6. Vanilla Tomato Salad
VANILLA TOMATO SALAD
* u se the whole bean to infuse finishing salt.
Daniel hadn’t gotten more than a few steps from me before he was stopped by another familiar face.
Actually, Winnifred Lyons was more than familiar. The thin, elegant woman, a dead ringer for Anna Wintour, was Daniel’s mother and the person who originally interviewed me, even if she wasn’t the one who signed my checks.
I doubted she would remember that—not just because I looked vastly different from the scrawny, fifteen-year-old housemaid, but because it was unlikely that any of the Lyonses knew every member of their large staff. Especially when they barely interacted with most of us.
My assumption, however, evaporated the moment her razor-sharp gaze landed on me with clear and focused recognition.
Recognition and disapproval.
“Marie,” she crooned as she took hold of Daniel’s sleeve, then gestured for both of us to follow her to a quiet corner of the tent.
Daniel frowned down at his mother and patted her arm. She loosened her grip but didn’t let go completely.
“Mom,” he said in a tone that had lost its sparkle. “You, uh, remember Marie?”
Too? , his expression implied. First Lucas, then his mother. Who else remembered the lowly kitchen girl?
I offered him a smile I hoped was comforting. Or at least forgiving.
His mouth twitched, but the smile wasn’t returned. I wasn’t sure if I’d done something wrong. It’s okay , I wanted to tell him. I didn’t blame him for not remembering me, and besides, I didn’t want to be that girl anymore anyway, so what did it matter?
“Lucas said you’d returned from Paris,” Mrs. Lyons went on as if Daniel hadn’t spoken, though she set about adjusting his bow tie like he was a mannequin in a window.
Winnifred Lyons was the kind of woman who liked everything in its place, something the staff knew well if they wanted to keep their jobs.
On my first day at Prideview, I spent two hours learning how to tuck perfect hospital corners in one of the guest rooms before the head housekeeper was satisfied my work would pass Mrs. Lyons’s inspection.
Her face barely moved as she spoke. Daniel’s mother was one of those incredibly well-preserved older women whose age was impossible to discern.
With the help of good genes and better plastic surgeons, she would look the same at eighty as she did at fifty, with a sharp nose, blue eyes the color of the icicles that grew on the house’s eaves after a winter storm, and a halo of chin-length golden hair perfectly colored to match her son’s tawny locks.
During the day, she was never without a starched shirt and tailored skirt, sometimes with a cashmere sweater thrown over her shoulders.
Right now, she wore a gold-toned column gown that matched her hair and set off the tasteful wreath of diamonds around her neck.
Immaculate, quiet luxury. Just like this house. Just like her entire family.
Daniel was the exception; he burned through life like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
Right now, however, that flare had dimmed under his mother’s exacting gaze. Despite the effort I’d put in to look my very best in vintage couture, I also couldn’t help but feel as messy and inadequate as one of those first miserable hospital corners.
“And how did you find the culinary school?” Mrs. Lyons asked. “I gather we spent a great deal of money to cultivate the chef to replace our dear Ondine. Though I can’t imagine a single year in Paris could compete with her résumé.”
“Not at all,” I agreed as I accepted yet another glass of champagne from a passing waiter. I was already two in—maybe a third would help me withstand this conversation. “But it was the best start anyone could have, and it gave me space to grow. I’ll never be able to thank you for it.”
Mrs. Lyons nodded. The best for someone like you , she seemed to be thinking.
I couldn’t argue with the unspoken thought. Access to the Institute wouldn’t have been possible without the Lyonses’ money and Ondine’s connections.
“And I suppose now you’ve…bloomed.” That scalpel-sharp inspection took in my hair, the dress, the makeup. “You certainly look different.”
It sounded like a compliment but was clearly not.
I swallowed thickly. Daniel seemed to be looking anywhere but at his mother or me.
Before I could answer, Mrs. Lyons spoke again. “Daniel, darling, there’s Senator Hubbard. Go offer some company—your brother is depending on him to sponsor that tax bill. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of our darling Marie.”
At the mention of the senator, Daniel straightened, visibly uncomfortable. “Must I?—”
“Yes, you must ,” his mother interrupted.
Their eyes met.
Daniel nodded. “All right, sure.”
He started to leave, then stopped, and turned back. With a rebellious glance at his mother, more characteristic of a teenager than a twenty-eight-year-old man, he kissed me quickly on the cheek.
I couldn’t help but blush. Maybe the champagne was making me dizzy, but his kiss seemed to have a similar effect.
“The conservatory,” he whispered. “Ten minutes.”
