She should never have come to America.
Chapter 2
Even though the apartment was enormous, it shouldn’t have taken Carol Valentine thirty minutes to deliver the tour, but she clearly relished the role. She pointed out the walnut-stained oak floors, the coffered ceilings, the working fireplace, and what she called the Juliet balcony, which was really just a hip-high railing one foot out from the floor-to-ceiling French doors that Kate knew she would never open. The apartment wasn’t particularly high up, but it was high enough.
“You like it?” Carol asked, after the tour was complete, even though Kate had expressed her admiration about thirty times already.
“I do. I love it. Cozy.”
“It’s beautifully furnished, don’t you think? You’d think a young man like Corbin . . .” Carol left the thought unfinished and smiled with just her mouth, the papery skin that covered her face shifting in such a way that Kate felt like she could see the exact contours of the woman’s skull. “What’s your apartment—your flat—like in London?”
“All of it would fit in this living room,” Kate said. “I’m feeling a little guilty. I got the better bargain.”
“Yes, but London . . .”
Kate yawned, quickly covering her mouth.
“My dear, you must be exhausted. I forgot all about the time change.”
“I am tired,” Kate said. “It’s my bedtime if I were home.”
“Well, try to stay up a little later than you usually do so you get used to it here. And as soon as you get settled in, you’ll have to come and have a drink. I’m on the other side, exactly opposite. Our place has the same layout as yours. These end apartments are the absolute best in the building. Especially yours, since you have a view toward the city and a view toward the river.” She lowered her voice, as though the other apartments might hear what she was saying.
“It’s beautiful,” Kate said.
“The building was modeled after a Venetian palazzo, you know.”
“I thought it looked Italian. The courtyard.”
“The architect was from Boston, but he visited Italy and came back here. This was years ago, of course. My husband would love to tell you all about it when you come for that drink.”
Carol left, and Kate shut the door behind her. She stood for a moment, still rattled by what had happened in the bathroom, finding her pills in her purse after forgetting that she’d moved them there. But since then, she’d talked herself through it a little, and she’d calmed down. Or maybe the pill was simply doing its job, spreading its calming fingers over her skin.
She retoured the apartment herself this time, taking in all the details, the built-in bookshelves, the paintings on the wall. Every room was beautifully furnished but somehow impersonal, as though all the items had been picked out by a decorator, which they probably had. In the bedroom, across from a king-sized bed with a cushioned headboard, there was a low bureau, the top of which was covered with about fifteen framed photographs. Family pictures, most in black and white, most taken on holiday. Boats and beaches. Kate studied them. She recognized Corbin’s father, her mother’s cousin, but only from other photographs she’d seen. He was in most of the pictures, usually with Corbin and Kate’s other second cousin, Philip. Kate wondered why Corbin had no pictures of his mother on the bureau, but then it occurred to her that this apartment had been owned by Corbin’s divorced father before he died, and these must be the father’s pictures, not the son’s.
Kate wondered how much of the rest of the apartment was in the style of the father. She guessed most of it. From what she’d gathered from her mother, Richard Dell had moved to Boston sometime in the 1970s to be with his American wife. His work had something to do with finance (“moving lots and lots of money around,” Lucy Priddy told her daughter), and during the 1980s, he made a fortune. Richard and Amanda, his wife, had lived on the North Shore, in a seaside mansion in the town of New Essex. When their children were teenagers, they got divorced, Amanda keeping the seaside house and Richard buying the apartment at 101 Bury Street in Boston. The apartment had been left to Corbin after Richard died in a swimming accident while on holiday in Bermuda.
Kate had learned all this information two months earlier, during Sunday dinner with her parents.
“Your second cousin Corbin got in touch with me,” Lucy had said. They were in the conservatory, done with dinner, but still drinking wine. Kate’s father, Patrick, was taking Alice, their border terrier, for her walk.
“Oh,” Kate said.
“I don’t think you’ve ever met him. Have you met him?”
“He’s your cousin Richard’s son, right? The one who died a few years ago?”
“He drowned, yes. You met Richard, actually, at Charlotte’s wedding. I don’t know if you remember. I met Corbin for the first time at his father’s funeral.” Kate’s parents had traveled all the way to Massachusetts for the funeral, although they’d tied the trip in with a driving tour up the Maine coast, something they’d both always wanted to do.
“He seemed very sweet. And so handsome. Almost looked like—who’s that actor you like from Spooks? Rupert something.”
“Rupert Penry-Jones. Why are you telling me this? I feel like you’re on the verge of telling me you’ve arranged my marriage to a second cousin. Have we gone back in time?”
Lucy laughed; the spontaneous version, not the contrived ringing bells that sometimes came out in social situations. “Yes, darling. It’s all arranged. No, but I’m telling you this for a reason. I haven’t slipped into full senility. Corbin Dell is moving to London—a company transfer, or something—for six months, and he sent me an e-mail because he knows you live in London.”
“He didn’t ask to stay with me, did he?”
“No, no. Of course not. But he did say he wanted to check and see if you were potentially interested in a home swap. He said he’d love to have someone staying at his place in Boston, and then he could stay at your place, and that way he’d save some money, and you’d have the opportunity to spend half a year in America.”
Kate took a sip of her wine. It was white, and far too sweet. “What would I do in Boston?”
“I thought that maybe you could take classes, like you’ve been talking about. They must have graphic design schools. And you’d keep drawing, of course.”
“What about my job?” Kate had just gone from part-time to full-time at an art-supply store in Hampstead.
“Well, that’s not a career, exactly, is it?”
Kate, who agreed with her mother on that point, was annoyed nonetheless and said nothing. A part of her knew that this was the type of situation she’d be foolish to turn down. Six months in another country. She’d never been to America, and Boston was supposed to be nice. A manageable city, she’d heard, not like New York or Chicago, or London, for that matter. She’d have a place to live. Probably a beautiful place to live. And the more that these reasons popped into her head, the more anxious she got, realizing that she would probably turn it down. It was too soon. She was better, but she wasn’t completely well yet.