She had missed Currier's talk. In the windowless, brightly furnished room, he sat in an armchair at the head of the long rosewood table, answering questions from those who had not yet left for the day's recreation. He smiled at Laura as she came in, thinking how lovely she was but wondering at the same time why something always seemed to be missing in her beauty. She stood in the doorway, slender and as poised as a
Judith Michael
dancer in a blue, full-skirted dress; her delicate face was framed by springy chestnut hair, her enonnous dark blue eyes were long-lashed above faintly shadowed cheekbones and a mouth meant for laughter and love—but her beauty was dimmed by the firm line of her lips and the tight control she kept over herself. When occasionally she let a smile of delight or a mischievous laugh break through. Currier caught his breath at the promise she gave of unfettered beauty and a vibrant woman.
"Please join us," he said, and, like a host, indicated the sideboard. "Coffee and croissants. Damton*s has an excellent management that takes care of our every— '*
The lights went out. In the absolute darkness there were mumbled curses and the nistling sound of chairs being shoved back on the carpet. "I think we should stay where we are," Currier said calmly. "Laura, is there a flashlight?"
"I don't think so. But there are candles; we use this sometimes as a private dining room . . ." She felt her way to the closet in the comer, and her hand found a stack of cardboard boxes. Taking one down, she moved along the wall to where she thought Currier sat. "Wes? If you talk to me I can find you."
"A good definition of love," he said good-humoredly. "If we talk to each other we can find each other." He felt her hand brush his shoulder with the sensitive probing of the blind, and reached up to clasp it with his. "And so we have," he added quietly. TTien he raised his voice. "Now if someone has a match ..."
"I would have lit it," came a sarcastic voice.
There was a pause. "Not a match in the room?" someone said incredulously.
"Of course there are matches," Laura said quickly. "I forgot to get them. Wes, please take these ..." Putting the box of candles in his hand, she found her way back to the closet. A minute later she struck a match and saw everyone blink as the flame flared. "If you'll be patient, we'll get the lights on right away." She left the matches with one of the guests and was out of the room and in the corridor before the match burned down to her finger.
But instead of lights, a bellboy brought a flashlight and led
Inheritance
Currier and the others into the blackness of the corridor and up the stairway to the sunlit Great Hall. A few guests were there; most had left for the day. Currier saw Kelly Damton through the open door of her office; she was standing beside her desk, a telephone cradled on her shoulder. "The whole fucking island is out/' she said, then, with a quick glance at the guests in the Great Hall, lowered her voice.
Currier went to her office and pulled the door shut behind him. "Perhaps I can help," he said quietly.
She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. "Thanks; why don't you ask Laura? I've got to deal with the electric company . . . What?" she shouted into the telephone. "Twenty-four hours? Are you out of your mind? There are two hundred people here who paid good money—^"
Currier opened the door to Laura's office and closed it behind him. She, too, cradled a telephone on her shoulder while making notes. "They got you out," she said to Currier with a smile. "Poor man, it must have felt like a dungeon down there. . . . You have a hundred pounds?" she said into the telephone. "Wonderful; if you could bring it right away . . . Of course, if you have more, bring it; how can we have too much dry ice when our refrigerators are off? Oh, one more thing, Bill. Would you stop on your way and buy all the flashlights in the hardware store? Charge them to our account. No, as many as they have; I just heard Kelly say this is going to go on all night, and we don't have a hundred flashlights . . ." She stood up. Currier saw how anxious she was to end the call, but she kept it out of her voice. "One for each guest room. Illumination is one of the amenities that makes Dam-ton's a high-class place." Currier heard Bill laugh and Laura gave a small smile. *Thanks, Bill; you're a good friend."
A lot of men. Currier thought, would go out of their way to hear Laura Fairchild's low, lilting voice say they were her good friend. "What can I do to help?" he asked as she hung up.
"I don't know. I haven't had time to think about assignments."
"What happened? A transformer?"
She nodded. "And for some reason it can't be fixed before tomorrow, which means we have until sundown tonight to get
Judith Michael
ready. John went to get some generators in Burlington, but we can't rent enough for the whole island, so we have some organizing to do."
Currier sat in a chair in a comer of the small room. "Let me know when you have my assignment."
She nodded, already dialing again, this time an in-house call. "Roger, the dry ice is on its way; you'll keep the refrigerators closed until then? . . . Yes, soup and sandwiches would be fine for lunch ... I don't know about dinner; we'll think about that after lunch." They talked some more, then hung up. 'Thank God for gas burners," Laura murmured, then looked at her list and picked up the telephone again.
For two hours. Currier watched her. He sat without moving, and Laura seemed unaware of him. Now and then she gave an absent look in his direction, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Talking to Kelly and other staff members who appeared in her doorway, disappeared and then reappeared, she made telephone calls and wrote pages of notes.
As she finished one of the calls. Clay burst in. "Do you know they're saying in town that we've shut down? I was in the Landing drugstore and somebody said there's no power here and we're closed."
"My God." Laura began to dial another number. "Did you tell them we're open?"
"I told them they're crazy. What's the problem with the power?"
