by Grey, R. S.
“You’re not listening, Tori! It’s not about it being today or tomorrow or the next day. It’s about you breaking your word.”
“You’re upset, but I’m trying—”
Tori’s voice trails off and I suddenly feel horrible for overhearing part of a conversation that seems very intimate, so I turn away, down a different side hall in search of a bathroom. I succeed in finding one, but when I finish and walk back out into the hall, I run smack dab into Tori.
“Oh!” she says, dabbing at her cheeks and hiding her face as if I won’t notice she’s crying.
“Hey, sorry. I just had to pee.”
“There’s another bathroom, closer to the garden,” she says, pointing me in that direction.
I cringe and rock back on my heels. “Of course. Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t…I mean…I didn’t…” I frown and look away, down the hall, trying to decide how best to proceed. I sigh. “I heard you arguing before. I didn’t mean to, but…”
Her eyes widen and then narrow accusatorially. “What? Are you serious?”
I hold my hands up in innocence. “It wasn’t intentional. I just came inside to look for a bathroom, like I said. I didn’t really hear much. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
She sniffles and turns away, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay, well, if there’s anything you need, you know, I’m a good listener.”
She nods but doesn’t speak up, and I take the cue to walk away.
Any hope of salvaging the night dies a swift death in that hallway. I make it back outside in time to catch the vestiges of the sunset, and the candlelight on the dinner table holds more power now, turning everyone into softer versions of themselves—or maybe it just makes it difficult for people to realize I’m standing right behind them as they talk about me.
“What’s with Barrett slumming it?” a guest asks her friend. “Did you hear that girl he brought works for the Cromwells? Like she’s a maid or something.”
“You’re kidding.”
“It’s obvious what he’s doing,” a third guest chimes in. “She’s a curiosity, something fun for him to look at. I bet it doesn’t last more than a week.”
“Excuse me,” I say finally, trying to get through the bottleneck of people.
They turn toward me and burst out in awkward laughter, one of them whispering “Oh my god” under her breath as if she’s never found something so amusing or titillating in her life. I look for Barrett and see he’s near the bar with a group of guys. He holds up his hand to wave me over, and a flood of anxiety grips hold of me.
There’s no way I can stay. In fact, I make my mind up as I walk toward him. “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?”
His brows furrow, and I’m grateful when he doesn’t brush me off. “Sure thing.”
Once we’re out of earshot of his friends, I try on a smile. “Sorry to be a bore, but I’m going to head home. I’m just not up for a party tonight.”
“Are you serious?”
My smile strains under the weight of his annoyed gaze.
“Sorry,” he continues, shaking his head and easing his initial reaction. “I just really wanted to spend time with you. You aren’t having fun?”
How do I put it mildly?
“Oh, you know, I’m just tired after a long week, and these are your friends.”
“But they could be your friends too.”
I’m not sure I want them to be, honestly.
“Maybe another night,” I tell him, taking a step back as if to initiate my departure. If there were a button I could press to shoot me straight up into the air, I’d use it.
“Let me take you home at least,” he says, looking for a place to set down his drink.
I shoot my hand out to touch his arm. “No, it’s okay. Frank’s outside.”
“Really?”
There’s disbelief in his tone, and well, there should be—I’m definitely lying.
Then one of his friends shouts his name, calling him back over to the group, and that’s that. Barrett gives me a swift kiss on the cheek and promises to get in touch with me soon, and then I’m a free woman.
I try to spot Tori one more time on my way out, but she still hasn’t come back outside. So, I curve around the side of the house and walk home along Bellevue Avenue with the gilded castles and marble mansions shining in the moonlight. My flats almost immediately start to chafe my heels, and now that the sun’s down, the air is chilly. I hug my arms around my waist to ward off the cool air and pick up my pace, eager to get back to Rosethorn, my safe haven.
The imposing gates come into view and I skip ahead, waving at Neal in the guard house so he can buzz me through the small pedestrian gate that sits beside the huge one. I close it after I walk through and it locks automatically behind me. I sigh in relief as I turn to walk up the winding path that eventually deposits me in the driveway. Immediately, I look toward Nicholas’ parking spot and hold my breath until I see that it’s empty.
As I make my way to the house, shoulders slumped, I wonder if I left the party because I wasn’t having fun or because he wasn’t there.
15
Maren
Nicholas didn’t arrive at Rosethorn on Friday, and it leaves me continually on edge the next day, as if he’s going to appear out of thin air at any moment. All day, I peer around every corner before I proceed down a new hallway, I make sure I’m always presentable when I go downstairs, and I try very hard to get my brain to concentrate on anything other than him. By sundown, he still hasn’t arrived.
A small package arrives for me on Sunday morning. I assume it’s from Barrett, but when I open it up, I find a handwritten note on personalized stationery. The letters VP are interwoven near the top in embossed ink. Below it, a handwritten message.
I’m sorry for how I acted on Friday. I was sad to find that you’d left the party early. Please say we’re still friends? - Tori
Beneath the note, she included a new book of sheet music, and the gesture instantly eases my anxiety. At least I still have one friend in Newport outside of Rosethorn’s gates.
