Flipped Out Page 5

  A shuffling noise brought me back to the present. Kate and Shannon were still standing in the doorway. Well, Kate was; Shannon was moving away to see what Derek was up to. I smiled apologetically up at Kate. “Sorry. I got distracted.”

  “No problem.” She grinned back. “You know Shannon. She’s always adored Derek. She was just waiting for an excuse to go find him.”

  Derek has that effect on most women, from toddlers to dignified old ladies. If it had been anyone else, I might have worried. Shannon is gorgeous, with her mother’s height and centerfold figure; the kind that can stop traffic. But for all that she clearly adores Derek, I don’t think she’s ever harbored any fantasies in his direction. She enjoys talking and even flirting mildly with him, but he’s just practice for whenever she gets serious about someone her own age.

  “The crew is staying at the B and B with you,” I said to Kate, and got a nod in return. “I know it’s none of my business, but how are the sleeping arrangements? With five people and only four rooms . . .”

  Kate grinned. “You trying to figure out who’s got a relationship on the side?”

  I shrugged. So sue me. The way Adam was flirting with all and sundry, surely he had to be sleeping with someone.

  “As far as I know,” Kate continued, “nobody does. Or if they do, they’re being discreet. Nina’s in the suite and Fae’s in my old room. The men are on the second floor.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “That you might have put your own room into service. How is everything going?”

  She shrugged. “Fine, so far. No problems. They arrived late last night. They’d stopped for dinner on the way from the airport, so they just went to their rooms and to bed. Nobody sleepwalked or had nightmares. I fed them blueberry pancakes this morning. Nina picked at her food. Worried about gaining weight, I guess. Adam flirted with everyone, including me. Ted had his nose buried in a book, and Wilson was friendly.”

  “They seem like a nice bunch of people, for the most part.”

  Kate nodded. “What happened to the guy who used to host the show? Stu somebody? I hope they didn’t fire him; he was great.”

  “Good-looking, too. And no, he didn’t get fired.” I told her what Nina had told me, that Stuart had had an accident a couple of weeks ago and was in the hospital. “That’s why we’re stuck with Adam.”

  Kate grinned. “Not a good experience?”

  “It took an hour to film a few minutes of dialogue because Adam couldn’t get the names right. He kept calling Waterfield ‘Waterford,’ and he called Derek ‘Erik’ and me ‘Ivory’ . . .”

  “That must be a handicap if you want to be a television star,” Kate said.

  “Worse if you want to do theater, I’d think. That’s what he told me he used to do. Hard to imagine he would have been able to memorize whole scripts and perform them every day when he can’t keep a few words straight. At the rate he’s going, we’ll finish the renovations next December.”

  “Or you’ll have to work twice as fast to make up for it.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can,” I said, laying another cabinet door down on top of the stack. “You want something to do? Grab another screwdriver and start taking the hardware off those doors while I finish taking the doors off the cabinets. We have to remove the hinges and handles before we can start painting.”

  “Do you want me to keep the hardware?” Kate asked as she palmed a manual screwdriver off the counter and sat down next to the stack of doors.

  “Stick it in a Ziploc baggie. We won’t be putting it back on—updated hardware is one of those things that can really make a big difference without breaking the bank—but Derek can give it to Ian Burns, and maybe someone will want to buy it. It’s classic 1930s stuff.”

  Ian Burns is a friend of Derek’s who owns and operates an architectural salvage store in Boothbay Harbor, some forty-five minutes north of Waterfield. Derek has bought a lot of vintage fixtures and replacement parts from Ian over the years, and whenever we tore out anything we thought might interest him, we saved it.

  “You got it,” Kate said, and suited action to words.

  4

  The television crew came back to the house for a few minutes after their jaunt through town, sans Tony and Melissa. Tony had to go to work, Nina told me when I asked. “He’s asked me to go to dinner later.”

  “Really?” I glanced at Kate, involuntarily. She arched a brow at me, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. This wouldn’t make Melissa happy.

  “He wants to catch up. A lot of water under the bridge since the last time we saw each other.”

  “Are you going?” Ted asked. He didn’t look happy, either. Nor did Adam, although he hid it by carrying on a silent but patently obvious flirtation with Shannon. Her cheeks were flushed, although I couldn’t tell whether it was from embarrassment or because she liked the attention.

  “I told him I’d think about it and let him know,” Nina said.

  “What about Melissa?” Derek asked.

  Nina turned to him. “She got a phone call. Someone wanted information about a house on an island somewhere.”

  “Oh.” He looked at me. “I’ll give her a call. See if anything’s going on.” He headed out the door, grabbing for his cell phone.

  “You have a house on an island?” Fae asked, drifting in the direction of the outside as well. Everyone else followed, slowly.

  I nodded. “It was the project we did before this one. A big 1783 center-chimney Colonial. It’s on the market now. We’re filling in with small projects until we can get it sold and our money out. If you get a half day off while you’re here, you should take the ferry out to one of the islands and have a look around. It’s nice out there.”

