The Keeper of Happy Endings

by Davis, Barbara

  “To the best fairy godmother any girl could ask for.”

  Soline smiled as she raised her glass, but the gesture seemed like an effort. Rory lowered her glass, suddenly aware that in her excitement she had been inconsiderate. “I’m sorry. You’re tired. We’ll tell her we’re going to get it to go, and I’ll take you home.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’re here. I’ll just go to the ladies’ room and tidy myself up.”

  Rory felt a pang of guilt as she watched Soline disappear into the restaurant. They’d been having such a wonderful day she hadn’t wanted it to end. But she’d forgotten that Soline had forty years on her, and they’d been going hard for nearly six hours.

  “Aurora?”

  Rory’s hand flew reflexively to her freshly cropped hair when she saw Camilla making a beeline in her direction.

  “My god. What have you done to your hair?”

  “I cut it.”

  “Please tell me Lorna didn’t do that to you.”

  “No. Paul.”

  “Who on earth is Paul?”

  “He owns Bella Mia, and I love it, so please don’t criticize.”

  Camilla snapped her mouth closed, confirming that she’d been about to do just that. Instead, she narrowed her eyes on the striped linen suit Rory had opted to wear out of the store. “And the clothes?”

  Rory smiled, determined not to take the bait. “You wanted me to spruce myself up, and I have.” She paused, pointing to the collection of bags at her feet. “I’ve been shopping all day.”

  “So I see. Since when do you go shopping?”

  “Since you called me shabby. You were right, though. It was time for a makeover.”

  “And you picked these things out for yourself?”

  Rory resisted the urge to squirm in her chair. “What are you doing here, Mother?”

  “I’ve just been to Cartier to pick up my watch. I knocked the stem out a few weeks ago, and they called to say it was ready.” Her gaze slid to the table, resting briefly on the second place setting. “And you’re having lunch. Who with?”

  Rory was about to reply when she spotted Soline making her way back to the table.

  Camilla saw her too. “Who is that?”

  “That’s Soline.”

  “That’s who’s been helping you shop?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the hair? That was her idea too?”

  “I wanted something new. Something . . . different.”

  “Well, you certainly found it.”

  Camilla fell silent as Soline approached. The silence spooled out as the two women stood staring at each other. Finally, Rory cleared her throat. “Soline, this is my mother, Camilla Grant. Mother, this is Soline Roussel.”

  “Ah, yes,” Camilla drawled with a sugary smile. “The landlady I’ve been hearing so much about. We meet at last.”

  “Yes,” Soline replied with a polite nod. “At last.”

  “Isn’t it funny? I was running some errands and just happened to be walking past. I remember they used to do the most delicious lobster salad here. In fact, Rory and I were just talking about it the other day, weren’t we? And now here you both are having lunch.”

  Soline indicated the empty chair beside her. “You’re welcome to join us.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I hate to push in.” But even as the words were leaving her mouth, she was pulling out the empty chair. “Still, I can’t pass up a chance to lunch with the infamous Soline Roussel.”

  Soline’s brows slid up. “Surely not infamous.”

  Camilla’s charm bracelet jangled as she shook out her napkin and laid it in her lap. “I only meant that my daughter has told me so much about you. And your shop. Such a pity about the fire.”

  Soline reached for her water glass, clearly rattled by the mention of the fire. “She’s told me about you too,” she said after a brief sip. “In fact, she speaks of you quite often.”

  Camilla held Soline’s gaze a moment longer than necessary. “Does she?”

  Rory’s stomach roiled as she watched them spar, painfully aware of what was being said—and what wasn’t. She needed to divert the conversation before her mother’s tone escalated from passive-aggressive to just plain aggressive.

  She was about to blurt out that she’d settled on the light fixtures for the gallery when their waitress appeared, balancing a tray on her shoulder. She blinked at Camilla, then at Rory. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were expecting a third. Let me just set this down and I’ll grab a menu and some silverware.”

