by Julia Kent
Time to catch him.
“Now there’s a trail I’d like to go down,” I whisper.
“I’d like that. Just promise me one important thing.”
“What’s that?” Tracing spirals, I meander through his textured skin, enjoying such pure access to his body. A mole I’ve never noticed, right above his hip bone, practically begs for a kiss.
“You won’t make it ninety-five percent of the way and then stop.” A sharp inhale cuts off his final word as I bend down and greet his warm, bare ass the European way.
With a kiss on each cheek.
“Oh, no,” I murmur as my mouth finds its way back to his navel. “This is a trail I could travel with my eyes closed and both hands tied behind my back.”
“I can make that happen.”
And he does.
Chapter 5
“This is better than holding the wedding here,” Andrew announces as he turns left onto the winding road, trees lining the way in perfect formation, his Tesla’s tires rumbling slowly down the gravel-covered farm road before hitting asphalt again. “But I still can’t believe Dad’s hosting an event at the old house.”
My excitement is hard to contain now that I understand more of the backstory on why I’ve never been taken to Andrew’s childhood home.
And I’m prepared for his goal of popping his childhood bedroom’s cherry.
So to speak.
I’ve been in Weston, Massachusetts many, many times but never like this. Never as a guest in one of the grand homes on the winding country roads. The exclusive, wealthy western suburbs of Boston have their own rustic appeal, a look and feel honed through careful administration of snob zoning laws designed to keep out the riffraff.
Like me.
In most of these towns, you can’t build a house on less than two acres, and when a single acre will set you back over a cool million dollars, you start to understand why you move from a more industrial town into Weston and suddenly think you’re in Western Massachusetts. None of this is an accident.
“Right to Farm” signs dot the roads as Andrew drives on autopilot from the Pike onto the backroads, taking twists and turns that become less familiar to me. The only true farmers in Weston, people actually raising food and animals for income, are either part of non-profit organizations or running family farms that haven’t sold out to developers.
Yet.
Modern architecture juts out from the rolling hills, the road narrowing and the hills sharpening, dipping deeper down, closer to the road. Homes hug the asphalt, older than the Department of Transportation, set close to old cowpaths and dirt roadways that used to connect disparate New England towns to one another.
“Homes from the 1700s. Homes that look like Frank Lloyd Wright designed them. Deck houses. So many different designs. I’m guessing you grew up in a stately old 1700s home with a modern wing attached.” I reach for Andrew’s hand. It’s cold. He squeezes back.
“Close. Late 1600s. Dad wanted the oldest home on the market and he got it. Added the modern wing and four-car garage with servants’ quarters above right after we moved in, when I was a toddler.”
“Servants?” I choke out the word like it’s a disease.
Andrew doesn’t blink. “Someone has to run the household.”
“You mean Grace doesn’t live in and do it all, too?”
He gives me a sour look. I laugh.
“Dad hires butlers from the elite training school in Amsterdam.”
“I thought you were joking. You’re serious? You grew up with servants.” I look at him in a new light.
“Yes. I mean, we didn’t call them that to their face. But they live in the servants’ quarters, so...”
“What did you call them?”
“Joan. Mindy. Julie. Ellie. Jonathan...”
“Wait a minute! You’ve told me about them, but I thought they were Anterdec employees! Not servants at your parents’ estate!”
He shrugs. “They were just another grownup in our lives. Joan was the household manager for ages. After Mom died, Dad drove her out pretty fast. Then Grace stepped in and became the go-between for future household managers and butlers.”
“I was joking about Grace! That really happened?”
“She’s special.” He speaks so softly, I almost don’t hear him. “That’s why I don’t want her to retire. Gina’s fine, but Grace is in a league of her own.”
Apparently so.
“She’s really been like a second mother to you.”
“Whether Dad liked it or not, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Grace pulls no punches.”
“I noticed.”
“Dad didn’t like being told he wasn’t parenting us well. But he didn’t do anything other than throw money at the problem. What we needed was his attention. His time. I understand that now. Grace knew it then. From what little I’ve gleaned, it wasn’t pretty. Dad resented her interference but never stopped her. He can be stubborn as hell, but underneath he knows when someone’s right.”
“He let Grace take over by default?”
“Something like that. Once I was out of the house, the need for staff dwindled. Now it’s just Jonathan. He manages weekly help, seasonal issues like snow removal and repairs. Stuff like that. Dad tried to get Gerald to fill that role way back in the day and he didn’t last.” A smile makes Andrew’s mouth twitch.
“Gerald?”
“Dad wanted him to serve at the occasional event. Gerald put a stop to that, fast. Moved into his own apartment in the city.”
A flash of Gerald at James’ Back Bay place last year during the oregano fiasco, when James, Mom, and Marie got “high” on what turned out to be a baggie full of Italian seasonings, comes to mind. “He served tea and coffee to everyone at your dad’s during Oreganogate.”
Andrew chokes on his laugh. “Oreganogate?”
“That’s what Shannon and I call it.”
Slowing the car to five miles an hour, Andrew makes a careful turn onto a dirt and gravel road. A magnificent hill to the right climbs up at such a perfect forty-five degree angle that I wonder if it’s man-made, enormous trees spread out unevenly.
