Read Online Sailing to Capri by Elizabeth Adler - Free Book Online
Authors: Elizabeth Adler
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“I’m off to bed.”
“I think that’s sensible. It’s been a long emotional day.”
Remembering that after all Montana was my guest, I told him to help himself to anything he wanted. I said there was bourbon and bottled water in his room and leftovers in the refrigerator if he got hungry. He’d find cookies in the biscuit tin on the shelf over there, tea—
“Thank you,” he stopped me. “I’ll be fine.”
I paused awkwardly at the door. “Well then, I hope you’ll be comfortable in the Red Room.”
“I will,” he promised.
The flight of stairs had never seemed longer as I hurriedback to the sanctuary of my room. I heard Rats’s claws pattering on the wooden floor behind me. I also heard Montana’s footsteps on the stairs, then muffled by the old Chinese silk runner as he walked to his room at the opposite side of the house. I waited till I heard his door close then quickly closed my own. For the first time ever, I locked it.
I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I felt safer away from sinister Harry Montana’s dark all-seeing gaze, forever looking for secrets or for answers to questions I hadn’t known existed and anyhow didn’t want to know about.
The lamps were lit and their gilded shades cast a pleasing glow. The bed was turned down, the pillows plumped, the extra blanket folded across the bottom because Brenda, who took care of these things, knew about my notoriously cold feet. I put the large manila envelope on the bed then went into the bathroom and washed my face. I went and sat at my pretty little dressing table and rubbed cream into my skin then slowly brushed my long hair, staring at my miserable reflection, at my swollen eyelids and my tight mouth, putting off the moment when I would have to open that envelope. I knew that if Bob could see me now, he would tell me straight out I looked like hell. “Get yourself together,” I could hear him barking at me. “Tomorrow, go to the beauty parlor, the spa, wherever it is you lasses go to get yerselves fixed up. Just don’t walk around looking long-faced at me.”
Baring my teeth, I practiced a smile in the mirror. I looked like a plain, tired woman. I snapped off the little silver-sconce lamps, slipped off my shoes, got out of my clothes and hung them carefully in the closet. I put on a nightie: white cottonlawn down to the ankles and buttoned to the neck with long sleeves. I put on my comfy old pink bathrobe and girly oversized fluffy pink slippers, then I went and lay on the bed.
Rats, who’d been waiting patiently, jumped up and came to sit on my feet. He was heavy and I was desperately uncomfortable but I wasn’t about to move him. I needed him as much as he needed me.
I lay propped against the pillows, eyes closed, reviewing the day. It seemed ages since we had stood in the biting wind as Bob was finally laid to rest. I could hear the little jeweled clock Bob had given me on my birthday ticking softly. This was a house of many clocks; Bob loved them. The dog made snuffly sleepy noises and the wind pushed the snow softly against the curtained windows.
I could put it off no longer. I sat up, took the envelope and ripped it open. Inside I found three more envelopes. The largest one said, “Do Not Open.” The other two were letter size. One said, “To be opened at the appropriate moment. You will know when.” The other, “Open now.”
I opened it carefully and unfolded the sheets of lined yellow paper torn from a legal pad.
“Daisy, love,”
Bob’s letter began,
I hope you may never need to read this because it will mean that I am dead. But if you do, then I know I am in good hands. In the years since I picked you up at that party you have come to mean more to me than almost any other woman. I say
almost,
because though I never discussed it, there was a woman I cared deeply about many years ago, long before I knew you.
Remember I told you that night we met, that I’d been there too, at the bottom of the emotional heap? Well
“I think that’s sensible. It’s been a long emotional day.”
Remembering that after all Montana was my guest, I told him to help himself to anything he wanted. I said there was bourbon and bottled water in his room and leftovers in the refrigerator if he got hungry. He’d find cookies in the biscuit tin on the shelf over there, tea—
“Thank you,” he stopped me. “I’ll be fine.”
I paused awkwardly at the door. “Well then, I hope you’ll be comfortable in the Red Room.”
“I will,” he promised.
The flight of stairs had never seemed longer as I hurriedback to the sanctuary of my room. I heard Rats’s claws pattering on the wooden floor behind me. I also heard Montana’s footsteps on the stairs, then muffled by the old Chinese silk runner as he walked to his room at the opposite side of the house. I waited till I heard his door close then quickly closed my own. For the first time ever, I locked it.
I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I felt safer away from sinister Harry Montana’s dark all-seeing gaze, forever looking for secrets or for answers to questions I hadn’t known existed and anyhow didn’t want to know about.
The lamps were lit and their gilded shades cast a pleasing glow. The bed was turned down, the pillows plumped, the extra blanket folded across the bottom because Brenda, who took care of these things, knew about my notoriously cold feet. I put the large manila envelope on the bed then went into the bathroom and washed my face. I went and sat at my pretty little dressing table and rubbed cream into my skin then slowly brushed my long hair, staring at my miserable reflection, at my swollen eyelids and my tight mouth, putting off the moment when I would have to open that envelope. I knew that if Bob could see me now, he would tell me straight out I looked like hell. “Get yourself together,” I could hear him barking at me. “Tomorrow, go to the beauty parlor, the spa, wherever it is you lasses go to get yerselves fixed up. Just don’t walk around looking long-faced at me.”
Baring my teeth, I practiced a smile in the mirror. I looked like a plain, tired woman. I snapped off the little silver-sconce lamps, slipped off my shoes, got out of my clothes and hung them carefully in the closet. I put on a nightie: white cottonlawn down to the ankles and buttoned to the neck with long sleeves. I put on my comfy old pink bathrobe and girly oversized fluffy pink slippers, then I went and lay on the bed.
Rats, who’d been waiting patiently, jumped up and came to sit on my feet. He was heavy and I was desperately uncomfortable but I wasn’t about to move him. I needed him as much as he needed me.
I lay propped against the pillows, eyes closed, reviewing the day. It seemed ages since we had stood in the biting wind as Bob was finally laid to rest. I could hear the little jeweled clock Bob had given me on my birthday ticking softly. This was a house of many clocks; Bob loved them. The dog made snuffly sleepy noises and the wind pushed the snow softly against the curtained windows.
I could put it off no longer. I sat up, took the envelope and ripped it open. Inside I found three more envelopes. The largest one said, “Do Not Open.” The other two were letter size. One said, “To be opened at the appropriate moment. You will know when.” The other, “Open now.”
I opened it carefully and unfolded the sheets of lined yellow paper torn from a legal pad.
“Daisy, love,”
Bob’s letter began,
I hope you may never need to read this because it will mean that I am dead. But if you do, then I know I am in good hands. In the years since I picked you up at that party you have come to mean more to me than almost any other woman. I say
almost,
because though I never discussed it, there was a woman I cared deeply about many years ago, long before I knew you.
Remember I told you that night we met, that I’d been there too, at the bottom of the emotional heap? Well
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