83 - Barbie Dreamhouse

When her phone rang on Sunday morning, Jeri Daniels’s gaze immediately zipped to the kitschy Felix the Cat clock her Grandma Evelyn had given her for her twenty-fifth birthday.  Felix’s eyes darted left and right, mirroring the ticking swish of his pendulum tail.

Nine o’clock.  He waited longer than I expected him to.

Knowing her employer, he might as easily have called at six or seven o’clock, dragging her out of bed and belligerently demanding answers.  He would be well within his rights to do so.  Security had been breached and she had been the one in charge of security this time around.  Her ass was the one on the line and it was hanging on by a bare thread today, because she still didn’t know how TMZ had gotten their information. 

Taking her glasses off and placing them on the kitchen table – her makeshift desk – she stole another gulp of Ken’s sinfully good coffee before answering.

“Good morning, Jon.”  Her tone was crisp, but deliberately upbeat and optimistic.  There may not be any headway on the mysterious leak in the Bon Jovi camp, but she did have something positive to share.

“Is it a good morning, Jeri?  Do you have the information I want?  Because I’m thinkin’ if you did, you would have called me already.  So what’s the story?”

Taking a deep breath, she shrugged away any trepidation.  He was a reasonable man.  Most days.

“As of right now, we don’t have an ID on the informant.  TMZ has their lawyers screaming First Amendment rights, protecting their source and all that.”

“I have lawyers who can scream, too, goddammit!”

Two fingers dug into her right temple and she slowly rotated them, hoping to alleviate the headache threatening to bloom.  “Scream what, Jon?  As long as it’s true, they can say whatever they want.”

The noise that found its way over the line resembled something that might come from a wounded wild animal.  It wasn’t one she was familiar with from her boss, and she hoped it was a one-time deal. 

“You realize the vein in my forehead is as big as my dick right now, don’t you?  I do NOT like having my hands tied and I fucking DESPISE having a snitch in my inner circle.   What are our options?”

This was the part she dreaded more than anything. 

“Our options are very... limited.  As in non-existent.  Unless we can find someone who is willing to leak TMZ info, there’s nothing to be done except wipe the egg off of our faces.”

“That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

“I realize that, sir, but it’s the only answer I have that will hold water.”

Felix the Cat’s tail swung back and forth three times before Jon gave his response.  “Sheridan has a friend.  I’ll see if she can find out something.  Call me if you get anything – anything at all.”

“Wait!”  Knowing his tendency to end calls abruptly, Jeri had to catch his attention before he disconnected.  Maybe this information would give him a positive lead to follow. 

“Yeah?”

“The realtor faxed me over some houses you might want to take a look at.  One of them meets your specifications almost to the letter.”

“Where’s it at?”

“About a mile and a half down the road from the Navesink property.”

“And the kids,” he added on.  “And my studio.  Damn if that wouldn’t be handy.  If...”

Jeri frowned, wondering what the problem could be.  There were enough bedrooms, enough baths, it was a riverfront property, it was set back from the road and had a gate.  The photos were gorgeous and it was currently unoccupied which advanced the possession time considerably.

“If what?” she was forced to prod when he didn’t finish the sentence. 

“Nothing.  Never mind.  We’re taking the kids back to Dorothea’s house in about an hour.  See if you can set up a viewing for noon, would ya?”

“Yes, sir.  I’ll email a link to the property listing so that you can take a preliminary look.  Then, when the listing agent confirms the appointment, I’ll text the address and her contact information.”

❧❧❧

“How do you feel about looking at a house?”  Jon asked casually as he checked for traffic on Navesink River Road.  Finding the somewhat quiet roadway clear, he turned left, heading back toward the heart of Red Bank.

After a breakfast of pancakes for the kids and vegetarian omelets for the adults, they had all managed to wade through the small group of determined media hounds lurking in front of the building relatively unscathed.  The ensuing trip out to New Jersey to return his kids to their mother had been a bit subdued in the wake. 

On a brighter note, Dorothea had been cordial, if formal, at the door and even nodded politely toward the car and Sheridan.  She reminded him about Jake’s choral concert on Thursday evening and confirmed that he would take the boys next weekend before wishing him a good day and closing the door.

She still wasn’t happy by any stretch of the imagination, but she had gotten her act together.  He at least recognized her as the woman he’d been married to, unlike the woman who’d been screaming like a crazy person in his apartment Friday evening. 

You wouldn’t find him complaining about polite formality.  Did he wish they could be friends again, the way they used to be before Sheridan?  He did, with all his heart.  It would be undeniably better for the kids and easier on the grown-ups. 

One step at a time, he supposed. 

“A house?” Sheridan asked with a quizzical expression, shifting in her seat to better see him.  “I didn’t know that’s what we were doing today, but sure.  What do you know about it?  Where is it?  How many bedrooms does it have?”

Considering that they were rapidly approaching the turnoff, he addressed location first.  “It’s right up here.”

“Oh.”

He pulled the car up to the open wrought iron gates without pulling through.  Switching off the turn signal, he put the car in park and glanced out the windshield.  A silver Mercedes was parked in front of the house, but the realtor was going to have to wait a minute.  There was no point in looking at this thing until he found out if a mile and a half was enough distance between his wife and his ex-wife to suit Sheridan. 

“You don’t like the location?”

She didn’t speak at first.  Her eyes were too busy scanning the stone courtyard, lawn, surrounding brick wall and, finally, the front of the oversized New England-style house.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

He flipped his palm over in a modified shrug.  “I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, so I didn’t bring it up in front of the kids.”

“You couldn’t find that out before you dragged a realtor out here?”

Shit. 

