Merrie
“What do you think the first official bake-off event is going to be?” I asked Olivia the next morning as we drove over to the historic Wynter Estate she had been working on. It was outside of Harrogate, one of the estate houses the railroad scions of old had spent millions designing back when Harrogate was a booming industrial town.
I had always loved those big estate houses. In school, instead of dreaming about boys, I had dreamed of being an American duchess and throwing over-the-top holiday parties in my amazing historic mansion.
“It can’t be something too difficult. Older seasons had something like cookies for the first challenge.”
I stared out at the snowy rural landscape.
“What if they want us to make something really difficult? I’m not a trained pastry chef. I just copy dessert recipes I see on TikTok videos.”
“You make them way better, though,” Olivia assured me.
The gates swung open automatically when we approached. Olivia pulled her car down the drive. The stone driveway was flanked by huge white oaks that would have been perfect with swirls of Christmas lights. I gasped as we pulled up in the roundabout. Even though the house wasn’t decorated for the holidays, it was still stunning.
“This looks amazing! I can’t believe you repaired all that stone,” I gushed as Olivia parked in front of the house.
“The mason was incredible,” my friend said as we climbed the wide stone steps up to the ornate wood and glass door. She unlocked it.
“The windows look awesome,” I said, staring up at the facade.
“The new steel windows we had fabricated to replace the broken ones match exactly!” Olivia said as we walked into the house. “I just have to pack up and inventory these tacky furniture pieces, and then the owner will put the property on the market. He sure spent a fortune on it.”
“Has he even been here?”
“I haven’t met him on site. Just the property manager.”
We walked through the house, my footfalls echoing on the pristine refinished hardwood. A grand staircase floated from the second floor into the foyer. I hugged a built-in bookcase by one of the hand-carved stone fireplaces.
“I would put garland all along that I said, and I’d put my big statement Christmas tree here. This foyer needs a twenty-foot tree, bedazzled with Christmas ornaments. Oh, look at all these fireplaces! They would all get a themed mantel. And all this wood trim. Drool!”
“I’m goingto guess your fantasy does not include a lime-green Louis the Fourteenth-style chair or a couch in yellow and red plaid?” Olivia asked, whisking a sheet off of several pieces of the tackiest furniture I had ever seen.
“Barf. I am so glad the relationship imploded before this trim was painted.”
“Amen,” Olivia said. “The paint is out in the conservatory. I had to see it, so you have to too.”
In the large round conservatory, which had glass walls made up of small pieces of sparkling glazing in a metal lattice, sat several large containers of paint. Olivia pried the lid off of one.
“Eww. What’s wrong with it?”
“This is the color that was on the ex’s Pinterest page,” she explained.
I peered at the paint. “It’s green? I thought you said it was gray.”
“It’s a gray green.”
“It looks like it’s moldy.”
I put the lid back on and walked through the large glass French doors out onto the terrace while Olivia took a call. The stone pavers were blanketed with a layer of snow. I stood at the top of the steps looking out into the acres of forest behind the house. The sky was a hazy shade of gray. The snow fell softly. In the distance, the lights on the outbuildings glowed.
“This house is so amazing!” I said loudly, coming back inside to look for Olivia.
“Thank God that idiot owner is selling it. He doesn’t deserve this house. That he’s trying to please some gold-digging chick who wants to ruin this place with tacky furniture means he’s probably some whipped little boy playing monopoly with his dad’s money. I mean, have some backbone and appreciation for historic architecture.”
My friend wasn’t in the large kitchen with its marble countertops and copper hood vent over a range and oven that was bigger than the closet I had inhabited in Manhattan.
“Also, did I tell you how much I love these floors?” I called out. I thought I heard sounds from the study.
