Since everyone seemed used to the situation, it was obviously a long-standing feud. Janice’s youngest daughter, Desiree, was the funniest about it. Bailey heard her say, “Mommie, you look so lonely standing there all alone,” when Janice was six inches away from Patsy. Then the child turned big blue eyes to her aunt Patsy and said, “You look so lonely, Aunt Patsy. Don’t you wish someone was with you?” Bailey had to turn away to keep from laughing out loud at the impishness of the child.
By the time Matt suggested that Bailey ask Patsy to see her sewing room, Bailey wasn’t surprised when Janice followed them.
When she and Matt had pulled up in front of the house, she’d been impressed. The house was large and fairly new—no more than five years old, at a guess. It was what she would call “contemporary country,” with a deep, old-fashioned porch set across the length of the house, but the upper story had a tall, round-topped dormer flanked on each side by two square dormers. It was a very pleasant blend of old and new.
They entered the house through the back door, and once inside, Patsy halted and stood there in silence. Bailey wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do.
Janice solved the problem. “You’ll probably want to see Rick’s house,” she said. “Or maybe I should call it Matt’s house.”
It took a moment for Bailey to understand. “Matt designed this house?”
“Yes, he did,” Patsy said proudly. “Would you like me to show you what he did?”
Bailey understood that Patsy didn’t think it was polite to brag on her own house, but she could brag on Matt’s design. It was a nice house, Bailey thought as she followed behind Patsy and Janice. As though they were a well-rehearsed duet, the two women split into different directions. Patsy showed her a room, then Janice would call, and Bailey would go to her.
On one side of the ground floor was a big, open area that was living room, dining room, and kitchen with a built-in table and upholstered bench. Although no walls separated the spaces, Matt had managed to divide them in other ways. Over both the dining room and the living room, half the ceiling opened up all the way to the ceiling of the floor above. Partitions set off the ends of the kitchen from the living areas.
All in all, the house had a cozy feeling, open but separate. She said the good things she thought, but kept the fact that she truly hated the kitchen to herself. It had the sink and refrigerator against the back wall, an island with an electric cooktop in it, then, on the other side of the island, another island with four stools. To go from the sink to where the food was served at the bar, a person would have to walk around the cooktop island. It was a kitchen that made the cook walk many extra steps. On the other hand, from the look of the shiny surfaces, the kitchen wasn’t used much, so maybe inefficiency didn’t matter.
The other half of the ground floor was a master suite with his-and-hers walk-in closets and a home office. When Patsy showed off the bathroom, she said, “Have you ever seen a bigger bathroom in your life?”
Bailey had politely said that the room was beautiful, ignoring the piercing look Janice gave her. The truth was that Jimmie had a fetish about bathrooms: to him they couldn’t be big enough or ornate enough. One of his houses had a bathtub the size of a small swimming pool. The shower could have been used to bathe an elephant, and there were two rooms within the bathroom that held toilets and bidets.
What was remarkable to Bailey was that everywhere in Patsy’s house were home-sewn items. Bailey had never been interested in sewing, but since her preserving had kept her around local and state fairs as a kid, she’d picked up some knowledge. In the living room, the couch, the two chairs, and the curtains were all made of the same blue-and-green-flowered chintz, and a blinding array of other items were covered in the same fabric. There was a big pine armoire that Bailey guessed probably held a TV and a stereo. The panels on the doors had been removed, and gathered fabric inserted. The bookshelves beside the TV had covers on each shelf, all of them chintz, but piped in different colors—blue on one shelf, green above it, then blue, then green. The waste-basket had a cover on it. The side tables were covered; the lamp shade had been covered in the same fabric. Wherever there was a surface, a doily, a mat, a slip-cover—something—had been made for it.
