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"I thought we'd get a couple of those golf carts to ride back and forth to the hotel," Jimmy said as we walked toward the lot. "Not that it's so far."
"It isn't, and I know enjoy the walk," I said. I was enjoying this one. The early-spring day was clear and crisp with just a few scattered clouds drifting across a sharply blue sky. Leaves had begun to turn rich green, and bushes were filling out. The brightness and fresh air brought a crimson tint to our cheeks. I could feel my skin tingle at the welcome daylight. I felt like a flower that had been kept on the windowsill and teased by the sunlight. Finally I was outside, blooming again.
The bulldozer operator was waiting and talking with Buster Morris when we arrived. They both looked up expectantly. Then Buster produced a bottle of champagne and four glasses he and Jimmy had kept hidden, awaiting my arrival. I laughed. It felt so good to do it. It was as if I hadn't laughed for ages and ages.
Jimmy poured the champagne and lifted his glass to make a toast.
"To our house. May it be the home of love and happiness forever and ever."
"To our house," I said.
"Hear, hear," Buster said, and we all drank.
"Okay," Jimmy announced. "Let 'er rip."
Buster stepped back to watch with us as the bulldozer began to clear the land and tear out the ground for our foundation. Jimmy took my hand.
"Congratulations and good luck, Mrs. Longchamp," Buster said.
"Yes, Mrs. Longchamp. Congratulations and good luck," Jimmy said, and he kissed me.
At least once a day after that I would either go out with Christie or join Jimmy to watch the construction of our new home. Working closely with an architect, Jimmy had designed a two-story classical revival with a two-tiered entry porch supported by four simple columns.
The house would have five bedrooms, a den, a living room, an office, a large dining room and a large kitchen with maid's quarters right behind it. He had been impressed with Bronson Alcott's marble entryway floors and stairway and included both in our design. Once the structure was planned, the details for the interior were to be left up to me. Bronson, and especially Mother, came around often to offer their suggestions. Anyway, Jimmy's ulterior motives worked. I became very involved with the house once it was underway and buried myself in design and decor magazines. It was very exciting as more and more of the house was completed and I began to envision it.
Once Christie understood this was going to be our new home, she had to know immediately where her room would be. After Jimmy pointed it out and walked her through the framing, she was after both of us all day to take her out so she could visit her future residence. And when the house was more than half completed it became one of the regular sights for hotel guests. Neither Jimmy nor I was ecstatic over the idea that guests would be coming by to look things over, but for the time being it was hard to keep them away. Jimmy decided that afterward, when the house was completed, we would build a pretty fence around it so that the guests would understand it was not really part of the hotel property.
"One of the bedrooms is for your younger brother or younger sister, when she comes," Jimmy told Christie one afternoon when the three of us were inspecting the day's work.
"Where is she?" Christie asked. "I can't find her," she said, holding her hands up and shrugging. She was almost three by now and quite precocious. Developing by leaps and bounds, she astounded everyone with the things she would say and do. She had begun to explore the piano keys herself and tap out combinations of notes that were far more than musical gibberish. Sissy complained that she knew all the children's stories by heart and would announce the endings before she was halfway through reading them to her. We had to get her books and toys designed for a child twice her age.
"I don't know where your little brother or sister is, Christie," Jimmy told her,
shifting his eyes to me as he spoke. "She or he is hiding in your mommy."
I knew what he meant. We had been trying for months to get me pregnant again, but for some reason it hadn't happened. Dr. Lester had told us both on more than one occasion that there was no reason 1 shouldn't get pregnant. I knew Jimmy suspected I was somehow mentally against it and that that was preventing it from happening.
"You're not afraid of getting pregnant again, are you, Dawn?" he asked me one night a few days later.
"No," I said, but I said it too quickly. Deep inside I guess I was afraid. I had snapped out of my depression and become actively involved with the hotel and our house, but I couldn't throw off this dreary, heavy feeling that a curse hovered over me. It made me worry about bringing another child into the world.
"You shouldn't be," Jimmy insisted. "There are only good things ahead for us."
"I'm trying, Jimmy. I am," I said, but instead of thinking about it and hoping for it, I buried myself in the impending summer hotel season. Along with finishing the house, that kept all of us quite busy.
Then, about a week after the formal invitations for Philip's wedding went out, Mother and Bronson decided to throw a small dinner party for just the family as a way to introduce Betty Ann Monroe, Philip's fiancée. I wasn't going to attend if Clara Sue would be there, but Mother guaranteed she wouldn't.
Clara Sue had been sent away to a finishing school, and Bronson had made a sizable donation to it as a way of insuring that they accept and keep her. It was far enough away, too, in Florida. From what Philip told me, he had had no contact with her since she had attacked me.
"I'm still quite ashamed of her," he explained to me on the telephone, "and I don't intend to invite her to my wedding. Not that she cares."
"I don't know how you can do that, Philip," I said. "No matter what, she's still your sister, and it would just fan the flames of gossip around here. You know what that would do to Mother," I reminded him.
"But you won't come to the wedding if I do invite her, will you?" he asked.
"I don't know. It's been nearly a year. I suppose I can ignore her in a ceremony and a party this big," I said.
"I don't want to take that chance," Philip replied. "Your coming means far more to me, Dawn."
