“Sorry, just making a little joke.”
Grace’s face softened. “Right. Jokes. I remember those.” She sighed heavily.
“Did they move Thanksgiving up by a few months and nobody told me?”
Grace grabbed some more bread crumbs and jammed them into the bird’s open orifice. “Mr. Thorne’s been having unusual cravings.”
I leaned on the kitchen island—the island that was bigger than my entire kitchen. “What do you mean, unusual cravings?”
“Mr. Thorne has his struggles, like the rest of us. Nothing that millions of people don’t deal with every day.”
I frowned at the turkey, wondering what it could be. Grace’s lips tightened, so I knew she wouldn’t be telling me.
“So, I’m done the walk-in closet and the office. What’s the plan for day number three? Pantry?”
Grace grabbed a stalk of celery and crunched off a bite. After she finished chewing, she said, “I’d like you to do that feng shui thing in the bedroom.”
“Really?” My pulse throbbed between my legs at the mention of the word bedroom.
She said, “I want you to do the exact opposite of what you usually do.”
I studied her expression for clues, but found little to go on in her lightly-lined but still attractive face. She continued, “Your company makes rooms romantic and sexy, and I’d like you to do the opposite for Mr. Thorne’s room. I don’t care what you do. Move the bed, put it on a weird angle, put garlic in the light fixtures. I want that room two hundred percent less sexy.”
“I can do that,” I said nonchalantly. “All I need is an eight by ten photo of his mother.”
Grace nearly choked on the celery she was chewing. “No. No. We need to reduce the sexuality, not kill him.”
“I can do that,” I said confidently.
She washed off her hands and brought me up to the bedroom.
The room was, as expected, adjoining the walk-in closet. The door to the closet was open, so I took a quick peek at my recent handiwork. Yes, everything was perfectly organized. A place for everything and everything in its place, as it should be.
A sensation pulled at me, below my belly. I also have a place for something, yes I do.
“I’ll need some privacy,” I told Grace. “The bedroom feng shui is more of an intuition thing.”
She nodded.
Intuition? Actually, it’s more of a bullshit thing, but people love to get the story. Oh, I’ve read the books about feng shui, studied the diagrams. Put a mirror on this, have some fluffy pillows on that. Ninety percent of it is just common sense. I mean, who puts a cactus next to the bed?
“You have four hours,” she said. “Nobody will interrupt you. Mr. Thorne is off on business somewhere, and I’ll be battling turkey and yams downstairs.”
“I may need …”
She pointed to a toolbox that was already in the room. “You should have everything here to move whichever artworks and mirrors you must. Please be careful with this one.” She pointed to a painting that was thick with lush flowers, and strangely erotic, for a garden. “It’s not a reproduction.”
“I’ll be careful, plus we’re insured,” I said.
“So are we, but this one has sentimental value for Mr. Thorne.”
“Oh.” I stared at the painting, wondering what it meant.
Grace backed out of the room and closed the door. The woman had the perfect name, because she really was the epitome of grace.
The bedroom, now, was another story.
The bedroom was the epitome of sex.
Not in a tacky way, like one of those Love Motels you see in foreign movies, rented by the hour to young couples not lucky enough to have even a compact car in which to get their freak on.
No, the bedroom was sexy in the way that only Egyptian Cotton with Infinity Thread Count can be. The duvet cover practically melted under my touch. I flopped on the bed and pressed my cheek against the pillow, careful not to contact the surface with my lips. I’d put on minimal makeup that morning, but I didn’t want to mar the gorgeous linens with my pink lip gloss. It would be a crime!
I pulled one of the pillows between my knees and hugged another one. Breathing deeply, I ascertained that the linens had been changed that morning. I found no scent of a man, and, under the covers, none of those telltale hairs they leave behind.
I lay on my back and surveyed the sexy room.
Who was that girl on the bed?
Oh, it was me!
“Look at that, a mirror on the ceiling,” I said as I waved up at myself. “Hey, Lexie. Is that your real name? Sounds like sexy. Come on, you just made that name up.” I blew kisses up at myself. Damn, my face and body looked good from the ceiling down, with my dark hair fanned out around my head.
Obviously, the mirror over the bed had to go. Grace had left me a step ladder along with the tool box, but I didn’t relish the idea of getting all sweaty, grunting to take down a mirror from the ceiling. The thing could be heavy, and it could even kill me! My untimely demise would certainly hamper my plans to spend that roll of money I was going to get as a bonus.
I could leave the mirror and just move the bed.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said to myself, and I got started rearranging furniture. I slipped off my shoes and left them in the corner.
I’d done a lot of unusual jobs in my three and a half years (I’d say seven years only if I was trying to impress a new client) as a professional organizer. In the early days, I helped hoarders—which is a little like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, if you ask me, but … to each their own! I always figure if they’re not harming themselves or others, some people simply enjoy having and rearranging their stuff. The only problem was, they always seemed so disappointed at the end of a job, either because you made some progress, or because you didn’t.
My boss, Suzanne, upped our rates about two years into the business, which weeded out a lot of the hoarders. We still got a few, but they were the richer ones, who had entire rooms for gift wrapping. My third-most unusual job was organizing a gift wrap room. It took an entire week. No lie.
My second-most unusual job was for a guy who videotaped everything. We came up with an organization system for his physical copies of recordings, and a digital backup as well. That may not sound too strange, but he videotaped the two of us working the entire two days. I imagined some future organizer filing away the recordings of me, filing away the recordings of the previous organizer.
Make a bedroom less sexy? That was definitely my most unusual job. Number one on the list.