How do I deal with all of this?
Nothing came to me—not a whisper, not a thought, not a stray feather.
But suddenly there was Gib, cresting a pastured ridge against the gold-and-red morning, silhouetted like a tall earth-bound wizard in his old fedora and the cane gripped in his ruined hand. Walking the wild hills was a lonely, powerful habit Camerons seemed to take to heart like their Highlander ancestors. I watched him, fixated, as he crossed that space of open ridge. He halted and looked down at me.
I was sure he knew it was me there in the gazebo. We held each other’s distant scrutiny for a few seconds before he turned abruptly and walked into the forest, headed in the direction of his lodge by the waterfall. I had a bad feeling he’d been walking all night. Into the wilderness for my sake. And me for his sake.
The cusp of the sun lit up the ridge and colored him in gold. I found myself crying. I didn’t want to need him or his family because, like Gib, I didn’t want to need people I knew I’d have to give up. I didn’t want to lose anyone else in my life.
But I loved him secretly, without any doubt at all.
I stayed frantically busy to keep from thinking about Gib or at least to exhaust the temptation. He seemed to be doing the same. No task was too big or too demanding. He moved truckloads of hay into the barns for the winter; he mulched the gardens; he was constantly roaming about the Hall and the outbuildings doing some handyman chore with a toolbelt hanging from his waist.
I went to the Hall one day for rehearsals with Ella, piano lessons that I’d begun to teach Jasper, and singing lessons for Kelly. That day I had my head wrapped in a purple scarf. I felt like a grape. I needed to find some private time and tell Ella the story Gib had told me about Mom and Pop. I knew it would mean as much to her as it had to me.
Ella sat with her back to me in the music room of the Hall, playing guitar. Unfortunately, Carter lounged nearby. They were rarely separated, which made it nearly impossible for her and me to hold deep conversations. I knew she liked it that way.
She was wearing a large straw hat. I gazed at her in bewilderment as I placed a handful of sheet music on the piano. “Hello?”
“Hello,” she said, without turning around.
“You look real fashionable,” Carter said to me.
“No, I look like I belong to a gang that attacks wine stewards.”
“Well, that, too.” He grinned. “Anyhow, Ellie figured you and her could use a different kind of rehearsal today. You should do some songs with piano and guitar. I’m sure the guests will like it.”
“That would mean writing new arrangements. No, we’ll stick to piano and violin.”
Ella turned around. She removed the hat. She had cut her hair off down to the dark emerging roots. Now it was a soft black cap, maybe an inch long all over. I stared at her. “Isn’t she cute as a bug?” Carter asked.
Ella managed a teary smile. “I didn’t want you to be the only one with no hair. Now we’ll both grow out together.”
For the first time in weeks we shared something other than anger, disappointment, and sorrow. We were both nearly bald, like novitiates in some spartan nunnery.
I went to the piano and sat down. “Let’s improvise some duets with the guitar. Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”
Ella couldn’t stand it. She had to come over and sit beside me and hug me. “You don’t have to say anything,” she whispered.
“Birds of a feather go bald together,” I managed. “I love you.”
Carter cleared his throat. “I won’t ask you for a blessing on your sister and me—not yet—because I know you think I haven’t earned it, but I have to say that you are a classy lady who holds her opinions as gentle as a wren on the nest. When they’ve gotten too big for the circumstance you let ’em go.”
His analogy made about as much sense as a nineteenth-century German tone poem, but I nodded. “I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Something’s happened to you,” Ella said. “You’re different.”
“I’m hairless. It affects my brain.” I put my hands on the keyboard and cleared my throat. “Let’s get started. You pick and I’ll grin.” She laughed then reached for her new guitar.
What had happened between Gib and me was a sharp small stick jabbing me in the stomach. I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Twenty-six
We were only weeks away from the Hall’s opening. The skies poured rain, and the wind coming down off the mountains was intoxicating, bringing a brisk scent like cold, wet granite and chimney smoke. Thanksgiving weekend had come and gone. The highlight was a flock of wild turkeys parading across the front lawn without a clue that a couple of their tame brethren were roasting inside the Hall’s kitchen ovens. After the turkeys wandered away Ella ran outside and picked up a dozen large feathers, proudly adding them to her collection.
