Sooner or Later (3 page)

Ellie dashed back to the cafe, locked up, then drove, too fast as always, to the Santa Monica homeless shelter where she dropped off the food, hoping it would help, if only a little bit.

Checking her watch, she climbed back into the Jeep, wondering where the time had gone.

As she headed north on 101, Ellie thought worriedly about her grandmother. Miss Lottie lived in a run-down old mansion in Montecito with just a housekeeper to help. She was well into her eighties and her mind wandered erratically. She could lose decades between one thought and the next, but then she would recall in perfect detail, the time she had bought a hat in Paris in 1939, though there were moments Ellie suspected she simply chose to be vague, when there was something she just didn’t want to discuss.

“Old age has its advantages, my dear,” Miss Lottie had said smugly, when Ellie exasperatedly accused her of faking. “I brought you up properly after your poor mother died. You’ve flown the nest, I have no more responsibilities. Now I’m without a care in the world.”

Ellie only wished it were true. Meanwhile, the traffic was hell and she was going to be late. Again.

L
OTTIE
P
ARRISH
’
S
“
COTTAGE
”
STOOD ON TWENTY PRIME
acres of land in the affluent little resort township of Montecito. Ten minutes farther north was Santa Barbara, site of the old Spanish Mission and a campus of the University of California. And just over an hour and a whole lifestyle to the south, lay the great smog-scorched urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

Beach houses and Spanish casitas hugged the curve of the bay, shaded by palms, and orange and lemon and fig trees. Tropicai-hued bougainvillaea sprawled in abundance in shady gardens and along Coast Village Road, which was lined with little boutiques and restaurants, and tourists. But for all the activity down in the “town,” life up on Hot Springs Road might not have changed since the thirties, when the grand Italianate mansion had been built by Charlotte Parrish’s father.

Waldo Stamford, a Boston Yankee, had fallen in love with the tiny, flower-bedecked coastal community. He’d built his house of imported cream limestone with a columned arcade, tall French windows leading onto shady
patios, fountained courtyards and gardens copied from a Palladian villa in the Veneto region of Italy. Each of the twelve bedroom suites had its own bath and sitting room, with green wooden shutters to close out the afternoon sunlight. And each had been fitted out with every luxury, from European antiques and priceless rugs, to gold faucets shaped like dolphins and the very best Irish linen sheets. Which in those days were changed every morning by uniformed maids, and washed and ironed in their own laundry, a special building hidden in the birch woods near the back gates.

Waldo and his young daughter, Lottie, had entertained lavishly, filling the house with what he called “amusing riffraff,” and flamboyant movie stars, as well as “proper” people, meaning California’s tycoons and gentry. But now Miss Lottie, as she was always known affectionately, never entertained.

Miss Lottie was still in her room, supposedly getting dressed for Ellie’s visit, but instead she was sitting at the antique Venetian desk with the intricate marquetry inlay. An old green celluloid visor that her father used to wear for his poker games shaded her eyes, and she was busy at her personal computer. She had her own Internet address,
http://[email protected]
, and corresponded with any number of strangers, some of whom seemed to have become friends, especially a Rabbi Altman in England, whom she was particularly fond of. To her delight, she also seemed to have become an Agony Aunt.

Dear Al
, she typed, quite speedily for someone using only two arthritic fingers.
Thank you for your message on my E-mail. I’m sorry to hear of your problem with your paramour, and this is what I think you should do. Marry her at once. Make an honest woman of her. Settle down, have children. This is what life is for, believe me, I know.
She signed it,
Sincerely, Lottie Parrish
, then added at the end,
Shalom.

It was a word of peace she’d learned from the Rabbi, and she liked to use it because it expressed her feeling toward the people she never saw, but who confided their innermost secrets to her.

Maybe it was because she was old, she thought, watching the Opus ‘n’ Bill screensaver cartoon, flickering across the screen, but they seemed to believe she had a special wisdom, when all she was really doing was talking common sense. She thought it surprising how little that was used these days. Now it was all technology and psychology with not much in between.

She’d bought the computer when her old lawyer died. She just couldn’t get along with the new fellow who’d taken his place, and she’d decided to manage her money herself. A nice, very clever young computer expert had come in for a week to teach her how it all worked, and to her surprise, she loved it. Unfortunately, though, it hadn’t been good for business.

