“Very good, ma’am,” Higgins said.
Frances turned to Ralph as she started walking back inside the house. We all followed. “Will you—I mean, will the two of you be staying here at the house?”
As Ralph answered that we would be, at least for a little while until we found our own place, I took in the entryway we’d stepped into. The floor under our feet was marble, the paintings on the walls were striking impressionist works, and the chandelier that hung from the vaulted ceiling looked like it had been removed from an ancient Spanish castle. A magnificent fountain stood in the center of the oval-shaped room. Teddy, who could reach into the water if he stood on tiptoe, was splashing his fingers in it. Irene told him to stop doing that, too.
“Is Hugh still in the casita?” Ralph said.
“I am,” Hugh replied, instead of their mother. We all stopped. “But I can move back to my old room inside the house if you and . . .”
“Elise.”
“If you and Elise would like to stay in it.”
I figured a casita had to be another room or building of some kind. And Hugh was sleeping in it. “I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, Ralph,” I said. Hugh glanced up at me with his ocean blue eyes, beautiful but impenetrable.
“Is it an inconvenience, Hugh?” Ralph asked, in a tone that suggested he was certain it wasn’t. Or maybe that Hugh shouldn’t be in the casita, whatever that was, in the first place, but rather out on his own like any normal thirty-year-old.
“Not at all,” Hugh said, with nothing in his tone other than politeness.
“You wouldn’t move out of the casita when I came back,” Irene said as she puffed on her cigarette.
“You’re back home?” Ralph said to his sister.
“That’s because you wanted to be in the casita alone and leave your children inside for others to care for,” Hugh replied, addressing Irene.
“You’re back home?” Ralph said again. “Where’s Walt?”
“Where indeed,” said Irene.
“Please, let’s not discuss unpleasant things right now,” Frances said, impatiently.
“Unpleasant. Thank you, Mother. I was wondering how best to describe my situation.”
“Irene.” Hugh frowned at her like a father might.
“Let’s all go into the salon, shall we?” Frances said. “We can have cocktails and . . . and get to know Elise.”
The family moved toward a long hallway to the left of the foyer.
“You really moved back home?” Ralph whispered to Irene, who’d grabbed Teddy from the fountain. The boy squirmed in her arms.
“That’s about the long and short of it,” Irene whispered back.
Pamela found my hand as I followed Ralph and her mother, and she grasped it as if we’d known each other for years. It was a sweet gesture. Welcoming. It felt like a lifeline.
“What’s your name?” she said, cocking her head. She’d heard the adults say my name, but it clearly hadn’t been a name she’d heard before.
“Oh. Elise.”
“Elsie?”
I laughed lightly. She was a cherubic little tyke, with blond ringlets held in place with red barrettes. “Almost.”
Ralph had heard her. He looked back at us as we walked. “I like that. Elsie. It suits you.”
“I’m Pamela,” the little girl continued. “I’m the big sister.”
“Yes. I can see that. I’m a big sister, too.”
“You are?”
“I have a brother, too. Just like you. His name is Max.”
We entered a sunny room walled by windows. Potted palms graced every corner, and white wicker furniture upholstered in green-and-white-striped fabric was spread about. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows was a landscaped backyard with Grecian statuary, trailing vines, and a shimmering swimming pool. On the left side of the pool was a freestanding cottage with climbing roses trailing up its stuccoed front. This had to be the place Hugh was staying in. The casita.
“Hugh, could you make us all something to drink, please?” Frances eased herself onto one of the chairs and the rest of us followed suit. Pamela scooted onto the sofa Ralph had chosen and worked her way between us.
“What would everyone like?” Hugh replied politely.
“Champagne, to celebrate?” Irene smiled widely as she sat down on a matching sofa across from us. Teddy wriggled out of her arms and walked over to me, clearly wanting to sit by Ralph and me, too. I made room for him on my other side.
“Something stronger, please,” Frances said, and then she must have realized that sounded like she needed something stronger. “Something without bubbles.”
“Are those roses real?” Pamela said, pointing to my hat.
“Oh. No. But they look like they are, don’t they? Want to see them?”
