by Greg Herren
The car made its way uptown, pulling up to an awning in front of an impressive-looking art deco style building. I gaped out the window as Roberts put the car into neutral and got out, heading around to the back.
Carlo hung up the phone and slid out of the car when the uniformed doorman opened the passenger door for him. “Welcome back, sir,” the doorman said with a smile as Carlo introduced me. “Welcome, sir,” he said to me in turn. He was an older man, maybe in his early fifties, with a thick graying mustache and a trim build.
Carlo led me inside and we took the main elevator up while Roberts took our luggage to a service elevator. “This is where we’ll stay whenever we’re in the city—and Ferguson’s the daytime doorman—he can get you a cab, will take deliveries for us and messages—if anyone comes by he’ll call us and we have to give him permission to let them come up,” he said once the elevator doors shut behind us. “Our primary home will be Spindrift, of course, but sometimes when I have late business in the city I spend the night here. And of course, any time you want to see a show or something, do some shopping—and it’s too late to head back out to the Hamptons, this is your home, too.” He smiled at me. “There’s an extra set of keys upstairs in my office. I think you’ll like the place.”
I bit my lower lip. “Where all do you have homes, Carlo?” I asked, curious.
“Well, I did put in an offer on the house in Miami where I proposed—sentimental value and all that,” he replied with a wink. “You liked that house, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, I did, but—” I cut myself off.
“But what?”
“It was so big.”
He laughed. “Darling Mouse—Spindrift dwarfs that place.” He stroked the side of my cheek. “I have to say, it is such a pleasure to watch the looks on your face! But we also have a nice flat in Paris, and a condo in Aspen—do you ski, by any chance?”
Paris? We have a place in Paris? I swallowed. “No, I’ve never skied.”
“We’ll have to remedy that this winter,” he said as the elevator continued to rise. “We’ll get you some lessons.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You really are a church mouse, aren’t you?” He sighed. “I really am looking forward to showing you the world, Mouse. Later this summer, we’ll go to Paris. Would you like that?”
Unable to say anything, I nodded. Paris? Going to Paris had been a dream of mine ever since reading The Three Musketeers when I was nine years old. I’d read a lot of French history, had even considered minoring in it in college. The Louvre, Notre-Dame, and the Eiffel Tower—I could spend weeks in Paris.
The elevator came to a stop, and the digital display said P3. The elevator doors opened into a white marble foyer, facing a large door. There was another door to the left with an exit sign above it, and in the other direction there was a large window with a spectacular view of the river. He unlocked the door and led me inside.
I gasped.
The apartment looked like something out of House Beautiful. The living room was enormous, and completely decorated in a minimalist modern style. The floor, ceilings, walls, and furniture were all white, with brass fixtures and black highlights. The walls were covered with stunning black-and-white prints in black metal frames—and I recognized the images as statuary and ruins from Rome and Greece. The opposing wall was all glass, and sliding glass doors led out to a wide terrace with a spectacular view facing Lower Manhattan. I shivered—the air-conditioning was on, and it was very cold inside—but I wandered through the entire apartment. There was a lovely dining room in the same décor, and a kitchen with an ice machine and every other conceivable gadget. There was an office—Carlo excused himself and went inside, shutting the door behind him as his phone started ringing again—and I looked through the two bedrooms. One was clearly a spare bedroom, and smelled unused. The other bedroom was enormous, with a huge wrought iron sleigh bed, an enormous walk-in closet, and a bathroom that was the size of my old apartment. I pulled the blinds open to discover a wall of glass, and sliding doors out to the end of the terrace.
My mouth wide open, I walked back into the living room as Roberts carried our suitcases in. He nodded to me as he placed them into the big bedroom, and excused himself. “Where do you stay when we’re in the city, Roberts?” I asked, and as soon as the words were out I wondered if I wasn’t supposed to talk about personal matters with the servants.
He smiled. “There’s an apartment for me on a lower floor, sir. Call me if you need anything.” And with a bow, he backed out of the penthouse.
