The Cul-de-Sac War

by Melissa Ferguson

  Will started laughing at his own story before it ended, and chuckles moved around the twenty-person table.

  Chip’s mother’s eyes met his, and he gave a clandestine wink before raising his glass to his lips. This was Sunday-afternoon supper at its finest: carved ham, sautéed asparagus, and 120 minutes of construction jokes and tales of heroic journeys into the land of bidding wars and project management.

  Brothers Pete, Will, and David sat with their wives and babies on the opposite side of the cognac-colored, custom-made table their mother and father ordered while on a trip to Sicily. Four of his nephews and nieces dined at the children’s table in the corner, well away from upholstered seating with their cranberry sauce–stained hands. With his mother and father sitting at the heads of the table, only Ashleigh and Chip were seated on the other side, flanked by empty chairs, like high school students facing the Brown admission committee.

  Boy, had that been one intimidating interview.

  “Pete, you didn’t happen to pick up that architectural drawing for Hotel Bristol on Friday, did you?” David said. “I know we were thinking that . . .”

  Chip sliced into his ham with measured precision. Because no matter how engrossed they were in conversation, they were all watching him, anxious for any indication of his state of being. Everyone down to his sister-in-law Lisa, who was in the other room nursing her baby.

  Drop his knife on the ground and let it clatter against the Moroccan hand-painted tile, and Lisa would be there in five seconds, baby wailing, wanting to know what was going on. Wanting to know if he was finally talking.

  Two months ago at another Sunday supper, Chip had announced he was leaving McBride Construction and starting his own business. Since then, everyone seemed to be waiting on him to make some sort of emotional declaration.

  Declaring what?

  Well, he wasn’t totally certain. But he had heard rumors.

  Some suspected he was unhappy because his salary had been lower than two of his three older brothers’. But then, after Chip’s apathetic response to a stilted lecture from Pete about how he had to earn his way up the ladder—even if it was the family ladder—that opinion lost popularity (although Alicia, Pete’s wife, apparently still favored it).

  Others guessed he was jealous, that little Chip couldn’t tolerate sitting in his corner desk by the copier, across the room from Pete and Will and their walls of framed newspaper clippings and regional recognition plaques. They speculated that a lifetime of walking in his brothers’ shadows had slowly led to a Cain-like fury.

  Which led naturally to the women’s (and Alicia’s life coach’s) favorite hypothesis: that poor Chip was expressing his psychological need for attention. That his reserve was low in a family as large as his. That coming along with his twin brother, Jake, as a “wonderful surprise” when his mother was forty-two had led to a cycle of self-doubt and overcompensation. This was why, in Alicia’s words, he wore “those lewd overalls.” (She had caught him in some Patagonia cycling bibs once, and you would’ve thought she’d caught him working as a male escort.) It was all just one big ruse to be told he was loved, to receive one compliment that would bring him back into the straight and narrow of McBride and Sons.

  The only story none of them believed was the real one: that he simply wanted to try things his own way again. He had spent several years on his own up north after graduating from Brown and managed his own company just fine. He didn’t have the heart to mention Jake or the truth they all knew, which was that his twin brother had been the reason he’d come back four years ago. At Jake’s funeral, after one look at his mother and her shaking hands—even now, as she sliced her own asparagus, they never quite stilled—he had dropped his life in Providence and never looked back.

  But now? Now it was time, at last, to try to make his own way again. He’d occupied Jake’s old desk for long enough.

  He’d tried to explain that, yet none of them believed him.

  Which explained why his mother took pains, every day, to reach out to him.

  “And what fantastic renovations has my son been up to on his newest house?” Chip’s mother asked above the hum of conversation.

  The word newest was not lost on him. He was well aware of her unspoken feelings about the house she considered too ramshackle for her baby boy to call home. So what did she do? Avoid reality by referring to it as if it were just another project.

  She folded and stilled her hands, and the conversation around the table quieted.