The first day of December, all of us began putting up Christmas decorations. This went on, nonstop, for an entire week. Since the inn’s opening weekend followed closely on New Year’s Day, Gib and Min had decided the holiday decorations should be left up until then. Frankly, we wanted to dazzle the reviewers. Blind them to the reality of Simon’s absence, if necessary.
Ella went into Christmas overload. After years of glumly decorating only a tiny fake tree we anchored to the RV’s dresser, she was as excited as a child.
A spectacular Christmas tree now stood in the front foyer of the Hall. It was easily thirty feet tall, and covered in hundreds of ornaments contributed by guests over the decades. Smaller trees were decorated in the music room, the dining room, and the sitting area at the end of the upstairs hall. Even the guest rooms had small Christmas trees, and elaborate wreaths were hung on each door.
But in the family wing, the Christmas atmosphere was fragile and poignant. A single delicate tree stood in the den, adorned with cherished heirloom ornaments and whimsical ones made by the family. Some were yellowed, papier-mâché angels with crumbling wings, made by Winny Cameron, Gib’s mother. They smiled quaintly from the green boughs.
When I was growing up, the nuns talked about finding the Holy Spirit in a home. I felt it, looking at that sentimental tree in the den. So much about the Camerons was gracious, kind, respectful, serene. There was an ingrained security among them, maybe a temporary security for Ella and me, but I craved it more every day.
I looked in my bathroom mirror in the mornings and watched a bristly, dark-haired stranger emerge. I continued to artfully braid and wrap scarves around my head and sock a floppy cloth hat over that, before I left the cottage. I wasn’t sure yet who this stranger might become, so I refused to reveal her to anyone else.
I wouldn’t say I coached Kelly to a level where she could win the Miss Teenage Eastern Tennessee beauty pageant, or even the pageant’s talent competition, but on a cold, clear night a week before Christmas, at a cheesily decorated high-school auditorium among the big-city lights of Knoxville, Tennessee, I can honestly say that Gib’s niece, my determined student, Kelly Cameron, was the best, the proudest, and certainly the only sixteen-year-old Evita Perón the audience had ever seen.
It was a major Cameron family event, requiring a caravan of five cars for the long trip to the city. I went early with Kelly, Min, and Ruth as a backstage assistant. I led Kelly in relaxation techniques and voice warm-ups. Ruth counseled her to watch the other contestants for pageant violations like stuffing their dress bodices, which could get a girl disqualified.
When Gib ushered the rest of the family into their seats at the auditorium Bo Burton arrived, too. He showed Min the bouquet of pink roses he’d bought for Kelly. Just as I’d suggested in a private consultation, Bo plucked one rose from their midst then presented it to Min. “And a rose for the most beautiful mother a pageant contestant could have.”
Min flushed. “I’m too old to be silly about a flower.” She thrust the rose at a startled Isabel then excused herself and went backstage.
“What did I say wrong this time?” Bo
asked me wearily. I pretended not to hear him. My matchmaking was supposed to be our little secret. I felt Gib watching me.
“You’re accusing Minnie of having womanly vanity,” Bea said loudly. “She’s no’ used to being flirted with, man!” Bea slapped him on the back. “You must take matters into bold consideration, or she’ll never get your wee meanin’!”
“My meaning is getting more wee by the day,” Bo said.
Gib guided me to a quiet corner in the lobby. We stood, casually hidden, around the corner from a case of football trophies. “I should have known,” he said. “Bo’s as subtle as a tank. So are you.”
“I’m only trying to help.”
“How’s Kelly?”
“Pretending not to be nervous. She’s so scared her fake eyelashes quiver.”
“Poor kid.”
“But if you want to know the truth, Ruth is more nervous than Kelly is. Min is very calm about everything.”
