“It’s too sexy for a dinner party. Tone it down.”
She looked me straight in the eye. “It is not too sexy. It is perfectly appropriate and you know it. You just don’t want me to attract attention. I think you’d like for me to become a nun. But I like being treated well, I like being sexy, I like Carter, and I like being here.” She strode into the bathroom and slammed the door.
I paced, thinking furiously. Forget the Nashville job market. In the morning I would make some phone calls to booking agents I knew out west.
I had to get Ella far away from these people.
Fourteen
“Them’s the Nellies,” Ebb whispered to her lookalike younger sister that night.
Flo whispered back loudly, “I see ’em. I got eyes.”
“Hello,” Ella said, smiling. “Carter told me this place wouldn’t be the same without you two and your mother.”
Flo gaped at her. “I heard right,” Flo said. “You’re a real lady.” She and Ebb set silver hors d’oeuvre trays on a massive buffet beside the bar of the music room then headed out the doors as hurriedly as they had come, darting glances at us. “Don’t that hair hurt your head?” Flo called to me. “All them braids wound up in a knot like that?”
“I have a tough scalp,” I replied.
Flo guffawed. “I heard you got a hard head.”
Twenty-five guests had been invited to the party in our honor that night. Olivia arrived as if at the head of her own royal procession, trailed by Kelly and Jasper, and balanced on Bea’s arm. She proceeded, barefoot, toward the piano. She was dressed in an apple-red skirt and pink blouse with a huge antique cameo brooch at the throat. Her hair dangled around her in gray curlicues. Bea, who was dressed to the nines in a yellow satin dress with an overjacket outlined in yellow beaded flowers, helped her sit in the armchair beside the piano. Bea sat in a straight chair next to hers.
Hoss and Sophia Cameron arrived, greeted us exuberantly, and stood near us with their drinks—a martini for him, a rum and Coke for her. The room filled with people over the next half hour. Ella and I were formally introduced to a dizzying array, not close to a full house by Cameron Hall standards, but pound for pound an expensively coiffed and well-heeled crew of family and old friends.
Carter wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thank God. I sat at the piano, improvising jazz riffs from segments of old tunes. I felt safely barricaded. Ella shifted uneasily on a delicate wooden chair beside the piano bench. I noticed her glancing at the doors every time someone new arrived, then the spark in her eyes fading when it wasn’t Carter. She knew better than to ask about his whereabouts while I was listening.
A man who’d been talking to Gib suddenly headed our way. He had the clean-cut, no-frills decorum of a solid suburban businessman in gray pinstripes, his gut a little thick but his attitude muscular, his chin just beginning to go soft. A carefully clipped mane of pepper-gray hair framed dark blue eyes and weathered skin.
I’d already noticed him because he watched Min somberly and with a certain wistfulness when she didn’t realize he was looking. “Ms. Arinelli,” the man said to me in an educated magnolia-and-bourbon accent, “what I know about music wouldn’t fill a termite’s pocketbook, but when I listened to the record of you playing some classical piece—I can’t even remember its name—but when I heard you on the record you made—well, I could understand a little twelve-year-old girl learning that kind of technical skill but not that kind of emotional passion. You played your heart out.”
Who in the world was this man who knew I’d been a soloist on an obscure album of young musicians? The album had been produced by a small company that specialized in classical music, and only five or ten thousand copies were made. Pop proudly bought a thousand of them to give away to friends and customers at the nightclub.
“What’s your point?” I asked sharply.
“Vee, this gentleman is offering you a compliment,” Ella said anxiously, twisting her earrings as if dialing for satellite signals to pinpoint danger. “How … how do you know such an obscure detail about us, sir?”
His eyes widened. “Min, introduce me before these young ladies decide I’m sinister,” he said quickly as Min came to the piano.
“Oh, he’s as harmless as can be,” she said to us, and I watched him deflate a little. Her one comment turned a daring senior wolf into a toothless, aging poodle. “Venus, Ella, this is an old family friend from Knoxville. Bo Burton.”
