Southern Comforts

“I’ll have to think about it.”

“Of course.” Mary Lou sat back in her chair and gave Chelsea a pleased, satisfied smile. “And while you’re thinking, why don’t you get out of this terrible weather?”

“Good idea. Why don’t you call my editor and have her assign me an article about snorkeling in the Bahamas.”

“Actually, I had somewhere closer in mind. Roxanne thought you might want an opportunity to speak with her personally, at her home in Georgia, before coming to a decision. I agreed it was a good idea. She would, of course, pay all your travel expenses.”

Promising to give Mary Lou an answer by the end of the week, Chelsea left the office. As she dashed through the cold rain toward the battered yellow cab the doorman had hailed for her, Chelsea couldn’t deny that the idea of a few days spent lying poolside in a warm southern sun sounded more than a little appealing.

It would also allow her a breather from her recent nonstop schedule. It would force a time-out in her ongoing argument with Nelson. Just the memory of how she’d spent the weekend had her digging in her bag for her roll of antacids.

Despite the French toast—which unsurprisingly, hadn’t turned out nearly as well as when Roxanne had prepared it for Joan Lundon—despite the fact that she’d told him time and time again that she was a print journalist, he’d spent the entire two days pushing the idea of her “branching out” into television.

As she chewed the chalky tablets she seemed to be living on these days, it crossed Chelsea’s mind that the concentration required by ghostwriting Roxanne Scarbrough’s biography could take her mind off her problems.

While giving her a whole set of new ones, Chelsea considered as Roxanne’s furious eyes and pursed lips came to mind.

Raintree

It was the house that cotton built. Constructed in 1837, prior to the Civil War, it was the same Greek Revival style made familiar the world over by the most famous movie ever made about the South. Twenty-two Doric columns—three feet in circumference and forty feet high, Cash estimated—surrounded the two-story house, eight in front, and seven on either side.

“The walls are eighteen inches thick.” Roxanne ran her hand over the exterior facing. “And the bricks were made right here on the property.”

“By slave labor.”

She shot him a surprised, faintly censorious look. “That wasn’t unusual for the time.”

“Unfortunately, you’re right.” Deciding that if he was going to allow political correctness to enter into his business decisions—especially in this part of the country—he’d be broke before the end of the year, Cash put aside his discomfort with how the house had been constructed.

“Your porch is crumbling.” He put a booted foot on one of the boards, crushing it like an eggshell. “It’s about to cave in.”

“So we’ll replace it. Surely that shouldn’t be so difficult.”

“No. But it’s the first thing that will have to be done, or workers won’t be able to get into the place safely.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” She rewarded him with an admiring look. “How clever of you.”

“Not clever. I’m just not wild about the idea of having some plasterer break his neck.”

Before risking the porch, he spent a long time examining the foundation. It appeared to be solid. And the cracks could be easily fixed.

“I realize you’ve already had an engineering report,” he said, looking up at the massive columns. “And the foundation certainly looks secure. But since these are supporting the roof, I’ll want them professionally inspected, as well.”

“I certainly don’t want the roof caving in during my gala open house ball,” she agreed.

He had to give her credit for having a vivid imagination. The place, which was even more of a challenge than he’d expected, reminded him of the house the Addams family might live in were they to decide to relocate to the old South. But she was already planning balls. Which figured. Balls were a traditional southern event—like high school Friday night football—planned with all the attention that the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave to planning an invasion. And with as much hoopla and pageantry as a New Orleans Mardi Gras.

“The house has a marvelous history,” she told him as she followed him through the rooms. Lacy spiderwebs hung in all the corners, draped over fireplace mantels. “It was built by a young man, Edwin Blount, a distant cousin to Eugenia Blount Lamar.”

The name had been dropped as if he were expected to know it. He didn’t.

“Eugenia was a president-general of the Daughters of the Confederacy,” she explained at his politely blank look.

“Ah.” He nodded. “That Blount.”

Her eyes narrowed momentarily, as if suspecting she’d heard a tinge of sarcasm in his mild tone. Obviously deciding she’d imagined it, she went on with her story.

