"Her taste was certainly… wide-ranging," I said.
"Her records are even more erratic than her taste," he replied with a grimace. "Of course, Mother was no spring chicken when she had me, and I think she was losing it mentally these last few years. I'm going to be forced to declare bankruptcy."
"Oh, no."
"But I want to hear about you and your mother, Katie. Is she here with you? How long will you be in Wisteria?"
"Well, actually—"
A loud jingle of the bel s on the door interrupted us. "Shop's closed," Joseph called out, then turned back to me. "You were saying—"
"It can't be closed." A guy about my age had rushed into the store. "I got here as soon as I could." He looked at me as if I might plead his case for him.
"I've got to get a birthday present."
"Shop's closed," Joseph repeated.
"But I know what I want. It's right over there." He strode toward a glass case. "The bracelet with the blue stones."
"The lapis lazuli?" Joseph asked quietly. "It's three hundred dollars."
I think Joseph assumed the high price would immediately get rid of the shopper, but he miscalculated.
The guy cocked his head, as if he hadn't heard right, then bent over the case to get a closer look. "You've got to be kidding. It's not even sapphires."
"And this isn't Wal-Mart."
The guy straightened up. "Okay, okay," he said, rubbing his hands, then glancing at his watch.
I got the feeling he had a very short deadline.
"Let's see." He ran one hand through curly black hair. He was athletically built, a few inches taller than I, and very good-looking—if he would just stand still for a second. The room didn't seem big enough to contain his energy. I wanted to send him outside for a run.
"There must be something else here." He moved down the long jewelry case, playing it like a piano.
Joseph sighed. "Please don't put your fingerprints all over the glass."
"There, that plain silver one. You put tags on your cheaper stuff. Fifty dollars, I can swing it. Wait a minute, I like that one too. Forty-five."
He spun around, turning to Joseph, then me. I was glad there wasn't a shelf of glassware anywhere near him. "You're a woman—sort of," he said.
I frowned at him.
"I mean, a girl. A female. Could you help me out? I hate choosing this kind of stuff."
He had great eyes, eyes like the shiny black stones I collected from my favorite beach on the Channel. That's the only explanation I can offer for helping this last-minute lover in his gift selection.
"Which bracelet do you like best?" he asked. "That silver one, or the gold one with the green paint."
"Green enamel," Joseph corrected him.
I leaned over the case, studying them. "The green and gold."
"But all of her earrings are silver," the guy protested.
"Then why did you ask me?" I replied, exasperated.
He lifted his hands, then dropped them heavily on the glass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joseph wince. The guy had strong hands, square hands, totally un artistic hands. Was it crazy to be attracted to a guy's hands?
I like the enamel one too," he admitted. "But since she likes silver, I was hoping you'd choose that and make it an easy choice."
"Both bracelets are pretty. It's just that I like to wear green."
His fingers stopped drumming the case, his hands finally becoming still. I looked up and found him gazing at my hair. He met my eyes, then perused my face—just stared at me, making no effort to pretend he wasn't.
"I see," he said. "Because of your eyes. Your eyes are grass green."
Grass green?
"What I mean is pale, bright green—"
Joseph shook his head.
"See-through green, like—like the plastic of a Sprite bottle."
He seemed pleased with the accuracy of that last description. I hoped he wasn't going to compose his own gift card.
"I'll take the silver bracelet," the guy said, turning to Joseph, pull ing out his money. "I'm kind of in a hurry."
Joseph must have realized that a sale was the quickest way to get rid of this guy. Moving behind the counter, he took the customer's money. The guy pocketed the bracelet, leaving without a box or bag.
"You were saying," Joseph prompted me, as the bel s on the door jingled and fel silent.
"I'll be here for a while. I took a temporary job."
"Wonderful. Where?"
"Mason's Choice."
He looked at me surprised.
"Do you remember Mrs. Hopewell?" I asked.
"Despite my best efforts to forget her."
