Resurgence (2 page)
“Yes, basically the same. No surprise registered and no objections raised. Ben thought it was a cool move, quote-unquote, and Mike expressed hope he’d now have a shot at scoring floor seats for the better rock concerts. And when I gave Emily the news, there was none of her usual squealing and drama. She only wondered what took so long, seeing that you’re such a great kisser. Amanda kind of let me down, too. All she said was ‘I told you so.’”
“But didn’t you say she repeated it ten or fifteen times?”
“By conservative estimate, putting her in a category with Bemus, who could only say ‘bout time’ over and over when I called him about picking up the car at the airport.”
“Leaving David the only one actually gobsmacked when it was realized you weren’t traveling as my official biographer.”
“Can we please not use that term again?”
“Fine with me, but that begs the question—are you gonna continue with the book?”
“Too soon to say.”
“Let me put it this way, then. If things hadn’t been resolved this morning, were you just gonna abandon the project . . . and me?”
“No. I didn’t have a plan, though. I only knew I didn’t want to practice law anymore, and that I didn’t want to be anyplace you weren’t.”
Colin leans over and kisses her with unmistakable intent, then suddenly reconnects with their surroundings. “Sorry,” he says upon pulling away.
“You certainly don’t have to be sorry for that.”
“The sorry’s about our not being alone and not likely to be in the foreseeable future. In fact, David’s headed this way right now.”
“Expecting a raft of apologies and explanations, no doubt.”
“What’s it gonna hurt if you give in?”
“Very well, you’re right—nothing can be hurt now.”
Colin relinquishes his seat on the excuse of having something burning to discuss with Rayce. At her invitation, David accepts Colin’s aisle seat and makes a gracious show of admiring her magnificent, slightly too large engagement ring.
“Well, well, well . . . as you couldn’t have failed to notice when you and Colin boarded the plane as a couple, I was
completely
bowled over. I never saw this coming. Your resignation, perhaps. But a complete abdication of duty and responsibility . . . I never would have believed it.”
“Don’t go there, David. Don’t even try. I’ve discharged all those duties and responsibilities forced upon me, and I’ve fulfilled all the obligations I took on voluntarily. I don’t owe anybody anything anymore. Certainly not you. It’s
my
turn now.”
“I won’t deny that you’ve earned a
turn
, as you put it, and might now wish to inject your life with a little interim excitement, but does it have to be with a rock star—in a foreign country—and at the expense of everything else?”
“
What
everything else? Don’t you get it? There
is
no everything else. And what’s wrong with rock stars all of a sudden? They do afford you a damn good livelihood, after all, and so do the foreign countries you regularly plunder for fresh talent to mine.”
“Laurel, dear, don’t take this—”
“Do
not
call me ‘dear.’ I’m no longer your ward and I’m a very long way from being your lover.”
“At least lower your voice. You’re attracting attention.”
“I no doubt am and I’ll no doubt attract more before the transition’s complete.”
“Valid point. Have you considered what you’re going to do about media attention and the mockery that’ll be made of a ten-day courtship?”
“
Eleven-day
courtship it was, and I learned on day one of that courtship that my own truth will
always
defeat anything the media has to say. And that’ll work on anything more you have to say. I won’t hear you because I’ll be so immersed in the truth of my love for Colin and his for me.”
“More power to you, my dear, but that won’t keep me from going on record as advising against marrying him. Hardly anyone in his world formalizes relationships these days. And for god’s sake, do not have children. The ones he has will be enough trouble and you won’t want the situation any more complicated than it has to be when the time comes for disentangling yourself.”
“Thank goodness I couldn’t make out a word you said.” Laurel slams shut her tray table. “You’ll have to excuse me.” She climbs over David to get to the aisle. “I’d like to be with my people now.”
Rayce sees her coming and steps forward to greet her no less effusively than when he welcomed her aboard the plane with open arms.
