by Wendy Silk
I was getting the picture. Far too slowly, but I was finally seeing this clearly. “David. You set this up somehow, didn’t you? After you were here before Thanksgiving, you thought you could just casually run around pulling strings and ruining an entire family’s business? The livelihood of an entire town?” I was so angry I almost spat at him. “That’s insane. How could this possibly make sense to you?”
“Because of you,” he answered simply. “I’m going to get you back. Back in my house, where you belong. I made a mistake in cancelling our wedding. I don’t make a lot of mistakes, but that was one. I should have just kept Vicky on the side and gone through with the marriage. She would have done that. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
I ignored his musings about our pathetic wedding-that-hadn’t-happened. My mind was miles away from that, trying to sort out his part in the tangle of regulations that was now threatening to ruin the Blue Shore Hotel. “David, do you mean to say that you faked these results? The lab results came back already. They were positive. Is that your doing?”
His lips compressed into a thin line. “Can’t say, Alice. Obviously, that kind of thing would be illegal. The health department is a big place, though, and I know a lot of people there.”
“Shit. I can’t even stay here and talk to you any more. I have to get back down there and see what happened with Toby.”
As I stumbled away from him, I heard him ask, “Which brother is it that you’ve been fucking, Alice? Both of them?” I broke into a run, feeling relief wash over me as I got away from his poisonous way of seeing the world.
As I neared the hotel lawn, I slowed my run, trying to catch my breath before anybody saw me. Although Cindy had been seeing an increase in cancellations, there were still plenty of guests here. The winter storms were in full effect now, with whale migration a seasonal magnet that was perhaps even more important to the economy here than the bright days of summer, I was learning. I had to look as innocuous as possible as I entered the building, although my churning emotions felt anything but normal.
Bypassing the lobby, I entered through a side door and tried to creep unnoticed to the family elevator. Cindy was deep in conversation with a family of tourists, so although I know she saw me, we didn’t exchange any words. Upstairs, I braced myself for whatever unpleasant emergency might have called Grant back from the trails.
As the elevator doors opened into the penthouse foyer, I found only jubilation. Grant beamed at me from his place next to Toby at the table. Spread out in front of them was the ideal piece of correspondence from a university: the fabled ‘thick envelope’ that meant one was in. Toby rose, stiffly as he always did, to meet me. His eyes were alight with joy.
“Alice! They said yes!” Toby managed to get this out as fast as if he were speaking like everybody else, with his eyes only momentarily on his phone screen. He was still quiet most of the time, but he was now willing to produce speech from his device almost as quickly as anybody could talk.
I’d had a hand in that. I was so proud of him. Looking at Grant, I saw his eyes blazing with happiness at us both. He knew that I’d been able to reach Toby when he hadn’t, and he was grateful. My heart swelled as I accepted the thanks I knew he was silently sending me.
“Toby, I’m so happy for you. I knew you could do it. That early acceptance is a really big deal. I’m so proud of you!” I hugged him tightly. “And you should be very proud of yourself. You’re the one that did this. You wrote the essays, you took the exams, and you are the one who plugged away all those days trying to complete the work you needed to get done. You are amazing. After all that you’ve been through, you were not about to let that stop you from what you knew you wanted.” I had tears in my eyes, and I saw that Toby did too.
I gave my student one more hug and then crossed the room to his brother, the person who meant more to both of us than anybody else. I reached up to kiss Grant on the lips, then stood next to him, winding my arm around his waist. For this one moment, I would get to be here, with my two favorite people, as part of their family.
Grant reached his arm around my shoulders, looking happier than I had ever seen him. He smiled at Toby and said, “I hope it’s ok with you, but Alice and I are together now.”
Toby snorted and answered, “Finally!” He laughed at our confusion and came back to the table to continue leafing through the paperwork he’d received. He’d be able to chase his own dreams now, out in the world. He was so young, with so much potential, and he was ready to take his place among strangers now that he felt confident enough to find his own ways of communicating. He was ready.
I gathered my courage, and said to them, as brightly as I could, “I think this calls for a trip to the best restaurant I know. Don’t you?”
Grant’s hand drifted lower, down my back, to my ass. He patted it gently, in what I knew was a promise for later. He said, “You’re right. Let’s go downstairs and order all the best things on the menu. We’ll have wine, we’ll have cake. We need to celebrate. Oh, and we need to tell Cindy too. She’s probably guessed from the mail, but she’ll want to congratulate you herself, Toby.”
Toby responded with a huge smile, and the soundtrack of “Chariots of Fire.”
As they made their way to the door, I said, “Just give me a couple of minutes to freshen up, you guys. I’ll meet you down there. All that running on the trails has left me kind of a mess.”
Grant chuckled out loud at me, but he waved me out toward my room, making a scooting motion with his hand. While Toby was turned the other way, Grant winked at me. He knew perfectly well that one of the reasons I was untidy was the hot and sweaty groping we had gotten up to outside. I smiled crookedly at him as I went to my room, pretending that I’d be changing my clothes, brushing my hair, and then rushing down to join them at our celebratory meal.