“Ruth takes competition seriously. If you think she’s intense, you should see Jasper. He’s outside pacing the sidewalk. I don’t think males should be allowed to come to these things. This is a female event.”
“Listen, Pop used to throw up before my piano competitions. He tried to hide his problem but I found out as I got older. Now that’s pressure.”
“Too much pressure on you to meet his expectations,” Gib corrected with a troubled tone.
“No. I loved it. I had nerves of steel.”
“No, you’d just never admit it when you were afraid.”
I changed the subject. “Kelly’s a trouper. I’ve armed her with every tactic I know—concentration, delivery, mental attitude, you name it.”
“Now wave a magic wand over her and turn her into a Barbie like the other girls in the pageant.” Gib sighed. “I don’t want to see her get flattened.”
“Go walk the pavement with Jasper. You’re as antsy as any daddy.”
“Kelly’s been asking me to teach her the basics of tae kwon do. I think she should switch to that. Martial arts. Forget the eyelashes.”
“Nonsense. I’ve got to go backstage again. Ruth’s idea of preshow encouragement is to tell Kelly they can sue the pageant organizers if anything goes wrong.”
“Hey, you two!” Ella glided up to us. She looked lovely and plush in a pleated blue jacket and skirt. Her hair had grown out enough to lie flat, courtesy of Ebb and Flo’s high-test styling mousse. It gleamed like onyx. Mine was still a bristle. I’d wrapped a black silk scarf around my head that night, to match the suit I wore.
Ella smiled and touched Gib’s coat sleeve. “You’ve been gone so long Carter thought you went to buy a bottle of bourbon.”
“I should.”
“Would you mind getting Aunt Olivia a Coke at the concessions stand? I told her I’d get it, but I have to make a quick run to the rest room.”
“I’ll get the Coke. Go ahead.”
I strode over to her. “Are you feeling all right?” I touched her face. “You’re a little pale. What’s Carter done? Did you two have a fight?”
“Oh, Vee. Stop obsessing.” She smiled, then disappeared into a nearby women’s room.
“Yeah, quit obsessing,” Gib echoed somberly. “Go worry about Kelly.”
“Okay. Do me a favor. Buy the Coke but then wait outside the bathroom and walk Ella back to her seat.”
“Sure,” he agreed darkly. “I like to hang around women’s rest rooms.”
“If anyone stares at you just say you need a date.”
“Scram,” he growled. “And stop worrying about Ella.”
“See you from the wings. Tell the whole clan to applaud like crazy every time Kelly sets foot onstage.” I darted away, frowning.
Kelly was in the middle of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina,” belting out the melodramatic lyrics to a somewhat flabbergasted audience of several hundred people. They had just finished clapping enthusiastically for a pie-eyed redhead who tap-danced and twirled a baton to the love song from Aladdin. The redhead was more their type.
But Kelly was selling Eva Perón, really selling the piece, accompanied by a tape of my customized arrangement of the song, which played with fairly decent quality over the auditorium’s sound system.
“The truth is, I neeeever left you,” Kelly sang, spreading her arms wide. “All through my wild—”
The electricity went off. Not an uncommon occurrence on windy mountain nights. The music stopped, the microphone went dead, the lights faded, and small emergency lights snapped on, offering just enough illumination to prove Kelly stood in the center of a glitter-draped stage with her mouth frozen open in horror.
“I’ll have somebody’s ass in a trap over this,” Ruth snarled, standing beside me in the wings. I ran to an old upright piano that had been rolled just offstage during rehearsals. I gave it a shove and it careered out of the wings. I pushed the bench out to it, sat down, and played the opening to Kelly’s song. She looked at me desperately. Sing, I mouthed to her.
And she did. I thought her lungs might burst. She arched her back and bellowed the song with great melodramatic flourishes, striding back and forth on the dim stage in her tailored faux-glam padded-shoulder pin-striped suit, and then she teetered on her stacked-heeled pumps down a short set of stairs at the center of the stage and worked the audience, extending her arms as she walked a few yards up the center aisle, turning to either side, making eye contact, then backing slowly toward the stage and climbing the stairs as she sang the last few bars.
