The main living room had floor-to-ceiling curtains that, when opened, revealed beautiful windows reaching almost to the ceiling. I tied the curtains back on their hooks and peered through the salt-crusted glass. Past the lawn, the bay stretched out flat and calm. As I turned to cross through the room, a blur of blue on the floor caught my eye. I knelt and ran my fingers across the splotch of what appeared to be blue paint just inside the front door. I scratched at the edge with my fingernail, but the paint was so old it had almost blended in with the wood.
Across the hall from the living room, the kitchen had last seen an update in the 1980s. The countertops and backsplash still boasted the cheery yellow Mags had loved so much. Laminate cabinets with faux-wood trim and ancient appliances rounded out the dated look. Baskets hung everywhere, adding a country feel that must have been Bert’s doing.
Despite this veneer of age, the house had great bones. I couldn’t help but feel a ripple of excitement as I walked the wide center hallway from the front door straight through to the porch in the back. Twelve-foot ceilings, tall windows, hardwood floors, curved staircase—these were the things of a designer’s dream.
I moved outside to the yard. The house had been built with boards salvaged from an old barn in Virginia, or so the story went that I’d heard as a kid. Mags used to tell me if I looked hard enough, I could find places in the wood where goats had rubbed their horns or chickens had pecked, leaving small holes and dings. I never did find those places, but I spent whole afternoons looking for them. Mags probably told me that story just to occupy me while she worked in her garden, but now, as I looked at the façade of the house, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was true. Most of the wood was pockmarked with holes the diameter of a No. 2 pencil, although they were probably due to industrious carpenter bees, not farm animals.
A thin layer of peeling paint covered the grass at the base of the house. Fungus-green peeked out where the paint had peeled from the weathered wood. Kudzu, that great Southern beast, covered the entire chimney and one upstairs window. On the chimney, crumbly bricks at both the base and top made use of the inside fireplace impossible—or at least dangerous.
Much of what I saw remained exactly as it had been for as long as I could remember. The house had always been a little disheveled, but I was used to it and didn’t question it much. Now, standing in the grass facing the house, I wondered about the general sense of deterioration and neglect that covered the house like a shroud. Mags had let the house slip into disarray for a reason—she’d said so in the letter—but any hint of anger in her had been lost on me. Whatever her reason, my fingers itched for a paint scraper, sheet of sandpaper, or bottle of wood glue.
If I didn’t have a life in New Orleans and a business to get back to, I knew I could make something of The Hideaway. Mags was right. The beauty was there—it just needed someone with a trained eye and good taste to uncover it. But the project would require a much longer duration in Sweet Bay than I had anticipated. What would happen to Bits and Pieces if I stayed away for too long, unable to offer input on items purchased and sold, decorating decisions, and customers’ urgent requests?
Later that night, I sank into bed in the blue room without changing clothes or even washing my face. The crisp sheets were cool against my legs, and a breeze through the open window lifted the curtains. Dot called it the blue room because everything in it was in varying shades of blue—the bedding, curtains, rugs, even the framed prints on the wall. Each of the bedrooms in The Hideaway had its own color scheme—my blue room, the yellow room, the pink room, and a red room that I had always thought was a little creepy.
I bunched up the pillows behind my head and surveyed the room where I spent so many nights as a kid. It still felt familiar despite having spent only a handful of nights here over the last several years. I’d already checked the closet. It still held some of the clothes I hadn’t gotten around to packing up and taking back to New Orleans with me. Earlier, I’d run my fingers across the polo shirts and too-small blue jeans.
Despite making a life for myself elsewhere, I felt like the last eight years in New Orleans hadn’t even happened. Except now I was Sara Jenkins, owner of Bits and Pieces, with a client list as long as my arm. I wore Nanette Lepore and Tory Burch instead of cutoffs and flip-flops. I’d been intentional for nearly a decade, working my butt off to be successful, but back in the blue room, it felt like nothing had changed, like all my hard work had just been “spit and polish.”
Allyn will know what to do. He loved to dole out advice to anyone within earshot whether she asked for it or not. Occasionally, his words of wisdom were too risky (or downright scandalous) for my taste, but underneath the sass, his pointers were always spot-on. Working together for four years, six days a week, eight hours a day gave him the ability to home in on all my insecurities, insufficiencies, and flaws. In a loving way, of course.
Allyn had been with me since the very beginning of Bits and Pieces. He breezed through the door the day before I opened, and all the revelry and cheekiness of New Orleans blew in with him.
“Honey, you better be doing something special here because there are a million and one home décor shops in this city. What’s your hook?”
I was busy typing on my laptop, trying to get a press release out to New Orleans magazine, when he entered. I’d spent the morning rearranging furniture and dusting in the heat. The AC repair guy was late, and I was sweaty.
“Sorry, we don’t open ’til tomorrow.” I barely looked up from my work.
“You may open tomorrow, but you won’t have any customers with this boring old stuff. You need my stamp on the place.”
My fingers paused on the keyboard and I looked up. “I’m sorry, can I help you? If you’re looking for a job, I’m not hiring yet. And this stuff isn’t boring, it’s tasteful.”
“What’s that you’re working on?” He sat next to me and peered at the screen. The smell of his cologne was thick as cake batter.
“A press release, if you must know. Like I said, we open tomorrow.”
“Who’s the ‘we’ if it’s just you?”
“It’s a figure of speech.” I closed my laptop and stood. I knew enough of New Orleans by then to know he didn’t necessarily mean trouble, but I was still a little wary of this colorful stranger in my shop. The place was full of small items I’d picked up here and there, and he could grab something and run off with it in a heartbeat if he wanted.
“I’m Allyn.” He extended his hand. “With a y.”
“Sara. No h. And the shop isn’t officially open yet, so if you could come back tomorrow . . .” I stood by the front door and gestured through it with my free arm.
“You need me. I can make this place sing.”
“It looks pretty good already, if you ask me.” I glanced through the front room I’d so carefully decorated.
“It needs something. More Southern Gothic flair. I’m your man for the job. Or I can be your woman for the job, whichever you prefer.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Just kidding,” he said. “But seriously, I’m an out-of-work hairdresser waiting for Hollywood to call, and I have time on my hands.” He paused and looked down at his feet. “People used to live in this house, you know. A lot of people. I was one of them, and I know every nook and cranny of the house and the neighborhood. I can help you.”