I was good at it. That was a surprise. I liked it. A little. Enough to let it fill my days, to soothe the relative frustration at somehow not being able to do what I really wanted. I thought if I put enough of myself into this house it would start to feel like a home.
But I knew the truth: I was just redecorating my very gilded cage.
The front doorbell rang, and the sound was so surprising I started like I’d done something wrong. The senator was in his study on the other side of the house, so it wasn’t him coming home. There wasn’t an event, so it couldn’t be hair and makeup. And no one ever visited me.
Anne the housekeeper came down the hallway, glancing at me, and we shared a quick look of surprise. Which was frankly more than we’d shared in the six months she’d been working here.
Look at us, bonding.
I kept myself in the chair, trying not to get my hopes up. Because I would love to have someone visit. To take my mind off Zilla, to alleviate just a little of my crushing boredom.
But it was probably some guy selling vacuums. People still do that, don’t they?
Though probably not in Bishop’s Landing.
I heard a familiar voice and jumped up out of my chair, rushing out into the hallway to see Caroline Constantine standing in the open doorway. She wore cream. Cream pants, heels, a blush shell, and a cashmere wrap. The trees were all changing colors, and she was lit up by a bright red maple behind her in my front yard. She was so beautiful she took my breath away.
Anne walked past me back towards the kitchen, leaving me alone with Caroline.
“Caroline?” It was shocking. A delight. And also so strange it felt like a dream. “Did I miss a lunch date?”
“You didn’t miss anything, darling,” Caroline said and then wrapped me in her arms, and I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but I just folded right into that hug. I just collapsed into it. Caroline smelled like lavender body powder and Chanel No 5. She’d been my mother’s best friend growing up, and hugging her felt like getting hugged by my mother.
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked, suddenly aware of what I looked like. I didn’t wear makeup unless I was leaving the house, and my blonde hair was going red at the roots because I’d cancelled the last trip to the salon. I was in yoga pants and a long-sleeved sweatshirt that was damp down the back from trying to build a shower outside by the pool.
My latest project.
“I was supposed to be meeting Jim, but I realized one of my employees could handle it so I thought I would visit you instead,” Caroline said. “Unless you’re busy?”
“No. Not at all.” I laughed. “Have a seat, and Anna can get us some tea.”
Caroline, whose hair was that perfect three-step process blonde/silver/grey that made her look young and chic and somehow like she just rolled out of bed and off the beach at the same time, shook her head. “Darling, let’s just go to the kitchen and have tea there. Don’t bother Anna.”
I remembered all those afternoons at Caroline’s after Mom died when Zilla was just starting to fall apart. Barrels of strong tea with sugar and milk as she helped me figure out my life. As she saved me, really.
“Absolutely,” I said, and I tucked my arm in hers, about to lead her to the kitchen when I realized there was a man still standing in the doorway. A dark suit against that blood-red tree. It took a second for him to register but when he did, I couldn’t swallow my gasp.
The stranger. From my engagement party.
Right there in my doorway. His face had healed, and he looked . . . breathtaking.
I was suddenly lightheaded.
“Hi!” I said so inanely.
“This is Ronan,” Caroline said, gesturing back to Ronan who was still in the doorway.
I opened my mouth to say we met, but Ronan was looking at me blankly, like he’d never seen me before.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, shoving down my inappropriate delight.
“And you,” he said. His accent rolled down my hallway and right through my body.
“I can show you where my husband’s office is,” I volunteered thinking of the few minutes it would take to walk down that wood-paneled hallway to his office.
“Don’t be silly, Poppy,” Caroline said. “Let Anna do it.”
“Of course,” I said. It was outrageous to be jealous of my housekeeper.
But I was.
Outside of our driver, Theo, Ronan was literally the last man I was ever alone with. All of my doctors’ appointments, Jim was right there at my side. The doting husband, making sure our stories matched up.
The senator had been having meetings in his office at home more and more lately. Guests usually came in through the side entrance. His secretary signing people in and out.
It was nice that Caroline came through the front door to say hello.
“Follow me,” Anna said to Ronan, having arrived as if summoned. Anna spent a lot of time waiting just around corners, always within earshot. Jim had said it was the sign of an excellent servant. I thought perhaps it was the sign of an excellent spy.
Of course, I did not say that out loud.
Ronan walked past us in the hallway, and I did not imagine the smell of smoke that wafted off him, and without thinking about it, I practically pasted myself to the wainscoting so there was no chance that his body might touch mine. Things were very precarious in my life, and I had the stupid sense that if he touched me, accidentally brushed his hand across mine, parts of my life would just crumble.
At the doorway, he turned and looked at us over his shoulder. I expected a smile. That man I met at my engagement party, he’d been the type to look over his shoulder and smile at a girl.
But there was no smile, and beside me Caroline gave him a sharp nod and he left.
Maybe he didn’t remember me. That was possible. I was forgettable. My husband had forgotten me plenty over the last two years. I’d forgotten myself.
There was no reason that it should hurt that the stranger had forgotten me.
Ronan.
“Come, darling,” Caroline said, putting her arm through mine. “Show me this big kitchen reno you’ve been working on.”
I led my old friend through the hallway to the back of the house where the kitchen looked out over the pool and the pool house that I’d converted to a gym and yoga studio that I didn’t use. But wanted to. The kitchen was filled with bright light and trying to look at it critically through Caroline’s eyes, it was still a beautiful room. Marble countertops and gold fixtures. Built in dishwashers and two ovens. Beautiful old chandeliers over the long island with the gold stools. It was pretty. It felt like a room a person would want to spend time in. A room that could make a home. So, why didn’t it? I wondered. Why didn’t it feel like my home?
That thought crept into my head far too often. Filled me with a kind of panic that didn’t do me any good. Feeling nothing was the only thing that made my life bearable.
I put the kettle on and pulled out the tea service Caroline had given me as a wedding gift.
“The house looks amazing, darling,” she said, taking off her wrap and putting it over the edge of the island and pulling up a stool. She was a beautiful woman. Ageless and elegant. Inspiring really. The head of the Constantine family and the Chairwoman of the Board.
An absolute queen.
“Thank you. It’s been a labor of love.”