I'll See You in Paris (30 page)

“Precisely what I'd gathered,” he said. “Tell me more. I'm positively dying to know.”

“Dying?” Pru said. “Is that really the word you want to go with?”

“Yes. Your withholding of information is causing me a terminal level of pain.”

“You'll regret that word choice, my friend.”

She took several glugs of beer.

“You were all torn up about my parents' deaths?” Pru said. “Gutted, I believe, was the word. Well, hold on to your knickers because old Charlie has a pretty wretched tale himself. Long story short, the bastard up and died.”

Win's eyes popped open.

“He died? This is not … are you trying to be funny? Attempting to take the piss out of me? Teach me a lesson?”

“You think I'd lie about someone dying just to mess with you?”

“No. Never. Aw, shit.” Win covered his face. “I'm sorry. No. Sorry is not adequate. Bloody hell.” He looked up. “Bloody fucking depths of hell. I hate myself with some regularity, but never like this.”

“You didn't know. But I have to tell you. It gets worse.”

“AW CHRIST!”

“Remember that exchange we had approximately forever ago?” she said. “Soldiers blasting away the VC and whatnot?”

“MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST.” Win dug both hands into his hair and scratched his ragged fingertips into his scalp. “Don't tell me. He was a soldier? Blimey, I should just off myself right now.”

“Win, you didn't know,” she said again.

“Jesus H. Where is a goddamn revolver when you need one?”

“It's okay,” Pru said. “I mean
you're
okay. The rest, obviously, is not.”

The peculiar thing was that lately it had been starting to feel if not “okay” at least within firing distance of not-completely-unbearable. And Pru felt as awful about this as Win had for bringing it up in the first place.

“What happened?” Win asked. “He was fighting, yes? In the war?”

“Yep. Charlie was fighting the Charlie in Nam,” she said. “And don't apologize for that smirk you're trying to hide. It's funny in its own twisted way. I'm sure there are plenty more Charlies on both sides to go around. The worst part, other than, you know, the death, is that he didn't have to go. His parents got him an excuse, or bought him one.”

“How do you mean?” he asked.

“Charlie was diagnosed with a very serious football injury despite only ever playing baseball and tennis. A medical miracle.”

“But he went,” Win said, taking her hand in his. “Because he had honor.”

“He had something. I couldn't have done it. I would've milked my phantom running back career for all it was worth.”

“I doubt that.”

“He was killed during the Easter Offensive,” Pru told him. Saying it felt like a release, an exhale after holding her breath. “They found his body, which I don't think was much of one, outside Kon Tum. His entire company was killed by an RPG, a grenade launched at a closer-than-necessary distance.”

“Jesus. What a mess.”

“Literally,” she said with a weary nod. “It happened almost a year ago and his remains didn't arrive stateside until late last fall. It took a while to sort out the parts.”

She slipped her hand from Win's and reached for the beer, though not before gently skimming her fingers over his forearm. Pru meant it as thanks for his tenderness, an assurance that although he'd raised the issue, she didn't hold it against him.

Though Win understood the origin of the gesture—he wasn't a total clod—the feel of something else surged through every last miserable corner of his body. And, for the first time, he saw Pru wholly. She was not the blushing, demure girl he believed he knew.

“There you have it,” she said. “The reason I'm here, in a crumbling house, completely without plans. I have no one and nothing to go back to. I'll return to America eventually, immigration isn't going to let me stick around here forever, but even in my own country I don't have a home.”

“Pru, there has to be someone for you,” he said. “How could there not be?”

“I have a few college friends but … hold on. Wait. What did you just say?”

“There has to be someone.”

“No,” she said. “Before that. Did you call me Prudence?”

“What? Oh. No.” He looked momentarily perplexed. “I called you Pru, probably.”

“Pru?”

“Sure. Everybody has a nickname. You know that. Me. Gads. GD. Have you not heard me say this?”

“No. Never.”

“Ah. Well. Must be only in my mind.”

“Pru makes less sense than Gads.”

