True Love (7 page)

Every August since her parents had split up, her mother went to Colorado, and Alix would stay with her father. If his work schedule allowed him to travel, they went where they could study the local architecture. They’d been to the southwestern U.S. to look at pueblos, to California for mission style, to Washington State to see Victorians. When Alix got older, they went to Spain to see Gaudi’s work, and of course they visited the Taj Mahal.

Alix used everything she could remember and sketched as fast as she could. When the pages filled, she tore them off and tossed them onto the bed.

When the bedroom door opened she looked up to see Izzy, fully dressed as though she meant to go out.

“Somehow, I knew you weren’t sleeping.” Izzy moved drawings to sit down on the bed and picked up some sketches. “A church?”

“A chapel. Small and private.”

Izzy looked at one drawing after another in silence, while Alix held her breath. As a fellow student of architecture, she greatly valued her friend’s opinion.

“These are gorgeous,” Izzy said. “Really beautiful.”

“I’m getting there,” Alix said. “But I keep trying to incorporate everything in one design. Bell towers, magnificent doors, half-round staircases. Everything! I need to decide what I can and cannot use.”

Izzy smiled. “You’ll figure it out. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going out shopping.”

Alix threw back the covers. “I’ll get dressed. It won’t take me but minutes.”

Izzy stood up. “Nope. You’re not allowed to go. This is your big chance and I want you to take it. Stay here and design something that will astound Montgomery. By the way, there’s food downstairs.”

“How did you find a grocery open this early?”

“For your information, it’s eleven
A.M.
and the whole beautiful town of Nantucket is just outside. I’ve been out and come back and now I’m ready to go do some serious clothes shopping. You cannot meet the Lord High Emperor Montgomery wearing
that
.” She gave Alix’s old sweats a disparaging look.

Alix knew her friend well. “You know, on second thought, I think I’ll go with you. I need some new sandals.”

Izzy stepped back to the door. “Oh, no you don’t. I’ll be back for dinner and I want to see what you’ve done.” She hurried out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

“I’ll do my best to make you happy,” Alix called out. She knew that Izzy wanted to go by herself. She loved shopping for clothes, and if Alix was in the mood, so did she. But not today. Besides, the two young women were similar enough in size that Izzy could buy whatever Alix needed and charge it all to Victoria.

At noon, Alix’s growling stomach finally made her get dressed and leave the bedroom in search of breakfast. Izzy had bought bagels and tuna salad, fruit, and bags of spinach. All healthy and filling.

Alix made herself a sandwich, but then she went back upstairs to get her drawings so she could look at them as she ate. To her horror she saw that she had only two blank sheets of paper left.

Surely, she thought, if her mother had stayed here more than once she would have paper somewhere, probably in the green bedroom. Feeling a bit like she was snooping, Alix went down the hall to the room Izzy was using.

Alix again wondered when her mother had stayed on Nantucket. And why would she keep her visits a secret? Alix remembered saying that she found out everything her mother did, but it looked like that wasn’t true. But then, to be fair, since Alix had left home to go to college she’d had her own life and had kept things, such as boyfriends, from her mother. It looked as though her mother kept secrets of her own. But why? Was there a man involved?

There were two big armoires in the bedroom, both old and beautiful.
One had a few bags in it that Izzy must have purchased that morning, and the other was locked. Alix looked around for a moment to see if a key was nearby but didn’t see one. On impulse, she returned to her room for her handbag, retrieving the ring of keys her mother had sent. Alix hadn’t been told what the individual keys were for, but then Victoria never explained much. She’d always thought her daughter was intelligent enough to figure out everything on her own.

One of the smaller keys fit the lock. Alix opened the double doors to find an entire office inside. There was a printer and drawers full of paper and supplies. Shelves held what Alix recognized as old manuscripts. There were some photos taped on the back of the door. One of them was of Victoria with her arm around a small older woman who Alix knew was Adelaide Kingsley. The date on the photo was 1998, when Alix was twelve years old.

