Blessing in Disguise (11 page)

Still, what would be the harm in merely asking him to supper? She could use the company. It was as simple as that.

“Gabe, I ...” she started to say, but something made her change her mind—maybe it was the unsuspecting look on his face. “Shall we get to those herbs before it gets dark?”

Walking around the house toward the kitchen garden in back, Gabe pointed out where the paint was flaking off one of the dormers. “I’ll get up on a ladder and give it a lick with the paintbrush,” he offered, though, strictly speaking, his job didn’t extend to house repairs.

“Oh, this old place is practically falling down around my ears,” Cordelia sighed. “Sometimes I think the best thing would be just to sell it. Even the new dishwasher—Netta’s been complaining that it makes the most unearthly clattering noise.”

She looked up, taking in the two-story Victorian with its gables and turret and white-columned porch. The truth was, for all her complaining, the old place, even with its miles of trim and fussy gingerbread forever in need of paint, was more solid that those spanking-new Mulberry Acres townhouses Sissy had dragged her over to look at the other day, their walls so thin you could hear someone sneeze on the other side.

“I could take a look at that dishwasher for you, if you’d like,” Gabe offered.

“Really, Gabe, you’re far too kind. ...” She paused, thinking,
Don’t be a fool, it’d be the perfect excuse to ask him to stay for supper.
But what about after that?

Rushing ahead before she could change her mind, she finished, “... but I wouldn’t dream of it. Really, I can have that nice Mr. Crockett look at it, and it won’t cost me a cent. It’s still under warranty.”

Cordelia felt weak and cowardly. How could she expect to fight the likes of Dan Killian, and her own stiff-necked daughter, when she couldn’t even get up the nerve to invite Gabe Ross to supper?

She felt a stab of misgiving ... and of longing, too, for the company of a man across from her at the kitchen table. A man whose talk went far beyond whether the Robert E. Lee Rebels stood a chance of beating the Wilston Wildcats this year, or what business Corky Oakes had displaying those condoms right up next to the cash register in his drugstore for any five-year-old to see.

Stooped side by side in the herb garden, they worked their way up the narrow gravel pathway between the rows, snipping and tying the last of summer’s bounty—miniature chives, winter savory, golden oregano, lemon thyme, bee balm, purple basil. The scent, like the most heavenly potpourri, drifted up around Cordelia, and she thought of the little net bags of verbena she would make up for Netta to put at the back of every drawer. Tonight, she would chop and store the basil in olive oil, and hang the rest of the herbs to dry in the attic. And tomorrow, she and Netta would make up quarts of tarragon and rosemary vinegars.

It was dusk by the time they finished, the last of the sun’s rays skimming the top of the weeping willow that overhung the gazebo. An ache had crept into her back, and her hands stung with tiny cuts caused by the prickly herbs. But she didn’t mind; in fact, she felt better than she had all day.

Gabe, with a flourish, handed her a bouquet of mint. “For Netta’s sun-tea,” he said, “which I wouldn’t say no to a glass of right now.”

And if I asked you to stay for a plate of Netta’s good chicken stew, what would you say to that?

But just then the distant trilling of the phone reached her ears.

Dashing back through the kitchen door, Cordelia headed for the heavy black telephone that had stood on the cherry stand in the hallway for nearly fifty years. Could it be Dan, calling to say he’d decided to give her the money after all? Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in the back of her teeth.
Silly,
she told herself.
It’s probably nothing
—
Dr. Bridges’ office calling to confirm my appointment next week, or Nat Duffy down at the Sunrise Nursery letting me know the seed catalogues I ordered have come in.

Cordelia snatched up the receiver and heard the crackling of long-distance, then a man’s voice, deep yet oddly musical.

“Cordelia? It’s Win. Listen, I just got a call from Sissy. She sounded pretty upset, so I thought I’d better see how you were doing. I’ve seen the newspapers, and she filled me in on the rest. ...”

Cordelia felt her panic subside. It was only Win, dear thoughtful Win, who still called her every birthday and Mother’s Day. And who besides Win ever bothered to send her snapshots of Chris, like the one she’d gotten just last week—a photo of the two of them at East Hampton, Win, tall and blond and tanned, his arm slung about the awkward-looking boy at his side.

