“You don’t have to explain.”
The idea that she felt she was somehow a second-class citizen made him feel like he’d been shot in the chest. “I don’t … want to see anyone. I’m not who I once was.”
She tilted his face up. “Look at me, boy.”
He had to force himself to meet her dark stare. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You are perfect in God’s eyes. Do you understand me? And you are perfect in mine as well—no matter what you look like.”
“Miss Aurora … it’s not just my body that’s changed.”
“That is in your hands, boy. You can choose to sink or swim based on what happened. Are you going to drown? Pretty stupid now that you’re back on dry land.”
If anyone else had said that bullshit to him, he would have rolled his eyes and never thought about the statement again. But he knew her background. He knew more than even Lane knew about what her life had been like before she had started to work at Easterly.
She was a survivor.
And she was inviting him to join the club.
So this was why he hadn’t wanted to see her, he thought. He hadn’t wanted this confrontation, this challenge that was clearly being offered to him.
“What if I can’t get there,” he found himself asking her in a voice that broke.
“You will.” She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “You’re going to have an angel watching over you.”
“I don’t believe in them, either.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Easing back, she stared at him for a long while, but not in a way that suggested she was taking note of how much older and thinner he looked.
“Are you okay?” he asked abruptly. “I heard you went to the—”
“I’m perfectly fine. Don’t you worry about me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?” Before he could reply, she cut him off with her more typical, strident voice. “You don’t be sorry for taking care of yourself. I’ll always be with you, even when I’m not.”
She didn’t say good-bye. She just brushed his face one more time and then turned away. And it was funny. The image of her walking over to Lane and the pair of them talking together under the heavy dark green leaves of the magnolia tree was something that was going to also stick, as it turned out.
Just not for the reasons he thought.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The rain that was not forecasted started just after five p.m. As Lizzie folded up the last of the tables under the tent, she smelled the change in the air and looked out to the ivy on the brick wall of the garden. Sure enough, the trefoil leaves were dancing, their faces shining up to the grey sky.
“It isn’t supposed to rain,” she muttered to no one in particular.
“You know what they say about the weather around here,” one of the waiters retorted.
Yeah, yeah, she knew.
Where was Lane? she wondered. She hadn’t heard anything from him since she’d seen him by that truck, and that had been six hours ago.
Mr. Harris came up to her. “You’ll tell them that it’s all to go into the staging area?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s where the rentals always go afterward—and before you ask, yes, silverware and glassware, too.”
As the man lingered next to her, she was tempted to tell him to grab hold of the table and help her hump it across the event deck. But it was pretty clear he wasn’t a hands-dirty sort of fellow.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, frowning.
“The police have arrived again. They are trying to be respectful of our event? but they wish to interview me anew.”
Lizzie lowered her voice. “Do you want me to take care of things out here?”
“I’m afraid they’re not going to let this be.”
“I’ll make sure it’s done right.”
The butler cleared his throat. And then, God love him, he gave her a bit of a bow. “It would be most appreciated. Thank you—I shan’t be long.”
She nodded and watched him go. Then she got back to work.
Jerking the table off the deck, she strode across the now-cavernous interior and proceeded out into the open air where a sprinkling of that rain dusted her head and shoulders. The staging tent was way off by the opposite side of the house, and Greta’s German accent emanated from it as twin streams of servers, one filing in with party debris, the other emerging with empty hands, moved with speed.
Lizzie waited along with the rest of them, inching her way closer and closer to the drop-off.
The larger of the two tents would be taken down in about twenty minutes—and the sweep-up crew was already working the floor, picking up crumpled napkins, errant forks, glasses.
Rich people were no different from any other herd of animals, capable of leaving a trail of detritus behind them after they abandoned a feeding station.
“Last table,” she said as she once again went under cover.
“Good.” Greta pointed to a stack. “It goes there, ja?”