Chapter 13
A Night of Stars. That was how tonight’s entertainment at Bryant Mountain House was advertised. Internally, hotel guests only. I’ll explain.
Every night at Bryant Mountain House there was in-house entertainment for the hotel guests. It could range from supremely entertaining to entertaining in only the most very literal sense of the word. Every morning each guest received a “newspaper” under their door with the day’s activities. The Bryant Bugler listed exercise and yoga classes, what was on the lunch menu, the weather report, you get the picture. There was also a section for nighttime, such as what movie would be shown, what times were available for dinner, and what was on tap for the nightly entertainment, typically held in the Lakeside Lounge. Since I’d been working here, I’d attended lectures on soap making, witnessed three magicians and their disappearing rabbits, attempted to learn to square dance, and watched a group billed as the Schmanders Sisters, not kidding, boogie-woogie until the boys came home.
And these evenings were always well attended. I’m telling you, take people’s televisions away and pow, let’s all learn how to macramé becomes oh so special. I’d asked Archie about the nighttime entertainment once, if he felt it needed to be punched up at all, and he honest to God asked me, “Why, what’s wrong with the entertainment?”
So when a Night of Stars popped up on the Bugler, I’d assumed it’d be some kind of variety act where jugglers and ventriloquists would vie for top billing only to come up short to a dancing poodle.
No no, it was actually something very cool. An astronomer was coming up to lead us on a nighttime hike up to Skytop to watch a meteor shower. Thinking I’d finally found the one event I was ready to invite everyone to, I put the call out.
“You gotta come up, it’ll be so cool.”
“Wait, hike? At night? In the dark? To see stars?” Natalie had a firm grip on the obvious.
“Ow, Pinup, not so hard,” I heard in the background. Apparently the obvious wasn’t the only thing she had a firm grip on.
“Jesus, morning boning? Are you guys animals?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Listen, just because you’re not getting it doesn’t mean I’m not getting it.”
“Touché,” I replied. “So you’re coming?”
“Gimme five minutes and yeah, I’ll be coming.” She laughed, and I sighed heavily.
“Tonight? Up to the resort? Are you in?”
“Let me ask Oscar,” she said, covering the phone. I heard things that, even though they were muffled, I had no business hearing, but eventually she came back on the phone. Albeit breathless. “We’re in. What time?”
“Seven thirty, we’ll meet in the lobby, and I’ll tell the guard shack you’re coming up and to let you through. Make sure you wear boots and . . . Jesus, I’m hanging up now.”
My next call went somewhat smoother.
“A nighttime hike? That sounds . . . interesting. Won’t it be cold?”
“Yep. The way to combat that would be to wear a coat and mittens.”
Roxie laughed. “I’ll double-check with Leo, but that should be fine. Polly is spending the night with Trudy.”
“Oh, I hate to take you away when you guys have the night to yourselves, I know that doesn’t happen too often.” Roxie adored Leo’s daughter, Polly, but dating a man with an eight-year-old did have some limitations.
“No no, it’s good. Besides, it’s nice having you in town. Leo was just saying how much fun it was hanging out with you and Archie.”
“Me and Archie?” I scoffed. “There’s no me and Archie. I mean, there’s me, and then there’s Archie, and we work together, and I suppose he’s pretty cool when he’s not being an asshole, but there’s definitely not a me and Archie per se, like in the traditional way. Why would he say that? Me and Archie? That’s crazy.”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“Um, okay,” she said, her tone measured.
I nearly smacked myself in the forehead when I played it back, how crazy had I just sounded?
“So, um, yeah, anyway. Seven thirty?”
“Sure. Got it.” She paused for a moment. “Everything okay up there?”
Shit. “Fine!” I practically shouted. I made myself take a breath. “Fine,” I repeated in a much calmer tone. “Everything is fine. Working hard. Doing my thing. You know me.”
“I do know you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So, if there was something going on, something you wanted to talk about, you know you could talk to me, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” Sooo much trouble.
“Because you know, I’d hate to think that one of my very best friends had something going on that she was excited about, but didn’t feel like she could tell me because who knows why . . . but I know that’s not happening because of course you’d tell me, right?”
“Mm-hmm.” I was humming because my lips refused to unseal.
“Okay then,” she said, with the sweetest-sounding voice ever. “We’ll see you at seven thirty.”
You already know my response.
Okay, so. Roxie was onto me. She knew something was up. But if I could play it cool tonight, she might just let it lie. If Natalie sniffed something, however, I was screwed.
