Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (18 page)

The only thing she could decipher was that it must have served as a back stairway, a butler’s stairs, when the house was built. One old, ornate sconce covered in cobwebs lit the dusty hallway. The passageway went in both directions. Instinctively she turned left, the music becoming more distinct as she silently took step after step.

She ghosted along until she reached a dead end. A small section of wood flooring had been removed, and the opening shimmered with a dim glow. Bolts circled the cut-away; perhaps someone had butchered the floor to anchor a light fixture long ago. She peeked down through the opening.

She could see into the room beneath her through the filigreed canopy of a wrought iron chandelier that bathed the room below in near candlelight. Sheet music lay on the floor like drifts of snow and shadows of bookcases lined the walls. On the floor, a tea cup sat abandoned.

And there was a man. A man in flannel pajama bottoms and no shirt. The sight of him staggered her.

Alone, Andrew sat on a bed with his eyes closed; she could tell that in the dim light, at least. He was strumming a guitar. A more heartbreaking sound than she had ever remembered hearing filled the shadows around him.

He kept repeating the one refrain over and over, speaking softly to himself, and then starting again. His fingers moved over the frets—nimble, long, intelligent, seductive. He began to hum, a quiet desperation in his voice as though he had traveled all night and could spot the lights of home.

The words of Browning she knew by heart.

The gray sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each
.

Tears burned in her eyes and muddled the vision of him: his eyes closed, his head bowed as he finished, as though he had indeed stepped through that door and was lost to that woman. He stopped and put his hand over the strings to silence them and laid his head back with a sigh. The guitar pressed against his naked skin, his arms folded around it as if it were a lover.

Emily had never seen anything so erotic, so sensual. She couldn’t stay. She had to leave. Silently as the grave, she stole back down the passageway, back to her room, back to the security of her bed. She desperately needed time to think.

It was when she neared the sconce that she saw it. An old-fashioned steamer trunk. It sat in the shadows at the end of the hall in the direction she hadn’t taken. A wave of apprehension rose within her at the sight. What was it doing here? And what, more importantly, was inside it? Part of her was afraid to know, wanting to escape to her room and bury herself under the covers with her memories of Andrew, but curiosity kept her locked in place.

Upon closer inspection she could see that the steamer trunk was old, covered with dust and travel stickers from faraway lands and exotic places. Whose was it? Was it Neil’s? Maybe, but it was so long forgotten…Could it have been left here by a previous owner? And how was she even going to open it—she hadn’t a key.

Then she noticed: it wasn’t locked.

Hesitantly, she ran her hand over the worn leather and brass buttons that decorated the exterior. Her finger brushed over an aged, peeling sticker that read,
Le Grand Hotel, Monte Carlo
, then another that read,
Cunard, White Star to Europe
, and one that looked very worn, as though it was the first one ever placed on the trunk:
The Mendocino Hotel
. Her finger stopped when it reached that one. She swore she felt someone sighing behind her.

She gripped the latch and flipped it up. The trunk exhaled, as though it had taken its first breath in years. With a trembling hand, she slowly opened the lid.

She saw the shimmer first, and then she saw the color. Her heart leaped into her throat. A concoction of the most stunning workmanship lay within. It was a blue sapphire dress, 1930s classic couture, tea length and perfectly exquisite. Her fingers reached out to touch it. The satin felt alive. A pair of matching shoes was nestled next to the dress, and beside them sat a velvet box wrapped with a bow.

She suddenly understood what armor she would wear tomorrow night, how she would survive the battle. How she could face Andrew Hayes.

“Oh, Nora,” she whispered, her breath whispering before her in white puffs. “Thank you.”

“Take no prisoners, darling,” a ghostly voice replied. “Remember. Take no prisoners.”

Glenn Miller warbled from the gilded lily gramophone horn that the men had hauled up from the cupboard under the stairs. Simon, Christian, and Andrew sat in the roof garden after a hectic day of lugging and hammering; they were enjoying a rare moment of peace as they watched the sun leave its last glow in the sky, the day slipping on its dinner jacket of dusk.

Andrew surveyed their handiwork from under the paper lanterns and tiny white lights they’d strung around the room and exhaled in satisfaction at a job well done. They had found these as well as other oddities, from bolts of gossamer material to a king’s ransom of silverware, in the cache under the stairs. Christian’s dance floor looked nearly professional, and the table was set to the hilt. The bar in the conservatory resembled something Bogart and Bacall could call home, and Christian had even carried up a keyboard in case he got in the mood to play. The sight, however, struck Andrew with an aching sense of déjà vu; this was not the first time this place shimmered as it did now. Nick had shaken martinis here; he knew it in his bones.

“It’s a bit like throwing the baby out with the cart, don’t you think?” Simon asked.

“The place was a dump,” Christian argued. “Where were we going to have them sit? On bags of cement? Toolboxes? And those planters? The crew’s been using them for fucking port-o-potties, man.”