“Ah, here’s our Laurel. Give us a cuddle then, and let us again rejoice that you’ve joined our merry band of sybarites.” He wraps her in a quick hug and a generous whiff of cigarette smoke, plays to his usual claque, which now includes Colin. “You do know, luv, that when things were at their iffiest, some of us were started wonderin’ just how many rock stars it was gonna take to screw in the light bulb and I, for one—”
He’s drowned out by groans, a few hisses, and her laughter.
“Did I ever think to tell you,” Laurel says when the uproar dies down, “that you were my late mother’s favorite performer? She had all your records and I now treasure them as relics of bygone days as well as sentimental keepsakes.”
“Well done!” Colin shouts amidst an outburst of laughter dominated by Rayce’s trademark cackle.
She could have no better antidote for David’s sour appraisal than this playful give-and-take with her new friend; she could have no better opportunity for retaliation if revealing David’s privately held opinion of rock stars wouldn’t hurt Rayce as much as David. She smiles at Colin, who is coming to claim her, and decides against telling even him because no purpose would be served other than satisfying her need to strike back. David’s not the only prominent attorney who privately disdains clients. Not by a long shot. Unless he willfully misrepresents one of those clients, his negative remarks deserve no power.
Rayce resumes his parody of partying—swigging from a large bottle of Coke as though it was Tennessee whiskey and sucking on an unfiltered cigarette as though he’d rolled it himself. Those actions don’t deserve any power, either.
Without asking why, Colin agrees with her request to remain in the back of the plane for the remainder of the flight. He retrieves their hand luggage from up front and they settle into seats far enough removed from the smokers and revelers that they won’t be disturbed if they try to sleep. Sleep is never a real consideration, though, not while they’re both endlessly fascinated with fresh insights into past behaviors.
“Am I right to think you were saying goodbye to Manhattan the day we took the ride on the tourist boat?” Colin says.
“Fair to say, but at the time I wouldn’t have admitted it . . . not even to myself.”
“And what would’ve happened if I’d declared myself the day you came to my hotel suite hell-bent on convincing me to respond to the press?”
“I’m afraid I would have laughed you off. That would have been my
initial
reaction—the one I would have felt compelled to give, but it wouldn’t have been my
honest
reaction.”
“You’ve never said what you were actually about the night you moved to the hotel and tracked me down at the studio,” he says.
“I’m still waiting to hear if you deliberately set out to entice me with your nonsense verses,” she replies.
“Tell me you didn’t know you resembled Sargent’s portrait of Madame X in that sensational frock you wore the other night.”
They continue in this vein for hours, playing what-if and second-guessing questionable actions of the past eleven days until an attendant comes through the cabin raising window shades and announcing breakfast and the estimated time of touchdown.
“I’m gonna freshen up whilst there’s still time.” Colin retrieves his toiletries kit from the overhead and digs through it for an electric razor and a toothbrush. “I won’t be long.” He drops the kit on the seat beside her, kisses the top of her head and sets off for the multiple lavatories situated midplane.
Laurel focuses on the unshaded window at her elbow and confronts the first suggestion of dawn, along with the good possibility she’s going to cry of sheer happiness and excitement. She cannot allow that to happen—not with David only a compartment away, and knowing him, watchful for any sign she’s overwrought and therefore unstable. And she must not cry when she meets Anthony and Simon or she’ll risk being misunderstood. She makes promises to her hazy reflection in the thick Plexiglas window before returning to the practical matter of herself freshening up.
She’s reaching for her carryall when Rayce suddenly appears and snatches Colin’s open toiletries kit from the seat beside her.
“Can I help you?” she says as Rayce places a finger to his lips and winks.
“You didn’t see me and I’ll wager you weren’t supposed to see this.” He removes a battered box of Polks Extra Strength Headache Powders and makes off with several envelopes before she can do more than label him incorrigible—and Colin, as well. She tsk-tsks as she tucks the Polks box into her own toiletries kit to dispose of when she goes to freshen up.
