“How were your grades?” Lapham asked.
“Good,” London said.
“Oh, let’s not have any false modesty. You graduated with a perfect GPA.”
London tried to keep her mouth from falling open. Apparently, Lapham had taken more than a “look” at her curriculum vitae. He’d studied it in some detail. But if he knew so much about her, why was he asking her all these questions?
“What came next?” he asked.
“Well, as soon as I graduated, I started working in a variety of jobs in the hospitality industry. Finally I applied to work for Epoch World, and I got the job. I fell in love with hostessing and worked really hard. I learned how to fill in for this person or that, picking up a lot of skills along the way, from bartending to bookkeeping.”
“Quite the jack-of-all-trades, weren’t you?”
“I guess you could say that,” London said, finally throwing modesty to the winds. “I could lead tours, pair the best wines with any meal. Once I was able to give directions in a city I’d never even been to before.”
London still couldn’t see Lapham’s eyes, but his cat seemed to be gazing at her with approval.
“Excellent,” Lapham said. “But where did you come by your skill with languages?”
London couldn’t help but chuckle a little.
“When you’re a little kid and your parents are flight attendants, and you’re being yanked all over the world from one country to the next, you’ve got to learn some of the local lingo just to play hopscotch with other kids. You could drop me into any country in Europe and I’d manage to get by.”
Lapham laughed aloud.
“You haven’t told me anything I don’t already know,” he said. “But it gives me a lot of pleasure to hear it directly from you. You mustn’t underestimate yourself, London Rose.”
London felt a thrill from head to toe.
Only now did she realize how hard she’d been struggling with insecurity since last night’s dinner with Ian.
She’d really, really needed to have this conversation.
But where is he going with this?
“You may have heard that Epoch World Cruise Lines is running into some financial difficulties,” Lapham said. “It’s a competitive business, and we’ve lagged behind in some ways. I’m afraid we’re having to sell off our ocean-going fleet of liners.”
London’s spirits sagged. It sounded like his kind words were just to cushion the letdown after all.
Then Lapham said, “But we’re not going to go belly-up, believe me. There’s plenty of life in Epoch World yet.”
He tilted his screen so that the cat disappeared, and his own warm, smiling eyes came into view.
“Tell me, Ms. Rose,” he said. “Does this melody mean anything to you?”
He pushed a button, and a recording of a small string orchestra started to play. It was a delightful melody, as light and airy and perfect as last night’s choux profiterole.
London felt a deep, emotional stab of nostalgia.
The music meant something to her, all right—more than Mr. Lapham could possibly know from having read her curriculum vitae.
Don’t cry, she told herself.
But it was hard not to cry. She remembered her mother’s glowing expression as she’d played this very melody on the piano. And now the sound of it flooded London with some of the most wonderful memories of her childhood.
“Well?” Lapham asked.
London gulped down a knot of emotion.
“It’s by Mozart,” she said, “and it’s called Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”
“Which means?”
“It can be translated as either ‘a little night music,’ or ‘a little serenade.’”
“Very good,” Lapham said. “As it happens, Nachtmusik is also the name of a new cruise boat I just purchased—not a huge ocean-going ship like you’re used to, but a more modest vessel to travel the rivers of Europe.”
“A tour boat?” London asked.
“More like a large luxurious yacht,” Lapham said, “with only about a hundred passengers. I believe there’s a great future in river tours. I’m really hoping to launch a whole new epoch for Epoch World Cruise Lines. But there’s a lot at stake in this new venture. I want to get things off to the best possible start. And to do that, I have to hire the best possible staff.”
London’s heart jumped up into her throat.
She suddenly realized that Jeremy Lapham was about to offer her a proposal—and a very different sort of proposal than the one Ian had made last night.
“I want you to be the Nachtmusik’s social director,” Lapham said. “It will involve responsibilities and duties far beyond anything you’ve done for us before. But before you say yes or no, I should tell you—if you want the job, you must be in Hungary by tomorrow morning. That’s where the Nachtmusik will begin her voyage on the Danube. I apologize for the short notice, but the position came open quite unexpectedly.”
London’s eyes widened. It finally made sense for Lapham to be calling her personally. He had an emergency on his hands, an essential slot to fill, and this phone call was an interview for the position.
“How …?” was the only word that she could get out right away.
He kept on talking. “I’ve already booked you on a flight tonight. I’ve checked it out, and there’s a connection from New Haven to New York, and then it will be an overnighter to Budapest. But you have to let me know right now if you’re willing to go. I’ll email you the contract and details on the compensation package, which I think you’ll find satisfactory.”
Then Lapham was silent, waiting for her answer.
London’s thoughts were racing.
It was Sunday morning now. If she did this she’d be in another country for breakfast tomorrow. A wonderful country, rich with history but also highly developed and comfortably modern.
Even so, this seemed like a staggering decision—especially after all the doubts that had troubled her since yesterday.
At that moment, as if on cue, Bret came charging into the room followed by his two sisters, who were attacking him with light sabers. Howling, he ducked under the covers of the bed and his sisters pounced, beating their plastic weapons at the living lump under the blankets.
Tia came sweeping into the room, scolding her children and tucking Bret under one arm. She gave London an apologetic look. Their eyes met for a moment, and London again had that feeling that she was looking into a mirror—or rather into a future in which she was living her sister’s life down to the smallest detail.
She remembered what Ian had said last night.
“We’ll have one child in two years, then another two years later, and another two years after that …”
Something dawned on her.
That was exactly the schedule Tia and Bernard had stuck to at the beginning of their marriage—three children within the first six years. In that future reality London would not only have a mirror-image family, she’d have the same kids’ toys, the same sink full of dishes, the same …
Everything!
London felt her own future life becoming monotonous already as Tia herded her children out of the guest room and pulled the door shut again.