Sooner or later, she told herself, the interest would die down. When she caught sight of paparazzi stalking her while she shopped for hardware or lumber, she didn’t acknowledge them. When she saw pictures of her home, of herself in the tabloids or gossip magazines, she turned her mind to other things. And when her mother’s publicist called with requests for interviews and photo layouts, Cilla firmly hung up.
She went about her business, and prayed that one of the current Hollywood crop of bad girls would do something outrageous enough to shift the attention. As July sweated its way toward August, she concentrated on the house. She had plenty to do.
“Why do you want a sink over here,” Buddy demanded, “when you’re putting a sink over there?”
“It’s a prep sink, Buddy, and I don’t honestly know why I want one.
I just do. Sink here.” She laid a fingertip on the revised, and absolutely final, drawing of her kitchen. “Dishwasher here. Refrigerator. And over here, the prep sink in the work island.”
“It’s your business.” He said it in the way, as he often did, that told her she didn’t know squat. “But I’m just saying, if you’re putting this here island in, you’re cutting into your counter space by putting a sink into it.”
“It’ll have a cutting-board top. On when I want to chop something, off when I want to wash something.”
“What?”
“Jesus, Buddy. Um, vegetables.”
He gave her his bulldog frown. “Then what’re you going to wash in the other sink?”
“The blood off my hands after I stab you to death with my screwdriver. ”
His lips twitched. “You got some weird-ass ideas.”
“Yeah? Wait for this one. I want a pot-filler faucet.”
“You’re going to have two damn sinks, and you want one of them gadgets that swings out on an arm from the wall over the stove to fill pans with water?”
“Yes, I do. Maybe I want to fill really big pots with water for pasta, or for washing my damn feet. Or for boiling the heads of cranky plumbers who argue with me. Maybe I’ve developed a faucet fetish. But I want it.”
She walked over, tapped her fist on the wall where she’d drawn a circle with an X in it with a carpenter’s pencil. “And I want it right here.”
He cast his eyes to the ceiling, as if asking God what possessed her. “Gonna have to run pipes, so we’re gonna have to cut that plaster to run ’em down, tie ’em in.”
“I know that.”
“It’s your house.”
“Yeah. It is.”
“I heard you bought another one, that old place out on Bing.”
“It looks that way.” The little flutter in the belly signaled excitement and nerves. “We don’t settle until October, but it looks that way.”
“I guess you’ll be wanting your fancy doodads in that one, too.”
“You’ll be pleased to know I plan to go more basic there.” She had to fold her lips when she caught the disappointment on his face.
“You say that now. Well, I can start the rough-in on Thursday.”
“That’d be great.”
She left him to his scowling and calculations.
The kitchen cabinets should be done in a couple weeks, she estimated, and could be stored, if necessary, while the plumbing, the wiring were roughed, inspected, finished, inspected. The plaster repaired, the painting done, the floors laid. If her countertops came in on schedule, she might have a finished kitchen, excepting the refitted appliances, by Labor Day.
Maybe she’d have a party after all. And even thinking about planning a party probably jinxed the entire thing.
“Knock, knock!” Cathy Morrow poked her head in the front door. “Brian said you wouldn’t mind if I came right in.”
“I don’t. How are you?”
“Just fine, except for dying of curiosity. Brian’s been telling us how wonderful everything looks, so Tom and I just had to come by and see for ourselves. Tom’s out there in the back where you’re having the stone wall built up. For shrubs, Brian said.”
“It’ll add height and depth to the yard and cut back on the mowing.”
“I don’t think Brian’s ever done so much work for a private client-noncommercial, I mean. He’s just… Oh, Cilla! This is just beautiful.”
With a flush of pride, Cilla watched Cathy walk around the living room. “It’s finished except for refinishing the floor, and we’ll do all of them at the same time. And for furniture, and accessories, art, window treatments and a few minor details such as…”
“It’s so open and warm. I love the light. Are those shamrocks on the collar, or whatever you call it?”
“Medallion, and yes. Dobby did an amazing job. And the fixture’s true to the architecture of the house. I don’t know what was there originally. I couldn’t find any pictures showing it, and my father couldn’t remember. But I think the straightforward Arts and Crafts lines and the design, with the diamond shapes of amber and deep blue, work.”
“It’s just lovely. But, oh my God, the fireplace.”
“Focal point.” Walking over, Cilla stroked her hand down the deep blue of the granite. “I wanted it to pop against the walls, the way the sky pops against the mountains. And a strong color like this needed a strong mantel.”
“Wasn’t it… Yes, it was brick before.”
“Smoke-stained and pocked, and the hearth didn’t meet code, which you can see by the burn marks from stray embers in the floor.”
“It’s funny, all I remember about this room, or the house, really, was so up-to-the-minute. The long sofa in lipstick pink with white satin pillows. I was so impressed. And the way Janet looked sitting on it in a blue dress. She was so beautiful. Well, everyone was,” Cathy added with a laugh. “The celebrities, the rich and famous and important. I couldn’t believe I was here. We were only invited because Tom’s father was a very important local figure, but I didn’t care why. We were invited here three times, and every time was almost painfully exciting.
“Lord, I was younger than you the last time I was here-in that era, I mean. So much time between,” she said with a wistful sigh. “The last time was a Christmas party. All the decorations, the lights. Champagne, endless glasses of champagne, music. That amazing couch. People begged her to sing until she gave in. There was a white baby grand over by the window, and… Oh! Who was it, who was it everyone thought she was having a blistering affair with… the composer? And it turned out he was gay. He died of AIDS.”
"Lenny Eisner.”
"Yes, yes. God, gorgeous man. Anyway, he played, and she sang. Magic. It would’ve been the Christmas before your uncle was killed.
“I’m sorry,” Cathy said suddenly. “I’m daydreaming out loud.”
“No, I like hearing about the way it was. The way she was.”
Cathy tucked back her swing of glossy hair. “I can tell you no one shone brighter than Janet. I think, yes, Marianna was just a few weeks old, and it was the first time we’d gotten a sitter. I was so nervous about leaving her, and so self-conscious because I still had all that baby weight on me. But Janet asked me about the baby, and told me how pretty I looked. It was kind of her, as I’d blown up like a whale with Marianna, and was barely down to hippo. And I remember because my mother-in-law nagged me about eating so many canapés. How would I lose the weight if I ate so much? Irritating woman. Oh, but Tom’s father, I remember, too, how handsome he looked that night. So robust and dashing, and how Janet flirted with him, which irritated my mother-in-law and pleased me to no end.”
She let out a laugh now, tickled by the memory. “We never did take, Tom’s mother and I. Yes, he did look handsome that night. You’d never have believed cancer would take him so horribly just twelve years later. They stood right in here, Janet and Drew-Andrew, Tom’s daddy. And then they were both gone.