She hurries off to do just that, confident that disposal rights come with promotion from official biographer to official partner.
The helicopter is a surprise. To Colin too, although he thinks he knows who arranged for it. For Laurel, everything has gone by in a blur since landing at Gatwick, clearing customs and immigration, and transferring to the helipad under the protective guidance of two greeters. Because they were all headed in different directions, goodbyes to Rayce and David were hurried—a distinct blessing in David’s case.
They’ve been in the air fifteen minutes when Colin draws her attention to a lovely stretch of scenery within a landscape made up of nothing but lovely scenery. They pass over forested areas and broad meadows, some defined by hedgerows, others set apart by stone walls and punctuated by small ponds that would be water hazards if this were a golf course. But it must be a park, she decides, upon spotting large cultivated sections—flower beds, they are—and three widely separated gazebo-like structures modeled after Greek temples. When the helicopter banks to pursue another direction, an array of unconventional structures comes into view. These structures are dominated by an immense stone edifice set at the head of the shallow valley they all occupy. Before the helicopter banks again, she takes in details of the dominant building—multiple gables and chimneys, a section of crenellated roof line, sunlight glinting off the countless panes of a multi-story diamond-mullioned window
From still another flight angle, she spies a lengthy ground-level colonnaded walkway, a porte-cochère entryway, a partially enclosed courtyard, and a broad raised terrace that can only belong to one of England’s great stately homes—one of those National Trust properties that are open to paying guests.
“What’s it called?” She leans in close to make herself heard over rotor noise.
Colin appears no less captivated than she by the splendor below. “Cattle barn . . . dairy . . . dovecote . . . garages . . . stable . . . staff quarters . . . poultry sheds . . . oasthouses . . . conservatories . . . follies,” he recites as though reading from a brochure. “I’ve never seen it from this altitude.”
“What is it, what’s it called?”
“Terra Firma.”
“No, silly. Not the earth, the estate. Is it one I’ve heard of like ‘Knole’ or ‘Chartwell’ or ‘Sissinghurst?’”
“‘Terra Firma’ is the name of the estate. It’s home, Laurel, and I’d never seen it from this high up because the only other time I came home by chopper nothing much registered.”
She bites her bottom lip and squeezes his hand as the helicopter makes a wide swooping circle and steadies down for a landing on a leveled space a hundred yards or so from the most magnificent copper beech tree she has ever seen. In another direction, dogwood fronts a grove of larger trees, and the surrounding lawns are overrun with daffodils gone wild.
A safe distance away, an estate worker is waiting at the controls of a golf cart with trailer attached. The baggage is transferred in no time and they’re soon trundling along a graveled track bordering vegetable plots and fruit orchards, topiary displays, and formal rose gardens. Low balustered stone walls surround a sculpture garden featuring a triple-tiered fountain; high solid walls of yew hedge shelter a tennis court and swimming pool. They pass by an immense rectangular arbor, heavy with wisteria vines and furnished with rustic wooden benches; another gathering area features wrought-iron tables and chairs positioned among a dazzling array of potted annuals in first bloom. Then the track becomes a paved thoroughfare linking several outbuildings before ending at their stopping point, the broad raised terrace adjoining the colonnaded side of the mansion.
A sidelong glance at Colin, meant to convey teasing rebuke for never having mentioned any of this, finds him more nervous than she is. His jaw is working the way it did when he confronted her in her garage, he’s blinking rapidly the way he did when he placed the ring on her kitchen table, and he’s gripping her hand the way he did when she led him up the back stairs only hours ago.
Concern for him lessens her own anxiety when they enter the shadowy interior of the arcade, but does nothing to diminish her astonishment when they’re met with a veritable welcoming committee.
“I knew it,” Colin mutters. “A bleedin’ ambush, it is.” He laughs and slides an arm around her as they’re set upon by a small mob that includes three little girls, along with the children she expected to meet, a half-dozen more adults than anticipated, two very large dogs, three smaller ones, several cats, and a rooster.
