4. #2
It made Claire uncomfortable, that she was the one being apologized to.
Yes, she’d loved Elias, she’d planned on marrying him—but Audrey was his mother, and even someone as woefully inept at family as Claire understood that losing a child was a distinct kind of pain, one with no comparison. “I’m sorry, too, Mrs. Ashbury.”
“Just Audrey, please.” She pulled away, directing a watery smile down at Claire, manicured hands still firm on her shoulders. “We’re family.”
Warmth bloomed in Claire’s chest.
“Our driver will be here in five,” Audrey said, checking a delicate gold watch, “but we have some time before everyone else is expecting us. I would love to take you shopping.”
And how was Claire going to say no to that?
The silent driver dropped them off at Saks.
Audrey breezed in, greeted the sales associates by name.
“A dress, shoes, a bag,” she said, sending them scurrying.
She lightly held Claire’s hand as she led her back into the racks of designer clothes.
“And anything else that strikes your fancy, Claire.” She laughed, low and sad sounding.
“It’s silly, I know. Retail therapy is outdated.
But let me buy things for you. It’s all that I feel like I can do. ”
“You really don’t have to.”
Audrey’s lips pressed together as she turned in the middle of the aisle. Tentatively, she reached out and touched Claire’s face. Claire leaned into her palm instinctively.
“I do, honey.” Audrey smiled, her eyes brimming. “What you’ve done for us, just by agreeing to be here—it helps. It makes me feel closer to him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Claire murmured.
Audrey closed her eyes, briefly. Touched the corners to make sure no mascara leaked. “He was a good boy,” she murmured. “He did his best.”
“I loved him so much.” Her throat ached. Claire swallowed. She could think of few things more humiliating than tear-staining a Saint Laurent.
“I know,” Audrey murmured, pulling her in for a hug, completely unselfconscious in the way only people who knew they unequivocally belonged could be. “But we’ll be OK. We’ll make each other OK.”
A flash of memory. Claire’s mother, smiling down at her when she was nervous on the first day of school. You’ll be OK.
Claire hugged Audrey back, hard.
A black Gucci dress, red-soled shoes. Claire was more a wallet-in-pocket girl than a bag girl, but Audrey picked her out a black purse that looked like an envelope, interlocking C’s in gold on the front.
“That’s not entirely right,” she said, frowning at Claire’s engagement ring, still shining on her left hand. “You wear silver.”
An associate scampered off to find the same bag with the right hardware.
Claire hung back when they approached the clerk, feeling like an interloper. They smiled at Audrey, lips painted a bruisey shade of purple that perfectly suited them but would make Claire look like a corpse. “Audrey, always so lovely to see you.”
“Hi, Mars,” Audrey said breezily. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? We’ve been so busy. Not a lot of time for shopping.”
She didn’t mention that the busyness was due to her son’s death. Maybe Audrey operated the same way Claire did, not wanting the platitudes, the sadness that was genuine enough but ultimately fleeting. She already liked Audrey, but this marking of similarities made her feel even closer.
The clerk—Mars—made polite conversation as they plucked the silver card from Audrey’s hand and held it to the touch pad.
The imminent arrival of the new spring collection, perfect for some upcoming gala.
Audrey asked that things in her size be held back until she could come see them, and Mars acquiesced.
A button on top of the machine flashed red.
Mars stopped mid-sentence. Their eyes flickered, purple lips pulling down in confusion. “I’m so sorry, Audrey,” Mars said, “but it’s saying this one is declined?”
Audrey’s flutter of politeness ground to a halt.
Her blue eyes blinked, once, mouth frozen.
Then she forced out a tinkling laugh and dug in her handbag—identical to the one she was buying for Claire, but with gold hardware instead of silver—and pulled out another credit card. Gold, this time. It matched the bag.
“Probably the machine,” Mars said, smiling and nearly ducking their head like a vassal to a monarch. The gold card went through without a hitch. “I’ll make sure those pieces are held for you, and we can reach out to schedule a private shopping event.” It sounded like an apology, almost.
“Perfect,” Audrey responded. But there was a breathiness to her voice now, like she’d run a marathon. She didn’t say goodbye when they left.
○ ○ 3. ○ ○
Audrey insisted on lunch, and insisted on a small, French-inspired café that didn’t deign to put the prices on the menu.
Claire couldn’t read it and pointed to something that she hoped resembled a sandwich.
