Chapter Five #2
They moved through the exquisite gardens of the French pavilion, where Oliver had arranged for them to have a picnic lunch at a replica of the Grand Trianon at the Palace of Versailles.
The scent of roses carried on the breeze, amid the pink marble fountains and espaliered trees.
Harriet, Lillie, and Frannie were walking through the rows of fruit trees imported from Paris itself—apple, peach, pear, plum, and apricot.
Frannie looked more recovered, as though being in the fresh air was reviving her.
“This way, sir,” the guide greeted them.
They were given a tour of the interior salon, with its damask-patterned walls and delicate murals painted across its high ceilings.
There were circular sofas edged with blue fringe set beside a glass case displaying a single lock of Napoleon’s hair.
They were offered flutes of Veuve Clicquot as they headed out to the ornately manicured formal gardens.
Grace politely declined hers, so Oliver took two.
Sometimes he reminded her too much of Walt.
“She is growing suspicious,” Grace said to Oliver as the breeze ruffled her hair. “Why won’t you just tell her about Harriet? This is miserable. And short-sighted. She’s not stupid. She’s going to find out.”
Oliver chuffed. “Like she doesn’t have secrets of her own.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen her sneaking off. And you know of it already, don’t you, you little minx?” He studied her over the rim of his glass. “She’s meeting someone. Isn’t she?”
Grace gave him a plaintive look and remained silent.
He took a sip of his champagne. “When did we start keeping all of these secrets from one another?” he asked.
“Are you saying there are more?”
He flashed her a wicked look. “Maybe.”
She groaned and buried her face in her gloved hand. “Please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Too late,” Oliver said, grinning. “It’s a weight I’ve been carrying all myself and I simply can’t bear it anymore.”
He opened his suitcoat pocket and pulled out a small piece of gold.
She recognized it immediately. Their grandmother’s ring.
Grace remembered seeing it on her finger as a child, when her grandmother would sneak away and tut over her and wipe her mouth of chocolate.
She got to see her grandmama only once or twice a year, when Grandfather Carter was away traveling and wouldn’t know.
Grace couldn’t help herself. She gasped loud enough that several people around them turned to look.
“Subtle,” Oliver said, quickly tucking the ring back into his coat pocket. “You should really consider going undercover.”
“Sorry! It’s just… Does that mean…?”
His eyes flashed with the mischief she’d known since he was a boy. “It’s not for my mother, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Speaking of your mother, she’s going to have a stroke.”
“She’ll get over it,” he said, drawing deep on his cigar. “It’s a new age.”
“Not new enough,” Grace said darkly, “I can assure you.”
“I didn’t take you for being a classist, cousin.”
“Please. You know I wouldn’t care if you married Harriet. She’s lovely. I’m not a snob, I’m just a realist.”
“And here I thought you’d be the happiest in the family for me,” he said jauntily, nudging her.
“I’m overjoyed for you. It’s just…” She trailed off.
What do you really know of her? she thought.
“When will you tell Lillie?” she asked instead. Stubbornly.
“Soon. I just wanted her to spend time with Harriet this week, get to know each other organically, have a friendship before they become sisters.”
Sisters. That word touched something painfully tender in Grace, even while she was happy for Oliver. Harriet would step into the place that Grace was vacating.
“Besides, you know Lillie. She would give it all away too soon. She shows everything on her face, and then my mother would be even more suspicious.”
One of the French pavilion guides was surreptitiously reading the Fair’s Fare. He thought he was hidden behind the massive wrought iron gate that separated the French pavilion from the rest of the fairgrounds, but Grace could make out the bold type on the paper between his fingers.
BALLOON EXPLODES IN
FIREBALL AT THE FAIR;
PILOT INJURED BUT ALIVE
Grace shuddered, thinking again of Sam Whitcomb’s theory that the episode hadn’t been accidental.
Harriet looked over at them and waved.
Grace grasped Lillie’s hand, clutching onto her cousin for dear life as their roller-coaster cart crested the summit.
She squeezed her eyes shut just before the cart began hurtling down the track.
“I hate this!” Grace screamed with delight. She heard Oliver howling with laughter behind her, and next to him, Harriet scream-singing.
Afterward, they watched a naval battle reenactment with miniature ships in the Grand Basin, eating airy, spun fairy floss from a stick as shots rang out and smoke plumed into the sky.
“To the Observation Wheel!” Oliver cried.
