Chapter 9
My tires crunch over the cobblestone driveway leading up to the Kings’ estate on Signal Mountain.
The house looms in opulent grandeur that is sure to impress most guests approaching its entrance, but all I can think about is how long it takes to clean the six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, not to mention vacuum and mop the twelve thousand square feet of hand-scraped wood floors or dust Mrs. King’s collection of Murano glass sculptures.
The familiar drive splits around a fountain in the middle of a manicured green space, circling to the front door and the garage where Mr. King houses his collection of vintage cars.
There’s a small lane on the side of the garage that continues into a copse of trees and ends in parking spaces for hired help.
A florist’s truck is idling beside my parents’ old Volvo.
I guess Mrs. King still receives her weekly delivery of fresh-cut bouquets.
I put my car into park and collect the Saran-wrapped plate of pumpkin snickerdoodles I baked.
Mom won’t touch them, but they’re Dad’s favorite.
I’ll have to endure either a short reprimand that follows along the lines of “a moment on the lips, forever on the hips” or a telling look with a pinched face that conveys the same thing but allows Mom the rebuttal of “I didn’t say anything.
” Considering the only time my dad gets to eat dessert is when I bring something sweet over, it’s a small price to pay.
Life’s too short not to have a treat every once in a while.
My gaze flicks between the trees toward the main house.
It’s become a habit, checking to see if Mr. King is at home any time I visit my parents.
At first it was because I was so humiliated that I couldn’t bear the thought of facing the man again.
I doubt he even remembers the things he said to me, but I’m not sure if even after all this time I’d be able to look him in the eye without those same feelings washing over me.
Now, however, I’m hoping not to be spotted on the premises for the added reason of refusing their dinner invitation.
I cringe at my audacity. I grew up under the direction that if a King asked you to do something, you did it.
They were the bosses, after all. And here I am, decades later, hoping Mom and Dad haven’t caught wind that I rejected their show of hospitality and declined to fulfill their wishes.
Also, it would just plain be awkward to run into either one of them right now. Really, I’m sparing us all by trying to go unnoticed.
The small cottage that we Aldridges call home appears on the other side of a wall of azalea bushes, where my father stands on a small ladder with a pair of garden shears, lightly pruning any dead branches.
I’ve seen him do this dozens of times, and maybe it’s the way the sun is highlighting his head of white hair, but I’m struck by the fact that he isn’t as young as he used to be.
How many more years will he be able to climb that ladder and wield those shears, much less accomplish all the other physical tasks around the property?
All the scrubbing must be hard on Mom’s knees and back as well.
When it’s time for them to retire, will Mr. King allow my parents to stay in the cottage, or will they be forced to move?
Will Social Security benefits be enough for them to live off of?
Every time I’ve brought up the subject, they’ve both waved me away.
They say they like their jobs, they aren’t ready to retire, and they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.
I push down my worries and put on a bright smile. “Hi, Dad.”
He turns toward me, and his eyes light. “Sweetheart, you made it.” He climbs down from the stepladder and sets aside the garden tool so he can give me a hug.
“Is Mom up at the house with the florist?”
“Yeah, she should be done soon, though.”
I pull back the plastic wrap from the cookies and offer the plate to him. “Eat them guilt-free while you can,” I tease.
He grins as he grabs two, then takes a huge bite out of the first one, moaning in appreciation as the sugar and spices hit his tongue. “So good.”
I take one for myself and nibble on the treat around my grin. I should’ve shoved the whole thing in my mouth, however, because Mom rounds the corner and clears her throat behind me at having caught us red-handed.
I slowly turn. I could easily pretend I wasn’t indulging, but I refuse to act ashamed. Instead, I take a bite, smile softly, and hold the plate out to my mother. “Want one?”
Her lips pinch, and she looks away. “No, thank you.”
Dad takes the plate of cookies from me so I can step forward and give Mom a hug.
I get my body type from her side of the family.
Thank you, genetics. We are both full-figured women, soft and curvaceous with rounded hips and filled-out bellies and overall extra padding around our bones.
