Chapter 5 #2
—
Andy came to dinner on Christmas Eve, wearing a blazer and slacks and a tie.
He had shaved, his hair was combed, and he looked very respectable.
They talked for hours about their lives and their parents’ books.
He had led an interesting life with his father growing up, and it sounded as though his father had been as reclusive as Felicia.
They had been perfectly suited to each other.
“Writers are people who like to observe life more than they like to be engaged in it. My father hated fame as much as your mother did. They were perfectly matched, like two puzzle pieces that fit together seamlessly. I’ve never met a woman I felt that way about,” he admitted.
“That’s why I never married. I couldn’t see the point of marrying someone that I knew going in didn’t really suit me. ”
They talked late into the night and drank a lot of wine, and the two sisters could feel their mother near them.
On Christmas Day, Veronica sent an email to Spencer, telling him they had met Andrew and loved him, and she extended her heartfelt sympathy to him and told him that they all hoped to meet him soon.
Now that they knew about their relationship, and how important he had been to their mother, he felt like family, and they were all eager to get to know him.
She sent him their love and prayers, and hoped that he would find peace soon, after the shock they had all experienced.
Spencer answered that night, with a beautiful, touching, eloquent letter that felt like a warm embrace when Veronica read it and brought tears to her eyes.
He tried to express to her how much he had loved her mother and what she meant to him, and as an extension of her, he welcomed them into his family, and said that he was readily available if he could do anything for them.
She forwarded the email to her sisters and thanked him.
He was obviously a very special person and his love for their mother was plainly evident.
—
Their trip to Paris was the best time Charlotte had ever spent with her children.
They were open to everything, fun to be with, good company.
They acted like adults instead of bratty kids.
They went to fun restaurants, walked all over Paris, loved the Louvre, the flea market, and the Quai d’Orsay, and went to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
They did touristy things, and things that the Parisians did, and they wandered through art galleries and antique shops with their mother.
They went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve at Sacré-Coeur, with a choir of nuns who sounded like angels, and they stood looking over the city afterward, while street musicians played Christmas carols and Charlotte and her children sang with them.
They went back to the Ritz afterward and had hot chocolate with mountains of whipped cream in their room.
It was the closest Charlotte had ever felt to her children at a grown-up level, and the best idea she’d had in years. It was a trip she knew that none of them would ever forget, and a final gift from her mother.
In quiet moments, alone in bed at night, she made notes for ideas for a new company she wanted to start, but she knew she hadn’t had the right idea yet.
She wanted to do something different and exciting and build it from the ground up the way she had her first one.
They were almost ready to go public with To Go, and were planning the road show to launch it.
She was waiting for the right new idea to grab her.
She knew she’d hit on the right one eventually.
Sean left for Vermont with his friends the morning after they got home, and Julia went to stay with her friend giving the sleepover for six girls.
They were going to have a dance party and watch movies all night on New Year’s Eve.
None of them had dates for the evening—it was an all-girls’ night and the host parents were allowing them to share one bottle of champagne for all six of them since they weren’t going anywhere, and they were all sixteen.
And Charlotte was comfortable with it. She had let both Sean and Julia drink a little wine on their trip, and they had handled it well.
After the kids left, she drove to Connecticut, and got to the farm at five o’clock.
She had brought a long skirt and top to wear in case her sisters wanted to dress up.
It felt like home as she walked through the front door and saw her mother’s decorations.
It suddenly all looked so familiar. Veronica and Olivia were in the kitchen making hors d’oeuvres.
They had a pasta recipe which included caviar and lemon, and they were chilling vodka and champagne.
They gave a squeal of delight when they saw Charlotte, and she hugged them and told them all about Paris over a glass of wine.
They had set the dining room table with their mother’s best linens, and Quinne and Coop arrived half an hour later and joined the merriment.
The house felt happy and cozy and like the right place to be.
They had given Ellen the night off, and Olivia put Christmas carols on.