Miss Lottie’s suite of rooms was at the top of the grand staircase. It had tall double doors and paneling taken from a French château, painted a faded lilac, her favorite color. French windows led out onto a marble balcony, and the green brocade canopied bed was the same one she’d had as a young girl when she’d first come to this house. In fact, nothing much had changed. It was all the same as it had been when her father was here, and when her daughter, Romany, was still alive, and Rory Duveen. Now she supposed it was shabby, but it still pleased her. It was still elegant, still beautiful, still home.

Sighing for the past, she picked up her cane and went to get dressed.

•   •   •

Half an hour later, she was waiting for Ellie on the marble-paved terrace, sitting in a high-backed rattan chair that was probably almost as ancient as she was, with Bruno, the old golden Labrador, dozing beside her. Her back was as straight as the chair’s, her silver hair was immaculately coiffed in a chignon, and her blue silk dress had been carefully chosen to be appropriate for afternoon tea at the Biltmore. The jaunty little silk scarf at her throat disguised, she hoped, a little of the unfortunate sag that no matter what face cream she used, refused to go away.

“A little vanity is good for a woman,” she’d told her housekeeper and old friend, Maria, when she’d rebuked her for wasting her money on such things. “After all, when you’re my age, it’s about all you’ve got left. Besides, a woman should always try to look her best.”

Miss Lottie thought it a pity that her mind could no longer keep pace with her body. Sometimes she couldn’t even remember what she had done yesterday, let alone last week, though she could recall perfectly the house being built and the day she and her father moved in.

All the men who’d worked on the house had gathered on the grand terrace, where she was sitting now. Champagne was poured into saucer-shaped crystal glasses; then her father had distributed lavish bonuses, and they’d drunk a toast to the success and beauty of the new house. They’d called it “Journey’s End,” and Miss Lottie had always supposed it would be where her own personal journey through life would end. Until a few weeks ago, when the lawyer and accountants had told her that, finally, there was no money left.

They’d come to see her, carrying bulky files and ledgers of accounts and she had sat, bewildered, while they went over everything, point by point, expense after expense.

Ellie was meant to be there but she’d called to say she would be late, and when she finally arrived, pink-cheeked from hurrying, long red hair flying, untidily as usual, Miss Lottie had already approved the termination of what they called “the unnecessary expenses.” That meant the charities dearest to her heart. Old friends who’d fallen on hard times to whom she gave money; retired servants whose medical expenses she helped with, a children’s charity. It had all flashed before her eyes in a blur and she’d sighed regretfully and agreed it could not go on.

“You have to think of yourself, Miss Lottie,” the lawyer admonished sternly. “You’ll probably live to be a hundred, and you’ll need whatever money we can salvage. You’re just not a rich woman anymore.”

Maria Novales walked along the terrace carrying a tray with glasses and a jug of freshly made lemonade. Her sandaled feet made no sound on the marble tiles and Miss Lottie did not hear her. Maria watched her for a moment, thinking how well she looked today. But then, she always perked up when Ellie came to visit.

Miss Lottie was immaculate, as always, in her favorite blue silk. A couple of old-fashioned diamond rings gleamed on her slender fingers, and her silver hair shone in the sunlight. And she was wearing that silly old green visor again. She always wore it now, when she sat at her personal computer, surfing the Internet. It was that same darn computer that had brought her financial downfall, but she loved it. It kept her amused for hours into the night when she couldn’t sleep, and Maria was grateful for that.

There was something about Miss Lottie’s determinedly upright posture that brought to mind the word “indomitable.” Not that she couldn’t be a maddening
old woman when she chose. And persnickety with it. And eccentric in her ways. But when you were as much a lady as Miss Lottie, you could get away with eccentricity and foolishness, and a tart tongue. Especially when you knew she didn’t mean it, and inside she was just a sentimental old marshmallow.

“You should take off that silly visor,” Maria said. “Before Ellie gets here. Or else she’ll know you’ve been at the computer again.”

Miss Lottie snatched it off guiltily. “I thought it was my hat.”

“Here’s your hat.” Maria handed it to her. “She’s late, as usual,” she added, putting down the tray.

