chapter 35

The Jacksons’ houselooked like the quintessential rich people’s house from the movies. Circular driveway. White columns. Front doors opening onto a high-ceilinged foyer. Kia led Izzy to the dining room. At one end of a long table sat an elegant woman with gray dreadlocks coiled into an artful arrangement. Eleanor Jackson. It couldn’t be anyone else. Beside her a man in a tweed blazer and white goatee leaned back in his chair. Across from him sat a man of about the same age, wearing a Hawaiian-print shirt.

“This is my aunt.” Kia indicated Eleanor Jackson. “Uncle Erik. My dad, Carl. Is Lil still in the interview?”

“She is. Have a seat,” Eleanor said.

Izzy sat.

“The woman who has intrigued our unflappable Lillian,” Carl said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Tell us everything about you.”

Eleanor shot her brother a look. “Ms. Wells didn’t come here to be interrogated.”

Lillian’s uncle thought Izzy intrigued Lillian? Izzy kept her posture relaxed so Carl wouldn’t think she was nervous. She had to hear what came next. Intrigued was good when you were talking about a person, right? She couldn’t stop the flush of excitement warming her face.

“My niece is being interrogated in the other room,” Carl said.

“Ashlyn Stewart is not interrogating her,” Eleanor said.

Carl continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “Our Lillian has not taken an interest in a particular woman for a long time.”

Lillian had talked about her. She was interested. Izzy was particular. It shouldn’t make Izzy’s heart glow. She shouldn’t want to do pirouettes around the table at the thought of Lillian talking about her. Their relationship… fling… interlude… what was it? It had an end date. One last night. The final dégagé. But if Izzy was intriguing and particular… Sarah would urge her to set reasonable emotional boundaries. Forget reasonable emotional boundaries.

“Do you insist on putting her on the spot?” Eleanor asked. “What else are you going to do on your two days off, Ms. Wells?”

Ideally, bury my face in your daughter’s…

“Sightseeing.”

“La bayadère is at the McHaelen Performing Arts Center,” Eleanor said.

It sounded like a test.

“I studied La bayadère. I double majored in computer science and dance.” She sounded like a kid. Eleanor didn’t care what she studied in college. But if this was a chance to show she understood just a little bit of Lillian’s world, that she cared about dance too, she wasn’t going to miss it. “Nikiya, the temple dancer. Two powerful men, only one is honorable. The part in act one when Nikiya is commanded to dance… if it’s choreographed with the jeté battement and pas de bourrée…” Please let that be the right term.

“Breathtaking,” Eleanor finished.

Izzy thanked her younger self for studying so hard that the French had stuck in her mind.

“Lillian danced Nikiya. She was divine.” Eleanor poured herself a fingerful of liquor from a crystal decanter and offered another snifter to Izzy. Then Eleanor’s expression grew thoughtful. “She sacrificed so much for her career. She still does. It’s admirable.”

“Our little puffin is smitten,” Carl said.

Izzy pursed her lips to stop from grinning.

“You know nothing about it,” Eleanor said.

“I intuit.”

“You live on a yacht in a fantasy of your own making,” Eleanor said, the sternness in her tone defeated by the affection in her smile.

Eleanor’s formality seemed like an in-joke. Look at me. I’m playing the role of strict matriarch. Do you buy it? She was a lot like Lillian.

“Kia and I will force Lillian to take a week off and we will take the lovebirds sailing after the show,” Carl said.

“With your overabundance of spaniels?” Eleanor asked.

“So few,” Carl said. “Will you come, Ms. Wells?”

A thousand times yes.

“I’d love to.”

There was more talk about spaniels and yachts. Eleanor and Carl clearly loved the back-and-forth. Kia teased her father about his favorite spaniel having the personality of an angry diva. Carl offered to help Izzy get a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, not that she had asked.

“They’re always like this.” Erik folded his hands over his belly and smiled at Izzy. “Next my beloved wife will show you her orchids.”

A smile lit Eleanor’s face.

“The Diuris laevis is in bloom,” Eleanor said.

Her family groaned.

“Don’t do it to her,” Kia wailed.

How was it possible? As if the universe had conjured the moment out of Izzy and Lillian’s flirtatious banter. Eleanor was actually going to show Izzy her orchids. As if the things they’d joked about weren’t jokes at all but the start of a relationship.

“Come, my dear.” Eleanor rose, smiling at her family like she’d just gotten away with something. She led Izzy down a long hallway to a large sitting room that had been retrofitted as a greenhouse with rows of orchids sitting under sunlight lamps.

“You can tell me which one you like, and I’ll ship you your favorite,” Eleanor said. “I promise I’ll only show you the bloomers.” She started with the first table. “This is a pink moth orchid, the phalaenopsis.”

From down the hall, Izzy heard Kia’s voice. “Don’t tell her about all of them, Aunt E. We want to eat sometime this year.”

Eleanor cupped an orchid blossom between both hands.

“Lillian gave me this one when she was ten. It blooms every year. I’ve propagated twenty new starts from it, so if it dies, I’ll always have a copy.” She pointed to a high shelf by the window. A row of orchids sat in matching pots.

Did Lillian know Eleanor kept twenty orchids because Lillian had given her one? Eleanor loved her daughter. In a way that mattered.

“This is the bane of my existence.” Eleanor pointed to a manifold attached to a large control box. “It’s supposed to time the water, mist, temperature. There’s an app. It never works.”

“Would you like me to take a look at it?” Izzy really was the suitor trying to impress the parents, but how could she not? She remembered a little about dance; she knew everything about bad apps and their better replacements.

Eleanor handed over her phone and pointed to the app. It was a miserable piece of software. But Izzy had built an app called TimerMax that worked around the proprietary code for smart devices so you could run them all on one app. It wasn’t exciting, but it worked. She downloaded it for Eleanor and showed her how to use it.

“It is brilliant,” Eleanor proclaimed when they were back at the table. “A marvel of simplicity.”

Izzy let her whole smile show.

“The caterer will be setting up in just a minute,” Eleanor said. “I’m going to check to see if Ashlyn and Lillian are done with the interview.”