Your Roots Are Showing (11 page)

Lizzie was momentarily unable to move or speak, immobilized by a mixture of shame and shock. Who would have expected to see
anyone
at Longborough Fruit Farm, let alone the magnificent Mr. Rugby? Until then, neither of them had even seen him in daylight — though Tessa once claimed to have glimpsed his back as he hopped onto a Number 11 bus. He was, to the best of their knowledge, a creature of the night, an habitué of beery dens of iniquity such as The Bird in Hand. His handsomely battered face and piercing blue eyes, normally narrowed against cigarette smoke, did not belong among strawberries in the Cotswolds.

“Are you okay?” Mr. Rugby asked. He had to ask several times before Lizzie finally nodded and then quickly hung her head to hide her flaming face.

“Some of your berries are smooshed, I’m afraid,” Harold said, holding up a sample as evidence. “They’d probably do for jam.”

Peering up through her hair, Lizzie saw Mr. Rugby jiggle his eyebrows and grin. “My mum will have my hide out drying on a fence by lunchtime if I take those back to her,” he said. “She doesn’t do jam. I’d better get some more.”

“We’ll help,” said Tessa, who’d been fiddling with her frizzed hair and rearranging her ratty old T-shirt.

“Thanks. She turns away anything that’s not quite ripe or isn’t the right shape. They have to be a certain size, too. By the way, I’m James.” And he stuck out his large, tanned hand at Lizzie so she was forced to deliver her own into a firm handshake. “Lizzie,” she breathed from behind her hair. Then he shook hands with Harold and Tessa. Lizzie’s hand felt warm for hours. She contemplated never washing it again, but then she’d be left with the strawberry stains.

A funny thing happened that morning in the strawberry field. James decided he liked Lizzie Indigo more than any girl he’d ever met.

Weeks later, he explained himself to Lizzie. He’d liked her at once because she seemed so unpretentious, so
nice
. In retrospect, it was a godsend she’d been too self-conscious about her sweaty armpits and awful clothes even to look at him much. He’d found her diffidence intriguing, accustomed as he was to girls going after him like dogs after bacon sandwiches (not that he said this in so many words; just that it really didn’t need to be said).

He’d liked her ringletty blonde hair, her pink face, her floaty flea-market skirt, her ample curves (that didn’t need to be said, but he said it anyway so he could see her blush), even the shape of her hands. Plus, he explained, the
chemistry
was there. Lizzie thought she knew what he meant. There was certainly something chemical about the way her stomach turned to slush and the saliva in her mouth completely dissipated whenever he came near her. Also, her sudden loss of appetite that day indicated various chains of events that you could very possibly reproduce in a test tube if only you had the right sort of chemistry set.

From the moment James joined them, the berry picking became a bit of a party. That was one of the lovely things about James. Wherever he went, parties seemed to break out. Harold was wittier and more entertaining than he’d ever been before. Tessa was so animated, she was swatting passing bees out of the air with her effusive hand gestures. And when they finally sat down with brimming cartons for a celebratory round of tea, Babs was suddenly as charming and queenly as Grace Kelly in her heyday. Even Lizzie, still overpowered by a sense of being smelly and disheveled, began to say a word or two as the morning wore on toward lunchtime.

James seemed delighted by them all. When they finally parted (James looked at his watch, groaned, and said he had to get the blasted berries back to his mother in time for lunch or he’d be court-martialed), he invited them round for cocktails on Sunday evening. His parents were having a bit of a do, he said. And no, of course his parents wouldn’t mind if he went about inviting every Tom, Dick, and Harry he bumped into out strawberry picking. They’d be tickled pink. More or less. At any rate, they’d encouraged him to invite his friends.

Even Harold seemed to expand with pride at being counted as one of James’s friends.

It turned out James’s parents lived not far from Winchcombe, in a village called Laingtree, which explained his presence in those parts. And he said that he, too, had to get back to London by Monday morning, so he’d be sure to get the girls to the station in time for the last train after the party.

The rest of Saturday was spent in a mad panic as Lizzie and Tessa scoured the length and breadth of Gloucestershire and neighboring counties for something decent to wear. The High Streets of Chipping Campden and Broadway were crammed with useless boutiques sporting tweeds and wellies in their windows. Evesham at least had some normal clothes stores, but they couldn’t find anything they liked even there. Nothing was sophisticated enough. Nothing was glamorous enough. Most importantly, nothing was sexy enough for cocktails with the man formerly known as Mr. Rugby.

