Amber House (27 page)

He paused. He shook his head a little. “Can you even begin to imagine? I’d grown up with them. I had them. They loved me. I wasn’t alone. And I wasn’t — damaged. Everything was possible.”

Nothing about it was possible
, I thought grimly.

“It happened maybe a few dozen times over the years. You have to understand,” he said pleadingly, “I could feel that it wasn’t just a hallucination or a dream. It was real. I knew that somehow things were
supposed
to have turned out
differently
.”

Okay.
“What’s any of this got to do with me?”

“In that place I saw over and over again, that other future where I was a surgeon, I — we —” He sighed, looked down, then looked me directly in the eyes. “You and I were married.”

Another puzzle ratcheted into place. Jackson behaved so oddly around me because — he
loved her
. This other Sarah he saw. I felt this nasty pressure inside my chest. He lied to me to get me to stay so he and I could
what
? Get
married
one day? It was just so crazy.
He
— was crazy.

“You know none of this is possible, right?” I said carefully.

“I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it’s this world that’s the wrong one, the impossible one.”

“I’m sorry, Jackson,” I said as gently as I could. “I don’t think I can help you. I wish I could, but — I gotta go.”

I turned and fled up the stairs. He didn’t try to stop me. And he didn’t follow.

I felt sick that I had bought into his whole hidden treasure story. That I had been encouraging his — fantasies. His obsession. He wanted me to — what? Make his parents magically back alive again? By marrying him? Because of things he saw when his brain spazzed out electrically?

That went a little bit beyond seeing dead people. Just a tad.

And, of course, there were no diamonds. They were just about as real as the idea of bringing people back from the dead. I
wasn’t going to be able to save Amber House after all. I laughed at myself. I was going to give him half — the Captain was as much his ancestor as mine. I’d wanted to
help
Jackson. But there was no helping him. I felt completely overloaded. Like I couldn’t bear another single thing.

I wished I had never come to Amber House. I wished I didn’t know about my aunt and my mom. About Jackson. About any of it. I wished I could pull it all out of my brain. Let the past stay buried.

I reached the top of the stone steps and went straight inside. I climbed the stairs to the flowered room. I pulled out the journals and photos and pages under my bed, and I dumped them all in the trash. I pulled the amber from around my neck and tossed it in on top.

I was done. I just wanted to go back to Seattle.

I kept to myself the rest of the evening. Didn’t talk to anyone except Sammy. Didn’t let the house talk to me.

Friday I’d be gone with Richard to Arlington; Saturday was the party. Then we would leave. I could make it through two days. It would be hard to say good-bye to Richard, but — come Sunday, I was going home. Nothing could stop me. I was through with this place.

That prickly feeling between your shoulder blades — like you’re being watched? I had that all Friday morning. I wanted out of Amber House.

The trip to the dressmaker’s would take at least two to three hours, and the longer the better, as far as I was concerned. I had no idea why Richard wanted to go through the ordeal, but I was grateful to be escaping. And not just because of the constant sense of eyes upon me. My mother had flipped into all-out party mode, with workers in every part of the house and grounds, which was unbearable. Plus, there was that hypervigilant compulsion to avoid Jackson at all costs.

I waited just inside the front door by the window for the familiar sound of Richard’s Beemer, but heard a different motor powering down the driveway. A car pulled up in front of the house right on time — a
stretch limousine
. A black-jacketed driver, inscrutable in mirror sunglasses, came around to open the door for me. I stumbled down the steps, and stood and stared.

Richard poked his head out the door. “Parsons, this is Tully. Tully, Parsons.” The driver nodded. “You coming, or what?”

I climbed ungracefully into the cool darkness of the interior. “I thought you were driving,” I said.

“Dad said we could take it. Got to do a couple things in D.C. This way we don’t have to worry about parking. What, you don’t like it, Parsons?”

“I’m pretty sure I like it, Hathaway.”

It was my first time in a limo. Turned out, I liked it a lot. The inside was all black leather and highly lacquered wood. I opened all the compartments, sat in every seat. I paused at the well-stocked minibar. “Can we have something?” I asked.

