“The Washington set,” Judge Reed said, extending her hand in a way that made me wish I’d had a chance to wash mine.
“Thank you so much for having us,” I said. And I meant it. There was a gorgeous array of fresh flowers on the console table, hydrangeas the size of pom-poms, pink-and-orange ranunculus blooms, fragrant greenery. Off to one side of the hall, I got a glimpse of a library, rows of bookshelves, and two matching green velvet chaises. Maybe Bo and Wallis would let me sneak off to read. I could just shut the pocket doors, which appeared to be original to the house, curl in one of those fluffy blankets, pluck a Jane Austen from the shelf, and dream the afternoon away. There was something so calming about being a welcomed guest in a well-kept home. I mentally thanked Patricia for her advice.
The assistant returned with water. “Your home is stunning,” I said to the Judge as I accepted a chilled bottle. “We are so grateful to be included in this special weekend.”
“I assume you’re Daisy, and this is Wallis over here?” replied Judge Reed, pointing.
“Yes, sorry. I’m Daisy. My sister—”
“Ma’am. I’m Wallis,” my sister said. There was a moment I thought she might go in for a hug, but she refrained, and I counted my blessings.
“You’re both so young,” Judge Reed said. “From the way Robert talked about you, Daisy, I’d assumed you were older.”
“Ah, well,” I said, at a loss for how to respond. I looked at Bo, who had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. “I’m not that young,” I offered.
“You’ve many years ahead of you to consider just how wrong that statement is,” Judge Reed said.
I was not offended by the Judge’s ruling that I was incorrect. She spoke with such authority and grace, I suspected she could tell me the sun was green and I would still believe her.
“You’ll show them upstairs?” Judge Reed addressed her son. “Robert is also bunking up there this weekend.”
“In the servants’ quarters,” said Bo, enunciating.
She waved a hand. “He’s just salty because I kicked him out of his old room.”
“You’ve been picking up some lingo from your clerks, I see,” Bo said.
The assistant was back with a coffee mug, and Judge Reed took a sip, eyes on her son over the rim. “Shouldn’t you all be working? What are you doing here with things the way they are in DC anyway?”
“You told me to come down here,” said Bo. “I thought I should at least try to achieve some work-life balance.”
“When you’re older you can start talking about work-life balance. Now, aren’t you hungry?”
Bo looked warily at his mother. “For lunch or for work?”
“What do you think?” She laughed. I figured I better get laughing too, even if at Bo’s expense. Mine, too, I remembered. “Boy, you’ve gotten soft, and not just around the middle. At least when you were in the army you had some muscle.”
Bo inhaled through his nose. His smile was one of tested patience. “Only reason I enlisted,” he said. “For the six-pack.”
Wallis laughed, but quieted when she saw Judge Reed’s expression, which suggested we should not be laughing about Bo’s decision to enlist rather than major in prelaw.
“All right, now,” said the Judge. “You’ll take the girls out for the afternoon? You’d only be in the way here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“I was going to walk them down to the Battery.”
“If you walk by Market Street, that’s where Aunt Jane is staying. In that hotel I told her to avoid. You might call her and see where she is. See if she’s ready to hear my I told you so yet.”
“Excuse me, is there Wi-Fi in the house?” Wallis interjected.
“Wallis,” I said, embarrassed.
“I’ll give you the code,” Bo said.
“I hope you enjoy your stay,” Judge Reed said, and out she went. In her wake, I feared what she thought of us. Entitled millennial? DC types, singularly worried about Wi-Fi? Me, surely, the idiot who couldn’t remember to introduce herself.
“The Judge is wearing her leopard print scarf today,” Bo said as we began our trek up the regal, curved staircase. He carried both our suitcases, one in each hand. “That usually signals a mood that is more, let’s say, feisty than usual.”
“I think she looks like an artist,” Wallis said. “Is this the part where you tell us that underneath her stern demeanor is a heart of mush? Please tell us she has a soft spot for romantic comedies.”
“Alas,” Bo said, laughing after the first flight. “What you see is what you get.”
“How old did you tell her I was?” I asked Bo.