Alix couldn’t stop the wave of hurt that ran through her. It was becoming apparent that her mother had spent a lot of time here on Nantucket in this house. But she’d never told her daughter a thing about it. Of course she’d done it in August, Alix thought. That month had always been sacrosanct to Victoria. She claimed she went to Colorado to her cabin, where she said the solitude helped her to plot her latest book. But obviously, she’d not gone there
every
year.

Alix stared inside the cabinet. It made sense that her mother would go to Nantucket, as all her books were set in a seafaring community. But why had she kept it a secret?

Alix’s impulse was to call her mother and ask questions. But Victoria was on a twenty-city book publicity tour right now, and being the smiling, laughing author the world thought they knew. Alix wasn’t going to interrupt that. She could wait to find out, and knowing her mother, it would no doubt be an entertaining story.

Alix got the paper she needed, some office supplies, even found an old package of matte photo paper, and hauled everything downstairs to the big family room. She knew that one of the little tables opened and inside were TV trays. She got one out and set down her
sandwich. She spread her drawings on the floor, sat on the couch to eat, and looked at them.

At first everything seemed to be a great hodgepodge of styles and designs. Too much! she thought. None of this would fit into the quiet elegance of Nantucket.

She finished her lunch, moved the table out of the way, and kept staring, but saw nothing to salvage. She was just starting to get frustrated when one of her papers rustled in the breeze. That all the windows and doors were closed didn’t register.

“Thanks,” she said before thinking, then shook her head. Thanks for what? To whom?

She picked up the paper that had moved. There in the corner was a tiny sketch she’d done so quickly that she hardly remembered it. It was a combination of Spanish mission and Nantucket Quaker. Plain to the point of severity, but at the same time it was beautiful in its simplicity.

“You think he’ll like this?” she said aloud, then started to correct herself, but who cared? She was alone, so she could talk out loud if she wanted to.

She put the drawing on the tray table and looked at it again. “This window needs to be changed. A bit taller. And the bell tower needs to be shorter. No! The roof should be taller.”

She grabbed more paper and redrew the design. Then she drew it three more times. When she had a sketch she liked, she picked up the architectural scale she’d brought with her and started a scale drawing.

At three
P.M.
she made herself another sandwich, got a ginger ale out of the fridge, and went back to the family room. The floor was covered with papers and nearest to her were the new sketches.

“I like it,” she said, stepping around the drawings and looking down at them.

She finished her sandwich and drink, then picked up the photo paper, scissors, and tape dispenser. Making a model this way wouldn’t be easy but if it could be done, she’d somehow manage it.

When she heard the door open it was nearly six
P.M.
Izzy was home! For a moment it ran through Alix that her friend would leave soon and she’d be alone—not a happy prospect.

Alix ran to the door and was greeted by Izzy with what looked to be a dozen giant shopping bags embossed with store names. “I take it the shopping on Nantucket is good?” Alix asked.

“Heavenly, divine,” Izzy said. She dropped the bags and rubbed her fingers where the handles had made grooves in them.

Alix shut the door behind her. “Come on and I’ll make you a drink.”

“Not rum,” Izzy said as she followed Alix into the kitchen. “And there’s food in one of those bags. Scallops and salad and some dessert with raspberries and chocolate.”

“Sounds great,” Alix said. “Why don’t we take it all outside? I think it’s warm enough to eat out there.”

“You want to keep watch on his house, don’t you?”

Alix smiled. “No. I want to soften you up so you’ll be gentle in your critique of what I did today.”

“Is it still a church or have you made it into a cathedral? I can see flying buttresses of unfinished cedar. Will the windows be stained glass of some brawny sea captain?”

Alix started to defend herself and explain, but instead she went into the family room, got the model, brought it back, and set it on the kitchen table.

Izzy had retrieved the plastic containers from the bags and she’d put them down on the counter. For several moments she just stood there and stared at the little white model. It was so simple with its slanted roof and bell tower, but the proportions were perfect.

“It’s …” Izzy whispered. “It’s …”

Alix waited but Izzy said nothing else. “It’s what?”

Izzy sat down on the built-in seat behind the table. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever done,” she whispered, then looked up at Alix.

“Really?” Alix asked. “You’re not just saying that?”

