On his second day we had lunch in the Churchill penthouse before he flew on to Zurich. “Excellent effort, superb accomplishments this session. But I sense I’m wearing you out.”
“Not at all. Just some stress juggling things at home.”
“I trust you took my advice and left Ethan to his own devices during this current jaunt to Las Vegas.”
His light tone rankled but my frustration had more to do with Ethan and his devices. “He left me a message, as a matter of fact, asking that I thank you.”
Julian smiled. “He’s occupied and you’re clearly due for some R and R. Every product, every existing and new development shows positive return on investment. Your unstoppable team has New York in excellent hands. Ethan’s otherwise occupied. No need for return to an empty apartment just yet. Let me offer you Priory Bay. I admit to an ulterior motive. You’d be doing me a favour by taking an extra day or two for yourself out there. We can have you across the channel by tea time.”
“My goodness. I admit, your retreat’s my idea of heaven.”
“Smashing. My staff will accommodate your change in travel.” He covered my hand. “Now full confession. I need to retrieve a watch, the Lacroix et Barre, the gift I mentioned a while back.”
“I remember. And Ethan told me you’d showed it to him at the Athletic Club.”
“Spot on. I’ve a Zurich dinner with the committee that presented it to me but I’ve mistakenly left it out there last trip. Quite bad form to show up without it on my wrist.”
“I’m happy to retrieve it.”
“Thanks awfully. You know my jammed schedule and this saves Alistair a channel crossing. I was in a bit of a tear emptying pockets. It’s in my old chest of drawers, a childhood piece now in my wardrobe. The watch will be in the locked top drawer with clutter—cuff links and such—and Oksana’s necklace. You needn’t do a thing but bring it off island with you.” He paused. “You’re welcome to take another look at her necklace.”
“Julian, you know I’d be honoured.”
“Then by all means. The drawer key’s in a cigarette tin, One of the few possessions I have from my father. Centre drawer of my desk.” He smiled. “The flat may be open; painters crawling about. Regardless, check in at the desk. We can’t have you mistaken for a cat burglar.”
“I left my leotard and ski mask in New York.”
“Your sense of humour’s returning. And I’ve a corker of an idea. As usual, Alistair meets your Hovercraft at Portsmouth and sees you to the Gulfstream. This time we fly you to Zurich.”
“Zurich! No, I don’t—”
“Hear me out. Dinner and solid night’s rest in Zurich. Have a look round the next day. Perhaps a sit-down with my Swiss contingent, perhaps an onsite visit. As you know, nothing at my headquarters is Mayfair Beauty related, so it’s all for fun. A second dinner, then home you go just a day later, rested and rejuvenated on the company clock.”
“Julian—”
“I feel sure this will fit your schedule.” Neither charm nor determination left his voice.
The following morning I raised my coffee mug to the men in bronze. Churchill and Roosevelt, on their bench outside the hotel entrance, shimmered in the damp March wind that kept me nauseated most of the way across the channel. Portly Sir Winston, smiling and leaning toward the President, gave me a sudden flash of Dad so often in that position in his recliner. I should have laughed, but it deepened my melancholy.
I hunkered into my winter coat and slogged toward the golf course. The longer Dan O’Farrell was gone, the easier it became to recall advice, humour, even his half-assed idea of support and encouragement. The best I’d been able to do in the five years since my mother’s New York Tupperware visit was the gift of a decent car, and healthy checks at Christmas.
She’d gone from dating to living with an older man, hanging with like-minded friends, forever emotionally distant. My dysfunctional family no longer kept me at war, but it was an uneasy peace. Ethan’s mantra for all things Bruckernerfield became mine. “It was what it was, and is what it is.” Ethan. I pushed hanks of hair off my face, and watched the mist on the ferry channel. No sun, no flowers, no children on the beach today. Children. Obsessive devotion to work kept me at the top of my professional game, and my marriage on automatic pilot. Neither lent itself to successful motherhood.
I returned to the hotel, and ate a late breakfast alone in the Island Room while studying the wall map, and glancing at the door nearly invisible in the panelling. What if I sit in his exclusive seats and the big wigs hear my grammar’s wrong? Or think my clothes are cheap? still looped through my head, and made me ache. Ethan and I were two sides of the same coin, too easily spun by outside forces. I’d been thinking of little else since yesterday’s arrival. We could make it to May. Then, with the UK Connection launch behind me, Ethan and my marriage would be my top priority. My mood matched the weather, a far cry from my elation during the magical days of my first visit. Even if it had to be by way of a fancy-schmancy watch handoff of in Zurich, it was time to go home.
Chapter Twenty-One
I updated Alistair, made a two o’clock Hovercraft reservation, and as instructed, met the security agent at the front desk. He gestured to the door across the vestibule. “Flat’s open but back entrance’ll have to suit. Crew’s tackling the proper one.” I strolled down the former butlers’ passageway feeling smug and privileged as I let myself into Julian’s Kitchen and explained myself to the painters transforming his foyer.