  Lisa peeked her head in, then disappeared.

  Even Ashleigh set her fork down and politely turned to face him.

  Good grief. Did they expect him to give a speech?

  He cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, rubbing his lips with his napkin, “there’s not a whole lot to say yet. We have a new door. I finished painting the new cabinets. I’ve just started in on the windows.”

  His mother clapped her hands together as if he’d said he was nominated for the Nobel Prize. “Oh, how terrific. Did you go with the Intrigue series?”

  He fought the childish urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, Mom. I went with Intrigue.”

  She’d been married into construction for forty-one years but had learned more about the industry in the last month for his sake than all previous years combined.

  “North Star? Or Interesting Aqua?”

  She beamed at him, proud as ever at the fact he was willing to “experiment with color.”

  He hesitated, aware of the darting looks between his brothers. “The North Star.”

  Ashleigh jumped in, clasping his hand. “You need to come by and see what he’s done just this past week, Mrs. McBride. You’d think you walked into the wrong house.”

  Right. The house was empty of furniture, the floors were scratched with one hundred years of wear and tear, and the upstairs bathroom was one giant, gaping hole waiting for an accident. But whoa now, people, we have cabinets.

  “I’ll do that,” his mother replied, reaching out of habit for her calendar on her phone. When her hand came up empty, she slipped it back into her lap.

  She gave him a fond smile. Ashleigh squeezed his hand with pride.

  They were two peas in a pod.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  Er, scratch that thought.

  “So is that your plan for the foreseeable future, Chip, flipping houses around Abingdon?” Chip’s father spoke through his mouthful of meat. Every face turned to the man who always filled up his chair, and the room, with his presence. “Seems to me it won’t take long to run out of business that way. After that fixing-upping show, everyone and their teenage daughter wants to be the next Chip and Joanna Gaines.”

  “Of course that’s not the only plan,” his mother cut in. She held her hands open. “He has the whole world where he can expand. Marion, Bristol, Kingsport . . .”

  “Have to have a contractor’s license for the Tennessee side, love,” his father replied. “And correct me if I’m wrong, Chip, but you don’t have one—”

  “Well, he’ll just have to get one,” she replied before he could respond. She smiled through her perfectly white teeth. “Just like you did. Dear.”

  Chip’s father paused midslice and took in his wife, who was sitting in the pole-straight posture reserved for civic meetings and tea with his mother.

  “Yes.” He coughed. “Yes, of course he could. With that fancy education of yours, son, I’m sure you’re plenty used to taking tests. Probably mastered the art of passing them without studying. You’ll be spreading out to North Carolina and Kentucky before we know it.”

  He smiled before returning his attention to the ham.

  Right. Chip was probably the only man in America whose father was disappointed his son went to an Ivy League school instead of jumping into the family business.

  His mother started to stand. “Did I forget the gravy boat?”

  Chip jumped up before she could. “Let me get it for you.”

  He pushed through the swi
nging doors into the kitchen. The porcelain gravy boat sat squarely in the center of the kitchen’s island counter, and it took but a second to snag it and move back toward the dining room. His steps slowed, however, as he heard the conversation.

  “What happened with the Lee Street estimate, Pete?” his father said.

  “Too low. It was close, but we would’ve only hit 19 percent. Had to throw it back in the pond.”

  There was silence, and Chip held his breath. C’mon, Dad. Will. David. Somebody.

  Say it.

  “So who’s going over to Davenport tomorrow?” his father continued.

  Chip felt his heart fall.

  Fine.

  Nobody in his family was going to mention him, think of him, want to help him at all. Fine.

  He could do this on his own. Yes. But it sure was hard to start. And though he’d never mentioned it to them, the savings he’d lost dropping his company and life in Providence cost him dearly. He wasn’t searching for a handout, but his financial situation was dire enough that he had hinted separately to every man in there that if they scouted out a job that didn’t hit the profit margin they wanted, they should pass it along to him. He didn’t have the overhead they had. What they couldn’t do, he could and then some. The favor wouldn’t cost them a penny.