It had been wrong of Sissy to call him, of course. Involving Win would only make this whole thing worse. But, even so, how good to hear his voice! Win, she remembered, had always been clever at fixing things; he even settled most of his cases out of court. And before her mother had passed on, back when he and Grace were newly engaged, who but Win had ever been able to charm a smile out of the old dragon?

Yes, maybe he
could
fix this. Already, in one day, she’d kept her mouth shut too many times when perhaps she should have spoken out. And where had that gotten her? What could be the harm in at least asking Win’s advice?

“Win, what a nice surprise!” she cried, then dropped her voice. “Why, yes, all this publicity about Grace’s book
has
been rather upsetting. Actually, I’m glad you called, because I was hoping you might be able to help.”

In spite of herself, the story came tumbling out—how hard it was for her to talk to Grace, the article in the
Constitution,
her meeting with Dan Killian this morning. She wondered, even as she was telling it, how much he already knew about Ned Emory’s death. It would only have been natural, when they were married, for Grace to have told him the whole story. But if Win was aware that Cordelia was concealing anything, he didn’t let on.

After a moment of silence, he said, “I could file an injunction to try and put off publication.” Smooth, commanding, speaking to her as if she were his client, as if she’d agreed to hire him as her attorney. “From what I understand, this story’s got no corroboration. Just Grace’s say-so, and she was a young child at the time. Unless you think someone might be able to back her up.”

Cordelia was about to remind him, in case he didn’t already know, that Margaret was dead. Then she remembered that Margaret had had a daughter, a little girl—oh, no, she’d be a grown woman now—named ...

“Nola,” she heard herself say aloud. “Margaret had a daughter named Nola. But I don’t know if she was there, if she saw ... anything. Gene might have said something about it—I just can’t remember.” She sighed. “It was all so long ago.” She didn’t add that, when little Grace had come to her, white-faced and babbling hysterically, she’d simply hushed her up, as she would have a crying baby.

But now Cordelia wondered if Margaret’s daughter might be involved in this somehow. If she
were
to back up Grace’s story, then people would
really
talk and make heaven knows what kind of awful assumptions. There’d be no point in still trying to get that money out of Dan Killian, or any of those foundations. In fact, the library might turn out to be nothing more than one big pipe dream.

And even if she managed to pull off a small miracle and it did get built, without her beloved Gene’s unsullied reputation, his place in history, his library would be just another pile of bricks and stone.

She had to fight this, even if it meant risking the thing she held most dear: her own integrity. She wouldn’t be lying, she told herself, only protecting what deserved to be protected. Gene had done no wrong. That was the truth—the
only
truth she would permit herself.

“I could speak to this Nola if you like ...” Win started to say, but Cordelia cut him off.

“Do whatever you have to, Win.” She clutched the receiver tighter to her ear, the smell of crushed chives that clung to her fingers making her eyes water and her nose sting. “Whatever will stop this from going any further.”

Nola stared at the sheet of vellum trace taped to her drafting table. She’d been slaving over this elevation for weeks, and it
still
wasn’t right. Loose ends jumped out at her: a pair of columns that appeared too slender in contrast to the massive pediment above ... a window that seemed ill-proportioned ... a shed dormer that awkwardly interrupted the elegance of the gently sloping roof. ...

She felt her head begin to swim as the spidery graphite lines melted into a gray blur. Damn. She rubbed her temples with her knuckles.

It was late; everybody in the office had gone home hours ago. She was tired, was all. She just could not
concentrate.

Her thoughts wandered to the phone call she’d gotten last night, some WASP lawyer—had to be, with a name like Winston Bishop, probably with a Roman numeral or a “Junior” attached to it that he neglected to mention. Nice and friendly, none of that legalese shit. Inviting her to lunch, or, if she was too busy, maybe a drink at the Union Square Cafe, which he knew wasn’t too far from her office. (And how the hell did he know where she worked?) Saying he had some questions concerning her father’s death.

You and every damn Tom, Dick, or Harry who reads the newspapers,
she’d almost blurted. Then he’d told her who his client was: Mrs. Eugene Truscott. Good God, as if she wasn’t already on overload with
Grace
Truscott calling her every other day. Now she’d have the widow trying to tug her in the opposite direction, begging her to keep her mouth shut.

