The Hideaway

I paced to the other side of the room to escape the uncomfortable intensity of his gaze, but then his hands were on my shoulders again. He turned me around to face him, his face close to mine. I smelled wood dust, turpentine, and something else distinctly William.

“I’m not going to change my mind. I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. You’re giving up a lot to be with me. I’ll never be able to give you what your daddy has or what your husband could. Do you understand that?”

I gave up my old life the minute I packed my bags and shoved them in the closet of the house I shared with Robert. I did it again when I closed the car door, peering at Daddy from inside the quiet cocoon. And again when I pulled away from the house without a last look over my shoulder. I knew what I was doing, and now that William was part of my new life, it all made perfect sense.

I nodded. “I understand.”

He pulled me tightly to his chest, kissing my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead. “Okay. We’re in it. Let’s show everyone how far we can go.”

Later that day, I bumped into Mrs. DeBerry as she stood bent at the waist, rummaging around in the closet by the front door.

“Can I help you with anything?” I took her arm and helped her straighten up. Her face was red and beads of sweat had formed on her upper lip.

“I’m fine. Just cleaning out a little. I haven’t looked in this closet in ages.” Around her sat beautiful pieces of clothing I’d never seen her wear. Impractical things, like Chinese satin-soled shoes that would fill with water the first time they touched the dew-saturated grass and a chocolate-brown floor-length mink coat.

I ran my hands up and down the coat. Mother had a mink she only wore during Mardi Gras season. It could be sixty-five degrees on Fat Tuesday and she’d still pull it out. “Luxury is luxury, Margaret, regardless of something as temperamental as the weather,” she’d say.

“You can have that old thing,” Mrs. DeBerry said when she saw me touching the mink. “Henry brought it back from a trip to Russia ages ago. It’s too warm to wear it in Alabama, but maybe you’ll make a trip up north someday. I’m too old to be making trips anymore.”

She stopped rummaging and glanced around the house, her gaze pausing on a pair of artists painting at easels in front of the large living room windows. She shook her head. “Henry would turn in his grave if he could see what our B and B has turned out to be.”

“Maybe not. It still has a charm.”

“It must. After all, you’re still here. It’s been a couple of months now. How long do you plan to stay, dear?” She tossed items into a box at her feet, but her gaze remained on me.

I picked up the red satin shoes from the floor. The fabric was worn away near the soles, but the embroidery on top was still perfect. I tossed them in her box. “I don’t know. Can I let you know a little later?”

She exhaled. “Stay as long as you want. That’s what everyone around here seems to do anyway, and it’ll probably continue long after I’m gone.”

“Are you going somewhere?”

She glanced around the room again. “I’m getting old. I’m probably not the best proprietor for a place full of young folks such as yourself, but here I am. Next to losing Henry, giving up this house would be the hardest thing I could ever do.”

She hoisted her box and took a deep breath. She’d avoided my question, but her face was still flushed and damp, and I worried for her.

“Are you sure I can’t help you with that? I could take it to your room for you.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” She turned toward the hallway but paused. “Mrs. Parker, you’ve been good for this house. You straighten up, clean what needs to be cleaned, help organize meals. You even shooed the artists out of the living room and outside into the fresh air. And you’ve done it all without being asked. You’re taking care of this old place, and I want you to know I appreciate it.”

The emotion on her face surprised me. As she eased her way down the hall toward her room in the back, her box tight in both hands, she called over her shoulder, “Are you ever going to tell me your real name?”

I smiled. She’d probably seen through me that first night, but she chose to let me have my time of anonymity, even if I was only anonymous to her.

“It’s Maggie. Maggie Van Buren,” I said just before she turned into her room.

“Good night, Maggie.”

12

SARA

APRIL

I spent most of the next morning calling contractors I was familiar with in New Orleans. It turned out not many were willing or able to work two states away. I found a couple with satellite offices in Alabama who said they’d look into it, but it didn’t sound hopeful. Each one I talked to asked why I wasn’t using a local contractor, but when I asked if they had any referrals for contractors in the area, they all asked some variation of “Now, where’s Sweet Bay again?”

With reluctance I did what I never do when looking for help on a project. I opened the Yellow Pages. I’d thought the days of thumbing through the phone book looking for a particular business were long gone—who didn’t just type it into Google? But after a lot of thumb-typing, it was clear Google’s long arms hadn’t reached Sweet Bay.

I flipped to the beginning and called the first entry listed under A: A1 Contractors. Clever. Twenty seconds on the phone with Earl Weathers told me all I needed to know about whether local people still talked about The Hideaway.

“You know that place used to scare all the kids around here,” he said when I told him I was renovating the house. “Or maybe it was the lady inside who scared us. My buddies and I used to dare each other to go to the front door and ring the doorbell, then run away. We were just kids. Big imaginations.” He laughed. “I wondered what would happen to the house now that the old lady’s croaked. So they hired you to take care of it? What’d you say your name was, sweetheart?”

“I didn’t,” I said through my clenched jaw. “It’s Sara Jenkins.”

“Jenkins,” he said, pondering. “Wait, you’re not . . . ?”

“That’s the one. Mrs. Van Buren was my grandmother.”

“Oh, I . . . you—Lord’a mercy,” he sputtered. “I guess I spoke too soon.”

“Nope, just soon enough.” I hung up, cutting off his apologies.

The next two calls were similar. Their eagerness to get inside the house and see what it was like was unprofessional at best, offensive at worst. I thanked them all for their time—although I wished I hadn’t given them a reason to think of Mags again—and ignored their protests as I hung up.

I finally found one that looked promising. Coastal Contractors. The logo had a silhouette of a heron standing in front of a sun setting over water. At least they had a logo. And a brick and mortar office. The other ones I called appeared to be working out of their homes. Nothing wrong with that, but I imagined Earl sitting on his back porch, picking his fingernails with a pocketknife, waiting for work to come calling. I couldn’t stomach being the reason he folded the knife away, hitched up his pants, and climbed into his work truck.

No one answered at Coastal. Instead, I was greeted with a message on an actual answering machine. The mechanical click at the beginning of the message told me it wasn’t a typical voice-mail recording. The message told me if no one answered, they were likely out on a job or working out back. “Leave a message or feel free to stop by for a chat.” The voice was friendly, giving me hope that maybe this wouldn’t turn out to be just another dead end.