“It's short for
Prunus laurocerasus,
the Latin name for English laurel. I believe you Yanks call it cherry laurel.”

Win had teased her about the name before. On the one hand it was no different from her Berkeley friends Petal and Daisy. It was a plant, after all. On the other, its fruits were toxic, its cherries made humans ill. And Lord was it invasive. It grew all over the bloody place, just like a weed.

But of course Win loved the name because it was hers. He loved the nickname too, even if it was made of wishful thinking. English laurel? No, this Laurel was all American. Alarmingly, upsettingly so.

 

Forty-nine

THE BANBURY INN

BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND

NOVEMBER 2001

 

It doesn't do you justice, there's that tooth effect I don't like, which in you is certainly not apparent. I, too, think the dress
un peu trop décolleté
.

—Florence Deacon on Giovanni Boldini's rendition of Gladys.
The portrait hung for several decades in the Grand Dining Hall at the Grange.

—J. Casper Augustine Seton,

The Missing Duchess: A Biography

Annie wasn't a snooper by nature.

She didn't have a big brother to spy on, no sisters with hidden diaries to pry open. Annabelle Haley spent twenty years in a scruffy farmhouse with only one other person who never seemed worth the effort. As it turned out, Annie hadn't been looking closely enough.

“Nicola!” she yelled, skittering downstairs.

She glanced around. The lobby was eerily silent. Annie looked past one corner and then the next. She clambered over to Nicola's computer and typed out an e-mail to Eric.

The words and sentences were jumbled together, the grammar poor. Also Annie used way more caps and demonstrative punctuation than was strictly necessary. But Eric would understand. He always did, and this was huge.

After closing out her e-mail, Annie called out for the innkeeper one more time.

“Hey, Nicola!” she warbled, scurrying toward the back door. “I'm going to borrow your bike. Be back in a sec! K thanks!”

Once outside, she jogged to the shed. In the distance was the squeaky scrawl of Nicola's voice, which Annie took as permission. Sliding on her backpack, she hopped onto the bike and pedaled off.

Earlier that morning, while Laurel showered, Annie had snuck into her purse. The last time she'd done that was probably a decade ago, rooting through her mom's bag to find quarters for the arcade. But it wasn't money she was after this time.

After forty seconds of struggle, she extracted an overstuffed black leather Day-Timer, Laurel Haley's definitive playbook. Annie flipped to the current date. At nine o'clock Laurel was scheduled to meet with an inspector. The time was 8:53.

The calendar didn't include an address and it seemed impossible anyone would voluntarily let an inspector near the Grange. Nonetheless, the old estate had to be Laurel's destination. Without a doubt, her mother was the woman from Gus's story.

“You're telling me the girl you've called Pru all along,” Annie said the previous day, after Gus finished the latest chapter of his tale. “You're telling me that her name was Laurel?”

He nodded in confirmation.

“What about the Valentine?” she said.

But even as Annie asked the question, the pieces locked into place.

Laurel Innamorati Haley: Annie's mom.
Prunus laurocerasus,
Pru, Miss Valentine: the girl from the story. Laurel, Pru. Innamorati, Valentine. In Italy, Valentine's Day was known as la festa degli innamorati. Of course Gus wouldn't use Laurel's actual name. It wasn't his style.

“Innamorati,” Annie said, winded as if struck in the chest. “Was that Pru's real last name?”

“How did you know? Annie, you look peaky.”

“That … I think that's the woman I ran into, the one staying at the inn who said the Grange is gone.”

“The inn?” Gus said, panic flashing all over his face. “She's at the Banbury Inn? God bless it. I … I have to go.”

He quickly gathered his things then bolted from the pub, leaving Annie to pay the tab. Gus always footed the bill. Always. But he was dumbed by the news. Thirty years later, the bookish girl was back in town.

Bookish. It didn't sound like Laurel at all, other than the old biography she'd stashed in her office for so many years. Annie never saw her read it and in general, always had the feeling that Laurel thought reading for pleasure was a monumental waste of time. Why dabble in the make-believe when you could run a law firm or teach sick kids to ride a horse?

