Chapter Seven #3
The Carlisles stayed a long time. In fact, the clock said ten thirty, but still no one was making a move to leave. Finn wished they would. He was tired and getting cranky, his social battery at negative twelve percent.
They were in the living room, talking about Roman’s accident, when a ridiculously loud noise came from the lawn just outside the window. The conversation halted and everyone turned to see what in the world was going on outside.
And since the lawn was lit up with fairy lights—his mother’s calling card—they were able to see it all perfectly.
Flora and her friend were walking across the grass with a large portable speaker. Flora was wearing a hat and a t-shirt, obviously coming in from a concert, and she was singing. Loudly.
“Welcome to the hell show, we call it life.
Life is a cage bathed in violet twilight.
My hands hold the key, but I’m destined to die,
If I leave here tonight.
So, I’ll stay here tonight.”
Flora was joking, but she definitely could sing.
“HE’S SO CUTE!” she shouted. “UGH! HE TOTALLY WAVED AT US!”
“My goodness, who in the world is that?” Julie asked, peering through the window along with everybody else. “Isn’t this private property? Those two girls look like vagrants!”
Mrs. Woodhouse remembered the other girl’s name now.
Allison Dierdre Scott.
She was also remembering why seeing Allison had made her feel uneasy. Well, at least one of the reasons she’d felt uneasy. There were a few.
When they were with each other, Allison and Flora were louder than cackling hyenas. They’d been so loud when they were younger that Mrs. Woodhouse banned them from being together at night because their shrieks could have woken up the dead.
And they’d scared one too many people.
One year on Halloween, they made the decision to watch Saw.
The neighbors, who were a good seven miles away, heard the screams and dispatched the Marin Police Department.
The Marin police were inevitably bored—because nothing ever happened in Marin—and liked to come hassle anyone to kill time.
It took hours to convince them that no one had been murdered.
Mrs. Woodhouse had kindly banned Flora and Allison from being on the estate together without duct tape after that. Although, Mr. Woodhouse, at the time, had found it rather hilarious.
“We should employ them as human megaphones!” he said.
And apparently eight years of maturity had not done the trick.
“That is Flora Fairchild—the driver’s daughter—and her friend from grade school, Allison Scott,” Mrs. Woodhouse sighed.
She waved her hand, dismissing the event. She really did have a soft spot for Flora. It would take more than loud music for her to get angry.
“She is a lovely girl, just a very free spirit, and a fan of loud rock music.”
“And quite the singer,” Holly said, with a small smile.
This got a laugh from the Carlisles, but Finn and his mother were unmoved.
The Carlisles were looking at Finn for his follow-up comment about Flora and Allison, but nothing came. In fact, Finn was rather pleased with Flora for some odd reason, and he was smiling in a way that was noticeable.
“Finn, you look unaffected,” Mrs. Carlisle said, sounding shocked.
“I should have expected you, of all people, to be bothered by it. They aren’t respecting the property or the fact that you own it.
It’s ten-thirty. Anyone could be sleeping right now.
You work all day. What if you had just fallen asleep?
How rude. Especially in light of the fact that she’s, well, the chauffeur’s daughter. Not a true member of the family.”
Finn glanced at Julie, wondering where she got the idea that she had the right to comment. Especially that last bit…
“He knows a pretty face when he sees one.” George said and then followed it with, “Even when she’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and baseball cap.”
The attacks were coming in fast and furious, Finn noted.
“Dad, Mom,” Holly said, sounding annoyed. “They’re just young girls. What do you expect? They don’t know any better.”
There was another shout from the grass and the girls disappeared into the darkness, music following them.
“I assure you, George, I was more amused by how some people can be so free and without reservation while others see it as a dreadful mark of distaste,” Finn replied, turning from the window. “Flora is a lovely girl, but she lacks refinement that a certain type of businessman might want.”
Satisfied with this reply and with Holly in the safe zone, the party moved back to Roman’s accident. Finn was free of their prying eyes and itching ears.
His statement was true. He was in awe of Flora’s freedom and general happiness with life. He wasn’t like her. And, yes, many businessmen would have seen it as a drawback, but he did not.
He merely left that part out.
Every time he saw Flora, he was increasingly curious, increasingly confused, increasingly concerned.
The Carlisles left. Finally.
Neither Finn nor his mother said much. She was glued to the window, watching their car drive out of the roundabout.
