Secrets

  “Daddy!” Elsbeth squealed as she ran to him and threw herself into his arms. She snuggled her face into his neck. “You smell good.”

  “It’s called aftershave and it’s guaranteed to drive women wild.” He nuzzled her face. “Do you feel wild?”

  Elsbeth giggled. “Not me, grown-up women. Like Cassie.”

  Cassie waited a moment, but when Jeff made no comment, she said, “Here, sit down and eat.” She put a tall stack of pancakes at Jeff’s place on the breakfast table. The room had a huge bay window, and outside were a dozen bird feeders that she and Elsbeth kept filled with everything from peanut butter to suet.

  “You’re going to make me fat,” Jeff said after he’d seated his daughter.

  “Not with all the exercise you get,” his father said from the doorway.

  As always, Cassie “inspected” the older man when she first saw him in the morning. Her eyes swept up and down him to see if there were any changes in his health. He’d had two heart attacks before she met him, and she lived in fear that another one would take him away from them. He’d told her that when he first moved in with Jeff, after Lillian’s death, Jeff had wanted his father to take the downstairs master bedroom, but Thomas wouldn’t hear of it. They had compromised by making one of the walk-in closets into an elevator.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” Thomas said, looking from Jeff to Cassie then back again. “You two can stop undressing me with your eyes.”

  Smiling at his remark, she turned back to the stove. “How many pancakes do you want?”

  “A dozen at least,” Thomas said as he kissed his granddaughter then sat down beside her. He raised an eyebrow at his son. “Aren’t you a bit cool without a shirt on?”

  Jeff started to say something, but then grinned and pulled his T-shirt over his head. “So what do we have planned for today?”

  The “we” in that made the three of them stop in midmotion. Jeff ate dinner with them and he spent time with Elsbeth on weekends, but he rarely went anywhere with all of them.

  Thomas recovered first. “ We are going to do what we always do on Saturday morning and that’s go to the farmers’ market.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Jeff said, cutting into his pancakes. “When do we leave?”

  Thomas leaned back in his chair and stared at his son. “You’re about to drop some really bad news on us, aren’t you? You’re trying to get into our good graces before you bomb us.”

  Jeff smiled. “Actually, I’m celebrating. I finished the Newcombe project.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Cassie said. Jeff was a structural engineer, and his firm had been working on a huge building project in Virginia Beach for over two years. Jeff had been in charge of it, and the responsibility had nearly killed him. When Cassie moved into the room upstairs, Jeff had been in the middle of the task. She’d never been around him when he wasn’t working long, hard hours. And for the last months, when he did have some time off, if he wasn’t with Elsbeth, he was with Skylar.

  “Does this mean we’ll be seeing more of you?” Thomas asked. “Or will your Somebody Skylar be taking all your time?”

  “Dad, don’t start on me,” Jeff said. “It’s too early in the morning and it’s my first day off in…I don’t know how long it’s been. Just let me enjoy it.”

  “All right,” Thomas said slowly. “Elsbeth and I are going to go work in my garden, so why don’t you go to the farmers’ market with Cassie?”

  “Sure,” Jeff said, “but isn’t Cassie supposed to have days off? Maybe she’d like to do something other than bum around with me.”

  “I don’t mind,” Cassie said quickly. “I’d love the company. I want to get some oysters and scallops, and I need—”

  “Did I hear ‘oysters’?” came a voice from the doorway. It was Skylar, and she was holding up a bag of something. “Hope you don’t mind but the door was unlocked. I let myself in.”

  “Like the cat,” Cassie said under her breath. She lifted the last pancake off the griddle and put it on a plate, then untied her apron and draped it over the big handle on the stove. Skylar was already at the table and pulling out some greasy croissants and coffee in paper cups. It was as though Cassie was seeing the future. When Jeff married Skylar, this is the way it would be. Only Cassie wouldn’t be there to witness it.

  Quietly, she left the kitchen and went up the back stairs to go to her room.

