Chapter Forty-Two Julia
Chapter Forty-Two
Julia
When Julia woke the next morning, her first thought was that the room was too dark.
Even with the curtains drawn, there should have been sources of light: the illuminated numbers of the hotel clock, the shadows emanating from the bathroom, where she’d left a night light glowing over the counter.
But it was as dark as the underworld, the only sound the steady beat of rain against the windows.
She swiped her phone screen and saw that it was nearly seven thirty, far later than she usually slept.
Julia hurried into the bathroom, where she flicked the light switch without really expecting it to work.
No luck. She used the glow of her phone to brush her teeth, her reflection flickering in the shadowed mirror like a ghost.
In the closet, Julia fumbled through her things until she found black leggings and her favorite sweatshirt—one that Harry had bought for her as a joke, which read New Zealand Is for Lovers with a cartoon sheep.
Then she grabbed her purse and headed into the hallway, only to nearly stumble into a female figure.
It took her a moment to register that it was Nicole, the hotel’s general manager.
“The bride!” Nicole exclaimed, sounding a bit manic. She held up a battery-operated lantern that illuminated her face from below, casting a ghoulish light over her chin and mouth. “We need to talk. Have you seen the Ellenes yet this morning?”
“Nicole, is that you?” an imperious voice called out from a few doors away.
Of course, Julia’s future in-laws were staying a few rooms down from her wedding suite.
A moment later, Tara swept into the hallway. Even without electricity, she had managed to dress as if for a luncheon, in a crisp linen dress and flats with massive diamond studs in her ears.
“I’m so glad you’re all right, Mrs. Ellene,” Nicole simpered, and thrust a hand toward Tara. Julia hadn’t noticed that she was holding a disposable coffee mug. “I brought you an oat milk latte.”
Tara accepted the coffee without even a nod of thanks. “Do you know when we’ll get power back? This is completely unacceptable, especially for a wedding weekend! What am I supposed to do when our guests arrive?”
Nicole gestured toward the nearest window. It should have offered a view over the gardens below, where Julia and Harry’s welcome cocktail party was supposed to take place this evening. Yet the window was a square of darkness. Julia heard a hammering sound. Was that hail?
“I’m afraid there will be no guests arriving today. We are in an extreme weather situation, as you may have noticed, and will be following emergency protocol,” Nicole said apologetically.
Julia let out a strangled noise. “Emergency protocol?”
Both women looked over as if they’d forgotten she was there. Tara’s eyes traveled over Julia’s sweatshirt, and her eyes flashed with thinly veiled disdain.
Nicole turned to Julia, her eyes bright with sympathy.
“I’m sorry, but no one will be traveling in these conditions.
The private airport is already closed, as is the ferry.
I need to focus on the safety of our guests right now, which means that our staff will spend today securing windows, distributing survival packs, and conserving our resources.
We may be sheltering in place for some time.
Though if we receive an evacuation order, we will of course follow the coast guard’s guidance… ”
Julia stopped listening. How had everything changed so rapidly? Just last night she’d been sitting outside, laughing with Harry and Abby, watching a few stray raindrops plop onto the flagstones of the courtyard.
Her aunt and uncle were making the four-hour drive from Atlanta today.
She could picture them in their old Dodge Caravan, loading it with stuff they didn’t need to bring—fuzzy slippers, or a folding beach chair, or perhaps a case of wine, as if the Ellenes wouldn’t be providing enough booze at this lavish event.
They would turn onto I-75, only to face a mass of storm clouds ahead.
She pulled out her phone to text them a warning, only to see NO SERVICE at the top of her screen. Even the Wi-Fi was down.
Hopefully Jess and Daniel were monitoring the weather.
“Why don’t you both join me downstairs in the dining room?” Nicole asked, politely but firmly.
Julia shook her head. “I need to see Harry.” Suddenly all she wanted was his arms around her, for him to tell her that everything was okay.
“I’m sure Harry will find us,” Tara said tersely. “Come on, Julia, let’s go discuss our options.”
Julia sighed but fell into step alongside them, past the steel doors of the elevators, which gleamed in the swinging light of Nicole’s lantern. “Please watch your step,” Nicole said as she pushed open the door to the staircase. “I know walking down three floors in the dark is far from ideal.”
“We’ll be fine,” Tara insisted.
They emerged onto the first floor. Their footsteps echoed through the vast lobby, with its freestanding stone fireplace and antique furniture upholstered in soft reds and golds. A massive ironwork chandelier hung overhead, its swirling curlicues disappearing in the darkness above.
“We’ve put out a breakfast selection for your guests,” Nicole explained as they walked into the hotel’s dining room.
Candles in glass hurricanes had been arranged along a buffet table, illuminating chafing dishes of scrambled eggs, towers of croissants and muffins, small glass pots of yogurt drizzled with honey.
“Lunch will be at noon. Unfortunately, we will need to serve this evening’s dinner at five p.m., to make use of the natural light,” she added apologetically.
Julia couldn’t help noticing that the tables were laid with scalloped tablecloths, small floral arrangements placed lovingly at the center. She saw hydrangeas, blush-colored roses, sprigs of greenery…. “Are these my wedding flowers?”
“Forgive me for taking the liberty,” Nicole murmured. “I assumed you would want the flowers to go to use.”
Clearly, Nicole didn’t expect there to be a wedding this weekend.