Every room Bailey saw was filled with homemade covers and curtains. The bedroom was upholstered in combinations of blue and burgundy, but again, every surface had been covered. Upstairs was the same. Patsy briefly opened the door to the big bedroom her sons shared, and Bailey had a quick glimpse of curtains, bedspreads, and pillowcases that had to have taken bolts of the blue fabric printed with airplanes. If she didn’t know differently, Bailey would have thought that Patsy’s sons were nine years old.
Across the hall, past a bathroom enveloped in hand-made covers, was Patsy’s sewing room, its walls covered with pink paper printed with rows of rosebuds. A worktable occupied the middle of the room; a sewing machine stood against a wall, with shelves full of boxes labeled with fabric swatches. The room and the work materials were all perfectly organized.
“And here are my patterns, and I keep the extra buttons from every garment my family owns in here, each labeled by size, color, and materials.”
Bailey hoped she was looking appropriately impressed. She didn’t want to blurt out, “Why?!” On the wall to her right were photographs of people, and to distract herself, Bailey turned and looked at them. There were five framed photos, each one a group shot, and in each Patsy was standing at the edge, wearing a white three-quarter-length coat that had a badge pinned to the pocket. “What’s this?” Bailey asked.
“Just the factory over in Ridgeway. Would you like to see my sewing machine needles?”
“Patsy,” Bailey said firmly, “were you the boss of all these people?”
“Yeah. But that was a long time ago,” Patsy said in dismissal. “I want to show you my thread cabinet.”
Reluctantly, Bailey pulled herself away from the photos and turned to look at the hundreds of different colors of spools of thread lined up on dowel rods on the back of a cabinet door. After a moment, she glanced up and felt Janice staring at her. When their eyes met, Janice seemed to be saying something to her, but then her eyes flickered and she looked away.
After a while, Janice said quietly, “We better go join the men.”
When they were downstairs, Rick said that Matt couldn’t stop bragging about Bailey’s cooking. “So when are we invited over?” Rick asked. For the third time that day, they all froze in motion and looked at Bailey.
“How about next Saturday?” Matt said as he put his arm around Bailey’s shoulders. “That okay with you, hon?”
“Sure,” Bailey said, then slipped out from under Matt’s arm. “Next Saturday is fine.” When Bailey looked up, she saw that both Janice and Patsy were staring at her with identical gazes of such intensity that she shivered. They looked away, though, when her eyes met theirs.
Ten
Bailey looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was two A.M., and she hadn’t gone to sleep yet. She should have fallen into bed at ten and gone to sleep instantly. After all, it had been a long day. She and Matt had left Patsy’s house at four, and when they got home, Matt suggested that they start tearing out the walls between the exterior and the living room and begin to restore what had once been the porch.
“You mean I get to tear out that pink bathroom?” Bailey had asked.
Matt took a short crowbar from his toolbox and handed it to her. “Be my guest.”
When she walked into the pink bathroom and looked at the tiles, the wallpaper, and the fixtures, she didn’t know where to start.
“Leave the plumbing alone,” Matt called to her from the other room. “Wait until I can turn off the water. Start with the tiles. Or pull the wallpaper off.”
“Okay,” Bailey said as she put her wrecking bar under a flowered pink tile and pulled back. She had to duck as the tile went sailing across the room.
“You okay?” Matt asked from the doorway.
“Great,” she said. “I’m doing great.”
They had spent three hours working. Bailey would have gone on, but Matt called a halt and suggested they order in pizza.
“You mean the kind with the soggy crusts?” Bailey asked. “Do you think we should order one with pineapple on it or one with four varieties of meat? Which?”
Matt laughed. “So what do you have in mind?”
“How about some pasta and salad? In Calabria they—” Turning away, she didn’t finish her sentence.
“Have you traveled a lot?”
“Some,” Bailey said, then turned back to look at him. “Maybe we should get pizza. Maybe we should . . . Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Whenever you’re ready to talk, let me know. I can be a good listener.”
Bailey had been tempted by his offer, and thought about confiding in him about some things. Her secrets were beginning to feel heavy to her. Instead, she’d turned away and said she wanted to take a shower before she started cooking, but when she’d finished and gone back to the kitchen, Matt was upstairs doing something on his computer, so the moment was lost.