I removed my hat and handed it to the little girl, which didn’t seem that strange a thing to do, but Frances and Irene must have thought so. They stared like I’d offered the child a cigarette.
Pamela fingered the roses.
“I want to see!” Teddy said, and Pamela told him hats with roses were for girls.
“But he can touch them,” I said.
Pamela extended the hat across my lap and let her brother feel the silken petals. “Gentle, Teddy. No smashing.”
“I’m not!” the boy said.
“How about a whiskey sour, then?” Hugh asked Frances.
“Yes, yes, that sounds fine.”
I held the hat over Pamela’s head. “You want to try it on?”
“Yes!” the girl said, and I set it on her head. The brim covered her eyes.
“You look very pretty, princess,” Ralph said, and the face under the hat beamed. Ralph took his own hat, a new gray fedora he’d bought at Abraham & Straus but had only worn from the airport to the Packard, and plopped it on his nephew’s head. The children dashed off to look at themselves in a mirror.
Frances stared after them. “Are you sure that’s wise, Ralph? They’re likely to toss those hats into the fountain.”
“They’re not going to toss them in the fountain, Mother,” Irene grumbled. Then she turned her head to face Hugh. “I’ll take just the whiskey. Forget the sour.”
“And for you?” Hugh said, speaking now to me.
I had only ever had a glass of wine, on my wedding night. It made me warm and sleepy and I’d lost the first chess game because of it. Ralph knew this. He came to my rescue.
“We’ll take that champagne,” he said to his brother, and then he whispered to me, “The glasses don’t hold much.”
Hugh popped open a bottle, poured some into flutes, and brought them to Ralph and me.
“Cheers and welcome to California, Elsie,” Ralph said, clinking my glass.
I took a sip. The fizz bouncing on the surface of the drink nearly made me sneeze. The champagne itself felt dry on my tongue even though it was wet. I set the glass down on the glass-topped table in front of me.
“So. The two of you met at the army base in Germany, Elise?” Frances said. “Your father worked there?”
“Um. Yes. As an interpreter.”
“An interpreter of what?”
“Of German, Mother,” Ralph said. “He’s of German descent. Elise’s father speaks it fluently. It was very helpful at the start of the occupation to have interpreters, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
Hugh handed his mother her drink, but his eyes were on Ralph and me. It was obvious he was wondering why in the world I had been with my father in battered Germany at the start of the occupation.
“And you went with your father to Germany after the war for this job of his?” Frances asked, her brows knitted together as she sipped her drink. “Wasn’t it awful there?”
“Oh, well, yes, but we . . . my parents . . .” I looked to Ralph. We had not discussed how much we would and wouldn’t say.
“The entire country wasn’t a battleground,” Ralph said. “And Elise’s family is very close.”
“Your family?” Frances said. “You all went? Your mother, too?”
“And my brother, yes,” I replied.
“My word. And your brother’s an interpreter, too?”
“Oh, no.” I half laughed. “He’s only thirteen.”
Hugh stopped midstep, a tumbler of whiskey for Irene in his hand.
“Your parents took a thirteen-year-old to Germany?” Frances could hardly believe it.
“We all wanted to go,” I said, a lie that tasted bitter in my mouth.
“You all wanted to go?” Hugh said, dubious.
Irene stood up and snatched her drink from him. “So what if they did?” She took a sip of the tawny liquid and sat back down. “I can think of worse places to be.”
“Well. And what did you think of it?” Frances asked me.
“Of . . . what?”
“Of Germany. And of what those people had done. The Germans.”
I couldn’t think of one word in response. Not to that comment.
“The war is over, Mother,” Ralph said. “It’s done. I, for one, am glad to be home from it.” He downed the rest of his champagne.
The children chose that moment to run back into the room. Pamela had on Ralph’s hat now and Teddy had on mine.
“All right, all right, take those off and return them,” their grandmother said.
Pamela took my hat off her brother and handed it to me; then she gave Ralph his.
“I’m not done with it,” Teddy grumbled as I placed my hat atop my purse, which was resting at my feet. “Do you have candy in there?” the boy said, pointing to my purse.