Chapter Sixteen. Rose
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rose
After a week in each other’s pockets at the hotel, I am starting to learn Ella’s tells. The laugh I hear echoing from the library is one of them. It’s a shrill giggle that lets me know she’s nervous.
Grace and I have just gotten back from the weenie roast. Coop gave Grace a ride back with us, and then—as he and I stood next to Myrtle, staring awkwardly at each other—Grace asked if she could borrow my bracelet. The bracelet.
“Sure.” I smiled at Coop. “Thanks again for inviting me.”
He grinned. “Maybe we can do it again sometime. Without my sister.”
“Hey!” Grace grabbed my arm. “Come on, Rose.”
“I’d like that very much!” I called over my shoulder as she tugged me toward the porch.
Now I’m creeping through the hotel lobby on silent cat feet, eavesdropping, a finger to my lips to caution Grace. A man’s voice floats out of the library.
“We could go for a drive sometime. There’s a lookout that’s real nice at night. Romantic. You can see the stars out over the water.”
I scowl. There’s only one reason to invite a girl to a lookout! I try to remember if Coop’s friends were still at the beach when we left. None of them seemed particularly taken with Ella last night, but—
“I—I don’t think my aunt would approve,” Ella titters.
“You’re a big girl, aren’t you? What she don’t know won’t hurt her.”
That is a man’s voice, gruff and confident.
None of Coop’s friends sound like that. I peek around the newly painted doorframe.
Ella sits on her piano bench, shoulders hunched up around her ears.
A workman from the construction crew is standing next to her.
He’s sandy-haired, clean-cut, wearing blue jeans and a paint-stained work shirt.
He’s too close. Crowding her. She inches toward the wall but can’t move back because of the wet wainscotting.
I exchange glances with Grace, who is clearly seething.
I need to handle this, quick, before her temper explodes.
“Ella!” I sing out, stepping into the library. “We’re home!”
“Rosie!” Her shoulders sink with relief. The workman moves away from her, quick as quick can be. “How was the weenie roast?”
“Lovely. Hello.” I whirl toward the workman. “I’m Ella’s big sister, Rosemary Thorpe.”
He sticks out a hand splashed with paint. “Hank McIntosh.”
I do not shake it. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Mr. McIntosh, that my sister is fourteen.”
McIntosh wipes his hands on his thighs, eyeing Ella like a prime rib in the butcher’s window. “She don’t look fourteen.”
“She’s tall,” I snap.
“Hey, I’m not some kinda pervert! She was flirting with me!”
“I don’t care if she was perched naked on top of that piano, you ought to think twice before propositioning the boss’s teenage daughter!
” I draw myself up as tall as my five-feet-one-inch allows.
Even in my yellow playsuit, with wind-mussed curls and sandy feet shoved into my wedges, I am every bit a wealthy hotelier’s daughter, a Miss Parker’s girl.
I look down my nose at him. Which is quite a feat at my height.
“My aunt will not be pleased when she hears about this.”
At the threat of consequences, McIntosh begins to backpedal. “I didn’t mean any harm, Miss Thorpe. I need this job.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you cornered my sister.”
McIntosh swears and storms out. I turn to Ella. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She won’t look me in the eye. She uncrosses and recrosses her long legs. “You didn’t have to do that. I wasn’t going to go anywhere with him.”
I sit on the piano bench next to her. “He shouldn’t have been so familiar with you.”
“Because he’s the help?” Ella scowls. “Don’t be such a snob! Isn’t she an awful snob, Grace?”
I glance at Grace, expecting her to confirm that I am, in fact, an awful snob.
“No, I don’t think so,” she says slowly. “He’s old enough to be your dad, Ella. And he didn’t invite you to the pictures, or out for a milkshake. He was only after one thing. Rosie’s looking out for you.”
Oh. Grace has never called me Rosie before. That’s what my friends call me. Are we friends now?
Ella sulks. “I don’t need looking after! I’m not a kid.”
“Were you flirting with him?” Grace asks.
“A little. At first.” Ella squirms on the piano bench.
Grace leans against the baby grand. “It’s awfully flattering to capture the attention of an older man, isn’t it? To make him want you. It’s a kind of power, and Lord knows we girls don’t have much. But you’re better off practicing on a boy your own age. One you really like.”
Ella flushes. “You must think I’m a little tart, especially after—”
After Stanley. The way he kissed her and put his hands on her last night.
“No.” Grace smiles ruefully. “I was just the same when I was your age.”
She was only thirteen when she and Stanley started going together. Younger than Ella.
“And I’m sorry.” Grace flushes, her eyes on the piano instead of Ella. “About last night. It was never you I was angry with. It was always him.”
Ella nods, then buries her face in her hands. “Don’t tell Auntie about this, Rosie, please.”
“I think I have to. If there aren’t any repercussions for him, the others might try their luck. What’s to stop one of them coming by next time Auntie’s at a fundraiser and we’re here alone?”
One brown eye peers out from between Ella’s long fingers, and she groans.
“I feel like such a dumb Dora. I asked him silly questions about the hotel, and I paraded around in these shorts, and when I caught him looking at my legs”—she lowers her voice as if she’s confessing something shameful—“I liked it. It made me feel grown-up. I didn’t mean for it to go any further. ”
Guilt crawls over me. I should have checked on Ella this morning.
Made sure she knew that what happened with Grace and Stanley wasn’t her fault.
That no one blamed her or was angry with her.
I should have stayed home instead of going on a date.
I’ve been so preoccupied with the Harrow twins and the ghost, I haven’t been paying enough attention to my sister.
I wrap an arm around Ella. “It’s all right. I’ll see to it that he won’t bother you again.”