“Nope,” Frannie said flatly, looking up at the wooden monstrosity.
“I’ll stay with you,” Lillie offered.
“We’ll go with Oliver, won’t we, Grace?” Harriet asked, smiling sweetly at her.
The wheel was larger than Grace had anticipated, now that she was standing this close to it.
She looked up at the compartments, which were roughly the size of a train car and could hold sixty passengers each.
The wheel creaked as it spun and someone screamed.
Her heart fluttered a little in her chest, and part of her wanted to stay on the ground.
But it would give her a rare opportunity to observe Harriet and Oliver alone.
And now that she knew how serious Oliver was about a permanent future with her, the stakes had just gone way up.
“Sure,” she said.
Oliver bought their fare. Fifty cents a ticket, the same as a whole day’s admission to the fair, and they crowded on board.
“It’s… festive, isn’t it?” Oliver said. The car was filled with flowers and—
“Is that a piano in the corner?” Harriet asked.
“You could sing for us,” Oliver said proudly. “I always love to hear you sing.” And she beamed at him.
At the last minute, just as the doors were closing, Theodore ducked inside.
“What are you doing?” Grace asked.
He grimaced. “Something I’m surely about to regret.”
He shifted, standing next to her longer than she expected him to, his hand splaying out on the banister.
The doors closed. The Ferris wheel box was enormous. The cars swung, some of the women letting out a screech somewhere between terror and delight. The lights were beginning to come on in the Palace of Electricity, reflecting in the Grand Basin like a hundred fallen stars.
Oliver turned around, surveying the car.
“Why are there so many flowers in here?” he mused.
“And is that a… reverend?” Harriet asked.
Somehow they had ended up in a special banquet car.
“Oh, good,” Theo said. “We’ve managed to crash a wedding.”
“That better be the only thing that crashes today,” Harriet said.
Theodore gripped tightly to the handle above the window as the car swung. His face went white, the port-wine stain flushing even more crimson on his face.
“Not a fan of heights?” Grace asked, arching a brow with no small amount of pleasure.
“We had never been so well acquainted as we are right now.” His jaw flexed, handsome as ever. “It’s not giving the best first impression.”
“You and heights have that in common, then,” she said.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “There was a reason the inventor of this wheel died bankrupt and alone.”
“You doing okay there, Theo?” Oliver asked above the din.
“Oh yes,” Theodore said bitingly. “Having the time of my life, which I’m fairly certain is going to end at any moment.”
Oliver threw back his head and laughed. Then he kissed Harriet.
In the corner, someone was playing the wedding march on the piano, and the reverend was addressing the bride and groom.
Grace moved past Theo so she could see out the window.
She never imagined she could view the fair from the air like this.
The Ivory City, spread out beneath them in an endless maze of glowing palaces and canals, statuary and fountains, the people in their finest beginning to look like miniatures.
Her stomach dipped a little, but she was determined not to show any nerves.
She tried to memorize what it all looked like, as though she might paint it later.
Maybe that’s what she would do in Kansas City. Take up painting.
Meanwhile, Theodore was practically wheezing, bent over.
“Is he all right?” a woman next to him asked.
“Oh, he’s always like this,” Grace said cheerily.
But for an instant, she thought of Walt. He’d always been afraid of heights, too.
With a pulse of compassion, she sidled closer to Theodore. “You know, Mr. Parker, if you die today, at least it was doing something important. Riding a fair amusement while wearing expensive shoes.”
“Ha.” He laughed weakly, but opened his eyes. His white-knuckled grip on the side of the car tightened.
They were stuck on a moving car suspended hundreds of feet in the air together, amid the intense overtures of Harriet and Oliver, and an actual wedding ceremony.
Grace sighed.
“What helps me when I’m nervous,” she said quietly, “is I sing a nursery rhyme for each letter of my name. So, yours would be ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ and then, ‘Here Comes an Old Soldier.’”
He squinted up at her. “Does that really work?”
She ignored him, prodding: “Here comes an old soldier from Botany Bay. Have you got anything to give him to-day?”
Theo sighed, gripping the edge. “I’ll give him a hat.”
“A hat. Right. Not terribly original, but I suppose given the circumstances, it’ll do,” Grace said. She turned to Oliver, who had just come up for air.
“What about you, Oliver?”
The woman beside them was now clutching her hat and giving him and Harriet a look of offended disgust.