“Truthfully,” Izzy said. “It’s the epitome of all you’ve worked for. It’s truly beautiful.”

Alix couldn’t help doing a few dance steps of triumph around the kitchen, then she began pulling dishes out of the cabinets and putting food on them. “I was really fighting it. I thought I was never going to come up with new and original, and old and traditional, at the same time. I went against the well-known Montgomery creed of following the land, but I did think of it as being built on Nantucket so that—” She broke off because when she looked back at Izzy, her friend was crying—just sitting at the table, tears rolling down her face, her eyes focused on the model of the chapel.

Alix went over and hugged her. “We’ll see each other,” she said. “I’ll only be here for a year, then I’ll be back. You and Glenn will—”

Izzy pulled away, sniffing. “It’s not that. I know you’ll be back.”

“Oh. Is it Glenn? Do you miss him?” Alix got up and opened a drawer to pull out a box of tissues and handed one to her friend.

“Do you know where everything in this house is?”

Alix knew Izzy needed time to recover and Alix was going to give it to her—then she was going to find out what the problem was. Her best friend was deeply upset over something, but Alix had no idea what it was. Her intuition told her that whatever the problem was, Izzy had been holding it in because of Alix’s recent emotional drama.

Alix turned away to let her friend have time to recover her dignity. Using an old blender that looked to be from the fifties, she made a tall drink for Izzy. For herself, she made a rum and Coke, with lots of lime juice added. Alix pulled a serving tray from inside a cabinet, knowing just where to find it, filled it, then took it all outside. It was almost too cool for sitting outdoors, but Alix knew that Izzy loved gardens.

She treated her friend gently as she settled her in a heavy teak deck chair and handed her a drink. Alix wasn’t going to push her friend but just waited for her to speak.

“Glenn called and I have to leave in the morning,” Izzy said.

“He wants you back?”

“Yes, of course, but …”

Alix waited in silence. Izzy and she had been friends since the first day of architecture school. By the end of that week it was clear that Alix was more talented, that she had a shot at doing something that the world would notice, but Izzy had never been jealous.

On the other hand, everyone had liked Izzy so much that she was invited everywhere. When she’d become engaged in their third year, Alix had only felt joy. They were two different people yet they suited each other well.

“If it’s not Glenn and it’s not me, what is it?” Alix asked softly.

Izzy looked around the garden. The only time she’d seen it was last night when she and Alix had made their wild dash to break into Montgomery’s guesthouse. At the time it had been wonderful to think only of Alix’s problems, to feed her chocolate, to see her delight at the old house, to laugh over the portrait of a handsome sea captain. For a few hours Izzy had been able to put aside her own problems.

“This garden is beautiful,” Izzy said. “When it flowers, it’s going to be magnificent. I wonder who takes care of it?”

“Montgomery,” Alix said quickly. “Isabella, I want to know what’s going on. Why is Glenn demanding that you leave so soon? I was hoping that you and I could see some of Nantucket together.”

“Me too,” Izzy said, “but …”

Alix picked up the pitcher and refilled Izzy’s glass. “But what?”

Izzy took a deep drink. “It’s my wedding.”

“I thought all of that was settled. We bought you the most beautiful dress ever made.”

“Yes, and I thank you and your mother for that.” Izzy and Alix smiled at each other in memory.

Glenn, not surprisingly, had proposed over dinner one Friday night. The next morning Izzy was at the door of Alix’s little apartment looking stunned and not knowing what to do.

After admiring the engagement ring, Alix took over. “I know a great place for breakfast, then we can go window-shopping. You’re going to need an entire trousseau.”

It was an old-fashioned word and concept, Izzy had said while doing her best to look as though she was too sophisticated to care about such silly things. But Alix wasn’t fooled. She knew her friend loved the whole idea of a romantic wedding.

In the end, they bought Izzy’s wedding dress that day. They hadn’t meant to. Alix had been the one to persuade her friend to go to a tiny, exclusive shop on a side street across town.

“We should go to one of those gigantic places and try on fifty dresses and drive the salespeople crazy,” Izzy said.