Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
ISABEL
W hy, oh why did she have to do this? Ripping off her jeans, Izzy yanked on a pair of grey stretch pants. What else? Her mind tumbled. Finally she settled on a soft pink sweater Aunt Cate had given her for Christmas. Her aunt always had such good taste. Checking herself in the mirror, Izzy wouldn’t have recognized herself. She’d swept her blonde hair up in the front, letting two curls frame her face. Well, at least she’d tried to make those two shanks into curls.
Usually she wore jeans and a sweatshirt but interviewing architects? That sounded very official. She was representing the family and had to look presentable.
When had she felt this nervous? Maybe when she was waiting for the paperwork to adopt Holly, her baby girl. Back then the same self-defeating feelings had churned in her stomach. Could she do this? Was she up to it? Now the same feelings were making her a mess. How did she end up being the one in charge of these interviews? But Aunt Cate had an appointment pop up.
Looking in the mirror, she tried to talk sense to herself. “Izzy, you're the one living here. You should be glad that they trust you enough to put you in charge.” Brave words, but the feelings in her stomach didn’t agree. Piper seemed equally shy today. Her brown dog with the long tail had fallen asleep at the foot of Izzy’s bed. The poor thing had loved playing with Bogart, Sam's cat, during their recent visit. Now she seemed a little under the weather. Probably bored.
Well, the family was counting on her. Time to put on her big girl pants. Izzy went downstairs to wait. But she had a bad case of the jitters and ended up pacing from the living room through the kitchen and then back through the dining room and the main hallway. The place was still a mess. She hadn't had time to pick up all Holly's toys. Yesterday Aunt Cate had suggested that they get a cleaning lady to help. Izzy had taken that personally. Was that a casual comment to inspire her to drag out the vacuum? She was so darn busy with her shop and Holly.
She began half heartedly picking up Holly's things but ended up standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a bunch of colorful furry toys. What would she do with them? Peering into the pantry, she stuffed them into her slow cooker.
Don't be foolish , she told herself. Certainly these men have seen messes before in the homes they’ve worked on. Because she wanted to get this over with, Izzy had both prospects coming on the same day, an hour apart. She'd have to watch the time. The fact that Chase Wilson was already a little late didn't sit well with her. Is this what it would be like renovating Sunnycrest? Would she be waiting for people all the time?
By the time the doorbell rang a few minutes later, Izzy was worked up. Sucking in a deep breath, she pulled open the door. “We wish you a Merry Christmas,” began to sing behind her. Darn it . She hadn’t had time to reset the holiday jingle that was hooked up to the doorbell. Meeting her eyes, Chase Wilson was an attractive man in a casual bomber jacket. A leather portfolio was tucked under one arm.
“I see you've still got your Christmas decorations up.” The red ribbons hanging from the holiday wreath looked tired. She’d put the wreath up right after Thanksgiving.
“Doesn't everyone?” Izzy loved Christmas. She'd be sad to take down the tree and put the ornaments away, including that wreath. To her relief her aunt was in no hurry either. Izzy stepped back and Chase came inside, his eyes roving over the staircase and the open doorways to the living room on the left and the dining room on the right.
That morning everything looked old, including the threadbare oriental rug. She glanced down at his boots. The rugs were ancient but she didn't want to get them all messed up. Had he been in construction sites? Following her eyes, Chase toed off his boots and left them under the bench on the subway tile. His socks were sparkling white, as if they were new.
“Great place you’ve got here.” His eyes took in the banister strung with Christmas cards. “But it needs a facelift, right?”
Women got facelifts, especially some of the women who visited Charlevoix on the gorgeous yachts moored in the harbor each summer. But she'd never thought of a house that way. “I guess so. But we want to respect what we have.”
The night before she'd had a long conversation with Aunt Cate about what the family wanted. Izzy had been so disappointed when her aunt told her she had an appointment today. Sometimes Aunt Cate was very mysterious about where she went during the day. But maybe that was just Izzy's imagination. She wanted her aunt to develop a life of her own up in Charlevoix.
How she wished that Marlowe or Sam were with her now. But her sisters were trusting her and she could handle this. Straightening her shoulders, she mentally hitched up her stretch pants and turned into the living room.