"She's still there."
Joseph sat down heavily on a shop stool. "Why did you go back, Katie?"
The tone of his voice made me uneasy. "Why not?"
He thought before he spoke. "Your family didn't leave under the best of circumstances. What does your mother think of this?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her for twelve years."
His brown eyes grew wider for a moment.
"Victoria left us when we got to England."
He stroked his beard with long fingers—the only part of him that had remained thin. He had been a musician, I remembered. Poor man, studying music, having to listen to Ashley and me banging on the schoolroom piano.
"I had no idea, no idea at all. Do you know why your mother left?" he asked.
I shook my head.
"What did your father tell you about the Westbrooks?"
"He wouldn't talk about them. All I know is what I remember from when I was five. For instance, Mrs. Caulfield, Ashley's aunt, couldn't stand Ashley and got along better with horses than people."
"still does. I heard Robyn just came back from the Florida horse-show circuit."
"Mr. Trent," I said, using the name for him that I had used as a child, "was very serious."
"Yes. He runs the business for Adrian."
"What is their business?"
"Furniture and art. They began with a handful of local auction houses, like Crossroads, the one here on the Eastern Shore. In the last two decades they've been doing a lot of importing. Have you seen Adrian? I heard he's getting cancer treatments and they haven't been successful."
"They haven't?" I wondered what the Westbrooks had told Patrick. "He's coming home Friday."
Joseph pressed his hands together and rested his mouth against his fingertips, thinking. "Which means the vultures will be gathering. You'll have to deal with all of them, Katie." He reached for a store receipt and scribbled down a number. "This is the phone at my mother's house. The number printed on the top is the store's. I'll be in Wisteria for the next few weeks. Call me if you need anything."
"I'll be all right," I said, smiling. "You know, I've spent a lot of time in other people's households. I've seen it all."
"I'm sure, but why don't you check in with me now and then."
"I don't check in with anyone," I said, then added quickly, "What I mean is that I'm used to being on my own. When Dad was alive, he checked in with me."
Joseph shook his head. "The Westbrooks are not nice people, Katie. You can't trust them."
"Don't worry," I replied. I haven't trusted anyone in a very long time."
The next afternoon the Westbrooks' groundskeeper, who introduced himself as Roger Hale, picked me up from the Strawberry, then drove to Patrick's private school, which was at the far end of High Street, backing up to Wist Creek.
No street in Wisteria was far from a piece of shoreline. The town, a parcel of land jutting into the mouth of the Sycamore River, was surrounded on three sides by water, the river and two wide creeks named Oyster and Wist. The next point of land outside of town and moving in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay was the Scarborough Estate, and the point after that was Mason's Choice, where the river flowed into the bay.
"Do you think you can find your way?" Roger asked me, when he had driven from the school to the estate. He parked in
a multi-car garage that was to one side of the house. From now on it would be my job to transport Patrick to and from in a staff car.
"Yes, thanks." It wasn't the route I was concerned about, but trying to drive on the right side of the road, which was opposite from the way I had learned in England. It's just a matter of concentration, I told myself, and decided not to bring up the matter.
"I'll leave a map in the car," Roger said, as he pulled my bags from the back of it, "and one on your bureau when I take your luggage to your room. You get on to the house now—Mrs. Westbrook is always anxious to see Patrick."
Patrick had chattered cheerfully in the car, but as he and I approached the house, he grew quiet. He turned his head suddenly, looking at the tall windows to the left of the main entrance. Someone gazed out from the library, but the weather had cleared and the bright reflections on the glass made it difficult to see who.
"I always go in through the kitchen," Patrick said.
"Sorry, but your mother told me to bring you in the front."
He hung back.
"Come on, Patrick. She wants to see you straightaway."
He stood rooted in the grass. If we hadn't just met, I would have worried that he had learned that ugly, defiant look from me.