Sigh. I really couldn’t talk about this with those two. They’d already been planting seeds left and right about the magical gravitational force that was Bailey Falls and how hard it could suck me in. If they got a whiff that there was actually something going on between us? They’d never let it go. And it wasn’t that I didn’t confide in my girlfriends, these two were my family. But when I talked to Roxie and Natalie about something, it was something. And if I didn’t even know what this was, whether it even was something or not, I didn’t want to make it more than it was.
If I told the girls, then this shit was real. And when shit was real, it could hurt. So I needed to minimize their interest in this.
I called Chad and invited him and Logan. They could run interference if needed. Plus, they were fun. And we needed fun young people up at the resort, if for no other reason than to tell other fun young people to book a weekend trip. In fact . . .
I headed down to Archie’s office, poking my head around the corner to find him behind his desk, working.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said, looking up with a smile.
“I invited some people up tonight for the meteor hike, Roxie and Natalie and company, seven thirty?”
“Of course.”
“I was also thinking, maybe we could invite some of the locals to come up for a free weekend. People like Chad on the town council, the mayor, et cetera. Let them see what they’re missing and then roll out the new Bailey Falls resident pricing program. They could really help spread the word about how much fun they had.”
He sat back in his chair, thinking. “I like it. Invite them all up. We’ve still got some rooms free Easter weekend. Do they have plans?”
“Easter?” I gulped.
“Sure, we can ask them tonight. What time did you say everyone was coming?”
I gulped again. “Seven thirty.”
“Great,” he said, looking pleased as punch.
I started to head out when he called me back in. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Um, back to work? I’ve got a meeting with the front desk crew in a few minutes.”
That night I headed down to the lobby a few minutes before everyone was due to arrive. My stomach all flip-floppy, a bundle of nerves. I wasn’t sure why, we’d all had dinner together at the diner and I hadn’t been nervous.
That was a happy accident. You invited them here this time. To spend time with you . . . and Archie.
Not officially.
Keep telling yourself that.
It was true. My worlds were always kept apart, such as they were. My professional world was for me and me alone. Alone being the key word. I spent time with my friends when I could, of course, but I led a fairly isolated life. My work took me wherever it took me, I never said no to a job far away. It wasn’t that I didn’t like spending time with my friends, I loved my girls. But suddenly my work life and life life were mixing, through my own invitation, and it just felt . . . strange. Flip-floppy was honestly the best way to describe it.
“Think you’ll be warm enough?” I heard behind me, and I turned to see Archie standing there, admiring my faux-fur hat. “You look like you’ll be invading Poland in that thing.”
“Laugh all you want, but you lose most of your body heat through your head, and it’s cold tonight.”
“There’ll be a campfire.”
“Won’t that make it hard to see the stars?”
He leaned down closer to my ear, inside my faux fur. “The campfire is for after.”
“After?”
“After.” He nodded, and I could feel his breath on my neck. I shivered. He noticed. “Guess it’s a good thing you’ve got that hat on after all.”
I pulled away, laughing, and gave him a playful swat on the chest just as the front door burst open.
“We heard there were stars up here,” Natalie said, pulling Oscar along. “Let’s see ’em.”
“Hold your horses there, woman, we gotta get up to the top first. How in the world are you planning on hiking in those?” I asked, pointing at her high-heeled boots.
“You said wear boots. I wore boots.” She stuck up her foot, clad in three-inch heels. “Besides, if I get tired I’ll jump on his back.”
“She’ll get tired,” Oscar replied. “She thinks I’m her pack mule.”
“Jackass, babe, I called you jackass.”
“Quit calling my friend a jackass,” Leo scoffed, popping his head up over Oscar’s shoulders where he was standing with Roxie.
“Everyone’s a jackass, just get in here,” I instructed, waving them all in, including Chad and Logan, who were bringing up the rear. “Hey guys, glad you could make it.”
“Are you kidding, I’ve been dying to get up here and see this place, it’s incredible!” Logan said, looking everywhere all at once. “Show me everything, I want to see everything. Right now.”
“Okay, well, we don’t have too much time before we need to meet the astronomer, we should probably—”
“Oh, I think we’ve got some time,” Archie said, patting me on the shoulder. Something eagle-eyed Natalie and Roxie noticed immediately. “And Clara here can give the tour.”
“I can?” I asked, as he moved me in front of him like a teacher in front of her students. “Wait, I can?”
“Sure, you’ve seen the house tour a number of times now, you should know it by heart. We won’t have time to see everything, but at least give them a tour of the first floor. Unless you don’t think you remember the details?”
