“I can’t see why you would.”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Laurel exhaled a long breath upward and hoisted the box again. “Rant over.”
“Effective closing arguments, Counselor. Give ’em hell.”
No one would be calling her “counselor” anymore. After September 15th, it would be “Your Honor.” It was almost like getting married and losing her maiden name again. She considered her high heels. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to wear jeans to the office on a weekday, not even to clear out her stuff. “Here.” She thrust the box at George. “You can help after all.”
She would let him carry the box down to her car and then she’d kiss him. That would be their official last kiss, one she could remember, one that would serve as a goodbye to the firm as well, to her life as a lawyer. Then she’d make flight reservations to North Carolina. She rescued the violet as it listed, and strode ahead of him to the elevator.
Four
The ascent angle pressed Geneva back into her seat as the jet climbed out of O’Hare. A pocket of turbulence rocked the plane hard sideways. The man in the middle seat beside her clutched the armrest between them so hard his knuckles blanched white. Afraid of flying, Geneva deduced. He looked so together in a business suit and red silk tie, collar-length hair lightly gelled, the aroma of a lime-based aftershave wafting from him. Irrational fears could fell anyone. Direct comfort or distraction? He was young enough to be embarrassed if she said something like “the worst is over.”
“Do you have business in Charlotte?” she asked instead.
His nostrils flared in and out as he breathed hard, and he answered on exhales. “A meeting, yes.” Inhale. “I sell shares in a”—inhale—“business jet sharing operation.”
She couldn’t help but chuckle. It earned her a rueful smile and a quick glance. “I know. Ironic.” His fingers relaxed a notch as the plane continued smoothly on with no more bucking. He made a visible effort. “And you? Business or pleasure? Are you from Charlotte?”
“Pleasure, I guess,” Geneva said. Unfinished business was more like it, but she didn’t need to share the details. “I live here in Chicago. I’ve been to Charlotte a few times, but never longer than it takes to rent a car. I’m picking one up there, headed to the Asheville area.”
Geneva had felt so grown-up the first time she rented a car twelve years ago. She stood at the Hertz counter at the Charlotte airport, newly turned twenty-six, handing over her driver’s license to an indifferent clerk. She took all the insurance the rental company offered, and sat in the Ford Focus for fifteen minutes, familiarizing herself with the lights and the wipers, and adjusting the mirrors and seat position. She didn’t drive much in the city. By the time she hit I-40 west, she was comfortable driving the Focus and singing along with Dolly Parton on the radio. This weekend was all about her and she couldn’t wait. Last year they’d celebrated Dawn getting a one-woman showing at a small gallery in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where she’d been living since the break-up with her latest girlfriend. This year was a celebration of Geneva’s new job as an on-air reporter for the CBS affiliate in Chicago. She belted “I-ah-ah will al-way-ays love you-oo-I-ah-ah—”
Two hours after leaving Charlotte, she navigated a hairpin turn on the narrow road north of Asheville, and the Chateau du Cygne Noir bed and breakfast sign appeared suddenly. It featured elegant white script on a lavender background with a black swan. Wide stone pillars on either side of the driveway supported the decorative iron gate that was always open, and she turned in gingerly. The driveway’s sharp curves hid the castle until she came around the last bend and it burst into view. Its warm yellow stone seemed to soak up the sunlight and beam it back. Arched windows with their numerous small panes glinted. She’d loved the place the moment she set eyes on it that first spring break, almost as much as Vangie did. It had presence, a personality, the way the House of Usher or Manderley did. She knew Dawn would say “your English major is showing” if she shared her thoughts. The house wasn’t brooding, like Usher’s house, nor was it grand and forbidding like Rebecca’s Manderley, its stony façade repelling the nameless heroine. If Geneva were to assign an emotion to the chateau, she’d have to go with sad. No … melancholy. The stalwart home that should have been surrounded by fields of lavender and wine grapes, that had presided over the siege of Tournai and absorbed the blood of its scion on the cobbled courtyard and the screams of maidservants treated the way ill-disciplined armies treated women, felt displaced in this verdant corner of the New World.
