“I’ve got to go,” Jane said, setting her half full glass of wine down.
Eva handed Daniel his phone.
“We’ll look at it later downstairs,” she said, partly to piss Marcus off with the hinted-at intimacy, partly because it’s what she really wanted to say.
Just as Jane rose to leave, the final party guests came up to say good-bye.
After all the goodbyes were said, just the three of them remained. Awkward. Eva worried Marcus would never leave. “I’d like to talk to you alone, Eva, if I could,” he said. Eva reflexively grabbed Daniel’s hand and squeezed it hard, her message, she hoped, clear.
“Eva and I have dinner reservations,” Daniel said.
They didn’t, but Marcus didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, well then, maybe I can steal her away for a minute,” Marcus persisted.
Eva gave up, let go of Daniel’s hand.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” she said. But once out the door, she stopped under the shelter of the eaves. It was still raining softly and she didn’t want to get wet again.
“I was hoping you’d let me use a cottage for the night. Long drive back to the city and all,” Marcus said.
“I’m sorry, Marcus. I’m opening for business in two days and tomorrow morning, very early, the cleaners will be doing the cottages. There are plenty of hotels in Port Huron.”
“I really am happy for you, Peanut. I hope you know that.”
She nodded. She didn’t believe him, couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t just leave, why he’d even come in the first place.
“I was going to ask you to come to New York with me, but I see that you’re settled in here quite nicely.”
It was an old trick. He’d used it often to get her to do whatever he’d wanted. Once she’d made an independent decision, he offered a superior alternative, not really offering it but saying, for example, if she was going out for beers with friends, that he had two tickets to see her favorite singer with backstage passes, but he’d find someone else to go with him. He never gave her the opportunity to accept his late offers, and she didn’t do so now. She realized with relief that she didn’t even want to this time.
“I would have said no,” she told him.
He pretended not to hear her.
“So this is really goodbye. And good luck.” He bent down to kiss her, but she turned her face so that he caught her cheek instead of her lips.
She headed back into the house before he was even in his car.
“Wow,” Daniel said when she came back into the house. “So that’s the famous Marcus.”
As the din from Marcus’s engine faded, they heard shouting coming from Lily’s cottage.
Eva noticed a sleek black car pulled off to the side of road. She and Daniel walked over to Lily’s cottage and knocked on the door.
“No, Mom! I’m not going, and you can’t make me,” they heard Lily say. By now Bob was out of his cottage too, and the few of his friends who still hung around were gathered at the door, saying goodbye, slowly heading off.
“Listen, if Lily’s mother is really in there, I think you two should go on home and let me handle it.”
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked.
When she nodded, they reluctantly left.
Eva had no idea what to do or say now that she was about to be confronted with Lily’s mother. What if the woman was a tyrant? What if she tried to take Lily against her will? What would Eva do? Maybe she shouldn’t have let Daniel go. At the same time, she knew this was her fight, not his.
As she knocked on the door, Eva’s heart skittered. She peered through the open screen. A feeble rain spit on her dry clothes, so she opened the door and entered Lily’s cottage.
“Oh hi, Eva. Were we being loud? This is my mother, Mrs. Van Slyke. She’s trying to trap me into going home and I’m just not gonna do it. Period.”
“Hello, Mrs. Van Slyke, I’m Eva Delacroix, I own these cottages, and Lily works for me. She’s an amazing girl.”
For the first time, Mrs. Van Slyke spoke.
“You got the girl part right. My daughter is only seventeen.”
Eva’s heart skipped a beat.
“She won’t be eighteen for another month, and furthermore, when I got here I saw her in a cottage with several young men. They were all drinking. You condone this?”
Eva swallowed, not knowing what to say. She’d meant to have Daniel check on the kids, but had forgotten all about it. Some parent she’d make. She looked at Lily.
“I told her I was eighteen, Ma.” Then to Eva, “Sorry. Fake ID. Everybody has them.”
“I’m Karen Van Slyke.” Lily’s mother held out her hand, surprising Eva. “You must be Eva.”
Eva took Mrs. Van Slyke’s hand, not without trepidation.
“Working as a maid, Lily? Will wonders never cease?” Mrs. Van Slyke’s brow was a deep indentation between her eyes.
