The Family Room
Pretty and vivacious Jenna St. Ives, the popular young hostess of the hit cable home improvement show Weekend Renovators, drove up to the old clapboard house in Rockport, Massachusetts, that was to be featured on an upcoming episode of her show. When the attractive blonde got out of her Mercedes-Benz roadster, she called to Pablo Picard, the show's interior designer, who was standing on the front porch, chatting with the mother-in-law of the man who owned the house.
"Hi, there, Jenna darling," the flamboyant designer called. "Welcome to rural New England. This delightful woman is Mrs. Edie Hooper. Her daughter and son-in-law are on their honeymoon, and she wants us to convert their basement into a family room while they're gone."
"How thoughtful! What a wonderful surprise that will be for the newlyweds," Jenna said as she followed the soft-spoken Mrs. Hooper and the exuberant Pablo inside the house.
"While we're waiting for the crew to arrive," the designer announced, reaching into his Gucci briefcase, "I'll show you what I've got in mind for that basement."
Picard, a master of his craft, had sketched a modern family room that was sure to appeal to all ages: a multifunctional room with a bar, pool table and custom-made cabinetry for the couple's entertainment system.
"And you can do all this for under $2,000?" Edie exclaimed with disbelief.
"Lucky Tremont, our gorgeous and talented carpenter, will build the wall unit, the bar and the pool table himself," the designer explained. "As for the chairs and end tables, I'll buy them at a consignment shop or thrift store, and our crew will then refinish them. The most expensive thing in the project will be the wood."
Mrs. Hooper was impressed, and she knew that Nicola would be delighted. This surprise renovation was something that Edie felt her daughter deserved because Nicola had dated Axelrod Muller for nearly five years before he proposed marriage, and it was another two years before the engaged couple finally married.
When Nicola first showed her mother Axelrod's home, Edie was disappointed—to say the least. The house, which had once belonged to Axelrod's parents, was close to a hundred years old and in a sad state of disrepair.
"It just needs a little work," Nicola had said optimistically. "A fresh coat of paint, some updated furniture and new carpeting and the place will be quite comfortable."
Edie had her doubts, but she did not want to voice them in front of her daughter, who had enough on her hands organizing the wedding.
The basement, however, was another matter altogether. The grease-stained linoleum floor, the grime-coated windows and the dark wood-paneled walls cast a murky, oppressive atmosphere about the room. Immediately upon leaving the house, Edie phoned the producers of Weekend Renovators, and after telling them her story, the renovation of Nicola and Axelrod's basement was added to the show's schedule.
* * *
"Once the cameraman and sound technician set up their equipment," Jenna St. Ives told Mrs. Hooper while the makeup artist applied finishing touches to the hostess' face, "we'll have our painters begin priming the walls. Lucky is already down in the basement taking measurements."
"And where is Mr. Picard?" Edie asked, taking a keen interest in all facets of the home improvement project.
"He and his assistant, Ricardo, went to the Good Will thrift store in Copperwell to shop for used furniture."
"Do you know what Pablo intends to do about the floor?" Edie asked. "Is there money in the budget for a cheap indoor-outdoor carpet to replace that hideous linoleum?"
"Didn't he tell you?" Jenna replied with excitement. "We're going to paint the floor with giant game boards: checkers, Parcheesi, backgammon and such."
Edie was delighted.
"It'll be perfect, especially when Nicola and Axelrod have children."
More than an hour later the designer burst into the room, loaded down with paint samples and brightly colored fabric swatches.
"I want you to have a look at these," he told Edie. "Let me know what you think your daughter would like. Then I'll send Ricardo to Home Depot to buy paint, and I'll phone a fabric warehouse to purchase material for curtains and upholstery."
"Won't that take too much time?"
"No worries, dear lady! They'll deliver everything this afternoon."
With the entire crew hard at work, Edie tried to stay out of harm's way. Meanwhile, the cameraman tried to capture all phases of the basement renovation on video, and Jenna St. Ives attempted to entertain the show's television audience with useful do-it-yourself tips and PG-rated jokes as she provided a running commentary on the design team's progress. Soon the humming of a sewing machine and the buzzing of electric saws and power drills added to the overall clamor.
By the end of the first day, Edie could see definite signs of progress. The team of painters had painted the walls a vibrant shade of teal; Lucky Tremont, the carpenter, had completed the bar and begun work on the custom entertainment center; and Golda Raymer, the seamstress, had finished reupholstering the second-hand chairs.
Pablo Picard, however, appeared flustered.
"We will never be done with everything by tomorrow night!" he cried, dramatically throwing his ring-bedecked hands up in the air. "Lucky still needs to build a pool table, and Golda needs to make the window treatments. Not to mention the floor! Oh, my sweet Lord! Does anyone have any idea how long it will take to paint those game boards? And then we have to let the paint dry before we can put everything in the room."