"All right," I said. "I'll go in. When you're ready to join me, knock on the door. But I'll answer only the front entrance."
"Our. doors aren't locked in the daytime," he informed me.
I continued walking. You re mean.
"But I was being so much nicer than usual," I replied.
He stared at me and I winked. "Come on, the sooner you see your mother, the sooner we can go outside and play."
When he and I entered the main hall, his mother emerged from the library.
"Darling, how was school?"
"Okay." He edged away from the library door.
She held out her arms. "Are you forgetting something? Patrick!" She sounded hurt.
He dutifully went back and kissed her.
"Trent has just arrived from Philadelphia. Come say hello to him and Robyn. You as well, Kate."
Through the door I could see Robyn pacing back and forth, pressing a cell phone to her ear. Years in the sun had aged her skin. The vertical creases between her eyebrows had deepened noticeably, and her black hair had streaks of silver. She still had the bone structure of a beautiful woman, but Ashley's suggestion that she was the bad queen in Snow White didn't seem that farfetched. As Patrick and I entered, she glanced at me, then turned her back.
Trent was sitting at a desk, dressed in a business suit, reading some kind of document. He was still slender, with thin, almost colorless hair. He had adored Ashley but had been hopeless at playing. She and I had had a much better time with my father, who, though I hadn't realized it then, had the imagination and heart of a child.
"Trent," Emily said, "here's Patrick, and his new tutor, Kate Venerelli."
Trent's blue eyes looked up over his reading glasses. He rose from his seat. "Good God!"
I had thought Mrs. Hopewell and Robyn would have warned Trent about me, but the small, satisfied curve of Robyn's lips suggested they hadn't. The little color Trent had in his cheeks disappeared completely.
"You're a double for your mother."
Patrick gazed up at me. "You have a mother?"
"Everyone has one at birth," I replied.
"How old are you now?" Trent asked me.
"Seventeen."
I could see him doing the mental calculation. Ashley would be nineteen. As children, both of us had strongly resembled our mothers. What would Ashley have looked like now—another Corinne, his wife when he first met her?
"I was sorry to learn about your father's death," he said.
I nodded, but Trent didn't see it, sitting down again, his eyes returning to the paper he'd been reading before he had even finished his sentence.
"Here's Patrick," Emily said, sounding a little peeved that her son had not been acknowledged by Trent.
"Hello, Patrick," Trent responded, without looking up. When Patrick didn't reply, Trent added crisply, "Children speak when spoken to."
And when looked at, I thought.
"Hi," Patrick said, his lips barely parting. He had learned from his half brother how to greet a person coldly.
"So when will your charming son arrive, Robyn?" Trent asked.
"By now, I thought." She returned the cell phone to her pocket. "I'm worried."
"You don't think he stopped by a few parties on the way up from Beach Ball University, do you?"
"No, Uncle Trent, I did not," replied a deep voice, "because I knew how delighted you would be to see me."
"Brook,' his mother greeted him with relief. He kissed her, his lips barely brushing her cheek.
Ashley's cousin and "best enemy" had inherited the Westbrook look, a handsome, large-featured face, dark hair, and blue eyes.
I can't tell you how happy I was to leave sunny Florida and come back to this cold, damp place," Brook said sarcastically. "Exactly when is dear Grandfather coming home?"
"Tomorrow, Brook, and I'm counting on you," his mother responded with a meaning-filled look.
"As always," he replied casually, and sprawled in a chair, one foot up on the low table in front of him. His skin was deeply tanned. "And who are you?" he asked, eyeing me.
"Kate."
"Kate Venerelli," his mother said.
Brook blinked. I could see the change in his eyes. "Katie!" he exclaimed softly, sitting up straight. His eyes traveled down and up me in a way that made me squirm inside, which wasn't much different from the way I reacted to him when I was five. I had steered clear of a boy who played hard enough to hurt, kicked nests of wild kittens, and threw rocks at a pet when he thought no one was looking.
