Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells (4 page)

“Hello!”

The girl’s eyes went back and forth between Grace and Catherine, then rested on Grace. “You’re the niece?”

“That’s me. Grace. And this is my friend Catherine.”

“Lali. Short for Eulalie.” She came farther into the room. “Can you believe my mother had the nerve to name me that? What, was I, like, born in 1890? I’m so glad you’re going to be spending the summer with us. Last year I was bored out of my mind working here, with no one near my age to talk to all day. No girls, anyway, just the guys working in the garden and on the pool, and occasionally some repairmen. Not that I don’t like seeing guys around without their shirts on, but you can’t exactly gossip with them, you know what I mean? They’re always staring at your boobs.” She grinned. “Bet you get that a lot.”

“Er, not really.”

“Then you just don’t notice. Believe me, they’re looking.”

“I hope not.”

“Really?” Lali shrugged off the imponderable. “Anyway, I’m supposed to tell you that tea is being served on the terrace. Mama made me say that, ‘Tea is being served.’” She rolled her eyes. “As
if
! It’s as pretentious as these silly uniforms. What is this, the nineteenth century?”

“Your mother works here?”

“She’s the housekeeper and cook. Has been since before I was, like, even
born
. Ever since she took that Cordon Bleu course, though, she’s had pretensions. Says she’s a chef, not a cook. C’mon, I’ll show you the way.”

They followed her out, barely keeping track of her stream of chatter. Boys, her junior prom a few weeks earlier, more boys, girlfriends, clothes . . . “Good Lord,” Catherine whispered, “is she ever going to shut up?”

“At least she’s friendly,” Grace whispered back. She was grateful for a friendly face, grateful, too, for the distracting monologue. She’d been feeling uneasy for the last half hour, waiting to meet her aunt and imagining how horrible it was going to be. All indications hinted that Sophia had not gotten softer with age.

Lali led them through a plush, pale Louis Quatorze living room and pushed open a French door. “Ta-da! The terrace. And tea. Ooh, and Declan. Hi, Declan!” she called out the door. They heard the murmur of a response. “He’s so cute,” Lali said sotto voce to Grace and Cat, and sighed. “He’s way too old for me, but a girl can dream, can’t she? Can you imagine what it would be like to have him be your
first
?” Lali widened her eyes at them. “Can you?”

“I’m trying not to,” Grace said, as visions of a naked Declan rose in her mind.

“At least you’re closer to the right age for him. He calls
me
‘jail bait.’” Lali grinned, then giggled. “
Jail bait
. See ya later, ’gators!”

“While, crocodile,” Grace called after her.

Catherine stared at Grace.

“What?”

“Do not regress to that age. I don’t want to pick you up at the end of the summer and hear you punctuating your sentences with ‘like.’”

“Like, why would I do that?”

“Like, hell if I know. Hell if I know why anyone would want that sleazeball Declan to touch them, either.”

“We don’t know for sure that he’s a sleazeball.” They’d spent half their time in the bedroom discussing the possibility. Financial planners had a lousy reputation since the market crash.

“That type
always
is.” Catherine tilted her head, examining Grace. “You’re not attracted to him, are you?”

“God no!”

“He’d treat you like crap.”

“Cat, I’m
not
attracted to him. He wouldn’t be interested in someone like me anyway.”

“Wouldn’t he?” she asked cryptically.

Grace ignored her and stepped out into a world of sunlight and blue sky. The terra-cotta terrace ended thirty feet in front of her at a stone balustrade, beyond which the earth appeared to fall away into endless blue. To her right were broad stairs leading down into gardens. To her left a wooden pergola covered the terrace, sheer linen panels draped over its roof and down its posts. In the filtered shade beneath were a long table and several iron chairs strewn with flowered cushions. Declan O’Brien sprawled in one of them, while a tall, slender young man with light brown hair held a chair out for Sophia as she sat.

“Thank you, Andrew,” Sophia said. “I could wish that your gesture was inspired more by chivalry than by a conviction of my frailty, but it is appreciated nonetheless.”

“It will take more than osteoarthritis to make me ever think you’re frail.”

“Shh! Please don’t use that word to me. ‘Arthritis.’” She shuddered elegantly. “It’s an old person’s disease.”

