Window Dressing

“Certainly,” she said. “Of course, some people find it too emotional an experience—”

She let her voice trail off as she shook the newel post again then jotted something down in her notebook.

“No entrance hall,” she murmured as she jotted some more.

There had once been a tiny entrance hall and an enclosed staircase. The one big change Roger and I had made in the early years was to tear down the wall so that the narrow staircase was now open to the living room. Which meant that there was really no entrance hall, but I’d always thought it was worth it because it had opened up the living room so much.

“Small, isn’t it?” Sondra commented as she moved to the center of the room and inspected the ceiling. “This should really be replastered,” she said. “And I would strongly suggest changing your window treatments.”

I’d made the simple tieback muslin curtains that hung in the front windows myself. I’d always thought them charming. Sondra’s tone had reduced them to rags. I didn’t want to know what she thought of the rest of my decorating. She was probably inwardly sneering at my blue-and-white check camelback sofa and my chintz wingback chair, the cushion worn down to fit my tush like a baseball in a glove.

“You’re lucky wide-plank floors are back in style, but this one needs refinishing—or you could just carpet over it. It would probably make the room warmer.”

The dining room didn’t fare much better than the living room, but it was the kitchen that really took a beating.

“You’d be wise to have a new floor put in and the built-in booth in the breakfast nook should be torn out to open the room up.”

She wanted me to get rid of the booth where Gordy had eaten Froot Loops and fish sticks? Where he’d helped me decorate Christmas cookies and did his homework while I cooked dinner? I was debating whether to cry or to kick her out on her tight rear end when something she said caught my attention.

“Excuse me—what was that you just said?” I asked.

“I was just saying that you’ll have to get right on this list of improvements. It’ll be a miracle if we’re ready to show by the end of October. Once we hit November, things slow down until well after the holidays.”

“You mean the house could just be sitting here, empty, all through the holidays?”

She gave me another frosty smile. “Well, we don’t like to think so. I mean, our sales staff is excellent. But, this house hasn’t got much more than location going for it. I suggest we get it on the market as soon as possible. But, even with the best of properties,” she added in a tone that made it clear that this was not one of them, “people just don’t like to relocate during the holidays.” She sighed. “Now let’s take a look at the upstairs.”

I followed her up but I hardly heard anything else she said as she inspected the larger bedroom in the front and the two smaller ones in the back and I only vaguely heard her outrage when she discovered the one small bathroom with the claw-footed tub. I was too busy forming a plan.

Once she was gone, leaving a list of problems behind, I called Roger’s office. His secretary tried to put me off but I told her to tell him it was regarding the sale of the house. She put me on hold but it wasn’t long before Roger picked up.

I didn’t waste any words. “Roger, I think we need to talk. Could you drop by after work today?”

“If you spoke to your lawyer, Lauren, you know I’m well within my rights—”

“Roger,” I said pleasantly, “please. I know the house is going on the market. Sondra was here this morning and we went through the entire house together,” I said, making it sound like we’d bonded while discussing cracks in the ceiling. “She made a list of liabilities that I think we need to discuss.”

“Liabilities?”

I smiled. I’d gotten his attention.

“What kind of liabilities?”

“Well, the list is quite detailed and I thought we should probably go over it together.”

“Just fax me a copy, okay?”

“Roger, since I’m going to be living here while these repairs are being done, I’m the one who will have to handle the plasterers and painters and the carpenters. So I think—”

“Plasterers? Carpenters?” he grumbled before giving the kind of sigh that would have made me nervous if we were still married. “Yes, maybe we better discuss it.” I could hear him flipping pages on his day planner. “I’ll be there around six-thirty.”

“Perfect,” I said. When I hung up the phone I headed for the shower. I needed to get rid of the stench of yesterday’s pity party, then start making a grocery list.

I’d decided to splurge on ingredients, so I drove to the Market in the Cove in the heart of the village. When I pulled into the parking lot my heart did a little flip. God, I used to love this place. When Roger and I were still married I relished shopping here on Friday mornings, planning special dinners for the weekend. Once Roger split I’d started going to the bigger, less expensive chains. But they were just grocery shopping. The Market in the Cove, with its low green awnings and its clusters of pumpkins and corn stalks flanking the entrance, was an experience.