  Camilla waved a perfectly manicured hand. “No need. Just bring me a nice chardonnay and a plate of that lovely lobster salad if you still have it. Oh, and the dressing on the side if you don’t mind.” She ran an eye around the table when the waitress was gone, surveying the freshly delivered food. “Doesn’t that look delicious. And you’re sharing. How nice. Please, don’t wait for me. I’m sure my salad won’t take long.”

  Rory silently fumed as her mother took a piece of bread from the basket, then reached over to borrow her knife to butter it. She was being punished, she realized, for her disloyalty. As Camilla had punished her husband each time one of his affairs came to light and embarrassed her in front of her friends.

  “Aurora tells me you’ve been helping her shop,” Camilla said between bites of bread. “It’s awfully kind of you, though I must say, I was surprised to hear it. My daughter has never been one for fashion. Not that I didn’t try. But she was such a tomboy growing up. Always up a tree or kicking a ball around. I couldn’t keep the child clean.”

  “The child is all grown up now,” Rory muttered. “And sitting right next to you, in case you forgot.”

  Camilla didn’t miss a beat, addressing Soline as if Rory hadn’t spoken. “The hair is . . . interesting. Was it your idea?”

  “Rory thought that with the opening coming, it might be time for a new look.”

  “Well then, she succeeded beautifully. I raised her, and I nearly walked right past her. Can you imagine?” She turned to look at Rory then, holding her gaze for an uncomfortable beat. “It’s rather disconcerting to not recognize your own daughter.”

  Rory stared back, startled by the brief flash of pain in her mother’s eyes. Not anger. Not jealousy. Pain. And she’d put it there. She’d been so caught up in the magic of the afternoon that she hadn’t given a thought to how her mother would feel about being cast aside for Soline—again. Soline had warned her that this might happen. And now here they were, face-to-face, looking petulant and uncomfortable.

  “The haircut was my idea, Mother. I asked—”

  Camilla turned back to Soline, cutting Rory off midsentence. “I couldn’t help noticing, you call my daughter Rory.”

  “It’s what she calls herself.”

  “Her father and I always preferred Aurora.”

  “Yes, she told me. Is it a family name?”

  “No. Just one we liked. We never cared for the shortened version. It’s so boyish, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .” Soline cocked her head, studying Rory with a little smile. “It’s young and fresh. I think it suits her. ”

  It was all Rory could do not to bark out a laugh. Soline was apparently quite capable of holding her own. “Actually,” she said, sliding a slice of flatbread onto her plate, “it was my father who started calling me Rory. He wanted a boy but got me instead.” She paused for a dramatic sigh. “My poor parents. I couldn’t seem to please either one of them.”

  Camilla tossed her head with a little laugh. “Really, Aurora. What a thing to say.”

  Rory swallowed her response as the waitress appeared with Camilla’s order and place setting, and for a few minutes the table went quiet. Camilla picked up her fork, poking suspiciously at the scoop of lobster meat on her plate. Rory eyed her warily while she nibbled her flatbread, grateful for the cessation of hostilities, if only temporarily.

  Soline was extricating bits of red onion from her salad and relegating them to the
edge of her plate. When the silence began to grow stale, she turned to Camilla. “Rory tells me you’re president of the Women’s Art Council, Mrs. Grant. It must make you proud to see her dreams for the gallery taking shape.”

  “Well, yes,” Camilla said, clearly annoyed by the question. “Of course I’m proud. Aurora was brought up with art. So was I. It’s in her blood. I had hoped that she would finish her degree and then go on to Paris to complete her internship, but she’s young and there’ll be time later.”

  “She means there’ll be time after I fail,” Rory threw in caustically. Because that’s what Camilla always meant. Sooner or later, she’d muck things up and realize she was in over her head, forcing her back to a more prudent path. Prudent was her mother’s favorite word. Mustn’t stray outside the lines. Mustn’t be messy. And above all, mustn’t be an embarrassment.