I looked back over my shoulder at him, his eyes twinkling. “Was that your version of triple dog daring me?”
“Depends, are you going to give the tour?”
I narrowed my eyes, and while still staring at him, I started in my best tour guide voice. “Bryant Mountain House was started by two brothers, Ebenezer and Theophilus Bryant, in 1872. The original inn on the lake was named . . .”
I gave the tour. I kicked ass. I took them through the lobby, pointing out the important artwork there. I took them down the hallway to the gift shop and soda fountain, correctly identifying the main ingredient in a Green River and telling them how to make a cherry phosphate, an egg cream, and the Archie Special, the latter of which they all agreed sounded horrific and wrong. I took them into the main dining room and discussed the importance of dressing for dinner and why it’d always be a tradition up on this mountain. Finally, we ended the tour in the Lakeside Lounge, where I not only explained the significance behind the fossil embedded in the keystone over the main fireplace, but also asked if anyone in the group knew what kind of wood made up the bulk of the paneling in the room, a question every employee who led the tour would ask and almost no one ever answered correctly.
“Mahogany?” Leo offered.
“Nope.”
“Rosewood?” Chad asked.
“No, but that’s a great guess. There’s rosewood in the reading room on the second floor.”
“It’s chestnut,” piped up Natalie.
“It is chestnut.” I beamed, looking at my friend.
“How did you know?” Archie asked, looking surprised.
“My family’s in construction. I know this place couldn’t have been built this way even thirty years later because of the chestnut blight that went through the Northeast, eventually the country. Chestnut is almost impossible to find as a building material after 1910 or so, it just became too valuable. It was all gone by the 1940s, which is what makes a room like this so incredible. You’ve got yourself something pretty fucking special here, Mr. Bryant, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“My girl,” Oscar said, crushing Natalie into his side with an arm like a grizzly bear’s. “She knows wood.”
“Okay, let’s meet up with that astronomer before this gets out of hand,” I said quickly, knowing by the shit-eating grin on Natalie’s face that this topic would quickly devolve into idiocy if I didn’t head it off at the pass. I looked over to Archie, ready to apologize for my friends and their crude language when I saw he was grinning with delight, and not just because someone recognized chestnut in all its impossible-to-find glory, but because he was genuinely enjoying himself.
I looked around at this group, some old friends, some new. Everyone was laughing and talking, bundling up for the hike. I watched as Archie showed Leo and Oscar on the big map where Skytop was, and what hike we’d be taking tonight. Chad and Roxie had their heads together, while Logan helped Natalie re-lace her inappropriate boots. All the while the fire crackled merrily, enclosing us all in a cozy little vignette.
I stood off to the side, taking it all in. This was what it was like. Friends. Family. Together.
I felt a strange pull in my stomach, like my very center of gravity was being tugged and rearranged. I shook my head to clear it, just as one of the guys from recreation came in to introduce our evening’s guide to a Night of Stars.
“You ready?” Archie asked, coming over and tugging lightly on the end of my furry cap.
I pulled it down tightly. “Mm-hmm. Let’s get out of here.”
“So have you ever given any thought to lecturing about what you’ve done with Maxwell Farms?” Archie asked Leo as we hiked up to Skytop.
“I do it all the time, actually,” Leo answered. “Not as much during the summer when we’re at our busiest, but during the winter I go around New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, talking about what we do. Sometimes I go to high schools, but a lot of time a learning annex or community college, garden clubs, pretty much anyone who’s interested in how to grow and eat sustainably.”
“I’d love to have you maybe do a series here, we’ve got a great lecture space up on the second floor. Would you be interested in that? I’m sure our guests would be.”
“Of course, sure! That’d be great,” Leo agreed, clapping Archie on the back.
“Maybe Roxie could teach a Zombie class sometime, pickling or canning?” I offered, winking at my friend.
“Oh my gosh, yes! I’d love to!” she squealed. “There was a super-popular class when I lived in Los Angeles on exactly that, you’d be surprised how many people would love to know more about how to do things like that.”
“Well, why stop there,” Archie said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “What if we made a kind of learning annex up here at the resort, not just for guests but for people in town and all over the Hudson Valley? We could include things like home gardening, I’m sure our landscaping team would love the chance to get out of their greenhouses a bit. And Oscar, what do you think, feel like teaching a cheese-making class?”
Oscar looked at Archie with a raised eyebrow. “I’m not so great in front of a classroom.”
“Of course, sure, whatever,” Archie acquiesced.