I spend the evening playing songs from the book, aware of different staff members trickling in and out of the room to listen. Cornelia lets them have more flexible hours on Sunday, to go to church or see their families or just relax, so Collins and Frank and Patricia sit on the couches in the blue drawing room listening to me play until my fingers ache.
On Monday, Cornelia says there’s nothing on the agenda for the day, so I keep myself busy on my own. I clip roses in the garden. I collect Cornelia’s mail and bring it to her with her afternoon tea, then I read to her for a little while. I convince Chef to let me help prepare dinner while Cornelia lies down to rest. He doesn’t really let me touch anything, but I’m allowed to bring him ingredients and watch him work if I keep a healthy distance.
Tuesday morning, a group of high school students arrive by bus to tour the first floor of Rosethorn and the surrounding grounds. Apparently, they do it every year. It’s an arrangement set up through the Preservation Society in exchange for a small donation from the school district. Many of their students—like me—have grown up hearing about the Gilded Age mansions but have never seen them for themselves. Cornelia has me accompany her during the tour, and I watch the amazed expressions on the student’s faces as they enter Rosethorn for the first time.
While I’m on the tour, Tori calls and leaves a message for me with Patricia.
Change of plans for our lesson today. Bring your swimsuit. Leave your racquet at home.
To say I’m relieved is an understatement. I’m beginning to hate tennis. Upstairs, in my room, I find a few swimsuit options in my closet, though I have no idea who picked them—someone who doesn’t have boobs to support, apparently. Reluctantly, I grab a pale blue bikini and a cover-up, and I’m extremely excited to show up at the club to find that our tennis lesson has indeed been canceled for the day.
Tori waits for m
e near the courts wearing a colorful sarong and a wide-brimmed hat. She has two fruity-looking drinks in her hands with little umbrellas sticking out of the tops, and she holds both of them up with a smile.
“This is me apologizing for the weekend.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” I say, accepting one of the glasses from her and taking a small sip. The piña colada is delicious.
“Sure, well, I figure we could use a break from tennis anyway. I really am sorry, you know. You caught me at a bad moment.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask as we approach the pool.
“What is it with you?” she teases. “Most people run from awkward conversations.”
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal if you’d rather keep things private.”
“Private.” She groans at the word. “My whole life has been private. I can’t breathe for risk that I’ll accidentally spill all my secrets.”
“Do you have a lot of them?” I prod.
“Just one,” she says, looking away.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I assure her. “It’s none of my business.”
“I know, which is precisely why I want to tell you. You fluttered into Newport like some rare butterfly and I fully expect you to leave just as quickly, so there’s no real risk in telling you this thing. At least, it’s not as risky as telling my family.”
“You’re making it sound like you’ve committed murder.”
She studies her drink as we continue walking toward the pool. “It’s nothing like that at all.” Then she puffs out a breath and shakes her head like she’s trying to build up her courage. “Right. Let’s just think of it like a Band-Aid. How to…well…you know the other day at lunch with Barrett, when you were asking me about my relationship with Nicholas?”
My heart sinks and I do a small stutter step, enough to slosh some of my drink over the lip of my cup. Thank god she’s too absorbed in her own confession to pay attention to me.
“Ye-yes, I remember.”
“We’ve known each other for so long, and he’s been wonderful to me.”
I want to ask her for details—How has he been wonderful?!—but I sense it’s not the right time.
“I think he and I would fit together so well, and you know our families would love it.”
Just say it! I want to scream. Say you’re in love with Nicholas.
“But I’m in love with someone else.”
I stop on my dime.
“Someone else?” I repeat, dumbstruck.
She glances back at me. “Yes.”
“Who? Do I know him?”
“Her.”
“What?”
She smiles flatly. “Do you know her would be the correct question to ask.”
“Oh. Oh!”
“There you have it. You don’t need to look so surprised.”
“I don’t mean to. It’s just that I really thought you were in love with Nicholas.”
She laughs. “Yes, well, Nicky isn’t my type.”
“Apparently not.” I think back to the party and the woman I heard her arguing with out in the hallway. “Was your girl—er…friend…was she at the party on Friday?”
Her light mood dissipates in an instant. “Yes, Mary Anne. Well, she was there in the beginning, and then she left before you.”
“Because of the fight?”
“Because I was unwilling to do what I’d promised her. I had planned on introducing her to everyone that night as my girlfriend, but then I got cold feet. It’s happened before. It’s a lot…you know, to announce to a room full of people you’ve grown up with your whole life that you’re not the person they thought you were. People expect me to adhere to a certain mold, and I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t quite ready to come out to everyone. Mary Anne has been patient with me about it, giving me time.”
“But she was upset you changed your mind?”
She cringes. “I know that paints her in a bad light, but you have to understand. Mary Anne has been openly proud of her sexuality for years. She flaunts it with pride, and she can’t understand why I’m dragging my feet about it.”
“If it makes you feel better, I certainly don’t care.”
Tori laughs. “I knew you wouldn’t.”