“They were to be married in the gardens out back. But the bride ran off with her daddy’s cotton broker on the day of the wedding. Poor Edwin.” She sighed dramatically. “It was a terrible scandal.”

“I can imagine.” Cash’s mutinous mind conjured up another image of Chelsea, seated behind him on his Harley, escaping from her cousin’s wedding.

It had been their last night together. And their hottest. He could remember every single detail except how many times she’d come. They’d both lost track long before dawn. Before he’d taken her back to her safe, traditional, old-money life. And her stiff-necked boyfriend.

What would have happened, Cash wondered, if she’d agreed to go to San Francisco with him that night? Would they have gotten married? Would he have become successful—and in turn, rich enough—to turn his back on the career he’d sought with such single-minded determination, to return home to his roots?

Hell. Reminding himself that Sunday morning quarterbacking was an amateur sport, and that thinking about might have beens was for losers, Cash returned his thoughts back to Roxanne’s running monologue.

“Of course the poor man couldn’t possibly live in the house,” she was saying. “Not after having received such a crushing emotional blow. Not to mention such a public humiliation.”

As he ran his fingers through the dust coating a nearby window, Cash murmured something that could have been an agreement.

“So he sold it to Ezekial Berry. Who was, of course, a descendant of the Virginia Berrys of Atlanta. His wife, Jane, was one of the Chattahoochee Valley Fitzgeralds. She was pregnant with their first child at the time.”

There was simply no escaping it. Who are your people? Cash decided that the old European aristocracy had nothing on southerners when it came to tracking ancestral bloodlines.

He wondered how anxious Roxanne Scarbrough would be to work with him if she knew his background. “The window glass has lost a lot of glazing,” he said. “But the majority of it, at least on this floor, seems in good shape.”

“Well, that’s good news.”

“It could be all you’re going to get.” He crossed the room. “The plaster’s a mess.” He picked at the cracked and broken wall. “See this?” He plucked out some black fibers and handed them to her.

“They feel a bit like paint brush bristles.”

“Close. It’s hair. Curried from the backs of horses or hogs undoubtedly raised on the plantation. Builders used it to help hold the plaster together.”

“How ingenious.”

“It’s also expensive to replace.”

“Surely they don’t use hog hair any longer?”

“No. Although, the technique’s the same, with plaster or strands of Fiberglas in place of the hair. But a good plaster man is hard to find these days. And when you can find one, he doesn’t come cheap.”

She tossed the black hairs onto the scarred wooden floor. “I told you, Mr. Beaudine, money is no object.”

Her words reminded Cash that he’d definitely come home to a new South. A booming South. A South on the rise. And riding that tide of economic prosperity were new people, creating new jobs, making new money. And spending it with an enthusiasm that made the old southern aristocracy sit up and take notice.

“Now where have I heard that before?” he murmured as he squatted down and frowned at the ominous trail of sawdust running along the baseboard.

“In this case it’s the truth,” she snapped, abandoning her spun sugar demeanor. “This home is my pièce de résistance. It’s the culmination of my life’s work. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve struggled for, ends here. There will be,” she repeated firmly, her eyes as hard as stones, her lips pulled into a thin line, “no expense spared to do this correctly.”

Cash couldn’t help being impressed with her resolve. But he was still not entirely convinced. As they finished the tour of the house, risking the treacherous stairs to examine the second floor, he wondered if she realized that this project was a helluva long way from creating the ultimate Easter basket.

“That’s another thing.” He leaned against the crumbling wall of the grand entry hall, folded his arms across his chest and looked down at her. “You’re going to have to decide whether you want to renovate Belle Terre. Or restore it.”

“Renovate, restore, what’s the difference?” She was clearly growing impatient at his unwillingness to embrace her latest enterprise.

“There’s a big difference.” As her tone grew more harsh, he purposely kept his mild. “A restoration is a pure as possible replication of a home to its original state. While a renovation is exactly that—rebuilding to update the home with modern conveniences, to make it new again. And if authenticity has to fall by the wayside, too bad.”

