Until I saw it in person, it was hard to imagine just how glorious it would be. Truth is, Ellie’s dorm room is nicer than any room in our entire house, including our formal living room. Mama’s house isn’t even this nice. Well, yes it is. It’s just old.
I am scared to death to comment. If I gloat Haynes is sure to pick up on how much it all cost and well, frankly, he doesn’t know yet. So I smile. And try to act as if it’s just another day in the life of Haynes and Wilda Woodcock.
“Y’all must have been here for hours,” Haynes says, crawling out from underneath Ellie’s bed, “This room seems about perfect to me.”
“We started yesterday,” Rhonda replies, from a stepstool. She’s adjusting the valance over Ellie’s closet. “The rest of my team’s already moved on to another room.”
Haynes glances at me, then at Maurice. “I’ll get you paid for your work, Mr. Robinson. Please leave me your address and I’ll send you a check.”
“Oh no, that’s part of it,” Rhonda says, before Mr. Robinson can speak, adding, “I run a turnkey business.”
I freeze.Here it is. My undoing. She’s bound to say something about the cost. But she never says another word. Just goes back to primping and fluffing the closet curtain. More importantly, Haynes doesn’t ask.
Rhonda won’t let us lift a finger. I guess not, for all the money we’ve spent. So Lilith and I just chitchat. Despite her extravagant taste, I have to admit I’m excited about reacquainting. We never really hit it off in college, but now that our daughters are roommates I’m hopeful our friendship will grow and we’ll make up for lost time. She was our sorority president, for goodness sakes.
A knock on the door interrupts our conversation. The door is half open and a man pokes his head inside. “Is this room 918?”
Simultaneously we all answer. “Yes.”
“I have a safe for an Annie Laurie Whitmore?”
Haynes’s head turns slowly toward the door. His eyebrows are knitted tightly together and his lips are flat-lined. “Did you say, ‘a safe’?”
The deliveryman nods.
“For what?” Haynes asks in a dubious tone.
The guy shrugs and Gage, ignoring Haynes’s question, puts down his coffee and swallows in a hurry. “You’re in the right place.” He turns to Lilith. “Where does the safe go, darling?”
Lilith turns to Rhonda with a raised palm.
Rhonda jumps—literally jumps—over Gage’s foot and stands in a small spot next to the sofa. “It’s twenty-one by nineteen by thirty-seven, right?”
The fellow shrugs. “I couldn’t tell ya.”
“Hang on.” Rhonda whips out a measuring tape clipped to her belt. Then measures and gives him a thumbs-up. “Put it right here, please.”
The deliveryman maneuvers his dolly around the boxes and places the safe down with a loud thud. The floor jolts. I glance up at Haynes, whose face is void of any expression whatsoever, which, under different circumstances, would have cracked me up. Gage gives the guy a check and slips the receipt into his pocket. We all watch as he closes the door behind him.
Rhonda moves over to the closet, squats down, and pulls something out of her bag. “Looky here!” Now she’s waving that something high in the air. On my word of honor, Rhonda Taylor has made Annie Laurie Whitmore a custom safe cover.
“We can hide it with this,” she says while wrapping and Velcroing it around the safe. “And,” she’s back to the closet, “I had a piece of granite cut. That way…” We all watch her place the square on top of the safe. “It can easily double as an entertaining station.” Patting the top, she asks, “Who brought the Keurig?”
“We did,” I say, happy to make a contribution and cut through the tension. I don’t need to look at Haynes to know there’s steam shooting out of his ears.
“Get ya a sugar jar, a cream pitcher, and a little bowl for your stevia. Then run out to Williams Sonoma and buy an ice bucket, a pair of tongs, maybe even a wine opener.” She winks. “You’ll be all set.”
“The safe is our treat,” Lilith says. “Ellie is more than welcome to use it anytime she wants. Annie Laurie will give her the code.”
“I told Annie Laurie she ought to put her Jimmy Choos in it,” Gage says, with a shrug. “God knows between her and her mother I should have bought stock in that company a long time ago.”
Haynes Woodcock is irate. I know him so well. He’s biting his bottom lip, the way he does when he’s trying to hold his tongue. The very idea that Annie Laurie has brought enough valuables to require a safe,to college,is making him crazy. I just know it. He steps out of the room in silence without telling any of us where he’s going.
***
When the install is finally over, around two o’clock, and the girls—and Haynes—have returned to see Ole Miss Dorm Room of the Year, it truly looks like it belongs on the pages ofTown & CountryorHouse Beautiful.Ellie’seyes look like shiny new half-dollars and her smile belongs to a camera. I can’t say Annie Laurie’s expression matches Ellie’s, but I can tell she’s happy. The two of them hug excitedly when they see it, then crawl up on their beds, using their footstools.
“Hang on, y’all. Let me get my camera.” Rhonda reaches into her back pocket for her phone and snaps a picture of the girls. “I’m gonna tweet, Instagram, and Facebook this out riiight now.” Her thumbs are typing frantically. “So cute, y’all.”
