by Olga Bicos
She’d started sleeping with him when she was fifteen. Daniel had been twenty-three. Since then, he’d been her one and only.
Out of habit, she patted the couch beside her. “Sit.” She didn’t want to see that look on his face. She couldn’t stand to see him hurt or upset. All these years, they’d kept each other’s secrets…and had a few of their own.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Tell me what happens next.”
Above all, she needed Daniel to be happy.
TROMPE L’OEIL
7
Inspiration struck at two in the morning.
Holly had been going over the problem most of the night until her head felt a bit like a Rubik’s Cube, twisting this way and that, hoping the next turn might make all the colors line up. Daniel had hired her to create a postmodern jewel out of a Beaux-Arts treasure. He wanted notorious—shocking—and she needed context. The house itself had given her that.
The key was to keep the soul of Cutty House while realizing Daniel’s vision. But incorporating Daniel’s out-there ideas—Japanese accents, Star Wars redux laser show—was no easy task.
She’d fallen asleep on the floor, her face plastered to the as-built plans, using Daniel’s “what if?” as a distraction against the trickier topic of Ryan Cutty. When she’d jolted awake, she thought the cable cars were on parade. Just down the street, they steamrolled into the Cable Car Barn like a herd of mechanical elephants turning in for the night.
It wasn’t the cable cars making the ruckus, but Harris stabbing his key into the door. Bleary-eyed, she studied her brother wearing a shirt that practically screamed Aloooha!
The realization struck like a bolt straight out of the big blue. The fundamental she’d learned from her first architecture class was so obvious it hurt. Context is everything.
Harris stood just over six feet, towering a near foot over Holly. He had strong masculine features to her wide-eyed gamine looks. When he smiled, it meant trouble, while the same gesture on Holly came off as delicate and unsure. But no one ever failed to guess they were brother and sister. They looked alike. A variation on a theme.
Sitting on the floor next to the coffee table overrun by plans as if a can of snakes had exploded, she must have had some look on her face. Harris struck a pose, arms outstretched as if to ask, “What?”
But the lightbulb had flipped on with enough clarity that even the smallest rogue doubt had scurried off to find shelter. What Cutty House needed was a reinterpretation of the Beaux-Arts theme, updated dramatically to cause Daniel’s necessary sensation.
It could be done, she realized. It could be fantastically done.
Her imagination on fire, she’d spent the whole of the day and part of that night doing quick sketches. The ideas came fluidly, naturally. The energy felt pure and right and cosmic.
What she proposed was revolutionary. Truly, her finest hour as an architect. By God, she’d done it! She’d pulled a rabbit out of the proverbial hat.
So, of course, Daniel hated it.
At his suggestion, they met the next day at a lovely sidewalk café, public humiliation always being the best sort. Seated across the table, Daniel gifted her with a smile as he handed back her sketches.
“Now see, I’m actually surprised,” he told her. “I never thought for a minute you could disappoint me.”
Like a chameleon, he’d composed a new look, darkening his roots to make a more dramatic contrast with the blond highlights. He wore white jeans and a leather two-button blazer over a gray-and-white cotton shirt with a paisley design that most likely cost a fortune. Holly had on the same sensible A-line black skirt she’d worn on a previous occasion, though she’d updated it with a white tuxedo shirt she’d bought at Macy’s.
Daniel craved pizzazz; she searched for substance. Of course, he would find her ideas drab. She could well imagine how the last architect might have gotten in over his head. Daniel was a bit impossible. To tame his ideas to fit the feel and structure of Cutty House and its surroundings was the most difficult task she’d set for herself as an artist. Today, she’d practically skipped here believing she’d nailed it.
“This calls for a celebration,” he said, signaling the waitress for the check.
“That I’ve utterly failed calls for a celebration?”
“Absolutely.” His grin lit up the sidewalk. “It’s time we give you another test drive, little girl.”
Her high continued its searing crash and burn. “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”
Daniel wore sunglasses, adding that special movie-star touch. She watched as a tourist or two actually whiplashed around, wondering if they’d just passed “someone,” Daniel having the look of a man destined for greatness or infamy or both.
“PR, baby,” he told her, putting down the tiny expresso cup. “As easy as it gets. A party. A little champagne. Lots of razzle-dazzle.”
“That’s the part I don’t like. I did mention that I don’t do PR? I’m sure it was in the small print in my contract, right beneath embarrassingly shy.”
“Nah,” he said, not the least discouraged. He leaned over the miniature table. His hand caressed her cheek, the gesture walking a tightrope between intimate and avuncular. “You’re up for this. Trust me.”
“Not much for hearing ‘no,’ are you?” she asked.
“All part of the package. Beautiful and talented. Who could resist you?”
“Are you talking about me? Have you heard my small talk? Barely grunts and groans,” she said in a rush. “And I talk with my mouth full. Very vulgar.”
Another evening of mingling with society’s elite, people whose eyes would constantly roam the room for more important fare as she listened to conversations about their most recent remodel. She’d stopped counting how many times people mistook her for an interior decorator.
Another evening of wondering if Ryan Cutty might once again part the river of the crowd.