Lily giggled, a foreign sound that echoed in the empty room. “I didn’t do much in Port Austin,” she said to Eva.
“Why don’t we sit. I’ll make coffee.” Eve went into the tiny kitchen and busied herself with the chore. Anything to bide time and try to get her pounding heart back to normal. This could ruin her business if Karen Van Slyke decided to press charges.
While Eva made coffee, Lily told her mother about the kittens.
“Eva let me name them!” Lily exclaimed. “There’s a mostly black one and a mostly white one, so they’re Salt and Pepa. Then there’s Nutmeg, she’s kind of crazy…”
The whir of the coffee grinder ate the rest of Lily’s sentence. Eva opened the tiny fridge, putting cream and sugar on the table, trying not to panic. If Lily’s mother talked her into going home two days before her Grand Opening, well, she just couldn’t. Eva hadn’t realized how indispensable Lily had made herself around here.
Only when the coffee had been poured and they were seated around the table stirring sugar did Lily’s mother get to the point of her visit.
“Your therapist tells me you’ve kept in touch. She showed me the video of this place.” Lily’s mother said. “Your next appointment was today, and you missed it again, so I came down to take you home.”
So, Lily was in therapy. Probably a good thing, seeing as how she was clearly troubled, had outbursts of anger, and was secretive beyond belief. Of course, Eva had chalked all that up to normal teenaged behavior. She’d been wrong about that.
“Has Daddy or Gary agreed to go to a session?” Lily asked.
Eva had no idea what they were talking about until Lily said, “My cousin raped me, and my Daddy doesn’t believe it, because my cousin is denying it happened. Or is he sticking to the ‘she said yes’ story?”
Eva was shocked speechless. Poor Lily. So that is what she’d been dealing with all on her own. Eva could not blame her for running away. Or pretending to be older than she really was.
“No, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” Karen took Lily’s hand, but turned to Eva. “I understand you’ve insured Lily. Her father and I are very grateful, although it was completely unnecessary.”
Eva nodded. She felt stunned, tired, and uncertain.
“She’s already been accepted at Western this fall,” Karen said to Eva. “How can she go to college and be a maid for you?”
Karen’s posture was very straight. Her hair was flawless, her jewelry tasteful, her jacket perfectly tailored. Eva, in her jeans and T-shirt, free of make up and hair frizzed from rain, felt a fright sitting next to her. She sipped her coffee.
Lily sat quietly, not saying a word.
“Honey,” Eva said to Lily, placing her coffee cup carefully into the saucer. “Of course you should go to college. I always wished I had gone.” If Lily was at college, she wouldn’t be in danger from any pervert cousin, either.
Karen drained her cup of coffee.
“Would you like another?” Eva asked.
Karen shook her head. “No, thank you.” She let the spoon rest inside the empty cup. “I did some checking on you. This place. It’s nice.”
Eva had a weird feeling, like a combination of pride and resentment. She had no idea what to say.
Lily looked from her mom to Eve.
“You two look alike.”
Eva and Karen looked mutually appalled.
“Psych.” When Lily laughed, Eva realized how seldom she’d heard her do so.
“Your nails are nice,” Karen said, smoothing Lily’s hand into her own.
“I could use a coat of clear.”
Karen held out her hand for the bottle Lily pulled from her night table drawer. Eva sensed an old ritual. She was happy for Lily. She deserved the kind of bright future a college degree could bring, and it was clear that her mother was going to support her in therapy. Still, the whole thing was just sad.
After her mother had painted Lily’s nails, she looked around the cottage.
“It’s cute, but I don’t see anything of yours here.”
“I came with the clothes on my back. And my MP3.” Lily didn’t say anything to her mom about the room ready for her in the bungalow.
“Well, it’s time to go, dear.”
Lily nodded.
Eva had known from the minute she’d met Karen. It was for the best.
“I have to say goodbye to Bob,” Lily said, dashing out the door before Eva could tell her he had already gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Once Eva and Karen were alone, Eva asked a question.
Just as surprisingly, Karen said yes.
Eva went into the house. It was tough going into Lily’s room, gathering her things, most of which had been moved in here. Eva used her own suitcase, a pink and purple striped wheelie that had seen better days. She looked around the room, gathering up the tiny supply of trinkets Lily had accumulated while she’d been here. A paperback novel, a bottle of hand lotion, a bag of make up, a hairbrush with blonde strands still in its bristles.
