“The point, Mr. Bryant, is that while I can appreciate your family’s devotion to nature and the preservation of a quiet respite, for God’s sake you gotta loosen up a little bit!”
He held up his hand.
“Are you shooshing me?” I asked, crossing my arms.
He cocked his head to the side. “Can you hear that?” He leaned down to the large radiator in the corner, listening closely.
“Can I hear . . . hey! Hey, come back here,” I yelled as he took off through the lobby at a brisk pace, grumbling under his breath. “I was talking to you!”
“Well then, keep up, Ms. Morgan.”
“Oh you little . . .” I took off after him, chasing him through the lobby, through a double set of doors behind the reception desk, and down two flights of stairs.
“Literally, I was in the middle of something with you, and you just take off like a bat out of hell!”
“Not everything can revolve around you and your incessant need for a television.”
We went around a corner, past some old lockers, and down another steep staircase.
“That’s exactly my point, Mr. Bryant, that I’m not in the minority here. Practically everyone has a television in their room, certainly when they’re on vacation. Quit trying to make me feel like I’m totally off base here!”
At the bottom of the staircase he paused, grabbed a flashlight off a shelf, and made a sharp right turn.
“If you’re feeling off base that’s your own doing. I am merely trying to point out that when you’re up here, away from the big city and the noise and the hubbub, you should be able to unplug.”
“Did you really just say hubbub?”
We hurried through old brick archways, past stone-lined cold rooms, and when we ran past an old barrel-vaulted wine cellar he interrupted his critique of my television addiction to go back to playing tour guide.
“That’s where they used to store the hooch during Prohibition.”
“Really? I figured this place would have been as dry as the Sahara back then.”
“It was officially, of course.”
“Of course.” I grinned, thinking about all those buttoned-up Bryants down here swilling gin with the help. “Still got some down here?”
“It’s not even noon, Ms. Morgan.”
“Will we be wherever we’re going by cocktail hour? Where is it we’re going exactly?” I asked, as I followed him down another twisty tunnel, this one the darkest yet.
“Boiler room” came the answer, floating down the long, dark hallway in front of me.
“As in Freddy Krueger?”
“The red-and-green sweater guy?”
“The razor blades for fingers guy, yeah.” I brushed cobwebs away from my face, peering into the darkness. At the end of the hallway, a heavy metal door swung back on its creaky hinges and he stood in the doorway.
“Then yes, that kind of boiler room.”
“Great.” I swallowed, and then was swallowed up by clouds of steam. “Good lord, it’s like pea soup down here!” I exclaimed, narrowing my eyes to see better through the clouds. An entire city of pipes and pumps lived down here, incredible roaring metal and steam . . . everywhere steam.
“No wonder you’ve got fireplaces in every room,” I said, looking over the equipment. Stone Age, these boilers were from the Stone Age! “Where are the guys in overalls shoveling in the coal?”
“Aren’t you being a little bit dramatic?” he asked as he consulted a hand-drawn map on the wall. “Lakeside Lounge, Lakeside Lounge, aha!” He started fiddling with gauges and levers.
“I don’t think so, Mr. Bryant,” I said, looking around with a more critical eye. “Do you have any idea how much money you’d be saving in heating costs, let alone the tax credits you’d receive, if you switched over to greener technology?”
“Wait, just wait a second, you just got here and already you have me installing an entirely new heating system? We’ve been using this system for years and it’s never failed us before.” The steam was getting really thick, the room was hot and sticky and good lord was it getting hotter by the second.
I tugged at my leather jacket, trying to flap a little breeze in. “Then why exactly are we down here? Why exactly did you run away in the middle of a conversation?” He looked at me incredulously just as a loud knocking began ringing out from the furnace on my right. And the furnace on my left started to spew an enormous jet of steam, filling the already hazy air with an even bigger cloud.
“You were saying?” I asked, smirking more than a little bit.