The waiter didn’t bat an eye at her lack of effort.
Audrey rattled off her own order in French, complete with a flawless accent.
“Ma fille,” she said at the end, gesturing to Claire, and Claire remembered enough from high school that she felt sun-warmed.
“Claire.” Audrey folded her hands under her chin and beamed at her. The force of a beam from someone like Audrey had an unreal effect, like you were talking to a cardboard cutout of a movie star instead of a real person. “Tell me about yourself! I’ve been so curious.”
Claire gulped her water—the ice came back and hit her in the nose—and tried to smile. “I’m a freelance social media consultant.” She hated what it said about her, that she felt the need to start with her job when asked about herself. But it wasn’t like she had anything else going on.
Nothing but her fiancé being dead.
“Fascinating.” Audrey sipped her own water, managing to do so without any ice-caused catastrophe. “I don’t know the first thing about all that social media stuff. Never got into it myself.”
“Can’t say I’d recommend it.” Then, because his name felt like something caught in her throat, because she couldn’t decide if it was worse to have him hanging at the edges of the conversation or pinned directly in the middle: “Elias was never into it, either.”
They both paused, let the weight of it settle. Audrey’s eyes were misty. “No, he wasn’t,” she said quietly. “We looked.”
Of course they had. She imagined Audrey sitting up at night, searching every possible combination of name and nickname in the tiny search bars of various platforms. Had she searched for Claire, too? The last time she’d posted to Instagram, everyone had still been using the Valencia filter.
“Not that I expected him to be.” Audrey waved a hand at her face, banishing the mist that had never turned liquid. “Elias liked his privacy, his solitude. It made his job easier.”
Claire leaned forward, grasping the tiny morsel of information like a fish to a worm. “You mean his job at the company? He never really told me what he did, those years he worked for his father.”
A muscle twitched in Audrey’s cheek. She took another sip of water. “Research, mostly. But it was on one of the smaller islands, off the coast of the one where we live. Just big enough for a lab, and the work was solitary.”
“So he spent five years on an island by himself?” It didn’t square with what she knew of Elias. He didn’t like getting close to people, but he liked having people around. Sometimes it seemed like he didn’t feel real unless someone else was watching him.
“Oh, no.” Audrey chuckled. “Not alone.”
Their lunch arrived. Claire had, thankfully, managed to order a sandwich. Audrey had a jewel-colored salad that she took three bites of before declaring herself full.
“No dessert?” she asked, when Claire’s sandwich was down to the dregs. “When I was young, like you, my mother always insisted I get dessert. Said it was foolish to waste the years where I could eat it without worrying.”
Her mother. And that’s what she was acting like, here: Claire’s mother, taking her shopping, taking her to lunch, smiling at her with that thousand-watt grin that made her feel like she was igniting from the inside, spectacularly warm. Ma fille.
Claire got dessert. And when it was done, Audrey paid with the gold credit card.
○ ○ 4. ○ ○
The driver was waiting at the curb to take them to the Ashbury family home.
Claire looked out the window, clutching her new bag and huffing leather scent, watching the ocean as the car sped over seamless pavement.
It would appear that Elias’s family lived on a private island.
No wonder he’d been tired of the beach. She’d laugh at how ridiculous it was, if she weren’t so intimidated.
The car reached a tollbooth at the end of the coast. A long, white road stretched behind it, traffic-less.
The driver rolled down the window, flashed ID to the attendant.
They nodded, and the car eased out onto the thin causeway.
The ocean churned beneath them, blue green and frothing, and five minutes later, Harrow Point loomed on the horizon.
All she could see from the causeway was the crenelated roof, the rest hidden behind rocky outcroppings.
The island was cone-shaped, the house seemingly built at the top. When the road reached the island, it curved around the base of the cone, Harrow Point crouching above everything like a dragon on its hoard.
White beach houses dotted the lane, squared off with emerald-green yards that looked incredibly out of place next to the beach and the cliffs. “Staff housing,” Audrey offered. “Mostly for the Harrow Point help, though sometimes interns stay here, too.”
“I bet you get a ton of internship applicants.” The houses weren’t as large as the one she’d shared with Elias, but to Claire, they still looked huge. Staying here would feel more like a vacation than a job.
“Oh, we do.” Audrey chuckled. “But we’re incredibly choosy. There are a few other companies we do most of our business with, and they help with the selection process.”