by Jody Kaye
“I take it you don’t like what he chose.”
“Your father is a good man, a good employer. Far be it from me to say he don’t know his own mind.”
“But?”
“You look for yourself, sugah.”
Rose slid the renderings out of the envelope. “Oh,” she stammered looking at the futuristic glass block and polished metal designs. A circular breakfast nook with a neon light above the table and white cabinets made the space scream “roller derby”. Rose flipped through the pages. It was as if the designer hadn’t taken time to coordinate the kitchen’s design so it complimented with the outside of the Tudor-style house, let alone the rest of the deep-tone wooded rooms.
She stuffed the images back in, sealed the clips and rested her elbows onto of the envelope so that the bad ideas couldn’t escape. Her eyes widened and her expression took on a regal mask. “Soo,” she dragged out the syllable. “If you had your druthers and my father asked your opinion what would you have done differently?”
“Everything,” Benita laughed. “Did you notice I’m going from eight burners to four? It’s almost like the room is a conversation piece and not a place to do actual cookin’ in. Not that I’m tasked with feeding an army, but there was a point that your momma, God rest her soul, had the liveliest parties. We’d be plannin’ menus and preppin’ dishes for days getting ready. I’d thought that sometime, a bit further down the road, when the next lady of the house took over that there’d be a revival of sorts. Your daddy ain’t found anyone else to love the way he loved your momma. It’s all up to you.”
“I wouldn’t count on me living here much longer. Eric won’t be happy until my trunk’s packed.” Rose ignored Benita’s glower for continuing to use her father’s Christian name. “The man won’t crack a smile until he’s done walking me down the aisle. He won’t be happy until he’s finally rid of me.”
“Not true. He’d like it diff’rent.”
There had only ever been the three Kingsbriers to care for, but the grand house had been vibrant. The bustling activity ceased the day Mrs. Kingsbrier took to her bed. The cacophony sounding from dinner party-goers, Ladies’ Leaguers, book clubs and rampant laughter of children was replaced with an echoing silence.
“Like the kitchen.” Rose implied.
Benita laid her upper body on the antique soapstone counter so that they were nose to nose. In the four years since Rose left for college they hadn’t managed enough mornings like this one. Benita was reluctant to let it end. This child was spoiled by her financial circumstances, the fact that the tycoon had little time to spare for her in those formative years when he was focusing his efforts toward his business, and she’d grown up without a mother to reign her wild spirit in. Nevertheless, Rose was a good-hearted girl.
“That Better Home magazine. Now they have some beautiful ideas. One I seen last year was like the old west meets the Caribbean. Prettiest Spanish terra cotta tile on the floor, rounded clay hip roofing over an industrial stove. Warm color on the walls. Those natural outdoor desert greens. Floor to ceiling windows with a big ‘ol mahogany table that made you remember kitchens were for feedin’ families and makin’ memories.”
“Sounds lovely.” Growing up, Rose had eaten most of her meals in the kitchen while Benita stirred a pot on the stove nearby. They’d make idle chit-chat about everything and nothing, before the cook skedaddled her out of the way. Those were some of her fondest memories.
The timer dinged letting them know that the last of the sticky-topped banana muffins were cool. They filled gallon size plastic baggies, zipping them closed and loading the bounty into the freezer.
“Thank you for your help. Now scoot so that I can get somethin’ done today.” Benita winked.
“The pleasure was mine. Maybe we can do it again next week? I’ll put this on Daddy’s desk on my way to my room.” Rose offered, picking up the parcel.
“Don’t forget your daddy took the red-eye to Manhattan last night. He won’t be back until later in the week. Are you and Miss Lily Anne eating here or out tonight?”
“I’ve taken up too much of your time already. We’ll fend for ourselves. Thanks for reminding me.”
She scooted past the blue tarp, through the barren kitchen which was down to its studs, around the corner, through the hall and foyer, and up the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her.
In Eric’s office, she removed the designs from the envelope and slipped it empty under the blotter. “I put it on the desk,” she remarked to no one in particular with a hint of the devil in her brown eyes.