“Of course he will,” Natalie replied from her perch on Oscar’s back, her boots giving out ten minutes into the hike. “I can be the gorgeous mouthpiece in the front of the classroom, you just grunt and point and I’ll interpret.”
“You know who you should get,” Chad interjected, piping up from the back of our group. “Remember Hazel, who runs the flower shop on Elm?”
“I’ve known Hazel since I was three.” Archie laughed. “She used to always pin a carnation on my lapel when I was in town.”
“Me too! She’d be great, I bet she’d love to teach a floral arrangement class. Oh man, one Sunday at church she pinned a chrysanthemum that was so heavy on my jacket I almost fell over.”
“That’s Hazel.” Archie laughed again, and so did everyone else.
I didn’t know Hazel. In fact, I’d never heard of Hazel. I listened to the group laugh and tell stories about this woman who half of them had grown up with, and the other half now knew from living in town, and I began to feel that pang again, that hollowness just under my breastbone.
There’d be a learning annex at Bryant Mountain House. A freaking genius idea. Spearheaded by Archie, taught by Roxie and Leo and Oscar and Natalie, attended and contributed to by Chad and Logan. This is a plan that’d come together over countless lunches and dinners, cocktails and porch swings, and would premiere to the town and the resort with a great chance for success and would likely continue on as one of the centerpieces of the new Bryant Mountain House.
After I left Bryant Mountain House.
After I left this group of friends, this group whose lives would go on without me, undoubtedly missing me in the case of Roxie and Natalie, and maybe Archie, but still, I was the one piece that could be dropped in and pulled back out without disturbing the group as a whole, as a thing, as a unit.
There was an entire ecosystem of Bailey Falls that had existed before I arrived and would remain long after I left. I’d be off on another job, another project, another hotel room with empty suitcases in the corner and a rental car in the parking lot and room service eaten at a coffee table while I scratched out another master plan on a stack of legal pads while an infomercial for Time Life’s Classic Soft Rock filled my ears with the sounds of Jim Croce and Linda Ronstadt and made sure that while that TV was on and giving my brain the static it needed to function, I wouldn’t be thinking about this group, this thing, this unit, this family in Bailey Falls.
I rubbed my chest. A few paces ahead I heard the astronomer talking about the meteor shower and where to look to make sure we didn’t miss it. I surged ahead, leaving my group and joining him to listen. I needed the static.
“You tired?”
“A little, you?” I asked, leaning against the main banister in the lobby. We’d packed up the crazy people and sent them back into town. It had been a fun night, and the great news was everyone was ready to book their resident weekend. And come back for Easter.
Archie’d invited everyone so easily, like they were his friends. Which I suppose they were. But tonight, everyone had blended together nicely. It all seemed very natural, like we’d been friends for years. All happy, all coupled up. Except that wasn’t the case. Not with Archie and me. Right?
“Not too tired?”
“Why?”
He smiled. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”
“Do I still need my mittens?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Definitely,” he replied, and started going up the staircase.
“We’re not going back outside?” I asked, confused.
“Stop asking questions,” he said over his shoulder, and I had no choice but to follow him. Up six flights of stairs. And down three hallways. Around several corners. All the way to the end of the line, the very edge of the east wing.
Past a broom closet and almost hidden behind an armoire, a heavy six-paneled door stood with a thick-looking lock.
“Is this where you keep the guests who couldn’t pay?” I whispered, peeking under his shoulder.
“They check in, but they never check out,” he replied, in his best Vincent Price voice.
“For the record, that’s creepy as fuck.”
“So is this,” he said, twisting the old metal key so the door swung open.
Darkness beckoned, and through the gloom I could just make out a narrow, steep staircase. “I mean, come on.”
“Scared?”
“I’m not stupid. Staircases like that are never meant to be climbed unless there’s a guy running behind you with an ax.”
“I can see if Walter from maintenance is available.”
“I can see if Walter from maintenance is available to kick your ass for saying shit like that while standing at the bottom of the staircase from Psycho.”
A door opened and closed at the other end of the hallway and we both jumped.
“Okay, buddy, you’ve got thirty seconds to tell me what this is about or I’m heading back to my room to a bubble bath.”
“Hmm, a bubble bath.”
I punched him in the arm. “Twenty-five seconds.”
He laughed, then yanked on a string. A single bulb shone down, illuminating the staircase and making it a few degrees less creepy. I peered up; the stairs went on at least two stories, maybe more. “Okay, I’ll bite. Where does it lead?”
“Nothing ventured . . .” he said, and started up the stairs. Creepy stairs, or the newly planted mental picture of an ax-wielding Walter?
