Chapter Thirty-Three. Rose
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
ROSE
The hurricane has crawled up the coast. The weathermen are calling for a direct hit to the mid-Atlantic with substantial flooding along the Bay.
The hotel is safe enough on its little rise—there’s no need to evacuate—but the low-lying roads will flood, and we’re certain to lose electricity.
Eddie and his crew are busy battening down the hatches before the worst of it arrives.
I look out the breakfast room’s floor-to-ceiling windows at the gray drizzle. The branches of the old oak trees toss ominously.
Auntie sips coffee as she pages through a catalog. Lou is sprawled on the floor in her navy sailor suit, every bit as cute as Shirley Temple, playing with a set of paper dolls dressed half as World War II servicewomen and half as film stars.
“We were supposed to get a surprise delivery this weekend,” Auntie muses, “but I think the weather may delay it.”
Lou guesses at the surprise, each idea wilder than the next: A puppy! A pony! An elephant from India!
I stab my grapefruit. “Thank you for letting me sleep in.” I stayed in Ella’s room, dozing fitfully as dawn crept through the windows. When I got up, she was starfished across three-fourths of the bed, snoring.
Auntie fusses with the collar of her tomato-red cashmere sweater.
“I hope she isn’t too shocked about me and Eddie.
I know I said it was only a summer fling, but the truth is, I’ve grown quite fond of him.
” She sighs. “Your father will say Eddie’s after my money, but he hasn’t any room to talk when it comes to being a fool for love.
” She looks at Lou, who’s making Ingrid Bergman fight a Women’s Army Corps officer. “At least we got Lou out of it.”
I smile. “She’s worth a thousand Millies.”
“She is. I only wish…” Auntie fiddles with a ruby earring.
“Anyhow. I’ll speak to Ella. See if she has any questions.
What a dear, brave girl she is, to try to defend me.
I feel awful that she misunderstood … That’s what comes from sneaking around, I suppose.
I’m a modern woman, and if I want to keep company with an attractive man, well …
to hell with old fuddy-duddies like Joe Harrow and your father! ”
I spoon another bite of tart citrus into my mouth. “Would Father disapprove? He says he wants us to be modern women.”
“That only goes so far. When it comes to men…” Auntie sips her coffee, leaving a red lipstick print on the rim. “Still. Secrets lead to trouble.”
She’s right. I woke with twin drumbeats of fear in my throat, remembering Ella’s confession and Mr. Harrow’s blackmail.
For a moment, I considered running away. Caving to that odious man’s threats and taking Ella far away from this place, and away from Daisy. Going back home to Washington.
Only somehow, in the last few weeks, the hotel has begun to feel more like home than the big house in the city.
It’s where I read on the terrace as Coop dashes past on his morning run, with a bashful smile that’s just for me.
Where Auntie and Ella and I listen to Take It or Leave It after dinner while Auntie drinks a gin and tonic and we have Shirley Temples.
Where Lou proudly read her first few words with the sound of Ella’s Bach concertos floating out from the library.
Where Grace and I have schemed and argued and—when it came down to it—had one another’s backs.
I can’t leave. Not yet. I can’t run away and leave her behind to grapple with Daisy and her father’s terrible legacy.
It isn’t safe—not for Grace, and maybe not for Auntie or Lou or anyone.
The ghost is mercurial. Angry. Violent. So far, none of the violence has been directed at us—but can we count on that?
No. I’m not leaving until we help Daisy find peace.
Even an act of God won’t prevent Joe Harrow from making good on his threat, though. If I don’t announce my departure today, he’ll show the twins my letters.
I think I could tell Grace that I’d murdered a man in cold blood and she wouldn’t blink an eye. But I’m terrified to tell her that I’ve kissed a girl.
Fear makes my stomach go sour and my hands shake. I drop my grapefruit spoon in the bowl with a clatter.
“Are you all right, Rosie? You can’t have gotten much sleep.” Auntie gives me an affectionate pat on the shoulder. She smells like Dior’s gardenias. “Why don’t I keep Lou with me this morning? Lulu, gather up your dolls and come help me in my office, please.”
Auntie might leave us to our own devices more often than not. But if I told her that Joe Harrow was harassing me, she would put a stop to it. She would want to help.