“It’s putting the cart before the horse, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” Andrew stated.

“Babies, horses—it’s overkill, I’m telling you. Less is more.”

Was it overkill? Yes. Andrew accepted the fact that he had a difficult time doing anything halfway. He wanted to ensure a friendship, not overwhelm her, but between this and their invitation he was definitely verging on overwhelming. Still, old things charmed Emily. Old things and poetry, like her Browning. And if worst came to worst, he could blame the whole thing on Christian.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing that army jacket,” Christian scolded Simon as he dragged a silver ice chest full of champagne to the bar. “Do you own any other clothes?”

“No.”

“What color was it originally, do you remember?” Christian shot a withering look over his shoulder to Andrew, whose arms were loaded down with the food Zoey had dropped off earlier.

“Who knows? He’s wearing a shirt. Be thankful,” Andrew replied.

For their part, Christian and Andrew had opted for a pair of old tuxes from university that had somehow survived the long trip, although Andrew had lost his bowtie at some sort of drunken debacle years ago where he had barely escaped with his guitar.

A little while later, after Andrew had finished lighting the two monstrosities of candelabras on the bar that Christian insisted they put there, Andrew heard him yell from the roof. “Hey! You figured out what that white fabric was for! Awesome.”

“I didn’t touch this,” Andrew said flatly, staring at the fabric draped romantically in a canopy over the table.

“Simon!” Christian yelled.

Simon stepped out the door, and the look of surprise on his face told them he had nothing to do with it either. Although surveying the decorations, he shook his head. “Man, they’re going to swear we’re fucking poofs.”

“Okay,” Christian said with a forced lightness. “I’m going to make believe no one did this. Dead or otherwise. Want a drink?”

This was not the first time things had mysteriously arranged themselves on the roof since they’d finished work. Silverware moved about in different order around the place settings, extra wine glasses appeared out of nowhere, flowers that no one remembered picking materialized from the back garden in various vases about the room. So many flowers, in fact, that the closed space of the conservatory felt heady. All this while the scratchy records played, coaxing awake the stars that glimmered through the glass roof.

“They should be here by now,” Christian said, knocking back another martini with the others at the bar. “What do you suppose they’re doing?”

“Sharpening their claws,” Simon replied.

Despite Simon’s sentiments, three sets of eyes remained fixed on the door. A soft knock was followed by Zoey’s electric smile. She looked startling, like a voluptuous version of Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, her long black dress and her long white gloves encasing tight mounds of exuberant flesh, untold amounts of rhinestone clips holding her wildly streaked hair hostage. Christian trotted over to meet her, and after giving her a smack on the cheek, took a large dish from her hands. Her eyes widened in shock at the room, her mouth hanging open as she began to gush uncontrollably.

“Oh, goddamn, Christian, it’s…it’s gorgeous. You did all this? I can’t fucking believe it. Where the hell did you find all this shit?”

“She kisses him with that mouth.” Simon sniggered in Andrew’s ear as Christian’s face beamed with pride.

“It was nothin’, chere. Nothin’ at all.”

“He is so whipped.”

Andrew elbowed Simon in the ribs.

But Simon had paused. Andrew turned his head to follow Simon’s stare.

Margot entered the room with her customary mathematical precision. She wore a dress; Andrew guessed one might call it that, navy, skin tight, short, and angled. She surveyed the room passively as though she were entering a lecture hall, yet seeing the uncustomary flash in her eyes as she tossed her black hair, it was difficult to remember this woman ever taught anything legal. Then a voice spoke from behind her.

“Hello.”

A vision from Andrew’s memory stood framed by the doorway. A strapless blue gown graced her body, the creamy satin cinched around her waist held by a diamond clip. His eyes rose to her face. Her throat was bare except for a delicate necklace of sapphires, and the lights shimmered in the diamond and sapphire comb that swept up her hair in twist. A few loose tendrils curled about her face, her eyes darkened by shadow.

Nora.

Something inside of him reached out to her.
No
, Andrew said to himself.
No.
Emily, he was gazing at
Emily
.

At that precise moment her gaze fell to the floor as though she had heard him. She backed up, clearly embarrassed, and muttered something to herself, shaking her head in protest. A second later, she stumbled forward through the doorway as though shoved and straight into his arms.

“You look beautiful,” they both said at the same time, looking everywhere except where they wanted.

He took her arm with a chuckle and led her toward the bar to join the others. “To warn you, the dinner menu’s a tad bit interesting,” he said, running his free hand through his slicked-back hair. “Turns out an international smorgasbord is fairly odd looking. Best to see what we’re dealing with here.”

They wandered over to where the platters sat on the candlelit table on the side of the room. Each dish was dotted with name cards. Andrew couldn’t remember them being there before.

“I brought pizza from New York City,” Emily said with her head held high.

“And good thing, that, we’ll have something to eat amidst all of this,” he told her, gaining her grateful smile. “Christian brought jambalaya and étouffé all the way from New Orleans.”