Page 79 of Ten Beach Road

“Gee, I can hardly wait,” Avery deadpanned. “Will you call the King of Chrome, Nikki, and see if he’s done with the master bathroom fixtures?”

“Sure.” She’d find a way to send smoke signals if it would expedite the increased bathroom time.

Chase laughed. “You took the faucets to Alfred?”

“Yeah.” Avery crossed her arms across her chest, which Nikki already knew was not a good sign. “What’s so funny?”

“He’s never been willing to look at anything that didn’t belong on a car. And he’s not exactly an inexpensive option.”

“Well, we didn’t have a problem at all, did we, Nikki?” Avery just loved one-upping Chase.

“Nope.”

“In fact, he was kind of like a great big teddy bear. Wouldn’t you say, Nikki?”

“Yep.”

“And how much did he charge you?” Chase asked, clearly not yet willing to concede.

“Well, his original estimate was a little high,” Avery admitted. “But Nicole’s going to pick up the finished pieces and handle the final negotiations. We’ll let you know how things shake out.”

“And he’ll undoubtedly be too busy drooling over Nikki and her car to put up much of a fight,” Chase said. “That’s so Vanna-esque.”

The choir stopped in mid-hallelujah. There was another silence nowhere near as pleasant as the first as Avery squared off in front of Chase.

Avery couldn’t believe he’d called her Vanna again. Even as she straightened her shoulders and angled her chin upward, she was aware of how much shorter she was than Chase. Which pissed her off even more. “What the hell is it with you?” she asked.

Robby and Umberto eased out of the kitchen and ostensibly back to work. Kyra lifted her video camera, but Maddie, who still seemed to be doing an imitation of a limp rag, took the camera from her daughter and led her out of the kitchen.

Out of the corner of her eye, Avery saw Nicole motion to Deirdre. Before Chase could open his mouth to respond, they left the kitchen with about as much subtlety as rats abandoning ship.

“I am so tired of this,” Avery said when she and Chase were alone. “Tired of your judgment, tired of your automatic disapproval, tired of your damned superior attitude. No matter what I do, you find a way to belittle it. And I’d like to know why.”

Chase’s jaw tensed; she could see it working. For a brief moment she regretted not letting his comment slide.

“You want to know why? Then I’ll tell you,” he finally said. “I hate like hell that you’ve taken all the advantages you’ve been given and let them be pushed aside by the way you look and act. You have an architecture degree from Duke, for chrissakes, and you managed to get your own show on television, and what did you do with all that?” He shook his head in disgust. “You wore tight sweaters and you smiled and pointed. Your father was so proud of everything you’d achieved, and you trampled all over that.”

The anger in his voice spurred her own anger even higher. Who was he to judge her? What did he know? And why on earth would her humiliation matter so much to him? “What business is this of yours?”

“When my mother died and my father had his first heart attack, I had to go into the business instead of architecture. You had every damned thing I wanted and you wasted it!”

“Well, your mother may have died, but at least she didn’t leave you.” Avery couldn’t stop the things that came out. “She never would have left you.”

She looked at his face, flushed with anger and indignation. “That’s not nothing.”

“You were given every opportunity and you let yourself be dismissed.”

“It was beyond my control!” Avery shouted, her neck hurting from having to crick back so far. “Do you think I liked the way I was presented? Do you honestly think I agreed to any of that?”

“You sure looked perfectly happy doing it.”

“Well, then you’re as stupid as I looked!” she shouted.

They glared at each other. But even as she watched, the anger in his eyes became tinged with embarrassment. It was clear he hadn’t meant to reveal so much.

She was surprised by all of it: That he’d been as angry as she’d been at the way she’d been portrayed. That he, more than anyone, had understood that her role on the show was far beneath her training and capabilities. That it had become nothing more than an ongoing insult.

Avery could hardly catch her breath as he continued, now in a calmer but no less biting tone.

“And I absolutely hated the way they turned that egoridden husband of yours into the ‘expert’ when he shouldn’t even have been on the same stage. And I bet he never argued that it should be any other way.”

Avery didn’t think she’d ever felt more pathetic. “No,” she said as she drew herself up and prepared to leave the room. “He never did.”

She could not, would not, tell him that she hadn’t chosen to leave; that even after she’d allowed herself to be turned into a laughingstock, they still didn’t want her.

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