  Jeff caught her on the second-floor landing. “Cassie,” he said. “I’m sorry about this. I didn’t know she was coming. Maybe we can go together another time.”

  Cassie’s pride wouldn’t let her disappointment show. For a few moments it had been exciting to think of being alone with Jeff. “Are you kidding?” she said. “You’re right. I should take the day off. Sounds wonderful! I can’t imagine what I’ll do with all that time to myself.”

  “Oh,” Jeff said and stepped back from her. “You’re welcome to go with us. Skylar’s been invited to go on Roger Craig’s boat, and we’re going with them. It’ll be fun.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be lovely,” she said, “but I really do have my own things to do. Thanks for the invitation, though.” Turning away, she went into her bedroom and shut the door.

  Once inside, she wanted to kick herself. She should have gone with them. She should have accepted his invitation and gone and…And what? she thought. Stand up against beautiful Skylar? Cassie had had her chance with Jeff. She’d spent a year in his house, taking care of his child, looking after his father, cooking for him, making sure his clothes were clean and put away where they belonged. When Jeff couldn’t find something, he asked Cassie. When he wanted an opinion about a structure he was designing, he asked Cassie.

  He was always courteous. There were many times when Cassie had stared at him, willing him to look at her with lust. She daydreamed about his putting his arms around her and kissing her neck. But he never came close.

  Cassie wasn’t the sort of person to push herself onto a man, so she kept her distance and was as respectful toward him as he was to her. But on a few occasions in the last year she made what she thought of as subtle advances toward him. Each time had been the same. She’d heard him downstairs in the kitchen late at night and she’d gone down. The first two times she’d pretended that it was an accidental meeting; by the third time, she didn’t bother. They’d spread out his latest drawings on the big dining table and he’d explained them to her. She didn’t understand a lot of it, but she liked his enthusiasm and his love of his work. She’d made a pot of tea and they’d drunk it all. It wasn’t until the wee hours that they’d parted and gone to bed—without so much as even a tiny impropriety.

  However, in that year there’d been a few embarrassing encounters. One morning she’d walked into his bathroom with a load of clean linens and been shocked to see him standing outside the shower with just a towel wrapped around him. Last summer he’d brushed up against some poison ivy and Cassie had twice coated his sore back with calamine lotion.

  But in all that time, Jeff had never come close to making a pass at her. He’d never so much as brushed her hand with his. He’d never looked at her in any way except as a…If she had to label it, it would be as a kid sister. He was eleven years older than she was, and while it didn’t bother her, it seemed to mean a lot to Jeff—or else he just plain wasn’t attracted to her.

  And since seeing Skylar, Cassie was sure she wasn’t Jeff’s type. His wife, Lillian, had been thin and athletic. Skylar was also thin, although not from athletics. But, like Lillian, Skylar was tall and sure of herself and…

  Skylar was all the things that Cassie wasn’t, she thought. Cassie was short and curvy, and she wore whatever was comfortable and could be washed in the machine. Skylar was sophisticated, a woman who had been places and seen things, whereas Cassie had done little in her life.

  Whatever the reason, it was obvious that, as a woman, Cassie was of no interest to Jeff.

  Cassie stayed in her room for over an hour, waiting until after they’d le
ft and she could go downstairs and not be seen. Thomas had cleared the breakfast dishes off the table, but the kitchen still needed to be cleaned. Cassie started on it, then threw down her cloth. It was only a matter of time before Jeff would marry Skylar and Cassie would be out of a job, so why was she still trying to be a “pretend wife” to a family that would soon be gone from her life?

  She went through the mudroom and out the back door, then through the trees of the conservation area. She was almost to the beach before she saw that Dana Craig was there. Cassie’s impulse was to turn around and leave, but Dana had already seen her. Dana was exactly the kind of woman Cassie’d always heartily disliked. Dana was the woman who ran every charity event, who organized every happening at the club’s recreation center. She was the woman who never made a mistake. Her husband was perfect; her home was perfect. Women like Dana had no visible flaws. Cassie thought that Dana was the suburban equivalent of her mother.