He stepped closer, ducking underneath a pipe, tugging at his tie as he came. “Oh, you’re an expert in heating systems now? When did hotel management school cover that?”
I could feel a trickle of sweat running down my chest and I gave up trying to flap a breeze and just tore off my jacket. “I literally know nothing about heating and cooling, other than when I turn on my AC in the summertime I don’t want to hear a groaning unit. What I do know is your bottom line, and I know the amount annually spent on utilities is staggering.”
“I have a huge hotel,” he countered, taking off his own jacket and grabbing a giant wrench.
“That I’m sure is sealed up nice and tight for the winter,” I replied, ducking under a pipe and stepping right in front of him. “You want me to tell you about the draft in my room last night? My bed was freezing! First I thought it was from the balcony, then I thought it was coming under the door from the hallway outside. Turns out it was from both. It was like a freaking wind tunnel.”
“I am sorry, Ms. Morgan, that your bed was so cold last night.”
“Says the guy bragging about his huge hotel.”
We stared at each other, locked in a silent battle of wills. Archie’s glasses were beginning to fog over, yet there we stood, toe-to-toe. We breathed in at the same time, and I could see his pulse beat just below his jawline beneath the barest hint of five-o’clock shadow. We were both worked up, angry, annoyed. Then he licked his lips. Just the tip of his tongue flickered out, catching the tiniest bead of sweat. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re incredibly rude?”
“Everyone who’s ever hired me.”
“And you’re proud of this track record?”
“Every one of them is now a sterling reference. I can give you their contact info whenever you like.”
He shook his head, turned away, and set to work with the wrench, turning down the thingamabob, throwing his entire body into it. He grunted at one point, and because of the steam I could see the muscles in his back straining through his white shirt. I took a step closer, just the one, to watch as he struggled with the whatsamahoozit.
“Almost . . . got it . . . there!” he cried, turning around triumphantly in a final burst of steam and whistle to find me standing much closer than I had been only a moment before.
Surprised it was over so fast, and totally caught staring, I mustered up a “Bravo, Mr. Bryant,” and then internally slapped myself for sounding so Happy Birthday, Mr. President when I said it.
He smirked. I scowled.
Asshole.
We emerged from the basement sweaty and sticky, messy and a little bit sooty. Back in the Lakeside Lounge where we’d started the tour, I clapped my hands together, eager to get us back on track and away from whatever it was that just . . . whatever.
“Well, thanks for the tour, particularly that very eventful ending. Do all the guests get that extra-special ending or . . . ?”
“Just you, Ms. Morgan,” he said, making a show of putting his hand to his ear and listening to the radiator. “Listen to that, purring like a kitten.”
“A kitten who’s carrying around a kettlebell maybe.” I snorted. “It’s still clanking.”
“Patience, some of these systems need a little extra stoking from time to time, but in the end, it’s worth the extra-special attention.”
“Stoke this, I’m going to go get cleaned up. And then, per your father’s request that I enjoy my day up he
re on your mountain, I’m off to do a little sightseeing.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he answered, cleaning the last of the steam and soot from his glasses.
“Where do you think I should start?”
“Massage?”
“Maybe.”
“Too chilly for a swim in the lake.”
“Agreed, I was thinking of going for a hike, any thoughts on which trail I should take?”
“You’re going to hike? In this?” He looked out the picture window at the drizzle that had started up again. It was a bit warmer than yesterday so this time it was rain only, no icy slush. No slippery slopes.
“I won’t melt. Besides, anything more than a day indoors and I start climbing the walls.”
“You could hike around the lake. It’s flat, covered in gravel so it shouldn’t be too muddy. It’s a nice way to see the property, and you get a great view of the hotel.”
“Done,” I said, turning to go.
“Do you have dinner plans?” he asked, so quickly I wondered if he was asking me to— “I mean, do you need me to make a reservation for you in the dining room or will you be dining in your room again?”
“How did you know I dined in my room last night?” I blinked innocently.