“Follow me to the kitchen.” As they passed the tree, an ornament fell from a drooping bough and rolled across the floor. She casually kicked it under the coffee table and hoped Chase Wilson hadn’t noticed. Seeing the room with new eyes, she imagined disapproval on his face.
They reached the kitchen. “This room is a little dated.” A little? She tried to scan it with his eyes. The linoleum floors were cracked and the knotty pine cupboards were missing some knobs. “Wow. It has been a while.” Chase stood in the center and slowly turned. Then he opened his portfolio and took some notes.
It felt as if Chase had kicked Sunnycrest to the curb. “We love this house. I guess it had never occurred to us to update it.” Maybe she had thought about changing some things when she lived here with Skipper, her first husband, and Chuck, her rebound second husband. But in each case, redoing this house hadn’t been in the budget.
After opening a cabinet door and scrutinizing the interior, Chase wandered into the pantry. “There are a lot of homes like this up here. Family homes. Some people buy them and rent them out. They make the necessary updates to meet the market.” He turned to her with a questioning glance.
“Oh, we're not renting Sunnycrest out,” she said quickly. Izzy didn’t think that had even occurred to them. “That's not the plan.”
He turned his attention back to the pantry. “Perfect space for a powder room. I didn't see one off the hall. Do you have a mud room?” And so it went as they walked around. She tried to read his expression as he jotted notes in the portfolio, especially in the dining room, which suddenly looked dark and dreary. Why wasn’t the sun out that day?
Chase was very quiet as they took the backstairs up to the bedrooms. What was he thinking? Made her sick to see poor Sunnycrest through his eyes. So they hadn’t kept it “up to market”? How important was that?
“A lot of room up here.” He ran a hand over the peeling seam of the dark green wallpaper. Izzy remembered when her mother had put that wallpaper up herself. She wanted to tell him that at one time the green had been lighter. Her mother had loved the fleur-de-lis pattern done in gold. With a big table set up on the landing, she'd wielded her brush with authority. Her mother had been so talented and such a hard worker. Izzy hoped that she would approve of what they were planning to do up here. Chase wasn’t saying much and she took his silence as disapproval.
“One of these bedrooms is the master suite.” Izzy led the way to the bedroom where her parents had slept. Aunt Cate had tided it up and everything looked neat. Neat and old.
“That fireplace is nice.” He gestured toward the huge fireplace that was hardly ever used.
“Isn't it though?” The walnut was beautifully hand carved. The story was that their grandfather had brought it to Charlevoix from Chicago.
Izzy felt relieved when Chase didn't say anything about the dated furniture or the threadbare arms of the two love seats in front of the fireplace. But his silence weighed on her. Reminding herself to breathe, she led him from room to room until she came to her own bedroom. Piper lifted her head from the rosebud comforter for a second when they arrived. She gave a low growl until Izzy petted her.
“It’s okay, Piper.” The sweet dog like to nap on Izzy’s bed while Holly was sleeping in the crib. At night it was touching to see Piper curled up at the foot of the bed as if she were watching over the baby. But today Izzy was in daycare. Skipper said he’d bring her home.
Back out in the hallway, Chase paused at the attic door. “Are you interested in doing anything upstairs?”
Had anyone mentioned that? Oh, why couldn’t Izzy remember? “The attic? We haven't thought about it,” she finally pushed out. “This is a joint project with my two sisters and aunt. The upstairs is sort of a place that gathers...” She almost said memories. But she didn't want to be talking about memories with this man.
“Dust,” he said very matter-of-factly. “Attics are great for gathering dust. Some people like to create a bonus room on the third floor. The room might hold a TV for football games, pinball machines, that kind of thing.”
“We never thought of that.” Why not use the living room? The attic seemed so far away from everyone. But maybe some families liked to keep the living room formal. He'd been taking notes but now Chase tucked his clipboard under his arm. “So this is a joint project? Do you plan to make decisions by committee?”
Izzy didn’t care for his tone of voice, as if he’d just told her that he hated broccoli. “We’ll all have our opinions, sure.” Her sisters and aunt had been excited about the renovation. So he didn’t like the idea of dealing with all of them? For Izzy, joint decisions felt safe. She wanted everyone to be happy.