Well, the old lady wouldn’t have to bother. She’d told that fancy lawyer there was no point in wasting a meal or even a drink on her—she had nothing to say on that subject other than what had been reported at the time, which had been merely a paragraph on the obituary page concerning the suicide of a black man whose only claim to fame was his wife being the secretary of a famous senator. She could sense the relief in Winston Bishop’s voice just before he hung up.

Now she wondered if she was going about this the right way. Should she at least meet with Grace Truscott, find out how much she remembered or knew ... and if that was
all
she knew?

Nola closed her eyes, rubbing her thumbs lightly over work-swollen eyelids.

“Man cain’t get a thing done with folks hangin’ round till all hours. ...”

Her head snapped up. Only the custodian, old Leroy, muttering outside the door to the office she shared with the firm’s eight other project architects. She waited to see if he was going to barge in, the way he sometimes did when he caught her working late, but then she heard the muffled squeak-rattle of his janitor’s trolley as it moved on down the hallway.

Time to move on myself.
She had to get home, back to her girls. And sleep ... she
had
to get some sleep or tomorrow she’d be prying herself out of bed, her eyelids fastened shut with Velcro. God would probably forgive her for another frantic morning of inside-out T-shirts and Cheerios hastily sloshed with milk, she thought, but would Tasha and Dani?

Shit. She hadn’t even called home to see if Tasha had come out okay on that math test she’d been worrying over all week. And Dani, whimpery from her sore throat, she’d have worn out Florene right down to the soles of her shoes. How many times can a babysitter be coerced into reading
Green Eggs and Ham
out loud before going completely bonkers ... or, worse, throwing in the towel?

But just then, as Nola was tearing off a sheet of trace to tape over her drawing, she saw it as if for the first time, not as it was, but how it
must
be. It was as if she’d been struggling with a too-tight jar lid, and now it was suddenly giving way.
Yes ... oh, yes.
In minutes of working furiously—five, twenty, she didn’t know how long—she’d sketched a new front façade.

Then she sat back and looked at it. This time she was seeing it as clearly as if it were framed and spotlit, a Jacques-Louis David Roman interior hanging in a museum. Nothing like the cerebral, cutting-edge designs that had earned her the Carnegie Prize at Cooper Union. This drawing’s neoclassical features went
against
everything she’d been taught to admire. But that was what made it so right. ...

It’ll never get built,
warned a cynical voice in the back of her head. With six other firms vying for this commission, another design was sure to be chosen. Even here at Maguire, Chang & Foster, she had major competition. She thought of Randy Craig, who occupied the cubicle alongside hers. She’d been positively blown away by that Horatio Street town house remodel of his. And with this design competition, she hadn’t missed the lustful look on his face when Maguire, too swamped with paid commissions to give time to what was little more than a bird in the bush, had handed them each a rough sketch he’d dashed off of two different approaches he wanted to see developed. Randy had tried to act cool, yeah, one more pain-in-the-butt assignment, but ever since he sure had been logging in the extra hours.

Having caught a glimpse over Randy’s shoulder the other day at the design he’d been slaving over—stark, streamlined, reminiscent of Erik Gunnar Asplund’s famous library in Stockholm—she’d wanted to shout in his ear,
No, no! You don’t understand! That’s not how it should look!

But he only would have wanted to know what made
her
such an expert.

Straightening on her high stool, Nola arched her back and pushed her fist into the throbbing curve of her spine. Shoving aside plastic triangles, Mayline, leadholder, she looked down at her drawing, envisioning it as solid and somehow three-dimensional, thrusting outward from the flat surface of the paper like real granite and brick and steel girders.

The Eugene Truscott Memorial Library.

She saw its interior coming together in one seamless whole—the wide entrance vestibule opening onto a short hallway, then a flight of steps descending a half-level down into a second anteroom, walled in glass on all sides, through which light would sluice like water from a diverted stream. In the main reading room, three huge frosted skylights along a ceiling that curved graciously but didn’t soar into outer space, and bookshelves arranged in a pattern that echoed the geometry of the recessed metal columns in the wall and the ribs in the barrel vault above. Floors that made you think of the earth they were built on, gently sloping and stepping to create spaces in which people would gather away from the formality of the tables and chairs.