The difference between us is that Mom has been trying all her life to lose weight via different diets and exercises to no avail and struggles with self-esteem because of her size.
Whereas I’ve decided to appreciate my body for all it does for me and not hate it simply because of a number on the scale, the size on a clothes tag, or some societal ideals.
I’d joked with her once that we were just born in the wrong era. If we were alive during the Renaissance period, we’d have been held up as the epitome of the female form. Just look at all the plus-sized, half-naked women lounging around on oil canvases from that era.
For some reason, she didn’t think my comparison was funny.
She squeezes me around my neck, then lets go. “Martha Ann Aldridge, you have some explaining to do.”
“It was just a cookie, Mom.” I try to hide the roll of my eyes.
“I’m not talking about the cookie. I’m talking about you, Julien, and a dinner invitation.”
I wince. “You heard about that, did you?”
“I was polishing the wood in Mr. King’s home office when he and Mrs. King were talking to Julien on speakerphone.” She puts her palms on my cheeks so she can look into my eyes without me averting my gaze. “Now, tell your mother why the Kings wanted to have a meal with you. What’s going on?”
I can see the concern on her face. Both my parents had been privy to the crushing blow Mr. King had given me. They’d watched helplessly as I’d floundered in the aftermath.
All my life, I’d thought I’d been so lucky.
That the stars had aligned and a divine plan had unfolded that the family mine worked for owned a publishing company.
How fortuitous when all I wanted to do for the rest of my life was create and weave stories, writing books that Mr. King would one day distribute to the world.
For some reason, I hadn’t even considered that my writing would be less than desirable, almost painful to read.
That my characters were one-dimensional and lacking any sort of believability, my plots prosaic and uninspired, my dialogue stilted and cliché.
That one of the leaders in the industry, someone who knew what he was talking about and not just a random person off the street, would tell me that I shouldn’t waste my time chasing a dream that would never come true.
That he was doing me a favor by giving the facts to me straight, and I should pursue other avenues because he couldn’t foresee any scenario in which anything I wrote would ever be published by King or any other publishing house.
Mom especially had been so upset that she’d talked about finding another family to work for.
Dad was on board with the idea, and I loved them so much for their loyalty to me and fierce love that they’d give up both their jobs and their home for my sake.
I’d talked them out of it, of course. I was crushed but thinking rationally enough not to let them do anything so extreme.
I wasn’t the first person to see her dreams get trampled or swallow the hard pill of reality, and I wouldn’t be the last.
Mom’s concern now is that of a parent remembering the hurt done to her child.
It’s been fifteen years in which I’ve had little to nothing to do with any of the Kings, and now, all of a sudden I’ve been invited to have a meal with them for no apparent reason.
She’s afraid of Mr. King saying something that will hurt me again in some way.
Except for this little hiccup at the library, my life has been running on a stable course.
Mom’s afraid of Mr. King derailing that a second time.
I gently twist out of her palms and lick my lips, scrambling to come up with an explanation that won’t make the worried crease between her brows deepen. “It was a job interview . . . of sorts.”
“A job?” Mom asks incredulously.
Dad follows with “Of sorts?”
I take a bite of the cookie in my hand, buying myself a moment and also because the comfort of sugar and butter sounds good right now.
Mom narrows her gaze at the offending sweet but again doesn’t give voice to her negative thoughts about food. Her eyes jump back up to mine, clear, and then practically shine as if they are backlit by a theater spotlight. “Is he publishing one of your stories?”
I’m glad I’ve already swallowed the morsel in my mouth or I would’ve choked. As if I’d ever have the courage/gumption/stupidity to pitch another of my stories to John King. I’d rather sing an aria in front of Simon Cowell, and I can’t carry a tune in a bucket to save my life.
“No.” I cast my gaze over to Dad, who seems the safer of the two at the moment. “Julien is the one who hired me, actually.”
Dad hooks his thumbs in his work suspenders and studies me wordlessly.
Mom always has something to say, however, and her voice pulls my attention back to her.