

  I drank some more of her delicious coffee. “Where will you go, Celeste? After you sell?”

  She sighed and folded her hands. “There’s a lovely assisted living place, just about twenty minutes north of here. I can buy a nice two-bedroom apartment. This place is quite nice. Bingo every Thursday, and bus trips, and when I visited them a while back, there were a bunch of people sitting around a piano and a very nice man was playing, the old songs, you know?” She grinned, showing crooked teeth. “And people do your laundry and cook your meals. I like that part. Of course, we can do our own cooking if we want, but never having to do laundry again?” Her smile broadened and she got a faraway look in her eyes. “That would be wonderful.” She sighed again. “With money, things are good, yes?”

  I felt so much better hearing her say that this was what she wante
d, not just something she felt she had to do. “Yes. And you deserve it, Celeste. You and Connie both.”

  She cackled. “And it’s close enough you can visit. You and Mike, okay? Now, let me get you another cup of coffee. I want you to tell me all about this house of yours.”

  So I did.

  Chapter Five

  Terri asked me sixteen times in the following days what was wrong with me and I kept on lying to her.

  I didn’t have to ask her how she knew something was wrong. I only had to look in the mirror. I was smiling. All the time. And it was a goofy, maybe-I’m-a-little-drunk kind of smile. I had the attention span of a gnat, because I was always staring off into space, imaging Mike and me in various situations; having dinner by the water, walking through the grounds of Eyre Hall, stretched out in front of my (nonexistent) fireplace. Each scenario, by the way, ended pretty much the same way, with the two of us naked. Terri, at one point, had to actually snap her fingers in front of my eyes, interrupting a very nice little scene where Mike and I were kissing in the sand, much like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in that very famous movie.

  And I wasn’t hungry.

  I had spent the whole week walking down to the house and watching the work. I was at alternately fascinated and baffled. I knew there had to be a rhyme and reason to everything the men were doing and often tried to figure it out for myself. I asked Steve all sorts of questions and he was more than willing to answer them, so I actually learned quite a lot from him. He was charming and helpful and patient, as though I was going to take everything he said and actually put it to use in my real life. When Mike was on site, however, every time I asked him anything I found myself watching his mouth rather than listening to his words. From him I learned nothing except that his superpower was making me feel like a fifteen-year-old with a crush on the quarterback.

  Keeping Terri at bay was the hardest part. I even went across the bridge on Sunday and saw three movies in a row so I wouldn’t have to stay home with her and feel the crushing weight of her curiosity.

  But I couldn’t avoid the issue forever.

  Finally, on Tuesday night, Buck A Beer night at DeeDee and Jacks, while barely eating a burger, Karen blew everything wide open. Terri had been on a bit of a rant, asking why I was in such a fog all the time, why I sat around with a silly smile on my face, why I wouldn’t give her a straight answer…

  “It sounds like she’s in love,” she said casually to Terri.

  What a traitor. I was hoping she’d forgotten all about our little conversation about Mike, or that she had the decency to keep it to herself. But no, there she was, throwing it out to the world, and looking pretty pleased with herself as she did it. I kept my eyes down, reached for my beer, and hoped my cheeks had not gone completely red.

  Terri froze in her seat and turned to me, very slowly. “It’s Steve McCann, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  I almost spewed out my beer all over the table. “No!”

  Stella patted me anxiously on the back and shook her head. “Terri, honey, you have got to stop thinking that Steve McCann is the only man in the world.”

  “Well who else could it be?” Terri demanded. “She already told me that Mike wasn’t her type. Daniel? She ran into him once, but maybe that was all it took?” She looked at me suspiciously. “Unless you’ve been meeting him in secret?”

  I shook my head. “No, Terri, I have not been meeting with Daniel in secret.”

  Terri took a deep breath “Well, I can completely understand if it is Steve. After all, he’s just so good looking and charming…and you know, the women around here haven’t had much luck with him, as far as any long-term commitments, and there are so many stories out there, but…”

  “Terri, I am not in love with Steve McCann. And as for those stories, he told me not to pay too much attention to them.”

  She sat back and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, and when did he say that?”

  “Right after I told him I wouldn’t go out with him.”

  “What?” Her voice rose an octave. “He did what?”

  “Oh…” I muttered into my burger and took a big bite, just to keep from saying anything else.

  “And why didn’t you tell me all this before?” Terri demanded.

  I looked at Karen for help, chewing slowly.

  “Terri, honey,” Karen said gently, “obviously, since Chris didn’t have any interest in Steve, she didn’t say anything because she didn’t want you to misinterpret the situation and get upset. And, obviously, her instincts were right.”

  “Oh.” Terri folded her hands on the tabletop and frowned, a sign of deep thinking. “So you aren’t in love with Steve?”

  I shook my head.

