THE CENTERPIECE WAS A sandcastle seven feet high. Slender towers and window slits trembled above moats and courtyards.
Daniel was mesmerized by it. “What’s it made of?” he said to Annabel, who didn’t know. “I think it’s Styrofoam,” Daniel said. “The florists designed it like architecture and sprayed sand on it. It is fabulous, Annabel! We’re keeping it!” He grinned at her.
“Our first home?” teased Annabel.
Daniel didn’t risk answering that one. “Let’s dance,” he said.
“There’s also food. As I recall, you like food even better than dancing.”
“Dance me over to the food,” said Daniel.
Her dress was pale and frosty, like lemon sorbet. Her wonderful hair was loose and sweetly scented. He turned his cheek against it, savoring the silkiness.
The night of the kidnapping—actually, the morning after; it was way past dawn before they got back to Annabel’s country place—Annabel’s first priority had been washing her hair. She insisted that nothing more, absolutely not one thing more, could take place until she had showered and washed and dried her hair.
Daniel had loved that.
No confrontations without beauty.
He and Mr. Jayquith did not become buddies while waiting for Annabel to get her hair squeaky clean. It was all they could do to stand in the same room. When Annabel came into the vast white living room where the men waited, her hair black as starry nights, they both walked toward her.
She could hug only one of them first.
She hugged Daniel.
It kept a smile on his face all through the week that followed. Not an easy week. Alex had been right. Mr. Thiell did have presence; every sentence he uttered carried the weight of experience and money and power. All the local police said was, You rich New Yorkers should stop boozing so much at your weddings. Celebrating by blowing up buildings is going too far.
But Daniel’s attorneys had arrived. Mr. Jayquith’s attorneys arrived. Theodora was told. Duplicates of Alex’s brother’s disks were booted up on the computers in Mr. Jayquith’s office. It was now a matter of time. Justice would follow as it had followed other powerful men, from presidents to Thiells.
How peaceful, after the years in which the death of his father ruled his entire life, to have it solved.
I’m sorry, Dad, thought Daniel, remembering the living father who had tossed him baseballs and taken him skiing. I need to bury it. I need to live. I can’t follow in your footsteps, Dad. They’re yours. I’m going another way. Please be proud of me.
The party tonight had been Annabel’s decision. She said no matter what had gone wrong, they were going on, and they were going on with glad hearts. Both families, she said firmly, were going to get out there in the public eye and rejoice that they were alive and had each other.
Theodora, who had wanted to go into seclusion, was there. Reeling from the shock of J Thiell’s ugly life, she still toughed it out.
Jade, who in Daniel’s opinion should be shipped in an airless box back to Ohio, was there.
His mother, whose vengeful center had evaporated, leaving her wispy and confused, was there.
Emmie was there, and Scott Alexander, whom they still called Alex, was there.
No party with those guests could be a success. But it was. Annabel was a demanding hostess. Be cheerful! she ordered. Laugh! Dance! Enjoy!
Over at the food, Daniel found himself next to Mr. Jayquith again. They gave each other the tight smiles of former enemies who had been told by the United Nations (Annabel) to be nice.
“But what about Tommy?” asked Emmie. “He’s the one I don’t understand at all.”
Mr. Jayquith was still shocked over his chauffeur. “J Thiell recommended him,” he said, trying to shrug. “Years ago. Tommy was in the front seat listening in on half my telephone discussions! He knew about my buyout difficulties, my merger headaches, my stock option nightmares. I never thought about his presence. He was so much furniture. All along he was selling information to J Thiell.”
“But I always thought Tommy liked Annabel and me,” said Emmie.
“Tommy claims he didn’t know what was planned for Annabel. He insists that he was told she was going to be locked up for a few days until things cooled off. I’d like to believe him, but I don’t.”
How much would any of them believe other people’s stories now? How much could any of them trust or relax in the future?
“What happens to Jade?” Annabel said quietly to her aunt.
Jade was dancing with one of the television people in Theodora’s train of admirers. She was not wearing a dress of Annabel’s. Theodora had taken her to a shop whose one-of-a-kinds were legend. Jade did not look like a legend. She looked like the daughter-of-a-legend.
Theodora remained expressionless, which was unlike her. For television she had learned large, camera-ready expressions. “Jade needs a wider horizon. I think the United States is too confining for her. There’s a delightful program for students on an ocean liner: classes on board ship while sailing to ports from Portugal to Hong Kong. Jade will be gone ten months, seeing the world. When she comes back, we’ll see what kind of woman she is. I want to believe that the temptations of money overcame her. I want to believe she is a decent person.”
We want to believe everyone we know is a decent person, thought Annabel. But it wasn’t money that overcame Jade. Aunt Theodora is still deceiving herself. Hate motivated Jade, and the hate is still there, waiting like revolution, to come out from under the dictatorship.
Annabel was relieved that Jade would vanish for ten months, but she wondered if that was wise. Jade would know that she was literally being shipped off. Just as Jade, dancing across the room, knew that the Jayquiths were talking without her, a group the excluded her … that always would.
Daniel turned Annabel’s cheek to face him. Annabel forgot her sudden cousin.
Emmie had eyes only for Alex, who was talking to Mr. Jayquith. Alex had used Emmie and still she adored him. Alex’s list of things to do and people to meet began and ended with avenging his brother’s death. He had come to the party only to discuss the next stage in prosecuting J Thiell.
Emmie had so completely lost her heart in so short a time. Losing your heart turned out to be terrifying. You could lose it, as Theodora Jayquith had, to a friend who brutalized your own family.
Say good-bye, thought Emmie. Don’t show emotion. Don’t even have emotion. Just check Alex off as experience.
Emmie had talked to Venice by phone. Not only would Venice weather this, she would flourish in the face of this adversity. This was thunder and lightning, sleeping out in the storm, laughing in the face of nature. Venice and Michael were going to be all right.
Halfway through the evening, Alex thanked her for her assistance in a difficult time. He appreciated Emmie’s understanding, he said, and he hoped she didn’t hold it against him.
“I do, actually,” said Emmie. “I think there were more direct and less hurtful ways to do what you were trying to do.”
Alex did not know what to say to that. “Take care of yourself,” he said finally. He waved good-bye, although they were only a foot apart.
“You, too,” she said quietly. Alex left the room and her life, while Emmie forced her heart to shrug. If I’m going to take care of myself, she thought, I’d better do a decent job at it.
She crossed the room and tapped Gavin on the shoulder.
“Hey, Emmie,” he said, glad to see her. Genuinely glad. Maybe they’ve always been glad to see me, she thought, and I never bothered to look. “Hey, Gavin. Let’s dance.”
“Or talk?” offered Gavin plaintively. “Dancing wears me out.”
“You’re everybody’s dance partner at these things,” she said, surprised.
“I know. That’s why they invite me. I’m a good sport. But I’d rather talk any day. Tell me about your college plans. Engineering, isn’t it?”
He had remembered. That surprised her. Well, maybe there were more surprises in store for her. Nice surprises.
Daniel’s hand lay on Annabel’s waist, as it had in the Egyptian Room, warm and heavy and sure of itself. Annabel took his big hand between her smaller ones, making an envelope of her fingers.
We hardly know each other, she thought. And my heart and mind are convinced that he is not only decent, but absolutely wonderful … and meant for me.
If I had another penny, I would make another wish.
That the next promise will be no secret. It will be in front of our friends. A vow to love and to cherish forever and ever.
You have only just become acquainted with the Jayquiths, Daniel Madison Ransom. So let me tell you something about us.
We get what we want.