We left the oak stuff in Daniel’s truck in Thunderbolt and took the mahogany furniture back to the carriage house. I parked the truck in my slot in the lane. Daniel grimaced at the sight of Tal’s car parked there.
“I don’t like this.”
“It’s where I live,” I said.
“It’s where your ex-husband lives too.”
“I’m not moving,” I said, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “The carriage house is mine. I found it, I fixed it up, and I’m staying here.”
“Doesn’t it bother you, him living maybe fifty yards away? Knowing he’s watching you coming and going? Staring out the window at you?”
“A little,” I admitted. I couldn’t find the words to tell him how wretched it made me feel, moving out of the townhouse, or how it felt to see Caroline standing in what had been my kitchen, knowing she was carpeting over the hardwood floors I’d stripped, tearing down the wallpaper I’d pasted up, painting over the colors I’d lovingly picked for every room in the house.
“It’s freakin’ sick, is what it is,” Daniel said. “There’s a whole town here, Weezie. Savannah is loaded with old houses you could live in—and none of them have him living in the front yard. What’s so special about this place?”
How could I explain it to him when I couldn’t really explain it to myself? It was irrational, but it was there.
“You don’t have to come over here, if it bothers you that much,” I said.
“Is that what you want?”
“I want to get on with my own life,” I said, feeling my voice tighten. “I’m tired of worrying about what Tal thinks or what Mama wants. Just once, I’d like to do what feels good for me.”
“So do it,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Quit worrying about what other people think.”
“Including you?”
He laughed. “I was hoping we could work out a compromise there.”
“What kind of compromise?” I said, sliding out from under the steering wheel and snuggling up against him.
“Not here,” he said quickly. “Not with Tal hanging around.”
I moved back to my side of the seat. “Tell me something,” I said. “All this talk of yours about not worrying about what other people think…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t you have a family? Don’t you worry about how what you do will affect them?”
“No.”
“No, you don’t have a family, or no, you don’t care what they think?”
“I have a family,” he said cautiously.
“I know you have two brothers. That’s all. Where do they live? Are they still here in Savannah?”
“They’re around” was all he would say. “They live their life and I live mine. And they don’t get in my business,” he said fiercely. “Now, where do you want this furniture unloaded?”
Obviously, the subject was closed as far as he was concerned.
“Let’s put it under the carport,” I said. “I want to get it sanded and painted this afternoon.”
“Today? Right now?” He seemed disappointed.
“The sooner I get it done the sooner I can turn it around,” I said.
“What’s the big hurry?”
“They’ve rescheduled the Beaulieu sale. For next Saturday. There’s a really wonderful piece there. The Moses Weed cupboard. If I can buy it, it would be a major score. I could maybe make enough money to open my own shop. So I need to raise all the cash I can before Saturday.”
“A big deal,” Daniel said.
“A very big deal.”
He helped me unload the furniture and then glanced furtively around before giving me a chaste little kiss.
“You don’t want to stay and help me paint?” I asked, knowing the answer without hearing it.
“Not here,” Daniel said. So I took him home. Reluctantly.
The message light was flashing on my answering machine when I got home. “It’s Lester Dobie,” the voice said. “Why don’t you come on by and see me this afternoon?”
I glanced at my watch. It was after three o’clock. If I hustled, I could get the dressers sanded and painted in an hour, and then go see what was up with Lester before he closed the shop.
The paint got slapped on the furniture with mad abandon. That’s the good thing about this shabby chic look that’s so popular right now. It’s supposed to look old and cruddy.
When I went back inside the house, Jethro looked up expectantly.
“Come on, boy,” I told him. “Let’s go see Lester.”
He bounded out to the truck and jumped in the open window. Jethro loves riding in the truck, and he loves Lester even more.
“Hey, shug,” Lester said when we walked in the shop. He got up from his stool behind the counter and tossed a dog biscuit to Jethro.
“What’s up, Lester?” I asked.
He tugged at the bill of his fishing cap, a sure sign that he was excited. “Come on back in the office,” he said.
I followed him through the maze of clutter to his even more cluttered office. He closed the door and sat down at the old kneehole oak desk.
“What?”
“Shh,” he said. Then he ducked under the desk and brought out a brown-paper wrapped parcel. He handed it across the desk to me.
“Take a look at that,” he said.
I ripped the paper off and stared down at my cotton-picking painting. The T. Eugene White.
“It’s gorgeous,” I breathed.
The canvas fairly glowed with life now, the formerly muddy colors were transformed to emerald greens and sunflower yellows and rich crimsons and browns. Details that had been invisible before now stood out perfectly; a small dog near a fence that hadn’t been there before, puffy clouds rising in the bluest imaginable sky, even a red tractor was now visible in the foreground.
“Cleaned up pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”
Even the frame had been transformed. Dirt caked in the crevices of the carved molding had been painstakingly removed, and chips and cracks smoothed over and regilded.
“How did you do this?” I asked.
“I know a fella. Ron Ransome. He used to do all the Telfair Museum’s restoration work. He’s officially retired. Carves Santa Clauses for a living these days. But I thought he might be interested in working on this, since it’s a Southern artist. I didn’t expect to get it back for at least a month, but once Ron got working on it, he said he couldn’t stop. Had to see what was under all that grime.”
I propped the painting up in the windowsill and backed away to get another view of it. “Fantastic. I never dreamed it would look anything like this.”
Lester tugged at his cap again. “Ron got pretty excited when he was all done. Took some Polaroids of the painting and sent ’em overnight to a lady he knows in Charleston.”
“A decorator?”
He grinned. “Better. This lady works at the Gailliard Museum. She’s the director. Ron knew her because she hired him to clean up another T. Eugene White for their museum. Turns out your painting even has a name. Cotton Time. It’s a companion piece to the one they’ve got in their front parlor, which is called Planting Season.”
I was holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“And?”
“Weezie, they want to buy Cotton Time.”
“How much?” It came out with a strangled sound.
“The figure she mentioned to Ron was fifteen thousand.”
“Oh. My. God.”
“You won’t clear that much,” he said cautiously. “I already gave Ron a thousand for the restoration work, out of my own pocket, and it seems like he ought to get some consideration for setting you up with the Gailliard folks.”
“That’s fine,” I breathed. “What about your commission?”
“I wasn’t figuring on charging you a commission. We’re friends.”
“We’re business associates,” I insisted. “Lester, if you hadn’t spotted the T. Eugene White signature, I probably would have sold the painting for a couple hundred bucks. So let’s say a ten percent commission. Fifteen hundred for you, and fifteen hundred for Ron. Does that work for you?”
“I reckon,” he said, and a slow grin spread over his weathered face.
“Shame to have to take it up there to Charleston,” he said. “That’s one beautiful painting. Too bad it can’t stay right here in Savannah.”
“I know,” I said, tilting my head to get another look at it. I handed him the brown paper that had fallen to the floor. “Let’s wrap it back up quick, before I change my mind.”
“No time to change your mind,” Lester said. He handed me an envelope. “The Gailliard lady is driving down today to pick it up. But she sent the check down yesterday.”
I opened the envelope. It was a cashier’s check, made out to Eloise Foley, and it was for fifteen thousand dollars. Suddenly, my luck was starting to change. Except for the murder rap hanging over my head.