Then she picked up the phone and dialed, waiting for the line to connect.
“Hello, this is Ms. Kingsbrier. How are you doing today?… That’s wonderful. I’m calling about our kitchen plans.” She smiled wickedly. “There are some changes that I’ve been requested to have you make.”
She paused listening to the voice at the other end of the line.
“Yes, I understand that it will cost more with such late notice. That’s not an issue. How about I tell you what we’re thinking? Then if you courier over the new mock-ups, I’ll have Mr. Kingsbrier sign off on them ASAP.”
She wiggled her father’s favorite pen between her fingers.
The branch limb moved with a slight rustle that could be mistaken for a squirrel. Otherwise, the wood was quiet enough to hear someone’s thoughts. Lucky for Rose, who was camouflaged by the dense summer foliage, voices still traveled further than anyone realized. She sat eight feet in the air, leaning against a tree trunk with her arm wrapped around it for balance.
She hadn’t done this in years, but her restlessness being stuck at Kingsbrier with naught to occupy her time often drove her to make questionable choices. She’d often found herself remorseful over spying, despite the fact that whatever she overheard replayed in her mind for days on end leaving a satisfying loop of things to go back and ponder on.
There were other ways to deal with her boredom. Rose knew plenty of debutantes who’d hadn’t chosen to go to college. People now referred to them as “tipsy” when the case was that they were raging alcoholics. Of course, Rose herself was known to imbibe. However, the way she chose to deal with her current situation wasn’t by numbing it, rather she found creative ways to keep herself engaged.
Not that this necessarily justified the choice of a twenty-two-year-old woman to act like a child and spy on her best friend. Rose knew what she was doing was all kinds of wrong.
“This is one of my favorite places,” she heard Lily Anne say in her enchanting way. “Rose and I used to get to fightin’ like polecats and I’d come out here to get away from her. It’s so peaceful. Like time won’t ever touch it, and the ghosts of generations of your family can move with ease among each other, living together in parallel time. When I’m among these trees, it’s like I’m sitting with my grandmama and my grandbabies.” She sat forward, acknowledging the awkwardness of the last part of her statement. “Silly, I know.”
Ignoring the sweat that dampened his shirt, Rodger pulled Lily Anne back against him. He tucked his nose to her neck, letting her continue to use him as a cushion against the bark. She rested her right hand on his bent knee and placed the other over his left palm, which was resting on her graceful collar bone.
No longer than a month ago, he’d been dying for the simple feeling of her hand in his. As soon as he’d touched her, the rest flowed in steady course, similar to the way Lily Anne spoke to him now with the ease of two people who have known each other forever.
Lily Anne closed her eyes, breathing in the pine and woodsy scent to refresh her memory.
“Do you think she hates us for spending so much time together?” Her tone was as relaxed as she was in Rodger’s arms. As if it shielded them from any animosity Rose herself may bear.
Rodger glanced between boughs at the noonday August sun. “Rose isn’t even awake yet to notice we haven’t included her.”
In the tree, Rose’s mouth gaped open like a little bird waiting
for its mother to offer it a worm.
Lily Anne tipped her head back and Rodger kissed her temple. She smiled, thankful for his reassuring words.
“I keep telling myself the same. She did ask that we have a girls’ only day sometime soon. I said yes because the three of us are spending so many afternoons together. She’s kept her tongue when we’ve left her in the evening. I know she wants the best for us, Rodger, but this summer is different. Things are changing in a way that they haven’t since her momma died.”
“It’s fine to worry about her, but don’t overcomplicate the situation. We didn’t do anything to Rose for her to be angry with us for.”
Lily Anne stepped off the plane in Houston with nothing more in mind than to enjoy a final summer at Kingsbrier. She hadn’t come in search of a man. It happened to be Rodger’s lucky day when he decided to accompany Rose to the tarmac for Lily Anne’s arrival. Rose saw regret etched in his brow whenever he spoke of the waning days available to spend with Lily Anne.