“Hmmm…” was all she said.
“Mum, I’m going to bed.”
“Sleep well. I got that new diffuser for you to turn on when you sleep, try it tonight. May help with your headaches.”
“I will. Night, Mum.”
Finn left to his side of the estate, thinking about what it would be like to have a wife. He wasn’t sure if he’d like it.
There was a subtle push for him to get moving on getting married—or at least finding someone to have around more often—but he really didn’t want to get moving.
He loved to be alone, and when he was with people for too long, he’d withdraw into isolation, occasionally even needing a dark room.
When he was younger, he’d been told he was “highly sensitive” and not much had changed since.
He just faked being fine because there was a certain expectation for a man of twenty-nine to not be highly sensitive.
His mother always said she wanted more girl energy in the house.
She was “sick of being overrun by testosterone,” but he thought this was a sorry excuse to make him get married.
Especially with Roman engaged now and when both he and Roman were not those beat-your-chest, macho, truck-driving sort of guys.
Roman spent more time at the spa than your average woman and Finn was petrified of dirt and constantly cleaning things.
The next morning, Finn found himself in Fairchild’s backseat. He noted that Fairchild was looking at him in the rear-view mirror more than usual.
Finn glanced up and made a face.
“What are you looking at me so often for?”
He and Fairchild had a friendly but curt relationship. They never asked too many extra questions, just the important ones.
“Oh, nothing,” he remarked quietly. “Just sad to hear you’re selling Carmel. Such a lovely home.”
Finn cleared his throat. “Yes, it is a pity, but we never go.”
“Flora said it was beautiful.”
Finn felt his stomach turn. “Did she?”
“Yes, she said rich people are mind boggling. I believe those were her words.”
Finn found himself laughing a little. “Your daughter is something else. Was she always this way? I remember her as a kid, but I never knew the ins and outs of her personality.”
“She was. In fact, since her return from Paris, I’d say she’s more herself than she ever was. Middle and high school really sucked the life out of her, and college was no better.”
“She’s a great girl. Always was. Must be nice to have her back. Her true personality, I mean.”
“It is nice. I was worried we’d never see it again. She’s a good girl,” Fairchild added. “Very smart and underestimated constantly. People often think they are doing something to Flora. In reality, she does something to them. Always one step ahead.”
Finn eyed Fairchild in the rearview again, feeling as though that was a very pointed statement.
“Well,” he said, “if that’s so, then you shouldn’t have to worry about her.”
Fairchild bobbed his head up and down in agreement as they drove over the Golden Gate. Finn went back to his phone.
Fairchild was never much for suspicion but there was a gut feeling that something was up. He felt it now just as he’d felt it before seven-year-old Flora walked through the door to announce she’d been suspended for freeing the visiting museum’s pet owl.
Gilly was the owl’s name. She’d freed it because she hated seeing it cooped up in a cage being carted around to elementary schools when it could have been roaming the hills.
In a moment of non-vigilance by the teachers and museum staff, she had opened the cage and let the bird fly free, chasing after it through the parking lot to watch it fly away.
And Fairchild had known something had gone wrong even before she stormed in and began to hotly defend her case.
“Gilly did not deserve to be stuck in a cage!” she said fiercely. “I freed him, but it was my duty to do so, Daddy.”
“Ah, yes, I am sure it was, but you might have asked the teacher why the bird wasn’t flying free before you did such a thing. Maybe it had an injury?”
“No! It didn’t! I asked. I made sure.”
Fairchild dealt with the irate teachers and museum staff as best he could, but it was Mrs. Woodhouse—finding the entire situation hilarious—who donated the money for a new owl, watched Flora on the day of her suspension, and helped her write an essay on ‘Why Self-Control is Important,’ which Flora had great difficulty writing.
Her donation settled the museum down, and the teachers thereafter. She’d even written a scathing letter to the museum administrator, saying that if any more threats were made to little Flora, they’d have another thing coming from the Woodhouse Corporation’s army of well-equipped lawyers.
“They’re on my payroll and if I tell them to launch a lawsuit about mistreated owls, they’ll do it!”
That silenced them.
Later, Finn was in his office eating lunch—a messy sandwich from the place down the street—planning a meeting, looking at the stock, and watching the Manchester City soccer game when there was a buzz on the intercom.