  But had any of them thrown him a bone?

  Chip pushed the kitchen door open.

  “Here ya go, Mom,” he said, then set the gravy boat beside her plate. He smiled down at her. “The potatoes are just as good without it, though.”

  She squeezed his hand appreciatively. “Leave it to my son to know just what to say.”

  “Chip the smooth-talking salesman,” Pete said. “Our sales are gonna drop 20 percent without him.”

  The words were complimentary. The dry tone was not.

  Chip pulled out his own chair. It was time to get off the subject of him. “Yeah, so what are you up to these days, Dad? I saw in the paper you all finished the King renovation last month.”

  King University was last year’s prize build for McBride Construction, a multimillion-dollar build of a 67,000-square-foot student-center complex. They had declined all other incoming jobs. For the construction companies in the tri-cities area that had garnered those jobs, it was a banner year. Not that there were many in the new-construction business. Anderson Builds, Gilbane, ACL Construction, and of course, now, his.

  “Speaking of, Dad,” Will interjected. “I saw your memo about the Barter bid. You can’t be serious about passing on it.”

  Chip’s shoulders tensed. He turned his attention to his father.

  The man shook his head. “Richardson’s too unpredictable. It’d be a waste of our time for something he’ll probably end up giving to his cat nanny or some other oddball he meets on the street. And anyway, even if we did get the job, he’d have us hopping on one foot the whole time working out change orders.”

  “Yes, but a profit margin on a project like that . . . ,” Will replied.

  His father shook his head and started to stand. “Let some other shmuck in this town be his lap dog.”

  “For his multimillion-dollar project,” Will added.

  His father paused.

  “At least two,” Will said.

  Slowly, he straightened. “Two million? But the building can’t be more than fifteen thousand square feet. And it already looks sharp as a tack.”

  Will shrugged as if to say plenty of upscale clients spent massive amounts of money remodeling kitchens already covered in luxury granite.

  His father swung his chin toward the kitchen, plates in hand. “Walk with me, Willy. What have you pulled together?”

  Will jumped up and followed him into the kitchen. “Well, the way I see it, we’re looking at being able to charge $150 a square foot at the very least. The demo alone should be upwards . . .”

  Two million. Chip set his fork down. There wasn’t a bank this side of the Mississippi that would offer him that kind of a credit line.

  Conversation rose around him, but he was pulled into his own thoughts as he stood with his plate and moved toward the kitchen. He didn’t have a shot in the world. And really, why on earth should he?

  Redpoint had been licensed and insured a total of thirty-one days. To some extent his brother had been right; he would need to work up the ladder—whether in his dad’s company or his own. He didn’t have a right to be disappointed. The Barter job was just a dream.

  Ashleigh put her hand on Chip’s shoulder, and he turned. “Don’t you think that would be nice, Chip? Tuesday the ninth?”

  “Hmm?” His mother and Ashleigh were both smiling as though they’d hatched the best plan. “What for the ninth?”

  “The Plein Air event with the William King Museum. You know, the one she’s on the board for.”

  “Sorry, Ash,” Chip said, a distracted eye lingering on the swinging kitchen door. “You’ll have to be more specific. My mother is on the board for everything in this town.”

  Ashleigh gave a conceding tinkle of a laugh, as though she aspired to the same lot in life. “The Plein Air event is the art event. It’s a fundraiser for the Barter renovation. She says a slew of artists will be painting along the Creeper Trail, and people can walk through and see all the fine art before it’s displayed at the King Museum. Sounds like every art enthusiast in town will be there. It might be fun, don’t you think?” She slid her arm around his. “Bundled up together, strolling along the Creeper, watching the artists create all those one-of-a-kind works.” Her voice gained an even silkier tone. “I think it sounds romantic.”

  A lightbulb in his head went off.

