Chapter 24: The Lady of the House

I got out of the truck and took the foreman's clipboard out of his hand.

The order was typed on Graham's firm letterhead.

It had a date, a signature and a list of rooms.

One line said the movers were to carry the tenants' belongings to a storage unit in Fall River.

"Who pays for the day?" I asked.

"It's prepaid, ma'am," the foreman said. "Mr. Rowntree's office settled up in September. We're non-refundable."

"Good. Then you're hired."

He frowned. "For what?"

A cream-colored Buick turned in at the gate behind his truck.

A station wagon followed it, and then a minivan with a church's name on the door.

The president got out of the Buick in her raincoat with a typed list in one hand.

She looked at the truck, at the foreman, at me.

"I called the church hall at noon," she said. "Eleven tables and sixty chairs."

She eyed the truck.

"I'd have asked for a truck, but I see you've got one."

"Is this your idea, or Gran's?"

"It was always hers. I'm just the one who carries the list."

The Garden Club member in the beret came around the Buick with a casserole dish in both hands.

"We heard the lady of the house was throwing a supper," she said.

"She is," I said.

I had not known it until that second.

I handed the clipboard back to the foreman.

"Your order was for taking my things out of this house," I said. "Today it's tables from the church hall into the yard."

"Same truck, same hours," Cal said. "Do you want to argue?"

The foreman looked at the eleven old women climbing out of their cars.

Then he looked at the man beside me, who had a bruise under his eye.

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