As she finished she nodded regally, just as I’d taught her to do. I didn’t care if she won or not, if there was applause or not—I was so proud of her, and remembered so many times when Pop’s firmly ingrained bravado helped me through tough moments in public. I suddenly realized that I’d taught her the discipline and confidence I’d carried straight from him, and from Mom, and before them from Grandpop Paolo and Grandmother Akiko, and even my grandmother Big Jane Kirkelson, who must have been a confident woman if she played guitar in truck stops.
The audience went wild with applause. They gave Kelly a standing ovation. She nodded again, outwardly composed, though she transmitted a visible body tremor that made the back of her skirt shimmy. I ducked down behind the piano’s high back and quickly wiped tears from my eyes.
Thank you, I whispered to the knowing ghosts around me.
Kelly waited until the applause began to fade and then pivoted and walked slowly off. I followed. The instant she was out of public view Ruth grabbed her in a bear hug. “I did it,” Kelly said, hiccuping with relief. Min stepped out of the shadows. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.
Kelly raced to her. They hugged tearfully. “Do you think Daddy would be proud, too?”
“Oh, yes.”
Ruth clapped her on the shoulder. “Sweetie hon, you may not win the pageant but everybody in Knoxville is going to hear about your performance.”
“I did everything the way Aunt Vee said.”
Aunt Vee. Tears burned my eyes. I covered desperately by straightening my ludicrous turban.
Ruth glared at me. “Well, doesn’t that just take the cake?” she drawled. “Madame Swami has won a convert.”
Propelled by the pageant, we were all cheerful for the holidays. Bo Burton barnstormed us on Christmas Eve. The man terrorized the livestock, the dogs, the cats, and any nearby wildlife when he arrived without warning in a forestry-service helicopter, dropping languidly into the front pasture like Santa Claus with rotary-blade reindeer.
“I brought Maine lobsters!” he bellowed as he and the chopper pilot lugged a huge ice chest up through the front shrubs. All of us gathered on the front courtyard to watch him.
“Did they sprout wings?” Min asked dryly.
“Minnie, these lobsters are too heavy to fly on their own! These lobsters are so big they’ll even scare FeeMolly!”
“Not unless they know how to use spray paint or a meat cleaver,” I muttered. Beside me, Gib gestured to Carter and Jasper. To me he said, “Watch this
. He loves it.” Then he called to Bo, “You have anything else to carry? Need some help?”
Bo stopped melodramatically, his brindled hair stirring like the mane of some mad professor, his long cloth coat winging back from broad candy-striped suspenders and a Frosty the Snowman tie. He spread one hand over his heart. “More? More? Of course there’s more. There’s an ice chest full of champagne and caviar.”
“He’s brought food like this every Christmas for years,” Gib told me. “When his wife was alive she’d get out of the helicopter with her arms full of tins of homemade cookies and cheesecake. And every year Simon made the same joke about the Burton Christmas gifts. He’d walk out to meet them all hunched over, swearing they’d broken his back the year before. They loved that routine of his.” Gib hesitated, frowning. “I don’t know how to clown around with Bo. Suggest something funny I can do, Nellie. Quick. Somebody needs to keep up the tradition.”
“It’s already taken care of.”
Jasper darted from around a corner of the house, pushing a large wheelbarrow. He zigzagged across the lawn, grinning determinedly. “Daddy told me to never help you carry packages,” he called to Bo, “unless I brought a wheelbarrow or a truck!”
Bo laughed heartily. Gib blew out a breath and seemed to feel relieved. I touched his arm briefly, and when he looked at me I hid my sympathy behind a jaunty expression. “See? You don’t have to keep up all of Simon’s traditions by yourself. But if it makes you feel any better, in my eyes you’ll always be a natural clown.”
His mouth turned up at the corner. “Thank you so much.”
Kelly loped to Bo and threw her arms around his neck. She pecked him on the cheek. He kissed her forehead. She turned and grinned at Min. “Come on, Mama, your turn.” Apparently, this was another tradition.