“Yes. Sorry. My phone must have cut out,” Callie lied.
“Look, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll stop by the hospital tonight and sit with her. You enjoy the holiday.”
Callie sat in the car for a long time after she hung up. Her mind was reeling. “Stop,” she said aloud to herself. Marta was due any minute, and Callie couldn’t be a nervous wreck when she showed up. Why had she said yes to this invitation?
“You’ll be okay,” Towner had told her earlier when she expressed doubts. “Pride’s Crossing may be just over the bridge and only one town away, but it’s a world apart.”
Callie took a few deep breaths to center herself. Better.
She turned on the radio. The Thanksgiving song she had sung for Rose was playing.
Marta’s Volvo was even older than the one Callie drove. She pulled into the driveway and reached across to open the door. Callie grabbed her suitcase and put it in Marta’s backseat.
Marta looked at her for a long moment, as if taking her in. “Happy Thanksgiving,” she finally said.
Immediately, Callie noticed that Marta was dressed more glamorously than she had been at the fund-raiser. The neckline of her green velvet dress was cut low, and she wore a simple gold cross dangling into her cleavage, creating an intentional focal point. Her black hair, pulled back severely the night of the fund-raiser, hung straight and shoulder length. She wore red lipstick and had shadowed her eyelids a smoky grey.
Callie hadn’t wanted to wear her dress to the hospital, so she’d packed it, intending to change at the house, as Towner had said she was planning to do.
“Thanks for picking me up,” she said.
“I’m glad to do it.”
They both fell silent. It was a beautiful day. Along Salem’s North River, the view began to open up, and by the time they crossed the Beverly Bridge, there was water everywhere. Harbors merged and stretched inland, speckled with empty moorings. To the right of the bridge, most of Salem Sound was visible: from Marblehead north toward Gloucester and Rockport, to the border islands along the horizon. Lighthouses dotted the shore. Even with the windows up, Callie could smell the salt air.
After the bridge, Marta turned right and followed the coastline north. The sun sat low on the horizon as they drove past stately old oaks and maples standing guard over the mansions of a grander era. The bare trees cast long shadows as the sun filtered through them to the water, reflecting back intermittently in blinding flashes.
“Will Mr. Whiting Sr. be there?” Callie asked, glad to have thought of something to say.
“Finn? Yes, of course. The entire family will be there. And a lot of guests as well. It’s a big, traditional Thanksgiving feast: everything from pottage to cheese, not soup to nuts as the usual saying goes. In this case, most of the nuts will be seated around the dinner table.”
“Oh, really?” Callie was amused.
“There are a few characters…the privileged kind.”
Callie instantly regretted accepting this invitation. She wasn’t in the mood for a party, especially after what had happened at the hospital. And she dreaded the thought of the kinds of people who were likely to be the Whitings’ guests. She forced herself not to think about it. Not right now.
“All very nice people,” Marta said, reading her. “Emily can be a bit of a snob, but you’ll get used to her.”
“The Whitings talk only to God?” Callie joked, remembering a poem Rose had taught her to recite, saying the words aloud.
“And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod.
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.”
“That was the Cabots, not the Whitings,” Marta said, sounding annoyed. Then, recovering her composure, she pointed. “But Henry Cabot Lodge used to live right over there, through those trees.”
Callie squinted in the direction Marta was pointing. Even with most of the leaves gone, the trees were so thick it was impossible to glimpse the legendary mansion that lay beyond them.
“Just follow my lead if you don’t know what fork to use.”
“That’s right. I forgot you were the expert on etiquette.” Callie didn’t mean it as sarcastically as it sounded.
Once again, a scowl crossed Marta’s face. “That was Emily taking me down a peg, putting me in my rightful place in the social pecking order.”
“Oh God,” Callie said. “Is that what she’s like? Can we just turn around now? I’ll treat you to a nice meal at the Hawthorne.”
Marta laughed. “You’ll enjoy yourself. I saw the seating chart this morning. You’re next to Paul. I think he reconfigured Emily’s classic arrangement. Usually she’s got her darling boy seated right next to her. I don’t think Emily has noticed the switch, but there’ll be hell to pay when she discovers it.”
Callie said nothing. Now she really wanted to turn around.
They passed a train station. Callie read the sign: PRIDE’S CROSSING. The name said it all, she thought, wondering what illness she could feign to convince Marta to let her out here so she could take the train back to Salem. Marta put on her blinker and turned right. They drove down a long gravel driveway that was tunneled by two rows of mature elm trees, the afternoon light streaming through their web of branches.
“The grounds here were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted,” Marta said. “It takes four full-time groundsmen to maintain them.”
“Beautiful,” Callie said, meaning it.
“Impressive, isn’t it? That’s one of the last rows of standing elms in New England.”
The driveway turned as it approached a massive stone house, the line of elms giving way to rhododendron and mountain laurel. As they drove on, the view opened up to reveal a seascape that stretched past the border islands east toward the British Isles. Finally, Marta pulled up in front of the house. To say that Pride’s Heart was impressive was a gross understatement. It was a Georgian-style mansion that stretched over almost an acre of oceanfront land. The style was very British, making it clear to Callie that the Whitings had never fully left their ancestry behind.
A uniformed butler came out to greet them, and Marta handed him her keys. Callie started for her overnight bag. “Leave it,” Marta said. “Darren will have someone take it to your room.”
They approached the front door, and Darren held it open for them. As soon as they entered, a housemaid took their coats and directed them to the library.
At the far end of the dark mahogany-paneled room, an attractive middle-aged man with greying hair sat at a huge partners desk. He was talking on the phone and stood when he saw Marta and Callie, gesturing that he’d be right with them.
He ended the call and walked over to them, kissing Marta on the cheek. “So glad you could join us. Don’t you look lovely in your green dress.”