"A transformer went. Tim," she said into the telephone, "it's Laura, at Damton's. Would you do me a favor? Put a note in the airline lounge where our guests get the limousine, saying we're open and ready for everyone who has a reservation. I'm worried about people flying in and then hearing rumors about our being closed. ..." She drew squiggles on the paper before her. "Of course not. Everything is fine, and nobody will feel cheated. We'll always give them plenty for their money."
Currier saw a sudden brightness in her eyes. Curious, he watched her pencil stop its random marks on the paper, and her mouth curve in a faint smile. "I just had an idea," she told Clay as she hung up the telephone. "Do you know how to make a campfire?"
Ml
Inheritance
"How the hell would I know that? I grew up in New York."
Kelly came in and perched on the edge of Laura's desk. Roger planned lobster coquilles for dinner. They require ovens. He has electric ovens which, of course, are stone-cold."
"I have an idea about that," Laura said. "What would you say to eating outside? Campfires and big cast-iron pots—can you boil water that way?—^I wish Vd been a Girl Scout; well, let's assume we can. We'll call it Lobster Primitive. Baked potatoes—in foil?—we really need an expert—cooked in the coals. Roger can make a magnificent salad and ice cream for dessert; we have to eat it; we aren't going to have enough dry ice to keep it— You're shaking your head."
"You've forgotten we're not supposed to be rustic anymore; we've been pushing elegance ever since you suggested it. An Adirondacks lodge with the luxury of a Park Avenue mansion. You do remember saying that?"
"Yes, but I'm rethinking part of it. Kelly, everybody likes to play at being rustic once in a while; even people who wear silks and black tie to dinner. If we make it lavish, I think they'd love it."
"*Think' is an uncertain word. What if they hate it?"
*Then we have a problem. But I'll bet lobster under the stars, with lots of good wine, would be a hell of a lot more fun than the same meal in the dining room."
"I'll bet so, too," Currier said quietly.
Kelly and Laura looked at him. "You really do?" Kelly said.
He nodded. "I'll crack the first claw. 1*11 offer a prize for the most perfectly dissected lobster. I'll help make the fires."
"Do you know how?" Kelly asked.
"No, but I can follow orders."
She stood up and went to the door. "I'll talk to Roger. It may be a good idea. Clay, would you check on the boats?"
As Kelly and Clay left, one of the maids came in. "How do we do the rooms, Laura? We can't vacuum."
*Try a broom," she said absently. She was gazing out the window.
"How do you use a broom on caipetsT*
"The same way you use it on the floor. It really woiks, Beth. Brooms were invented long before vacuum cleaners."
Judith Michael
"Well, I guess I can try. Just don't expect very much ..."
"I have absolute confidence that you'll do a very good job."
She shook her head as the maid left. "I never had a vacuum cleaner until I was at the Cape," she murmured. She went to the door of her office. "Kelly, there's a man named Pickard in number eighteen."
"If you say so," Kelly said. "You remember their names better than I do."
"He's an IBM executive and an actor in his spare time."
"So?"
"How about a ghost story at the campfire? Edgar Allan Poe or Robert Lx)uis Stevenson . . . something wonderfully terrifying."
There was a silence. "That idea I really like. What did you say his name is?"
"Eric Pickard."
"I'll call him."
"He plays golf, but he'll get a message."
"How the hell do you remember all those things?"
"It's a Fairchild talent," she said lightly and came back to her desk. "Do you sing?" she asked Currier, and he realized she had been aware of him all morning.
"I follow a good leader," he replied.
"I'll bet that's the only time you do."
"You'd lose. I follow those who do things superbly. I would follow you."
She flushed. "I don't do things superbly. I improvise when I'm in a tight spot. That's a Fairchild talent, too."
"I'd like to hear about it."
She gave him a long look. "You might. Sometime."
Kelly walked in. "Clay just called; he's putting a hand pump on the gas tanks at the marina, so we don't have to worry about dry-docked boats. They're doing massages by candlelight at the spa; everything else is outdoors, and if you walk around out there you'd thi^ it was an ordinary day; not one sign of trouble. Isn't it amazing how John got out of here right at the start? You'd ahnost think he practices avoiding crises. But you've been wonderful, Laura; I would have been lost without you. Why don't you take off for a while? You look frazzled."
Inheritance
"A boat ride," Currier said, getting to his feet. "Since we don't have to worry about running out of gas."
Laura was about to refuse, then changed her mind. She had been making decisions all morning, with Kelly's encouragement, but now it was time to recognize Kelly's supremacy at Damton's. She owned it; she employed Laura; she had just told Laura to leave for a while. When I have my own hotel, I'll be able to make all the decisions I want.
"And lunch," Currier added. "Would Roger pack something for us?"
"He's probably too busy; I'll do it," Laura said. "Is a couple of hours all right, Kelly?"
"Fine. Take as long as you want."
