Chapter 12 Geraldine
Geraldine
Geraldine skipped the living and dining rooms, as she had seen them both many times before.
For more than two decades, Elizabeth had been a valued part-time resident of Mount Vernon and had often opened her home as a meeting place for various clubs and organizations of which she was a part.
Both her political involvement and her agricultural interests had raised her profile with her neighbors.
While it had surprised some people when she enthusiastically used her vast acreage for food production during the war years, it had endeared her to others in town.
She had also generously supported the town’s efforts to raise funds for war bonds.
Of far more interest to Geraldine was the spa wing of the main house and the lush grounds and outbuildings dotted about them.
Following Iris’s directions, she made her way along a plushly carpeted corridor leading into the treatment area, where a smiling young woman in a gleaming white smock greeted her by name.
Geraldine assumed that particular courtesy had more to do with a quick call from Iris than it did with her fame as an artist.
“Would you like to book an appointment, Mrs. Putnam? We have no openings this afternoon, but we can easily fit you in tomorrow morning if you’d like.”
“I suppose that would depend on which services you offer.” Geraldine had not spent too much time on such pursuits since Anselm died. She might enjoy a bit of pampering.
“If you will just follow me, I’d be happy to show you.” The woman slipped out from behind the reception desk and moved towards the spa proper.
Geraldine trailed behind her, taking in the tranquil atmosphere.
The walls were papered in a pale-gray moiré.
Long windows flanked by deep-blue drapes offered sweeping views of carefully tended flower beds on one side and a large swimming pool ringed by deck chairs on the other.
A woman in a pistachio-green bathing suit and matching swim cap dived from the tiled surround and sliced neatly through the clear water.
“We pride ourselves in offering all the same services here as we do at our world-famous Red Door salons.” The woman, whose name was Camille—if the name embroidered on the front of her smock was to be believed—gestured a slim hand towards a bank of chairs, most of which were reclined and occupied by women sporting thick white terry-cloth robes.
At one chair, a technician swiped a cotton pad across a guest’s forehead. At another, a manicure was underway. Geraldine stopped abruptly at a third.
“What is going on here?” she asked.
A woman leaned back in a treatment chair, her face entirely covered in taut strips of damp gauze.
Even from a distance of several feet, a medicinal scent filled the air.
To Geraldine, she looked as though she had just been bandaged up after a surgical procedure.
The technician leaned over her client and gently placed two rounds of well-moistened cotton wool over her closed eyes.
Camille lowered her voice. “That is our Tie-Up Treatment. It contours the face and lifts sagging muscles.”
“What on earth is that smell?”
Camille’s ferociously plucked eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “I expect you are referring to Miss Arden’s world-famous Special Astringent. The mixture of proprietary ingredients produces a signature scent.”
“That’s one way to describe it, I suppose.”
Camille moved along, gesturing to another client. Another smock-clad young thing bent over her, tapping all along her face and throat with something akin to a drumstick tipped by a felt disk.
“Perhaps I could interest you in a facial, designed to invigorate the skin and restore a youthful glow. It is one of our most popular treatments.”
“What, pray tell, is she doing with that stick?”
Her guide let out a tinkling laugh. “That’s Miss Arden’s renowned Patter. When used faithfully as a part of her Muscle-Strapping Skin-Toning Method, it works wonders on double chins and flaccid facial muscles by increasing blood flow and aiding the removal of toxins from the skin.”
Despite herself, Geraldine realized her hand had slipped to the base of her throat as if to check for the effects of gravity. Sadly, they were all too plainly present.
“Perhaps I will book a treatment or two while I am here. Even if they do little good, I cannot imagine there is much harm in them either.”
“I am quite sure you will be more than pleased with the results. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the steam room and the hair and makeup salon.”
Camille kept up her spiel as they wended their way between billowing clouds of steam, skirted snippings of hair on the gleaming tiled floor of the salon, and hurried past one woman undergoing some sort of hair-removal process best not remarked upon.
Geraldine stopped at the reception desk before exiting and made an appointment to have her own face trussed up like a mummy the very next afternoon.
Before she could be convinced to submit to anything else, she hurried out to scout the extensive grounds for a building to commandeer as a temporary studio.