It was getting late. I needed to get back to Madison, Erwin apparently wanted to go for a walk, and Stephanie was getting bored with talking about interior design and restoration.
In the end, I talked her into giving me a guided tour of her inner soul—meaning, her closet.
She opened the door carefully and turned on the light switch.
“Damn” was all I could say.
It wasn’t a closet at all, but a full-sized guest bedroom. The wall opposite the door was wall-to-wall mirror. Hanging racks—the kind you see in department stores—filled the perimeter of the room. In fact, it reminded me of a designer salon in an upscale department store.
Everything was sorted by color and style, long dresses at one end, all the way to itty-bitty miniskirts at another end. Wooden cubbies held maybe sixty or seventy pairs of shoes.
“All of this is yours?” I asked, turning to Stephanie, who was lovingly running her hands down a black satin cocktail dress.
“Well, the winter stuff is actually in storage,” she said, a trace of apology in her voice. “And I keep the boots in the small closet in my bedroom.”
Erwin jumped down out of her arms and raced frantically toward the open door.
“Listen, I’ve got to take him for a walk before he piddles on the carpet,” Stephanie said. “Have you seen enough?”
“Not really,” I said. “Can’t I look around in here while you take him for a walk? I won’t touch anything.”
Her furrowed forehead told me she didn’t quite trust me in here—despite the fact that her size two clothing wouldn’t have fit on my big toe.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” she said. “And then you really will have to leave. I’ve got somebody coming over for drinks at seven, and I haven’t even showered yet.”
I nodded agreement, and she trotted down the stairs after her dog.
Stephanie’s taste in clothing was, luckily, consistent. She liked the big name designers. She liked cool colors—the only exception being red. She liked leather, she liked lush, expensive fabrics, and she liked classic with a touch of hip.
I jotted notes as I flipped through the clothes. Her business suits were fairly conservative, but each one showed a little dressmaker detail. This was good. I could use this. When I was done making notes, I stepped out into the hallway.
“Stephanie?” I called loudly. No answer.
I tiptoed over to the next door off the hallway and turned the knob slowly.
“All done?” Her voice echoed in the tile-floored foyer.
I must have jumped a foot. I snatched my hand away from the doorknob and skittered over to the stairwell. She stood at the base of it, holding Erwin in her arms, looking up at me expectantly.
“Yeah. Great. Wonderful,” I babbled, taking a stair with each word.
She held out a hand. “Nice to have met you.”
I shook. “Thanks. Listen…I know you’re supposed to have dinner with Will, Wednesday night at Bones. So it might be better if you don’t mention to him that we’ve met. Or that we discussed Mulberry Hill.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” I couldn’t tell her why not, because I didn’t really know. Except that he’d made up the rules for this ludicrous mission of mine, and I’d already intentionally broken them.
I cocked one eyebrow in a way that I hoped made me look sophisticated and worldly wise.
“It’s never a good idea to tell a man everything you know, is it?”
She beamed. “No. Definitely not. You’re right. We’ll keep this just between us girls.”
The hot bright sky started to cloud up just as I turned the Volvo onto the Interstate and headed east to Madison. Within five minutes it was raining so hard I could barely see a few feet in front of me.
I had to struggle to keep my eyes and my mind on the road. I kept thinking back to that closet, to the neat rows of skirts and jackets and dresses and blouses. I liked clothes myself. I liked how they expressed my outlook, how they could emphasize my good points and hide the bad. But Stephanie Scofield clearly had a fashion fixation. If I could somehow translate that into a design for Will Mahoney’s house, success would be mine.
A thought occurred to me that made me giggle. A long time ago, at another famous Georgia plantation house, a woman with a dilemma turned to interior design. Scarlett O’Hara needed a gown, so she’d turned to Tara’s green velvet portieres. Now I needed portieres, and then some. So maybe the solution was to literally ransack Stephanie’s closet to come up with portieres for Mulberry Hill.
I’d been listening to a politically correct jazz station when I left Atlanta, but the combination of mellow instrumentals and the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers nearly lulled me right to sleep.
When I found myself veering dangerously close to the center line of my lane, I finally resorted to rolling down the windows of the Volvo, allowing cold wet air to blow in on my face. Then I tuned the radio to a country music station, turned the volume up, and sang along with Garth Brooks, and then George Strait, with some Shania Twain thrown in for good measure.
This was much better. As I took the Madison exit off the Interstate, the radio started playing my favorite song of Tricia Yearwood’s, another good Georgia gal like me.
The rain sprayed in on me and I bellowed along with the song. Tricia and I sounded so fabulous together that I hated to hear the song end. I coasted to a stop in front of Glorious Interiors, and home, in the midst of the last chorus of “She’s In Love with the Boy.”
I glanced over at the doorway of the shop. What I saw there stopped me in mid-warble. There stood A.J., huddled under the black and white awning, his chin tucked down into the collar of an old blue windbreaker. His hair was damp and matted to his head, his skin was sallow, and he had large dark circles under his eyes. He didn’t look nearly as miserable as he deserved to be.
Any other time I would have had to circle the block two or three times to find a parking spot. Any other time I could have sailed right past and kept on going. But it was past business hours. Most of the downtown businesses had closed up shop for the night, and the only car parked on the street was A.J.’s Z-3, still sporting my misspelled handiwork.
Slowly I backed my car into the spot right behind his. I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror. My damp hair was a wild, windblown tangle of knots, and the rain had streaked what was left of my makeup. A.J. was watching me intently.
Fine, I thought grimly. He looked like shit. I looked like shit. At least we were on even ground.
I got out of the car and locked it.
“Hey,” he called softly.
“Hey,” I said right back, my rapier wit somehow failing me at that exact moment. I wanted to turn and run away, but my legs kept walking me right toward that doorway.
I was hoping that Gloria might come out and rescue me, that she might clobber A.J. with something heavy and blunt, or at least call him some very bad names. But the lights inside the shop had been turned off. Gloria had gone home. I was trapped.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to edge past him to the door. “Aren’t you supposed to still be in France?”
He shrugged, and a river of rain ran down his pants leg. “France blows,” he said. “We need to talk.”
I took my key and put it in the front door lock, deliberately turning my back to A.J. “Send me an e-mail,” I suggested, thrusting my hip against the door, which tends to stick in wet weather. “Send it to getthefuckouttamylife.com.”