The feeling is surreal. Like rolling footage from a Hollywood film, the view as we drive up the long path is tunnel-like, cocooned and ensconced in a dreamy, telescoped world.
“Why are you driving so slow?” I look over at him. Andrew’s fingers are tapping nervously on the steering wheel, throat tense, eyelids fluttering as he blinks too much, too fast.
Just as he starts to answer, something darts in front of the headlights, big and swift. Then another body, that of a small deer.
“Oh!” I gasp.
“That’s why. Tons of deer and rabbits in the woods here.” His words are soft, distant, floating on memory. This side of him isn’t part of my repertoire of experience. Lost in some sort of netherworld between the deeply familiar and the exquisitely uncomfortable, Andrew is facing something I don’t understand.
I want to fix it, but I know I can’t. I can just live through it with him.
“How long is the driveway?” I marvel, as the road seems to go on and on.
“Half a mile.”
“Half a mile? That’s an expensive plowing bill in the winter,” I joke.
“Is it?” He’s a million miles away.
While I’m not an expert in land use or development, even I can figure out quickly that James must own an extraordinary number of acres to have a driveway this long, the house so secluded. I’ve seen how Declan, Andrew, and James live in Boston, and make no mistake-- they live in luxury.
I’ve been on Anterdec corporate jets. Stayed in presidential suites.
Nothing compares to this.
Finally, the Tesla’s headlights pick up signs of civilization, metal gleaming in the distance. A landscaped stone wall with small bushes along the brick top comes into view. Then a circular fountain. Clichéd, yes, but there it is.
The house isn’t so much a
house as a mansion. The pit of my stomach starts doing loop-de-loops as I recall Andrew’s Jane Austen-inspired proposal to me. I’d always assumed he was familiar with literature and poetry because of his solid humanities education at one of the finest prep schools in the world.
Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe he actually lived at the Massachusetts version of Pemberley.
“Andrew.” His name comes out like I’m throwing myself a lifeline. The home is lit up with a series of outdoor lanterns that make stone passageways glow. It’s a mixture of 1600s colonial and European carved stone, and the home is made up of a series of wings.
“Is that fountain made of Italian marble?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, turning the car so he pulls up in front of a uniformed man. I feel like we’re arriving at a fancy resort.
We kind of are, except this is a resort where Andrew grew up.
“You lived here as a kid?” Two outbuildings, one of them with four garage doors, flank the enormous house. I can’t tell what the second building is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I go on an expedition, I’ll find a giant pool and tennis court behind it.
“Yeah. Home sweet home.” He gives me a strange smile.
“Jesus.”
“Here we are.”
I’m frozen in place. A valet opens my door but I can’t move. Andrew’s halfway out his side before he realizes I’m still sitting here, breathing slowly, trying to process all this. Even the air smells different, an earthy scent of decaying leaves and brisk snow.
“Amanda?”
“You lived here? Your family lived here?”
He doesn’t reply, just gives me a funny look and shakes the valet’s hand.
I get out of the car, trying not to make more of a spectacle of myself, and smooth my skirt over my thighs. Mom’s on her way, driving separately. She’s going to freak when she sees this.
Next thing I know, Andrew’s standing next to me, a bit robotic as he hands the keyfob to one of the valets and turns on his heel. I follow, because what else am I supposed to do? I have no idea where anything is.
I can’t think of this building as a home. It’s too much. Homes have coat racks and boot mats and places where you dump the mail until you can sort it later. Homes have recycling bins and trash cans and grease stains on the driveway. Homes have worn armrests on old chairs no one wants to get rid of because they’re repositories of memory.
Homes don’t have valets. As in plural. Homes don’t have servants’ quarters.
And they certainly don’t have an original Degas hanging in the front foyer.
The ballerina painting hits me square in the face as we walk in, the texture of the canvas enticing as my eyes comb over it, looking for the flat effect of a print. Instead, I’m bombarded by peaks and nuance, patina and irregularities, my need to focus on something small to manage all the big emotions giving me a reason to notice.
“That’s an original Degas,” I whisper to him.
He’s delighted. “It is. One of Mom’s favorite artists.” He squeezes my hand. “She’d have loved the fact that you know who the artist is.” Our eyes hold each other’s gaze for a little too long.
It hits me.
He’s as overwhelmed as I am.
“When was the last time you were here?” I ask, my words slow and heavy with meaning.
“Andrew!” booms a loud Scottish voice attached to a redheaded beast who marches across the foyer and grabs my 6’3” fiancé in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. Only Hamish McCormick, Andrew’s cousin and professional footballer, could manage that feat.
“Hamish!” Andrew tries to kill him with a handshake of death. They squeeze to a draw. “Dad said you were in town and we’d see you here. How’s it going?”
“Going fine.” He holds a pint glass of beer aloft. “Always better with good drink.” He gives me a smile and opens his arms wide, coming in for a hug. “Amanda! Soon we’ll be family.”
His hug is considerably less violent this time.