That night I wore my charcoal Versace suit to the theater, where we saw The Book of Mormon, and afterward we had dinner at an incredibly expensive restaurant. Carlo turned his phone off, and I had his full attention. He introduced me to so many people I couldn’t keep track of all their names, but I tried my best. Everyone was so friendly and kind—I couldn’t help but remember Valerie’s cruel words about me not fitting into this world with no small amount of satisfaction.
She’d been wrong—so very, very wrong about that.
And after dinner, we went back to the penthouse, where Carlo slowly undressed me, kissing me, and lifted me into the bed, where we made love as single men one last time, and I slept deeply nestled inside his strong arms.
The following morning we were married in the living room, by Judge O’Connor (“call me Ian”) with Roberts and the judge’s wife Faye as our witnesses. Afterward, a champagne brunch was delivered, and I discovered that I liked champagne—very much. By the time the O’Connors left us alone, I was quite tipsy—and Carlo carried me into the bedroom for our first time as a married couple.
The rest of the week passed in a blur, a magical wondrous blur. Carlo had business in the city, and while he was taking care of that, he sent me off shopping every day with my brand-new credit cards. It was necessary—once all my things had arrived from my old apartment, Carlo had gone through them all, shaking his head. He didn’t allow me to keep any of it—just some socks and underwear and things to get me through until they could be replaced. The rest went into boxes, which Roberts took to Goodwill.
Despite the knowledge that I was now married to one of the wealthiest men in the city, I couldn’t quite shake my habit of looking at price tags and worrying about how much money I was spending. Carlo found this amusing, and once said, “I suppose in about a year I’ll look at your charge bills and look back with nostalgia.”
When he could, he went shopping with me, picking out clothes without ever looking at a price and not even blinking at the astounding totals that went onto my new credit cards.
Every night he took me to a Broadway show and out for an amazing dinner afterward. Sometimes I could tell that people were looking at us—and all too often people came by our table to say hello and be introduced to me. They were invariably polite to me, but I could see by the quizzical looks on their faces they were wondering where I’d come from, and what Carlo could possibly see in me.
It didn’t help much that so many of the stores in Manhattan carried Timothy’s brand, Drawers.
I knew it shouldn’t bother me, but seeing the underwear boxes and the amazing body pictured there always ruined my mood, reminding me of what Carlo was used to, what everyone was comparing me to—and undoubtedly finding me wanting.
No matter how much I reassured myself that he loved me, he wouldn’t have married me if he didn’t, I could never get past the notion that he was always comparing me to Timothy. He never talked about him—and I didn’t want to bring up his previous husband.
I knew it was what his friends were thinking when they met me—that the quizzical looks and the stilted, oh-so-polite conversation that followed masked their curiosity.
One night I went to the restroom at some restaurant whose name I’ve long since forgotten, and heard two women talking about me in the hallway as they waited their turn for the restroom.
“Well, of course he’s a cute thing,” one sniffed, “but he looks like a child. I never thought Carlo’s tastes
ran in that particular direction.”
“Well, it’s a rebound thing, of course,” the other replied in a smug tone. “I’m sure he’s lonely, and figured some companionship is better than nothing. And one can hardly blame him for picking a sparrow after Timothy, can one? When one has been with one of the most beautiful men to live and breathe, well, anything else is going to be a disappointment. And this one seems pleasant enough. He certainly could have done far worse.”
Fortunately, I heard a door open and the two women entered the ladies’ room before I had to hear any more of it.
I stared at myself in the mirror in the bathroom. No, I wasn’t a male model. No, I didn’t have the kind of body that showed up on underwear boxes and ads. But was that all that mattered?
And worse, did Carlo think that way, too? Did he think he’d settled out of loneliness and the realization he would never replace or improve on Timothy?
Maybe Valerie was right, I thought as I splashed cold water on my face. Maybe this whole thing was a big mistake.
Chapter Five
We left the city for Spindrift early on Saturday morning.
