Occupation: professional organizer

Ruth Murphy’s house had seen better days, Emily Harlow thought as her business partner, Becca Jain, parked her car in front of the split-level home. Dandelions thrived in the front lawn, and the yews under the front window needed clipping. Ferocious clumps of black-eyed Susans bloomed on either side of the front steps. Emily put on her official Freeze-Frame Clutter-Kickers cap, threading her ponytail through the opening in the back. Then she got out of the car and followed Becca up the walk. Becca rang the bell.

Young or old? This was a game Emily used to play, going back to when she’d sold Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, trying to imagine the person who was about to greet her. Short, stout, and elderly, she decided.

Emily was two-for-three. With a white dandelion puff of hair, Mrs. Murphy had to be well past seventy and she came up to Emily’s chin. But she was slender as a reed. She shook Emily’s hand with a steely grip, then ushered them into a tidy living room filled with stuffy Victorian-style furniture—an upholstered settee and matching side chairs. The scalloped wood valances over the windows were pure 1950s.

Emily looked around. This seemed like a house with a place for everything and everything in its place—what you’d expect of someone who’d once been a bookkeeper and made her living balancing accounts and keeping ledgers. What could there be that Mrs. Murphy needed Becca’s and Emily’s help organizing?

She took a clipboard and pen from her bag and shot Becca a questioning look. Becca tipped her head toward a large leather recliner in the corner that was leaning back, its footrest raised as if someone were still sitting in it. On the floor beside it sat a pair of men’s bedroom slippers and a drift of newspapers. On a nearby end table sat an empty cut-glass tumbler and an ashtray with a cigar stub. Emily sniffed. No cigar smell in the room.

Mrs. Murphy picked up a silver-framed photograph from on top of an upright piano. The picture was of a young couple, bride and groom, standing stiffly together as if they were perched atop a wedding cake.

“Me and Murph,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Nineteen sixty. We were married at Fort Bragg.”

“He was handsome,” Becca said.

“Bless his heart, he was that and more. Cunning devil one minute, saint the next. I just don’t know—” She pulled a Kleenex from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “It’s been hard. Sometimes I feel so lost, I want to disappear.”

Becca stepped over and touched Mrs. Murphy’s arm. “When did you lose him?”

Mrs. Murphy took a deep breath, unable for a moment to speak. “A year ago. Massive heart attack. Just a few weeks after he sold his dental practice. I told him not to retire.” She reached for another framed picture on the piano. The older man in the picture was still handsome, his hair a lush white pompadour over defiantly dark eyebrows. Mrs. Murphy held the picture to her chest for a few moments, then laid it face down on the piano. “Went, just like that.” There was no sound when she snapped her fingers. “Doctors said even if he’d been in the hospital when it happened, they couldn’t have saved him.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Becca said, as only she could, as if she genuinely shared Mrs. Murphy’s grief over the death of this man she’d never met.

Emily sidled over to the pile of newspapers on the floor beside the lounge chair. The date of the one on top was July 14, 2018. More than a year ago.

“So,” Mrs. Murphy said, taking a breath and straightening her back. “Murph’s things.”

Read about professional organizer Emily Harlow and her partner, Becca Jain, aka Freeze-Frame Clutter Kickers, in Careful What You Wish For, the newest suspense standalone from Hallie Ephron, released August 6, 2019 from William Morrow.

Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. He’s filled their basement, attic, and garage with his finds.

Like other professionals who make a living decluttering peoples’ lives, Emily has devised a set of ironclad rules. When working with couples, she makes clear that the client is only allowed to declutter his or her own stuff. That stipulation has kept Emily’s own marriage together these past few years. She’d love nothing better than to toss out all her husband’s crap. He says he’s a collector. Emily knows better—he’s a hoarder. The larger his “collection” becomes, the deeper the distance grows between Emily and the man she married.

Luckily, Emily’s got two new clients to distract herself: an elderly widow whose husband left behind a storage unit she didn’t know existed, and a young wife whose husband won’t allow her stuff into their house. Emily’s initial meeting with the young wife takes a detour when, after too much wine, the women end up fantasizing about how much more pleasant life would be without their collecting spouses.

But the next day Emily finds herself in a mess that might be too big for her to clean up. Careful what you wish for, the old adage says . . . now Emily might lose her freedom, her marriage . . . and possibly her life.

“Outstanding. . . Maybe the first domestic thriller to weave in Marie Kondo’s decluttering theory about discarding things that don’t spark joy.” Publisher’s Weekly (STARRED review)

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About the author
Hallie Ephron is the New York Times bestselling author of Never Tell a Lie, Come and Find Me, There Was an Old Woman, Night Night, Sleep Tight, and You’ll Never Know, Dear. The daughter of Hollywood screenwriters, she grew up in Beverly Hills, and lives near Boston, Massachusetts. To learn more about Hallie, visit her website at HallieEphron.com.

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