With that he strode majestically back to his own room.
“Do you really think anyone will notice?” I asked Mother. “Or care?”
“If anyone does, we can tell them it was a deliberate design decision on Clay’s part,” Mother said.
I suspected this was a subtle attempt to sabotage Clay’s posthumous reputation, but I didn’t really care.
Tomás and Mateo appeared at the front door, carrying the mattress. I followed them upstairs and watched as they efficiently put it in place and left, taking the packaging materials with them.
I opened the package of sheets—okay, they weren’t the softest I’d ever felt, but they looked fine. I made the bed, and topped it off with a matching black coverlet.
And someone had responded to my pleas for design assistance and added a few token Christmas decorations. The dresser now held a red bowl filled with gold-painted magnolia leaves, flanked by two red candles in black glass holders. Not my idea of a proper Christmas decoration—it was beautiful but cold and uninviting, and I couldn’t help comparing it to our house, where Mother had achieved beautifully decorated rooms that seemed to welcome friends, toys, dogs, carols, cups of hot chocolate, and Christmas cookies. But I had to admit that the bowl and candles looked like precisely what I’d have expected of Clay.
Mother, Eustace, and Martha appeared in the doorway as I was surveying the room.
“Very nice,” Mother said.
“I suppose it will have to do,” Eustace said.
“My thanks to whoever brought in the decorations,” I said.
“Seemed like his kind of thing,” Martha said.
“The room still needs something,” I said. I winced as soon as the words left my mouth. How many times had I heard the designers say that about a room that looked just fine to me. But in this case, I thought I was right. “The walls look pretty bare.”
“He might have been planning to leave them that way,” Eustace said. “His rooms always looked a little bare to me.”
“I think Clay would have used the words ‘uncluttered’ and ‘clean’ and ‘minimalist’ to describe his work,” Martha said.
I glanced over in surprise. She sounded almost melancholy.
“But I think Meg’s right about the room needing something,” she went on. “Not a lot—just a few well-chosen pieces of art on the walls. The problem is, without him here to do the choosing, I don’t see how we can possibly decide what.”
“Didn’t Randall find his design sketches, dear?” Mother asked. “What do they show?”
“They show art there, and there, and there.” I pointed to the three biggest bare spots. “But the art is indicated by a rough rectangle. Nothing in his almost nonexistent notes gives me any idea what he had in mind.”
“You see?” Martha said. “Impossible. We shouldn’t even try.”
“So while the room may need something,” Eustace said, “I think its needs will have to remain unfulfilled. You can’t always get what you want.”
“Martha, dear, I think you’re in a lot better position to decide what that something is than we are,” Mother said. “You’re so good at that elegant simplicity he was clearly trying to emulate. Much better than Clay, actually.”
Nicely flattered, I thought.
“Yeah.” Martha did look pleased.
“And you’ve known him longer than any of us,” Eustace added.
Martha didn’t like that as much.
“Don’t remind me,” she said. “Well, I’ll think about it. By the way, I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Right about what?” I asked.
“Clay was the one stealing the packages,” she said. “You didn’t believe me.”
“I didn’t disbelieve you,” I said. “But without any kind of proof—”
“Well, it’s water under the bridge now,” she said. “The bastard won’t be doing it again. I’ve got work to do.”
She strode out.
“Which means she’s going to ignore my request for help with the room,” I said. “Because if she did a really good job on Clay’s room, it would reduce her already small chance of winning the best room contest.”
“Her rooms are very nice,” Mother said.
“Yeah, but they’re two bathrooms and a laundry room,” I said. “You really think the judges are going to be that impressed?”
Mother nodded as if conceding my point.
“Look, you guys are busy,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You, dear?”
“Is my taste that awful?”