And then he was gone, leaving my heart thumping in time with his steps. Until I turned back to his mother, whose hardened, appraising examination could have stopped it completely.
“I love my darling son, but he is nothing if not predictable.” Her expression gleamed like the edge of a freshly sharpened knife. “Something tells me you know that. After all, you have been with us for ten years, isn’t it?”
Every cell in my body urged me to flee. Put down the champagne, make my excuses, and walk away from the woman who held my future in the palm of her perfectly manicured hand.
But my legs wouldn’t work.
“We just wanted to catch up,” I said lamely.
“Catch up,” she repeated dryly. “I suppose you could call it that.”
I bit my lip. “Mrs. Lyons, it’s really not like that?—”
“Oh, I know it’s not like that.” Her tone was honey-sweet as she nodded at another party guest with a close-mouthed smile.
“And I’m very glad to hear that you know that, dear, considering we just paid a fortune for you to serve this family faithfully.
Daniel also needs to serve this family too, and he will need some reminding.
I very much hope you’re up for the job, because he hardly listens to me. ”
She took a sip of her champagne. The deep pink of her lipstick didn’t smudge on the glass. Nothing about her face moved at all, even when she smiled again. “I suppose you’re meeting him at the tennis courts. Or the rose garden? Perhaps the conservatory?”
Stunned, I opened and then closed my mouth quickly.
“You’ll go,” she ordered calmly. “Make our expectations clear, and then you can enjoy the party, since it will be your last night out for some time.”
“I…” I searched the crowd for Daniel, Joni, or any familiar face that could serve as a port in this little squall.
“Do we have an understanding, my dear?”
Shock and something like shame prickled up and down my body even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. Why was she treating me like I had? Daniel had invited me here tonight. He had been happy to see me, had danced with me in front of everyone, even kissed me on the cheek in front of his own mother.
He wouldn’t have done all of that if there was something inappropriate about us, even if I did technically work for his family.
A little workplace romance wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Was it?
“You can go now.” She nodded in the direction of the rose gardens and the looming glasshouse that shadowed half the fading summer blooms. “He’ll be there shortly.”
I almost didn’t go.
I passed the stairs leading to my rooms above the garage and nearly turned up them, where a long bath, flannel pajamas, and my favorite lavender tea were calling to alleviate the fogginess in my head and the uncertainty weighing there.
I could put this strange, confusing night behind me—both its magic and its warnings—and go back to being the person I already knew how to be.
Marie, the cook. Marie, the wallflower. Marie, the girl who had never experienced anything outside her careful, familiar, and very small world.
The problem was, even with Mrs. Lyons’s and Ondine’s not-so-subtle warnings, I still didn’t want to be that Marie.
I hadn’t been her for months.
Daniel’s kiss remained an imprint on my cheek, burning to continue whatever journey had started the moment I stepped onto the plane for France a year ago.
In Paris, I had discovered another Marie who had been hidden deep inside me. The Marie who desperately wanted to come into her own. Marie, the dreamer.
She deserved more than one dance, one night. She deserved to see this night through.
The conservatory was warm when I opened its doors, damp humidity welcoming me in a sweet, floral embrace. While it was warm outside, the wind off the Sound and the night air had chased away the heavy brace of August in New York. In here, however, I was in a jungle.
I wandered around the greenhouse, marveling at the colors lit by the well-placed lights beneath the trees and flowers. Above, starlight twinkled through the glass.
The botanical conservatory at Prideview was famous.
Ondine and I had cooked dinners for actual heads of state who traveled to Westchester just to view the ghost orchid Carlos had coaxed into one eerie bloom a few years earlier.
It was still growing in the far corner, labeled and separate from the other plants.
The blooms were long gone, leaving only a few green stems and the tangled mass of roots folded into a pot.
I bent down to look at it.
“What makes you so special?” I wondered. “Is it just because you only come out to bloom once every ten years? Or is there something deep down?”
The orchid—or what was left of it, anyway—didn’t reply, of course.
“Maybe that’s how it will be for me,” I told it. “Maybe I’m a once-a-decade kind of flower too.” The thought was sobering. “Well, if tonight’s my one night, then why not live it up? Tomorrow I can go back to being what everyone else expects and wait another ten years to bloom again.”
“That would be a shame.”
I jumped with a shriek, nearly knocking over the priceless ball of roots.
But it wasn’t Daniel’s deep voice that rumbled through the air thick with flowers, heat, and romance.
The door of the conservatory—which I hadn’t even realized was open—closed with a creak. In front of it stood Lucas Lyons, dressed in his classic black tuxedo, hand still on the iron doorknob, and his stormy blue eyes fixed on me.