At least Annie now understood Laurel's tight, fake-smile humoring of Eric. It wasn't that she didn't like him, or thought Annie was too young. Laurel was worried that Eric might die, just as her fianc
é
had.

“Pru Valentine,” Annie said out loud for at least the twelfth time. “I'll be damned.”

As she curved around the bend, Annie saw her mom step out of the rental car. She watched as Laurel locked the door, and then adjusted her tweed blazer and the hem of her brown wool skirt.

“Well, well, well,” Annie said as she pedaled up. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Laurel stepped back, startled. She had not seen her coming. Especially not on a bike.

“Annie!” she said, her voice a mile higher than it had ever been before. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to see the Grange,” she said. “And it's bizarre because I could've sworn someone told me it was gone.”

“God, I hate myself for that.” Laurel sighed and squeezed her eyes shut, as if in pain. “I lied to you and it's been gnawing at me ever since.”

Laurel opened her eyes again. Her gaze seemed a thousand miles away.

“Why
did
you lie, Mom? I don't get it. Developers? They ‘razed' the property?”

“Developers
will
knock it down. Sooner rather than later.”

“Nice try,” Annie grumbled.

“Honestly, the place is loaded with so many damned memories, it's easier to believe that it's already gone.”

“So this is the family property? You own the Grange?”

“Part of it,” Laurel said with a nod. “It's held in a syndicate, hence the problems trying to sell my share. On top of that, someone was trying to have it declared a historical site.”

“Did you live here, Mom?”

Laurel paused, her breath held behind her chest. Annie could nearly see her deciding whether to lie again. But she wouldn't. Laurel had told the one, which was one lie too many.

“Yes,” Laurel finally said. “I lived here. A long time ago and not for very long. But I did live at the Grange.”

“The man who wrote the book.
The Missing Duchess
. He was with you.”

Laurel nodded, her eyes glistening.

Annie tried to see her as Win had back then: young, scared, wide-eyed, and ethereal. There was a glimpse of Pru in there among all that drive and capability, but only a glimpse, and only in shadow. Gus had mentioned Pru's quiet strength and that was all Annie saw right then.

“How did you find out?” Laurel asked.

“Well, the book for one.”

“I'm not in the book.”

“I know, but it's how you reacted to it,” Annie said. “I put two and two together.”

“Two and two? With only the one book?”

“I fished around town,” she said. “Talked to a few longtime residents. Some of them remembered you.”

“They did?” Laurel's face jumped. “Who? I didn't get out much.”

“You had to go to the store sometimes, didn't you? The occasional stop in a pub?”

“Annie, who did you talk to?”

“Various people. Someone named Gus?”

Laurel stared vacantly.

“I don't recall anyone named Gus,” she said.

“Mom, where did you go to college? I could've sworn you went to Wellesley but now I think you might've started somewhere else.”

Laurel sighed again, turned around, and took a seat on a nearby rock. She braced herself against her knees with both hands.

“I went to Berkeley,” she said. “For a year. A long, long, long time ago. I barely remember it, having ended up at Wellesley, which was the exact opposite in terms of … everything.”

“After Berkeley you came here. To get over a fianc
é
.”

“That's the short version, yes,” Laurel said. “Those years. They were so difficult. At the time I doubted I could even survive them. And now it all seems like a story. A novel read decades ago.”

“So the pain goes away,” Annie said. “Eventually.”

“Or else it just gets covered up by some new kind of injury.”

Suddenly a car pulled up. A man stepped out, a thick folder lodged beneath his arm. Laurel stood and brushed off her skirt.

“Ms. Haley?” he said and extended a hand. “The name's Richard Moskin. I'm the inspector.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Laurel said. “I'm finishing up out here. Feel free to help yourself onto the property. I haven't been inside but it's unlocked, I think. I'll join you in a minute.”

“Righto,” he said and smiled. The front gate squeaked and he disappeared.