"Kate is Patrick's tutor," Emily said.
Brook glanced at Patrick. "Hey, little jerk." There was no fondness in his greeting.
Patrick simply stared at him, which made Brook laugh.
"You know, Patrick, I always thought you were stupid. But maybe you're not as dumb as I figured—maybe you've been faking it so you could get a pretty tutor."
Emily took a step toward Brook.
"Just teasing," he added quickly, unconvincingly. His gaze skipped around the room. "Something's missing," he said. "Ah! The old dragon."
Trent immediately turned toward the fireplace mantell behind him.
"I guess she's in the kitchen chewing out Cook," Brook added, pleased with his little joke, which apparently referred to Mrs. Hopewell.
"Where is the Chinese dragon?" Trent asked, still surveying the mantel.
"Robyn took it," Emily replied, like a child happy to tattle. "She claims your father promised it to her."
"You are truly amazing, Robyn," Trent said to his sister. "One day I'm going to come home and find the main house stripped. But I'll know where to find everything—in your wing."
"Not if I sell it first," Robyn retorted. "Besides, Daddy did say he would give it to me."
Trent rose, lifted a small bronze from the mantell and carefully turned it in his hands, as if appraising it, then placed the figure in his open briefcase.
"Guess what? Dad promised this sculpture to me."
Brook threw back his head and laughed. Emily got the same tight-lipped look as I had seen on Patrick's face. I had been right about her: She was intimidated enough by her husband's children not to insist that these things still belonged to Adrian.
"So Grandfather is on his last legs," Brook said. "That's hard to imagine."
"I find your lack of respect appalling," Emily said to Brook, apparently not cowed by a college student.
"Oh come now, Emily, why else would you have married an old man?" Robyn challenged her.
"It's called love, Robyn, but I doubt that word is in your vocabulary."
"You are wrong! I have loved him all my life," Robyn replied, with such intensity that her voice sounded strange. I have loved him, lived with him, and taken care of him
longer than you have."
"The prognosis is less than a year," Trent told Brook.
Joseph was right, I thought. Adrian was dying and the vultures were gathering, each one afraid that the next person would get a larger slice of the inheritance. What a lovely group for a child to grow up around!
"I'm taking Patrick outside," I said.
He bolted for the door, and I followed.
"Play clothes," his mother called after us. "Put on his play clothes, Kate."
I didn't know a little boy could peel and dress so quickly. He ended up with his mittens on the wrong hands, which we fixed when we got outside. We walked silently for a few moments. I let him lead the way and guessed that we were going to the pond.
"What does it mean, 'on his last legs'?" Patrick asked me when we were a distance from the house.
I hesitated, then lied. "I'm not sure. It must be an American expression. Sometime when you and your mother are alone, ask her."
We walked beyond the formal gardens and through a bare orchard that ended at paddocks and a horse barn. As a child I had thought I was luckier than Ashley because my parents and I lived in one of the employee cottages, which was near the horse bam and, better yet, an empty cow barn with lofts and ladders, where Ashley and I had liked to play. Between the horse and cow barns was Ashley's favorite place, the pond.
Surrounded by a thick ring of trees, mostly cedar and pine, it was reached by a narrow path. Round, about half the size of a soccer field, the pond looked as it had twelve years before, but the collar of vegetation had tightened around it, the circle of evergreens growing inward, encroaching on its edge, casting long shadows on its half-frozen surface. Dying things and living things mixed together here. A rush of feelings came back to me with the distinctive smell—a smell that was both fresh green and thick with decay. Alone with Ashley, knowing no one could see us, I had found the pond a frightening place. Ashley could think of a hundred forbidden things to do.
"Want to play hockey?" Patrick asked.
"Here?" After what had happened to Ashley, surely someone had taught him.
"We can pretend we're on skates and use branches for hockey sticks."
"Patrick, the ice is too soft! When it's dark and slushy, you can't skate. It will never hold your weight."