Revenant Rising (34 page)
“Oh it’s clear all right. The Edelweiss Nursery people have been serving us well for years, and suddenly they’re too big for their britches, consumed with greed, and intent on using cheap temporary labor of the sort they sent here yesterday to start the spring cleanup. Why, you should have seen them! Gypsies, tramps, and thieves!”
She must be kidding. Since when does conservative old Mrs. Floss quote pop music?
“Riffraff and vagrants working right next to my house where they could see in my windows and pick out what they’re coming back to steal,” Mrs. Floss shrills. “Out-of-towners, foreigners too.” Her voice drops an octave to a conspiratorial tone. “And you know what they say about the dark-skinned foreigners,” she finishes sotto voce.
From a rant to a stage whisper in a matter of seconds. Laurel recognizes this shift as an early symptom of her father’s affliction and responds to the agitated old lady the way she learned to respond to him whenever he went to extremes—by giving weight without argument to whatever madness he held true. “No, I don’t, please tell me what they say about the dark-skinned foreigners, Mrs. Floss.”
“You can call me Thelma, dear . . . You’ve been grown up for a long time now.” She produces a tinkle of laughter. “Now that I think about it, you’ve always been grownup, haven’t you? How are the children doing? How is your father getting along?”
Laurel has her mouth open to give answers tailored to what Mrs. Floss appears to believe—that everyone in question still lives at home—but is interrupted before the fiction can be spoken.
“Let’s see, Benjamin the younger is in grad school at Yale, Michael is an undergraduate there, and our dear baby Emily is completing her first year at University of New Haven, if I remember correctly.”
Laurel is dumbfounded because Mrs. Floss has indeed remembered correctly and goes on to describe the condition of the elder Benjamin Chandler as well as anyone can.
“Alzheimer’s . . . such a pity . . . fate worse than death,” Mrs. Floss delivers the universal opinion and could be lamenting her own fate because inconsistency is another symptom Laurel is all too familiar with.
“On the way here you said there was something you wanted to ask me,” Mrs. Floss says as Laurel prepares to leave.
While the window between lucidity and lunacy seems to be open, Laurel debates asking for the recommendation needed and holds off because reference to yard maintenance set the old dear off earlier and a reference to household maintenance might do the same.
“Nothing important,” Laurel says. “It’ll keep.”
“Please go ahead, dear, you know you can ask me anything.”
“Well,” Laurel begins. What can be the harm, why deny the woman the illusion she’s being helpful? “I was wondering if you could recommend a good repairman or a service that provides general home maintenance and I’m afraid that might not be a good idea in light of . . . ah . . . recent developments.”
“Oh pshaw, don’t be put off by those Edelweiss people. That too shall pass. They’ll come around to my way of thinking in no time. I’ve already explained the rules to one of them this morning, and yesterday I scatted one out of here that was acting as though temporary work included squatter’s rights. But don’t you worry about a thing, Laurel, dear. I’ll be calling them all by name before that grass of yours grows another inch. You do know you were absolutely right to finally sign on for lawn service, don’t you? And you do know finding a good home handyman may take a while, don’t you? Just leave it to me, though. I am
so
delighted you’re letting me be of use.”
Could there be a more vivid reminder that sometimes by accepting, one is also giving? Laurel kisses her on both flushed cheeks and almost makes it to the door.
“Hold on.” Mrs. Floss thrusts a plastic container and a jar of preserves at her. “Take the rest of the blintzes for your papa and the little boys. Milty’s already had his fill,” she says of her late spouse, “and the gardener had all he wanted,” she says of a probable figment of her imagination.
“Thank you . . . Thelma, you’re very sweet to think of them.” Laurel takes the food she has no use for, and this time makes it all the way to the sidewalk before Mrs. Floss has something else to say.
“If I see anyone looking in your windows again I promise to phone even if I do wake the baby and interfere with your studying,” the befuddled woman calls from her front steps. “Go along now, I have to get back to my painting. I don’t have that many years left, you know, but I never let myself forget that Whistler’s mother was no spring chicken when she took up palette and brush, and look what happened to her!” Mrs. Floss gives gleeful notice and disappears into the house.
Laurel doesn’t drive off right away. She can’t—at least not while still in the backwash of more information and misinformation than anyone should have to deal with this early in the day. When she does put the car in gear, household maintenance is the last thing on her mind.
Despite the interruption by Mrs. Floss, Laurel is till running ahead of schedule when she steps into the elevator at work. She’s looking forward to some time alone to prepare for today’s session when she steps out of the elevator on her floor only to see Colin Elliot emerge from her office a moderate ways away. He just stands there, filling the hallway, forcing her to cover the distance between them under heavy scrutiny.
In the world of romance novels she would run to him; she would free her tresses to fall in a tumble of raven-dark curls against her creamy shoulders; she would submit to his smoldering gaze and crushing embrace; her bodice would rip and multiple layers of petticoats would fall away; rose-tipped breasts would heave, lustful loins would thrust, and she would be transported to previously unknown heights of writhing ecstasy.