  Cassie gave a weak smile and a little lift of her hand. It took all her strength not to turn around and go back to the house. Jeff kept a car, a yellow MINI Cooper, just for Cassie’s use. She should go to the farmers’ market and buy what they needed for the coming week. She should wander around Colonial Williamsburg—there was always something interesting going on there. Or maybe she could call her mother. Most anything was preferable to spending time with the perfect Dana.

  Cassie drew in her breath and sucked in her stomach. What she should really do is go to the gym. “Hello,” she said.

  “I didn’t think anyone would be here today,” Dana said. “If you and Elsbeth want the place, I’ll leave.”

  Cassie motioned behind her. “It’s just me. All of them went sailing.”

  “Ah, yes, of course. They went with Skylar on Roger’s boat.”

  Cassie looked at Dana, with her hair neatly arranged in a short, flattering style, in her pressed chinos, and her tasteful knit shirt, and again resisted the urge to run away. “You didn’t want to go with them?”

  “No. I’m not good on boats. And you? I mean, that is, if…”

  When Dana hesitated, the hairs on the back of Cassie’s neck stood up. What Dana meant was that maybe Cassie hadn’t been invited. After all, she was just a paid employee. Not family. “I was invited,” Cassie said and tried to unclench her teeth. “But I wanted Jeff and Elsbeth to have time together.”

  “Yes, of course. And Skylar too. She’ll soon be part of the family. I was wondering if they’ve announced their engagement yet.”

  “No,” Cassie said softly. “At least I haven’t been told of it.”

  “But you think it’ll be soon?”

  “I don’t know,” Cassie said, and wanted to throw sand at the woman. “I just came out here for some air. I have a lot to do today, so I’d better go.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” Dana said. “I know how it is between you and Skylar, but I’m sure you’ll find another job right away. I’m sure Jeff’s reference will lavish praise on you.”

  “I know,” Cassie said as she looked out at the river. With each day she was coming closer to the time when she’d have to leave a house she’d come to love, leave a community she loved. And worst, leave people she had come to love.

  She was about to start back to the house when a sound from the mansion that was just visible through the trees made her jump.

  Dana looked at Cassie, her eyes wide. “Was that a shot?”

  There were two more explosions, sounding like two more shots.

  “Do you have a phone with you?” Dana asked. “I think we should call the police.”

  Cassie thought the same thing, but she wasn’t going to tell Dana that. After all, she was a nanny who deserved “lavish praise”—who used such a term nowadays?—so she wasn’t going to turn chicken and run away. She put her shoulders back. “I’m sure it’s nothing, but maybe I should check.” The last thing in the world she wanted to do was walk toward a house where she’d heard shots being fired, but she didn’t want the snooty Miss Perfect Dana Craig to know that.

  “Maybe I should go home and call from there,” Dana said.

  “Yes, of course, you do that,” Cassie said, her head held high as she started walking faster. “I’m just worried that if nothing is wrong, Miss Fairmont might not like the police intruding on her.”

  “Certainly not,” Dana said, keeping pace with Cassie and not veering off toward her house. In front of them loomed the huge Fairmont mansion. It was a new house, but during the two years it had taken to build, no expense had been spared in making it a grand estate. There wasn’t a corbel or a post that wasn’t decorated in a tasteful, expensive way.

  “How big do you think that place is?” Dana asked quietly.

  “Twenty-one thousand, two hundred and ten square feet,” Cassie said quickly.

  “With only five bedrooms but twelve bathrooms,” Dana said.

  “And a screening room that seats thirty, and the house has its own generators.”

  “In case the power goes out, the movie won’t be interrupted,” Dana said, then for a brief second she and Cassie almost exchanged smiles.

  “It’s all on the Internet,” Cassie said as they reached the back of the formal garden that surrounded the house. “Anyone can read about it.”

  “If you spend hours searching,” Dana said.

  “Exactly,” Cassie answered.