The art collection sat in the parlour, propped forward into the safety of the sofa. I glanced at the signatures, stamps and authentications, no doubt even museum loan information on the canvas backs and stretcher boards, then slid the cigarette tin from the packed desk drawer and entered his bedroom. Discomfort from Julian’s terry bathrobe on the open loo door, bedside table books and the folded duvet on his bed propelled me across the room. His wardrobe turned out to be a compact alcove composed of floor-to-ceiling Mahogany cupboards with just enough room for the simple childhood pine dresser. Two silver frames engraved with Oksana sat on top. A boy and girl holding hands smiled at me from the smaller one. In the eight-by-ten, Julian stood in evening clothes with a female version of himself in black taffeta. The pearls I’d worn to the yacht club encircled her neck, the emerald resting in the hollow of her throat. Could my melancholy get any deeper? I blinked hard and unlocked the top drawer. Just as he’d described, Julian’s watch sat with Oksana’s jeweller’s box among handkerchiefs and silk pocket squares. Cufflinks and the London newspaper clipping of our yacht club evening.
I examined sixty thousand dollars’ worth of Lacroix-Barre multiple dials, moon phases, and time zone indicator. It was an hour fast; Zurich time. Oksana’s pearls felt cool as they slid through my fingers back into the jeweller’s box. Tears from nowhere welled again.
I wrapped the watch in a pocket square and locked the drawer then hustled through the bedroom to the desk, agitated by the intimacy of Julian’s private rooms, his father’s cigarette tin, his sister’s pearls. The desk drawer clutter I’d ignored earlier included two Thomas Sherman photos of my fragrance workshop with the band. Informal golf shots stamped with ESD Studio, Ryde, Isle of Wight looked like some sort of business outing. Random business cards included Taylor Davies’ stamped with the familiar U-K Connection logo. I had three of his in my file. I picked two others, one printed with red baseball laces, the MLB logo, and Washington State addresses. The second had a silhouette of a baseball pitcher in wind-up position.
Bat & Glove Ltd Paul Jacoby was printed above his address and phone number, the same San Francisco area code as Neil’s. Caesar’s Palace RMTWR 313 had been scrawled on the back. Julian was behind the new baseball queries coming to Ethan? I managed cheeriness while passing the painters. Rested and rejuvenated? Bloody hell, I was confused, and suspicious.
I huddled on my hotel bed under a blanket of anxiety, trapped on a frigging island in the frigging English Channel. Xanax and a hot bath returned my sanity but intuition and my lifelong compulsion to find order in chaos had me wired. The minute I drained the tub I left a message for Ethan confirming my return early Friday morning, still clutching my towel as I jumped from conclusion to conclusion.
Why hadn’t Julian simply sent Security for the watch and let me pick it up at the desk when I checked in? A watch set on Zurich time. If he’d left it by mistake, why wasn’t it on UK time? Surely he knew I’d see the baseball related business cards. It seemed so contrived and sloppy for meticulous Julian Petrenko. A setup? I couldn’t fathom why. My devious, petty thief, former self began to sweat.
“Wilkommen in Zurich,” Julian said, hustling me from Gulfstream to car as the driver grabbed my luggage. “Chilly, but we’ve none of the damp English goop, happy to say.”
I fished out his watch. “Your handkerchief to protect it.”
“Excellent idea.” He slid the Lacroix-Barre over his hand and laughed. “One on each wrist.”
“I noticed it’s on Swiss time.” Tick, tick, tick. “Indeed. I never change it. Helps with jet lag, and of course it shows multiple zones.” So much for that theory.
Julian switched to running commentary as we entered the highway. “…Zurichberg… Same side of the city as the airport…and the zoo. Twenty minutes…off the motorway, rural…”
“We’re headed to your house?”
“Sorry. Indeed we are. Set up for just this sort of thing.” What sort of thing? He’d already moved into the next day’s agenda, from headquarters on Bahnhofstrasse to lunch with ‘mates of every stripe.’
We left the motorway and sped through bucolic farmland peppered with grapevines, livestock, and foursquare stucco houses. I could hear Ethan: Brucknerfield with money. Eventually heavily landscaped exclusive neighbourhoods replaced them. “Excellent investment…LeCorbusier…view of the lake…quite the International mix.” Behind hedges and ivied walls neoclassic mansions, oversized chalets and stacked glass and steel cubes clung to the hillsides. No A-frames or yodelers on these slopes. Architectural Digest on steroids. I would have expected nothing less of him.
Parking pads and garages lined the narrow road but our driver turned up a sloping lane to quintessential wrought iron gates. No name, no number. Of course they glided open. Julian’s timber and concrete house faced west, gleaming in the cold March sunset. “Designed for a family of nine,” he said. “The second-floor guest rooms and baths were the children’s and remain untouched structurally. We tweaked the master suite plus a playroom to serve as a common area, a bit of a lounge, exercise room, office set-up, and kitchenette. I had the first-floor au-pair suite redesigned for myself, my getaway within my getaway. Works quite well.”
