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“What? But what about, ah—was it Irene Caldwell?”
“T
hat’s right,” Katrina said, and some of the anger came back to her. “Irene is going to be busy making license plates for a while.”
“Making license— You mean she’s been arrested? Good Lord, for what?”
Katrina filled him in, as much as she knew, and Randall seemed deeply shocked. “My God,” he said. “Irene Caldwell, an art forger?”
“Apparently so,” Katrina said. “Please, Randall, please tell me you can help me out with this. My whole house is upside down, there’s nowhere to sit, and I—I could really use your help. Please?”
He hesitated before answering, and Katrina realized the palms of her hands were sweating. “I . . . would love to,” Randall said at last. “But this project I’m working on now is— Damn it, the other phone line is ringing. Could you hold for just a minute?”
“Of course,” Katrina said. She waited, chewing on her lower lip, wiping her hands on the couch, listening to the rapid thump of her heartbeat, and wondering why this redecoration suddenly meant so much to her, and only admitting to herself that it might not be all about the redo seconds before Randall came back on the line.
“Katrina?” Randall said. “I am truly sorry, but I have to go over to Jersey City—there’s some kind of problem with the paint, it doesn’t match the swatches, and I have to go out and threaten the dealer with bodily harm.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. And then, biting her lip as she plowed straight into the kind of self-centered focus she despised in others, she said, “But is it— Please, Randall, can you finish my house?”
There was a brief silence on the other end, and then she heard him blow out a long breath. “I don’t see how, not for several months. I’m sorry, Katrina—I really do wish I could help.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling a huge weight of disappointment that was out of proportion with merely losing a decorator. “I’m sorry, too, Randall.” She heard herself sigh, and then, forcing cheerfulness she didn’t feel, she said, “I really hope your project goes well, Randall. And kick that paint dealer right in the swatches.”
Randall laughed. “Thanks, I will. I’m sorry, too, Katrina.”
After they’d both hung up, Katrina sat, chewing on her lip and thinking nothing more constructive than damn. Damn, damn, damn . . . Where would she find somebody now? Somebody she could trust, with taste that agreed with hers? There was no one, not on such short notice. Damn . . .
Katrina got up and circled around the room, glaring angrily at the draped furniture and empty walls, and repeating her litany of damn as she wandered through the other rooms of the huge house. Most of them were worse than the living room, stripped of furniture, walls spattered with primer. Damn!
She had just switched back to shit when her phone rang. “What!” she snapped angrily.
“Oh, dear, did I catch you at a bad time?” After a moment of disorientation, she recognized the voice—it was Randall. But calling back so soon?
“Randall! I thought you were off to Jersey City.”
He gave a two-syllable laugh. “I was,” he said, and Katrina thought he sounded rather happy all of a sudden. “But tell me—do you believe in kismet?”
“I’m not even sure what it means,” she said.
“It means that I just hung up on the person who hired me for this massive project. And apparently their business just went belly-up, and although they said I can keep the Mexican tile, they can no longer pay me.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Katrina said.
“Well, I’m not sure they’d agree with you,” Randall said. “But what the heck, I do. I really like the tile.”
Katrina laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant. Can you do the job for me?”
“Text me your address,” he said. “I’ll be there in the morning.”
CHAPTER
14
The clock beside the bed said it was 3:18. It was a cheap hotel room clock, so it didn’t say “A.M.,” but it was: 3:18 in the morning. I had been lying there with my hands behind my head for four and a half hours. I hadn’t slept. I couldn’t. I just lay there and went over everything in my head. And every five or six minutes, the memories would come back at me.
It happens sometimes. I am definitely not nervous, sensitive, high-strung—none of that shit. I mean, try disarming a high-tech alarm if your hands are shaking from nerves. That’s not me. And I don’t get all into feeling worried, like, Oh no, what if something goes wrong? That’s just not me, either. But sometimes the past comes back at me. Right before I get into something, right when I really need a good night’s sleep, I can’t do it. I remember instead. Maybe that’s worse than nervous.
This was one of those times.
