I smiled half-heartedly, and she added, “And that lame attempt to make you think Derek only picked you after he realized that he could never have Melissa back? What a crock!”
“You think?”
“Of course! The only reason he fell in love with Melissa in the first place was that he was young and stupid, and she was gorgeous and determined to marry a doctor. Believe me, he’s learned his lesson. He won’t be making that mistake again.”
She sounded so confident that I thought maybe I’d better listen to her. She had known Derek for five years longer than I had, so she probably understood the situation fairly well. If she said he wasn’t hung up on Melissa, I should probably take her word for it.
“So what are you doing here?” Kate dismissed the question of Melissa, and looked around at the not-so-bustling downtown Waterfield. “Why aren’t you working on the house?
“ Wayne has vetoed any further renovating until they get the body out.”
I explained that I had driven Derek’s truck into town and parked it behind the hardware store, and now I was on my way home to Aunt Inga’s house.
“You know, Avery,” Kate said, “your aunt-rest her soul-has been dead for months. It’s your house now.”
“I know that. It’s just easier to think of it as Aunt In ga’s house. Everyone knows where Inga Morton lived. She was a Waterfield institution.”
My aunt had been almost ninety-nine when she died, the longest-living resident of Waterfield.
There was another reason why I still referred to the house as my aunt’s and not mine, though, although I didn’t want Kate to know it. She’s a people-person, in the best sense of the word-interested in everyone and everything they’re up to-but she’s also a bit of a talker, and I didn’t want word to get around that I was having… maybe not second thoughts about settling down in Waterfield, exactly, but at least thoughts about it. I’d been in town for a few months by now, I’d started to make friends, and of course I’d become involved with Derek, but there was a part of me that was still keeping one foot on the fence in case I decided I didn’t want to stick around beyond the winter. Referring to the house as Aunt Inga’s and not mine allowed me a certain amount of emotional distance. Once it was my house, in my mind as well as on paper, I figured I was stuck with it.
I grew up in New York City, and until I came to Waterfield, I’d never lived outside Manhattan. I was enjoying the change of pace-the fresh air, the ocean, the slow rhythm of life in Maine -but I also missed the hustle and bustle of the city. The restaurants and shops, the theater, the sure and certain knowledge that something exciting was just about to happen somewhere close by. I missed my old friends. My alma mater, prestigious Parsons School of Design. My compact apartment, currently someone else’s home. My job, with its steady income…
“You want to walk up the hill together?” Kate asked. “If you’re ready to go.”
I tore myself away from my increasingly unsettling thoughts. “I wanted to have a look at a few of the antique and junk-stores, in case there’s something I can use when I renovate the house. I’m thinking mod-you know, 1960s retro-and I just wanted to look for some inspiration. There’s the bathroom with that brown and blue tile, which I just know Derek isn’t going to let me change…”
“There is such a thing as porcelain and ceramic tile paint,” Kate pointed out as we started moving along the sidewalk. “You just clean the tile well and paint over it.”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually.” I pictured the drab bathroom done up in more cheerful colors. “Although I don’t know how well that would work in an area that will get wet all the time. Won’t the paint flake off after a while?”
“By then it won’t be your house or your problem anymore,” Kate answered, but with a smile that let me know she wasn’t serious. “You’re probably right. Paint would be better for things like fireplace surrounds, if you have missing tiles and can’t match them, or something. Low-traffic areas. Or a kitchen backsplash or even a bathroom wall that won’t get wet very often. Maybe you can work with the brown and navy. Do a faux paint finish on the walls to make them look like leather or something like that.”
“That might look nice. Or I can do some other funky wall-covering. One of my friends in New York did her living room in brown grocery bags once. It looked great.”
“Brown grocery bags?” Kate repeated. I nodded.
“You tear the bags into pieces and crumple them, then straighten them back out and glue them to the wall with wallpaper paste. Gives a lot of texture, and looks something like suede or leather. Then you can paint or faux finish over top. Very cool.”
“Huh,” Kate said, obviously not convinced. I shrugged.
“For the other bathroom, I’ll have to do a complete makeover. There was nothing there worth saving, so it’s all gone, or will be.” I explained my concept for the main bath, ending with, “What do you think?”
“Sounds good to me,” Kate said. “What do you want to put the salad-bowl sink on?”
“That’s part of what I’m looking for.”
“An old chest of drawers would work. As long as it wasn’t too tall. An old desk. A makeup table. Even a potting bench.”
I shook my head. “Not a potting bench. Not in that house. If we were redoing a Victorian cottage or something, that might look cute, but here I need something more streamlined. Like…” I stopped, distracted by the nearest shop window. “Oh, wow, look at that!”
Kate followed the direction of my finger. “That?” she said doubtfully. I nodded. “The dresser thing? But that wouldn’t look good in a white bathroom full of Mary Quant daisies.”
I cocked my head. “I guess maybe it wouldn’t. But look at it; it’s so ’60s.”
“It’s brown,” Kate pointed out.
“Teak. They used a lot of teak in the 1960s. What do you think-maybe it’d look good in the other bathroom? The brown and blue one? With a funky vessel sink on top? Glass, maybe, with colored speckles? Come on, I have to see how much it is.”
I pushed open the door to the shop, with Kate trailing behind, lugging her shopping bags. It wasn’t until I was inside the gloomy space, breathing in the dusty atmosphere of old furniture and antiquated knickknacks, that the name of the shop computed in my sluggish brain. The faded gold letters on the front window said Nickerson’s. Peggy Murphy had worked for a man named Nickerson, who had a business on Main Street. This could be where Peggy Murphy had worked. Mr. Nickerson could have been her boss… and possibly even her lover.
10
Or not. The man behind the counter wasn’t the type to set anyone’s heart aflutter, especially compared to the strapping Irish lad Brian Murphy had been seventeen years ago. Small and spare, his silver hair combed back in an early-Elvis ducktail, he was dressed in pale blue 1960s garb, complete with skinny lapels and a skinnier tie. “Help you ladies?” he asked, looking up.
“Mr. Nickerson?” I said. “My name is Avery Baker.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Baker. John Nickerson. New in town?”
I explained that I’d been here since early summer. “My aunt died, and I inherited her house.”
John Nickerson nodded sagely. “The old Morton place, right? I drove by there the other day. Looks good.”
“That’s Derek’s doing. Do you know Derek Ellis?”
“Course,” Mr. Nickerson said. “Everyone knows everyone in Waterfield. Or used to, anyway. How are you, Kate?”
Kate said she was fine, and the two of them small-talked for a few minutes about how the summer’s business season had been for them both. I took the opportunity to look around.