Only I’d have to tell her why, and for all her protests about being a modern woman—I’m not sure she’s quite that modern.
No. I know what I’ve got to do.
I’m reading in the breakfast room, surrounded by wrought-iron café tables and chintz armchairs and potted ferns, when Grace storms in. The rain darkens her blond hair and dots her teal-colored shirtwaist dress. Her scowl is fierce—furious—ferocious.
!
“Is it true?” she demands.
My breath catches. Has Mr. Harrow beaten me to it? I close my book without dog-earing my page. “Is what true?”
She plants her hands on her skinny hips. “Are you leaving? Going back to Washington?”
“What?” In the back of my mind, I can hear Nanny correcting me. Ladies say, “Pardon?”
“I can’t believe you’d abandon me like this,” Grace hisses.
Her loafers leave wet marks on the wooden floor as she paces.
“Maybe you feel like you held up your end of the bargain. We know Daisy is the ghost; the photograph on Mrs. Wheeler’s desk proves that.
But we haven’t helped her find peace. Are you really gonna leave me to figure it out by myself?
” Her face flushes and she scuffs her shoe against the floor.
“God, I sound like a little kid, complaining that life isn’t fair.
I don’t know why I expected any different. ”
The disappointment in her voice scalds me. “I’m not leaving, Grace,” I say softly.
“Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been surprised,” she continues, as though I haven’t said a word.
“I still thought you were a spoiled brat who’d run back to your comfortable life the minute things got dangerous.
That you wouldn’t think twice about abandoning our investigation because you never really cared about it, or me.
But now … you better have a damn good reason, Rosie. Have you told Cooper?”
“No, because—”
“Coward!” But there’s real hurt behind her disdain.
“Because I’m not leaving! Grace, listen! I’m staying!” I shout.
She comes to a halt and stares at me. “You’re not leaving?”
“No. Who told you that I was?”
She drops into the wrought-iron chair across from me, irritably pushing a strand of wet hair out of her face. “Dad. He was monstrously pleased with himself this morning. He was whistling while he filled up the water jugs … Ma asked if he’d gotten more opening weekend reservations.”
The hotel is on track to open in time for Labor Day weekend. The major construction is finished. It’s only a matter of paint and wallpaper and furnishings, then inspections. And the landscaping and exterior painting, once the storm passes.
“What do reservations have to do with me?”
“Nothing. Dad said he had good news, but not about the hotel. He said you were heading back to Washington, and we would all be better off without your poisonous influence. I asked if he’d done something to scare you off, and he told me to watch my mouth.
But he didn’t deny it.” Grace lowers her voice.
“You can’t leave, Rosie. No one else understands what it’s been like with Daisy in my head.
And Stanley—you promised you’d be here for me when we broke up, remember? ”
“You know that saying about counting your chickens before they’re hatched?” I grit my teeth. Grace nods. “Well, your father assumed I’d capitulate to his blackmail. But I won’t.”
“What does he have on you?” she asks. I hesitate. “Come on. You know all my secrets. Just tell me. I won’t think any less of you, I promise.”
“You might.” Behind Grace, gray clouds scud across the sky. The rain picks up.
“Did you cheat on a test? Is that why you and your roommate fell out?” I shake my head, miserable, trying to find the right words.
“Were you caught with a boy in your dorm?” I shake my head again.
“You might as well confess. If my father knows, it won’t stay secret for long.
He’s like a dog with a bone. And he really wants you gone. ”
I shudder. If Joe Harrow killed Daisy because she got in his way, what could he do to me?
Focus, Rose. It’s better for Grace to hear this from me. I take a deep breath. “It wasn’t a boy in my room.”
Grace’s eyes widen. “Was it more than one boy?”
“No!” I huff. “It was a girl.”
She blinks at me. “You mean your roommate?”
“No. Thea … She was my first kiss. My first crush. We snuck around together for months.” It all spills out: our trysts in the stable that fall and winter, how they petered out by spring, how we hardly spoke this year till Thea helped me home from the bonfire.
How Clara walked in right as Thea was about to kiss me.
How Mr. Harrow intercepted my letters and used them to blackmail me.