I hadn’t said anything to Carlo about what I’d heard those women say in the restaurant. I’d decided to never bring Timothy up to him—why keep stating the obvious, that I wasn’t Timothy?
I was very glad I hadn’t when, on our last night in Manhattan, Carlo said his name in his sleep.
I’d spent that last afternoon in the city packing up everything I’d purchased—some of my clothes I’d had the stores ship directly to Spindrift—so that Roberts could take them with him that evening. Carlo had a car in the city, parked in a garage, that he wanted to return to Spindrift—and by sending Roberts ahead with our luggage, on Saturday morning we could simply throw what was left into an overnight bag and hit the road.
I was nervous and excited—Spindrift was going to be my new home, and while I’d looked it up online, even seen pictures of it—the thought of living in a house that made that huge place where Carlo had proposed to me in Miami look like a cottage was rather off-putting. And there were servants to get used to, as well. I knew there were several live-in servants, including the remarkable Carson, who ran the household. I was getting used to Roberts and to having Ferguson take care of flagging cabs for me whenever I needed one, but I wasn’t so sure about actual live-ins.
We stayed in that last night and ordered Chinese food to be delivered, and watched some old movies on a pay cable channel while we ate. I’d had a wonderful week—other than overhearing those two horrible women—and was sad to see it end. Carlo had been wonderful, more wonderful than I could have ever dared hope, and I was looking forward to getting settled in and started on our married life. I loved the penthouse, and always would—but it didn’t seem real, perhaps because Carlo kept referring to the week as our honeymoon.
We went to bed early, since Carlo wanted to get off to an early start the next morning. As always, he wrapped his arms around me and we cuddled. I fell asleep almost immediately, as I had ever since we’d arrived. I’d been worried, having always slept alone, how I would adapt to sharing a bed once we were married—but my worries were for nothing. I slept better inside the comfort of Carlo’s strong arms, with his warm body pressed against mine, than I ever had in my life. Every morning we awoke, almost at the same time, having barely moved in the night.
But this last night, Carlo pulled away from me, and slept restlessly, tossing and turning. At three in the morning his restlessness woke me, and I found myself staring at the digital clock on my nightstand, reading 3:03 a.m. in red lights. He tossed and turned again, and I wondered whether I should wake him, maybe he was having a bad dream, when he groaned and said out loud, “Timothy, why?”
I froze completely, and my heart almost stopped beating.
His voice sounded heartbroken, desolate, devastated, like it had been ripped from an anguished soul in constant torment.
I slipped out of the bed and walked barefoot into the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of water from the tap in the sink. My heart was pounding, and my General Tso’s chicken felt like a lump of heavy lead in my stomach. I realized my hands were shaking as I raised the glass to my lips.
Get a hold of yourself, I told myself as I gulped the ice cold water down, you knew all along he was still in love with Timothy. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.
Like you can compare to Timothy, Valerie’s voice mocked me inside my head, echoed by the voices of those awful women.
I went back to bed, and Carlo seemed to have relaxed in his dream state. As soon as I slipped back under the covers again, he moved toward me and his arms went around me again—but this time, they didn’t feel as comforting as they always had before.
And I wasn’t able to get back to sleep the rest of the night—and it seemed only minutes had passed when the alarm went off at six.
A hot shower and several cups of coffee didn’t help, either. I was still yawning and sleeping when I headed down to the lobby of our building, carrying the overnight bag with our shaving kits and the dirty clothes we’d worn the night before. Ferguson politely asked me when I thought we might be back in the city, but I just shook my head and shrugged. He opened the door for me and I stepped out into the warmth of the morning. The gray morning sky was beginning to turn blue as the sun rose in the east, and the streets were empty. I only stood out on the sidewalk for a few moments before a red Jaguar convertible pulled up to the curb with Carlo at the wheel.
Ferguson seemingly materialized out of thin air and opened the passenger side door for me, and I slid into the seat with a weak smile for him. “Have a safe trip, sirs,” he said, saluting smartly as he closed the door behind me.