Her frown revealed that she’d not exactly thought this little dilemma through. Cash wasn’t surprised. He’d discovered that most people had a rather serendipitous view of turning some crumbling ruin into an exact replica of its former glory, while also wanting to toss in a few Jacuzzi tubs, microwave ovens and media walls for comfort and convenience.

“As a purist, I believe I’d favor restoration.” Her gaze slowly circled the high ceilings and hand-carved moldings. “However, having seen the bathrooms, I have to admit that there’s a great deal to be said for renovation.”

Her eyes, which revealed intelligence and resolve along with the first sign of concern Cash had witnessed, met his. “I don’t suppose we could combine the two?” she asked hopefully.

“That’s usually the way it’s done.”

Her relief was palpable. “Then that’s what we’ll do. This project is incredibly important to me, Mr. Beaudine. I have a film crew on hand to document the reconstruction. I’m also in the process of negotiating with a writer, Chelsea Cassidy, to collaborate on my autobiography, which will, of course, include the restoration of Belle Terre.”

“Chelsea Cassidy is your biographer?” Having grown up having to fight for everything he’d accomplished, Cash had never been a big believer in fate. The idea of Chelsea coming to Raintree to ghostwrite Roxanne Scarbrough’s life story had him reconsidering.

“You know Ms. Cassidy?”

“I read her article in this month’s Vanity Fair.”

It had managed to be interesting, amusing and insightful. All at the same time. Which had been a surprise. He’d known that Chelsea was intelligent. And ambitious. But since their relationship hadn’t included much conversation, he’d failed to realize she was extremely talented outside the bedroom.

“Considering her lightweight subject matter, the article was quite entertaining,” Roxanne sniffed. “She does, however, happen to be the most sought after writer in her field. It’s quite a coup that she’s agreed to write my life story.”

Roxanne failed to even consider the possibility that Chelsea might refuse the assignment.

“Won’t it be difficult to collaborate?” Cash asked. “With her living in New York and you here in Raintree?”

One thing he didn’t want to do was to agree to take on such a Herculean restoration project only to discover that the owner of the house was spending most of her time in the Big Apple instead of where she belonged—on the job site making decisions.

“I’m sure it would be, if that’s the way we were working,” Roxanne agreed. “However, I intend for Ms. Cassidy to move into my house with me. That way, I can continue to oversee the restoration of Belle Terre and she can get a true feel for who I am. And how I work.”

It was the truth, so far as it went. The one part of her answer that was an out-and-out lie was the idea that anyone would learn the truth about who she really was.

That idea brought back George Waggoner’s letter. And caused another bubble of icy panic.

“We should discuss my fees,” Cash said. “I’m not inexpensive.”

“I didn’t expect you to be. I demand the best, Mr. Beaudine. And am willing to pay for it. I was also told by your other clients that you usually work on an hourly basis, rather than a flat fee.”

So she’d checked him out. That wasn’t so surprising, Cash decided. It also revealed that she had a sensible head on those silk-clad shoulders. Since his return to Georgia, he’d had more than one prospective customer want to hire him simply because of his illustrious reputation.

And then there were always those lonely wives who were more than willing to have their husbands pay to knock down walls and change rooflines while they received a little personal fix up in the bedroom.

Those jobs Cash had steadfastly refused.

“Flat fees are easier to calculate with new construction because there aren’t so many surprises. With renovations, hourly fees seem to work best. Another way we can do it, since we’re probably going to exceed whatever schedule we come up with by several weeks in a project this big, is for me to bill you twenty percent of the total construction costs.”

“I believe I prefer that last option,” she mused. “However, we’d have to negotiate the payment schedule.”

“Of course.”

“And what extras you intend to bill for. Such as which of us pays for inspections, blueprints, telephone calls, fax charges and such.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“Of course. I didn’t reach the heights I’ve reached by being foolish about money, Mr. Beaudine.”

Cash nodded. “I’m beginning to understand that, Miz Scarbrough.”

“Then do we have an agreement?”

He glanced around the house, thought about the challenge it represented and knew that it could be a pile of crumbling bricks covered with Spanish moss and kudzu vines and he’d have no choice but to take it on, now that Chelsea was part of the picture.