In the world of Clark, Sebastian & Associates she walks down the hall slightly pigeon-toed so the straps of her Chanel slingbacks don’t slide off her heels; her eyes are focused on a spot just above one of his shoulders, and the only thing she might consider heaving is an exasperated sigh. With one hand, she tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear; with the other, she clutches the drab raincoat around her in a way that eliminates even the slightest contact as she precedes him into her outer office. “Good morning,” she says in passing. The greeting excludes Amanda—wide-eyed and expectant at her usual station—who shouldn’t be here either.
“Why don’t you wait inside? I need to go over a few things with my assistant.” She breaks her own rule and touches the client; she propels him by the arm into her private office and closes the door behind him.
“What on earth are you doing here and why did you let him in?” she stage whispers to Amanda even though Colin is out of earshot.
“I was supposed to leave him waiting in reception? C’mon, Laurel, give the guy a break . . . give
me
a break.”
“He’s not supposed to be here for another fifteen minutes at the earliest,” Laurel says in louder voice.
“Well, I guess the precedent was set at your first meeting with him. He was a whole hour early for that one, and I don’t recall your grousing about it.”
“How long has he been here anyway?”
“He says he was here only a few minutes when I showed up a half hour ago.”
“So you haven’t had to keep him entertained all that long.” “Yeah, just long enough for him to tell me about the fabulous food you prepared for the picnic you had with him yesterday.”
“Shit!” Laurel says in full voice.
“Oh, and when he wasn’t monitoring the hallway for your arrival, he mentioned that you told him your life story.”
“There was good reason, just as there was for the picnic. I told him some of my background merely to draw him out. I was only employing the same technique Nate Isaacs used on you, and by supplying a picnic lunch, I was only protecting his privacy.” Laurel removes her coat and flings it atop a filing cabinet.
“
Sure
you were.” Amanda puts on a wise-ass expression. “And look at you now. You’re dressed that way to convince him you mean nothing but business. Right?”
“Okay, if you want to play that game, let’s hear what
you
are doing here this morning. Or am I safe to assume you’re just after another celebrity fix—perhaps hoping to cadge some more vicarious thrills?”
“Go ahead.” Amanda’s chin comes up. “Assume away while I assume everything I’ve read about you in the tabloids is true.
“It appears you already have.”
“I’m sorry, that was a cheap shot.”
“I had it coming. One cheap shot deserves another.”
“Look, I admit I’m a romance junkie or whatever you want to call it, but it really is thrilling to be up close to someone that’s so smitten, so besotted . . .
besotted
. . . that’s it! That’s the word I’ve been trying to think of ever since I saw the look he gets in his eyes when he talks about you.”
Laurel regards Amanda as she would Mrs. Floss and endows her with about the same amount of credibility. “One more time . . . you came into the office on a Saturday morning . . . why?”
“In case someone needs me? To catch up on my work? To catch up on the latest?”
“Get a life, Amanda, and while you’re at it, hold all my calls, although there shouldn’t be any. Technically I’m not here.”
Laurel cannot put it off any longer. Nor can she put her coat back on. She adjusts the neckline of her blouse upward, plucks at her skirt as though to loosen it, and goes into her private quarters where Colin has not yet chosen a chair. He’s looking out one of the windows and doesn’t turn around right away. When he does, he shows no interest in the way she’s dressed. She feels vain and foolish for thinking he would.
“I missed you,” he says from across the room. “No, that’s not right . . . yes it is . . . what I mean to say . . . I missed your call last night. I’m dead sorry I wasn’t there to pickup, but I was glad to hear about the garage door opener. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I, too, am sorry you weren’t there because I wouldn’t have had to wait until now to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I was . . . ungracious . . . to react the way I did to your offer of help. I hope you’ll accept my apology.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not. No, that’s not true. Actually I did give it a bit of worry . . . a bit of thought, I should say, and I came up with a theory about why you reacted that way.”
“Really? And it is?”
“You’re not keen on accepting help because it reminds you of a time when you were forced into dependency. Accepting help’s apt to make you feel obligated, inferior, even. If I’d been thinking straight last night I would’ve recognized that straightaway and known better than force myself on you the way I did.”
Without indicating there’s any truth to his theory, Laurel eases into the desk chair and beckons him to take a nearby seat. It’s only then that she notices how tired he looks; his eyes are red-rimmed and his demeanor suggests of dejection. He’s no less well groomed than he was yesterday; his suit and open-necked shirt are clean and pressed, but something’s missing. Now that she’s willing to admit he has one, she could almost say his aura is diminished.
“I have some other theories I’d like you to hear, but before I go on I have to ask—do you have another appointment? By the look of you, I’ll say it’s a heavy lunch date.”
“No, you are my only appointment today.”
“So I don’t have to hurry?”
“No, you don’t.”
“Do I have to pretend I haven’t noticed that you look fantastically lovely today?”
“Shall I go on pretending you don’t look as though you’ve been out all night?”
“I wasn’t out except for when you rang, and then I was just down in the Oak Bar having a nightcap with Bemus. I was awake most of the night, though. Never did get settled down, actually.”
“Were you writing? You mentioned you were working on something.”
“That’s what I was doing before I had the bright idea to ring home around three—their breakfast time—and catch Anthony before he was off to his Saturday-morning football. When I did, I learned they were waiting for a decent hour in this time zone to let me know that Anthony’s been stripped of all privileges and won’t be going anywhere except school.”