“I don’t think I said anything that would suggest you were a geriatric. Maybe because I always talk about my boss this and my boss that. Anyway,” he said. “This is the family’s floor. My parents’ room is at the end of the hall. Mine is just to the right of it, with the dark green walls. Originally, I was up a level, but when I was in high school, my mother moved me down here. Wanted to keep an eye on me.”
“Because you were a huge party boy,” I said, grinning.
“Exactly,” said Bo. “Partying with my model train set.”
Wallis squealed. “I forgot you were such a nerd!”
Bo gazed toward his childhood bedroom. I’d never known him to be ashamed of his admittedly dorky adolescence before, but there was something in his face that seemed regretful. Whatever it was, he heaved up our suitcases and continued the climb. “Okay, one more flight to go.”
“I’m dying for a tour,” Wallis said, gawping at the Judge’s art along the staircase, which ranged from modern, geometric circles to classic oil still lifes. “Do you think you can sneak me through later?”
“Yes,” said Bo, somehow charging up the stairs much faster than we were. “We’ll start with the cellar first. That’s where the good wine is.”
“And the Wi-Fi code,” Wallis said.
“Wallflower,” Bo said as we caught our breaths on the final landing, “I got you. Hand me your phone.” A few seconds later: “There now. Happy? Yes, Daisy, look at Wallis’s face. It’s the face of someone who can now scroll and ‘like’ the day away.”
“Daisy is always after me about my data usage,” Wallis said.
“Right,” he said, gesturing to a room on his left. “You’re here.”
Ever the gentleman, he held the door open for us as we filed in. Our room was sloped-ceilinged, and had a sleigh bed made of dark wood. The walls were painted valentine’s red. Two dormer windows overlooked the drive; below us, the catering crew unloaded linens. Someone—maybe Bo or the Judge’s assistant—had placed a smaller arrangement of the entry hall flowers on the bedside table. It was cozy and charming, this room, and I loved it.
Wallis toed off her shoes and flopped on the bed. “Feather pillows,” she said. “Bo, you won’t be able to get rid of me.”
“Do you need a rest?” Bo said, watching from the doorway. “We can do our house tour and walk later.”
Wallis launched herself off the bed about as quickly as she fell onto it. “Absolutely not. We just need to wash our hands and I need to change quickly.”
Wallis had noticed the pillows; I, the rolltop desk in the corner. I had tasks to accomplish before I could relax. “I need to send some emails,” I said. “The lawyers.”
We agreed to meet downstairs in half an hour, though Wallis would have liked it to be less. She changed her outfit and sat in the rocking chair by the window. Her phone, she picked up, put down, picked up again. I kept telling her, one more minute. Just one last thing. “We’re wasting our time, Daisy,” she complained as I slowly attended to my inbox. “We’re wasting our youth.”
Twenty-Two
That evening, Wallis stood over her suitcase, considering which dress to wear for
the Reeds’ dinner party. She had hot rollers in her hair and a toothbrush in her mouth.
“I think you should wear the pink,” I said. Wallis had been right earlier; the pillows on the bed, feathered, deep, were so comfortable I wondered how I’d ever bring myself to leave them.
“Eh,” Wallis hedged, then took herself into the bathroom to spit and rinse. “I was thinking the green.”
I joined her in the bathroom, finding a perch on the lip of the claw-foot tub. I was in awe of the Judge, that a woman could have a remarkable career and a fabulous house filled with items of taste, chosen with care. Cricket would describe her as a maximalist. Her home was decorated in layers. Plates adorned the walls of the kitchen. There was wallpaper on nearly every ceiling. There was a magnifying glass in the downstairs powder room and needlepoint pillows with witticisms like If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong. Surfaces were covered in candles. She had a fondness for jars. Pencils in jars. Cotton balls in jars. Keep your eyes peeled for the jar in the jar, Wallis had said to me earlier, after the grand tour. The way the Judge arranged pictures and pieces of art and artifacts, mixed fabrics and styles of furniture, made me want to go home and redecorate my entire apartment so it wasn’t so ruthlessly curated. Read: empty. Cricket’s style was more traditional—dark woods, creams and taupe—but like the Judge, she’d made sure the house looked lived in, warm. Despite the less-than-perfect memories, when we sold P, we’d lost much more than a house. It felt good to be back in one. “How long do you think it takes to dust this place?” I asked.