“What exactly were you thinking of?” he said with lifted eyebrows.

“Cherry Coke?”

Richard laughed. “Oh, God, I thought — with all you have to choose from, cherry Coke?”

“You know what, Hathaway? You’re right,” I said, trying hard to not think of the last time I had indulged my addiction, there in the kitchen with Rose and — “Maybe it’s time I got myself a different favorite drink, so I won’t be so … predictable. How about some of this?” I pulled out a bottle of “all-natural carbonated spring water mixed with the juice of pomegranate and acai berry,” whatever that was.

Richard put two glasses — crystal tumblers — on the drop-down table, plunked in ice from the leather-covered ice bucket, and filled both with the drink. He handed me one. Then he held his up, smiling. “I would never call you predictable, Parsons. Cheers.”

We clanked glasses. Richard turned on the little TV, popped in a DVD, and we sat back to watch a comedy I’d missed in the theaters. Mostly, though, I watched the people in the other cars and on the streets, all turning their heads to try to see who was in the limo, behind the darkened glass.

The highway we took ran through D.C., where I looked with longing at the green sweep of the National Mall, wishing we could stop and do the tourist thing. Instead we went straight into
Arlington to the dressmaker’s studio. It was in an industrial district of warehouses and factories, but the cars parked in front of Marsden Ltd. were all top-of-the-line imports.

We walked through glass doors into a room my mother would have loved. Ultra-modern furniture in simple, clean lines. Carpet so thick you could lose a nail in it. The whole thing done in a muted palette of peach, gold, and burgundy that warmed the indirect lighting to a suitably flattering glow.

A pleasant young man with impeccable grooming entered from the rear as soon as we walked through the door. He gave us both soft, two-handed handshakes as he introduced himself as Stephen. Then he opened a door to the interior.

Richard started through. “Nope,” I said, snagging his elbow.

“What,” he said in mock outrage, “I don’t get a preview?”

“It’s a masked party. You’re not supposed to know what my dress looks like. I’m supposed to be
mysterious
.”

“Oh, of course,” he said, as he settled onto a couch. “You’re right. You put on a mask, I’ll
never
be able to guess which one is you.”

Stephen ushered me to a dressing room. I gasped when I stepped through the open door. My dress hung there, glistening in the lights. I hadn’t had any idea what it was going to look like — I never could recall the cream version my mother had opted for.

I should have known. The woman had vision.

Done all in a burnt gold, it had a fitted bodice of brocade in an overlapping leaf pattern that skimmed down over the hips. At the neckline and the bottom edge of the bodice, the jags of the leaves had been outlined in tiny opalescent crystals and gleaming gold. The skirt was two tiers of silky tulle layers, all of them finished with a lacy, drifting border of leaves, also detailed in gold.

“What is this?” I said, picking at the edge of a leaf. The gold flecked off on my fingers. “Is it glitter?”

“No, miss.” Stephen tugged it gently from my grasp, smoothing it back in place. “It is fourteen-carat gold dust.”

“You’re kidding, right? Actual gold dust?”

“Approximately one-and-a-quarter ounces. Miss Marsden does not generally use ‘glitter’ in her designs.”

“Right,” I said. “And what are these little beads?”

“A mixture, miss. Seed pearls and crystals.”

“Right,” I said again.

“Everything you need to wear with it has been provided.” He backed out the door, closing it as he went.

I opened the boxes sitting on the dressing room’s table. Inside them I found a strapless bra, silky panty hose, and a pair of low-heeled satin slippers with long silk ribbons in the exact same color as the gown.

I stripped down and started layering it on. The tights from waist to thigh were woven with an elastic thread that held me firmly. No jiggle allowed. The bra was a minor miracle, providing gravity-defying lift with no straps.

I raised the dress up over my head and swam my way into it through the drifting layers of tulle. I tied the ribbon straps behind my neck in as neat a bow as I could manage.

Out in the central area of the dressing rooms, lights focused on a spot just in front of a wide U of mirrors, where Stephen was waiting for me.