Edie looked worried. The newlyweds were due to return home late the following evening, and the renovations were supposed to be completed by then. What if they weren't?
"Don't worry," Jenna said with a laugh. "Pablo always carries on like this at the end of the first day. I've been hosting this show for three years now, and it's always the same. He swears it can't be done, but we've never failed to complete a project in the two-day time period."
Edie felt a little better, but she still would not be able to relax until the cast and crew of Weekend Renovators packed up their power tools, lights and camera equipment and left her daughter and son-in-law's house.
* * *
The ringtone of her cell phone startled Edie Hooper, who had fallen asleep on the couch while watching Brigadoon on the Hollywood Classics movie channel.
"Hello," she said sleepily.
"Mom? Hi!"
Nicola's voice was a welcome sound, but why was she phoning home on her honeymoon?
"Is everything all right?" her mother asked with concern.
"It's wonderful!"
"Then why are you calling me instead of dancing on the moonlit beach with your new husband? This is the last night of your honeymoon."
"I just wanted to talk to you for a few moments, to hear the sound of your voice and tell you that I miss you."
Edie was touched. She and her daughter had always been close.
"I know this is a stupid question, but how do you like married life so far?"
"Oh, Mom, I feel like I've died and gone to heaven! I really love Axel, and I'm so glad I waited for him."
"Has he said anything to you about his family yet?"
It was a subject that, in the past, Axelrod never wanted to discuss. When questioned, he would simply say that he had no family and then lapse into moody silence.
"He still hasn't mentioned them. I gather from what little he has told me that his mother and father are both deceased, and he has no siblings or other living relatives."
"The poor man," Edie said sympathetically, wondering why her new son-in-law, who was alone in the world would have waited so many years to marry and have the family that he had long lived without.
"I don't suppose it matters. He won't be alone anymore," Nicola declared with the passionate optimism of a newlywed. "He's got me now, and I intend to make him happy."
Edie looked at the mantel clock above her fireplace. It was already after midnight, and she would have to wake up early the following morning in order to be at her daughter and son-in-law's house when the Weekend Renovators crew started arriving there at 7:00 a.m.
"Well, as much as I'd love to chat, I better let you get back to your husband. I'll see you tomorrow night when you get home."
* * *
The crew worked at an even more hectic pace than it had on the first day of the renovation. Four painters decorated the family room floor, carefully recreating the larger-than-life game boards. The color scheme—teal walls, pale yellow ceiling and pumpkin orange upholstery on the furniture—was not one Nicola would have chosen herself, but it would be a definite improvement over the way the basement had looked before.
Edie walked through the living room where Jenna St. Ives was interviewing Golda Raymer, the seamstress, who was demonstrating in front of the camera how to turn thirteen yards of cheap cotton fabric into an expensive-looking window treatment. After a brief stop in the kitchen, she continued on into the backyard with two cups of coffee, one for herself and one for the handsome, muscular carpenter, a man admired by millions of female viewers across the country.
"How is everything going inside, Mrs. Hooper? Is work progressing on schedule?" Lucky asked with a dimpled smile, gratefully accepting the proffered cup of coffee.
"From what I can tell it is. The painting on the floor is nearly completed, and the window curtains are being hemmed. Of course, your designer is still running through the house like a chicken with its head cut off."
"That's Pablo for you. I swear, someday he's going to have a coronary right on camera. But don't worry. I'll have the pool table finished in about an hour, and then one of the painters will put purple felt on the playing area."
"Purple? I thought pool tables were supposed to be green?"
Edie could not imagine how another bright color would look with the designer's already garish color scheme.
"What? Pablo Picard use a traditional color?" Lucky asked in mock horror. "He would sooner turn in his tape measure and pinking shears and become an associate at Walmart."
* * *
The minutes slowly ticked by. Then, once the paint on the floor finally dried, everyone went into action. Ricardo helped Lucky cover the pool table with felt while Golda Raymer artfully draped her yards of fabric over newly purchased curtain rods. The painters carried in the bar and barstools. Even Jenna St. Ives pitched in by hanging the hand-crafted artwork on the walls. Meanwhile, Pablo Picard, who appeared to be on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown, issued instructions to all the team members.
Edie looked at her watch; it was quarter after seven. Nicola and Axelrod's flight must have already landed at Logan, and they were most likely on their way home.
"The airport is less than an hour away," she said, "but I don't know how long it will take them to get their luggage and find their car. And then, of course, there's always traffic getting out of Boston this time of night."
"This will be a close one," Jenna St. Ives said, facing the camera. "Will Pablo Picard and our design team finish the new family room before the homeowners return? Stay tuned, and after the commercial break, we'll be back with the dramatic reveal on Weekend Renovators."
With construction work on the family room complete, the cameraman took a cigarette and coffee break. He would not be needed again until Axelrod's car pulled into the driveway.
Pablo breezed into the redecorated basement, carrying a vase of fresh flowers.
"Why isn't the pool table down here yet?" he called anxiously.
"The painters had a problem getting it down the stairs," Jenna replied. "Lucky is going to remove the legs and then reassemble the table once everything is brought down."
Forty-five minutes passed, and everyone except Edie, Jenna and the cameraman was in the basement trying to put the finishing touches on the family room. Lucky had already moved his mobilized workshop trailer to the next block so that Nicola and Axelrod would not see it when they pulled up in front of the house.
"They're here!" Mrs. Hooper announced excitedly when Axelrod's Subaru Forester turned into the driveway.
Outside, the exhausted newlyweds got out of their car, glad to be home.
"Why are the lights on?" Axelrod asked, clearly worried.
"I gave my mother a key to the front door so that she could keep an eye on the place for us," Nicola explained. "She's probably inside, waiting to welcome us home."
Edie and Jenna met them at the front door. The cameraman stood behind them, attempting to capture the couple's reactions on video.
"What's going on here?" Axelrod demanded to know.
"Your mother-in-law arranged for our Weekend Renovators team to come in and redecorate your basement while you were on your honeymoon," Jenna replied.
Nicola looked delighted, but her husband was visibly upset.
"The basement?" he cried. "What were you doing down there? Who gave you permission to enter my house?"
Suddenly, Axelrod's tirade was interrupted by a loud crash from the floor below. Everyone raced down the stairs to the new family room.
"What the hell's going on?" Axelrod shouted.
"It's the pool table," one of the painters apologized. "I tried to hold it up while Lucky tightened the legs, but it slipped out of my hands and fell against the wall."
"No need to worry," the carpenter assured the homeowner. "I can easily fix the hole."
"Don't touch that!" Axelrod said. "I'll take care of it myself."
"No problem," Lucky insisted. "I've got some drywall in the trailer. I can fix it right now. It won't take long."
Before Axelrod could say another word, the carpenter reached his hand into the hole in the wall and tugged on the damaged drywall.
Edie, Nicola, Jenna St. Ives and even Pablo Picard screamed in unison. Behind the sheetrock was a decaying human hand protruding from the sleeve of a woman's faded yellow blouse. The cameraman, rather than reacting with horror, chose to film the dreadful discovery. Axelrod put up no further argument as the carpenter took down the rest of the wall, revealing the skeleton of the late Mrs. Antonia Muller.
Nicola stared at her husband in disbelief. Axelrod fell to his knees before her, directly onto the oversized Parcheesi board.
"I wanted to be with you," he whimpered, pitifully pleading with his bride to understand. "My mother didn't want me to marry—ever. I tried for years to get her to agree to meet you, but she became hysterical every time I mentioned your name."
"You're a grown man. Why didn't you just leave?" Nicola cried.
"I couldn't. My father died when I was only four years old, and I was all my mother had. She devoted her life to me. She even worked to put me through college. I couldn't just leave her all alone in the world."
Nicola clung to Edie and sobbed, insisting, "You didn't have to kill her!"
Axelrod realized his wife would never see that he had no choice in the matter. His mother's apron strings had held him prisoner far too long. Like a spider, she had weaved a web around him with her extreme devotion and overly possessive nature and had left him only one means of escape. Now that he was free of her, however, he had lost Nicola and would in all likelihood go to prison for the rest of his life. He put his head in his hands and wept.
Then a sudden movement caught everyone's attention, as Antonia Muller's skeletal hand reached out from its makeshift tomb. This terrifying sight wreaked pandemonium in the newly renovated basement of the old clapboard house. Nicola buried her face in her mother's shoulder, Jenna, Ricardo and Golda ran upstairs and out of the house, and Pablo Picard fainted atop the purple felt of Lucky's custom-made pool table. Even the cameraman was so horrified by the ghastly sight that he was unable to film the events that followed.
Mrs. Muller's skeleton took one tentative step forward, staggered, righted itself and then took another step. Axelrod saw the gruesome remains of his victim moving toward him and shrieked with terror. The murdered woman then leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her petrified son, determined to possess him even from beyond the grave.
Lucky Tremont, the only one in the room who was not stricken motionless with fear, acted quickly and pulled the skeleton off the bridegroom, but the carpenter's bravery was in vain. Axelrod Muller had, quite literally, been frightened to death by his mother's embrace.
I don't particularly care for Salem's idea of an entertainment center for our family room.