“Didn’t you tell me you’d like to move as soon as possible?  It’s available for immediate possession.  Besides, it’s been a rough couple of days and I thought maybe looking at a house might be fun for you.  This place fit the criteria we gave Jeri, so I had her set it up. ”

She returned her attention to the view from the front windshield, this time investigating the landscaping around the front entrance.  Not that you could tell much in January, other than that there was a nice assortment of evergreen bushes.

“It would be close to your kids,” she remarked neutrally.

“And my studio.”

That had her French braid bending in half when she swiveled her head curiously toward him.  “Where is your studio?”

“It’s the gate right before Dorothea’s driveway.  I had it built right after the house was finished.”

“I didn’t realize.” Her face creased into a delicate frown.  “And you’re still using it?”

“Haven’t had much need to since the divorce, but yes.  That was part of our agreement.  I would continue to use the studio until I found or built another.”

Her eyes went back to the house, roaming its three stories, multitude of roof peaks and multi-car garage.  “Does this place have room for you to build?”

“Jeri says there’s a huge space above the garage that might work.  If not, I think there’s a decent sized piece of land behind the house.”

She bit her lip thoughtfully, with a slow nod, not giving anything away.  Jon honestly didn’t care what the answer was.  It wasn’t like he had his heart set on the place.  Yes, it would be convenient and it looked nice enough from here, but if she didn’t want to be here…

“Baby, if you don’t want to be here, it’s no big deal.  I’ve got no vested interest in it other than the location, but I understand that might not be a selling point for you.”

“Not necessarily,” she admitted slowly.  “But it’s not a strike against the place either.”

He waited for more, but it didn’t come.  Jon was finally forced to confess, “I’m just a guy, here.  Can you translate that from woman-speak into man-speak and tell me what that means?  You wanna look or not?”

She dropped her chin into her chest with a chuckle before turning a beaming smile in his direction.  “Sorry, but I didn’t think you’d need a decoder ring to figure it out.  Yes, I wanna look.  It’s preferable to going back through that media mess on Mercer Street and, besides, houses are shopping on one of the grandest scales.  What girl could resist that?”

“I guess not my girl,” he chuckled and righted himself in the seat so that he could put the car in gear.  “Let’s go see what’s what.”

In the next hour, Sheridan was awed and overwhelmed by the 14,500 square-foot, eight-bedroom, ten bath home.  Throughout its three stories were balconies upon balconies that looked out onto the Navesink, and the entire back side of the house was nothing but a wall of windows.  Some were arched, some were French doors, some were merely floor-to-ceiling, but they all let in the pale winter light, brightening the empty space considerably.

“So what do you think?” Jon asked after the realtor stepped into another room to take a call. 

“The master bedroom paint is awful,” was her first reaction.  It was an unappealing shade of avocado that turned her stomach.  In fact, all of the walls were painted in bold colors.  Pumpkin, teal, avocado…  There was nothing subtle about the décor.  She couldn’t imagine wanting to be smothered by such overwhelming shades.

“Ugly as hell, but easy enough to fix,” he chuckled.  “I like the pub.  Makes me miss the one I had at the other house.  The gym space on the ground floor is pretty sweet, too.”

She could see why he would love the media room/pub.  It was every man’s dream with the cherry bar and big screen projection system.  The cherry-fronted gas fireplace was also a nice masculine touch. 

“Did you see anything you like, Kitten?”

Goose pimples danced down her back.  As a matter of fact, she had. 

The French country eat-in kitchen had an island that would be a perfect spot for a high chair.  The sitting area of the master bedroom would be the picture-perfect place for a makeshift nursery the first month or so after the baby was born.  The bedroom right next door would be an ideal nursery if they painted the walls a sunshiny yellow.  The color would amplify the light from the bank of windows, making it seem even more vibrant. 

Sneaking a surreptitious look over her shoulder, she smiled.  Sheridan could imagine Jon’s boys trying to slide down the curved railing of the grand staircase.  For that matter, she could see David trying it. 

“That grand staircase is stunning and those antique glazed cabinets in the kitchen are gorgeous, but it’s the glass that I’m wild over.  I  love natural light and all those windows and French doors looking out over the lawn.... and the skylights...  They’re heavenly.”

“That’s a lot of glass to keep clean with a baby running around,” he teased.

“It’s all a matter of placement,” she informed him without really thinking about it.  “The family room, for example... If we put the an armoire on each wall – or a bookcase on one and armoire on the other – and the sofa in between, then all we need are a couple of baby gates and the windows are a no-baby zone.  We’ll need baby gates at the tops and bottoms of the staircases, too.”

She didn’t even notice the surprise on his face, or the first hint of his tentative smile.  “You’ve already got that all planned out, have ya?”

Yes, as matter of fact, she did.  That’s what mothers were supposed to do, weren’t they?  Protect the young that they managed not to eat?  “We have to plan for the baby, Jon.”

Chuckling, he slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in to plant a lingering kiss against her temple.  “Yeah.  We do.  So does that mean you like the house?”

“I do, but we shouldn’t buy the first house we look at should we?”

“I don’t mean to intrude, but...”  The realtor did just that, anyway.  “The information hasn’t been updated in MLS yet, but the owners have just reduced the list price by twenty percent, if that helps your deliberations.”

His eyes locked into hers plainly asking what she wanted to do. 

What did she want to do? 

It was a Barbie Dreamhouse waiting to come to life.  It was the perfect mixture of elegant and breezy, classic and contemporary, dark and light, comfortable and formal.   A good paint job would obliterate all the ugly walls and elevate the house from lovely to dazzling.  She could see them living here quite easily.  This could be their home. 

“I really want it,” she admitted, turning into him and searching out his eyes.  “Do you?”

He smiled tenderly down into her face.  “I just watched you find your inner mommy because of this place.  Hell yes I want it.”