“Judge Reed just commands the dust not to fall,” Wallis said.
“Bo seems somewhat afraid of her,” I said.
“You think?” Wallis examined an eyebrow in the mirror, then began to pluck.
“He’s different when he’s here. Have you noticed?”
“He’s in his childhood home,” Wallis said. “We’re all different at home. Including me.” She laid her tweezers on the sink. In the mirror, she met my eyes. “DC has felt so awful recently. Like I’m living in a snow globe that someone just keeps shaking. But I feel good here. I like Charleston. Our walk downtown was charming. I like a city that comes to a point. I like homes with porches.” She smiled and looked toward the ceiling. “I think something good is going to happen this weekend. I just feel it.”
“What’s the latest with Blake?” I asked, fiddling with the hem of my dress. I was in black, a high-collared number, sleeveless, floor-length.
Wallis shrugged. “He’s busy. He’ll get back to me. Tomorrow, he said.” She glanced at her phone resting on the edge of the sink. The screen was dark.
Though I was skeptical that any meeting with Blake would be productive, I envied her optimism. I coveted it. But it also made me resentful. Why did she get to have hope when I was floundering? I had a thought, briefly, of tossing a brick through her window, unloading on her the whole truth about Atlas, the kiss, Ari, why his article was canceled. My mouth opened, but the words gummed in my throat. She was my sister, and I loved her, and I could not. Anyway, this trip was supposed to be about celebrating with Bo and his family, champagne, good sleep and warm air, jaunts through narrow, colonial alleyways adorned with bougainvillea. Too young art thou to waste this summer night, right, Daisy?
Wallis studied her reflection and continued her work. Eyebrows done, and on to the powder, the concealer, the bronzer. It took her barely any time; her moves were practiced and perfunctory, her mind elsewhere. Tonight, how could a little buffing up hurt? When she was done, I asked to borrow her mascara. She passed it to me like a baton.
A gentle rap at the door—Bo, collecting us for the party. He waited while I zipped up Wallis. Naturally she’d chosen the green.
Turned out I’d badly miscalculated. Downstairs, I was the only one in black. All others were in the colors of spring, except the bride-to-be, Bo’s fraternal twin, Jessica, who was in white and pearls, radiant, petite, happy. The star of the party, she welcomed us, graciously.
And so the night went, Wallis and I sometimes together, sometimes apart. I mingled more easily than usual. The Reeds’ friends and family were delightful, many had interesting anecdotes from long, distinguished careers, as well as hilarious stories of Bo and Jessica as babies and young children. When it was time for dinner, the head waiter rang a brass handbell with a wooden handle. My grandmother’s, said Bo, as we moved to the next stage of the evening. In the large dining room, the walls of which were wrapped with a bucolic mural, we were seated on either side of Bo. During the meal, there was a toast or two—tears in the handsome groom’s eyes but he spoke too hastily, fumbled lines, certainly not a natural orator. Is he good enough for Jessica? This question was a little uncharitable, admittedly. Did I really expect all men to dazzle? If so, my sister was rubbing off on me.
I checked on Wallis then, and throughout dinner, evaluating her mood, hoping she was having as enjoyable a time as I was. I could not fault her performance. It was convincing. But only I knew her well enough to see her moments of distraction, to notice the occasions when her eyes unfocused, when she activated her automaton—uh-huh, yes, totally, right. Her hands, always occupied with either a drink or her phone.
* * *
It was well after midnight when I woke up, cold, hungry, next to a gently snoring Wallis, who’d stolen all the covers. I had fallen asleep in my dress and mascara, my phone on my chest.
I changed into my pajamas in the bathroom. I’d brought my nicest ones, thinking, I don’t know, of impressions? It seemed ridiculous now as I turned off my bedside lamp and crept out. The hallway sconces were still on, so getting downstairs was not a problem. Toward the kitchen, also illuminated, I heard footsteps and the sound of plates being stacked. A roadblock, then, between me and the remaining slices of cheese and salami from the charcuterie board.