What Grant didn’t know is that I wasn’t going to do that last part. Instead, I was going to make myself tidy, pack a bag, and find David. If I left with him today, maybe I could convince him to leave the hotel alone. I could hear his words replaying chillingly in my mind. He’d said that he would see the hotel permanently closed if that was what it took to get me to come back to him.
I could save him the trouble. If I returned to David right now, he might drop his falsified evidence against the hotel. Grant would have his family legacy back. He could live the life he had always wanted, running his hotel, but no longer the sole caregiver of his brother. Toby was ready to fly free, and Grant was as well.
What twisted in me like a knife, however, was the knowledge that I would not be able to be with Grant on his new adventures.
Chapter 18: Grant
It was one of the best days of my life. I was so proud of Toby. He had worked hard and overcome so much to get to this place. My brother was standing on the brink of a new life, and so was I.
My mind wandered idly as Toby and I walked together through the downstairs hallways. I was finally ready to admit that Alice was the love of my life. How had it taken me this long to see it? All those times I had thought that she was angry at me, or short-tempered, I realized that I had been doing the same thing to her. We had taken far too circuitous a route to this moment, but it didn’t matter at all now. What mattered was that we had found each other, and we knew beyond a doubt that we were right for each other.
Just as we were about the step through the doors of the terrace restaurant, I heard a voice calling my name. I turned to see Cindy hurrying along the soft carpet toward us. If she had been on different flooring, her shoes would have clattered. I had never seen her so upset.
“Grant! Toby! Wait a minute,” she gasped. As she reached us, she bent her head to catch her breath. Cindy was fidgeting with some papers that she had brought with her from the front desk. She saw me look down at them, and she answered my unspoken question. “No, it’s fine, I haven’t left the desk unattended. I caught Ed for a moment and he’s filling in for me.”
I felt my face freeze. “Ed? Did he tell you anything?
”
Cindy shook her head. “No, I don’t know what you mean. I have an emergency, Grant. It’s nothing to do with Ed. Is there something he’s supposed to say to me?”
I shook my head. “No, not right now. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Isabel. I just got a call from her host family in Normandy. They say she’s fine, that it’s nothing to worry about. But she…” Cindy’s voice began to quaver. She finished in a rush, before the tears would have a chance to fill her eyes. “She’s in the hospital there, with a high fever. They don’t know what’s wrong.”
I reached out to steady her. Isabel was the apple of her eye, and like a sister to me. “How can they say not to worry if they don’t know what’s wrong?” Regardless of the instruction that the French family had given us, we were both terrified, I could tell. I stopped, finding a measure of control. “Ok. If they say she’s going to be ok, then we need to believe that. We’ll get the hospital on the phone right away. But what we really need to do is to get you out there.”
Cindy snuffled, not at all like herself. “I can’t go. I have a million things to do here. Things that only I know how to do. The night shift gals are no good at any of the finer points, no matter how many times I try to teach them.”
Despite my worry about Isabel, Cindy’s dedication to her turf made me smile. “I know. You’ve been saying that for years. Is there anybody you can trust? I can fill in for some of the time, but not all of it.”
Cindy looked up at me. “Alice.” She relaxed noticeably. “Alice has been picking up so much of it. She’s a quick study, and she already knows how I like to do things.”
Why did it not surprise me that this amazing woman who had turned my life around was also the key to solving the problems of everybody else in this place?
I nodded at Cindy. “Well that’s perfect. We’ll ask her to fill in for you. I know how much she cares for you; she’ll agree in a heartbeat. Now, go pack just one small bag, and I’ll get you a direct flight out there.” She started to say something, but as she opened her mouth, I spoke first. “It’s on me, of course. You and Isabel are family. Now go.”
She heeded my advice and turned back the way she had come, disappearing around a corner in short order. I felt Toby’s worried presence at my side. People who haven’t been through family tragedy don’t realize that the worry of it happening again never leaves you. Other people can shrug off danger, but we never would again. His exuberance at his early admission to college was now entirely replaced by concern about Isabel.
I put my arm around Toby’s shoulders. “Let’s head back to the desk and see what Ed’s up to. We’ll still have our special dinner. We’ll just wait until we have a few things cleared up first. I want to try to get that hospital in Caen on the phone. If Isabel is there, she’s being well taken care of, I am sure of that.”
Toby still looked miserable, but I could see agreement in his eyes. We walked together as far as the front desk. When I nodded at Ed and wound my way around the counter to make that phone call, Toby remained on the outside. He loved the hotel dearly, but since he lost his speech, he had assiduously avoided situations in which guests would ask him questions. I closed the door to Cindy’s office and asked for operator assistance, hoping I would not have too much occasion to use my rusty French skills.
I could see Toby chatting idly with Ed. As Isabel’s brother, Ed should have been just as rattled as the rest of us on hearing that she was sick while out of the country. He looked preoccupied with other thoughts, though. Maybe he was just better at following the advice that I knew I’d given the others; he knew she was in good hands, so he was not worried.