“Miss Cavanaugh!” Declan said, standing. “What a pleasure to see you again. And Miss Ruggieri.”

All eyes turned to them, but it was Sophia’s face that Grace watched. The hair was the same as she’d remembered, still pure white, still parted on the side and falling in neat waves to her shoulders, now topped by a wide-brimmed, light green straw hat. Her pale skin was creased with age but her fine bone structure turned the wrinkles into flourishes for high cheekbones and a graceful brow. She wore blush and lipstick in a delicate rose pink, but had been more generous with the dark mascara and eyeliner, emphasizing eyes that were the same clear green as Grace’s own, albeit faded.

Sophia drew in a breath and placed her long-fingered hand to her heart, over a string of pearls and the floaty neckline of a retro silk tea gown that wouldn’t have been out of place at a garden party at Windsor Castle. “And there you are, child, all grown up. Come closer, darling, and let me look at you.” She held out her hand.

Grace came forward and took it, wary. “It’s very good to see you again, Aunt Sophia. Thank you so much for asking me to spend the summer with you.”

Sophia didn’t seem to hear her, her green eyes looking Grace up and down, then resting on Grace’s hair. Sophia touched a strand of it, then put her fingertips to her own lips. Tears filmed her eyes. “Just look at you. Such a beautiful face, such glorious hair.”

Grace shifted, unbalanced by the unexpected compliments and sentimental tears. Maybe Sophia
was
suffering some dementia. This was not the woman she remembered. “Um, thank you.”

Sophia released her hand and waved her away. “Don’t mind
me,” she said. “My evil doctor has been giving me steroids, and they make me overemotional.”

The light-haired man made a noise.

Sophia nodded toward Catherine. “I see you’ve brought a friend?”

Introductions were made all round, and the tall young man was revealed as Dr. Andrew Pritchard. Lali appeared with a wheeled cart, and they made small talk about the drive from Seattle as the tea and cakes and sandwiches were served. Declan was given the equipment for a whiskey and water on ice, and served himself while the others took cookies and strawberries.

“How long are you staying in town, Grace?” Andrew asked.

“All summer. I’m here to help Aunt Sophia while she has her hip—er,” Grace cut herself off, remembering Sophia’s dislike of anything that made her sound old, and a hip replacement said nothing but “old.” “To help her with any, er . . . procedures she may undergo and need to recover from.”

Sophia laughed. “She makes it sound like I’m having liposuction. Perhaps that’s what I shall tell everyone. There’s less shame in a bit of fat removal than a complete replacement of failed body parts.”

Grace didn’t think anyone would believe it. Sophia was blade thin, with barely enough fat to keep her from looking skeletal.

“I suppose I should have told you that I’d invited her, Andrew, but I didn’t want to see you feeling smug. Her presence is an admission that I have to have that damned surgery.”

Grace caught Andrew looking at her. He dropped his eyes and poked his fork at a wedge of melon. “The sooner you do it, the easier your recovery will be.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Do you hear him, Grace? That will be one of your first duties, keeping Andrew from treating me like a child who doesn’t know well enough to take her hand out of the fire.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Declan said. “She needs scolding. One might almost say she invites it.”

“
He
will be your second duty,” Sophia said. “He’s worse than Andrew. I didn’t reach this age by being obtuse about my own well-being.”

The two men gazed with doting eyes upon Sophia, but Grace thought she had caught a thread of real annoyance in her aunt’s tone. What she didn’t know was whether the men’s patronizing was justified, and Sophia’s annoyance merely the petulance of a child who must be told no. “I promise to silence all
unnecessary
admonishments.”

Sophia lifted an eyebrow, her eyes meeting Grace’s with appreciation. “Carefully said, my dear.”

The woman didn’t miss a beat.

“I’ve met Grace only once before,” Sophia said, addressing the men. “Although she is in part named after me. Grace Sophia, correct?”

Grace nodded, and felt Catherine looking at her. “I didn’t know that,” Catherine said, offense in her tone at not being privy to all the details of Grace’s life.

Grace shrugged. Her maternal grandmother had suggested her middle name, even though Grace’s mother had known little of Sophia beyond family tales of her independent—some said willfully rebellious—spirit.

Sophia went on, “She was a child then, and I had nearly forgotten about her when this past Christmas she sent me one of those strange personal newsletters people are so fond of composing these days.”

Grace squirmed in her seat. That newsletter had been a whim, inspired by a bout of depression in the gray winter of Seattle, her usual optimism and academic energy lost beneath a blanket of clouds and loneliness. She’d wanted to connect with family, any
family. Her mother had sent her a list of the addresses of relatives and family friends, and she’d sent the embarrassing missive to them all. It had been full of false cheer and tiresome personal anecdotes desperately embroidered to make her life sound more interesting than it was. She’d included a photo of herself on the observation deck of the Space Needle, wind blowing her hair against a backdrop of heavy clouds.

“Inviting her to Pebble Beach for the summer seemed a way to fulfill both our needs. Grace is getting her Ph.D. in—what was it, dear?”

Grace’s shoulders slumped, dreading what was to come. No male reacted well to mention of her field, and mentioning it all but guaranteed a nasty discussion of its faults and dubious merits. “Women’s Studies,” she said, and she felt the shift in atmosphere immediately. Andrew’s expression turned uncertain, while the line of Declan’s lips betrayed distaste. He took a sip from his glass as if to clean “Women’s Studies” from his mouth.

She knew what they were thinking: she must be either a lesbian or a ballbuster. In either case, no one worth pursuing romantically. She’d had five years of defending her choice to potential dating partners, and had learned to accept romantic defeat before she began. Even math majors got more action than she did. “I hope to get most of my dissertation written while I’m here.”

“What’s your thesis?” Declan asked, with the same tone used to ask if one knew what the mold-furred blob in the back of the fridge might be.

Grace squished a little lower into her chair. “The working title is ‘The Belle of the Ball Cries Alone: How Beauty Brings Unhappy Endings in the Emotional Lives of Women.’”

Silence settled upon the tea party. A breeze soughed through the trees. A bird chirped and then flew away.

“Oh, dear,” Sophia said faintly.

“Her work is brilliant,” Catherine said, leaning forward and looking around the table. “Most of the beauty debate we hear about in the media is where the ideals come from: are they innate, or are they the product of advertising and the ubiquitous images of movie and pop stars? Do women improve their appearance for themselves, for men, or for other women?

“Gracie is taking a different slant, looking at the emotional result for women who, for whatever reason, are perceived as beautiful. And the results ain’t pretty. Gracie is proving that to be beautiful is to invite misery into your life.”

“What a perfectly depressing thought,” Sophia said.

“Here, here,” Declan agreed, raising his whiskey glass. “Give those miserable beauties to me, and don’t you worry about them.”

“That’s exactly the type of statement that causes pain for women,” Grace said, anger straightening her spine. “You don’t give a damn about their inner lives, it’s what you see that matters.”

“He’s not serious,” Andrew said, looking embarrassed for the other man. “He’s giving you a hard time.”

“Like hell I am! Of course what a woman looks like matters. You’re lying if you say anything else, Andrew. You’re no more of a saint than the rest of us.”

“I’ll agree that there’s an evolutionary bias toward beauty, but for most human males, in the end the conversation we have across the dinner table matters more to us than the view.”

Declan turned sideways in his chair and leaned back as if trying to get a better view of the creature next to him. “What planet are you from?”

Andrew’s soft gray eyes met Grace’s and she told him across a platter of cucumber and salmon sandwiches, “If I can make my ideas the basis for a national discussion with young women,” Grace said earnestly, “we might be able to save a whole
generation of women from valuing themselves on appearance alone. If they can see that the beautiful girls are the ones with the most unhappiness in store for them, they can be better judges of the worth of beauty in their own lives. Right now, all they see is that women like Scarlett Johansson and Angelina Jolie get all the attention. They don’t see the failed marriages and personal instability. They don’t see the misery that their beauty has brought them.”

“Grace, darling, you relieve my mind,” Sophia said.

“Do I?” Grace asked, surprised.

“Yes, dear. I had thought you dressed the way you do from a lack of taste. I see now that your boxy T-shirt—with, what does it say?
UN-DAM THE SALMON
?—is an expression of your sexual politics, as are those unflattering capri pants and running shoes. You believe that if you were to make better use of the physical gifts God has granted you, you would be setting yourself up for unhappiness.”