Free Dreadful Sorry by Kathryn Reiss Page B

Paulette bubbled with excitement as she told Molly her plans for the house.
    "We want to furnish it with antiques from the period when the house was first built. Mid-nineteenth century. Billy and I have been combing the flea markets and auctions around here. Now that he's hurt his ankle, maybe you'll come with me?"
    "Sure." If she threw herself into the renovations, she wouldn't think about hallways or patches of wallpaper where maybe a mirror had hung.
    From the living room they moved to a large, formal dining room, also empty of furniture. A stepladder lay on its side on a plastic ground cloth speckled with wallpaper paste. An overturned bucket of paste had spilled onto the cloth and spattered on the floorboards as well. "The scene of the accident!" proclaimed Paulette. "This is where your daddy was working when he fell—my poor darling. I didn't even have a chance to clean up."
    "I'll help you." Molly stepped carefully around the mess. "He's lucky he didn't break
both
ankles."
    "We'll clean up tomorrow." Paulette sighed. "I'm afraid I blame myself. I was holding the ladder, but then the phone rang and I went to get it—and that's when he fell."
    "It wasn't your fault," Molly said comfortingly.
    Paulette led Molly into a glass-walled room with five sides. "This is what they called the conservatory," she said, flicking on the lights. "Can you imagine how
gorgeous
it will be once we get some big plants in it? I want it really lush. It will be a great place to serve our guests their breakfasts."
    In the daytime, Molly supposed, there would be a panoramic view from this room over the entire headland. But now, in the dark, it was just an odd-shaped, empty room with dirty glass walls.
    Paulette led her through the butler's pantry ("Too bad it didn't come equipped with a butler," Paulette giggled) and into a small, bare room with wide wooden floorboards and built-in corner cupboards. "This is the servants' dining room. Can you imagine having so many maids that they had their
own
dining room? We'll probably turn this into a playroom for the baby. The guests' kids could use it, too. We want to cater to families, you know. Make them feel right at home—or even better than at home."
    "Did you say 'baby'?" asked Molly.
    "
Ooh!
" Paulette clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes twinkling. "I'm not supposed to say
anything!
Billy wants to tell you himself."
    "You and Dad are having a baby?" A thrill of excitement banished the lingering fear.
    "Yes! Isn't it super? But don't tell Billy I told you. He'll tell you tomorrow. You've
got
to act surprised! I shouldn't have let it slip, and I'm not going to tell you another thing until we're with Billy."
    They circled back through the kitchen into the front hallway, Molly's thoughts on the new sister or brother she'd be having. How soon would it be born? She scrutinized her skinny stepmother and thought maybe there was the slightest swell to her belly under the T-shirt.
What great news!
    Another door off the main hallway led to a dark-paneled room much like the parlor, with French doors leading out to a side porch. Built-in bookshelves lined all four walls, extending even around the fireplace. The shelves weren't completely empty—there were moving boxes pushed into the lower ones. Paint flaked off the high ceiling. Bits of it lay on the floorboards. "The library," announced Paulette. "Won't it be
beautiful
once we unpack our books? Not that we have enough to fill all these shelves, but we'll order some, or join a book club or something. Billy says there's a place in New York City near his old apartment where you can buy books by the
yard—
isn't that funny? They're used books, of course, and people buy them just to fill up space and look good, I guess. We'll let our guests use this as a sort of family room."
    "Get a big library table for that alcove at the other end," suggested Molly. She knew exactly the sort of table it should be: rectangular, made of oak, with carved