Tara was taking angry sips of her latte, glaring at Nicole over the top of the cup. “I know that all our resorts have a backup generator. Why isn’t this one on?”
Nicole quavered a little beneath Tara’s fury. “Our generator was damaged last night in the storm. The winds reached such a high velocity that they broke a tree branch, which fell onto the generator and damaged it beyond repair.”
“The generator should never have been installed with trees around it,” Tara said testily.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole said again, wringing her hands. “I started working here after construction was complete. That sort of decision would have been made by your landscape architects?”
Julia left the two women to their useless debate and wandered numbly toward the windows. The sky was the mottled purple of a bruise. Rain lashed against the glass in heavy sheets, making her feel as if she were underwater.
“I’m so sorry,” singsonged a voice from behind her.
Julia turned to see Valentine, leaning one hip against a nearby dining chair.
She was dressed as casually as Julia had ever seen her, in one of those matched yoga sets, the top cropped enough to reveal a narrow strip of tanned, toned stomach.
A poncho in the same shade of lavender was tossed over the back of her chair.
I’m so sorry, Valentine had said, though she didn’t sound sorry at all.
“It’s a freak storm,” Julia said tersely. “Who knows, maybe it will pass through as quickly as it arrived.”
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Not this time of year, in the South.” Valentine’s voice was syrupy with regret.
Julia pressed her head against the glass of the window, staring out at the shadowed blur beyond. There was nothing to see.
“I guess you and Harry will have to call off the wedding?” Valentine pressed.
Despite her sympathetic smile, Julia knew this woman was taunting her.
And maybe it was the stress of this enormous wedding—one she wouldn’t have planned for herself, with a price tag that made her slightly nauseous.
Maybe it was the fact that she was stuck without power, surrounded by Harry’s extended family, none of whom really cared about her.
Maybe it was that she’d barely seen Harry over the past week, the two of them forced to stay in separate rooms out of deference to her mother-in-law.
Whatever the reason, Julia rose to Valentine’s bait.
“Call off the wedding? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Julia snapped, and shook her head. “If it wasn’t impossible, I would think that you did this.”
Valentine scoffed. “First you accused me of inviting some senator I’ve never met to your party in London; now you think I can control the weather?”
Of course Julia didn’t believe that Valentine controlled the weather. She just knew that the other woman was delighted by this turn of events, that she would have sabotaged the wedding in exactly this way, if she could.
And it felt so good to act irrationally right now—to behave outside the bounds of normality, or politeness, and just say what she thought. Even if her feelings were irrational.
Julia gestured to the rain jacket thrown over the back of Valentine’s chair. “The forecast was seventy-five and sunny all weekend, but you packed a matching poncho. It’s like you knew what was coming.”
“Ponchos are for smelly crowds at Disney World,” Valentine said, correcting her. “This is a track jacket, and I always pack it. Part of being a responsible adult is preparing for any weather.”
Julia felt so weary, suddenly, of all these rich people and their smug superiority.
“Why do you hate me so much? Is it because I wasn’t born rich like the rest of you?”
To Julia’s surprise, Valentine came to stand next to her at the windows, both of them staring out at the storm. “Julia, I don’t care about you enough to hate you. And you should know that I wasn’t born rich. I was just like you once.”
“You and I are nothing alike—”
“I was just like you,” Valentine repeated insistently, “an ordinary woman entering the fold, and they have never accepted me.” She turned to Julia with a sad, almost pitying smile.
“You think this family is easy? Let me warn you now: it will never stop, not even after you are married. They will find a thousand small ways to cut you down, to chip away at your confidence until you doubt everything you thought you knew about yourself.”
Julia felt oddly saddened by the woman’s words. And though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt afraid.
She couldn’t bear the thought of turning into Valentine: allowing herself to become quietly enmeshed in the Ellene ecosystem, constantly worrying about whether she was good enough.
Letting the demands of this life whittle away at her, making one sacrifice after another until all she had left to give up was her relationship with Harry.
“I tried to explain this back in London,” Valentine said softly.
“If you stay with Harry, you will eventually have to choose. You can either let the Ellenes absorb you completely, or you can tear Harry away from them. If you do that, Harry will come to hate you for it—and worse, he will come to hate himself.” Valentine drummed her fingers against the glass in a rhythm that felt oddly haunting, like the tune of some funeral dirge.
“But if you stay…you may come to hate yourself, too.”
“Is that what happened to you?” Julia ventured.
Slowly, Valentine turned. Her bright blue eyes landed on Julia with something like surprise, as if she’d been caught in her own musings and forgotten that Julia was here at all.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Pretend I didn’t say any of that. I’ve had my issues in this family, but that certainly doesn’t mean you will face the same. You and Harry probably have it all figured out.” She smiled, but it came out wobbly and frail.
That smile panicked Julia far more than Valentine’s threats or intimidation.
As if to underscore this new, unnerving kindness, Valentine grabbed the raincoat, or track jacket—whatever the hell it was—and held it out toward Julia.
“You should take this, since it sounds like you didn’t pack one. From the look of things, you’re going to need it more than I do.”
Unsettled by this new, tragic Valentine, Julia tried to hand the jacket back. “That’s all right, I don’t mind a little rain.”
“But the color looks so good on you. I insist,” Valentine pressed, before turning toward the door.
Julia stood there, holding the jacket, utterly still. Trying not to reveal how panicked that conversation had left her.