He stopped me short of the mirrors, fussed all around me, untying and retying the bow, smoothing leaves, checking the fit of the waist, flouncing and smoothing the skirt. He circled me a final time, then pronounced the dress “Perfect.” Gently, he guided me to the spot under the lights.

And — I could not believe that girl in the mirror was me. I looked like some kind of royalty or red-carpet movie star. The neckline showed off my shoulders and scooped daringly down to cleavage I didn’t know I had in the front. My waist looked sculpted.

“Yes,” I said, “it is perfect. Thank you. Please tell Miss Marsden I think she’s brilliant.”

“You are exactly right. If you are ready, Maryanne will pack everything up for you.”

I looked once more in the mirror, for the first time actually excited by the prospect of my party. The gown was — magical.

Then I went to the dressing room to change back into myself. That’s when I noticed little flecks of shine on the carpet. It looked like I would be trailing fourteen-carat fairy dust everywhere I went.

They brought everything to the waiting room, the dress packed into a very long garment bag that crinkled with the tissue paper Maryanne had layered into it to keep the tulle crisp. The rest of the things went into one pretty shopping bag. Stephen met me at the door to hand me a tiny jar.

“It’s a small amount of gold dust for your shoulders, face, and hair. Give it to your makeup artist. He or she will know what to do with it.”

My makeup artist?
I wondered.
Are you kidding me?
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks again for everything.”

“You are entirely welcome, miss. Please come again.”

Absolutely
, I thought. I’d drop by every single time I had a ball to attend.

On the way back, we got off the freeway onto the road that circled the Mall. As we drove past the Lincoln Memorial, I pressed my face up to the window. Richard saw me and laughed.

“Tully, let us out, will you? Pick us up at the other end in about thirty minutes.”

I got my chance to gawk at Lincoln’s enormous stone presence, then we wandered up the north side of the reflecting pool, checking out the Vietnam Memorial, and coming to a stop at the foot of the Washington Monument. Directly south across the water, the Jefferson Memorial; due north, the White House. We continued east, between the collection of Smithsonian buildings, and on to the Capitol at the very end. It was all history on another scale than the kind that lived in Amber House.

Once inside, Richard was greeted politely by the guards at the entrance and throughout the building. He led me to his father’s office, a suite of rooms filled with mahogany desks and leather chairs, brass lamps and oil paintings. He took a packet from the attractive secretary at the first desk, and then we were moving again.

When we hit the parking lot, Tully was there waiting with the door open. He drove us to a neighborhood near the Capitol buildings, all Georgian row houses in brick and stone. “One last errand,” Richard promised. He had to pick up some formal wear for his dad and himself at his dad’s townhouse.

It was a three-story building in greige stone with white pediments and window framing, black slate shingles, black shutters, black door. It was so exactly correct and respectable looking.

“Come in,” he said as he climbed out of the limo. “It will only take a sec. Look around.”

The interior of the house suited the exterior, all dark-wood floors and Persian rugs, with fancy, polished antiques. I wandered into the living room. A pair of portraits hung to either side of the fireplace — a stuffy older colonial man and his much
younger wife — a beautiful woman with striking golden blonde hair.

“Those are
my
ancestors,” he said, “on my mother’s side. Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald.”

“Oh.” I winced. “Really? Poor Gerald.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Quite a name, huh? Come on, I’ll give you the quick tour.”

Formal dining room, modern kitchen, office for the senator on the ground floor; master suite, library, and guest suite on the second. Richard stopped in at his father’s closet and took out a garment bag, then went to the dresser and snagged a set of gold studs that he dropped in his pocket.

“Third floor,” he said.

The stairs opened into one large room that ran almost the full length of the house. One end was set up with every toy a growing boy could want: pool table, music system, huge flatscreen, weight equipment. The other end held a king-sized bed flanked by dressers, bookshelves, desk, sofa. I smiled and shook my head. “You’ve led a deprived existence, Hathaway.”

He grinned.

I zeroed in on the silver laptop on his desk. “Oh, God,” I said. “Could I send a quick e-mail? Can you believe we don’t have Internet at Amber House?”

“I wouldn’t believe it if you told me you did.” He waved me to the chair. While he packed up his own tux, I sent an update to Jecie: