Turning around, Annie spotted Caleb wrestling with a bag. “Here, I can do that!”
Caleb lifted his hand to one ear. “Pardon?”
“You'll have to speak up,” Olympia said.
Annie turned, and for the briefest instant she thought she heard compassion in Olympia's voice. Surely not.
Her aunt stared straight ahead. “He doesn't hear so well these days.”
“I'm sorry,” Annie murmured, mentally adding poor hearing to the list of Things to Dread in Advancing Years: dentures, glasses, arthritis, bursitis, fallen arches, and frequent heartburn. Other than eventually returning to the Lord, there wasn't much to look forward to in old age.
“Nothing to be sorry for. You'll be there soon enough,” Olympia promised, settling a light shawl around her shoulders.
Annie's mouth quirked in a wry smile. “Thanks for the cheery thought.”
She climbed aboard and took her seat beside Olympia as Caleb finished storing the two pieces of Louis Vuitton in the back of the buggy. A moment later he climbed onto the driver's bench and reclaimed the reins. Glancing over his shoulder, he winked at Annie, a silent message she remembered from years gone by.
Patience is a virtue,
his eyes told her.
Caleb might love Olympia, but Annie couldn't find it in her heart to do likewise. There was too much water over the dam, too many missed opportunities. Nothing would ever be able to melt the ice surrounding that woman's heart.
Annie searched for a neutral topic during the brief ride to Frenchmen's Fairest. The towering mausoleum was Olympia's ancestral home, a fact that Annie and everyone else on the island knew only too well. Olympia would tell anyone the tale of the house: how she had been born in the upstairs bedroom of her great-, great-, great-, great-, great-grandfather, Jacques de Cuvier; how she had married Edmund here and held her father's memorial service in the front parlor. The church, Olympia would tell anyone who asked, simply wasn't big enough.
Olympia had even convinced Uncle Edmund to take her surname when they married, claiming that de Cuviers had a history and an image to maintain. Painting “Edmund and Olympia Shots” on the mailbox outside her family home would simply not do.
Nothing Annie saw indicated change. With the exception of a small brick post office, a seafood restaurant, and a concrete building housing the public restrooms, Heavenly Daze still centered around the historic gingerbread houses and the legends of the families who lived there.
Colorful mums surrounded the Baskahegan Bed and Breakfast, and the big oak in front of Birdie Wester's bakery shimmered with the colors of an autumn bonfire. Just before rounding the corner, Caleb pulled up alongside Beatrice Coughlin and Birdie Wester, out for their late morning walk.
“Annie! How be you this morning?” Birdie chirped. “How nice to see you!”
Caleb started to rein Blaze in, but Olympia cleared her throat disapprovingly. So he clucked the horse forward, rolling past the two sisters.
Annie turned to her aunt, her face bright with embarrassment at the old lady's rudeness. She was still the same snobbish Olympia.
“So, Aunt Olympia,” she took pains to keep her voice light, “do they still call the house Frenchman's Folly? Do they still say you're as tight as the bark on a tree?” She felt her aunt bristle.
“Those busybodies,” Olympia said, her chin remaining high. “They're just jealous because Frenchman's Fairest is the most popular stop on the Heavenly Daze home tour.”
Annie pounced. “Home tour? Why, Aunt Olympia, what would ever make you stoop so low?”
Her aunt's red face now matched Annie's own. For years Olympia had steadfastly refused to put her home on the tour, dismissing the tourists who tramped through other island homes as barbarians who tracked leaves and mud on the Persian carpets.
“I do what must be done, just as you have done what you felt was necessary,” Olympia snapped. “I've never fit in with these new people, and it isn't likely I ever will. The women on the island resent meâevery last one of them is green with envy over the way I've kept myself together.” Lifting her chin higher, she turned to Annie with pride in her eyes.
Before Annie could respond, Caleb interrupted. “Your uncle will sure be happy to see you, girl.”
Glad for a break in the tension, Annie settled back in her seat. “How is Uncle Edmund today?”
Olympia answered. “Edmund understands very little these days. I was wondering if you'd make it home in time.”