I turned my back and paced slightly as I spoke to the hospital representative, whose English might have been better than my own. Then I got in touch with Isabel’s host mother, who also surmounted the language barrier with no apparent trouble. She was kind and eminently capable, not unlike Cindy herself. My heartbeat finally calmed to a normal tempo after both conversations confirmed for me that Isabel was going to be fine. She had a flu virus, nothing more. They had ruled out anything worse, including meningitis. I would tell Cindy that she should still go, that Isabel would love to see her, but that the illness was in no way life threatening.
I let my breath out with relief and turned around, thinking I’d see both Ed and Toby watching me through the glass. Instead, neither one was there. Stepping back out to the reception area, I leaned my upper body over the marble counter, still expecting to see them. “Well, damn,” I muttered to myself. For whatever reason, they had both decamped, leaving me with front desk duty. Here I was, about to have the best dinner of my life with my brother and the woman I knew I loved, and I was stuck manning the phones. It was as if they thought I was in charge or something, I thought with an unexpected flash of amusement. Delegation had never been my strong suit. Nevertheless, I buzzed my other assistant manager, asking him to come up front.
By the time he showed up, I was actually beginning to be concerned. Where were they? And where was Alice? I left the reception desk in Trevor’s capable hands, and strode back to the restaurant. I might at least find Alice and Toby there. Ed and his lackluster job performance would have to wait. I hadn’t told Cindy about Ed losing his job, and I certainly wasn’t going to do that now that she was hurrying across the Atlantic to see Isabel.
Half an hour later, I was still walking the halls of my own hotel like a lost sheep. None of the three people I’d misplaced were answering their phones. How was that even possible in this age of electronics? I knew there was a vital piece of information that I was missing as I tried to piece everything together. Why would Ed and Toby go somewhere together? Toby did not like to be involved in any hotel business that was customer-facing, and that was all that Ed ever did.
Like a boulder settling on me, I realized what I was missing. I had forgotten that I also needed to place David in all this. That bastard had shown up on the trails this afternoon out of the blue. Why? I managed to capture a dim memory I had of seeing David and Ed deep in conversation the last time we’d been cursed with the presence of Alice’s ex-fiancé. Like the interior mechanism of a clock, the last piece clicked into place. Ed had been in charge of the water filtration system.
The eventfulness of the day was taking a toll on me. I must be jumping to conclusions. None of this made sense. Could David have had a hand in the Legionella accusations that had come from the health department? Would anybody even dare to fake evidence on that scale?
My heart sank as I knew that, yes, he would. The brief exchange that I’d had with David in my own restaurant was coming back to haunt me. I’d been standing, while he sat sprawled easily in his chair, lulling me into thinking that he was just an annoying buffoon. He had goaded me into saying that as long as the hotel was open, it would be a place for Alice.
As long as it was open.
Chapter 19: Alice
My two small bags were packed. By the end of the day, I’d be sitting next to David again, listening to his endless droning on about the subjects that interested only him. He’d have driven his beast of a Mercedes here, no doubt ignoring all the scenery for the duration of the ferry ride. He could drive me back with him once I’d abandoned everything that was important to me. I was leaving Blue Shore, my friends, my work, and worst of all, Grant, just when I’d found out that he loved me.
My mind was whirling with the conflicting feelings of the losses I was sustaining and the emotional weight that I was accepting in going back to David. What other choice did I have? Maybe Grant would choose me over his family hotel, but if it was up to me, I’d protect him from that. I’d make sure he got to keep the legacy his parents had left him, if I could accomplish that by distracting David. I shook my head to try to clear it, and went downstairs. Rather than using the family elevator that opened near the front desk, I used one of the enormous service elevators that ran along the back of the building. I couldn’t afford to walk past Cindy or Grant with my suitcases in tow.
What about Toby? It was true that my work with him was almost finished. We still had to file the paperwork to complete his credits, but it was mostly down to the formalities at this point. He’d completed the proficiency exams that the state required of him. He’d graduate high school, but he’d have to do it without me to cheer him on. I resolved to send him a long letter of congratulations, just as soon as I was home. It stung to think that David’s sterile apartment, where he’d been shacking up with Vicky, would have to go by the name of “home” for now.
I peeked my head around the fire exit door at the end of the service corridor. Seeing nobody I recognized, I hoisted my smaller bag and pulled my wheeled bag, trying to get out before anybody spotted me and asked questions. I rounded the side of the building, thinking that I might just make it to my car. Remembering that David would want me to ride with him, I paused. I’d have to do whatever it took to placate him. Maybe I could hire a college student to come out here next weekend to get my car. Or maybe I’d just leave it here forever. Right now, the important thing was to find David, so I could get out of here with him. I texted him, but got no answer.
I surveyed the views that I loved one last time, thinking that I would probably never be able to come back here. As I looked toward the upper trails, I thought I saw David. That was his dark coat, surely. But why would he be walking with Ed? I knew that Grant had known Ed for most of his life, and that Cindy doted on him. She’d be the first to say, though, that he was not succeeding in his work here. I had seen in the way she spoke to him that she was disappointed with him and wishing he could do better at maximizing the opportunities Grant had given him.