Page 30 of Space Cowgirl: Houston, All Systems Go
Nine
Cowboy Up
HOLT
“Now,if you’ll just look at this next board, you’ll see that I’ve used an English toile fabric for the window coverings over the large picture window. Won’t that be fabulous?”
I follow the interior designer’s hand, which is pointing to the back of my house. Her assistant is helping Ray, the contractor, take measurements, both of them having to step over and around all the samples a team had brought in earlier. The room is stockpiled. Cabinet doors, stacks of fabric, floor choices ranging from tile to carpet to wood. There’s even a box of knick-knacks.
Knick-knacks.
I should really try to focus on everything around me, but all I can do is look out the window and over the fields and wish to the almighty that I was out there and not stuck in here with a bruised foot and an interior designer named Pearl.
The decorator’s honest-to-goodness name is Pearl. And she wants to cover the window that lets in morning light and overlooks the great expanse of the West property, so that it will be more “cozy.” I may occasionally curse in my head, but rarely out loud, and most certainly not in front of ladies, but I almost let out a loud “fuck no” to whatever it is that she’s holding up and calling English toile.
“You can see how well the Scottish plaid compliments the toile, can’t you?”
Again she asks a question but doesn’t wait for an answer, instead moving on to another board. There are fifteen boards. Fifteen large posterboard-type things with cutouts of fabric, sketches and photos. All in navy, dark green, maroon and this weird mustard color.
I hate everything.
“Is that—is that a fox hunter?” I interrupt whatever Pearl is saying about Persian rugs and point to one of the boards.
“Yes! Good eye!” Every sentence out of her mouth is an exclamation. It’s like she’s incapable of speaking in normal sentences. “Isn’t it fabulous? You know”—she gives me a sideways grin—“a little nod to the estate here.”
I try and exchange a glance with the assistant Pearl brought with her, trying to gauge if her boss is serious or not, but the assistant keeps her head down toward the clipboard she’s holding, supposedly jotting down measurements.
The pain in my foot from yesterday’s encounter with Angelo’s hoof is now matched with a pounding at my temples. “You mean ranch, right?” I ask. “’Cause we don’t fox hunt here. That’s an English thing,” I say, this time touching the offending fabric. “He’s got on the traditional red English hunting jacket. And there are blood hounds.”
“But there are horses!”
I laugh. Pearl might just be all right with a sense of humor like that. But my laughter fades quickly when I realize the interior designer isn’t laughing. Apparently to Pearl, a horse is a horse.
Ray clears his throat and gets back to measuring the wall he’s already measured and I rub the back of my neck, trying to decide if I love my brother enough to go through with this.
After we looked over the wedding thumb drive at lunch, it was pretty apparent that Jackie’s good taste would look odd against the Brady Bunch background of the outdated West ranch house.
I mentioned to Jules that maybe we should spruce the place up before the wedding as she popped the last chip in her mouth yesterday at lunch. To her credit she didn’t make fun, roll her eyes or say “finally.” No, she just smiled in that infuriatingly sexy way she has and stated, “Two months.” I was dismissed when her laptop sounded with a notification. Her smile melted into a frown and she mumbled something about work before hightailing it to her room.
I haven’t seen her since. I know she went to NASA, but when she came home she holed up in her room afterwards. After she spent time with the new calf, Tucker reported.
I glance back at Pearl’s designs. I can’t help but think that if the “in thing” in interior design is what Pearl calls “Rustic Horse Glamor,” then maybe the 1970s look I’ve got going isn’t so bad after all. It’d look a hell of a lot better with Jackie’s wedding dreams than fox hunters and plaids.
I’m about to resign myself and my house to our fate, when a board that I’d originally thought blank catches my eye.
“What’s this?” I push the hunting fabric aside to reveal a poster board with a lot of neutrals and simple furniture. Comfortable looking furniture. No patterns, no crazy colors and the best part? No hounds.
Pearl glares at her assistant. “Missy, where did that come from?”
The assistant turns bright red, clutching the clipboard to her chest. “You, um, told me to create a board, Miss Pearl. Remember?”
Pearl rolls her eyes. “That was just to get you some practice, not to actually show to the client,” she reprimands. She leaves her assistant red-faced and spins on her exceptionally high, pointy heel to pluck the board off of the couch where all the rest are displayed. “So sorry, Mr. West,” she says with a slick, red-lipped smile, then rests her other hand on my arm. Her nails are at least two inches long. And pointy. Her touch kind of makes me nauseated. “I’ll just get this out of the way—”
“He likes that one.”
Everyone turns to see Jules, clad in loose-fitting ripped jeans, bare feet and a tank top, leaning against the family room’s entryway.
“I’m sorry, and you are…?” Pearl asks, looking her up and down, her expression making it obvious that she’s unimpressed.