  Fae shook her head. “I’m not that big on water. Grew up in Kansas. Landlocked.” She smiled sheepishly. She and Shannon looked a little like each other, I realized, both tall and pretty, with the same pale skin and dark eyes and hair, although Fae’s clearly wasn’t real. It was a sort of dull jet-black, not like Shannon’s shiny mane of deep black cherry. And then, of course, there was the raccoon makeup and the piercings. Without all of it, her face was sweetly pretty, not as stunningly gorgeous as Shannon’s.

  “Tony mentioned the Something Tavern,” Nina said. “Are you familiar with it?”

  Kate nodded. “It’s called the Waymouth Tavern. And it’s up the ocean road apiece. Nice place.”

  “Apiece?”

  “A mile or two.”

  “And is it formal?”

  Kate shook her head. “What you’re wearing is fine. Jeans are fine, too, if you want to change into something more comfortable. People in Waterfield don’t stand on ceremony.” She flashed that big, friendly smile. Nina looked almost offended at the suggestion that she should kick back and relax, but after a moment, she smiled back.

  “That’s good to know. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  As we got out on the porch, Kate turned to the rest of the television crew. “I’m not licensed to serve dinner, but there are several restaurants in the downtown area that you can walk to, and several more in driving distance. They all stay open pretty late in the summer. We’ve also got Boothbay Harbor and Portland within a forty-five minute drive in either direction. Or feel free to order a pizza or something else to be delivered. There’s a list of restaurants next to the telephone in the foyer of the B and B.”

  Wilson replied on everyone’s behalf. “We’ll figure something out. Thanks.”

  “We’ll rendezvous here at the house again tomorrow morning,” Nina said, “bright and early.” She glanced at Derek, who had put away his phone and was coming back up the porch steps. “Seven o’clock too early for you two?”

  I grimaced. I prefer staying in bed until at least eight, but Derek’s been working hard to change that. He has no problem getting up with the sun. Or staying up all night, for that matter. Or staying up all night and then getting up with the sun. It’s all those years of medical school, rotations, and residenc
y. Doctors are light sleepers, and they can easily go all day on minimal or no sleep.

  “Not at all,” Derek said, with a glance at me. When he saw my expression, he grinned. “It’s just for a week, Avery. You can sleep next week, I promise.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “Next week, you’ll come up with some other reason why I have to get up early. I know you.”

  Ted cleared his throat. “I may want to get here ahead of everyone and set up for the shots. Any way we can leave the place open?” He looked up and down the sleepy street. “This seems like a nice, low-crime kind of place.”

  Derek was already shaking his head. “Empty houses under renovation are magnets for thieves, and we’ve got tools and materials inside. But I’ll hide the key, and whoever gets here first can open up.”

  “That’ll work.” Ted nodded. “What’s a good place?”

  The two of them started looking around. Shannon turned to Fae. “You wanna order a pizza and watch a movie tonight? I’ve got the latest Matt Damon action flick.”

  Fae grinned. “Sounds great.”

  They headed down the steps, discussing the delights of Matt Damon and the toppings for the pizza. Kate and Nina exchanged the kind of look that two mothers might, and followed.

  Derek and Ted agreed to put the house key inside a chipped plaster planter full of wilted purple petunias we hadn’t gotten around to moving to the Dumpster yet. As Derek tucked the key into the dirt and out of sight, I scanned the neighborhood, making sure that no one was watching.

  The little cottage on Cabot Street sat surrounded by similar homes. There was a big, well-maintained Arts and Crafts bungalow down on the corner, but the rest of the houses on the block were small, all built between the early 1930s and 1945. During the Depression and the war, in times that were tough, financially and emotionally, for most people.

  We were close to the edge of the Village, Waterfield’s historic district. It started down by the harbor, with the late Victorian business buildings lining Main Street and a few older, historic homes interspersed: the Fraser House, a Colonial; an early saltbox or two; a few small and original Cape Cods from the early seventeen hundreds. Farther up the hill were the ornate Victorians: the big Queen Annes and Eastlakes, like Kate’s bed and breakfast, and the smaller cottages, like Aunt Inga’s Second Empire and the Folk Victorian Benjamin Ellis and his wife, Cora, live in. Then there are the bungalows and the rare stone or brick Tudors, along with the small cottages. Beyond where we were standing, Cabot Street petered out into suburbia, where the architecture ran to 1950s cookie-cutter tract houses, low-slung brick ranches and Brady Bunch split-levels.

  There were a lot of older people in this neighborhood, people who had lived here their whole lives, whose parents may have built the very houses they were living in. There isn’t a lot of turnover in a small town like Waterfield. Children take over their parents’ houses, and their children take over their houses in the fullness of time. Derek would probably be expected to take over Benjamin Ellis’s house when he and Cora decided they’d had enough. Derek’s an only child, and the house had been in his father’s family for generations. Dr. Ben had taken it over from his father when Derek’s Paw-Paw Willie retired to Florida. Chances were Derek and I would end up with two houses, his and mine. Or Dr. Ben’s and Aunt Inga’s. That is, if we were still together at that point. It’d be a while; Dr. Ben was just over sixty.