Buckets of fresh cut flowers greeted me as soon as I was through the door. Warm gold and vibrant orange zinnias. Jaunty brown-eyed Susans and roses of yellow and pink and red. There was a bucket of pale, creamy giant mums. I decided I had to have some of those. I grabbed a shopping cart and chose half a dozen. After the flower girl, in an adorable cobbler’s apron, wrapped them for me, I moved on to the butcher’s counter. The butcher wasn’t the same one as in the old days, but he was just as friendly when he held out the length of white butcher paper where an expertly trimmed loin of pork reclined for my approval before he wrapped it.

The fresh vegetable section was even more beautiful than the flower department. Every tomato appeared to be the same size and fully ripe. The asparagus was thin and tender enough to make one doubt the calendar and there were varieties of mushrooms I’d never even heard of. I chose a selection of vegetables to marinate and pan grill and was sorting through the fresh rosemary when I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Lauren! I haven’t seen you shopping here in ages!”

I grimaced. Amy Westcott. The biggest gossip in the Cove. I made myself smile before I turned around.

“Amy! What a surprise!”

Amy lived across the street from me in a huge Colonial that was decorated within an inch of its life. She had parlayed a fondness for painting vines, flowers and birds on assorted surfaces into a business. Amy’s Ambience, her little gift shop in the village, was stocked with the overflow from her house as well as hand-dipped candles, homemade soaps and a selection of useless, overpriced gifts. Moira and I had often speculated on how she managed to keep her shop open since there never seemed to be any customers.

“Is it true what I’ve heard?” she asked with that overly concerned air that people affect when they’re hoping that whatever horrible thing they’ve heard really is true.

My stomach clenched. Had Amy somehow heard that I was soon to be homeless? “I don’t know,” I answered pleasantly. “That depends on what you’ve heard.”

“That you’re selling your little house!” she exclaimed, her fresh-scrubbed face looking the picture of innocence. Amy never wore makeup. She didn’t have to. This was a woman who’d sailed through high school without a zit or a blackhead to slow her down. And she was sailing into middle age with barely a crow’s foot to her name. “I mean, I saw Sondra Hawk over there this morning, so I just thought—”

“Oh, that,” I said as I turned my attention back to the rosemary. “I was just having the house—um—appraised.”

“Appraised?”

I didn’t have to look at her to know that she was skeptical.

“Yes. I’m thinking of having another bathroom put in,” I said, a little astounded that I’d grabbed this idea out of thin air.

“But, didn’t Gordy just leave for college? I would think the last thing you’d need is another bathroom at this point.”

I looked at her in her white button down and sixteen inch strand of pearls and wanted to tell her that it was none of her business but it’s like I was programmed to be nice. So instead I gave her a bright smile and said, “Well, you never know what the future will hold, do you?”

I could see that this response had whetted her appetite for more information. I decided to counterattack. “So how is Chuck doing? The stock market is so unpredictable these days.” Chuck was a stockbroker who liked to brag that his clients were the only ones who hadn’t lost money in the ’90s.

“Oh—well—Chuck is fine. And, as always, he just has a knack for picking the right stocks,” she said with a brief laugh, then opened her mouth to pounce again.

I beat her to it.

“And the girls? How are Annabelle, Belinda and Camille doing?”

“Oh, the ABCs are doing terrifically,” she gushed. “I’m sure you heard about our Belinda coming in first at her twirling contest and—”

I nodded, smiled, oohed and aahed in all the right places as Amy talked batons and gymnastics and swim meets. The ABCs, as Amy and Chuck liked to refer to their girls of eight, ten and twelve, were, as Moira liked to put it, “nauseatingly talented.” Not to mention Amy’s favorite subject. She could go on for hours. And that’s exactly what it felt like she was doing.

I looked at my watch. I didn’t have any more time to be nice. “Oh, gosh, look at the time!” I interrupted. “Gotta rush. Nice to see you.” I tossed a bundle of rosemary onto my other groceries and took off, rattling my cart down the aisle and leaving her standing there in her Eddie Bauer khakis with a dumbfounded look on her face.