Mittman, Stephanie (15 page)

"Charlotte!"
Cabot's voice shook the paintings on the wall.

"I
will!" she said making sure she was loud enough for Cabot to hear.

"Would
you like me to show Mr. Flannigan and Davis out?" Ash offered softly.
"If you're through, that is. It appears that he needs you," he said,
gesturing with his head toward Cabot's door.

"Thank
you. I believe we're finished." She tipped her head sideways toward Mr.
Flannigan, waiting for him to differ.

"He's
my boy," Mr. Flannigan said, putting a protective arm around him.

"You'd
do well to remember that," Charlotte said in response, before turning away
to wipe her sweaty palms down her brown serge skirt so that she'd be able to
grasp the knob on Cabot's door.

Behind
her she felt Ash's breath against her ear. The knots in her stomach tightened.
"Well done, counselor."

She
had been scared to death facing Ewing Flannigan. He was a man with a temper and
she was bound to rile him. Moisture had collected between her breasts, her
mouth was dry, her legs shaky. At Ash's kind words her eyes flooded with tears
and she yanked the door to her husband's office open, and hurried in.

"I'll
be out back with Kathryn," Ash called in over her head. "She wants to
sit and look at the lake. Call me if you need me," he said as he closed
the door behind him.

She
was halfway to Cabot's desk before she could see him clearly through her tears.
With a frown he pointed to the chair across from him, indicating that she sit
in it.

"Well,
you've made quite a mess of things, Charlotte. The boy will be lucky to make it
home before his father beats the tar out of him for your meddling."

It
was what she had feared more than anything, yet she'd forged ahead heedless of
the consequences. She buried her head in her hands and felt the enormity of
what she'd done descend on her.

"For
heaven's sake, don't come all to pieces now," Cabot said, reaching into
his pocket and pushing a hankie at her. "It isn't that bad."

"But
I broke my mother's cup," she said before dissolving into a puddle at the
edge of his desk.

"Yes,
I know," he said. "I heard it break. Sit down and try to compose
yourself. Do you want a brandy?"

She
shook her head.

Cabot
thrummed his finger pads against his desk while he stared at her, his lips a
thin line, waiting impatiently for her to calm down.

"I
broke her cup," she said again. With all that had gone on in her office,
why was that the only thing she could say? "And he has scars all over,
Moss does. And Selma keeps saying it's her fault and"—she sniffed
loudly—"I broke my mother's cup."

"I
can't deal with you when you're like this," Cabot said as if he were
dismissing her, then began thumbing through the papers on his desk.
"Perhaps you'd like to go wash your face. My comments can wait a few
minutes."

"What
comments?" She took the hankie he held out to her and blew her nose.

"Charlotte,
your actions have just put that boy in a most untenable situation," he
said, backing away from his desk while she blew her nose and searched for her
dignity in the folds of the soggy hankie. When he was finally free of the desk
he rolled the chair over to the front window and looked out. "Well, no
blood on the steps at any rate. Perhaps I'm just overreacting. Go wash your
face and meet me in the conservatory in half an hour or so. That long
enough?"

He
stopped his chair inches from the one in which she sat and studied her, waiting
for an answer.

Silently
she nodded and watched him struggle with the door. At last, Arthur showed up
and wheeled him from the room.

***

Ash
had found Kathryn in the parlor, watching as Davis and his father made their
way down the long walk to the front gate. She had shaken off his invitation to
sit out back and watch the doings on Lake Merritt, and instead he had helped
her up to her room and gone on up to his. He wondered just how long he'd be
able to amuse himself within the confines of Whittier Court before his need to
find out who'd set his warehouse afire sent him out. Just how long would he be
able to obey the rule of law his brother lived by before he listened to the
rule of man that governed his own heart.

Earlier
he had tried in vain to introduce the rabbit to Liberty, hoping that Liberty
would then at least be able to share his room instead of being relegated to the
kitchen, where he scandalized the cook with his language. Van Gogh had sought
refuge under his bed and now Ash lay on his back beneath his bedsprings trying
to convince the little fellow that Liberty was gone and it was safe to come
out.

With
the mattress above him and dustballs tickling his nose, he heard his door open
and close. Tilting his head to the side he could see her boots as she walked
past the bed. He heard her sigh and the sobs that followed it, then watched the
bed as it curved slightly toward him under her meager weight. He lay stock
still, his outstretched arm just inches from her foot, listening to her ragged
breathing and wondering whether he should make his presence known.

It
could be that she would simply take a minute to collect herself and be gone,
none the wiser that he'd been privy to what she'd no doubt consider an
embarrassment. Best, he decided, to wait her out.

And
it might have been a good idea, too, and probably worked if that sneaky
rabbit—after giving Ash a disdainful look—hadn't crept out from under the bed
and rubbed up against her shoe.

"Hello,
cutie-pie," she said, and he watched her hand come down and gently scoop
up the bunny. "I suppose you're not surprised I've done it again."

Now,
he
thought.
You'd best come out from hiding now before she says something you
aren't meant to hear.

But
he didn't move.

She
adjusted herself on the bed, and her feet disappeared from view. Stretched out
across his bed, she sighed heavily. Above him the bed undulated, taking his
insides along for the ride.

"I
should have let Cabot handle it," she told the rabbit. "I don't know
who I thought I was to take on the boy's father."

He
put his hands up against the bottom of the mattress, easing his fingers between
the cords that supported it as best he could, and stroked it gently, softly,
so she wouldn't feel it—so that the solace was his alone.

"I
try so hard," she told the bunny. "But I'm quite the sow's ear still,
aren't I?"