This morning, she’d shoved aside the covers and stared at the ceiling, weighed down by a strange feeling of loss. Slipping out of bed, she’d tried to put her finger on this new doom and gloom when the realization struck. She’d walked to the window with the eerie knowledge that this time he wouldn’t be waiting outside, wrapped in fog.
That’s how Harris found her, kneeling on the couch, craning her neck to take in every corner of the street below. He’d asked what she was up to, and she’d jumped half out of her skin. She must have looked like a fish, her mouth opening and closing without making a sound.
“Well,” her brother had said. “I’ll find out the truth soon enough.”
And now she appeared just as transparent to Daniel. She stood, putting away her sketches, her eyes avoiding his, wondering if she should tell him what she really thought.
I’m scared of your house. I’m consumed by thoughts of your cousin. And you, my man, are a fool not to see the beauty of my ideas.
“I suggest we put the razzle-dazzle on hold,” she said instead. “That’s not my method. Why be premature and celebrate at the cost of our credibility later? You have no idea what lies ahead or what we might find under the plaster molding—”
Daniel’s hand covered hers on the table. He waited until she looked up, giving him her full attention.
“I don’t much care for excuses, even little white ones,” he told her. “Holly, darling, I’m not worried about a setback. I’ve seen your work, so I won’t push for results now. Just tell me that tonight you’ll be there on my arm.”
“Daniel,” she said firmly. “I need sleep, not dinner and dancing.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight o’clock.”
“Daniel—”
“Let me explain my method.” He dropped a roll of bills on the table and picked up her portfolio, steering her down the street at a bit of a clip. Move aside, folks. Man on a mission. “In this city, people make things happen. People invest. People show up on opening night. People write about my restaurant in newspapers and magazines. Do you understand
now about my method?”
Another party, she thought dismally, stopping beside him at the street corner.
“Perfectly,” she told him.
He winked, handing over her portfolio case. “Eight it is, then.”
She watched Daniel strut away. He truly was a beautiful man. And a fool.
“It could have been brilliant,” she said out loud of her plans, not that Daniel would ever hear her. Or care even if he had.
Walking in the bleary light of noon, she reminded herself of what she’d told her brother. This was a dream job, and she was more than up for the task. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, girl. God helps those who help themselves. A stitch in time saves…oh, whatever.
She’d take them all on—the house, the boss, the man. And that strange emptiness? The idea that Ryan was no longer there, if he’d ever been? She’d get over that, as well.
All the truly great houses in Pacific Heights had names—the Haas-Lilienthal House, Wormser-Coleman, the Spreckels Mansion. Many were wedding presents, like the Italianate mansion on Vallejo, an ex-sailor’s gift to his son. And William Haas had deeded the house on Franklin street, now known as Bransten House, to his daughter, Florine, upon the occasion of her marriage to Edward Bransten of MJB Coffee fame.
Vanessa Cutty, née Moore, had grown up in a house with a name. The only child of Annabelle and Foster Moore of the Moore’s auction house—known in its heyday as the “Sotheby’s of the West”—Vanessa received Moore Manor, a lovely Queen Anne Victorian, as a present from her father upon her marriage to Samuel Cutty. At the time, Foster Moore hadn’t approved of his daughter’s choice. Being a man who could tangentially trace his bloodlines back to the railroad barons, he considered the Cuttys well beneath his daughter’s pedigree. And there was Samuel to consider, who Foster believed too handsome, too spoiled and too stupid.
Of course, Daddy had been right on all counts, but Vanessa convinced her father that he was being old-fashioned. She wanted Samuel, and in the end that proved enough for Foster.
Moore Manor stood a stone’s throw from the famed corner of California and Franklin, considered by many as the gateway to San Francisco’s elite in Pacific Heights. Since the accident that had wiped out that toxin, Nina, from their lives, Vanessa’s one and only child had made it a point to avoid the old homestead. This morning Ryan waited in the vestibule.
Vanessa prepared to receive his visit in the conservatory, arranging Madeleine cookies on a china plate with her favorite Blue Willow pattern. Attached to the house, the room was where she greeted her most important guests. It was the only place free of Samuel; she kept the key. With glass to the ceiling and temperature control, here she could coax life from even the most recalcitrant of plants. Like Vanessa, some of the orchids in the room had pedigrees going back a hundred years.
“Hello, Mother.”
Ryan stood at the door. Somehow, she didn’t remember him being so tall, his shoulders so broad. Just like his father. She thought the blue cambric shirt set off his eyes nicely.
Today, she wore pink, a color she favored. The pantsuit was something most women would choose for an afternoon of shopping at Nieman Marcus but Vanessa might just as well wear gardening. She watched him as if confused. Standing there, she felt like a bird. Insubstantial, ready to take flight.
She’d felt much the same at the party for that architect. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down. She’d watched her son storm the room to face off with his cousin, unsure of how to stop their collision course. Ryan had his father’s good looks but he had Vanessa’s temper. She hadn’t known what to expect with Daniel’s little surprise package standing beside them and that wretched La Plume woman waiting, her poison pen at the ready.