With barely an hour of shopping time left, they found a parking spot in tourist-thronged Stratford-Upon-Avon and began yet another mad dash down the High Street. This time they struck it lucky. Tessa, athletically built and of medium height, found a long, drapey black dress that made her look slim and leggy, especially on the left side where a slit went very nearly up to her waist.

Lizzie, tall and busty, decided to go for a safer look in case all the other women turned up in tweeds and wellies. She found some flattering black flare pants and a well-cut, sleeveless chiffon blouse. Both of them splashed out on new sandals, and Tessa bought a family-sized bottle of sunless tanning lotion and a small bottle of Chanel No. 5 for good measure.

Preparations for the cocktail party began that very evening. On instructions from Tessa, Lizzie took a long shower and scraped away at her arms, shoulders, and chest with a gritty apricot scrub. She then donned latex gloves and rubbed Tessa’s fake tan lotion into every inch of skin that would be exposed by the gray chiffon blouse.

The one thing Lizzie didn’t like about the sunless tanning lotion was its rather peculiar smell, but Tessa assured her it would fade by the following evening.

Tessa herself rubbed several layers of fake tan into the bits of her that would be on display — most of her back (with Lizzie’s help), her entire left leg, a sock-high portion of her right leg, her arms, most of her bust, and the tops of her feet.

By the next day, they had both developed glorious, nut-brown tans. It was true that Lizzie’s neck had come out a little darker than she’d expected, but Tessa said they could easily fix that with an ivory foundation. Tessa’s feet were frankly coffee-colored, but they reckoned nobody would pay too much attention to the bits of her below the hemline.

By six o’ clock the girls were showered, scented (rather heavily, to disguise the lingering smell of the tanning cream), and made-up. Harold had sprayed himself with Old Spice cologne and tweezed his nostril hairs. Babs, elegant in a spangly gold top bought for a holiday in Spain, shook her head at Harold’s bright shirt and khaki pants (also bought for Spain) but didn’t go so far as to send him up to his room to change.

Tessa had her hand on the doorknob when her father casually remarked, “Oh, did I mention? James called earlier to ask us to bring our swimming gear. Apparently they have a heated pool.”

Lizzie and Tessa simply stared at each other, stiff with horror.

It was too late for more fake tan.

Then they both remembered at the same time. Thank God, thank God! They didn’t
have
any swimming gear. That let them off the hook nicely.

“I’ve got mine!” Harold held up an orange Speedo.

“You’re going to prance around in
that
?” Babs asked. “He had to buy it in France, you know. We were trying to swim in a public pool when these officials marched up and said he had to wear a Speedo or they’d chuck us out. They were selling the things at the desk.”

“Come on, Dad, you might as well
skinny
-dip as wear that thing!”

“What’s wrong with it?” Harold demanded.

Babs and Tessa groaned.

Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into a stone gateway that opened onto a stately driveway leading to a sizable pile of local limestone bristling with elaborately pinnacled towers and spires. Babs’s eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets.

“Good grief,” she said in wonder. “Isn’t it that posh conference center and spa place? You know, the one where clients arrive by helicopter? There was an article about it in
Cotswold Life
just last month. The family converted a couple of wings of the manor into a sort of hotel, but they still live in the main wing. James could have warned us!”

Tessa and Lizzie’s eyes were bulging now too. “Christ,” said Tessa, “they must be loaded.”

“And I’m wearing trousers from BHS,” whispered Lizzie, ready to turn tail and do a runner.

Tessa, who’d found her outfit in a boutique, was far from crushed. “Nobody will know,” she said. “They look great. And it’s not as if you’re going to be flashing the label.”

Babs rang the doorbell and they all grinned nervously at each other as footsteps rang out sharply from within. The massive arched door swung open to reveal a thin, blonde, sixtyish woman with James’s piercing blue eyes but none of his friendly demeanor. “Yes?” she asked in a far from hostessy voice.

“Um, you must be Mrs. Buckley,” Harold stammered. He looked like a little kid, rolled-up towel tucked under his arm. “Your son, um, James asked us over for the party. I hope he, um, let you know?”

