by Day, Laura
“No,” Ingrid interrupted. “Don’t apologize, I think you’re right. We’ve always debated having the ball here, but everyone was worried we might damage something. But if it’s just guests of the museum and we rope off the more delicate and expensive items...” She trailed off and looked at Marie. “The problem with having it here is it’s a lot of work and I put this whole show on basically by myself. I would need a lot of help.”
“I could help,” Marie said looking up at Ingrid hopefully. “I’m not a professional or anything, but I’ve planned a bunch of parties.” Mostly they were Christmas parties for Austin’s company, but they had been lux and lavish affairs. Catered with an open bar and passed hors d’oeuvres, the house decked out to mimic a winter wonderland. It was one of the few things he gave her credit for doing well.
“We’ll have to get permission from the board, but I don’t think it will be a problem. Why don’t you start putting some ideas together and we can brainstorm later?”
“That sounds great,” Marie said feeling her heart swell.
“Good, I think you and I will work very well together. You’re a very clever woman, and you're not afraid to tell me when I’m wrong. That’s a good quality to have in a coworker. I’m glad we hired you.”
Marie was pretty sure she was literally going to float away. Ingrid had called her clever and referred to her as a coworker. Her entire life Austin had told he she wasn’t meant for work. She was too stupid and too slow; keeping his house was her job and she wasn't even very good at that. But now she had a real job and, so far, she was good at it.
Marie walked into the large dining room and began to gently dust off the mantelpiece and large table. Was it possible everything Austin had ever said to her was a lie? She knew he had been manipulative and controlling, but maybe it went deeper than that. He almost never complimented her and on the rare occasion he did she acted so grateful, like a dog accepting a hard won treat. She shook her head when she thought back on herself. She looked pathetic in the rearview mirror of her own memories. But that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that she was pathetic; the problem was he was a monster.
The floor behind her creaked and Marie whipped her head around. For a moment she was worried that thinking about Austin had somehow summoned him here. But the room was empty. It was just Marie. Old houses make noises, she reminded herself as she got back to work.
Chapter Seven
Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, Axel counted to himself as he lifted his body up by his arms. His shoulders were starting to scream and sweat was in his eyes. He had been lifting for almost two hours. He hadn’t been in full training for about a month and his body was straining under the new effort. He still trained in his down time, obviously, but when he was prepping for a fight everything was cranked up to ten especially his workouts.
Finally, he hit twenty-five and he dropped thankfully down onto the blue mat rolling his shoulders. Hayden offered him a towel and he wiped the sweat off of himself. “Go get a shake from upstairs. I’m gonna look into travel and accommodations for the fight.”
“Cool,” Axel said a little breathlessly. He jogged up the stairs and into the first floor of his gym. The lunch crowd was around, trading their suits for cardio machines for an hour of exercise. He couldn’t imagine life behind a desk. A life spent sitting down and staring at a computer screen tucked away from fresh air and physical activity looked like hell to him.
At the juice bar her ordered a double protein shake and eagerly drank the peanut butter flavored concoction as his heart slowed back to normal. He was staring idly out the window, not really noticing anything until Ingrid Michele’s came into view.
“Shit,” he said quietly as he ducked closer to the wall. He glanced out, but Ingrid wasn’t looking at the gym. She was with someone, a woman, and they were walking down the street with Ingrid pointing at this and that, giving the poor girl the all-town tour he guessed. From his secret vantage point he looked out at the two of them.
It took a moment for the woman to turn so he could see her in full, but when she did he couldn’t look away. She was straight up stunning. Her dark brown hair was long and sleek and it fell into loose relaxed curls around her shoulders. She was tall and thin, but still had a nice figure to her. Really what he noticed was her smile. She looked happy. Supremely, unquestionably happy. There was a smile on her face and it lit up every part of her.
Was that Marie? The new caretaker in the creepy Hawks mansion? That didn't seem right. She was so beautiful and modern; she didn’t belong in some dusty old mansion. He wondered what had brought her to this town and what made her so happy.
No! He reminded himself. No women, certainly no new women. He needed to be focused on his training. He needed to train and eat right and stay focused; it was the only way he could win. He couldn’t let the new girl in town distract him. Nope, he was more dedicated and professional than that.
He could look, though. He took in the outline of her breasts in the tight t-shirt she was wearing. He could see the curve of her hips and her thighs. When they walked passed his window he turned and followed her down the street, watching the way her ass filled out those jeans.
“I’m allowed to look,” he said to the kid working the juice bar. The pimply-faced teenager just shrugged at him and turned away. Just look, that was all he was going to do. Plus, it wasn’t like he and this girl ran in the same circles. It was a small town, but not that small. There was an excellent chance he would never get the chance to speak to the beautiful woman currently walking away from him. Crisis averted.