“If we can work out the details,” he said, not wanting to let Roxanne think she could win the upper hand that easily.

She waved off his qualification. The diamonds adorning her fingers and wrists glistened like ice in the late afternoon sun streaming through windows in need of reglazing. “I’m sure there’ll be no problem.” She held out her hand. “Shall we shake on agreeing to come to an agreement, at least?”

Cash took her outstretched hand. “Looks like you’ve just hired yourself an architect.”

Arizona

George Waggoner sat in the seat of the Greyhound bus speeding across the Sonoran Desert, stared blearily out the window and decided that this had to be the shit ugliest country he’d ever seen. It was all dirt. And rocks. Hell, it reminded him of somethin’ a tomcat would crap in.

“And on the eighth day, God looked down, slapped his forehead and said, hot damn, I finally found the place to put the world’s litter box.”

Enjoying his little joke, he chuckled, which in turn drew a nervous smile from the young woman sitting across the aisle from him. George glared back.

Another goddamn slant-eye. Just like the one behind him. And the wrinkled up, yellow-skinned old bitch in front of him. Christ, the entire country was being overrun with the chinks, wetbacks and rag heads. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be any room left for the real Americans. He took a slug from the bottle of rotgut whiskey he had wrapped in a paper bag and waited for the kick.

They weren’t like the niggers back home, either. Back in Georgia, blacks with any brains at all could take one look at him and know that it was better just to stay the hell out of his way.

But these assholes were different. They were pushy. All the time crowding in where they didn’t belong, talkin’ their gibberish about Christ knew what.

Hell. It was bad enough that the government didn’t do anything about keeping them out. Personally, if he was the president, he’d go on television and declare a national hunting day on immigrants. Make a bundle off sellin’ the hunting tags that would pay off the national debt, and let good old boys like George Waggoner take care of the problem.

And not just a day, he decided. Hell, just pass a constitutional amendment making it open season on everyone who wasn’t a red-blooded American. That’d be a guaran-goddam-teed way to solve the problem.

He took another pull from the bottle. Then pointed his index finger at the woman across the aisle, aimed and pulled the trigger. In his mind’s eye, he received a certain satisfaction from imagining that sloped head explode like an overripe crenshaw melon dropped onto the sidewalk from the top of the prison tower.

She gasped, her gaze locked on his, like a scared mouse hypnotized by a swaying cobra. Enjoying the fantasy, and her fear, he winked.

Visibly trembling, she jumped to her feet and hurried back up the aisle to the restroom. George barked a cigarette-roughened laugh that degenerated into a rattling cough. Then he settled back in the seat, returned to his bottle and contemplated the look on little ole Cora Mae Padgett’s face when he showed up on the doorstep of Roxanne Scarbrough’s fancy mansion.

Chapter Four

New York

Although Chelsea’s suit was comparatively restrained, the emerald color proved a stunning foil for her brilliant hair. As she dashed into the Plaza’s Palm Court, heads swiveled, watching her make a beeline for a table across the way.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” She bent down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that interview with Bruce Willis.”

Deidre Lowell managed a brittle smile. “You could have simply informed the man that you had a luncheon date with your mother.”

Chelsea grinned, still riding the high of her successful morning. “I suppose I could have tried that,” she agreed. “But then I would have missed the neatest story about the day he and Demi took the kids to the zoo, and—”

“I’m sure it’s a delightful tale,” Deidre cut her off. “However, I have an appointment for a facial at two, and since I don’t dare keep Rodica waiting, I suggest you sit down and order.”

The cool, perfectly rounded tones were all it took to puncture the little bubble of happiness Chelsea had been riding due to her successful morning. She’d discovered at an early age that unless she tried very hard to avoid it, conversations with her mother usually resulted in her apologizing. A bit resentful at feeling like a chastised six-year-old, she did as instructed.

They managed to exchange a bit of small talk about her mother’s book club group and numerous charitable activities while they waited for their orders to be delivered. By the time their salads and cups of Earl Grey tea were delivered, Chelsea had actually begun to relax. Which was, of course, always a mistake.