  “Or Daniel?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Well, then, who?”

  I refocused on my burger.

  “Well. Let’s see.” Stella’s voice was bubbling with laughter. “Judd is gay, so I’m going to take a leap and say he’s out.”

  Dara speared a fried shrimp with her fork and pointed it at me for emphasis. “I’m sure she’s run into all sorts of men. Members of the construction crew? Maybe a shopkeeper? How about that person in the zoning office?”

  I shuddered. “No,” I said distinctly.

  “Well, then,” Karen said slowly, “I’m going to circle back to Mike.”

  Double traitor. I felt my face get hot, and I tried to tuck my chin onto my chest. Silence, as they say, fell.

  “Listen guys, I am not in love with Mike McCann. And I’m sure,” I said, a little louder than was probably necessary, “that he has no interest in me.”

  Dara sniffed. “You don’t have to be so defensive. He’s a very sexy man, in that rough-and-tumble teddy bear kind of way. I’d do him. If I did men, that is.”

  “I’m not being defensive,” I snapped.

  “Then why are you trying to convince us all that you don’t like him, when you’ve obviously got some strong feelings about him,” Terri said, reasonably. “Do you hate him?”

  I stared at my burger. “No,” I said roughly.

  Karen sighed. “Well, then, there you go.”

  “He’s completely not my type,” I told them.

  “Absolutely,” Dara said, nodding her head.

  “And he actually made fun of me, calling my ideas big city, like wanting to use a dresser in the bathroom was, like, a totally off-the-wall notion.”

  Stella smiled sympathetically. “I’m sure. So what are you going to do?”

  I stared at her. “About what?”

  “About Mike,” she answered.

  “Nothing!” I pushed away my plate. “I’m not going to do anything because, well…why should I?”

  “Because there’s obviously something going on,” Terri said.

  “Try cooking him a home cooked dinner,” Stella said. “Men love a woman who cooks.”

  Dara elbowed her roughly. “Now, what the hell kind of 1954 advice to the lovelorn is that?”

  Stella looked indignant. “A woman can be her own person, live her own life, and still be a good cook. And a man can believe in feminism, respect women, and appreciate a delicious meal. I’m just throwing out a suggestion here, not carving anything in stone.”

  “Right now, the only person I plan on cooking for is Celeste Montecorvo. I’m going to cook her a great big pot of Sunday sauce with meatballs and sausage and a huge hunk of pork, just as soon as I have a kitchen. And you all, of course. But I’m not cooking for Mike or any other man. I did not come to Cape Edwards to find a boyfriend, and I’m certainly not going to fall for the first guy in a beard and tool belt who happens to turn my legs to jelly.” I picked up my burger and took another huge bite, hoping I’d be chewing it for the next hour, thereby logically preventing me from having to answer any more questions.

  “Of course not,” Karen said. “But maybe you could ask him for coffee? I bet if you have a nice, easy conversation with him, get to know him a bit better, away from the job site, I mean.
You could easily sort out what you’re feeling.”

  I glared at her. This was all her fault anyway, mentioning Mike in the first place. But as I chewed, I began to think maybe a nice, pleasant conversation would not be such a bad thing. We could talk. Of course we could. Just a simple, easy conversation, like we were having at the Coop before he had to go and touch me and send off all sorts of alarms. And as long as he didn’t do anything too sexy, like run those long, strong fingers through his beard, smile that slightly evil smile or look at me too long with those gorgeous blue eyes…

  Who was I kidding? Sitting there, just thinking about him, was getting me hot under the collar. Not to mention other places.

  I finished my mouthful of burger. “I don’t think it would be all that simple,” I said.

  “But it is,” Karen said. “Send him a text. Ask him to meet you. He doesn’t have to know why, does he? And when he shows up, just talk.”

  Just talk. She made it sound so easy. But then, she didn’t know that while I would have loved to spend hours talking to Mike, what I’d really been thinking about doing with him actually involved not a whole lot of talking at all.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  All around the table, my friends beamed, thinking they somehow solved my Mike problem.

  If they only knew.

  The next day, I sent Mike a text asking him to meet me for coffee. He texted back—when? I suggested nine thirty the next morning and he said okay.

  It really was that easy. But I knew that he was going to assume I wanted to talk about the house. He was spending the day with Daniel and one of the subcontractors, discussing the parking lot of the project across the street. I knew that because, upon considering the building crew, I decided if I couldn’t join them, I’d bribe them to at least not make faces and funny noises every time I set foot on the site. I started with brownies after the first week, individual apple tarts the next, and by now I not only knew all their names, but the names of their wives and kids as well.

  My antique purchases had been delivered and were huddled in the middle of the bare plywood floor. Tyler, who still seemed to be too young to even drive, let alone manage the job while Steve and Mike were away, did not look pleased.