Sixteen
Satisfied to have made her laugh, Wes looked around the attic as Nadine sneezed again. “Are you sure you can handle the job?” he asked. “The dust might kill you.”
Nadine rubbed her nose. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about how you’re going to deal with sharing the house with a herd of cats.”
“I like cats,” Wes said with growing enthusiasm.
“No, you don’t.”
“I will make myself like cats if needed,” he amended. Dot’s looked nice enough.
“What about work?”
Wes looked around at the boxes. “I have vacation time due.” Rebecca had been sending him increasingly sharp emails reminding him of the Spear ’s use-it-or-lose-it policy as he hadn’t taken any time this year.
Nadine frowned. “I can put in the request, but it’s pretty last minute. If it’s not granted, I’ll have to come here after work.”
“I’ll email my manager right now.” He took a minute to rapidly tap out a message to Rebecca, apologizing for the late request, then bent to pick through a box. “God knows what secrets are in here.”
“We might not find anything,” said Nadine repressively, as if trying to tamp down her own hopes.
“Not with that attitude.” Wes pulled out a theater program from a 1989 performance of The Phantom of the Opera , which he brandished at Nadine. “See?”
“Mystery solved. Brent will be thrilled.” She looked around. “Three weeks isn’t a long time, even if we sleep here.”
“That, I’m not sure I can manage,” he said, thinking about his mother’s reaction. He hadn’t been away for that long since his internships after school, when his sisters had still been home. Would Amy be willing to move back home for three weeks? No, that was too much to ask. “I might have to come in every day.”
“Then you’ll be here in the day, and I’ll be here at night?” Was it him or did she sound faintly disappointed? She gave him a sly grin. “Admit you’re scared to stay here.”
“I admit it,” he lied easily. A past girlfriend had called him a momma’s boy right before she dumped him, and he didn’t want Nadine to think the same.
Nadine’s smile faded. “It would have been easier if Dot told us outright what happened. Why couldn’t she have told Brent?”
“I’m sure for the same reason she couldn’t tell us when we visited.” Wes pulled out an old Cosmopolitan magazine. “We have one last chance.”
“You’re right.”
“What was that? I was right? Can you repeat that?”
As he hoped, this broke her pensive mood, and she laughed. “Don’t get used to it.” Her face clouded. “Only three weeks. It would be more productive if you could stay overnight, especially if I have to keep going to work, but I get it.”
“You’ll be okay alone?” he asked.
Nadine looked down. “I can handle it.”
Wes’s stomach dropped at the idea that he was disappointing her. He looked at the mass of documents and thought about the extra work he’d be able to do if he stayed. He thought about the little waver in Nadine’s voice that might be nervousness at spending the nights here alone, although she was trying to put a brave face on it.
Could he be selfish for once? He wanted to stay. He wanted this. He wanted this story and this time in the attic. He could get to know Nadine better. She wasn’t too bad after all.
His phone buzzed. It was Rebecca, approving his vacation. Finally , she wrote back . I was about to unilaterally put you on PTO. Send me a summary of what you’re working on before you head out.
He looked up to find Nadine flipping through what looked like sewing patterns. “My vacation was approved.”
“That was fast.”
“I have a good manager.” Sometimes he took Rebecca for granted.
Brent came back, full of apologies, and accidentally kicked a stack of newspapers, sending up a plume of dust. “About my proposal.”
“We’re willing,” said Nadine.
“Good. I’m glad you agreed.” Brent looked relieved. “I’m not a superstitious man, but I don’t relish the idea of Dot’s ghost haunting me because she had unfinished business.”
“So there’s no misunderstanding, the plan is we’ll stay here and feed the cats while we go through the attic,” said Wes. “We don’t need to keep anything for posterity.”
“Correct,” said Brent. “Obviously don’t steal the art or any of my aunt’s hideous figurines. I have a complete inventory.”
“Too bad,” said Nadine. “I was hoping to expand my collection of painted chamber pots.”
“Sorry.” Brent pushed aside a box. “I’m keeping those for my personal use.”
He led them downstairs, and Nadine nudged Wes. “You said we’ll stay in the house,” she said. “ We as in both of us ?”
Unease over his mother’s reaction faded with the thrill of the project ahead. “I’m staying too.”