As she’d often done in the past, instead of pouring her heart out, she went to the kitchen. She quickly boiled some broccoli, removed it from the pot, then cooked pasta shells in the same water so the pasta would absorb some of the vitamins lost in the cooking of the broccoli—and also to give the pasta added flavor. This was a trick she’d learned from a woman she’d met in Calabria. While the pasta cooked, she sautéed garlic, anchovies, pine nuts, and crushed red pepper. When everything was done, she piled it high onto a big platter, sprinkled pecorino cheese on top, added a salad, some grilled peppers in three colors, and carried all of it outside to serve picnic-style.
During dinner, they’d talked about what the house had once been like, and what changes could be made.
After dinner, Matt had sat there looking at her expectantly. Bailey put her fingertips to her temples. “I’m reading your thoughts,” she said. “Yes, yes, they’re coming through clearly. You’re thinking . . . do I have this right? . . . dessert. ‘Where is dessert?’ ” She opened her eyes. “So how’d I do?”
“Perfect,” he said, smiling, but the look of expectation had not left his face.
“Dessert is in the kitchen. It’s in bags and boxes labeled ‘cinnamon’ and ‘nutmeg’ and ‘brown sugar.’ ”
Matt gave her a very serious look. “May I lick the bowl?”
Bailey laughed as she stood up. “You get cleanup detail while I make you the best oatmeal cake you ever tasted.”
“Oatmeal?” Matt said suspiciously. “This isn’t good for me, is it?”
“Not when it’s topped with homemade ice cream, it isn’t,” she said as she opened the back door.
“Homemade?” Matt whispered as he began gathering dirty dishes.
Forty minutes later, Matt had a big bowl full of warm-from-the-oven, spicy oatmeal cake topped with smooth, heavy-with-cream, jasmine-scented ice cream. With the first three bites, he’d pretended that he was about to faint from ecstasy, and, laughing, Bailey had grabbed his arm to keep him from falling.
In the deepening twilight, they’d strolled along the stone paths and talked about what could be done to the garden.
In a way, the evening had been quite impersonal, but at the same time, it had been very personal. Their shared laughter and the intimacy of talking about what “we” plan to do and what “we” need was somehow more private than if they’d spent the evening talking about lovemaking. Or, Bailey thought, if they’d spent hours making those idiot double entendres that moviemakers and bad writers seemed to find so sexy.
When Bailey finally said she was going to bed, there was a moment of awkwardness, but Matt had yawned and said that he too was done in. He’s making things easier for me, Bailey thought as, a few minutes later, she got into her nightgown and climbed into bed.
But sleep hadn’t come to her. Instead, her mind had filled with the thoughts of the first time she and Jimmie had gone to southern Italy, the first time they’d seen the ancient, walled city of Badolato. And the more she thought of Jimmie, the more restless she became. After a couple of hours of tossing about, she got up, pulled on her clothes, tiptoed into the kitchen, removed a flashlight from a drawer, and went outside.
Later, when the sky was growing light from the approaching dawn, she wasn’t surprised to look up and see Matt standing over her, wearing just a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, his feet bare. He was looking down at her with worry on his face. She was on her hands and knees, weeding the strawberry patch, only half of the “weeds” in her pile were young strawberry plants. When she looked up at Matt, she wasn’t surprised to realize that her face was covered with tears.
He didn’t say a word, just dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms.
She clung to him as his arms tightened about her, and the tears increased. She hadn’t cried since she’d come to Calburn. She’d thought of Jimmie constantly—everything reminded her of him—but she’d held her tears in.
“I miss him,” she said, her face buried in Matt’s strong shoulder. “I miss him every minute of every day. I miss the closeness, and the sex. I miss talking to him. Oh, God! We used to talk so much. He ran problems past me, about business, about whether he should buy something or not. And I . . . I lived for him. He was my whole life.”