“Oh,
that’s
who you are.” The woman’s nostrils fluttered and thinned. She was horribly glamorous in a pastel blue suit, possibly satin, that glittered like ice. “Lady Evelyn,” she added cryptically.

“Oh no, I’m just Babs,” said Tessa’s mother, preening slightly in her spangly top, obviously delighted that she’d been mistaken for somebody very uppercrust.

James’s mother curled her lip slightly. “No, I’m Lady Evelyn Buckley,” she said. “You’d better come in. Nobody else is here yet, but I’ll send James down to you in the conservatory.”

They filed into the flagstoned hallway, feeling distinctly sheepish, as if (a) they were uninvited guests, (b) their hostess didn’t particularly like the cut of their jib, and (c) they’d arrived unfashionably early — whereas in fact they were spot on time.

It was not a promising start, but from the moment James joined them they were extremely glad they’d come. At first he looked a bit intimidating in an open-necked white shirt and impeccably cut dark jacket — not at all like the scruffy chap they’d met at the fruit farm. But he was so obviously pleased to see them that even Lizzie soon became convinced that he wasn’t, after all, silently kicking himself for inviting them.

He set about mixing cocktails immediately. “Get that down your necks,” he said, handing out glasses. “You’ll soon feel better. God, don’t you hate the beginning of a party, when everybody’s sober and squeaky clean, and people just stand around eyeballing each other?”

They took his advice and dispatched their drinks speedily. Soon Lizzie began to feel a bit less like a badly dressed gate-crasher and a bit more like the fascinating girl James seemed to think she was.

It turned out to be a wonderful party, even though Lizzie and Tessa were dressed for the wrong occasion in their sophisticated black. All the women were in garden-party pastels, and all the men were in sports jackets and very white shirts. Harold’s Hawaiian look stood out, to say the least.

The sight of James in the magnificent setting of his ancestral home sent Tessa into overdrive. To think she’d hankered after him from the dim recesses of The Bird in Hand for so long, without any clue as to his real worth! Lizzie stood back with a little sigh to give her friend a clear field.

But Tessa was destined to toss her hair and flaunt her coppery left leg to no avail. James still thought Lizzie was the nicest girl he’d ever met.

After a couple of hours of fierce endeavor, Tessa conceded defeat. She’d lost the glittering prize, and she knew it. But she wasn’t a girl to sulk, so she was soon flirting outrageously with a pleasant-looking old school friend of James’s.

Lizzie, meanwhile, felt that the bubble of happiness in her heart would lift her up and float her right out of the room if she wasn’t careful. No matter how many horsey-looking girls in dusty pink or powder blue glided up and tried to steal him away, James remained at her side. And suddenly she was funnier than she’d ever been in her life. And more profound. And more incisive. She was Essence of Lizzie Indigo, at the height of her power and charm. Everything that was clever and quirky and likable about Lizzie seemed distilled to perfection that evening. She glowed, she shone, she positively radiated wit, confidence, and poise.

In this heady mood, she first met Roger Buckley, James’s father. He strolled up to her as she stood briefly alone, while James was walking some departing friends to their car.

“Hello there — Elizabeth, I believe? Roger Buckley.” Nonchalantly, he lifted a monocle to one eye and gazed at her in frank appraisal.

To her own surprise, Lizzie burst out laughing. A
monocle
? Had he never heard of contact lenses? Or even laser eye surgery? For that matter, what was wrong with ordinary glasses?

As soon as the guffaw was out of her mouth, she clapped her hand to her lips. But Roger Buckley didn’t seem offended. Rather, his eyes lit up with answering amusement.

“Please — call me Lizzie,” she found herself stammering, all her wit, confidence, and poise gone up in a puff of smoke.

“Lizzie. How delightful. I hope you’re enjoying yourself, my dear?”

“I’m having a great time. Thank you. This is a fabulous place for a party, Lord um Buckley.”

Roger Buckley’s mouth twitched. “How kind of you to say so. We do our poor best.” And he jiggled his eyebrows at her, taking the sting of condescension out of his words. “I’m not Lord anything, by the way. Just plain mister, but you can call me Roger if you prefer.”

Lizzie blushed very pink. She searched around desperately for something else to say. “I believe the manor has been converted into a hotel, Mr. Buckley?”