After Grace and I console Ella, I tiptoe upstairs—past the bedroom where Lou is napping—and fetch the bracelet from my jewelry box.
Grace tucks it carefully into the pocket of her red skirt.
I wonder if the possible connection to her birth mother makes it feel precious to her.
She heads down to the cottage, and I head to Auntie’s office, a little room off the lobby dominated by a big cherrywood desk.
Mr. Lloyd, the foreman of the construction crew, is perched on the corner of the desk.
Auntie’s chair is scooted close, her face tilted toward him like a sunflower to the sun.
Her chestnut curls are pulled back on both sides with tortoiseshell combs, and she’s wearing brick-red lipstick and a matching red shirtwaist dress.
And her hand is on his leg. On his thigh?
“Rosie! Hello!” Auntie snatches her hand back as she spots me hovering in the doorway, and Mr. Lloyd slides off the desk.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” I feel myself flushing. “I’ll come back later.”
“No, I gotta get back to work. We’ll talk later, Joanie.” Mr. Lloyd ducks out, but not before winking at Auntie.
I’m fascinated. Are they having a love affair?
“I’m sorry to be a bother,” I start.
“You’re never any bother. I wish you’d bother me more, honestly! You girls are terribly self-sufficient.”
Grace would roll her eyes at that: We don’t do our own laundry or cook our own meals or scrub our own commodes.
But emotionally we are rather self-sufficient, I think.
At Miss Parker’s, tattling to teachers or dorm mothers is strongly discouraged.
I am not in the habit of going to adults with my problems.
I feel an intense responsibility where Ella is concerned, though.
Auntie’s sweet, but she’s considerably less watchful than Nanny.
Father’s an ocean away, and we haven’t received even a postcard, much less a telephone call, to see how we’re getting on.
If anyone is going to look out for Ella, it’s me.
I drop into the chair across from Auntie’s desk. “Is everything all right? You went out this afternoon, didn’t you?” she asks. “With Cooper Harrow? Did he do something untoward?”
“No! No, Coop’s wonderful.” Truthfully, I spent most of the picnic talking with Grace while Coop threw the football around.
Then the three of us sat on a frayed picnic blanket that Coop found in Myrtle’s trunk, eating hot dogs.
At one point I reached over to wipe a dollop of ketchup off Coop’s chin, and the way he looked at me when I brushed the pad of my thumb across the blond stubble of his chin—I felt an actual honest-to-God spark.
If Grace hadn’t been there, I think he would have kissed me.
I’m keeping an awful lot of secrets. Would he still want to kiss me if he knew them?
I bite my lip. Here, at least, is one problem I can fix. “There is something I need to tell you. One of the workmen cornered Ella. He invited her for a drive to a lookout. She said you wouldn’t like it, and he said what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Oh, I don’t like that at all.” Auntie scowls. “Did you get his name?”
“Hank McIntosh. He claimed not to know she’s only fourteen. Still. He knew she was the boss’s daughter. I’m afraid if an example isn’t made…”
Auntie nods. “Of course. I’ll ask Eddie to let him go.”
I wince. “I’m sorry. Ella asked me not to tell you, but I—”
“You did the right thing. I’ll take care of it.” Auntie fiddles with her gold-plated fountain pen for a moment, then glances up at me earnestly. “I want you to feel like you can come to me with anything, Rose. I never had that as a girl.”
I imagine not. Granny was a terror who believed children should be seen and not heard.
“You know I adore your father. But this parade of stepmothers … it can’t be easy for you. I see that. I see you, Rosie, and the way you’ve been looking after your sisters.”
I shrug, bashful. “It’s past time I was more of a big sister. Ella and I have been away at school so much, we hardly know each other.”
Auntie smiles. “Well, it’s past time I was more of an auntie, too. After William died, I was lost in my grief and my anger. But I’m here now. If you ever want to talk about—well, anything, really … I’d love that. I really would.”
Oh. I’m pleased that Auntie wants to be close, but I don’t know how to go about it.
“How did your date with Cooper go?”
“I like him,” I admit. That’s easy enough. “I’d like to see him again. But I don’t think Mr. Harrow would be pleased.”
“Joe Harrow is a miserable old ass,” Auntie says with unusual candor.
“He makes my work here twenty times harder. Argues with every decision I make. Never mind that he has no experience in hotels. He thinks he ought to be in charge, because he’s a man.
Never mind that he ran his business into the ground!
You let me know if he gives you any trouble, and I’ll put him in his place. ”
“Thank you. I will.” I know I won’t. The idea of Auntie dressing down Mr. Harrow makes me uneasy. If he can’t talk back to Auntie, who will he take his anger out on? Grace?
Auntie comes around the desk and perches on the chair next to me.
“What you saw earlier—well, Eddie and I weren’t being very discreet.
I hope you aren’t too shocked, darling. After William died, I thought I’d never look at another man.
But Eddie is a breath of fresh air. So forthright.
And virile.” She flushes almost as red as her dress.
“I don’t know that anything can come of it.
We lead such different lives. You understand.
It’s the same with you and Cooper. It’s a lovely diversion for the summer, though. ”
I haven’t thought beyond another date, another kiss. It’s true that Coop isn’t like Cec or Gil. I like that about him. Father probably wouldn’t.
If Clara and I were still speaking, she’d tease me about slumming with the help. How scandalous. How delicious. I wouldn’t be the first Miss Parker’s girl to have a fling with one of her father’s employees—but a fling is all it could ever be.
A lovely diversion for the summer.
Is that why Grace assumes I’ll break Coop’s heart?
Does everyone know what this is except for me?
Auntie pats my hand. Her nails are varnished the same brick red as her dress. “It’s only June, darling. Neither of us needs to worry about the end of summer yet.”