“She’s going to be so upset with me when I go back home to Atlanta in September. I never expected my own father to offer me a job at his textile company.” The slight sigh she let out almost knocked Rose over.
“I only went to college because it was expected of me. I did quite well, and am glad my parents were proud. After investing in my schooling I didn’t want to disappoint my father.”
“I’m positive that you didn’t.”
Lily Anne hesitated a fraction too long. It was unlike her to be tongue-tied.
“Rodger, there’s something I haven’t told you because I didn’t have the strength from within to believe it wouldn’t scare you off.”
Rose felt the worry in her words They gave her heart palpitations.
“I’m thankful to my father. He’s insistent on welcoming me into the fray and that I take the position, even after I told him that I’ve only ever seen myself doing what my own mother did. I was afraid my father’s feelings about me might falter, and I’d set the women’s rights movement on its ear.” Her nervous laugh struck like a gong mallet. Wanting no more than a family wasn’t a modern thought. “I honestly believed I should allow him a fraction of leeway to find a suitable partner. Our relationship isn’t like what it’s like here at Kingsbrier. I trust him and witnessed the happiest and saddest times in my parent’s marriage… It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d fall head over heels so this summer.
“You’re a hard worker, Rodger.” Most mornings before coming to get Lily Anne he’d already done a fair share of the farm chores at his family’s cattle ranch. “There are a mere two weeks before you returned to graduate school and, although you’ve expressed uncertainty over the decision, I think you’ll be successful adding a law degree on top of that. In all honesty, you’re everything that I’d hoped to find in a man. You’re a soft-spoken, caring and generous gentleman—even when you lay me down in the back of your daddy’s Cadillac relaying thoughts that aren’t so genteel.”
Rodger cocked his head back and let out hearty chuckle, the likes of which Rose had never heard from him.
The sting of what Rose overheard turned to numbness when Rodger stopped kissing Lily Anne and she said, “I love you.”
Rodger whispered the endearment back.
“I’m not sure how to say goodbye. The summer’s nearly over. You’ll be on your way and I’ll be back in Georgia before a snap of my fingers,” she said, aligning her thumb to the tip of her middle finger.
Rodger closed his palm around it before the noise echoed aloud.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Lil.” He moved his left hand, cupping her chin and turning her lips to meet his once more. “I’m not letting you go.”
Rodger was meant for Lily Anne. And as much as Lil worried over telling him the rest of the story, he’d been thinking about ways to keep her in Texas longer than she’d intended on staying.
They held onto one another enjoying a comfortable silence that stopped Rose’s escape. Rose considered that Lily Anne’s uncomplicated goals allowed her to achieve them adroitly. Yes, some of it was sour grapes. She was now in a position that Rose envied. Not letting on that Rose knew would prove difficult, though, not impossible.
“Thank you for keeping my secret from Rose. She’ll be crushed when she finds out. It’s not that her ambition is to work for her daddy, but the fact that he won’t consider it makes it unattainable. We both know what happens when Rose doesn’t get what she wants.”
Then, at the same instant that Rose thought it, Lily Anne pondered aloud, “I wonder if the roles were reversed if I’d be in Rose’s shoes?”
“It would have been different if my aunt were around.” Rodger agreed. “It was a devastating loss. My cousin needed the simplest of things from Uncle Eric as a child: a hug, a positive word, a few moments of his time. At first, I was sure that he used Rose’s ‘budding personality’—which is contrapositive to her mother’s—as an excuse to withhold sympathy. It wasn’t until we got older that I realized the girl standing before him made his heart ache.”
Lily Anne hummed her acquiescence. “My momma said that Eric Kingsbrier stopped living the day his wife died. She asked my daddy not to do that. We speak of her so much that I often forget my mother’s not in the next room. My mother lives among the peach trees on our plantation. In the eight years hence, not once have I heard Mrs. Kingsbrier’s name at this empty ranch. It’s as if saying it aloud summons an unwelcome ghost. I have to remind myself that the woman indeed had a name and sometimes I imagined my own childlike voice calling out with excitement to her, ‘Miss Joy’. We had so much fun with our mothers when we were little girls.”
“Your voice takes on this tinkling sound when you speak about the memories growing up together.”
Rodger lifted Lily Anne up, holding her waist tight until she braced her weight on her own two feet. She held out her palm and drew him to her.
“Rose has Joy’s beauty and Eric’s stubborn streak to boot. She garnered Eric’s ire from the continual head-butting long enough ago that our dear friend literally stopped trying to be anything but obstinate.”
“So what do we do?” Lily Anne asked, concerned.
“This’s never been on us to fix it. We can only go on being there for Rose for as long as she’ll let us.”
The wake of dust left by Rodger’s Cadillac as it pulled away from Kingsbrier’s circular drive had long since settled back onto the road. They’d invited her to go along. However, what she’d overheard a few days ago still weighed on her mind so, summoning the politeness Lil was better known for, Rose declined the invitation. She couldn’t cop to being there during an intimate discussion and didn’t like the position she’d put herself in.
She had no right to be angry at Lily Anne for keeping George’s offer a secret. Rose could see herself doing the same to spare Lil’s feelings if fate reversed their roles. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt that Lily Anne’s father found value in his daughter that Eric Kingsbrier was blind to when it came to Rose. Left alone with her swirling thoughts Rose had pondered everything from how to act thrilled for Lily when she revealed her new job to what action Rose might take to get Eric on board with letting her work at Kingsbrier Holdings. All the while she pretended as if there were no secrets trying to claw their way out from under her skin.
She’d waved goodbye to Rodger and Lily Anne, under the pretense that her less than stellar afternoon plans wouldn’t wait for anyone and gushed that she’d see them at dinnertime. It was unlikely that her friends made it to the county road and turned left before Rose’s expression drooped. She scratched her arms and sat down where shade fell on the cool granite steps, wondering what she was actually going to do. Lily Anne didn’t leave her in the lurch often, but with less than a week left before Rodger’s departure, it was becoming a common enough occurrence that Rose had run out of things to occupy her time with.
Rose leaned forward, pressing her bare belly that escaped between a crop top and old cut-offs to her thighs. With
nothing more to do, she fanned her fingers next to her bare toes, admiring the shade of coral she’d chosen for a mani-pedi two days prior. The new polish hadn’t begun to chip so having her nails done over wasn’t practical. She didn’t want to shop and had consumed enough sweets during the number of times she stopped in at the local bakery for chocolate glazed donuts to more than make up for the mascarpone cake she’d never gotten. The waistline of her favorite shorts was beginning to bind. By that token, she should find a cute boutique that sold larger sizes to stuff her expanding duff into.
The large, solid wood door of the mansion creaked open and shut behind her.
“Hello, Rose. What are you doing out here?” Ross greeted her. “Did you lose your way to the pool?”
“Ha-ha,” her response was as flat and cool as the stone she sat on. “I don’t feel like swimming this afternoon. I don’t feel like doing much of anything for that matter. I only came out to see Lil and Rodger off.” And I didn’t want to go sulk in my room to wait for them to come back, she failed to add.
Ross pulled the denim fabric at his thighs as he sat down a comfortable distance away. “So you’re not going to be parading around in next to nothing tempting my crew. They’ll be disappointed, but at least it’ll keep them on schedule. Your father wants the project completed a week early.”
Rose scowled. “I’m perfectly covered,” she remarked with a hint of scorn. “They need to stop gawking. It’s rude.”
She only removed her cover-up when Ross was around. It was his attention she wanted. But he never seemed to look her way since finding out whose daughter she was.
She arched an eyebrow. Rose hadn’t realized Ross had seen her in her bathing suit. Although he hadn’t said he did, so he must’ve only been listening to his worker’s comments. Giving them an eyeful agitated Rose, but it was something else Ross mentioned that caught her own attention.