“She was just about run out of here by the wives of this town.”
My eyes flared. “What?”
“That girl,” Lance spat, “knocked the headboard of just about every man in this town. It got so bad that the wives banded together. They told Crystal that if she didn’t leave, they were going to make her go.”
“You’re kidding.”
Lance shook his head. “I wish I was. But the last thing I am is kidding. That girl is trouble with a capital T. I’m sorry that she’s going after your clients. All you can do is hope that she doesn’t manage to make them think she’s got any talent. The only talent she has is…well, you get the picture.”
I did and it didn’t make me feel any better.
“Don’t look so down in the dumps,” Lance said. “Most folks will see right through Crystal. She’s a talentless hack riding your coattails. And if they don’t see through it, I’ll let them know loud and clear that she’s full of crap.”
I smiled wanly. “Thanks, Lance.”
“But you were asking about doorknobs. I have a special one, here.”
I dropped my napkin and empty Styrofoam coffee cup in the trash and followed Lance to the back of the shop. In a small bin, all by itself, sat an engraved brass doorknob.
“Oh, that’s pretty.”
Lance plucked it from its resting place. “It’s not just pretty. It’s magical.”
I squinted at it. All I saw was brass. I didn’t see any magic wafting from it. “You’re kidding.”
“No, and don’t tell Patrick, but I had that new spell hunter, John? Is that his name?”
Not really.“Yes. That’s right.”
“I had him find me a travel spell to place on this.”
Impressed and surprised, I replied, “So what does it do?”
“Honey, this doorknob will give you a glimpse of any place that you want to see. It can act like a regular doorknob, but if you want to, say, see the golden wheat fields of Provence, you can tell it to show you. When you open the door, voila! There you are, getting a firsthand look at Provence. Wouldn’t it be marvelous to have a little door set up by your dining room table? Then while you ate, you could pretend you’re in Paris or Rome or even the Serengeti? It would be amazing.”
It would be amazing, and I knew just the person who could use such a detail in their soon-to-be renovation.
“Sold,” I said, holding open my palm. “How much do you want for it?”
Chapter 5
Convinced that this doorknob would be the thing that would make Hadley Hutto hire me (if she was on the fence, that was, and I doubted it), I left Architectural Scavengers giddy and gleeful.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t exactly giddy, but I certainly was proud of myself. And maybe I was feeling a bit smug. Yes, I was definitely feeling smug.
I was walking to my car when I spotted Malene’s Miata over at the library. I wondered exactly how Urleen and Normal Ray were adjusting to Malene’s drastic change in style and attitude. Let’s face it, Malene had been acting like a different person for so long that her best friends may have forgotten who she was to begin with.
Curious, I set off across the street for the library.
Usually I could see Malene and her friends through the front window, but today a quilt hung there, completely blocking my view.
“That’s strange,” I murmured, and luckily no one was around to see me talking to myself.
That would be embarrassing—to be busted talking to myself in public. Now that I thought about it, maybe I had been busted before and just hadn’t realized it. Sometimes folks gave me strange looks. That was why. I was just too cool for school and they couldn’t handle it.
Perhaps I should get a hold on myself.
Inside the library I found Malene, Urleen and Norma Ray huddled in a circle, their quilting swatches and supplies nowhere to be seen.
