'I probably can't, but thanks. I went to the day spa you suggested. You should have warned me, however, how much a cut and color cost. Katie, let me tell you what Shelley and I did today and see what you think.'
Jane outlined the scenario. The old Victorian house in such disrepair, what Bitsy and Sandra had said, the odd restaurant full of women and a few frightened men. The plan that she and Shelley would be in charge of the decorating. 'You?' Katie laughed. 'What do you know about that?'
'Not a lot, but I could learn by taking this on.'
'May I go along?'
Jane was surprised. 'Why would you want to?'
Katie shrugged. 'My room's been exactly the same all my life.'
'Yes. Messy,' Jane said.
'I'd love to look at paint chips and cool molding and a neat bed. One of those sleigh things. You know what they are?'
'As it happens, I do,' Jane said, half offended.
'So what's the question?' Katie asked.
'I'm reluctant and I can't figure out why,' Jane admitted.
'What's Mrs. Nowack think?'
'She likes the idea better than I do, but she has some misgivings, too. To be perfectly honest, I don't think either of us like the people we'd be working for.'
Katie grinned. 'Remember what you told me when I wanted to change classes because I couldn't stand the way the algebra teacher was always blowing her nose revoltingly?'
'That was different. She was the best algebra teacher in the whole school system. She'd won all sorts of awards.'
'Maybe these women you don't like have done that, too.'
Jane crawled to the foot of the bed and gave Katie a big hug. 'I'm so glad you're growing up so well. Someday you'll be telling me what to do — and God help me, I'll probably listen.'
'About time,' Katie said, hugging back. 'Just make sure you have an escape clause. Give it a shot, Mom. You might enjoy it.'
Four
The next morning Jane and Shelley put on jeans and old boots and went to look at the house, as Bitsy had instructed them to do at lunch the day before. Shelley had never worn jeans except in her house or her own backyard and was outraged at having to go out in public in them.
Jane, who practically lived in an assortment of faded and well-worn dungarees, as her grandmother had called them, said, 'Get over it. We're not going to display you to the public, just a bunch of workers.'
Shelley insisted they park behind the big house so no one passing on the street would see her. That was impossible. The backyard, which was enormous and hedged in by old pines, was full of construction materials, Dumpsters with chutes going down to them from windows at the back, and boxes of tools.
They had to back out and park on the street, like everyone else, where Shelley and Jane sat staring at the house. 'Look at those gables.'
'Shelley, I think a gable is the way to refer to the ends of a house. Those are dormers on the third floor.'
'I'd rather think of them as gables. The House of Seven Mabels,' she added with a laugh.
Jane liked the term. 'It's time we go in, whatever you want to call it.'
Shelley practically streaked from the car to the front door. Jane followed more slowly, looking closely at the house. She had driven by it innumerable times, but had only glanced at it disapprovingly. It was really a community eyesore. She was constantly expecting to come by and see it leveled to the ground.
But with a practical reason to study it, she found it interesting.
Everyone called it the old Victorian house, but that was only because of the once fancy trim, Jane decided. Not that Jane knew what made a house Victorian anyway. There were all sorts of elaborate gingerbread siding covering it, but it was only in peeling patches now. Jane could imagine that it had been an eye-stopper when it was new.
She could picture it with stark white paint, lighting up the whole neighborhood. Of course there probably wasn't a neighborhood when it was built. It was the sort of house that had probably stood in solitary splendor alone on a good ten acres.
There was a purely Southern verandah stretched across the front and presumably going around
both sides. She hadn't noticed whether it had continued around the back when they had attempted to park there. The third floor had a sloping roof and a plethora of dormer windows — which Shelley insisted were called gables.
She approached closer and walked up the four steps to the front of the house. They'd have to replace those steps. She nearly put her foot through one. Maybe narrower steps and a ramp, so it would be accessible to the disabled or wheelchair-bound.
The floor and walls of the verandah, protected from sun and rain for ages, gave a hint of the house's former glory. Jane could have closed her eyes and imagined the seven-foot expanse from the house to the elaborate but broken rails, with floors painted a shiny dark green, pristine white wicker furniture with bright cushions scattered about, and little tables where you could genteelly knock back a couple of frosty glasses of mimosas on a lazy Sunday morning in summer.
If she had the kind of money Bitsy was reputed to have, Jane would happily restore it herself and live there just for the verandah. Think what grand parties you could have on late spring evenings if you planted masses of lilac bushes at the foundation.
Shelley crept back out the front door. 'Why are you dawdling out here, Jane?'
'I'm just picturing how it could look. Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?'
'I guess so,' Shelley admitted. 'So what do you see doing with this mess?'
Jane described what she had in mind. 'In nice weather this could be a divine spot to sit and relax.'
'I don't think corporate bigwigs ever relax,' Shelley said. 'Relaxed bigwigs is an oxymoron.'
'They couldn't resist it here,' Jane said with assurance.
'We need to start measuring,' Shelley said in her bossiest mode. She was fiddling with a notebook with a pencil tied to it with a gold string, and a hefty metal tape measure.
They went through what once had been a spectacular front door, curved at the top, with remnants of deep- purple-blue stained glass arched above it. Carvings of grapes climbing trellises decorated the door itself. But it was in sad shape. Someone had apparently stabbed it at some point. There were deep gashes in the wood, revealing what Jane thought was mahogany.
'We're going to have to learn all about different woods,' she said. 'Where will we learn that?'
'At the library?' Shelley asked. 'There must be tons of books we'll need to consult before we can talk about furniture without making fools of ourselves.'
They stepped inside the front door, closing it behind them. Jane closed her eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by memories of some of the old boarding schools in Europe she'd attended as a
girl when her parents were traveling all over the world. It was the smell that gripped her. Of course it was overlaid by the odor of garbage and mildew, but under that was the familiar scent of very old wood, beeswax polish, lavender water, camphor oil, and ancient leatherbound books similar to those in some of the old schools she'd attended.
'Jane, are you taking a nap or what?'
'Just smelling the house,' Jane said as she opened her eyes, but didn't explain.
The front hall had suffered a great deal of damage as well. It was vast, with a pair of curving staircases ascending upstairs on both sides. They, too, had rails missing, but the treads must have been made of some impervious material, because when Jane tested out walking up a few of them, they felt sturdy. Remnants of striped wallpaper in blue and cream were in tatters. The fancy molding, egg-and-dart pattern (one of the few decorating terms Jane knew) around the room, though coated with dust and grime, seemed to be mostly intact.
'This is going to be the reception
Bitsy was back to being the perky sort of woman she'd been when she wanted PTA volunteers to ante up
