“General Lee, stop!” I shouted to no effect. “Come,” I tried, as if in his entire life he’d ever actually heard and listened to that word. “Treat!” I said instead, knowing that was the one word that might actually register. It didn’t. I had a sharp pain in my side before I realized we were heading to the Pinckney mansion.
I watched the cat run up the outside steps and disappear through the open front door, General Lee close on its heels. I stopped at the foot of the driveway, bent over double, and dug my fingers into my side in a futile attempt to get the pain to stop.
“Melanie?”
I opened my eyes at the sound of Sophie’s voice, but I lacked the energy and the oxygen required to straighten. I saw Birkenstocks and the bottom of a purple gauzy skirt with rainbow-colored elephant heads splattered like vomit all over the fabric. I let my gaze slide behind her to the Dumpster, where I spotted the backside of a man leaning over to lift something, his jeans slipping far past where they should be. I clenched my eyes shut again. “Is that Rich Kobylt?”
“He’s helping me remove the cast-iron tubs from all the bathrooms. What are you doing here?”
I straightened slowly, the pain gradually lessening. “I was running after General Lee, who just ran inside the house chasing that black cat.”
She looked confused. “I didn’t see a cat, but I did see General Lee, who was running a lot faster than I’ve ever seen him move.”
“Yes, well, the cat is apparently a lot faster than he is.” I looked behind her to where I saw Rich and another man lifting a claw-foot tub up a ramp that led into the back of his pickup truck, another three tubs waiting next to it. “Why aren’t those going into the Dumpster?”
Sophie looked as if I’d struck her. “Because these can be refinished. They’re solid cast iron! Do you know how much those would cost today? Besides, you’re the first one to admit that all the buyers these days are looking for old stuff that looks new—and with the modern bathrooms we’re putting in this house, these will be perfect.”
I looked at the tubs, with so much of their porcelain paint chipped off that they looked like brown-and-white cows. “I’ll have to trust you on that one.”
Rich noticed me and walked over, pulling up his pants as he approached. I wondered if I left an anonymous gift of a belt on his driver’s seat, whether he’d wear it. “Good morning, Rich.”
“Mornin’, Miz Trenholm.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “Your dog’s gonna have some trouble catching that cat. I’ve tried a bunch of times, but he’s a fast ’un. None of my team can, either. Course, they claim they didn’t see him, but that’s only because they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll be bothered all right when that cat dies somewhere in the walls and starts to stink. Ever smelled that before?”
I almost said that I had, and worse, too, but chose instead to focus on his bumper sticker, which had the numbers 0.0 in a white oval. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m more sensible than my wife and value my knees more than she does. She’s a marathon runner and has a sticker that says 26.2. So I had to get my own.”
I had a vision of him running, his pants falling down to his ankles and making him trip, and I figured it was a good thing he wasn’t a runner.
I also wanted to high-five him and ask where I could get a sticker, but I caught Sophie frowning. “I guess I should go find my dog,” I said.
We left Rich to deal with the tubs and I followed Sophie inside. If possible, the interior was an even bigger mess than it had been when I was last inside. Crumbled plaster and strips of moldy wallpaper lay in piles along the walls, the furniture moved to the centers of the rooms and covered in tarps, the paintings removed from the walls.
Sophie’s eyes became moist as she looked around. “Sadly, even with a nice restoration budget, we’ve had to get rid of more interior elements than we’d like.” She brightened. “Happily, that article Yvonne found regarding the renovations in 1930 was extremely helpful. The architectural firm that was used and mentioned in the article still had the files that contained all the wallpaper and fabric patterns, as well as pen and pencil drawings of many of the ceiling medallions and other architectural elements in the house. It was like a gold mine, really. It’s certainly going to take away a lot of the guesswork as well as save time. Although . . .”
“Although what?” I prompted.
“I feel sort of guilty making all these decisions. I mean, I bring stuff to Jayne for her approval and she just agrees to everything. She refuses to come see any of the work we’re doing. She says she has dust allergies, and I get that, but I could give her a mask.”
I shrugged. “She really doesn’t care. I don’t think she plans on living here, so her goal is to make it as appealing to buyers as possible, in as short a period of time as possible.”
Sophie shook her head. “It’s sad, really. Most people would give their left arm to be in her position. Myself included. If I didn’t know about her background, I’d say some people have all the luck.”