Annie let the unspoken accusation pass. Olympia was right, of course. There was no excuse for Annie not having come home for ten long yearsâother than she just couldn't bring herself to do so. Over the years, she had hoped they had both matured, moving past childish ways to adult tolerance, though apparently neither had.
Olympia eyed the box resting on Annie's lap. “What is that?”
“Tomato plants. I'm working on a new hybrid.”
“Really. Why do we need another tomato?”
Annie weighed her response carefully. She thought she heard interest in her aunt's question, but all too often interest was a sly setup for Olympia's disapproval of her life.
“These plants grow in cold conditions.” Annie lovingly touched one of the tiny plants. “I'm hoping you'll allow me to plant them as a test to see if they'll withstand the autumn weather.”
“And if they don't?”
“Then they don't.” She snorted in exasperation. “Really, Aunt Olympia, couldn't you be positive about one single thing I do?”
“Twenty-eight years old and still as impertinent as ever.” Olympia sniffed. “I suppose your job keeps you too busy to pick up the phone and call these days?”
“I am busy. I've meant to call more oftenâ”
“Young folks have no time for family anymore. Always on the go, always involved in first one thing then the other.”
Annie blocked the criticism by concentrating on the passing scenery. Fall mums spotted every yard and the trees had traded their summer frocks for brilliant yellows and reds. Above the treetops, six historic painted ladies and the church stood like colorful sentinels facing the Atlantic. Annie knew their history as well as she knew her own name. She'd toured them all as a teenager, often invited where her aunt was not.
As the buggy rolled into the carriage house, Annie steeled herself to enter Jacques de Cuvier's Frenchman's Fairest, still steeped in glory.
Olympia's house, known to the locals as Frenchman's Folly, stood three stories tall and displayed every excess imaginable. Gingerbread scrollwork trimmed the front porch and dripped from the eaves; even the attic boasted of curved windows and a slate-covered mansard roof. Olympia had repainted the house in the tasteful colors of taupe, cream, and teal, but not even a subdued palette could disguise the fact that the house was horrendously ostentatious. Like Olympia, the house looked about as warm as an iceberg.
“Are you seeing anyone?”
Blinking, Annie turned to look at Olympia. “Excuse me?”
“Are you seeing anyone?” Her aunt stared straight ahead, her posture unyielding. “At your age you should be settling down, having children.”
Olympia and children were a mismatch. Annie assumed her aunt would be happy that Annie had so far spared her the bother of great-nieces and nephews.
“Not really,” she answered. “I work late at night and most Saturdays. Not many men have the patience to continue the chase, if one were inclined to even begin one.”
Annie wouldn't mind meeting a nice guy, though, someone who shared her interestsâKenny G, lemon chicken, and botanyâbut she'd learned that you couldn't manipulate love. In her case, it was either evident right away, or it failed to materialize at all. She hadn't come within a city block of finding Mr. Right.
As the carriage rolled up to Frenchman's Folly, Annie spotted something newâa sign nestled among the tender shoots of new grass growing along the sidewalk.
Frenchman's Fairest.
A private home occupied by Olympia de Cuvier, direct descendant of Captain Jacques de Cuvier. Built in 1796 and recorded in the Maine Historic
Register in 1998.
With surprising grace Caleb eased down from his seat, then helped Annie and Olympia out of the carriage. As Olympia led the way into the house, Annie noted that her aunt's spindly legs seemed barely adequate to support her slender frame.
Caleb isn't the only one getting old, Annie realized, though Olympia would die before she'd admit to aging.
Setting her bags down in the polished foyer, Caleb straightened to catch his breath. Olympia continued up the winding stairway, murmuring something about “checking on Edmund.”
“Supper's at six. There are fresh towels in the guest bath . . .” Caleb paused and flashed a sweet, embarrassed smile. “I'm afraid hot water is scarce as hen's teeth. The old heater isn't working properly.”
“That hot water heater didn't work right when I lived here. Is Aunt Olympia still too stingy to buy a new one?”
“Annie, things around here are tighter than Olympia will ever let you know. She's a proud woman. Too proud.”
“I know, Caleb.” She gave him a brief hug. “I'll try to be kinder. But it's difficult when she's so cold and snappish.”