It felt like the perfect ending to an extraordinary year, full of surprise twists in the plot, just like their mother’s books.
And after tragedy they were finding joy again, and blessings to share.
“Has anyone heard from Isabelle?” Charlotte asked, as they devoured the hors d’oeuvres and sampled some local cheeses before they went to their rooms to change. “All I got was a text on Christmas Eve wishing us a Merry Christmas and telling me she loved me. Has she confronted Ian yet?”
“She decided to wait until after the holidays. She didn’t want to ruin Christmas for the kids,” Quinne answered her.
“I haven’t heard anything much from her either.
I think she had a miserable Christmas. They’ll be home in a couple of days.
I figured she couldn’t talk freely at her in-laws’ so I haven’t called her.
I had an idea, by the way. Why don’t the five of us spend Mom’s birthday here?
We could make a weekend of it.” Felicia’s birthday was in four weeks, at the end of January.
The others smiled at her and loved the idea.
“She would have loved that,” Charlotte said with a smile. Olivia was pleased too. And Veronica endorsed the idea. She and Olivia were feeling at home there after spending Christmas at the farm, and they helped Quinne and Charlotte pick comfortable rooms.
They all disappeared upstairs to dress and were back an hour later. Cooper whistled as Quinne came down the stairs in a short silver minidress that molded her figure and showed off her legs, with high-heeled silver sandals.
“I feel like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz,” she said, looking embarrassed, but Cooper put his arms around her and kissed her and poured the champagne he’d just opened.
They had brought a bottle of Dom Perignon.
Charlotte came down a few minutes later in a long black skirt she’d bought in Paris and a silky gold top.
Veronica had helped Olivia get into a soft pink cashmere dress with a long skirt, and Veronica was wearing a long red knit dress that was casual and chic, which Anson had bought her for her birthday at Dior.
They all looked very festive, as Coop poured them each a glass of champagne.
The doorbell rang as he did, and Charlotte went to open it.
“Are we expecting anyone?” she asked Veronica over her shoulder, opening the door before Veronica heard her, and found herself looking at a tall handsome man with slightly wild blond hair wearing a dinner jacket, an immaculate white shirt, and a black tie, with jeans and black velvet shoes.
Veronica smiled when she saw him and went to greet him, as he stared down at Charlotte with an emotional look.
“You look so much like your mother,” he said softly, and it took a minute before Charlotte realized who he was.
“Sorry, I’m Andy York. You took me by surprise.
” He smiled broadly when he greeted the others, and took a glass of champagne from the silver tray Coop was passing around.
The two men seemed to have an instant rapport, and within a short time were talking about films they’d worked on in L.A.
, Cooper as an actor, and Andy as a screenwriter.
They discovered that they knew several people in common, and Charlotte was watching them closely as they talked.
“He’s definitely a hunk,” Veronica commented, as the group moved into the living room, and the two men were engrossed in conversation in front of the fire.
“I’m allergic to men who look like that,” Charlotte whispered. “I learned my lesson years ago. I fall madly in love with them, and they turn out to be assholes. Movie-star-handsome men are a death wish for anyone who gets involved with them. I swore them off after Adam.”
“Andy is actually a nice guy,” Olivia joined the whispered conversation between sisters.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Charlotte said, looking unnerved. “I’m not going to go near him,” she said, as Olivia remembered that she had seated them next to each other at the dinner table.
“Do you want me to move him?” Olivia asked her, and Charlotte shook her head.
“It’s a test of ten years of therapy to see if I can remain sane and have an intelligent conversation with him,” she said, helping herself to the champagne, and Quinne saw Andy lose interest in Cooper, as Charlotte crossed the room and they exchanged a smile.
There was definitely some kind of chemistry between them, whether Charlotte admitted it or not, and Andy wasn’t just a handsome hunk, he was a genuinely nice man, and fun to talk to, as Coop had discovered.
Inevitably, during dinner the conversation turned to his father and their mother, and they toasted Felicia and Spencer, and the love they had shared for so many years.