In the kitchen. Currier watched Laura pack cheese, French baguettes, nectarines, and white wine in a basket. She stood at a comer of the woric area away from the bustle of the large kitchen staff, working as coolly and efficiently as she had in her office. He had no idea what she was thinking or what she had felt during that frantic morning, whether she had been worried or enjoying the challenge or simply absorbed in doing a job. No, he thought, she's got more fire than that. She's very young—she can't be more than twenty-eight or nine—young enough to feel the excitement of knocking down problems and watching people hop to her suggestions.
"How old are you?" he asked as they walked across the broad lawn toward the marina. When she told him, he stopped short. "Twenty-three?"
"You thought I was younger? Older?"
"A little older." He fell silent until they reached the dock, where he and Clay selected a speedboat.
"I'm going to town to pick up the first batch of golfers," Clay told Laura. "Do you need anything?"
"Check with Kelly," she said and waved good-bye as Currier started the engine. The powerful boat leaped forward, trailing a long wake that furled out from the center and then smoothed out, leaving a faint feathery V on the surface that reflected the few puffy clouds in a brilliant sky. Laura thought of the ocean off the Cape, its swells crashing on the shore where she and Owen sat, or hurling themselves toward the dunes where she and Paul walked. She closed her eyes and put back her head to let the wind blow her memories away.
Judith Michael
Cunier steered the boat away from others on the lake. Wheo they were alone, he reduced the power and they shd slowly akng die shore, the forest almost within reach, birds wad wildlife visible among the trees. He glanced at Laura. She was pushing hex hair back with a precise movement of her hamd, as oontroDed as her voice and face, and he was aware again of the cfaaOeage she presented. He had never met ;, man or woman, who could calmly allow a silence to out for many minutes without bursting into nervous to fill it. She was silent now, and he reduced the power fimfaer, caltiiig down the noise so they could talk.
•*Db you ever make an effort to impress someone?" he
She looked surprised. "Of course. ^^at an odd question. I peopk 10 like me and admire me ... it makes it easier forrae to like and admire myself." She smiled, a little embar-lassed. TXm't you do that? I think most people do. Make odiezs a niBiQr, I mean, so that what we look like to ourselves OD how we look to them.*'
he said. "I like that. But I haven't seen any signs tfiatyondotfaaL"
She gave him a level look. "You mean, since I haven't tried to iiiypam. you, and since most people do—certainly most wQoien do—there must be something peculiar about me.**
**Soiiielhiiig urnqne,** he corrected with a laugh, though she had given him a moment of self-consciousness that was almost "But you're right about people trying to impress me their tricks, whatever they are; I didn't realize how much Fve come to expect it."
She saoled £untly. "You saw my tricks this mcMning." yoo did them for the lodge. And to satisfy yourself." Tcflected. "But I need that, too. Don't you? If you depended on other people to tell you how good you are, you wouldn't have enou^ pride in yourself to get past the times are cruel.** He was waidiing her closely. 'T>id it happen recently, that ■neooe was crael to you?"
"^fe an know cniel people.'' She caught a glimpse of a deer from the sound of their boat. "Don't even you their tricks to impress youT*
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Judith Michael
life, describing the university, mimicking her professors as she once had mimicked Jules LeClair for Paul, and talking about her part-time jobs as assistant concierge at the Boston Salinger and companion to an elderiy widower. "And then Clay and I came up here," she told him as they sat in a comer of the Post House in Jay's Landing. It was a small tavem with leather wing chairs, gas mantles hanging from the low, beamed ceiling, and prints of Revolutionary War battles on the walls. On a weekday afternoon in November, they were the only guests. "Kelly and John offered us jobs and it's a wonderful place for me to leam. I've been here a year and I've done everything from filling in as hostess in the dining room to managing the whole place whenever I'm able to convince Kelly to convince John it's all right for them to take a vacation."
Currier was watching her closely. "The elderiy widower— ^* "He was my friend," she said briefly, wondering what had made him pick up on Owen. Something in her voice or her face . . . Suddenly she felt a wave of revulsion at the lying that had become almost a way of life. She was so sick of picking her way through the mine fields of her own lies—and Currier was so sophisticated, she thought; surely he was beyond being shocked or censorious—that she almost told him everything. But the words never came; the habit of secrecy was too strong. "He died and I . . . miss him very much. I worked in his kitchen, too, with a wonderful woman named Rosa"—her voice wavered and quickly she took a sip of wine—^'*and learned how to cook. Do you cook? Somehow I can't imagine you in the kitchen."
"I have six cooks, one for each of my houses, but I make a wicked hamburger. I'll make one for you when you come to New Yoric." "I'd like that."
He gazed at her. "When are you coming to New York?" "Not for a while, but someday, I think. What else do you make besides hamburgers?"
"Martinis. Will you come to New Yoiic with me?" "Not yet," she said easily. "But I promise to eat hamburgers in your kitchen when I do. And I'll make dessert. What would you like?" 'Tarte Tatin."
Inheritance
"I make a wicked tarte Tatin." They smiled together, and he was surprised, during the following week, as he sat in meetings and flew across the country, how often he saw her smile and heard in his memory her promise to come to New Yoric. He was still remembering when he returned to Damton's the next Friday.
Inheritance Page 29