“Hey, Axel,” he heard a sugary sweet voice say behind him. He turned around to see Tiffany D’Angelo standing behind him. She was leaning against the counter shoving her breasts in his general direction. He had gone to high school with Tiffany D’Angelo. She was unquestionably gorgeous. Tall and thin with long blonde hair, a tiny waist and a set of DDs. They had hooked up more than once.
The problem with Tiffany D’Angelo was she was always wearing about ten pounds of makeup. Last time they had gone out her makeup routine had been over two hours. Her makeup cabinet had overflowed and she had more brushes than a painter. She wore a tight pair of booty-shorts and a bright pink sports bra to work out. Not that she actually worked out. She spent most of her time taking endless pictures of herself in the mirror and on the machines. He couldn’t deny she was successful; she had over a thousand followers on Instagram.
The problem was she treated the gym like it was dressing room. Like all of the objects in it only existed to make her look good. He had seen her hog a machine for thirty minutes trying to get the lighting right. People needed to use that machine. Everyone else had come there to work out and she was just in the way. It was a little embarrassing for him. After he realized that, he broke it off with Tiffany. He just couldn’t be with someone who didn’t take the gym as seriously as he did. This was his profession.
They still hooked up on occasion, though.
“Sorry I missed your call the other night,” she said, flipping her perfectly curled hair over her shoulder. “I was at a party in Philly.”
“Don’t worry about it. I survived,” he said with a shrug. He wasn’t in the mood for Tiffany right now.
“Did you call another girl?”.
“No,” he said thinking back to that night. “I just smoked a bowl and went to bed. It was pretty nice, actually. Very relaxing.”
“Well, if you wanted to call tonight, I might be able to do better than weed and bed.”
“I doubt it,” he said.
She huffed at him as if feigning offense and then she swatted him on the arm. “You are such a bad boy. I love it.”
“Right,” he said downing his shake. “I have a fight coming up. So I better get back to work.” He brushed past her and she reached out to touch his shoulder.
“I’ll be cheering for you,” she said.
“Great,” he answered over his shoulder as he headed to the basement with Hayden standing at the stair
well waiting for him.
“Tiffany on the prowl again?” Hayden asked.
“Is she ever not?”
“Might not be too bad to bust your nut on Tiffany. It’ll get those energies out with it getting to your head. You’re not interested in a relationship with Tiffany; she can just be a fun night every now and again.”
“Nah, can’t do it,” Axel answered. “She’s too annoying.”
“All right,” Hayden answered and Axel almost thought he heard a little resentment in his voice. Axel had never liked Tiffany, but Hayden had. She had been two years younger than them in high school and Hayden had been in love with her. But she was pretty and popular and she kept him at arm’s length until his finally got up the courage to ask her out and she turned him down and then told the whole school about it.
Hayden had been embarrassed, but he tried to play it off like it was nothing. Axel knew how much it had broken his heart. But time heals all teenage wounds and within the year Hayden had forgotten all about her and moved on. It wasn’t for three more years that Axel could hook up with Tiffany without feeling bad about it. He needn’t have worried. Hayden didn’t care; in fact he encouraged it.
“So you’re gonna do this training regime without a little something on the side to take off the stress? You sure that’s a good idea?”
“I didn't say that,” Axel answered and without meaning to the image of the dark haired woman walking down the street came back to him. In his mind her clothes fell off her and she was whispering his name. He snapped out of it and continued, “Just not Tiffany.”
“All right. It’s your choice,” Hayden said with a shrug. “Go get on the treadmill.”
Axel got on the treadmill and pumped the speed up to six miles an hour. His legs pounded beneath him as he increased the incline. He felt his mind relax as his every spare bit of energy went to keeping his legs and arms moving. Nothing bothered him when he was training; he was like a blank slate. Everything that wasn’t the upcoming fight went away.
But he wasn’t running to forget Tiffany. He didn’t care about her. There was someone else. The woman walking with Ingrid. He couldn’t get her out of his head. But as he ran the image of her disappeared as his heart sped up.
Chapter Eight
Marie surveyed the master suite in the Hawks Mansion. It deserved its name. Intimidation washed over her as she pushed open the heavy wooden door. This one room was the size of Marie’s entire apartment upstairs. There were thick throw rugs on the floor and large, floor-to-ceiling windows were covered with heavy draperies. The floors were wooden and they creaked when she walked over them. The walls were covered in beautiful purple wallpaper that featured interconnected lilies drawn in a thick black line.
The bedroom was dominated by a large four-poster bed against the north facing wall. The wooden frame was carved to resemble long, lean willow trees. The bedpost branches spread out above the bed to form the top of the frame from which heavy red curtains hung. They were stitched with gold to show little birds flying diagonally up and around the curtains. The bed was king-sized with a heavy mattress and two white pillows.