  Fine art.

  Artists were going to be perched along the Creeper Trail, next Tuesday, and the art enthusiasts in town were going to watch them work . . . for a fundraiser . . . for the Barter.

  In the snap of a finger, a plan started forming.

  He was not going to lie to his girlfriend.

  He also was not going to lie to his girlfriend in front of his mother.

  Just . . . avoid certain facts.

  “That does sound riveting,” Chip began, putting his hand over hers. “But I’m afraid I have a project going on for that Tuesday and will need to work late.”

  Technically true.

  “But I hear the Tavern has a new menu coming out. We could go as soon as I’m finished and see about that stroll afterward . . .”

  Bingo.

  Ashleigh’s eyes lit up at the new idea. A bit shamefully, he worked to avoid looking at her eyes, or his mother’s.

  An art event.

  Tuesday the ninth.

  Now all he had to do was find an easel.

  Chapter 9

  Bree

  Bree had a perfectly legitimate reason for sitting on her porch steps, and it had nothing to do with him. Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to make use of the time by shooting daggers from her eyes while he walked back and forth from the house to his truck, hauling bits of Sheetrock.

  The real reason she was sitting on the porch steps, clutching a coffee mug between her knees and a cell phone to her ear, was because she was waiting. For them.

  “I don’t see—” Over the phone line, Bree’s niece Anna gave a breathy pause. “—any fairies here.”

  “Keep digging. It’s there.”

  Bree listened as her niece rustled through the box full of bizarre and not-so-bizarre knickknacks and collectibles, photographs, rocks, lace, and cards. Every Saturday Bree made her way to the post office and sent a package to Miss Anna Farland, 114 Haybrook Way—a box of items Bree acquired over the course of the week, items that had a story. Tangible things, a string to go the distance between them and give each one an end to hold.

  It wasn’t the same as being there with her. It wasn’t even close.

  But until she could pull herself together, until she could get a grip, it was the best she could do.

  Evie found her postage receipts one day and asked her how on earth she managed t
o spend so much every week on humongous packages when Bree always claimed to be short on cash. What was in the packages? Evie had pressed. Who were they for? Were there secrets in there? Was she some sort of spy? Bree had stuffed the slips into her back pocket and redirected the topic to Evie’s bizarre cat coffee mug. Evie hesitated, then went on to vehemently defend her cat mug—almost convincingly enough to make Bree believe Evie was ignorant of the fact they had changed the subject. Almost. That was the day they had turned from housemates to, in their own way, friends.

  She tried not to listen to Anna’s labored breathing as she sorted through her treasure box. Every breath Bree heard felt like a punch.

  “Here it is!” said Anna. Bree smiled to herself as she imagined her niece taking in every detail of the photograph Bree had shot of the eight-hundred-pound, sixteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Titania encircled by Puck, woodland creatures, and her fairy entourage. When she spoke at last, Anna’s voice was soft but enthusiastic. “Cute! But you circled something in this picture. What is it?”

  Bree turned the mug in her hands and held the phone between her shoulder and ear. “So that’s my fairy in the play. My character is Mustardseed, so I circled my fairy on the sculpture. Or what I like to believe is my fairy. I pass that fountain and the sculptures every day on the way to work.”

  “I like how—she’s holding—the butterfly.”

  Bree listened as she took a sip of her coffee. Nodded. “I wanted to be the one playing in the water, but Birdie told me that was the character named Puck.” Bree swallowed then, realizing she’d mentioned another taboo topic. Anna used to play in the water. Used to be passionate about swimming. Used to be part of the neighborhood swim team. But that was before the hospital visits. And the clinics. And the pain.

  Now when she wasn’t in the hospital Anna just sat on her bed in her filtered room, hearing the distant whistles and shouts of children playing outside.

  Bree’s hand slipped to her backside, where even now, seven months later, she could remember the pain of the needle pushing through her cortical bone, and marrow bone, to get to the marrow.