“Are you a dancer?” Augusta had asked Caroline innocently when they walked in, and Caro said she wasn’t but had gone to ballet class when she was little.
“I thought that might be a tutu,” she said, referring to her dress, and Caroline blushed while the others giggled. The comment was typical of their grandmother, who didn’t approve of new fashions, or anything that showed an ankle or a bit of leg.
—
After that, they had dinner together several nights in a row, and they were growing familiar with each other. The teasing and jokes were more familial, and Andy had started treating Bettina like a sister, although he still had a noticeable crush on Lucy, whose real age would have been much younger in 1917, but her spirit seemed to have settled on the age she had died. But whatever her age, Andy was sensible about it and knew a romance with her wasn’t possible or realistic. He loved her fragile beauty and worried about her health, and brought her books he thought she’d like, particularly poetry, which was her favorite form of literature.
She was so delicate and so frail she seemed like a porcelain doll to him, and on days when she didn’t feel strong enough to go out in the garden, he came home from school and read poetry to her. She loved the work of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and sometimes Josiah teased him about it. The two young men got along well too. Josiah wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, and Andy hadn’t met any girls he liked at school yet, just boys he played sports with, so they hung out together sometimes when Andy came home from school.
Josiah was beginning to treat Caroline like a sister too. Although heartrendingly pretty, she was only sixteen and he was twenty-three. His mother had delicately pointed out that she was too young for him. And at sixteen she wouldn’t even be “out” yet, in society, for two more years, so she wasn’t fair game. He reluctantly agreed and said “Maybe in two years.” His mother hoped he’d be married by then, since he was old enough, and worked at his father’s bank. But no well-born young woman of their acquaintance had snagged his heart yet. Caroline was much more exciting and more daring than the girls he knew. But Josiah understood that she came from another century and, like Andy, he was sensible. He had been engaged two years before, but it hadn’t worked out.
—
Sybil helped Blake organize his business dinner. They invited eight couples and hired a caterer to serve Thai food. They had told their guests to come dressed casually, which Sybil thought would mean for the women slacks and a pretty silk shirt, or short fun wool dresses, or miniskirts and boots, since the techie crowd was very young, and she was shocked when all the men showed up in Tshirts and jeans or jogging pants with running shoes, and the women in jeans and sandals with sweatshirts and no makeup. It was a far cry from their elegant dinners in the same room with the Butterfields. But the evening was interesting. The right people had come, and Blake was pleased, and said there were at least four young high-tech billionaires in the room, in addition to the two founders of his firm. He hoped he’d be one of them one day, although Sybil always told him she was happy as they were. She didn’t know what she’d do with a plane and a boat, a house in Atherton or Belvedere, and houses in the Hamptons and the Caribbean. They lived in a mansion and had a perfect life, with great children, and they loved each other. That was enough for her. But Blake was more ambitious than that.
—
Several times during the evening, their guests asked if they’d seen any ghosts yet. The historical appearance of the house looked as though it would lend itself to that. Blake and Sybil answered immediately that they hadn’t, and changed the subject before anyone could pursue it. They didn’t want anyone guessing or making a joke of it. And they felt deeply protective of their new friendship with the Butterfields.
The food served by the caterer Sybil had hired was excellent. Blake had selected some very fine Napa Valley wines to go with it, and everyone was pleased. They were in awe of the Gregorys’ home. Several people asked about the house’s history and how they’d found it. It was so elegant and impeccably put together that people assumed they’d paid a fortune for it, which they hadn’t.
As Blake and Sybil looked down the long dining table at each other, they both found they missed the Butterfields. Their dinners with them were more elegant and more fun. And as brilliant as the “geeks” from Blake’s business were, many of them were socially awkward and not the best conversationalists unless they were talking business, money, or high-tech. And Sybil didn’t find the women very interesting either. They talked about their planes, their workout programs, or their kids.
It made them both laugh afterward when they admitted to each other that they had more fun with the family of ghosts they lived with. But Blake was satisfied that the evening had been a success. He thanked Sybil for doing it so nicely, and as they got undressed and discussed the evening, it seemed amazing to both of them that their best friends in San Francisco were a family that had been ghosts for nearly a century.
Chapter 7
In February, Sybil had to go back to New York to do some prep work at the Brooklyn Museum for the modern design show she would be curating for them in the fall. She wanted to start selecting pieces and contacting other museums for iconic items she needed on loan. She already had a huge research file of what she wanted in the show. In some ways it was good to be back in the cultural mecca of New York. San Francisco was an easy city and a less pressured life, but the cultural resources there were much more limited since it was smaller. It energized and inspired her to be back in New York, but it surprised her to find that the apartment in Tribeca seemed tiny to her now, and no longer felt as much like home. She missed their enormous new house after a few days. She planned to be away for a week.