I stare at her for a moment, thinking back on the times when I thought she was reserved, now realizing how hard it must be for her to live two lives, pulled in opposite directions.
“Do you think your family won’t approve?”
We reach a pair of pool chairs and she dumps her bag down onto one. “Honestly, I have no idea. My grandmother can be conservative at times, but I know she loves me. And well, my parents have both been divorced so many times, I don’t think they have a leg to stand on when it comes to lecturing anyone about who they can and cannot love.”
“Barrett will make a crass joke, I’m sure. Just prepare yourself now.”
She rolls her eyes but smiles nonetheless. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of him.”
“And Nicholas?” I prod, curious to hear how she thinks he’ll handle the news.
She smiles then. “Oh, Nicky has always known. He’s the first person I told, actually, and he’s kept my secret for me. I’m not sure what I would have done if I didn’t have him to confide in for all these years.”
She called him loyal weeks ago, and now it makes sense.
I frown in confusion, unsure of where to place this newfound knowledge about Nicholas. It doesn’t exactly fit in the “I hate him” column I’ve been constructing so carefully, but it certainly doesn’t make me like him either—or if it does, I don’t admit it to myself. Opening my heart to a man like him feels like a dangerous game I’m not quite ready to play.
That day, Tori and I transition from acquaintances to real friends, ones with a secret bonding them together. We sit at the pool, sunbathing beneath the blue and white striped umbrellas, ordering drinks, and working through scenarios for how she could win Mary Anne back.
* * *
On Friday afternoon, I carry a tea tray toward the blue drawing room, surveying the careful arrangement. Patricia helped me set everything up down in the kitchen: cucumber sandwiches and bite-sized blueberry tarts on one side, the tea set on the other. In the middle, I placed a small bouquet of pale green hydrangeas from Cornelia’s garden.
I think it looks nice, and I’m proud to carry it into the drawing room and share it with Cornelia. We have plans to continue reading A Room With a View. I hadn’t read Forster before, but I’ve enjoyed his writing so much that I’m practically giddy with anticipation to pick up where we left off yesterday.
In the hall outside the drawing room, I hear Cornelia speaking, and then a beat later, Nicholas answers. My heart lurches in my chest.
I didn’t witness his arrival at Rosethorn, and I curse myself for not keeping a better eye out. I glance down at my clothes and scrunch my nose. My loose cotton sundress, while extremely comfortable, isn’t what I would have chosen for facing Nicholas again after two long weeks. The pale pink color makes me feel girlish and silly viewed through his eyes. I’m tempted to turn around, run up to my room, and change, but I don’t want the tea to get cold and have Cornelia ask me questions about what took me so long. I wouldn’t want to lie to her, even about something as trivial as this.
So, with a resigned sigh, I approach the doors and balance the tea tray on one hand so I can turn the door handle with the other, but then Cornelia speaks again, sharp and clear.
“Don’t bother bringing it up again. I won’t listen to you slander Maren. You’re wasting your breath.”
I frown, wounded that we’re still on this same carousel, looping around and around as I continue to try to prove myself to Nicholas and he continues to think the worst of me. I’ve been here for over a month. I have two paychecks sitting uncashed in my bedside table. I’ve done nothing wrong except enter his world without his permission. Apparently, I’ll never live down that crime.
With a newfound resentment for h
im, I push into the drawing room and pretend I haven’t heard a thing.
Nicholas’ response is cut off so I don’t hear what he was about to say, but I have no doubt it would have been rude. I don’t feign surprise at seeing him sitting on the couch across from Cornelia. Instead, I give him a curt nod and look away as quickly as possible, not that it helps. His image is burned in my memory instantly. He’s sitting in tailored dark gray pants and a white button-down, the color contrasting sharply against his tan skin and midnight hair. He’s frowning in consternation, but that’s nothing new. It’s the expression I’m most used to seeing from him.
He doesn’t put on any airs or offer any greetings as I walk farther into the room. Instead, he watches me like a hawk as I cross in front of Cornelia and set the tray on the coffee table between them.
“Sorry for the interruption,” I offer, sending the words in Cornelia’s direction. They’re for her benefit, not his.
“Nonsense. I was only just greeting Nicky. He arrived from New York not long ago.”
“If I’d known, I would have brought another cup, but he’s welcome to mine,” I say, standing and stepping back from the table, preparing to leave them to it.
“You won’t stay and chat with us?” Cornelia asks, sounding unhappy with the idea.
“No. I’m sure you two want some time to catch up. I was hoping to find some time to read today anyway.”
“I don’t care for tea,” Nicholas says. “You might as well take it.”
What kindness! Someone—quick—commemorate it with a plaque!
“Actually, this works out well,” Cornelia says, nodding. “You two stay. I’m going to have a quick lie down as I feel more tired than usual today. I think it’s the heat starting to creep in. Summer has found us, I’m afraid.”
She stands and so does Nicholas, sharp and immediate, like a well-trained gentleman.
“No, no,” she says, batting him away. “You sit down and entertain Maren. She’s been running around all week, working herself to death, and I’d like you two to chat and get to know each other better.”