“I know you,” he said.
The sun was behind him and I squinted into his face.
“You do?”
“Aren’t you staying at the Inn at Long Last?”
He was the man from the stairs, the soap-opera-star man, the man who had looked familiar.
“I’m Guy Callow,” he said, and extended a leather glove.
“Jane Fortune.” There couldn’t be too many Guy Callows in the world. This must be Miranda’s Guy. I had met him only once, and briefly.
“Are you related to Miranda Fortune?” he asked.
“She’s my sister.”
“So you are
We reached the top of the slope and were deposited onto the mountain. We skied away from the lift and toward a clump of trees. I pulled to a stop beneath some firs to wait for the others. Guy Callow pulled up beside me.
Since the family mythology regarding Guy Callow was so unpleasant, I was guarded, but then I remembered that the story had come from Teddy and Miranda.
“How is Miranda?” Guy asked.
“She’s great. She’s in Palm Beach with my father.” Even at this late date, I wanted him to think that she’d gone on happily without him. I wished I could have said that she was married to some politician or captain of industry, but Palm Beach was the best I could do.
“Are you here alone?” he asked.
“No,” I said, which was technically true, but not in the way he meant it.
“Of course, why would you be?”
I could think of plenty of reasons but was flattered anyway.
Charlie and Heather finally came off the chairlift. Max and Lindsay would be next. Charlie waved at me as he skied toward us.
“Well, maybe we’ll see each other around,” Guy said.
I nodded. Guy Callow skied away, down an expert slope. I was envious of his freedom to take whatever run he wanted. We were stuck with Heather and Lindsay, who were only beginners. Charlie swooshed up beside me, followed by Heather, who ran over my skis. Both Charlie and I had to catch her to steady her.
“Who was that?” Heather said. “I feel like I’ve seen him on TV. Is he a weatherman or something?”
“He’s an old friend of the family,” I said.
“Why didn’t he stick around?” Charlie asked.
“We could use another man,” Heather added. She pulled out a lip gloss and slathered it on her lips.
“I don’t know,” I said. I could have asked him to join us, but I wasn’t in the habit of doing things like that. And I didn’t think I should be too receptive after what he did to Miranda—whatever it was, and no one really knew. There was such a thing as family loyalty.
Max and Lindsay skied over to us.
“Who was that?” Max asked.
“Old friend of the Fortune family,” Heather answered for me.
“Coincidence,” Max said. He leaned against one of his ski poles.
“Oh, that sort of thing always happens on mountains,” I said in a flirtatious voice.
“It does?” Max asked.
“To me.” I kept my voice light.
Maybe Max was going to marry Lindsay, but this was my chance to let him see me as something more than terminally single, so I took it.
Jack Reilly wasn’t at the Butterfly Museum.
The woman in the office said he had been one of the best employees they’d ever had, except that three weeks ago he left without giving notice. He didn’t even leave a forwarding address for his last paycheck.
“If you find him, can you give him this?” She looked up through large red bifocals. She was neither young nor old: she was of indeterminate age—somewhere between thirty and fifty. She gave me a note written on violet stationery. This wasn’t an official missive, unless the Butterfly Museum used purple paper. “He’s something, that Jack Reilly,” she said. “You don’t meet many men like him.”
How many men had she met at her post at the Butterfly Museum? In a way, she was too much like me, hidden away, single, and of no definite age. No wonder Jack Reilly had made such an impression on her.
“I’ll give this to him if I see him, but I may never find him,” I said.
“I hope you do. He left so quickly. I never had a chance to say goodbye.” Her light blue eyes were watery and distant as she stood by the inner door gazing out. Did I look like her, vague and dreamy and completely out of touch with reality?
“What does he look like?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s lovely.” She smiled. Even the thought of Jack Reilly made her glow.
“Yes,” I said, “but what does he look like?”
She cocked her head to one side, licked her lips, and worried the edge of her Peter Pan collar with unkempt fingernails.
“I suppose he isn’t a conventional beauty,” she said, “but I like to think of him as a tiger swallowtail.”
Her eyes misted over.
I assumed a tiger swallowtail was a type of butterfly—at least I hoped it was. Of course, this description was of no help whatsoever, but then Jack Reilly’s looks were not important.
“Could I see a picture of one?”
“One what?” the vague woman asked.
“A tiger swallowtail?”
“Oh, of course.” She went back to her desk and shuffled through a deck of cards. She pulled one out and handed it over. “You can keep that,” she said.
I thanked her. The butterfly—and it was a butterfly—was large and striped, yellow and black. It was a glorious thing.
I tucked the violet letter and the card into my coat pocket. I was tempted to read the letter, but I would never do that, if for no other reason than that it would be very bad manners. I put my hand in my pocket and fingered the card with the butterfly picture on it like a worry stone, rubbing my thumb and forefinger against it over and over.
The Franklins’ estate covered ten acres of prime Vermont real estate. Nora took us on a tour of the main house. It was spacious and modern with many windows.
“We struggled for so long. Book after book. Tiny apartment after tiny apartment. I never even had a dishwasher until we came here. All that time, though, I knew Duke would make it. I always believed in him.”
Nora had worked in restaurants and Laundromats. And after all these years, she and Duke were still together. She had the courage I hadn’t had. She was willing to throw her lot in with Duke no matter what. It was no wonder that Max still resented me.
All the women—Lindsay, Heather, Winnie, and I—followed Nora outside and down a path to another house. Duke’s studio was in a building that sat high on the property with a view that stretched toward the lights of the town below. There were four workstations. One table held an old manual typewriter, another an IBM Selectric, and still another held a computer. The old oak desk was empty except for a sheaf of paper and a fountain pen. Piles of different-colored papers were stacked against one wall. Nora explained that these were “the drafts.” She said it with a reverence usually reserved for objects of devotion.
When we returned to the main house, Duke was ladling mulled wine from a pot on the stove.
“It’s got vodka in it,” he warned. “Wine and vodka. A lethal combination. It’s an old Scandinavian recipe.” He looked at his wife.
“Scandinavian—my sweet ass,” she said.
“And it is, dear.” Duke gave her a pat on the behind.