He
swallowed hard, feeling it in his temples, nearly bursting them, and pushed his
fingers farther beneath the ropes until the weight of the mattress pressed them
tight. For a moment, a second, the pain distracted him. But then she spoke
again.

"And
despite my best efforts I can't control these silly tears. I'm ridiculous, you
realize," she told the rabbit. "Cabot is right, of course. He's
always right."

Ash
closed his eyes and sucked his lips between his teeth, biting down hard on them
to keep from uttering a hundred words of comfort.
Cabot's an idiot, a fool.
You are a wonder just as you are. Extraordinary. Perfect.

"Just
look at me, talking to animals and crying like some child when I ought to be
taking care of business. All right. I'm done feeling sorry for myself."
She sat up, crushing Ash's fingers mercilessly as she wiggled her behind to the
edge of the bed.

He
forgot to take a breath, but she took a deep enough one for both of them and he
imagined the starched white shirtwaist she wore filling out its pleats and then
returning to itself.

One
foot was on the floor.

He
pulled his left hand from within the mattress ropes.

A
second foot. A swish of serge. The creak of his window being raised. Like some
intruder—and what else was he if not that?—he silently freed his right hand and
scooted far enough so that he could watch as she climbed from his window out
onto the roof beyond the high room.

"No!"
He gagged on the word, scurrying from under the bed, scraping his hip, clipping
his elbow, banging his head, in his haste to get to her. The railing that had
been placed out there after Cabot's fall could stop an accidental catastrophe,
but if she was bent on destroying herself...

She
looked up at him, startled, as he came barreling out through the window. From
the pot over which she was bowed, a pair of pruning shears in her hand, she
stared at him with wide eyes. "I thought you were down at the lake,"
she said, dabbing at her eyes with the cuff of her very full sleeve. "I
didn't mean to intrude. It's just that I haven't seen to these plants in
several days and I..." She let the sentence trail off, looking everywhere
but at him, shaking her little head, putting the pruners down, picking them up,
putting them down again.

"Are
you all right?" He rubbed at his elbow and then felt for a bump on his
head.

"Your
fingers are all white," she said, reaching out for his hand and studying
the crisscross of lines the ropes had left. She took his hands in hers and traced
the marks across his palms. "What in the world have you been up to?"

"Just
fixing something," he said lamely. "Or trying to."

"Oh."
She let go of his hands, reluctantly. Or did he just imagine that she didn't
want to let him go before she started rubbing her hands up and down her arms
and giving him that sad little smile that sat heavily in the pit of his
stomach?

"You
all right?" he asked again.
Go ahead, talk to me. Pour out that little
heart of yours.

"Of
course I'm all right," she said brusquely, clipping what appeared to Ash
to be a perfectly formed green leaf off some flowering thing. "Why
wouldn't I be?"

He
stared at her, hard, trying to tell her without words that he knew—and, more,
that she was safe telling him.

"Everything
is fine."

"And
Cabot, is he fine?"
That is, are you and Cabot fine?

"Of
course. Cabot is... well, Cabot."

"What
I'm really asking is are things fine between you and Cabot? He seemed a bit
angry down there and I wouldn't want you two fighting on my account."

"Cabot
and I don't fight, Ashford." She seemed unable to meet his gaze.

"You
don't seem to do much else either," he said, tipping up her chin. Then he
realized the implications of what he'd said and added, quickly, "I mean
you don't seem to go out much, or socialize, or sit in front of the fire
or—"

"Cabot
and I work together," she said, pulling her chin from his touch.
"What we do is a lot more important than going to the theater or nonsense
like that. I'm not the 'little lady'—Cabot's or otherwise—and if you've been
imagining me sitting around embroidering pillow slips while Cabot smokes a
pipe, I'm afraid you've got the wrong household in your mind."

Imagining
her? She hadn't been in his mind once in the five years she'd been married to
Cabot. Not until now, when he couldn't seem to have a thought without her in
it. "I just meant that you and Cabot seem more like partners than like man
and wife."

Oh,
jeez! He'd done it again.

"We
are partners, Ashford. Nearly equal partners. And I mean to outlawyer my half
of the Oakland bar."

"I'm
sure you're a great lawyer. Probably as good as Cohen. I only meant that... he
doesn't seem, and you don't seem... that is, you don't... well, you both
don't..."

He
put out his hand and took hers, holding it up for her to see them intertwined.
Touching her, he had to remind himself to breathe. And he was certain this time
that she didn't want to pull away. Still, she did.

And
he should have let it go at that, he knew, yet he didn't. "And you don't
do this," he added, and squeezed her shoulder gently.

And
when that should have been enough, he still went on. "Or this." He
rubbed his knuckles against her cheek, and she closed her eyes for a brief
second before pulling back.

"I've
got to go meet Cabot in the conservatory," she said, putting down the shears
and fingering the blossom on one of the plants. Had he imagined that she warmed
to his touch?

"Does
he have roses for you there? For Saint Valentine's Day?"

"Is
it February fourteenth?" she asked. "Good glory! I've got papers due
tomorrow in bankruptcy court!"

He
plucked a flower from one of her plants and held it out to her, along with his
heart. "Does he at least say nice things to you, Charlotte?"

"What?"
He couldn't tell if she hadn't heard his whisper, or didn't understand.

"Does
he compliment you much, my brother?" he asked, noticing how the sun played
with her hair while the breeze set a strand or two dancing.

"Whenever
I've done something to deserve it," she said, ducking her head under the
window sash and waving away his help.

He
let her leave the room and close the door behind her before he allowed himself
the last word. "I suppose," he said softly, surprising himself,
"that would apply to every breath you take."