“Reginald Aster Burton,” he corrected, recovering enough charm to grin and bow gallantly. “But going by Reginald got my behind kicked in reform school, and when I was serving in Korea my sergeant said Aster reminded him of a daisy. He didn’t put it quite that way but I got his point. So I’m Bo. Old Bo to the whippersnappers”—he said that with a jaunty tone and amused eyes—“at the field offices. B-e-a-u Bo to the ladies who are intent on romancing me.” He flashed the quickest hopeful glance at Min, who never noticed. I realized she’d made a point of standing a full yard away from him. “But enough about me. It’s a joy to meet you both. I’ve got a pair of daughters not many years younger than you two. They call me Bo Daddy.”
“He’s a talker,” Min said dryly.
“I’m in charge of the state forestry commission. Of course I’m a talker. I have to talk about trees all the time. That takes a gift for gab.” He laughed. “Minnie, you think I’m more fun than a pine beetle and twice as nice as a wood borer. I know you do, deep down.”
“You make my leaves itch,” she teased gently. Then she stiffened as if humor were a betrayal, and she filtered into the people around us. He tracked her departure with a slight frown until someone called him away. He nodded to us, smiled, and left.
“Widower,” Sophia whispered in our ears. “He and his wife visited here for many years. Their daughters, too. Now he’s all alone and so is Minnie. He is a handsome man, a good man, and only fifty! So many years of strong hmmm hmmm hmmm left in him yet! But does she see him that way? No! Some other woman will take him before she notices! A shame!”
“How does he know so much about me?” I asked.
Bea jumped into the conversation. “Dear Gib is a thorough boy, and he found a copy of the recording you made as a wee girl, and we’ve been listening to it for months. Aye, and here.” She handed me a note. I glanced at Olivia, whose shrewd eyes flashed as she inclined her head in acknowledgment. I read: Don’t worry so much. Play.
I looked at her, and at Ella, but I was still gauging the danger involved, and she was, too. I began a song but halted as we heard the loud tapping of silver on crystal. Isabel was drumming a spoon against a wineglass. When silence reigned she gestured to Gib. He moved to the center of the room. “Aunt Olivia asked me to welcome all of you to the Hall.” Gib, resplendent in a light shirt and leather suspenders, moved aside with a slight gesture of his hand toward Olivia, who nodded regally. Then Gib motioned to Min. Her back straight, her head up, she looked at the guests with tears slipping down her cheeks.
In her hands she held a small brass bell. “It’s so good to see all of you again,” she said. “I … don’t remember a lot of our conversations from last year, but I know most of you were here to share our grief over my husband and to offer all the help you could to us, and to Gib, while he was in the hospital. I’m proud you came back to share tonight with us.”
Kelly and Jasper stood behind her, their heads bowed. Isabel moved to stand near Gib. She put an arm around Kelly’s shoulders. Gib stared fixedly into space, turned oh-so-discreetly to hide his damaged hand by his side.
Min raised the small bell. “All of you—and every guest who visited this house—can tell stories about the small touches of humor and hospitality my husband incorporated. This wasn’t a business to him. He believed he had a calling to welcome people to this house, that he and his brother and his sisters and Aunt Olivia and our sweet Beatrice should open this lovely old home of the Cameron clan to friends, relatives, and strangers alike. He believed that the world would be a safe and jo
yful place if we all treated one another like family. And each night, when he walked through these downstairs rooms and rang this bell to call our guests to dinner, he was offering fellowship to everyone who could hear the sound. Thirty years ago, tonight, he rang this bell the first time.” Her voice faltered.
Mom and Pop were here that night. They heard the bell. Ella cried softly beside me. Min went on, “When I ring this bell tonight, my husband will be listening”—now half the people in the room were wiping tears from their eyes—“and all of our guests, past, present, and future, will be with us in spirit.”
She lifted the bell.
Gib took a champagne glass from a table behind him, raised it with his ruined hand clasped around the stem, and added in a strong voice, “To my brother’s love for the Hall and this family. To my brother. And welcome to Venus and Ella Arinelli. Thirty years ago your parents stood in this room.” He paused for a moment, his eyes directly on mine. With neutral diplomacy he said, “We hope their good wishes watch over us all. And we’re glad we found you.”