In silence they went back downstairs. The late afternoon sun had left the dining room in deep shadows. Izzy flicked on a light, wanting him to see the beauty of the room. The crystal chandelier still held drying pine boughs. But Chase didn’t seem to notice those beautiful crystals. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he ran a hand over the long table where they'd had so many wonderful family meals. “Will you be sending some of this furniture to the resale shop?”
Now, that was a shock. “We haven't talked about it. My grandfather had this table sent from Chicago. We'll probably keep it.” That long table had been there for ages. She could still picture Daddy at the head of it, wielding a carving knife as he explained how to cut into the breast just so to assure even slices.
Chase didn't look impressed, and Izzy tried not to feel insulted. The table was beautiful and so were the high-back chairs, covered in an embossed dark red brocade. Changing from the dated dark green had been a project for her mother. Izzy remembered the table covered with brown paper while her mother worked on the claret brocade that had been a special order. Every time Mom had uttered the word “claret,” Izzy knew how precious the fabric was.
“Any questions?” Chase asked, yanking her from the past. Finishing up his notes, he closed the portfolio and tucked it under one arm.
Izzy tried to channel Sam. What would her sister say? “Have you, um, worked on a lot of projects like this one?”
By that time they were back out in the hallway, and Chase turned. Under his open jacket his oxford cloth shirt looked clean and crisp, as if it had been sent out to the cleaners, along with his khaki slacks. “We work on homes like this all the time. Family relics brought to new life. And I can tell you that people are really into the open concept.”
Relics? Izzy’s head began to throb. But Chase wasn’t finished. He’d gone back into the living room and swept a hand back toward the kitchen. “You might consider tearing out the wall between the kitchen and the living room area to make it more casual. That would give more room for a cooking island and a counter. In the dining room I guess you have to decide how much you want to keep. Formal dining rooms aren’t that popular anymore.”
“Popular?” Since when did a room have to be popular?
Frowning, Chase had come back out into the hall, his socks a stark white against the ivory and black tiles. “I’m thinking the kitchen is a complete demolition. Everything will have to come out. We can work on getting some more room in the area. That side porch? Is that space you would consider giving up?”
“No!” The word swatted the air like a baseball bat. She’d bitten her tongue and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Izzy swallowed. No way were they getting rid of that screen porch. Thinking of the summers when she would stretch out in that hammock and read, she was shocked by his suggestion. She couldn’t lose that special space under the shade trees. As a little girl, she’d curled up on the double hammock between her parents while they talked about spending more time at Sunnycrest in the fall and winter. The old rattan chairs still had the faded turquoise cushions that the family stored in the kitchen while they were gone.
“And upstairs?”
“Upstairs?” She’d lost her train of thought and could only stare at him stupidly. Upstairs, what?
“What would you like upstairs in those bedrooms?” Speaking slowly, he brought out the portfolio to check his notes.
“We'd like each room to become…an ensuite.” That had been Marlowe’s word and Izzy loved it. Ensuite sounded so french and sophisticated. Much better than we need a bathroom .
The scratching of his pen on paper was becoming irritating. “Smart move. We can easily do that. The rooms are large and we can expand closets along one wall and then put in a great bathroom with all the bells and whistles.” Setting his notes on the bench, Chase sat down and pulled on his shoes. Studying his hair, which was thinning at the top, Izzy imagined the sounds of bells and whistles coming from the second floor.
Time was moving on. Glancing at the old grandfather clock in the hall, Izzy wanted him gone. The local contractors probably all knew each other. She didn't want two of them bumping into each other. He seemed to get the idea and stepped toward the door.
“Why don't I come up with a quote for you and email it. Then we can meet again to go over my ideas and see if they’re in line with yours.”
“Sure. Right.” She could forward the quote to everyone. When he reached for her hand, his was cold. The handshake was brief and then he was gone.
Almost weak with relief, she stood in the doorway, arms across her chest in the wintry breeze. Izzy watched Chase back his shiny black truck out of the driveway. One down and one to go. She wasn’t looking forward to going through this again.
Izzy was beginning to wonder about Marlowe’s new friend Gabby. The Quinns were just regular people. Nothing fancy or stuck up about them. Some of these ideas? Well, they hurt her heart. She pressed her right hand against it. Right now her heart was thudding to a Ringo Starr beat.