  I had no plans of going anywhere. I didn’t think Derek did, either, but only time would tell. And since that thought gave me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, I shook it off and returned to the present.

  Now that the business of the key was dispensed with, the others had started drifting toward the curb, where the television crew’s van and Kate’s tan station wagon were parked.

  “You wanna ride with us?” I heard Shannon ask Fae. Fae glanced at the rest of the crew—maybe she was hoping Adam would tell her to come with him instead, or maybe she expected Nina to tell her she had to drive back to the bed and breakfast in the van—but when no one said anything, she nodded.

  “Sure.”

  “Great.” Shannon smiled. She must have decided that Fae needed a friend her own age while she was here, or maybe the two of them had just clicked right away, the way people sometimes do.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow,” Kate said. “I can’t get here until late morning or early afternoon. I have to clean up after breakfast and change the sheets and towels in the guest rooms before I can head out.”

  “That’s fine.” Derek put his arm around my shoulders as we wandered down the garden path toward the street in Kate’s wake. “We’ll take you whenever we can get you. Shannon can come out with the crew if she wants, or she can come with you later. Or Josh can pick her up; he’s gonna be here in the morning.”

  “Is he going to help you with the tile?”

  “I think I’ll just have him start painting. Any idiot can roll paint.” He pondered for a second and qualified the statement. “Almost any idiot.”

  “Josh isn’t an idiot,” Kate said with an amused smile.

  Derek smiled back. “He’s not a renovator, either. Painting is something he won’t need specialized knowledge to do. I don’t mind teaching people how to do this job, but this week, I just can’t take the time out.”

  “So what are you and Wayne doing tonight?” I wanted to know. “Big plans?”

  Kate shook her head. “Just dinner at home. Wayne needs to relax. He’s been working long hours lately. There’s always more crime in the summer, when the population doubles.”

  “Nothing too bad has been going on, has it?”

  I couldn’t recall hearing about anything terrible lately. No new murders, anyway. Not since the body we’d found in the harbor in April.

  Kate shook her head. “It’s mostly minor things this time of year. A lot of drunk and disorderly conduct, some fighting, one or two domestic brawls. Purse snatches and pickpockets, since people carry more money when they’re on vacation. Scammers. And a whole lot of traffic tickets.” She grinned. “The new radar guns are getting a workout.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Derek answered, with a grin of his own.

  “So what are you two planning to do tonight?”

  “We’ll figure something out,” Derek said.

  I added, “Work, most likely. I have to sew pillows and curtains. Derek has to make window boxes.”

  “Isn’t the camera guy going to want to tape you doing those things?”

  “I’ll leave a seam undone for the camera,” I said. “Derek can make most of the boxes and leave one for demonstration, as well.”

  “We’ll be at Avery’s house if you need us.” Derek guided me toward the truck while Kate opened the door to the Volvo station wagon and slid behind the wheel. The TV van had already pulled away from the curb in the direction of the B&B.

  It ended up being a long night. After dinner, I put together a dozen pillows from bolts of fabric I had sitting around in the spare bedroom upstairs while Derek used Aunt Inga’s front porch to saw and hammer window boxes to hang outside the cottage. While he was at it, he made two planters, as well, one for each side of the front door.

  “They’re no different,” he explained as he worked. “If you know how to make one, you can figure out how to make the other. Planters are square with legs while window boxes are rectangular. The most important thing, whether you’re making a box or a planter, is to drill holes through the bottom so the water can drain out.”

  “Makes sense.” I had taken a break from sewing and had brought Derek a cold drink to keep him going. A bottle of beer, as it happened. He doesn’t care much for wine. In all the time that he was married to Melissa, she only ever succeeded in getting him to share one certain type of Bordeaux with her, he’d told me. Like Melissa, I prefer red wine to beer, but since we had to be up early tomorrow and I still had work to do tonight, I thought I’d better not indulge. I was sitting in Aunt Inga’s porch swing with Mischa o
n my lap, sipping from a can of Diet Coke, while Derek kept working and giving me a running commentary on what he was doing. He had removed his shirt, and I stroked Mischa absently and tried not to drool too visibly as I watched him flex and bend.

  Mischa was on duty, of course. I could see the determination on his little furry face and in the way the tip of his tail twitched occasionally as he watched Derek. When we walked through the door earlier, Derek with the friendly greeting, “Hello, killer,” Mischa had crouched and hissed. I’d been too slow to intercept him: He had launched himself at Derek’s leg, and I’d had to unhook him from the denim, claw by claw. Now he was curled up on my lap, a boneless bundle of silvery blue fur, with his eyes wide open and watching Derek’s every move. Derek kept his distance; if he were to come any closer, Mischa would most likely try to eviscerate him.

  “So what did you think of them all?” I asked after a moment.

  Derek glanced over at me. “The crew? They seemed OK, didn’t they?”