Deidre’s gaze swept over her. “You know, dear,” she said, “you really need to get your hair trimmed. You’re starting to look like the Longworths’ sheepdog, what was his name? Mercedes?”

“Bentley. And I’ve been busy.” Hating herself for falling into old patterns, Chelsea brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

“So Nelson has been telling me. He says your career has been taking up a great deal of time recently.”

Chelsea would have had to have been deaf not to hear the scorn her mother had heaped on the word career. She told herself that one of these days she was going to get used to the unwavering disapproval.

After all, her mother had made her feelings known from the beginning. In fact, frustrated by a teenage Chelsea’s total lack of interest in proper pastimes such as dancing school at the Colony Club, tennis at the Meadow Club, and regattas at Newport, Deidre Lowell had shipped her off to Switzerland to be schooled in womanly graces.

Those four years in exile, were, thus far, the worst experience of her life. Even worse than her mother’s bitter divorce from Chelsea’s father when she was six. Or the death of Dylan Cassidy when she was ten.

Rather than deter her daughter from her chosen goal, all Deidre Lowell (she’d long since dropped the Cassidy acquired upon her ill-fated marriage to Chelsea’s father) managed to do was make the flame burn hotter. Brighter. It was during those years when she’d been banished abroad that writing became the only fixed star in Chelsea’s firmament.

“It’s been hectic,” Chelsea allowed. “But I’d rather be too busy, than have no work at all.”

Her mother didn’t answer. But the way her lips drew into a tight disapproving line spoke volumes.

“Nelson said you’re going to write a book about Roxanne Scarbrough.”

“I’m considering it.”

“Who on earth would buy such a book?”

“Perhaps all those millions of people who buy her lifestyle books,” Chelsea said mildly. She refused to be drawn into a position of defending a woman she didn’t even like.

“She’s nouveau riche.”

“I don’t know about the nouveau. But you’ve got the rich part right.”

“Honestly, Chelsea.” Deidre frowned and took a sip of tea from the gilt-rimmed cup. “Must you joke about everything?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not sure people care about things like that anymore, Mother.”

“I believe you’re right.”

“You do?” Chelsea took a sip of her own tea and contemplated ordering champagne instead. After all, any occasion when she and her mother actually found something to agree about should be celebrated.

“Of course. And that,” Deidre said stiffly, “is precisely what’s wrong with this country. People have lost all sense of values.”

“I don’t believe gilding a few pomegranates will lead to the downfall of western civilization,” Chelsea argued lightly.

“Laugh if you want to, but the woman is a menace. Would you believe that I found Tillie in the kitchen, watching her television program and practicing folding napkins into the shapes of swans?”

“That is hard to believe.” Chelsea decided that if the longtime Lowell housekeeper, a woman infamous for having things her own way, had actually become a fan, it was no wonder Roxanne topped the NYT bestseller list week after week.

“I nearly had a heart attack,” Deidre, who’d never been known for overstatement, said grimly. “I really don’t believe you should encourage such things, Chelsea.”

“I haven’t made up my mind whether I’m going to take the offer, Mother.”

“An interview with some self-appointed style maven is not exactly on a par with achieving world peace,” Deidre stated in the superior tone Chelsea knew well.

“True enough. But it could be important to me. It could mean a lot of national publicity.”

“That’s precisely what disturbs me,” Deidre complained. “All this striving to get your name in the magazines. And newspapers. Good grief, Chelsea, you sound just like your father.”

Despite her frustration, that icy remark drew a quick grin. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“You would.” Deidre shook her blond head. “I don’t understand you.”

“I know.” And never had, Chelsea tacked on silently. “And as much as I’d love to try to explain it to you again, you have a facial to get to. And I have to try to track down John Kennedy Jr. I heard the most amazing story this morning—”

“You know I refuse to listen to Kennedy gossip, Chelsea,” Deidre cut her off.

“I know, but—”

“Joe Kennedy was nothing but a shanty Irish bootlegger who married above himself. Even though Rose was Catholic, she could have done much better.”

“I know you believe that—”

“It’s the truth. However, speaking of marriage, when are you and Nelson going to start planning your wedding?”