I run out of breath and stare at Grace, trepidatious. I can’t read her face. Is she scandalized—furious—disgusted? Mostly, she looks … confused.
“What about Cooper?” she asks. “Is that a sham?”
“No.” I flush, remembering how I kissed him in Auntie’s office yesterday. “I like Coop.”
Grace props her chin in her hands. “Maybe you were just confused. I practically worshiped Julia Abbott when I was in seventh grade. She was my senior pal, a cheerleader, and I was a spotty little nobody. She made me brownies and let me come over and watch her and her friends get ready for Homecoming. Every other sentence out of my mouth was Julia says.”
I wish it were that simple. “Did you want to kiss Julia?”
“No. I wanted to be her.”
“I admired how confident Thea was. But I wanted to kiss her, too. Sometimes I want to kiss other girls. But I also want to kiss boys, especially Coop. I—I don’t think I’m a lesbian.” I whisper the word. Tears spring into my eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Grace says staunchly. She looks down at the table. “Have you ever wanted to kiss me? That’s not why you’ve been helping me, is it? Because you think I’m pretty?” She makes it sound like a curse.
“What? No.” I don’t laugh, but almost.
“Well, you don’t need to look so amused! Cooper and I look a lot alike. But I’m prettier.”
I grin through my tears. “Are you? He’s awfully pretty. And he’s nicer.”
“He is nicer,” Grace agrees. “You’re sure you’ve never wanted to kiss me?”
“Never,” I assure her. “Do you want to kiss every boy you meet?”
She shudders. “No. Hardly any, really.”
“It’s the same for me. Only with boys and girls.
” I sigh. “I really do like Coop. And your father threatened to show him those letters, too. I don’t know what he’ll think of me when he reads them.
I know there have been…” I hesitate, but I can’t imagine she’s never heard the slurs.
Especially from Stan. “Rumors. About Coop being … preferring the company of boys?”
Grace sets her jaw. “Where did you hear that?”
“Something Stan insinuated.”
Anger flashes over her face. “I gave Billy Patterson a bloody nose for calling Cooper a fairy once. Nobody ever said it again. At least not in front of me.” She gazes at me, weighing something.
“I thought maybe it was true. But he really likes you, Rose. I don’t know.
Maybe he likes boys and girls, like you.
“He won’t think less of you if he finds out about Thea, I know that much.
I don’t think less of you.” Grace takes my hand as I blink back tears, my throat knotted with gratitude.
“But we can’t let my father keep those letters, or he’ll find some way to use them against you. I’ll get them back for you.”
“You would do that?” If she gets caught—
Grace nods. “I’m not going to let him hurt you.”
Her friendship is fierce. Powerful.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.” I hesitate again.
Grace smooths her teal skirt. “You’re lucky I’m so good at keeping secrets.”
“I know, but this one isn’t mine.” I take another deep breath. “Grace, it was Ella.”
She stares at me until the penny drops. “Is she all right?”
I feel my own rush of tenderness at her response.
“She’s been seeing Daisy, too, this whole time. She thought she was sick, like Anna, and that if she told anyone, even me, she’d be sent away.” All my fears, magnified.
I hate that my sister has been suffering alone.
I relay what happened last night.
“Maybe if I had ever fought back, I could have taught Stanley a lesson.” Grace’s expression is pained. “He might still be alive.”
“No,” I say firmly. “You can be sorry he’s gone, but it’s not your fault he couldn’t keep his hands to himself. It’s really not.”
Grace nods, but it’s clear that she’s still working on believing it.
“So it wasn’t Magnolia after all.”
“No. I wonder if she’s seen Daisy, too, though? She says the hotel gives her the heebies.”
Grace rolls her eyes. “Everything gives her the heebs. Has she told you about her nana the spiritualist? Honestly, I’m surprised Dad didn’t break that spirit board over her head.”
Wait a minute. “Grace!” I remember her father telling us about Maggie’s Ouija board. “Your dad said, ‘I won’t have nonsense like that in my house.’ Remember? Do you think that means it’s here? In the hotel?”
Grace gasps. “You’re a genius! If we can find it…”
Excitement thrums under my skin. “We can try to contact Daisy.”