Geneva parked in the postage stamp lot, laughing a small laugh at the way she read story and feelings into the stone and timbers and mullioned panes. They’d been reinforced and augmented with modern HVAC systems, plumbing, and insulation, she reminded herself, mounting the shallow stone steps, so even if the castle hadn’t been assimilated, it had suffered the indignities of modernization. She tried to envision the house plopped down in the Chicago projects where she’d grown up. None of the windows would have an intact pane of glass, graffiti would make the stones wince, upwards of a dozen families would live in it, and a crew of crack-selling gangbangers would stand guard outside, a poor substitute for the liveried footmen the house was used to. Geneva smiled grimly at the sheer impossibility of imagining the house in Englewood.
Dawn could talk about the unsettled “atmosphere,” and Ellie could wonder how long it would take to clean the lusters on the chandeliers or dust the intricately carved furnishings, but Geneva loved the castle—its architecture and history, especially. The manager, Mrs. Abbott, a former history professor who managed the B and B, told them it had been brought over stone by stone and timber by timber from France in the early 1800s, after the younger son of a French nobleman killed his opponent in a duel and fled to America. He made his fortune as a privateer during the Civil War and had the family home relocated after inheriting the title and castle when his older brother died of syphilis. Mrs. Abbott had likewise researched the castle’s history in France; she told the girls that a previous owner had met his fate on Madame Guillotine days after Marie Antoinette was beheaded, and his successor’s young wife had plunged to her death from her fifth-floor balcony only a few years later. The young woman was seven months pregnant at the time, and old documents hinted that her lord suspected the baby wasn’t his.
“They say her ghost walks,” Mrs. Abbott went on in an unruffled voice, “but I’ve never run into her.” They were touring the castle an hour after arriving that first weekend, standing in the portrait gallery in front of a painting of a snooty-looking aristocrat Mrs. Abbott identified as the beheaded marquis.
Dawn rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled. Vangie asked, “Which room was hers?”
Mrs. Abbott worked her lips in and out. “The one you’re in,” she said. In her mid-fifties, the manager carried a few extra pounds, including the belly that Geneva’s grandmother called a “menopot.” She had jaw-length sandy hair threaded with silver and sported large, plastic-framed glasses she’d probably worn doing grad work in her university library in the early eighties.
“What was her name?” Geneva asked.
“Villette.”
“Pretty,” Laurel said. “Is there a portrait of her?”
“No. The castle’s ledgers have an entry for a fee paid to an artist for ‘une peinture a l’huile de Madame la Marquise, Villette nee Desmarais,’ but it’s either been lost or destroyed.” Hammering underscored her words, thudding from a room above them.
“He killed her,” Dawn said, her voice higher-pitched than usual. “Her husband. He picked her up and threw her over the balcony. Then he burned the portrait.”
“How would you know?” Ellie asked, her voice hovering between curiosity and ridicule.
“I feel her,” Dawn said. “She’s here. She’s still grieving for her lost baby.”
Dawn’s pale face was so serious, her dark eyes so haunted, and her spirals of long
hair so medieval that they were silent for a moment, picturing the scene. Geneva imagined a scared young girl struggling in the arms of an enraged nobleman, screaming as she fell, hugging her belly in a vain attempt to protect her unborn child.
Vangie’s silvery laugh dispelled the spooky moment. “You’re just being arty again, Dawn. What else is there to see, Mrs. Abbott? I love this place already.”
Geneva came out of her reverie to find her arms wrapped protectively around her baby bulge and the flight attendant asking if she wanted something to drink. “Cranberry juice,” she said, accepting a packet of biscotti. She sipped her juice, appreciating its tartness, and thought how young they’d all been that first weekend, full of excitement at having a week off and feeling sophisticated for having foregone the beach, where the Greek crowd went, in favor of the atmospheric old castle. Vangie had suggested Cygne. She’d grown up in the closest town, New Aberdeen, and knew of the B and B. Now they were about to embark on their eleventh weekend, albeit after a decade’s delay. Geneva leaned down to check that the manila envelope with the proof she needed to confront Vangie was still in the front pocket of her weekender bag. It was. She rose awkwardly. The cranberry juice was a mistake—it always went right through her, especially now. Having to pee all the time was the real pisser—pun intended—about being pregnant. The plane lurched and the fasten seat belts sign came on as she staggered toward the lavatory.