“If you’re Andrew’s cousin, then what will we be after I marry Andrew and become a McCormick?”
“Drinking buddies,” he whispers in my ear. Hamish puts his arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the sound of a crowd as Andrew and I laugh.
James told us this would be an “intimate affair,” which to him means fewer than one hundred people. I see Marie, Shannon and Declan, Amy and Carol, but no Mom.
And about sixty men and women who are a mixture of people from Anterdec, people I’ve seen at philanthropic events, and complete strangers.
“Oh, God,” I groan.
“You need a drink,” Andrew and Hamish say in tandem.
“Great minds think alike.”
“Nah,” Hamish says, the word clipped. “We’re just McCormicks. All the McCormicks in Scotland love their drink. I can’t imagine it’s any different just because you live across the pond.”
Within three minutes I have a lovely glass of wine in my hand, half of it already in me, and Andrew has made speed round introductions to five people whose names I’ll never remember. I’m gearing up for another go at being social when Andrew bends down and whispers, “Want a tour of the house?”
“I’d love one.”
“We’ll be social in small doses.” A charming smile aimed at me takes my breath away. As he threads his fingers through mine and pulls me away from the enormous crowd in the living room, I gawk openly.
James McCormick’s office at Anterdec headquarters has a certain feel to it, all leather and dark wood, Persian rugs, and fine, eclectic patinas. A light scent of cinnamon and cloves, pipe smoke from his rare indulgence, enhances the feel. This home is different, though. It has some of those same characteristics, but each room has its own touch. The Washington blue in the dining room, for instance – Andrew explains the historical significance of the painted fireplace to me, but I’m barely listening. Old-fashioned oil lamps dot the walls, and I see remnants of knob-and-tube wiring along the baseboards, replaced long ago by modern electrical wiring but left as a historical artifact for future generations to admire.
Nothing matches.
This is important, because in the suburbs, having everything new and matching is the hallmark of a “done” house. When we lived in Mendon, this was how I knew someone had money. The curtains matched a color on the couch upholstery. The throw pillows matched a color in the area rug. All of the wood floors were stained and varnished to the same color. The measure of a beautiful home was how coordinated it was.
When we moved to Newton, that standard changed. And among the deeply wealthy, it’s all about unique and rare items. Andrew doesn’t have to tell me that a certain carpet is over one hundred years old and imported directly from Turkey in the 1930s. Or that one of the wall sculptures from West Africa was bought from an enterprising student who needed tuition money to pay for another semester at Harvard. Each piece in the room, from pillow to curtains to candlestick, has its own history, its own soul.
Someone painstakingly made thousands of decisions to create a cohesive whole. Just like the scent of an antique shop or a rare-book store makes me relax instantly, the inherent uniqueness of each bit of decor in the house sets me at ease.
“Your mother did a beautiful job,” I tell him as we pause in the kitchen, caterers whizzing around us. A commercial-sized stove, a high counter with barstools to seat twelve, and three sinks make the kitchen feel like I’m on the set of a Gordon Ramsay cooking show.
“She did. Dad gave her carte blanche to decorate. She loved buying local art, haunting antique shops, and going to estate sales.”
“I’d imagine she didn’t do all that to get the cheap deals like Marie and Mom did.”
“No. She went to find the rare items no one else had.”
“She succeeded.”
He kisses the crown of my head. “So did I.” Gathering me in his arms, he pulls me in for a long hug. I’m wearing high heels, so I don’t have to stretch far to be eye-to-e
ye with him.
“Let me show you the rest.” We snake down a long hallway, past James’ double-doored home office, a library that looks like it belongs in Hogwarts, a sun room, and then the distinct scent of chlorine hits my nose.
“Indoor pool?”
He frowns. “Sort of. Indoor lap pool.”
“What’s the difference?”
He uses his palm to guide me to a thin walkway, a small glass door covered in a very light layer of condensation. “I’ll show you.” He opens the door to the weirdest pool I’ve ever seen.
“What is this?” The room is humid but cool, a strange paradox.
“Olympic-size lap pool.”
“It’s so long, but super thin!”
“One lane, fifty meters. Designed for me by Dad. After Mom died and my wasp allergy was obvious, I stopped playing football and lacrosse. Dad made me do a sport, so I shifted to swimming. Dad had this added to the house so I could practice.”
“No pressure, huh?”
A rueful laugh is his answer. “Right.”
“You okay?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I can tell that being here is making you emotional.”
He sighs. “A little.” Bending down, he touches the water and shivers. “Dad’s keeping it clean, but not heated more than the minimum. Too cool for pleasure swimming, just about right for torturing myself when I was still competing. In the winter, this place was great on the weekends. I’d come home from school and practice.”
“Come home?”
“After Mom died, I became a boarding student at Milton.”
“Right. You told me.” But I hadn’t connected it all like this before. The wealth. The upbringing. The social expectations and competitive edge James insisted his boys develop.
“Were you that good?”
“At what?”
I point to the water. “Swimming? Worth going to all this trouble?”
“Dad thought so. But I didn’t make the Olympic trials.”
“Your father sets a high bar for success.”
He smiles at me. “That’s why I love you.”