“Okay.” It was only a word, carelessly delivered, but Wes heard the relief and smiled. She’d never admit it out loud, but Nadine wanted his company, at least if the alternative was staying in a huge mansion by herself.
“Since you’re scared to be alone,” he added.
This time, she looked away, and he had an uncomfortable feeling that he’d gone too far. He turned to Brent to ask about logistics.
After a few minutes of working through the cats’ feeding schedule and how to use an induction stove, Brent walked them out. “Thank you for doing this,” he said as he opened the door. “My aunt was a good person under all that bluster.”
“She was,” Nadine said. “We’re grateful to have met her.”
Although the rain continued, they were protected by the portico once they were outside. Nadine started the car, the windshield wipers kicking in to squeal on the dry glass. She shut them off, and they sat looking out past the pink Bentley to the swan bobbing in the fountain. The water had been shut off from the Botticelli Venus. Wes’s eyes went to the huge door as Nadine pulled out of the driveway, wishing it was last week and he could have said something else to Dot. Something meaningful.
What that could have been, he had no idea.
It wasn’t until the golden gates closed behind them that Nadine gave a shuddering sigh.
“Pull over,” said Wes.
She didn’t argue but did as he said and turned off the ignition. Rain beat down on the car, sliding down the windows in twisting lines.
He heard the sniff as he was fighting back his own sorrow. “Hey,” he said.
“I only knew her a few weeks.” Nadine’s voice broke. “How can I be this upset?”
She burst into tears, and Wes didn’t think. He unbuckled his seat belt and gathered her in his arms, feeling her shoulders shake as she cried. He’d never seen Nadine cry. Two hours ago, he would have doubted it was possible and doubted even more that she would cry near him. Strangely, he was grateful he could be here for her. Concern for Nadine helped him avoid his own grief.
Finally, she sniffled against him. “Sorry,” she muttered, knuckling at her eyes like a child. Wes felt his heart crunch into the tiniest nugget.
He opened the glove compartment, and thank God, there were tissues. He handed her one and took one for himself. “Here.”
“Are you crying too?” she asked.
Wes steeled himself for the anger. His mother hated it when anyone cried besides her.
Nadine’s hand, warm and firm, came over to cover his. “That makes me feel less alone,” she said.
Wes’s eyes stayed on her hand, blurred with tears, wondering if he’d heard correctly. Then she shifted her grip to hold him tighter, and he knew that he had. He wiped his eyes with his free hand so hard he saw shapes and found himself unable to answer. Death’s concave mirror was turning all his expectations of Nadine upside down.
She sniffled. “I keep thinking about that obit in the Herald , the one I ran.”
He managed to find his words. “What about it?”
She moved into her seat and leaned her head back, leaving Wes with a hollow feeling where she’d been. “Dot was right. I didn’t do her justice. I let her be reduced to the things she did, with nothing of who she was.”
Wes sat to face her fully, thinking about what kind of an obit could reflect the Dot he’d come to know. “Would you put in her sweet tooth?”
Nadine smiled. “I’d write about her house and how she said each item had a story she’d been waiting to tell.”
Wes remembered that conversation. “And that she’d only told a few.”
“I would have interviewed people who found solace in Dot’s books and connected with characters like Peg and Alice.”
“Ilsa,” interjected Wes. “I liked Ilsa.”
Nadine’s mouth dipped. “There’s no way to go back and fix it. I wish—” She hesitated. “I wish I could have done better by Dot.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Dot really seemed to live,” Wes said, struggling for the right words. “That sounds…ugh. I mean, we all live, but she had a…” He trailed to a stop, unable to finish his thought.
“In the obits biz, we call it joie de vivre.” She reached past him and got another tissue. “You know what’s terrible?”
“What?”
Nadine laid her forehead against the steering wheel, speaking to her knees. “My first thought when Brent told us was that it was bad timing. I’m so self-centered. Dot died, and all I could think about was my career. What a piece of work I am.”
Wes looked over in awe. “I thought the same thing.”
She twisted her head to face him. “You did?”
“I was never going to say a word, but yeah. I did.”
“We’re evil.” She sounded impressed at the depths of their joint nastiness. Then she grinned. “Dot would have had a laugh out of that.”
“She would have.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t put that in her obit though.”
“No,” said Nadine. “At least not past the first draft.”
This time, they started laughing and didn’t stop until they were wheezing. Wes thought Dot might have liked that as well.