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“Laurel, please,” he pleaded.
My eyes scanned the office. The staff averted their gaze, but it was obvious we had an audience.
“Tell you what,” James said lightly, taking hold of my arm as he attempted to usher me toward the front of the building and no doubt out the door. “Why don’t I skip out early, and take you to lunch?”
I shook my head, breaking free from his grip, shoving him backward in the process.
He looked stunned. But maybe not really. Without a second thought, I waltzed straight into his office. I searched it, looking for something, looking for anything, before settling on the framed photo of me he kept on his desk. He looked at me in that perplexed, funny way he does sometimes. That cat-ate-the-canary look, I like to call it. In this case, I hadn’t yet decided who was the cat and who was the bird. Life tends to show you in time. “Laurel,” he whispered, his voice milky smooth. “Let’s—”
I have no way of knowing what he was about to say. My decision had already flung us into the future. My arm wa
s stretched out in front of us, suspended in midair as I hurled the photo at the glass wall, shattering it. My husband needed to see he wasn’t the only one capable of making a mess. “Oh,” I said, surveying the damage. “And I forgot to tell you, your cat is dead.”
When all was said and done, she just stood there, behind my desk, in shock and clearly afraid. As she should have been.
The moment I was through the door to his room at Caring Hands, I unleashed the weight of what had occurred onto my father. It was one of his lucid days, or so it seemed, and I was thankful for that. I’d called ahead just to make sure. I’d just been dealt one major blow, and I was afraid I couldn’t sustain another.
“This place is awful,” he remarked as I plopped down in the chair opposite his bed. By this time, we were both aware of how little money could buy when it came to finding a way out. I glanced around the space. He was right. It was awful—drab and tiny. No bigger than a closet. A large walk-in, sure. But a closet, nonetheless.
“You want to know what’s awful?”
“Dementia?”
“Yeah. Well, that too. But I was talking about James.”
“James? Why?” His expression turned from bitter to one of confusion. For a second, I wasn’t sure if it was him speaking or his disease. He seemed to be incessantly slipping in and out of this world these days.
My response came out in a spurt, in exactly the same way it had been lodged in my mind, hardly making any sense. “He hired someone. She was in my office. I went there. On accident or on purpose, I don’t know.”
“You know—”
I knew what he was going to say by the tone of his voice, and I wanted no part of it. I cut him off. “It’s like he’s replacing me. It’s like he wanted me out. It’s like…he saw his chance, and he took it.”
“I can see how you could think that,” Dad said.
“But?” Max Hastings walked in as the word slipped off my tongue. I paid little attention to his presence; in fact, I hardly noticed him at all.
Dad didn’t either, apparently. If he had, he didn’t hold his response on account of having an audience. “But maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt.”
I’d expected him to say that. He liked James. Most people do. Also, Dad was known for playing devil’s advocate. Max caught my eye. I shifted in my seat so that I was sitting differently, showing my legs to their best advantage. I was distracted, and so was he. But I didn’t think it was me doing it to him. He was reacting to someone who wasn’t in the room, while I was reacting to him. “Maybe.”
“You don’t think he’s just doing what he thinks is best for you?”
I shook my head. My husband is an opportunist, not a philanthropist. “I think he’s doing what he thinks is best for the company.”
“That’s the thing, sweetheart. Sometimes they’re one and the same.”
In Victorian society, it was generally forbidden for a woman to overtly pursue a man she found interesting. The total value of a woman in this era, the only thing that made her seem desirable, was the degree to which she was pursued. If she were thought to be actively chasing a man, it would likely lower her value in his eyes and in the eyes of her family and society. Even though they were stunted by these strict rules, women weren’t stupid. They still found a way to approach a man they desired.
If a woman was out for a stroll and spotted a man she’d like to get to know better, she would drop her handkerchief as she passed by, then continue walking. The valiant hero, taking note of the handkerchief that had fallen to the ground in his path, would pick it up and run after the lady to return the item to her, demonstrating that he was indeed a chivalrous, kind, and considerate gentleman. This also provided him with the chance to open a conversation with her, beginning with, “You dropped this, madam?”
The best part? This would allow the gentleman to believe that fate had conspired with Cupid, dropping the white handkerchief of the perfect woman directly in his path. Of course, the woman would know the truth, that she had orchestrated the entire interaction. She chose him, and she made the first move. But it was subtle, simple, and elegant. It was a first move in disguise. Nothing that happened afterward would have taken place had she not dropped her handkerchief.
Today, we have other methods, thank goodness, because I’m pretty sure I don’t own a hankie.
After he left my father’s room, I texted Max and asked him to meet me at the Belmond. He agreed. In fact, he texted back: If an orgasm is as the French say, a little death, meet me in Room 553 and I’ll write your eulogy. Over and over. Until I get it just right.
Later, at the Belmond, we skipped the small talk, not that there was ever much of that. He was mercurial right from the start.