“I know, child. But we've all got our burdens to bear.
Remember that.”
“Thank you, Caleb.”
After giving her another smile, he disappeared into the kitchen.
Sneaking a quick peek into the parlor, Annie studied the furniture. Not one piece had been changed since Jacques de Cuvier furnished the home in the eighteenth century. Annie knew people in Portland who would give more than their eyeteeth for her aunt's collection. A tapestry sofa sat before the rectangular windows, flanked by a beautiful pair of oval cherry tables that would have knocked out the appraisers on the “Antiques Roadshow.” A Tiffany lamp stood on one of the tablesâAnnie frowned. Didn't there used to be
two
Tiffany lamps?
Before she could ask Caleb, a bundle of fur bounded around the corner and nearly tripped her.
Annie took a moment to scratch the dog's ears. “Why, Tallulah-belle! What took you so long to come and say hello?” The stout dog's tail thumped against the parlor wall in happy thuds. As Annie made her way up the stairs, Tallulah followed, sniffing at her bags and producing happy snorting sounds.
Annie discarded her plans for a long, hot shower. Maybe she'd buy a new water heater and have it delivered before she left. Then again, maybe she wouldn't. Olympia would only accuse her of spending money she didn't have.
Three days
, she reminded herself as she set her cosmetic case down on her old bed, her gaze sweeping the spartan room.
You'll be out of here on Monday.
Every evidence of her past life had been surgically removed. There were no pictures of Annie and Beth Whitman, her best friend in the world, clowning around and blowing gum bubbles into the camera. No graduation tassel draped over a gilded frame showing a jubilant Annie in cap and gown. No high-school banners junking up the walls, no wilted prom flowers stuck in the dressing table mirror. No empty bottles of Chantilly, her favorite perfume in those days, no brushes with strands of copper-colored hair still caught in the bristles.
No Annie Cuvier. Period.
Just a sterile room with a double bed, a scarred dark cherry dresser, and a washstand with a chipped porcelain pitcher and bowl standing in front of double windows draped with curtains that had seen better days. Annie tried to tell herself that the changes were necessary so the home could be opened to tourists, but in her heart she knew her things had been removed long before the house was opened to strangers.
The pink chenille bedspread that Annie slept under for years was the only familiar friend in the room. She sank onto it and bit back tears. What had Olympia done with the pieces of her past youth?
Then Tallulah jumped onto the bed and nudged her with kisses. “I love you, pup, but you've got to move. I'm unpacking.”
Lifting her suitcase onto the bed, she unlatched the clasps, then turned to the dresser. The top two drawers were emptyâclean as a whistle. Into them she dropped underwear and her notebook for recording data about her tomato experiment.
The third drawer stuck when she tried to pull it open. With a final yank it gave, sending her sprawling across the wooden floor.
“Man oh man,” she grumbled, “doesn't anyone fix anything in this musty old place?”
Leaning forward, she peered into the drawer. She caught her breath as a flood of memories caught her unaware.
The drawer was heavy with her past. Olympia had filled the space with Annie's high-school yearbooks, two trophies from the state science fair, and, wedged into a corner, her cheerleading uniform. She pulled out the uniform, smiling at the sight of it, and held it up. She'd filled out quite a bit since those days.
A snatch of brown caught her eye, and Annie felt emotion rise in her throat as she recognized the last object in the drawer.
“Rocky Bear,” she whispered, her hands reaching for the tattered stuffed animal. “Oh! Where have you been all these years?”
She hugged the scrap of plush material to her breast, forgotten feelings and memories and hurts welling within her. On more occasions than she could recall, she had retreated to this room, curled up on this bed, and hugged the stuffing out of Rocky Bear.
Breathing in the scents of dust and age and Chantilly perfume, she closed her eyes. “I have missed you so much.”
As the smell of frying chicken drifted up the staircase, her stomach growled. She'd have to finish quickly or die of starvation. Reluctantly setting Rocky Bear in the center of the bed, Annie hung her clothes in the cedar-lined closet. She'd packed light for the obligatory visit. A skirt, an extra blouse, a pair of slacks, her running shoes, jogging pants, and a dress and pantyhoseâin case she decided to go to church with Olympia.