“Good show, dear Gib,” Bea said under her breath. Olivia reached across me to the piano keyboard and began pounding a high D with her forefinger.
Everyone, startled, turned to look at us. I held up both hands to show it wasn’t my doing. Olivia blew Gib a kiss, then sat back in her chair, her expression firm and proud.
Min and Isabel gazed at Gib with adoration.
And so, God help me, did I.
It had been years since we’d been invited to anyone’s fine table, years since I’d maneuvered a piece of real silverware in my hand. The soft, lace-edged tablecloth and napkins embroidered with a Cameron crest caressed my hands; the chandeliers seemed too bright; I was reliving the luxuries of childhood, when Pop spared no expense, and every night Ella and I ate dinner with him at a private room at his nightclub, with white tablecloths and white-aproned, bowing waiters, and Pop helping us slice little-girl portions of prime rib into bite-sized pieces, or pull delicate roasted quail meat from the tiny quail bones, while he led us in solemn critiques of the jazz or classical selections he played on a stereo in the room.
Every night, a music lesson, and a very private, formal family dinner. I loved that memory so much. A butler door swung open. Ebb and Flo paraded into the room carrying a magnificent china soup tureen between them.
Min motioned for them to begin serving. She sat at a far end of the large table, with Gib at the opposite end, and Ella far away from me, placed beside a stately woman who owned Southern Scene, a sumptuous, upscale magazine that had been considered the bible of regional travel and entertaining for decades. They were already chatting like old friends.
Carter had finally arrived. He’d turned himself out in gray linen with a gray western-style jacket fitted with black piping around the shoulders, and a collarless shirt with a pearl stickpin at the throat, to match the pearl stud in his earlobe.
“You’re a looker, all right,” Hoover Bird Macintosh boomed cheerfully as he gazed at Ella.
“Pretty as a goddamned daffodil,” his wife, Goldfish, echoed. They were Carter’s adoptive parents from Oklahoma. His uncle, Hoover Bird, had shoulder-length hair pulled back with a silver clasp. Goldfish, red-headed and big-busted, wore a dress suit in an eye-aching shade of neon blue.
Ella blushed then offered gamely, “Carter mentioned to me that he had to pick you folks up at the airport in Knoxville. Was your flight late?”
Uncle Hoover Bird grinned. “We got a late start out of Oklahoma City. Had to switch planes. Had some computer trouble.”
“Oh? I’m so glad you could get a later flight.”
“They didn’t take a later flight,” Gib interjected. “They switched planes.”
Ella looked bewildered. I’m sure I did, too. Carter cleared his throat. He took Ella’s hand. “Darlin’,” he said soothingly, as if bad news were coming, “they’ve got a couple of Cessnas and a little jet.”
I stared at him, then at Gib. Gib arched a brow. Uncle Hoover Bird announced, “Oil money. We struck oil on our ranch during the early sixties.” Rich. Carter wasn’t a ne’er-do-well relative. He was a rich ne’er-do-well relative.
This didn’t make me feel any better. Carter and Ella leaned close together and gazed at each other like cats watching butterflies flicker against a windowpane.
Darling, he had said.
We went upstairs to our bedroom. Ella slept in the main bed, a lovely canopied number done in soft yellow. I opted for a plush wicker sleeping couch in a sitting room. Ella opened a curtain. “Oh, Vee, look.” Moonlight glittered like silver on flower gardens and the swimming pool. A small apple orchard stretched in moon-shadowed charm alongside a large vegetable garden surrounded by a split-rail fence. It was a scene of astonishing, heart-melting beauty.
Gib stuck his head in the open door of our bedroom. “If you hear the dogs barking it’ll only be that they’re chasing off deer and rabbits,” he said. “Or maybe a bear after the seeds in the bird feeders. I chased off a mama and her cubs a few weeks ago.”
“We won’t be going out to watch the bears,” I promised. He said good-night to Ella, who was already sinking luxuriously into a chintz armchair. “Ebb will bring up some hot tea in a minute,” he added.
“Oh, bliss,” she sighed. “Thank you. This is all so wonderful. I feel like a princess.”