Marie reached out to touch the hand-carved bedframe. Ingrid told her she didn’t need to wear gloves. She just needed to make sure her hands were clean and dry when she touched the antiques. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood and then along the curtains. It was all so fabulous and decadent. There was a huge black fireplace across from the bed and Marie could easily imagine lying there with a roaring fire while her servants prepared her lunch.
Hung on the wall in a golden frame was a portrait of the house’s first owner, Edith Hawks. In the classically styled painting, Edith looked to be in her thirties. She was thin with dark hair and she was wearing an elegant-looking black dress. In the painting she was standing next to a well made of grey stone on a bright sunny day. There was a backdrop of greenery behind her and her long, red hair was flowing in the wind. She was giving the painter just the hint of a smile. She looked smart, like she was the kind of women you turned to in a disaster to tell you what to do.
Ingrid had told Marie all about Edith. She was the family’s matriarch. It was Edith who decided that what’s now Harksburg would be a good place for her and her new husband to settle down. Mr. Hawks wasn’t sure. It was 1762 and there was almost nothing on the land, just a small settlement made mostly of rickety shacks. It was barely a village; just a handful of families lived here. But the land was cheap and Edith convinced her husband that if he created jobs, people would come to him.
So he started logging. Being right on a river it was all too easy to ship the logs down to the sawmill. It was a good business and, just like Edith promised, people followed. The town grew and while Mr. Hawks dealt with the business, Edith created the town. She organized the streets and dictated where houses could and couldn’t go. She built the library, the post office, the courthouse, and she really worked, too. It wasn't rare to see old Edith down at the construction site demanding to know why the men were behind schedule.
She built a school and personally went to Philadelphia to find good teachers for it. She paid their salaries herself. She built an orphanage and a hospital and the list went on and on. Nothing stopped her. If she saw something was wrong or someone was being hurt or there was an injustice she wouldn’t rest until she solved the problem.
Marie looked up at the painting and stood up a little straighter wondering what Edith would think of the woman living in her house now. She walked over to the closet and flicked on the light. Two-hundred-year-old dresses sat on dressmaker dummies along with modern replicas that hung in a small wardrobe. Marie worked here now, so she was able to lean forward and really look at the lace detailing and the many of little buttons. She stepped up to the dummy and admired the work and then did the same to the newer dresses. She held one up to herself and spun around. It was black velvet with delicate lacing on the wrists and collar. She sighed as she returned the dress to the wardrobe and closed the door.
She was looking at a lace veil when she thought she saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye. She stood up but didn’t see anyone.
“Ingrid?” she called out. But there was no answer. She walked out into the empty bedroom, but there was no sign on anyone. She must have just imagined the shadow. She gave one last look at the smiling Edith and then closed the bedroom door and went downstairs to meet Ingrid.
The older woman was standing at the foot of the stairs glancing at her watch.
“Am I late?” Marie asked.
“You are just on time. Now, tell me your thoughts for the party.”
“Okay, well I was thinking we could limit it to the downstairs. This way we wouldn't need to worry about something happening to the antiques upstairs. We could hang string lights from the chandeliers for soft lighting and, if the weather permits, we could have drinks out on the deck. There’s already a table out there we can use as a bar. I also thought we could reach out to the local college and see if we could get any artists to volunteer to come do portraits of the party. They could be spaced out in every room. I also thought that maybe some people could come in period costume, but only those who wanted to,” she stopped breathlessly as she realized how she had been carrying on.
“That sounds very ambitious, but I like it!” Ingrid said. “It’s fresh and new. I bet we sell an additional dozen tickets because of your idea.”
Success wasn’t easy. Ingrid liked her ideas, but now Marie had a lot of extra work to do. This party wasn't going to plan itself. She sat behind the computer in the office and took a deep breath. She wanted to do well; she wanted Ingrid to think she was capable of more than just caretaking the museum. But she felt nervous and self-conscious behind the computer. She was supposed to be emailing the art department of the local college to ask for volunteers, but her fingers wouldn’t work. She felt like a fraud with no real idea of what she should be doing. She heard Austin’s scoff in her head, his dismissive tone. She couldn’t do this, what was she thinking.
“Everything all right dear?” Ingrid called over.
“Yeah,” Marie said with a jump.
“It’s just letters to the college,” Ingrid said walking behind Marie and putting her hands on the other girl’s shoulders. “Worst that happens is they say no.”
Marie smiled and took a deep breath. She knew how to write an email. She knew how to do all of this. She was free of Austin now and she wasn’t going to let him haunt her.
At the end of the day Marie realized she had worked nonstop and somehow had more to do. Having a party in a museum was more complicated than she thought, but she knew she could handle it. At five she stood up stretched out and walked into town to pick up Cate. People smiled and nodded at her as she passed. She didn’t know them, but they all seemed to know her. Small town gossip at work, no doubt.