He shook his head dismissively. “This is my hotel, Ms. Morgan, do you really think I don’t know everything that’s going on?”
I chose not to answer. “I’ll be in the dining room tonight, I’ve got a date. Two, in fact.”
“Oh. Really.” Statement, not a question.
“Mm-hmm, my friends Roxie and Natalie are coming up for dinner. Any recommendations?”
“Everything is excellent,” he replied, once more that sense of pride creeping over his face.
“Really? So all those TripAdvisor and Yelp reviews I’ve been reading were wrong? I guess we’ll find out since one of my dinner dates is a professional chef, and I’m sure she’ll have lots to say about how excellent everything is.”
The pride was gone, irritation was back, and I decided it was time for me to head out on that hike.
Chapter 6
When I’d booked my original reservation, they’d informed me that while breakfast and lunch were casual, guests dressed for dinner. Men were required to wear a jacket and tie, women were expected to appear in business casual or “resort wear.” Knowing this, I’d packed my suitcase full of fun swingy dresses and kicky heels. For my first official Bryant Mountain House dinner I’d chosen a deep-pink wrap dress that was sprinkled with darling little cherries. Pairing it with red pumps, a liberal application of cherry-red lipstick and a sleeked-back ’do for my blond bob, I looked every inch the retro dynamo. If I did say so myself.
And I did say so myself.
Dressing for dinner, what a lovely and, at times forgotten, concept. Too often my meals consisted of takeout on the couch in front of the TV, which was not going to happen here if Archie had anything to do with it, so I relished the opportunity to dress up a bit. I was excited to see my friends; it’d been a while since all my girls were together, and I was happy to finally be seeing the famous Bryant Mountain House dining room.
I was downstairs promptly at six fifteen and could hear my girls before I could see them. Per usual.
“This is it, I swear, Rox, this is where you and Leo should tie the knot.”
“I don’t know, it’s so formal. I always saw us getting married somewhere a little less showy, something a little more homegrown.”
“A little less showy? You mean than Maxwell Farms, with its enormous mansion and barn made out of marble?”
“The barn is not made out of marble, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Is there or is there not a marble cornerstone that was laid down by the former governor of New York?”
“The president.”
“The president of New York?”
“No, the actual president, like of the country. Apparently he was a friend of Leo’s great-great-great-grandfather.”
“I literally can’t even talk to you anymore, I’m not fancy enough for this conversation. And this is coming from a woman wearing next season’s Louboutins.”
I shook my head in amazement and peeked around the staircase to see both of my friends shrugging out of their coats and scarves and drawing looks from every male over fourteen and under eighty in the vicinity. Roxie was all girl-next-door, with curly brown hair and sparkling eyes that just radiated good health and happiness. Most of the happiness these days came from her smoking-hot boyfriend, Leo Maxwell, the local farmer with the old blue-blood New York family name, whom she’d wrapped around her finger, and then wrapped around his torso, to his absolute delight.
If Roxie was the girl next door then Natalie was the devil across the street, the one you hope your husband never sees when she comes out in her T-shirt in the morning to pick up her newspaper.
Stunningly beautiful, with ivory skin and strawberry-blond hair, she had a head full of Manhattan and a mouth full of Bronx. She was all curves, all the time, and woe to any man who thought he stood a chance before the force of nature that was Natalie. So it made sense that the man who did stand a chance was an equal force of nature—an incredible-looking, football-playing, cow-milking, butter-churning ridiculous hunk, and I mean hunk of man, Oscar Mendoza, the dairy farmer she’d been plowing for months now.
My girls shared the details whenever we were all together, and over the phone when we weren’t, and it seemed obvious that they were convinced that the next plowing that’d be taking place would be in my field.
But wait, speaking of field . . .
“Did I miss something? Are you getting married?” I asked, coming down the last few stairs and interrupting their bicker.
“Girl, get your ass over here,” Natalie shouted, surprising more than a few guests and delighting at least one. “Good goddamn, you look fantastic.”
