24. Cassian
CASSIAN
The breakfast is at seven thirty on the upper terrace.
I am there at seven. Becca is there at seven oh four.
The orchids are not, this morning, on the table.
I had Sebastian remove them at six. I had Sebastian remove them because if she is not coming down to breakfast, the orchids do not, this morning, do their work, and the absence of the orchids is a smaller signal than the absence of her.
Roland comes at seven-thirty on the dot. In nine years, he has never once been late. He kisses Becca’s cheek, shakes my hand, and takes his seat. His eyes move to the empty chair beside me, then back to me, carrying none of the easy dismissal he uses when he’s willing to overlook something.
"Cassian."
"Roland."
"Where is Maren?"
"She is not feeling well."
"Yesterday she was not feeling well."
"Yesterday she was not feeling well, and today she is, also, not feeling well."
He lowers his cup. He sets it on the table with the measured precision of someone quietly recording my response for later. The silence that follows is its own entry.
"Cassian."
"Roland."
"Is there something I should know?"
I have, I will say it inside my own head, the answer to the question.
I have it in three separate, fully drafted versions.
The first one is the version with the truth in it.
The second one is the version with three quarters of the truth in it.
The third one is the version that finishes this deal at eleven a.m. on Monday morning. I take the third.
“What you’re seeing, Roland, is the ordinary strain of a twenty-six-year-old whose family has been in her space for a week and whose mother has already inscribed December second in a leather notebook.
She’s tired. She’s hiding from her mother.
And I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours endorsing that choice. ”
Becca’s mouth does the small thing it does. Roland fixes his eyes on me with the same unreadable look he had yesterday morning, then lifts his cup again.
"All right."
"All right?"
"Cassian. I do not, generally, ask twice.
I am asking you to make sure she is at the cocktail hour tonight.
The deal — Cassian, the deal closes at eleven a.m. on Monday.
You and I both know that. I would like her in the room tonight.
Not because I am — Cassian. Not because.
I am only telling you. I would like her in the room. "
"She will be in the room, Roland."
"Good."
The breakfast continues. I redirect. I redirect to the cliff annex.
I redirect to the spa numbers — I tell, again, the story about Wednesday's lunch, with the small smile of a man telling a thing on his fiancée — and Roland, courteously, lets me.
The pastry comes. The coffee comes. At nine fifteen they are, both of them, in their car.
I stand on the upper terrace and I watch the car go down the drive, and I do not, until the gate has closed behind it, allow my shoulders to come down.
Sebastian is at my elbow.
"Sir."
"Tell her I want her at the cocktail hour."
"Sir."
"Six p.m. Lower terrace. The dress in the small bag — the navy — Reeve had the seamstress bring it on Friday.
It will fit. Tell her she can come down for the cocktail hour and I will not, at the cocktail hour, address what is between us.
She does her hour. She goes back up. I do not, after that hour, ask her for another. "
"Sir."
"Tell her, Sebastian."
"Yes, sir."
He goes.
I sit on the upper terrace with my coffee. I sit there for thirty minutes. I do not, in those thirty minutes, look at the small framed photograph of the property the year I bought it, which is, currently, six rooms away in my study, and I do not need to.
Sebastian comes back at ten oh three.
"Sir."
"Tell me."
"She has declined."
"Verbatim, Sebastian."
"Verbatim, sir, the message is Tell Mr. Rourke that I will not be at the cocktail hour, that I will not be at the dinner, that I will not be at any other appearance that is on his itinerary, and that he should not, in front of my mother or anyone else, send another tray."
"Mm."
"Sir."
"Where is she?"
"Lower courtyard. With the small suitcase from the closet, sir. Sitting."
"Sitting."
"On the stone bench by the lemon tree. With the suitcase. Reading."
"Reading."
"A paperback, sir. From the library."
"Get out of my way, Sebastian."
"Sir, I — "
"Get out of my way."
I move past him. I take the stairs down two at a time. I have not, in this house, taken stairs two at a time in seven years.
She is on the bench by the lemon tree.
She is in soft blue. The dress is one I have not seen.
The dress is, I will note, not something that came from Reeve's seamstress.
The dress is the first dress she came down the stairs in two weeks ago, when I told her she was four minutes late.
The dress was, I think, the second of the two she changed into the morning of the chef's table, although I am only, currently, guessing.
She has, on the bench beside her, a small cabin suitcase.
She has, on her lap, the paperback she was reading the morning of the storm.
She does not look up.
"Maren."
"Cassian."
"Look at me."
"No."
"Maren."
