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Miracles could happen, Margo thought. They only took six weeks, aching muscles, and somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to create.
Six weeks before, she had become the official one-third owner of the empty building on Cannery Row. Immediately after glasses of Templeton sparkling wine had been passed around, she'd rolled up her sleeves.
It was a new experience, dealing with contractors, surrounding herself with the sounds of saws and hammers and men with tool belts. She spent nearly every waking moment of those weeks in the shop or on shop business. The clerks at the supply stores began to weep with joy when she walked through the door. Her carpenters learned to tolerate her.
She debated paint samples with Laura, agonized over the choice between Dusty Rose and Desert Mauve until the slight variance in shades became a decision of monumental proportion. Recessed lighting became an obsession for days. She learned the joy and terror of hardware, spending hours picking through hinges and drawer pulls the way she had once perused the jewelry displays at Tiffany's.
She painted, learning to love and despise the eccentricities of her variable-speed Sears-brand paint sprayer. Growing neurotically possessive, she refused to allow Kate or Laura to try their hand with it. And once after a particularly long session, she jumped at the reflection in the mirror.
Margo Sullivan, the face that launched a million bottles of alpha hydroxy, stared back, her glorious hair bundled messily under a dirty white cap, her cheeks flecked with deep-rose freckles, her eyes naked and a little wild.
She didn't know whether to shud
der or scream.
But the shock sent her straight into the clawfoot tub for a hot, frothy soak in sea salts and urged her to give herself a full treatment—facial, hot oil, manicure, just to prove she hadn't completely lost her mind.
Now, after six weeks of insanity, she had begun to believe that dreams could be made. The floors gleamed, sanded smooth and slicked with three satiny coats of varnish. The walls, her personal pride and joy, were a soft, warm rose. Windows she'd washed herself in her mother's secret solution that relied heavily on vinegar and elbow grease, sparkled in their frame of new trim. The iron stairs and circling banisters had been securely bolted and shimmered with fresh gilt.
Tiles in both bathrooms had been regrouted and ruthlessly scrubbed and were now accented with fancy fingertip towels with lace edging.
Everything was rose and gold and fresh.
"It's like Dorian Gray," Margo commented. She and Laura were huddled in the sitting area of the main showroom, struggling to price the contents of a crate.
"It is?"
"Yeah. The shop keeps getting prettier and shinier." She pinched her tired cheeks and laughed. "And I'm the picture in the closet."
"Oh, that explains those warts."
"Warts?" Instant panic. "What warts?"
"Easy." It was Laura's first good laugh in days. "Just joking."
"Christ, next time just shoot me in the head." As her blood pressure returned to normal, Margo held up a faience vase painted with stylized flowers. "What do you think? It's Doulton."
It was no use asking Margo what she'd paid for it, Laura knew. She wouldn't have a clue. Following routine, Laura glanced at the stack of price guides and catalogs they'd collected. "Did you look it up?"
"Sort of." Over the past weeks, Margo had developed a love-hate relationship with price guides. She loved the idea of marking prices, hated the knowledge that so much money had already slipped through her fingers. "I think a hundred fifty."
"Go for it."
Tongue caught between her teeth, Margo slowly tapped the keys on the laptop Kate had insisted they couldn't live without. "Stock number 481… G for glassware or C for collectibles?"
"Um, G. Kate's not here to argue the point."
"481-G. Damn it, I said G." She deleted, tried again. "One hundred fifty." Though it was probably inefficient, which Kate would have pointed out, Margo tagged the vase, rose to carry it to the glass etagere that was already filling up, then came back to light a cigarette. "What the hell are we doing, Laura?"
"Having fun. What made you buy something like this?"
Smoking contemplatively, Margo eyed an undoubtedly ugly urn with wing handles. "I must have been having a bad day."
"Well, it's Stinton, and signed, so maybe…" She flipped busily through a price book. "About forty-five hundred."
"Really?" Had she really once been in the position to pay so much for so little? She nudged the laptop toward Laura. "They're coming to paint the sign on the window tomorrow. And the crew from Entertainment Tonight is supposed to be here by two."
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