  When they reached the garden with its manicured lawn, and the boxwood-edged shapes that were filled with pink begonias, they began to walk more slowly. The house loomed over them, with its huge windows seeming to look down on them. They were in the sacred territory of a woman who was a legend. She had been famous when Cassie’s mother was a child. There were few people on earth who could remember a time when Althea Fairmont wasn’t famous—at least it seemed that way. She’d been a child star before talking movies, looking up with big eyes, begging the villain not to throw her and her mother out into the street. The 1930s came, and along with them, Shirley Temple with her singing and dancing. Althea could do neither of those, but she could act. By the time Althea was fourteen, the studio was lying about her age and casting her with the Barrymores. When she reached thirty, the studio began lying about her age the other way.

  All that had been done had worked. Althea had starred in every type of movie and stage production. Whether she played a comedy, a tragedy, or did a guest appearance on a talk show, the viewer was guaranteed a great show. Althea Fairmont could play any part and had proven it many times over. Still, at her age—whatever it was, as the bios disagreed—whenever she appeared, there was a line waiting to see her.

  Now, Dana and Cassie walked through the garden, uninvited, trespassing, and they slowed with each step.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a shot,” Dana said.

  “It could have been a car. Or something falling.”

  “Exactly. Maybe we should leave.”

  “Yes, I think maybe we should,” Cassie agreed, then turned to head back out of the garden. But they had taken only one step when they heard what sounded like a moan.

  Dana and Cassie turned to look at each other, then they looked back toward the house. The ground floor had an enormous, deep veranda that was divided in the middle by a conservatory. They could see orchids and tropical ferns inside it. A short flight of steps led up one side of the veranda, but they didn’t dare climb them. All they could do was stare. The furniture on the slate-floored area looked as though it had been made for the house. It was all oversize and padded in a cream-colored linen, with pillows with palm leaves printed on them. In the back was a stone-topped table and beneath it, on the slate-paved floor, was what looked to be a shoe.

  It took them a moment to realize that the shoe was attached to a foot. The women rushed up the stairs and across the veranda. Lying on the stone, her eyes closed, her beautiful pantsuit in disarray, was Althea Fairmont, her perfectly preserved features recognizable to every adult in the United States.

  For a moment Dana and Cassie just stood there
looking at her, unable to breathe. For Cassie, she remembered one movie after another that she’d watched as a child, then all the movies she’d gone to as an adult. If Miss Fairmont was in it, Cassie went to see it. There had been a three-day retrospective on her at college, and Cassie had attended every lecture and movie. She still had the binder that had Althea’s photo on the front.

  As for Dana, she saw a woman who had achieved everything that life could give. Althea Fairmont was a legend, true, but she was also a woman of great personal success.

  Althea opened her eyes and looked at the two young women staring down at her, neither of them moving. After a few moments, she made an attempt to get up by herself.

  Cassie was the first to recover. “Oh, my gosh!” she said. “Let me help you.”

  “That would be kind,” Althea said, extending her arm toward Cassie.

  Dana took the woman’s other arm. When she was standing between them, the women stood still, not knowing what to do with their famous charge.

  “Perhaps you could help me inside, to sit somewhere comfortable,” Althea said in a voice that was almost as familiar to them as their own.

  Cassie lifted her chin to look at Dana over Althea’s blonde head. Inside? Inside the mansion? her eyes asked. The place that all Hamilton Hundred had been dying to see since it was built? For the year after Althea moved in, everyone who lived in the resort community—the women anyway—had talked of nothing but seeing the inside of that house. They’d left business cards of services for interior decorating, floral arrangements, even private nursing. But the Great Althea had called on none of them. They speculated on whether she was going to give herself a housewarming party. One of the women had even written Miss Fairmont a letter stating her qualifications as a party planner—but there was no response.

  Years had passed and no one who lived in Hamilton Hundred had ever seen the interior of Althea’s house. But now Dana and Cassie were being told to help Althea Herself inside.