The Restoration of Celia Fairchild - Marie Bostwick Page 0,45

a hand.”

“Maybe we can too,” Heath said, looking to Caroline. “It’s my day off and we don’t have any plans this afternoon, do we?”

“Nope,” Caroline said, shaking her head. “I’ve got a couple of emails to write but those can wait. If everybody pitches in, we ought to be able to clear out at least one bedroom and a bathroom. You won’t need more than that for now, will you?”

“No, but I—”

“Great!” Pris said, and bounded toward the stairs. “Where should we start? Did you pick a room yet?”

“Hang on.” I set the kombucha six-pack down on the floor and held up my hands. “Look, I appreciate the offer, really. But I can’t let you do this.”

Caroline squinched up her eyes and looked in Heath’s direction, as if requesting a translation. “Why not? Who else is going to help you?”

WITH FOUR SETS of hands instead of one, things should have gone more quickly.

They didn’t. Not at first.

Heath insisted on surveying the entire house and coming up with a plan to separate trash from potential treasure, disposing of the former and cataloging and preserving the latter, approaching the task like the academic he was. But where Heath saw an archaeological dig, I saw a pile of garbage.

“Did you know that some of the most valuable historical finds were discovered in ancient garbage piles?” he asked, grinning in response to my observation. “One of the best ways an ancient culture—how people lived, what they valued, practiced, or believed—can be understood is by digging through the trash they left behind.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fascinating,” I said wearily. “But I just want to clear out enough of the crap so I’ll have someplace to sleep tonight.”

“We will,” he said, lifting a hand to seal the promise. “But first we’ve got to get organized. I’ve got an idea. Pris, come with me. You two stay here. We’ll be back in a minute.”

Heath bounded down the front steps. Pris followed him.

“Don’t worry,” Caroline said. “If Heath says you’ll have a place to sleep tonight, you will.”

Would I? Not at this rate. Heath and Caroline were a cute couple and it was sweet of them to want to help, Pris too, but I was so tired and discouraged. The only thing I had to show for aching muscles and hours of work was two stairsteps. If I couldn’t even clean out a room for myself, how would I ever turn this wreck into a home for Peaches? I sat down on the stairs and propped my chin in my hands. In another second, I might have started to tear up. Then Caroline reached down, squeezed my shoulder, and said, “Hey.”

It doesn’t make sense if you’re not from here, but in the South, “hey” doesn’t just mean “hey.” It means “I see you and I know you. You’re not in this alone. I got you, girl.”

Caroline hadn’t been in Charleston for long, but she had already picked up some of the important nuances of southern culture. It made me feel better.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Anytime,” Caroline replied, then smiled and squeezed my shoulder again before walking to the front door and looking outside. “Looks like Heath’s brought reinforcements. Friends of yours?”

I got up and joined Caroline at the door. Heath and Pris were coming up the walk. Two scruffy, tattooed men in torn blue jeans and ratty T-shirts trailed them.

“More like employees,” I said. “Red and Slip.”

“Oh.” Caroline said. “Good guys?”

“I guess. Just don’t leave your purse out anywhere.”

“Okay, let’s huddle up,” Heath said once everybody was inside, clapping his hands together like a coach getting ready to deliver a locker room speech. “Our goal is to clear this first flight of stairs, the first bedroom at the top of those stairs, and an adjacent bathroom. It’s a lot to accomplish in one afternoon, but if we work together, we can make it happen. Here’s my plan.”

Heath’s plan involved dividing up into teams, handing items off from one team to the next, like a bucket brigade. Heath and Caroline would remove items from the upper part of the house and bring them down to me and Pris. We would sort through the items, deciding what should be kept or donated to charity and what should be thrown away. Items in the first two categories would be stowed into marked boxes, the rest would be handed off to Red, Slip, and Lorne, who would carry the trash to the dumpster.

Heath was a little bossy but, I had to admit, things moved