“You can nap if you like,” Carlo said over the roar of the wind as he sped through the city, heading for the Queensboro Bridge and the Long Island Expressway. “Didn’t you sleep well?” His tone was sympathetic.
I shook my head while covering a yawn with my right hand.
“I’m sorry, I just hate driving in traffic,” he replied as I yawned yet again and slid down in my seat, resting my head against the door. “And there isn’t any at this hour. I suppose I could have let you leave with Roberts at a more decent hour, but I didn’t want you to see Spindrift for the first time without me at your side.”
I could hear the pride in his voice when he talked about Spindrift. Tired as I was, his words filled me with trepidation. I knew the shift in my feelings about the house had come about because he had said the dreaded name last night in his sleep—and I just knew that Timothy had fit Spindrift like he was born to live there. The servants would compare me to him, and I would be found lacking, the way those two horrible women had found me lacking. There were the neighbors as well, and Carlo’s friends—they would be polite, of course, as were his friends in the city, but while the penthouse somehow had seemed like a kind of enchanted world where I could hide out in an ivory tower with my handsome prince, avoiding the dragons and sorcerers, Spindrift seemed different. Spindrift was reality, not a magic kingdom, but it couldn’t be put off forever. If I was going to be married to Carlo and make the marriage a success somehow, I would have to do it at Spindrift. It was going to be our home; it had been home to the Romaniello family for generations, since it was built in the 1880s.
While the penthouse seemed to me to belong to Carlo, for some reason now, in my mind, Spindrift seemed to be Timothy’s house, and I couldn’t help but feel like an intruder, an outsider, an interloper who didn’t belong there.
As the car made it over the bridge into Queens, I glanced over at Carlo, his face wrinkled in concentration as he focused on driving. No, I can’t say anything to him, I decided, I swore to never bring up Timothy to Carlo, and that was the smart way to handle it.
I closed my eyes again and heard him again crying out Timothy’s name in his sleep, in the bed he’d shared with Timothy first.
Learn to deal with it, I reminded myself, he’s already shared everything with T
imothy.
I must have fallen asleep. I woke with a start when the car swerved violently to the right and then back to the left again.
“Sorry,” Carlo said cheerfully. “I was avoiding a rabbit, didn’t mean to wake you.”
I yawned and stretched. I could smell the sea, and the air was much cooler than it had been in the city. “How far is it now?”
“We’re very close.” He reached over and tousled my hair. “You were sound asleep, Mouse. I know I had a restless night—did that keep you awake?”
I shook my head and yawned again. “No, not at all,” I lied. “I think I was just nervous about today is all.”
His smile faded a bit, and he glanced over at me quickly before turning his attention back to the road. “But why? There’s nothing to be nervous about, Mouse. Spindrift is going to be your home, and I know we’re going to be very happy there, I promise you that.”
“I’ll be happy wherever you are,” I answered.
“Don’t sweet-talk me and try to change the subject,” he replied. “Are you worried? There’s no reason to be.”
“I know,” I said, wishing I could go back in time a few minutes so I could say something innocuous instead of what I had actually said. “I—I’m just not used to having servants, is all. It’s just going to take some getting used to.”
He laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about, Mouse?” He reached over and patted my leg. “Within a few days I’m sure you won’t even notice them anymore. And Carson is wonderful.”
“Yes, you’ve said that before,” I said. I’d heard him talking to Carson on the phone several times. “What exactly does he do?”
“He’s invaluable, worth his weight in gold,” Carlo went on. “He runs the house—kind of a combination majordomo and personal assistant. He’ll take care of everything for you. If you want anything, just tell him and he’ll take care of it. I don’t know how I ever got by without him. He’s almost like a part of the house now.” He began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “He oversees the staff, makes sure the pantry and liquor is stocked, keeps the accounts—you’ll of course take over signing the checks from me—I can’t imagine how we’d get on without Carson.” He shuddered. “I certainly hope we never have to.”