“Thank you for coming,” she told Ryan, sounding cold and distant and disapproving.
Is this the best you can do? she scolded herself.
She stepped down the path circling like a yellow brick road toward Ryan. Coming nearer, she held her arms outstretched. But her welcome was too much. Ryan kept his hands at his side as she embraced him. Still, she didn’t let go, holding him even tighter.
When slowly he raised his arms, she imagined the action came out of memory more than desire. The last twelve years he’d managed the obligatory phone calls, even the occasional lunch. But this tender moment had caught him off guard.
He’d made it clear—she’d chased him away by her lack of faith and he wasn’t about to forgive her. She would have done the same. But now she felt more than ever this need to reach him, to make amends.
“I know what you must be thinking,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to tell you. Daniel claims she’s nothing but a talented architect—”
He placed her at arms’ length, the expression on his face so clearly filled with disappointment.
Taking her cue, she stepped back. Because she knew better. Everything, even confession, had its time and place.
“Please.” She gestured toward the rattan chair and the waiting coffee service. After the slightest hesitation, Ryan preceded her down the garden path.
She told herself she’d earned her banishment from his life. When the police arrived at her door investigating that girl’s death, she had seen only her boy’s guilty face, how easily he’d gone with them, almost knowing, expecting the charges. She’d known then that he’d killed her. Foolishly she’d interpreted the act as a betrayal. She couldn’t imagine him being so weak of character. My son, capable of murder?
Only later, here in her conservatory tending her orchids, did she have her revelation. She’d been cutting off diseased leaves, sterilizing her blade between cuts, not wanting the black rot that infected a few plants to spread, when the thought struck. To cut off a diseased limb—to take action while the other sheep in the family watched Nina destroy them—wasn’t an act of cowardice, at all. Perhaps it had been an act of courage.
Of course, she’d never spoken to Ryan about the matter. She’d done her work behind the scenes, calling an important friend to urge the district attorney to drop the charges. The autopsy showed Nina had been under the influence of both alcohol and prescription drugs, the combination alone providing a sufficient basis for the accident. Why torture Ryan by this endless scrutiny?
She’d never put into words what she’d come to believe, that Nina, that black rot, had been cut from their lives.
She’d lost him after that, because she’d been too schooled in the art of right and wrong to act herself. She’d left it up to Ryan to rid them of Nina.
No wonder he hates me.
She stepped over to the coffee service, one of many artifacts handed down through generations of uppity ancestors. It was all she had left really, these gems from the past. That and her righteous anger. Everything else had been sacrificed to Samuel’s appetites.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I know you’re not much for tea.”
He stood watching, his eyes so much like his father’s that it hurt. “Somehow I thought this would go differently.”
She ignored the coffee and sat down on the rattan chair. “All right. Let’s skip the chitchat.” She gave him an assessing look, feeling that Moore control taking hold.
“When did you lose your backbone, Ryan?” Her temper flared again, because he’d disappeared from her life and she couldn’t quite accept his lack of forgiveness. The wound was there, fresh and painful, every day of her life. “You let Daniel take everything. You didn’t stay. You didn’t fight. What else was I to do but give him control of Cutty House?”
He granted a smile, on common ground now. “I never said he wasn’t the right man for the job.”
He stepped over to a spray of exquisite blue vandas, reminding her of all the times she’d brought him here, reciting the origin and genealogy of each plant. Don’t touch, darling. The oils from your skin will turn the petals brown.
How carefully she’d cultivated his life, taking Ryan to cotillion and supper club, sending himself off to his sailing lessons and Marshall�
��s Academy. Eventually he’d earned a berth at Stanford. Only to watch Gil and Samuel with their chortling plans—uniting our two kingdoms!—destroy everything by forcing Nina on her boy.
“You’ll let Daniel take it, then?” she challenged. “Without a fight? Cutty House is your birthright.”
“So you’ve told me once or twice.”
It had been a litany during his youth. How many times had she told him? You’re the last of the Cuttys, Ryan.
“I love it when you try to manipulate me,” he said with a smile.
“Not that I’ve ever succeeded.” She tucked one leg beneath the other. “But just to let you know the old bird hasn’t lost her touch, let me update you on the state of affairs here.” Fully in gear now, she continued. “Your father has become an alcoholic, not that you seem the least bit interested. And Daniel, of all people, is the only man I can count on.”
“Poor Mother.”
She raised her chin. “God knows I need him to come through. And he will. With a little help.”
“From Holly Fairfield?”
“She seems competent enough. You should read the press Daniel has on her. It was reassuring—”
“Daniel didn’t hire her to rebuild Cutty House.”
“So you think she’s some tawdry publicity ploy? So what, if it works,” she said, calming her own misgivings. Vanessa had never had much faith in Daniella’s boy. She believed in blood showing through. Daniel’s was tainted. “And how can you know Daniel’s intentions?” Meaning, he hadn’t bothered to be part of the picture for some time.
“I think you’re taking a big risk, trusting his judgment.”
“As if you’ve given me a choice?” With a little acid to her voice, she added, “How is Gil? Is he still needy and pitiful and sad?”
“All of the above,” he told her, not budging.