After seventeen years as a military spouse—she and Scott had married the day he graduated and got commissioned—Ellie prided herself on her ability to pack efficiently. One carry-on bag would suffice for the weekend. She ticked items off her list as she rolled them and stowed them in the bag, including a swimsuit (the castle’s website said it had a hot tub now) and a framed photo of the boys. Her eyes misted as she wrapped it in her pajama top. Her boys were gone. In the weeks since she and Scott had dropped them at their universities, she’d heard from Aidan eight times—brief texts and one phone call—and from Shane only twice. One of his two texts had been to complain that his black sheets and towels had dyed his socks and underwear gray when he washed them all together. She was grateful that he’d done a load of laundry, including his sheets and towels. When she texted as much, he confessed that he’d had to since “stuff got spilled” (she suspected “stuff” was code for beer, or worse, vomit) on his bed during a dorm “get together.” Read: kegger.
She zipped the case closed. Scott emerged from the bathroom, freshly shaved, hair damp, wearing his lieutenant colonel’s uniform. He was dropping her at the airport on his way to work.
He asked, “Ready?”
She nodded. “Just let me grab my sandwich and carrots out of the fridge.”
At not quite five o’clock, it was still dark outside when Scott pulled the Subaru into the Departures lane. He switched off the news radio and leaned toward her. “I wish I could go with you,” he said, surprising her.
Happiness flared momentarily, but then memories of what had happened the only time he joined them at Cygne extinguished the spark. “Satellites would fall out of the sky if you took a day off,” she said with forced lightness.
A car pulled up behind them, disgorging a woman with three small children shrieking about Disney World. They’d be seated behind her on the plane, of course. Its headlights illuminated Scott’s face. Ellie wasn’t sure what his expression meant. It was a mix of love and something else—sadness? Apprehension? Was he worried that something would happen to her? She leaned in to kiss him. It was a little more than their usual quick peck on parting. The boys’ departures had rekindled their sex life, she had to admit, now that they could get naked without worrying about Aidan coming home with the whole swim team in tow, or Shane calling to say he’d locked himself out of the car at the movie theater.
Scott’s hand on her arm stopped her from getting out. “Let’s get away for a weekend of our own when you get back,” he said, surprising her. “Anywhere you want to go. Vancouver, Boston, Charleston. No reason we can’t now that the boys are gone.”
“That would be fun.” How long had it been since they’d traveled together without the boys? Anticipation made her smile. “Charleston. It should be lovely in October and I’ve never been there.”
“I’ll look into reservations. Call me when you get there,” he said as she got out and retrieved her suitcase from the back seat.
“I will. Do your bit to keep the nation safe for democracy while I’m gone.”
“Wilco.” He saluted casually and pulled away from the curb.
She wheeled her suitcase briskly through the terminal to the security line. Removing the slip-on loafers she wore when traveling and dumping them with her baggie of liquids into the bin, she felt a little superior to the woman balancing on one leg trying to unlace high-top sneakers, and the man being admonished by the TSA agent for having a full bottle of Gatorade in his carry-on. She shoved her bag forward on the conveyor belt and tried to push away the image of Scott and Evangeline that floated in her head. Scott’s words about coming with her had resurrected the scene she’d long tried to keep buried in a deep, inaccessible vault in her mind. For the first time ever, she let herself acknowledge the thought that had been poking at the edges of her consciousness for a decade: Evangeline had deserved it.
The metal detector blared as she passed through it. Her cheeks fiery with embarrassment, she backed out to remove the engraved silver bangle Scott gave her for their fifteenth wedding anniversary.
Five
Having traveled on Friday and spent the night in Charlotte, Laurel was the first one to arrive Saturday morning, and Mrs. Abbott showed her to a room on the first floor. The inn’s manager hadn’t changed much in ten years, although she must be in her mid-sixties, Laurel figured. There were more strands of gray in her jaw-length bob, her glasses frames were a chic and rectangular lavender, and her knuckles were swollen with arthritis, but she still moved briskly and had the same air of competent alertness.