“Watch your mouth, Grayson,” I shot back, launching myself at them both and letting them hug me tight. Where they were tall, I was tiny, and it was nice to be in our sandwich again. “Seriously, what’s with the wedding talk?”
“She’s engaged,” Natalie said, and I turned to squeal.
“She is not engaged,” Roxie corrected, holding up the still-naked third finger on her left hand, but then switching it out for another finger. “Quit saying that.”
“Why is she saying that?” I asked, confused.
“Ask her where she went last weekend. Go on, ask her,” Natalie instructed. Before I opened my mouth, however, she answered her own question. “She went into the city, my city, without telling me, and looked at motherfucking engagement rings at motherfucking VC&A.”
“VC&A?” I whispered to Roxie.
“Van Cleef & Arpels.” She blushed.
“Who calls it that?” I whispered back.
Natalie finally realized she’d lost her audience and brought us back by pinching us both on our cheeks. “Anyone who has a house account calls it that, which the Maxwell family does, for fuck’s sake.”
“But wait, wait, hold on, let me see your hand,” I said, rolling my eyes at Natalie’s chatter. “I don’t see a ring.”
“That’s because for all this nitwit is going on about, I’m not actually engaged. We merely . . . looked.”
“At giant diamonds,” Natalie interjected.
“Yes, at giant diamonds,” Roxie answered, a bashful smile creeping in. “Which I made him stop looking at, honestly, how does he expect me to cook with an ice cube sitting on top of my finger?”
“Call Leo right now, tell him I’ll take the ice cube. I will take the ice cube!” Natalie made to get out her phone, but I placed a calming hand on her shoulder.
“How about we wait for Oscar to do that, huh? And in the meantime, we’ll eat dinner, sound like a plan?” I asked.
“Yes. Done. Let’s eat,” Natalie said, nodding her head. “But while we eat I’m going to make her draw you a picture on her napkin of what this ring looks like.”
“You
really think they have paper napkins at Bryant Mountain House? This place is all linen, all the time, right, Clara?” Roxie asked, and I smiled.
“Whatever, I’ll find some scratch paper so you can draw that ring. Huge. Huge! And I’m with Oscar, so you know I know huge.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, come on,” I said, tugging the two of them to the dining room.
As we traipsed down the hallway, Roxie was marveling at everything she saw. “I haven’t been up here in ages, not since I was a kid! Mom used to bring me here every year for Easter—they’ve got the most incredible Sunday brunch, after the egg hunt on the front lawn, of course. But what I remember best were the hot cross buns.”
“Hot cross buns, as in, one a penny, two a penny?” Natalie asked.
“Oh, I’m sure these cost more than a penny. These were the best, all puffy and flaky and cinnamony on the inside with the tiniest little currants you’ve ever seen, glossy golden brown on the outside, and this perfect white cross made out of glaze on the top. I used to take them apart piece by piece, bite by bite, to try and figure out which spices other than cinnamon they put in, whether they stirred or folded in the currants, oh, they were the best.”
Natalie and I were used to Roxie waxing poetic about her food; it was clear it’d always been her calling. Once she spent twenty minutes—and I know this because I looked at my watch when the story was over—telling us the history of the carrot and how orange carrots edged all the other colored carrots out of the marketplace and into our hearts forever. And I’d like to tell you I was paraphrasing, but she used that exact wording.
“I like hot cross buns. I like to eat them with my mouth. I don’t really care how they got made.” Natalie never could resist.
“Okay, weirdos, be on your best behavior tonight, please and thank you,” I instructed as we made our way toward the entrance to the dining room. We’d passed by it earlier on the guided tour, but I hadn’t actually been inside yet.
It was gorgeous! As we followed the hostess to our table, my head swiveled like an owl as I took in the soaring ceilings, the artistry that went into the carvings on the walls, the sheer amount of wood that went into the construction of this room. And once more, a fireplace big enough and wide enough to roast a pig.