The Julius House

I went up the stairs to look at the size of the two upstairs bedrooms. The largest one looked out over the front of the house; it was the one with a row of three windows with an awning to keep out the afternoon sun. I was drawn to them immediately. I looked out over the ridge of the porch roof, which was separate; the porch must have been an afterthought. The impression from the front yard was of looking at a large piece of typing paper folded lengthwise—that was the roof of the house—echoed by a smaller piece of notepaper folded the same way lower down, the porch roof. However, this roof didn't intrude on the view, which swept across the fields to a series of distant hills. No other houses in sight. The fireplace downstairs in the large front room was echoed in the fireplace up here.

I loved it.

This would be our bedroom.

Closet space was a definite problem. The double closet was just not adequate. I went across the landing to the little room with no apparent use. Perhaps it had been a sewing room originally? Could we build an extra closet in here? Yes, it was possible. There was a blank wall that would make a larger closet than the one we had in the bedroom. And there was room enough for Martin's exercise equipment. The other upstairs bedroom could be the guest bedroom. Books—where would I put my books? I had so many, with my library combined with Jane's. ... I took time for fond thoughts of Jane, with her silver chignon and her little house, her Sears dresses and modest ways; rich Jane, who'd left me all that money. I sent waves of affection and gratitude toward her, wherever she was, and hoped she was in the heaven I believed in. I went slowly down the stairs, looking below me as I went. The stairs ended about six feet inside the front door and divided the large front room from the wide hall that gave access to the bathroom and downstairs bedroom, and another way to get to the kitchen, rather than going through the dining room. What a nice wide hall. Wouldn't it look great repapered and lined with bookshelves?

I laughed out loud. It seemed there could hardly be anything more entertaining than to have a house to redo and enough money to redo it. This was the happiest morning of my life, spent all alone, in the Julius house.

Chapter Three

I picked up Madeleine from the vet's, where I'd boarded her while I was gone. The entire staff could hardly wait until she left; Madeleine hated everyone who worked there and let them know it. Growls issued from her carrier all the way to the townhouse, but I ignored her. I was riding on a happy wave and no fat marmalade cat could make me crash.

I met Martin for lunch at Beef ‘N More, and once we'd said hello to half a dozen people, we were free to talk about the house. Really, Martin listened to me talk. I set my notepad by my plate and had to keep pushing up my glasses as I referred to it.

"You're happy," he said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin.

"More than I've ever been."

"I got you the right thing."

"Absolutely."

"Would you mind if I left you with the whole responsibility of seeing to the changes we need to make in the house?"

"Is this a nice way of saying, ‘Since you're not working, could this be your job?'"

Martin looked disconcerted for a second. "I guess it is," he admitted. "I want our house to look nice, of course, and be comfortable for us; I mean, I care what it looks like! But I have some business trips coming up—" I made a little sound of dismay. "Trips?"

"I'm sorry, honey. This was totally unexpected. I promise in three weeks I won't budge." Three weeks from now was the wedding. "But there are a lot of things I have to tie up before I take off for the wedding and our honeymoon." To tell the truth, the prospect of having free rein on the house renovation was very attractive. I felt he was dangling that as recompense for the business trips, but okay. I bit.

"What have we got in the next three weeks that I need to be on hand for?" he said, getting his pocket calendar out.

I whipped out my own and went over the schedule: a supper party, a shower for me. "Then," I went on, "we have a barbecue in our honor at Amina's parents' lake house, a week from Saturday. It's informal. Amina and her husband will be driving in from Houston for that."

Amina would be my only attendant. The fit of her dress and the chance of her getting nauseated during the ceremony added yet another note of suspense to an already nerve-wracking rite.

"Southern weddings," my beloved said darkly.

"It would be a lot worse if we weren't so old and established," I told him. "If I were twenty-two instead of thirty-one and you were twenty-four instead of forty-five, we'd have at least double this schedule." Martin was aghast.

"I'm not joking," I assured him.

"And then, at the reception, you just have cake and punch," he said, shaking his head.

"I know it's hard to understand, but that's the way we do things in Lawrenceton," I said firmly. "I know when Barby got married she had a supper buffet and a band, but believe me, we're stretching it by having champagne." He took my hand and once again I felt that oozy, melty feeling that was disgustingly like a forties song.

"I heard from Barby," he said, and I kept my face smiling happily with some effort. My future sister-in-law wasn't my favorite part of the wedding package. "She's flying in two days before the wedding, and she accepted your mother's offer of her guest bedroom. I'll call your mother and thank her," Martin said, making a note. "And Barrett called."

Martin's son called Martin about once a month, to recount his ups and downs on the road to an acting career in California.

"Is Barrett still going to be your best man?"

"He can't make it."

I stiffened, dropping all pretense at smiling.

"He has a part in a movie filming then," Martin said expressionlessly. "He's waited a long time for this part; he has lines and is on screen for several scenes... the hero's best friend."

We looked at each other.

"I'm sorry," I said finally.

Martin looked over the heads of the other diners. I was glad we were in one of the little alcoves that make Beef ‘N More at least a tolerable place to eat. "There's something I want to talk to you about," he said after a moment. The subject of Barrett was clearly closed.

I shifted my face around to "Expectant."

"The garage apartment," he said.

I raised my eyebrows even higher.

"I have a friend who just came into town from Florida. He lost his job. He and his wife are very capable people. I wondered—if you didn't mind—if they could have the garage apartment."

"Of course," I said. I'd never met a friend of Martin's, an old friend. He had made a few co

"Vietnam," he said.

"So what's his name?"

"Shelby. Shelby Youngblood. I thought... with all the renovation ... it might be nice to have someone else on the spot out at the house. Shelby will probably work out at Pan-Am Agra in shipping and receiving, but Angel, his wife, could be there when he's not."

"Okay," I said, feeling I'd missed something important. "When I found out Barrett couldn't come," Martin said, almost as an afterthought, "I called your stepfather, and he's agreed to be my best man." I smiled with genuine pleasure. In many ways, it was easier to marry an older man who was used to fending for himself. "That was a good idea," I said, knowing John must have been pleased to be asked.

We parted in the parking lot. He took off back to work, and I was going to my favorite paint/carpet/wallpaper store, Total House, to start the Julius place on its road to becoming our house. But halfway there, I pulled over to the curb and sat staring ahead, my window open for the cool fresh air. Martin, in his "mysterious" mode, had put one over on me. Who the hell was this Shelby Youngblood? What kind of woman was his wife? What sort of job in Florida had he lost, and how did he know where to find Martin? I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, wondering. Probably this was the downside of marrying an older man who was used to fending for himself. He also was not used to having to explain himself. And yet Martin deserved to keep his past life a secret, I thought confusedly; I was hardly telling him all... No! I had told him everything that might make a difference to our life together. I wasn't wanting to know the names of his sexual partners in the past years, which of course he should keep to himself. But I had a right, didn't I, a right to know—what? What was really frightening me? But we hadn't known each other that long, I told myself. We had plenty of time for Martin to tell me whatever heavy and grim passages from his past he wanted me to know.