  Camilla sighed, offering one of her long-suffering looks. “I did not say that. But we have talked about this, Aurora. There’s no future in the kinds of things you’re talking about. Tomato soup cans and inflatable balloon rabbits. They’re fads—here today and gone tomorrow.” She paused, dabbing daintily at her mouth. “Art is about the preservation of culture, the expression of beauty, not shocking the public. That’s why the masters are still the masters. And why fifty years from now, no one will remember Andy Warhol’s name. Because real art endures. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Roussel?”

  Rory smothered a groan. “Please don’t drag Soline into our argument, Mother.”

  “No one’s arguing, sweetheart. We’re just having a conversation. And the French do know a thing or two about art. They gave us Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cézanne, to name a few.”

  “And there you have it,” Rory said, aiming her reply at Soline. “If it isn’t a Renoir or a Monet or some other thing painted by a dusty old man, it isn’t real art.”

  “Go ahead,” Camilla replied curtly. “Make fun. But I happen to know a little something about the subject, Aurora. The art world has a way of culling those who stray too far from good taste.”

  “And who decides what constitutes good taste? You?”

  “The experts decide. Historians. Collectors. Critics. Their opinions can make or break an artist—or a gallery owner.”

  Soline had been silent for some time, pushing her food around her plate. She put down her fork very carefully and looked at Camilla. “During the war, the Nazis labeled art they didn’t like as degenerate. They decided. They claimed it had to do with unsuitable subject matter, but we all knew better. The boche cared nothing about decency. It was to do with the artists themselves: who they loved, what they believed . . . what their last names were.”

  She paused, closing her eyes briefly. “Artists were arrested and questioned. Some—Jews, mostly—were even killed. One night, they built a bonfire in the gardens of the Galerie Nationale, burning entire collections to ash. Picasso. Dalí. Miró. All lost. Works by your Renoir and Monet survived because they were snapped up—stolen—by Nazi officers, while the rest burned. Because they were the ones to decide.”

  Camilla’s cheeks had gone a mottled shade of pink, as if they’d just been slapped. “Are you comparing me to the Nazis, Ms. Roussel?”

  “I’m merely pointing out that letting one group decide what is and isn’t worthy can have terrible consequences. Art, like all things, should be left to the beholder, n’est-ce pas?”

  Camilla squared her shoulders, like a bird fluffing its plumage to appear more threatening. “It’s a lovely sentiment, Miss Roussel, but I think it wise to stay in one’s own lane, particularly here in Boston, where the lanes tend to be narrow. We may look like a great big city, but underneath it all we’re frightfully conventional, and tend to distrust anything flashy or foreign.”

  Rory stared at Camilla in horror. She’d seen her mother take people down before, coolly and surgically and without batting an eye, but on those occasions it had been deserved. This was something else entirely. The dismissive tone and thinly veiled antagonism, the stilted body language that only served to amplify her disdain. And the look on Soline’s face, ashen and dazed, as if she’d just been ambushed. She needed to step in, say something to deflect her mother’s hostility, but what? Defending Soline would only make things worse.

  She was almost relieved when Soline grabbed her handbag and pushed back from the table. “I just remembered, I left my lipstick in the ladies’ room. Please excuse me.”

  Rory waited until she was sure Soline was out of earshot before rounding on Camilla. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Camilla stared at her with wide eyes. “Doing?”

  “Don’t give me that look. You know perfectly well what I mean. You were angry with me, and you took it out on Soline. Didn’t you see her face? You hurt her feelings.”

  Camilla blinked at her stonily. “I hurt her feelings.”

  “Yes. And you . . .” Rory went still, her words falling away as she caught sight of Soline, heading not for the ladies’ room but for the patio exit. “Damn it.” She shot to her feet, nearly toppling her chair. “Soline! Wait!”

  Soline gave no indication that she’d heard. Rory scrambled after her, winding through the maze of tables and out onto the sidewalk. She’d gone half a block when she finally spotted her at the curb, ducking into a bright-yellow taxi.

  Fuming, Rory returned to the restaurant to find Camilla calmly sipping her wine. “I suppose you’re pleased with yourself.”