“I’m sure you were expecting your usual room,” Mrs. Abbott said, “but the rooms on the top floors are being renovated. American Castle Vacations, the company that owns the property, has sold it to a consortium that’s turning it into a nursing home, and the fifth floor is being gutted so they can kit it out as a medical clinic or surgical suite or some such. In fact, you’re our very last private guests. My husband and I turn the keys over to the new owners’ agent at the end of the month. Then we’re off to Texas to be closer to our grandkids.”
“I didn’t know,” Laurel said. Mrs. Abbott’s news was a kick in the gut, but she was also conscious of a feeling of relief. How strange. This really was the last weekend. “Are you sad to be leaving Cygne?”
“It was something of a shock when they sold the chateau out from under us,” Mrs. Abbott said, unlocking the door of a room labeled “Dogwood” and pushing it wide. “We’ve enjoyed being the chateau’s caretakers and running the B and B, but it’s hard work.” She rubbed her swollen knuckles. “Since his hip replacement, Stephen’s had trouble keeping up with the unending maintenance and yard work. And I have to admit I’ll be glad to give up making beds and doing laundry. I’ll miss Cygne, though. It’s been our home for over two decades. Sometimes it was easy to forget it wasn’t really ours.” She ran a proprietary hand across the satin finish of an antique dresser. “The important pieces from upstairs have already gone to auction—they’ve fetched a pretty penny, from what I hear. More furniture is in the sheds—the contractors moved it out so they could get started on the renovations. The auction house crew will crate the rest of it next week, after you leave, and then it’ll all be gone.” She gave the dresser a last pat and opened the door to the bathroom. “We can get our own things in a U-Haul, and we’ll hit the road to Galveston right after that.”
“That’s really tough,” Laurel said. The room was calming, done in shades of delft blue and white. She hefted her bag onto a fold-out luggage rack. All in all, sh
e decided she was happy with the new room. Fewer memories. “I wouldn’t know a Hepplewhite from a Chippendale,” she admitted. “Is the furniture worth a lot?”
“Some of the pieces are worth thousands,” Mrs. Abbott said. “The dresser, for instance, is Louis XVI—Marie Antoinette had one just like it. There’s a Japy Freres wall clock and a sixty-piece set of Puiforcat silver flatware, and other treasures. A lot of it’s French—original to the chateau. Other pieces are local, but good quality from the nineteenth-century, and some are knockoffs, or too beaten up to be worth much. When we took this job, I made a point of educating myself on the chateau’s contents. I took classes, read books, and went to a few auctions with one of the antique dealers from Asheville to learn what I could. Stephen and I put together an inventory. Can you believe there wasn’t one before that?” She shook her head in amazement. “Guests could have walked off with a Dresden shepherdess or a creamer from the Revere tea service and no one would have known the difference.”
Laurel heard the affection in Mrs. Abbott’s voice when she talked about particular pieces of furniture, and she knew leaving the castle was going to be brutally hard for the innkeeper. “Galveston will be a big change.”
Mrs. Abbott squared her shoulders. “Well, I might be a bit bored without this place to run, but Alice needs our help with the kids and I’m sure I’ll be busy as can be in no time. I’ve thought about teaching a history class at the community college; I’ve missed teaching. We’ll see. Most of my retired friends say they don’t know how they ever had time to work.” She laughed, but Laurel detected a hint of uncertainty.
“The change is hardest on Mindy,” she went on. “She’s been with us almost since we took over, since she graduated high school. She’s been my right arm. We’re doing what we can to help her find another job. The nursing home people say if she gets her CNA certificate they’ll take her on, but it’s hard for a single mother. We were okay with having Braden hanging around the place—he’s a bright, kind little boy. Now she’ll have to make arrangements for him. Tch.” Mrs. Abbott shook her head. “Extra blankets and pillows in the armoire, and towels under the vanity. Breakfast from seven to nine. Let me know if you need anything.”
That Last Weekend Page 4