Pru’s mouth dropped open, but no answer came. She gazed up at the wardrobe, then around the room in general. Jordan could swear she saw a bit of shine in her eyes, but then her shoulders seemed to tighten and she nodded.
“Yes,” Pru said. “Your brother’s right, honey. I know it’s hard, but we need to get this place up to modern snuff. I have to learn to let go, and so do you.”
She didn’t want to upset her grandmother if this was what she really wanted, but deep down, Jordan knew this wasn’t the way.
Plus, Natasha had said lean into it, right? Emery had said that her defiance—if Jordan read between the lines a little—was what made interesting TV. And interesting TV could save the Everwood.
“We can update and modernize without erasing everything the Everwood stands for,” she said. “Let me have the wardrobe. I’ll refinish it. Rework it to fit what”—here she nearly choked on the name, but pressed on when she noticed Emery throwing her a very surreptitious thumbs-up—“Astrid has planned.”
“Jordan,” her brother said, “we can’t rework every single—”
“Okay,” Pru said, cutting Simon off with a gentle pat on his arm. “Let’s see what you can come up with.”
Jordan let out a breath. “Thank you.” She stuck a blue sticky note on the wardrobe, indicating to the movers coming tomorrow that they were keeping this piece. She’d have them move it out to the dusty shed behind the carriage house she’d already started cleaning out to be her workshop.
As they continued to meander through the house, labeling things with different-colored sticky notes, Jordan pressed a blue one on more things than not.
“Your workshop isn’t the Louvre,” Simon said when she affixed a note to an antique desk in the master bedroom, a truly atrocious oak beast. “It’ll only fit so much.”
She simply stuck her tongue out at him, a plan slowly coalescing in her brain.
She was lead carpenter, and she was not going to let Astrid-fucking-Parker, or even her own family, ruin the only place she’d ever been truly happy.
Natasha and Emery wanted tension?
She would give them some goddamn tension.
Chapter Seven
TUESDAY MORNING, ASTRIDfound herself piling into anInnside Americavan with Natasha, Emery, Regina from the crew to run the camera, and Jordan, heading to the flea market in Sotheby to film some local shopping before demo would get fully underway the next day. She knew the flea market wouldn’t have anything she wanted to use in her design—while always packed with lots of interesting antiques, the market wasn’t exactly Astrid’s style—but Natasha always liked to pull in some local shops and artisans for the show.
Astrid was prepared for this. She’d been prepared for this scene from the moment Pru called her about being the lead designer. But now, with her style clashing with Jordan’s and this new tension theme Natasha was pushing, she had no clue what to expect.
Once they arrived, Regina hoisted a camera on her shoulder, Emery carried the boom mic, and Natasha simply shoved Astrid and Jordan into the fray and said, “Go get ’em.” No direction, nothing.
Jordan, dressed in a pair of gray jeans and a fitted navy button-up covered in tiny clouds dripping rain, looked at Astrid expectantly.
“This is your town, Parker,” she said. “Lead on.”
Astrid nodded, choosing not to point out that Sotheby wasn’t her town at all, that she’d been to this flea market only once, when Iris first moved into her apartment six years ago and wanted to fill it with an amalgam of bohemian colors and fabrics.
She flipped her sunglasses over her face and looked out across the large, grassy space. Multicolored tents spread out before them, shoppers roaming with tote bags and sun hats, arms bared to the long-awaited spring warmth. The air smelled like coffee and butter, and Astrid remembered that there were always a few food artisans here: coffeemakers and microbrewers and bakers, even a few local winemakers.
“Let’s head this way,” she said, nodding her head toward the main thoroughfare, as if there were really any other option. Still, she was determined to look like she knew what the hell she was doing.
She stopped at a tent that sold candles, and while the strong scents of patchouli and sage were nearly overwhelming, she made a show of picking up one of many white candles in Mason jars, twine curling around the glass.
“These might be nice on some end tables,” she said.
Jordan took the candle and sniffed, nose wrinkling in disgust. “It smells like a school cafeteria.”
Astrid took a whiff, the candle still in Jordan’s hands. She inhaled something pungent and bright with a warmer undertone not unlike baked chicken. “Oh my god, you’re right.”
Jordan inspected the label. “Look, it’s even called ‘Horrible Memories from Your Youth.’ ”
Astrid rolled her eyes, taking the candle to look for herself. “It is not.”
“Might as well be.”