“I know,” Matt said, holding her, rocking her. “I know.”
“I married him when I was seventeen, and he was all I ever knew. He saved me. I was so unhappy, so unloved, but he took me away. If I hadn’t met him, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
Matt didn’t make any comment but just held her tightly, stroking her hair and rocking her.
“Why did he die? I don’t understand why. I needed him so much. Why did he have to go away and leave me so very alone?”
“Ssssh,” Matt said, soothing her. “You’re not alone. You’re with me. I’m here.”
Bailey couldn’t seem to stop crying. “He was the most wonderful man, so full of life. Jimmie could do anything. He could accomplish anything.” Her hands seemed to make claws as she clutched at Matt. His shoulder was wet, but she kept crying.
Turning, he sat down on the ground and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her to him as she cried.
“I more than miss him,” she whispered. “Without Jimmie I don’t seem to know what to do with myself. Jimmie never had an indecisive moment in his life, but I . . . I . . . ” She trailed off and for a moment Matt held her in silence.
“Ssssh, baby,” he said. “Quiet now.”
The sun was beginning to come up, and Bailey was starting to feel better. Yes, she thought, sniffing, it was as though something inside her had been released. It was as though something heavy had been taken from her.
And, suddenly, she was keenly aware that she was sitting on Matthew Longacre’s lap, and they were alone. Not that it was an unpleasant feeling, but she didn’t want what this could possibly lead to. Not yet. Right now, she felt as though Jimmie’s spirit was too close, as though he were hovering over her. But at the same time, she couldn’t come up with a reason for moving away from Matt’s comfort and warmth.
“Maybe you should learn how to—” Matt began.
Bailey pushed herself out of his arms. “Don’t you even think of telling me that I should learn how to live for myself,” she said. “Show me a person who lives for himself, and I’ll show you a narcissistic personality disorder.”
Matt laughed. “I know, and you’re right. My ex-wife lived for herself and no one else, and I can tell you that she was as narcissistic as they come.”
Bailey looked at him expectantly, waiting for more of the story. But in the next moment a cold drop of rain hit her on the nose, and she got off Matt’s lap.
“Let’s go inside,” he said as he stood up, “and I’ll tell you all the most intimate details of my past. It’ll take your mind off your own troubles.”
“I see. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“Famished.”
“And you’re willing to bare your soul to pay for your food?”
“Sure am.”
Bailey took a step toward the house, then turned to look back at him. “How many other people have you told this story?”
“No one on earth. And I can tell you that Patsy has done everything to get me to tell her why I married Cassandra.”
Nodding, smiling, Bailey turned back and walked toward the house, Matt behind her. Twenty minutes later, he was seated at the kitchen table. Before him was a strawberry and mascarpone cheese muffin, and Bailey was mixing the batter to make a Dutch baby—a big, baked pancake that would be filled with blackberries and sliced nectarines, then sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar.
“It’s time to pay the piper,” she said. She knew she should feel embarrassed about what had just passed between them, but she didn’t. Instead, she felt better than she had since the night Jimmie died. In fact, the colors in the room, ugly as it was, seemed brighter than they had before. Her big silver range seemed to gleam as bright as a star. “Story,” she said. “Tell me your story.”
Matt didn’t attempt to hide his pleasure at her asking. “Have you ever wanted something that you knew was no good for you but you couldn’t keep from taking it?”
“Yes,” Bailey answered instantly. “Chocolate.”
Matt smiled. “No, I mean, something bigger, more—”
“How about a basket the size of the one Moses floated in filled with Godiva chocolate? Raspberry creams. Caramels. Truffles. And you’ve been on a flavorless thousand-calorie-a-day diet for four weeks and three days, and you’re so weak your head spins every time you stand up, then, suddenly, there’s that chocolate, all that heavenly, rich, creamy chocolate. You could bathe in it, coat yourself in it. You could bite into it and watch it run down your arm, then lick it off. Is that the kind of wanting you mean?”