  Camilla managed to look stunned. “What did I do? We were having a conversation, and the next thing I know she’s off in a huff, without so much as a good afternoon. It’s downright rude, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s rude. Horning in on a lunch you weren’t invited to. Referring to Soline—my friend—as the landlady. The nonsense about staying in her lane and then slipping in the word foreign, as if she wasn’t supposed to know exactly what you meant? Why?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Aurora, lower your voice. Why must you always be so dramatic?”

  “I’ll be as dramatic as I like. It’s my table. And you’ve got a lot of nerve calling me dramatic after the show you just put on. You hate my hair. I get it. But it was my decision, not Soline’s.”

  Camilla drained her glass, then set it down very carefully. “You think that’s why I’m upset? Because you cut your hair?”

  Rory blew out a breath, both annoyed and stung by her mother’s petulance. She knew it wasn’t her hair, but she was too angry to concede the point.

  Camilla removed her napkin from her lap, folding it with great care before laying it aside. “I asked you to let me do this for you, Aurora, to go shopping and get your hair done, but you said you were too busy. You’re always too busy.”

  “Because I am. The gallery—”

  “You weren’t too busy for her. I suppose you already had this little outing planned when I called.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I see. You liked the idea; you just didn’t want to go with me.”

  “That isn’t it.”

  “Then what is it? Explain it to me.”

  “I just didn’t want a big ordeal, and it would have been, because it always is. You hating everything I pick out and me eventually giving in because I’m tired of arguing. I wanted to do it myself, to just pick something out and be done with it, but I’m clueless when it comes to clothes, so I asked Soline for some tips. She took one look at my closet and decided she’d better go with me.”

  “Did she?” Camilla reached for her handbag, fishing about blindly until she located a lipstick. After a quick touch-up, she snapped the tube closed and dropped it back into her bag. “How very kind of her.”

  “It was kind,” Rory shot back. “Because that’s who she is. A kind woman who wanted to help me. Why does she make you so crazy?”

  “She doesn’t make me crazy. I just don’t understand your fascination with her. An old woman, and a recluse to boot. And those silly gloves, as if she’s just come from a wedding or a parade.
And now you’re taking fashion advice from her, because once upon a time she used to make wedding dresses. It’s odd, that’s all.”

  Rory stared at her. “When did you turn into this person?”

  “What person?”

  “Never mind. We’ve been over this. Soline is my friend, and today you purposely made her uncomfortable. She may not be Boston blue blood, but she doesn’t deserve your disdain. She’s been through a lot.”

  “We’ve all been through a lot, Aurora. Life is a lot. But we get on with it if we don’t want to become an object of pity.”

  “An object of pity,” Rory repeated, bristling. “Soline losing everything makes her pitiful. Is that what you think of me too? Because Hux is missing and I refuse to just get on with it?”

  “I never said—”

  “Yes, you did. Maybe not in so many words, but it’s what you’ve always meant. You have a spine of steel, Mother, and you’re terribly proud of it. But a mother is supposed to have a heart, and I sometimes wonder if you do.”

  Rory gathered her shopping bags and her purse, then reached into her wallet and counted out several bills. There was nothing left to say, nothing that would ever make her understand. “That should cover the check.”

  “Aurora, sit down. We’re not finished.”

  “Yes, we are. In fact, I’ll save you a call. I won’t be there for brunch tomorrow. After twenty-three years, I think it’s time we admit we just don’t like each other very much.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  SOLINE

  There are times for holding on in this life and times for letting go. You must learn to know the difference.

  —Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

  My hands are still shaking as I pour a large glass of wine. I should have come straight home after Bella Mia rather than going to lunch. Not that what happened at Seasons was Rory’s fault. Her mother turning up was an unwelcome surprise for us both.

  The instant our eyes caught, the ripple of . . . what was it? Wariness? Distaste? Yes, both of those, but something else too. To her, I’m a rival, her daughter a prize to be won or lost. I’ve been encroaching on her territory, and she wants me to know that she isn’t going to stand for it.