She closes the paperback. She closes it with the small careful pressure of a woman who is, in this moment, holding a thing together with the muscles in her hand. She sets the paperback on top of the suitcase. She stands.
“Cassian. I will say this once. I’m not coming to the cocktail hour. I’m not coming to the dinner. I’m not attending any further item on your itinerary. I’m out of the itinerary, Cassian. In approximately eighteen hours, I’ll be on a plane.”
“Maren.”
“You’re going to get the deal. The deal will close on Monday. Roland will decide, in the last forty-eight hours, whether he wants the deal more than he wants the wife. I’m letting him make that decision without me. The deal is yours, Cassian. I’m not the part of it you’ve been treating me like.”
"Maren."
"Don't."
"Listen to me. Just — listen. Just one — one minute, sweetheart, just?—"
"Don't sweetheart me, Cassian. I have asked you twice."
“All right. All right, Maren. Just listen. The deal—the deal needs you in the room until Monday at eleven. That is the only thing it needs. Tonight. Tomorrow morning. I will not—Maren, I will not, in either of those rooms, steer you. I’m not asking you to forgive me.
I’m not asking you to come back to the wing.
I’m asking you to sit on a chair, in a navy dress, for seventy minutes, on a terrace, while a man I’ve known for nine years decides whether he is going to fund four hundred jobs at this property. ”
"Cassian."
"What."
"That is exactly the sentence you would say if you were lying."
"Maren—"
"Do you hear yourself?"
"Maren."
"Four hundred jobs. The cliff annex. The terrace. The chair. The navy dress. That’s the sentence—the one you’d say in any room I’m in.
I can’t tell if it’s true. I can’t tell if it’s one of the ones that hold.
I am—Cassian. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and call it true. And I’m still not coming."
"Maren."
She lifts the suitcase off the bench. She does it with two hands. The suitcase is not, I will admit, very heavy, and she is, currently, the small, tired, fierce woman who has, in two weeks, beaten me in three rooms in this house. She does not, at any point, look at my face.
She turns to walk past me.
I take her arm.
I take it gently, my hand closing at the bend of her elbow the way you guide someone over a curb.
She stops. Her attention stays fixed somewhere that isn’t me.
She does not pull. She does not speak. The suitcase is in her right hand.
My hand is at her left arm. The lemon tree is, currently, very still.
"Maren."
"Cassian. Take your hand off my arm."
"Maren, I am?—"
"Take your hand off my arm."
I take it off.
She moves past me. No pause, no shift in pace. She passes Sebastian in the courtyard archway—Sebastian, who a minute ago saw the only moment in nine years when I reached for someone without thinking—and she keeps going, through the arch and up the path, never once turning around.
Sebastian does not move from the archway.
I stand in the courtyard for the count of twenty.
He comes down the steps. He does not say anything. He does, after a moment, hand me a folded sheet of paper. I open it. It is a printout — the small economy printout the staff uses, the kind he prints from his own desk — with three lines of text on it.
Booking confirmation. Departure 06:15. Reservation: Castellan, Maren. Outbound only.
"She told me, sir, this morning, that she was leaving. She booked it last night. She did it on her laptop. She did not have me arrange the car. She has called a taxi, which is — sir — which is not a thing the staff at this property has, in seven years, had to call a taxi for."
“Sebastian,” he says.
“Sir.”
“You knew.”
“I knew at six this morning, sir. I told you to put her at the cocktail hour because I wanted, with respect, to give you four more hours of believing you could fix this by itinerary.”
“Sebastian.”
“I’ll go, sir.”
“No.”
“Sir?”
“Stay. Cancel the cocktail hour. Cancel the dinner. Put the family in the lower wing for the evening. Have the kitchen send up a tray for the four of them. Tell Delilah—tell her that her daughter is unwell. Tell her exactly that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Sebastian.”
“Sir.”
“Do not, in this moment, ask me what I’m going to do.”
“No, sir.”
“Because I genuinely don’t know yet.”
“No, sir.”
“That will be all.”
He goes. The lemon tree, in the courtyard, drops a single small yellow fruit onto the flagstones with the small dull sound of a thing finally, after a long hold, letting go. I stand in the courtyard for the count of forty.
In the morning, she will be on a plane. Tonight, I will not be in any room she is in. The deal will close at eleven on Monday. Roland will sign the term sheet without her. The cliff annex will, in November, break ground.
I will, I am admitting it now, have lost the only thing in the last seven years I did not, when I picked it up, intend to keep.
I cannot, currently, force her compliance.
I cannot, in two weeks, in seven years, in thirty-four years, remember a sentence that has felt, in my chest, more true.