I was standing in the dining room, gazing at the mahogany table strewn with used linen, considering my options—should I go back upstairs or brave the awkward chitchat that surely awaited me in the kitchen?—when Aunt Jane fell upon me. “Collette!” she called. “You have another poor soul who wants some leftovers.” She, Bo’s aunt, the one who deigned to stay at the wrong hotel on Market Street, was still in her party dress. She’d startled me, and she must have noticed, for she put a hand on my shoulder. It steadied me, and I saw that it steadied her, too. She wore glasses like her sister, though not as trendy, and behind them were wide, untroubled eyes. The eyes of a woman happy to be a little tipsy. “Bo was just in here, looking for a leg of something.” Aunt Jane laughed, and almost singing, declared, “It’s that time of night!” She bounced back toward the kitchen. I followed.
Judge Reed straightened when she saw me in the doorway. “Join us,” she said from her rush-seated counter stool. In her voice, I searched for any hints that I shouldn’t. I was interrupting a woman in her own kitchen, late at night. A conversation between sisters. I begrudged the fact that I was so hungry. But she nodded toward the island—and its cheeseboard, crackers, open tub of hummus.
“Join us?” Aunt Jane said. “I’ve been telling you for the last hour I’m going back to the hotel.”
“It’s early yet,” Judge Reed said.
“It’s one o’clock in the damn morning.” Aunt Jane laughed again.
“Oh, you’ve got other plans?” She slid a basket of sliced baguette down the counter to Aunt Jane.
“You have a sister, don’t you, Daisy?” Aunt Jane asked, selecting a slice of bread.
“Yes,” I said, enjoying their banter and analyzing how best to scoop some hummus without making a mess. I pulled out the stool next to the Judge, careful not to drag the legs across the floor. “She’s here with me. Did you get introduced to Wallis?”
“Y’all are sisters? Well, now, that makes sense. I saw her pushing a drink into your hand earlier tonight. I thought that looked familiar.” Aunt Jane turned to her own sister. “You might as well hand me tha
t bottle, then. But this is my last one, mark my words.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Judge Reed said, passing the Pimm’s. “Pour Daisy some, too. Her hands are too empty for late-night chatting.”
From a nearby cabinet the color of a latte, Aunt Jane found a short tumbler, a delicate one, glass, decorated with intricate bubbles and threads.
“You like Pimm’s?” Judge Reed asked as Aunt Jane filled my cup with ice from the massive freezer.
“I’ve only had it once,” I said, “when I was in New Orleans some time ago, on a trip with my boss.”
“New Orleeuhns,” Judge Reed said, correcting, “is where our mother’s family comes from. Some Tremé and other Uptown folk will be here tomorrow.”
“My father always loved that city,” I said.
“Sure he did,” Judge Reed said. “He was a crook, and crooks love New Orleans.”
A grandfather clock ticked baritones in the hall. The Judge sat on her counter stool in duchess satin, spinning her glass between her palms, looking at me, studious, expectant. A test, I thought.
“Very true,” I said, because of course she was right. Aunt Jane handed me the glass.
“Cheers,” Judge Reed said. We clinked, and with the first taste of the Pimm’s, sweet and bitter, herbs and citrus, I remembered that I’d liked it. “Tell me, Daisy, is Robert good at his job?”
“Yes,” I said. “So good he’s been doing mine, too.” I wasn’t usually in the habit of admitting such things to virtual strangers, but dimly lit, late-night kitchens contain their own type of magic, don’t they? Aunt Jane passed the baguette slices my way; I chose one, and a slice of cheese that turned out to be Brie with truffles. Heaven.
“You’re not working?” Judge Reed narrowed her eyes.
“I’ve been—relieved of my duties. Temporarily, I hope. I’ve been in the wrong places at the wrong times.” My thoughts flickered to the graveyard, the shadows of cherry trees and mausoleums, the lens of the camera that caught me. “It is what it is.” It wasn’t, but how could I really call it unfair when I was Gregory Richardson’s daughter? I was supposed to be well versed in the partisan playbook.
Ladies of the House Page 17