“Don’t worry. She’ll be here soon.”

Maria headed back to the kitchen. She had known Ellie since she was born, and she’d even shown up late for that event. She had not changed one little bit. “Late” was in her genes.

Miss Lottie thought that Maria was looking old too. She used to be a small, round, smiling woman, with thick dark hair and shiny brown eyes and a golden skin. Now, like herself, she was all bones and her dark hair was threaded with gray.

Maria had helped her bring up Ellie, after the accident. And that was an event Miss Lottie had never forgotten. The image of that day lived in her fuzzy memory, clear as a new photograph. The day her beautiful, wild, darling daughter had died, along with her son-in-law.

Taking a sip of the cool lemonade, she reminded herself to count her blessings. The sun was warm; the sky a clear blue. Bruno, her beloved old golden Labrador, was sprawled by the fountain, chasing rabbits in his dreams. Her dear friend, Maria, was happy. And Ellie was coming to visit.

No matter what the accountants had said, somehow Miss Lottie didn’t think life at Journey’s End would change much. After all, it hadn’t changed in sixty years. Why should it now?

O
F COURSE
, E
LLIE HAD KNOWN FOR YEARS THAT HER
grandmother was not rich anymore, but there had always been money in the Parrish family. That is, until Miss Lottie had decided to manage her fortune herself. She’d bought herself a computer and hired a clever young man to teach her how it all worked. Then, with her father’s old green celluloid visor pulled down over her eyes, and the telephone to hand, she had moved her investments around on a daily basis. Sometimes she won, more often she lost. Too often, it had turned out.

Ellie had been shocked when Michael Majors, the lawyer, told her of the destruction Miss Lottie’s stock market gambling had brought. He’d explained what he’d done, and said there would be just enough to keep her grandmother in comfortable, if not lavish, style. Then he’d asked if she couldn’t persuade her to sell the property.

“A run-down mansion doesn’t mean much on today’s market, but the prime twenty acres in Montecito certainly
do. You’ll have enough to live in clover for the rest of your days, let alone hers,” he persuaded.

But Ellie would have none of it. Miss Lottie had lived at Journey’s End for more than sixty years and that’s where she would stay, even if Ellie had to work double hours to keep her there. Miss Lottie had looked after her when she was a child, now it was her turn.

The tall oak doors stood welcomingly open, and she shook her head worriedly as she strode into the flag-stoned great hall, thinking how unaware her grandmother and Maria were of present-day dangers. Open doors invited robbers—or worse. But they had always lived this way and they never gave it a thought.

“Late again, Ellie.” Maria appeared, wiping her hands on a teacloth.

“Anybody would think I made a habit of it.” She swung Maria into her arms, whirling her round. “Oooh, Maria. I’ve missed you. And you smell so good, of vanilla and sweetness.”

“That’s just my soul you can smell, the goodness of it.” Maria’s face was pink with indignation and pleasure. “Anyhow, it’s just some cookies I baked. I thought you might enjoy them, after work, when you have a few minutes alone.”

“You spoil me. And you know I’m just a brat.”

“Somebody’s got to spoil you, brat or no. You look tired, Ellie.”

“I know. And don’t tell me—I’ll bet I’m untidy as well.”

Smoothing her windswept hair, Ellie bent to pet the dog as he lumbered to his feet, doing his best to gambol toward her. “Sweet old boy, lovely dog. Who loves you, mmmm?”

“There you are,” Miss Lottie called. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Sorry, Miss Lottie. It’s the traffic.”

Her grandmother threw her a disbelieving glance, and Ellie laughed as she hugged her. “Okay, partly traffic, and partly because I had some stuff to do at the cafe.”

“Nothing changes,” her grandmother said wryly. “And somehow I suspect it never will.”

“Well, now I’m here, let’s hit the Biltmore. I’m dying of hunger, and I’ll bet you are too. Then I can tell you all my news, and you can tell me yours.”

“It’s a good thing I still remember where the Biltmore is.” Miss Lottie pulled the wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with pink roses firmly over her silver hair. “And I also remember exactly where I got this hat. In Paris, in 1939, just before war was declared in Europe. Long before your time,” she added, retelling the hat story for the umpteenth time as she took Ellie’s arm and walked down the steps to the car.