Honeysuckle House … or used the same model … and that’s how I’d fashioned the face of the man in my dreams.
“… and when Frank told me I thought it sounded just perfect. What do you say?”
I realized that I’d been so intent on looking at the man in the painting and explaining his existence to myself that I’d lost the thread of Phoenix’s conversation. “I’m sorry, it’s so loud in here … what did you say?”
“Your spare room. Frank says you’re looking for a lodger for it. I was going to stay in an apartment in one of the dorms, but between you, me, and the lamppost, I don’t think I’m the dorm mother type. I’m sure the two of us together would have much more fun!”
NINE
T rying to sway Phoenix from moving in with me turned out to be about as easy as persuading Hurricane Katrina to make landfall somewhere other than New Orleans. She was so smitten with the notion that she followed me home after the reception and swept through Honeysuckle House oohing and aahing over every detail. She thought the face in the carved pediment had “bedroom eyes” and the Greek gods on the mantel and on the dining room frieze “cute butts.” My library made her “want to curl up and read till doomsday.” I thought her ardor would cool when she saw Matilda’s spinster apartment, but she deemed it “darlin’ ” and said it reminded her of the room she had rented in a woman’s hotel in St. Louis when she was drying out and writing her memoir.
“This house is the perfect place for me to write!” she said, crushing me to her ample bosom in an impetuous hug. “You see, I sometimes have a teeny problem staying on track. Men are the biggest distraction—don’t you think that Frank Delmarco is just hunky?—and then there’s …” She extended her pinky and thumb and tilted her hand in front of her mouth in the universal sign for drinking. “… the demon rum. But I know that here the two of us will be quiet as church mice and drink hot cocoa in the evenings and get so much work done!”
I wondered what had happened to all the “fun” she’d promised me back at the reception. I was still trying to find a polite way of telling her I didn’t want a roommate, but if her moving in was inevitable—as it increasingly seemed to be—then I’d better at least make it clear that I needed lots of undisturbed quiet time in which to write.
“I do have an idea for a new book,” I said cautiously as we walked upstairs, hoping I wouldn’t jinx the idea by talking about it. “And I’d be working on it most of the time.”
“That’s perfect!” she cried. “Is this where you’re working?”
We’d come to the spare bedroom where I’d laid out all Dahlia LaMotte’s papers.
The door was propped open with one of the mice doorstops (“How adorable!” Phoenix squealed at the sight of it). I thought I’d closed it, but maybe Brock, who’d left after me, had left it open for some reason. He’d also hung something in the window—a little bundle of birch twigs and juniper sprigs tied with a red ribbon that I guessed must be some sort of Swedish good luck charm.
I explained to her about Dahlia LaMotte’s papers and the unusual terms of her will but didn’t mention that I’d discovered a secret trove of nineteenth-century erotica.
“What serendipity!” Phoenix clapped her hands and then held them out over the piles of paper as though blessing them. “I can feel the creative energy here. Oh, I just know I’d get so much work done in this house … which would be such a lifesaver. Did I mention that I’m six months overdue on delivery of my next manuscript to my publisher?”
As we walked down the hall to my bedroom, Phoenix told me all the reasons she hadn’t been able to even start her second book. There were the time constraints of touring, doing interviews, and writing blurbs, plus the pressure of living up to the expectations of her dear readers whose lives she had
“… and when Frank told me I thought it sounded just perfect. What do you say?”
I realized that I’d been so intent on looking at the man in the painting and explaining his existence to myself that I’d lost the thread of Phoenix’s conversation. “I’m sorry, it’s so loud in here … what did you say?”
“Your spare room. Frank says you’re looking for a lodger for it. I was going to stay in an apartment in one of the dorms, but between you, me, and the lamppost, I don’t think I’m the dorm mother type. I’m sure the two of us together would have much more fun!”
NINE
T rying to sway Phoenix from moving in with me turned out to be about as easy as persuading Hurricane Katrina to make landfall somewhere other than New Orleans. She was so smitten with the notion that she followed me home after the reception and swept through Honeysuckle House oohing and aahing over every detail. She thought the face in the carved pediment had “bedroom eyes” and the Greek gods on the mantel and on the dining room frieze “cute butts.” My library made her “want to curl up and read till doomsday.” I thought her ardor would cool when she saw Matilda’s spinster apartment, but she deemed it “darlin’ ” and said it reminded her of the room she had rented in a woman’s hotel in St. Louis when she was drying out and writing her memoir.
“This house is the perfect place for me to write!” she said, crushing me to her ample bosom in an impetuous hug. “You see, I sometimes have a teeny problem staying on track. Men are the biggest distraction—don’t you think that Frank Delmarco is just hunky?—and then there’s …” She extended her pinky and thumb and tilted her hand in front of her mouth in the universal sign for drinking. “… the demon rum. But I know that here the two of us will be quiet as church mice and drink hot cocoa in the evenings and get so much work done!”
I wondered what had happened to all the “fun” she’d promised me back at the reception. I was still trying to find a polite way of telling her I didn’t want a roommate, but if her moving in was inevitable—as it increasingly seemed to be—then I’d better at least make it clear that I needed lots of undisturbed quiet time in which to write.
“I do have an idea for a new book,” I said cautiously as we walked upstairs, hoping I wouldn’t jinx the idea by talking about it. “And I’d be working on it most of the time.”
“That’s perfect!” she cried. “Is this where you’re working?”
We’d come to the spare bedroom where I’d laid out all Dahlia LaMotte’s papers.
The door was propped open with one of the mice doorstops (“How adorable!” Phoenix squealed at the sight of it). I thought I’d closed it, but maybe Brock, who’d left after me, had left it open for some reason. He’d also hung something in the window—a little bundle of birch twigs and juniper sprigs tied with a red ribbon that I guessed must be some sort of Swedish good luck charm.
I explained to her about Dahlia LaMotte’s papers and the unusual terms of her will but didn’t mention that I’d discovered a secret trove of nineteenth-century erotica.
“What serendipity!” Phoenix clapped her hands and then held them out over the piles of paper as though blessing them. “I can feel the creative energy here. Oh, I just know I’d get so much work done in this house … which would be such a lifesaver. Did I mention that I’m six months overdue on delivery of my next manuscript to my publisher?”
As we walked down the hall to my bedroom, Phoenix told me all the reasons she hadn’t been able to even start her second book. There were the time constraints of touring, doing interviews, and writing blurbs, plus the pressure of living up to the expectations of her dear readers whose lives she had
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