“Good for you,” Gib said gently. “We pride ourselves on our hospitality.” He glanced at me. “Are you feeling like a princess, too?” he asked dryly.
“No, I’m the evil queen.” His eyes slitted, he smiled and nodded an ungallant agreement. He crooked his finger at me. When he walked off I trailed him down the hallway. We stopped at the top of long, simple stairs with a newel post of golden wood. “Chestnut?” I asked.
“Yes.” He frowned. “There’s something I don’t understand. Why haven’t you asked to see your money?”
I stalled. “Why haven’t you offered to show it to me?”
“I don’t even like to talk about it.”
“Fine. Neither do I. On the day Ella and I leave, just bring it to our car. We don’t have to discuss it. Or look at it.”
A sardonic smile crooked one corner of his mouth. “Don’t you want to count it and see if it’s all there?”
“Oh, I will. I’ll sit in some hotel room somewhere, juiced on Dom Perignon, naked, with hundred-dollar bills scattered around me, and I’ll laugh wickedly as I count the whole stash. Just think of me that way.”
“Subtract the money from that mental image, and you’ve got a deal.”
The evening had certainly mellowed him. Suddenly awkward, I changed the subject. “Everything you’ve done for Ella and me since we got here has been gracious. Thank you.”
“No problem. You and Ella are Company. This is how we treat all Company.”
“My sister enjoys being part of a family group. She loves children and she loves the friendship of women who don’t make her discuss duet arrangements and badger her to practice her violin. I appreciate the kindness everybody around here has offered her. She deserves to enjoy being here.”
“Nothing for yourself? All for Ella? Never admit you seriously need anything or anyone to look after you, hmmm?”
“You summed me up. Congratulations. You can relax—I’m not looking for a man to lean on.”
“I wish you could see me and my motives clearly.”
“I do. Pure and simple. Duty to your family, honoring your brother’s wishes, putting up with me to humor Olivia—I understand your motives.”
“Thank you for cooperating with me. Being kind to Olivia, and Isabel and Min. Even if you’re only doing what you have to do to pick up your money.”
Wounded, I tossed back, “Speaking of the missing link in your family, I know Ruth didn’t come tonight because she still doesn’t like your inviting Ella and me here.”
“Sorry, but that’s true. I think I can safely say, however, that even Ruth will keep her opinions to herself and treat you both well in
person.”
I decided not to tell him how wrong he was about his sister’s politeness. I didn’t want him to know how I’d threatened her, either. I shrugged. “She was a little cool when we met.”
Gib, unaware, nodded. “My sister’s blunt but fair. We agree on matters of principle about family togetherness.”
“Except for the little problem of her wanting to sell the Hall to your cousin Emory.”
He scowled. “She’ll come around. I’m working on her attitude.”
“How about Min and Isabel? Can you change everyone’s attitude? Can you and Olivia bring about some major shift in the Cameron universe?”
“We’re trying. You’re part of it. You and the memories of how we started. That’s what you and Ella represent.”
“Oh? That’s not very logical.”
“You go on trying to be logical. I used to appreciate logic. Lately I’ve just been operating by instinct.” He spoke quietly, leaning closer to me. “And instinct is a powerful motivation, Nellie.” I found myself leaning toward him, too. Then his gaze went to my mouth, and suddenly we were on the verge of kissing. We swayed together as if pulled by some invisible force. I quickly took a step away from him and gripped the balustrade at the top of the stairs.
He recovered fast. Nodding good-night to me, he started down the stairs, leaving his obvious rejection in the air like skunk musk. “Where do you go at night?” I called after him. “To your cave?”
“The Waterfall Lodge,” he called back. “It’s where I live, for now. I like the peace and quiet.”
“Oh, yes, Sophia told me about it. Your great-great-grandfather built the lodge when he and your great-great-grandmother weren’t getting along. After a year she had the servants hide decomposing trout in the lodge to flush him out and force him to move back to the Hall. I admire a woman who knows when to call on dead trout for help.”
Gib managed a short, explosive chortle of laughter. I listened to the rich baritone sound fade until he closed a door behind himself downstairs.