“Flirting lessons. Usually it’s Liz who’s using her feminine wiles to get information.”
Charlotte glared at me. “I did not take any lessons from Liz on how to use my feminine wiles,” she said, squaring her shoulders and jutting out her chin.
I held up both hands. “I’m sorry. I stand corrected,” I said.
Charlotte opened the bedroom door to our left. Then she looked back over her shoulder, slid her glasses down her nose and raised an eyebrow. “I already know how to use all the tools in my toolbox,” she said.
Charlotte and I headed back to the shop at noon. We had gone through everything on the second floor. Items for the yard sale we were planning had all been marked. The furniture that I was taking on consignment and the pieces I was buying outright were tagged as coming to the shop.
There were some items of clothing—several men’s fedoras, two woolen peacoats and some men’s suits—which I planned to send to Jess to sell on consignment for Clayton. The rest—with his agreement—was going to two different charity clothing stores.
“I’m going to bring this armoire back here,” I said to Mac, showing him the photo I’d taken of the large, mirrored piece of furniture. “And one of the bedroom sets. I think we’ll get more from them in the shop than we will at the estate sale. Glenn offered his cube truck and I think I’ll take him up on that.”
Mac looked around the shop. “Where are you going to put everything?”
“I think we can rearrange things and find room for the armoire.” I gestured at a tall, narrow dresser. “That’s going to be picked up tomorrow morning. And as for the bedroom set, I’m thinking about getting Avery to do some kind of window display based around it. Do you think the bed will fit?”
Mac pulled out his metal tape and took a couple of measurements. “If we turn it on an angle it’ll work.”
I smiled at him. “Perfect. I’ll get Avery to start thinking about what she wants to do when she gets here.”
“That should be interesting,” he teased.
“Remember how popular her kiss window was for Valentine’s?”
Avery’s idea for a Valentine’s window display had turned out to be vintage mannequins dressed as the members of the band Kiss, complete with wigs and full makeup. She’d stenciled A KISS IS STILL A KISS in red letters on the window.
Mac folded his arms over his chest, tipped his head to one side and regarded me thoughtfully. “What I remember was you coming in here early before it was completely daylight, forgetting what was in the window and almost taking out the entire display with the lance that came with that suit of armor you bought from Cleveland, all because you thought someone had broken in.”
I laughed. “Good thing you were here to save me and the band.”
“You nearly skewered me like a shish kebab.”
I tried to make a straight face but failed miserably. “The fact that you took one (almost) for the team is duly noted.”
His phone buzzed then. He took it out and checked the screen. “It’s Josh,” he said.
I moved a few steps away to give him some privacy. Rose was arranging three teddy bears in a doll carriage that I’d just painted a few days ago. “This turned out really well,” she said, pointing to the carriage that I’d painted a soft woodsy green on the underside and a creamy pale yellow on top.
“I like the bears,” I said. Each one of them wore a seersucker baby bonnet. One pink, one blue, one yellow.
“The hats were in the bottom of that bag of linens you got at the flea market,” Rose said. “When you were little you had a carriage like this. You used to take that stuffed monkey you had for a ride.”
“Cheeky Monkey,” I said, smiling at the memory.
“You put one of Isabel’s tea cozies on his head for a hat.”
I laughed. “That was so he didn’t get sunstroke.”
“You were a very imaginative child,” Rose said, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You think I was imaginative? Liam used my doll carriage as a transport vehicle to get his G.I. Joes across the brook. He got the bottom all wet and muddy. I was so mad.”
“Why do I have the feeling that wasn’t the end of the story?”
I hung my head. “I might have done some bodywork to G.I. Joe’s jeep,” I said, looking at her from under my eyelashes. “So Barbie could use it.”
Rose’s lips were pressed together and she was trying not to laugh.
“Sarah Grayson, what did you do?” she asked.
“I swiped a bottle of Gram’s nail polish and tried to paint the jeep pink.”
Rose shook her head, her lips still twitching. “Oh dear, what did your mother say?”
I made a face. “Let’s just say she wasn’t happy,” I said. “In my defense if she hadn’t interrupted me I could have gotten the whole thing finished and it would have looked a whole lot better.”
Rose gave up then trying to keep a straight face and laughed as she reached down to adjust the blanket in the carriage. “What on earth did you give your mother for an explanation?”
“I told her Liam had asked me to paint the jeep.”
“And what happened when she asked him?”
I could tell by the knowing smile on Rose’s face that she already knew the answer. “He told her he had. Then later he held Barbie upside down in the toilet and gave her a swirly, because, you know, I’d tried to paint G.I. Joe’s jeep pink.” I smiled at the memory.
My mom and Liam’s dad had gotten married when Liam and I were in elementary school. By rights we should have been bickering stepsiblings. We were both slightly spoiled only children who had lost a parent and weren’t used to sharing the one we had left. But to everyone’s surprise, from the beginning we were, as Gram put it, “thick as thieves.” Liam could drive me crazy at times and I was sure he’d say the same thing about me, but I knew he always had my back and I always had his.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mac put his phone away. I turned around. “Is everything all right?” I asked.
“That was Josh,” Mac said. “The police have a few more questions.”
“Michelle,” I said.
Mac nodded. “Probably. Josh didn’t say. We’re meeting at his office at four thirty.” His expression was unreadable.
“I’ll drive you over.”
“Alfred and I can close up and Elvis can come with us,” Rose said as though everything was settled, and I knew that if Mac didn’t agree he’d have an argument on his hands.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
Rose gave him her I’m-humoring-you smile, not to be confused with her I’m-pretending-to-be-a-sweet-befuddled-little-old-lady smile, which also usually got her whatever she wanted. “At my age, Mac, I rarely do things I don’t have to do,” she said.
I opened my mouth to confirm the truth of that comment when Rose—who seemed to have read my mind—fixed her gray eyes on me.
“Did you have something you wanted to add to this conversation, Sarah?” she asked.
I cleared my throat. “No, ma’am,” I said. I patted my chest. “Just a little frog in my throat.”
“I hope you’re not coming down with something,” Rose said, brushing lint only she could see from the front of her apron. “Like I told you, we need to get you a neti pot, but for now, I have some Fisherman’s Friend in my purse. I’ll go get you one. They can knock a germ dead in its tracks.” She headed for the stairs.
I screwed up my face. “Those cough drops of Rose’s can take down a buffalo.”
“The fact that you’re going to take one for the team is duly noted,” Mac said with a smile, echoing my earlier words.
Midafternoon, Rose knocked on my office door and poked her head into the room. “Do you have a minute?” she asked.
“I do,” I said. I had just finished updating the store’s Web site with absolutely no help from Elvis, who had managed to add two zeros to the price of a vintage quilt when he put a paw on the keyboard as he leaned around the laptop to look at the screen. “What do you need?”