“I was also thinking, maybe we could invite some of the locals to come up for a free weekend. People like Chad on the town council, the mayor, et cetera. Let them see what they’re missing and then roll out the new Bailey Falls resident pricing program. They could really help spread the word about how much fun they had.”
He sat back in his chair, thinking. “I like it. Invite them all up. We’ve still got some rooms free Easter weekend. Do they have plans?”
“Easter?” I gulped.
“Sure, we can ask them tonight. What time did you say everyone was coming?”
I gulped again. “Seven thirty.”
“Great,” he said, looking pleased as punch.
I started to head out when he called me back in. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Um, back to work? I’ve got a meeting with the front desk crew in a few minutes.”
That night I headed down to the lobby a few minutes before everyone was due to arrive. My stomach all flip-floppy, a bundle of nerves. I wasn’t sure why, we’d all had dinner together at the diner and I hadn’t been nervous.
That was a happy accident. You invited them here this time. To spend time with you . . . and Archie.
Not officially.
Keep telling yourself that.
It was true. My worlds were always kept apart, such as they were. My professional world was for me and me alone. Alone being the key word. I spent time with my friends when I could, of course, but I led a fairly isolated life. My work took me wherever it took me, I never said no to a job far away. It wasn’t that I didn’t like spending time with my friends, I loved my girls. But suddenly my work life and life life were mixing, through my own invitation, and it just felt . . . strange. Flip-floppy was honestly the best way to describe it.
“Think you’ll be warm enough?” I heard behind me, and I turned to see Archie standing there, admiring my faux-fur hat. “You look like you’ll be invading Poland in that thing.”
“Laugh all you want, but you lose most of your body heat through your head, and it’s cold tonight.”
“There’ll be a campfire.”
“Won’t that make it hard to see the stars?”
He leaned down closer to my ear, inside my faux fur. “The campfire is for after.”
“After?”
“After.” He nodded, and I could feel his breath on my neck. I shivered. He noticed. “Guess it’s a good thing you’ve got that hat on after all.”
I pulled away, laughing, and gave him a playful swat on the chest just as the front door burst open.
“We heard there were stars up here,” Natalie said, pulling Oscar along. “Let’s see ’em.”
“Hold your horses there, woman, we gotta get up to the top first. How in the world are you planning on hiking in those?” I asked, pointing at her high-heeled boots.
“You said wear boots. I wore boots.” She stuck up her foot, clad in three-inch heels. “Besides, if I get tired I’ll jump on his back.”
“She’ll get tired,” Oscar replied. “She thinks I’m her pack mule.”
“Jackass, babe, I called you jackass.”
“Quit calling my friend a jackass,” Leo scoffed, popping his head up over Oscar’s shoulders where he was standing with Roxie.
“Everyone’s a jackass, just get in here,” I instructed, waving them all in, including Chad and Logan, who were bringing up the rear. “Hey guys, glad you could make it.”
“Are you kidding, I’ve been dying to get up here and see this place, it’s incredible!” Logan said, looking everywhere all at once. “Show me everything, I want to see everything. Right now.”
“Okay, well, we don’t have too much time before we need to meet the astronomer, we should probably—”
“Oh, I think we’ve got some time,” Archie said, patting me on the shoulder. Something eagle-eyed Natalie and Roxie noticed immediately. “And Clara here can give the tour.”
“I can?” I asked, as he moved me in front of him like a teacher in front of her students. “Wait, I can?”
“Sure, you’ve seen the house tour a number of times now, you should know it by heart. We won’t have time to see everything, but at least give them a tour of the first floor. Unless you don’t think you remember the details?”
I looked back over my shoulder at him, his eyes twinkling. “Was that your version of triple dog daring me?”
“Depends, are you going to give the tour?”
I narrowed my eyes, and while still staring at him, I started in my best tour guide voice. “Bryant Mountain House was started by two brothers, Ebenezer and Theophilus Bryant, in 1872. The original inn on the lake was named . . .”
I gave the tour. I kicked ass. I took them through the lobby, pointing out the important artwork there. I took them down the hallway to the gift shop and soda fountain, correctly identifying the main ingredient in a Green River and telling them how to make a cherry phosphate, an egg cream, and the Archie Special, the latter of which they all agreed sounded horrific and wrong. I took them into the main dining room and discussed the importance of dressing for dinner and why it’d always be a tradition up on this mountain. Finally, we ended the tour in the Lakeside Lounge, where I not only explained the significance behind the fossil embedded in the keystone over the main fireplace, but also asked if anyone in the group knew what kind of wood made up the bulk of the paneling in the room, a question every employee who led the tour would ask and almost no one ever answered correctly.
“Mahogany?” Leo offered.
“Nope.”
“Rosewood?” Chad asked.
“No, but that’s a great guess. There’s rosewood in the reading room on the second floor.”
“It’s chestnut,” piped up Natalie.
“It is chestnut.” I beamed, looking at my friend.
“How did you know?” Archie asked, looking surprised.
“My family’s in construction. I know this place couldn’t have been built this way even thirty years later because of the chestnut blight that went through the Northeast, eventually the country. Chestnut is almost impossible to find as a building material after 1910 or so, it just became too valuable. It was all gone by the 1940s, which is what makes a room like this so incredible. You’ve got yourself something pretty fucking special here, Mr. Bryant, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“My girl,” Oscar said, crushing Natalie into his side with an arm like a grizzly bear’s. “She knows wood.”
“Okay, let’s meet up with that astronomer before this gets out of hand,” I said quickly, knowing by the shit-eating grin on Natalie’s face that this topic would quickly devolve into idiocy if I didn’t head it off at the pass. I looked over to Archie, ready to apologize for my friends and their crude language when I saw he was grinning with delight, and not just because someone recognized chestnut in all its impossible-to-find glory, but because he was genuinely enjoying himself.