She zipped the bag and came outside wheeling it with one hand, and cradling Ginger, Lily’s favorite kitten, in the other.
When Lily saw Ginger in Eva’s arms, she started to cry.
“You’re keeping it, child,” Karen said, putting the suitcase in the trunk while Lily cooed at Ginger.
“It would have been so mean if you brought her out here to make me feel bad for ditching you just before opening,” Lily said to Eva.
“You’re not ditching me,” Eva said. She didn’t want to think about the work she’d have to do alone tomorrow. Or how Mama would feel when she discovered one of her kittens gone.
“At least she’s old enough,” Eva said.
Then she tucked a check into Lily’s jeans pocket.
“Your last week’s salary and the money for the rights to your film for Bryman House,” she said.
“Thanks,” Lily said. “I’ll add it to the college fund.”
It was really over. Lily was getting into the car, Ginger snuggled on her shoulder.
“Tell Bob I said bye. Tell him I’ll text!”
As darkness softly fell around her, the rain stopped. Eva watched the taillights of the Cadillac recede down the highway. Lily was gone. Her place, finally ready after weeks of furious activity, was again her own.
The quiet of the cottages without rowdy teenagers, without busy crew people in and out all hours, unsettled her. She shook it off, breathed in the calm scent of a clean earth, of a lake replenished. Lily was with her mother, where she belonged. Bob was back with Daniel. All was in place. With their help, she had realized a dream, done that thing that had seemed so impossible just two short months ago.
Her spirits lifted. She’d accomplished so much.
As she turned to the bungalow, she heard a car on the highway. She kept walking toward her haven even as her ears picked up the sound of tires on gravel. The car had left the highway and turned into her driveway.
Daniel. She knew it was him before she flicked on the porch light and turned to see his black Lexus in the driveway. She stood outside her door, waiting for him.
“Hi.” He smiled at her, but his face held concern.
He’d come back. He had known somehow, after all the strength she’d shown in going slow, that tonight she’d feel naked and needy? That, after Marcus, and Lily, she felt stripped somehow, right down to her lonely, yearning soul?
“I worried maybe Marcus had come back. Just wanted to check that everything was okay here.” Daniel reached out a hand and laid it on her arm, just above her elbow. She felt the warmth of his touch right through the sleeve of her shirt.
“No, he didn’t.” She shook her head, trying to shake off her vulnerability, too.
“Are you okay?”
She was fine about Marcus. Seeing him today had made her realize that, at least. She was over him, without regret.
“It was harder than I thought to let Lily go,” she admitted.
“What was her mother like?”
“Fine. They’re close. Lily is where she needs to be.”
Eva shivered when Daniel dropped his hand from her arm.
“Well, if you’re sure, then.” His words said goodbye, but his body stood still, the two of them encased in the glow of the porch light.
“Want to come in?” She opened the screen door.
“Sure,” he said, his body relaxing into a comfortable ease, making her realize he’d been worried for her. Not the project. Not the Bryman legacy. Her. This was personal. Daniel cared about her.
As they went through to the living room, she snagged a bottle of cognac someone had brought to the party. She didn’t have any fancy crystal snifters, so the clear plastic glasses she’d used for the punch would have to do.
“This is nice,” Daniel said, toasting her with his drink. “Just us.”
“No teenagers,” she said, the taste of the liquor, heavy as honey, strong on her tongue.
“No pizza.”
“No blaring television.”
“We sound like old people,” Daniel said, then laughed.
Her heart twisted. To grow old with Daniel. The idea was as sweet, deep, and mysterious as this cognac in her system. And, like the liquor, it went right to her head, making her almost dizzy with longing.
Daniel had made it clear he was finished raising his family. For as much as she’d wanted it, she hadn’t even begun. And yet, here they were.
She looked at him. His eyes searched hers. She couldn’t think straight. Her mind tumbled out random firings, the way his shirt held the smell of the rain, the way he smiled at her as he reached out to pull her close, the feel of the denim of his shirt as she put her arms around his waist. Her last thought before he kissed her was that he wanted her. Maybe it was only in that simple, uncomplicated way that men wanted women. But right now, she wanted that, too.