I followed him. The walls were down to the studs, plaster over wire over brick. The stairs were paneled about halfway up the wall, then open.
All along the paneling were signatures carved into the wood.
Jeremiah, 1897
Bartholomew, 1912
James. Mickey, 1933
George, 1941
Jonathan, 1952
“Who carved all these?” I asked, running my fingers over some of the names. There were other words too, mostly of the limerick variety. There once was a girl from Nantucket . . .
“People who worked here. People who lived here. Did you know back in the thirties they used this part of the hotel to house a boys’ boarding school? It only lasted a decade or so, there are pictures in the library of the bunk beds they installed. In the summer, the boys would sleep out on the balcony, before air-conditioning, of course.”
“A boys’ boarding school,” I mused, reading a poem about a rather busty girl from Tallahassee. “Did you know there are boobs carved into the wood?”
“Boys will be boys,” he muttered, and I rolled my eyes. “That was my favorite panel to look at when I used to come up here.”
“And where is here exactly?” I asked, as we finally reached a landing. The bulb was far below us now.
“Just a few more steps,” he said, turning a corner and disappearing into the darkness.
I stood there, rolling on my ankles when I heard a thunk then a squeak then his voice floating back to me.
“Don’t be chicken.”
“Oh, please,” I said, and marched around the corner into that same darkness.
Cool air swirled around my legs. Silhouetted by moonlight, Archie stood in a doorway that opened up into an inky black sky punctured by twinkling stars. He was on the roof.
“Careful, give me your hand,” he said, helping me over the knee-high ledge that separated the staircase from the roofline.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, I—”
“Trust me,” he said softly, his hand strong in mine, “I’ve got you.”
I stepped. Out into a different world. Up this high, we could see everything. The entire hotel spread out below us, the golf course, the parking lots, the gardens, everything. The lake was calm tonight, reflecting back a perfect mirror image of the moon and stars, ebony and alabaster and pure magic.
“This is incredible,” I breathed.
“There’s supposed to be another round of meteor showers soon, thought we might catch that show from up here.”
“How cool is this!” I squealed, looking in every direction at once, not wanting to miss a thing. “How close to the edge can we go?”
In response he tugged my hand toward the rock railing that ran along the roofline. I peeked over the edge. On the lakeside, I could see the porches below, all the different levels, and the lanterns that lit the way to the dock. It looked far away but peaceful and somehow comforting.
“Watch where you step, this roof hasn’t been patched in a few years.”
“What?” I yelped, stepping closer to him.
“Kidding, I’m kidding,” he soothed.
I glared up at him. “You’re a bit twisted.”
He gazed down at me, an expression I couldn’t quite identify on his face. “You’re a bit wonderful.”
And in a scene right out of central casting, as I stared up into those warm indigo eyes, a sparkling trail blazed across the sky, arching right over his head with perfect Disney timing.
“The shower is starting up again.”
“Is it?” he said, still gazing down at me.
I gulped. “You’re going to miss it.”
He leaned down, pressing his forehead to mine. “I guess I’ll miss it.”
“But I thought you wanted to—”
“Stop. Arguing. With me.”
I stopped arguing. He started kissing. And it was on.
I slipped my hands up around his neck, and suddenly realized I wanted to be able to feel him, touch him, get a sense of his skin that I just couldn’t with my stupid mittens on. I tore them off, flinging them over my shoulder as I sank my fingers into that ridiculously soft hair of his, never once taking my lips from his, not wanting to break this contact once it had begun.
His hands, meanwhile, had slid around my waist, tugging me closer to him, his fingertips splayed wide around my hips, dipping down lower to my bottom. I sighed into his mouth as one hand slipped up and underneath my shirt, his cold fingers feeling white hot against the small of my back.
“God, you feel amazing,” he groaned, breaking our kiss as he swept kisses along my jawline straight back to my ear. “Your skin . . . I want to . . .”
His mouth was back on mine again, swallowing whatever it was he was going to say and instead tangling his tongue with mine over and over again. His hands pressed me into him farther, and I could feel him, Jesus, I could feel him, thick and hard and oh he was hard and thick, and my eyes rolled back in my head just imagining what it would feel like to fuck this man.
My hands roamed restlessly now, down along his shoulders, along his arms, and back up again. I wanted more. I needed more. Meteors were fucking screaming across the sky and I needed more.
The hand that was under my shirt now slipped higher, moving around front and spanning my rib cage, long and strong fingers playing my skin. His mouth was on the move again as well, back at my ear, whispering, “I want . . . I need . . .”
“What,” I asked, “what do you want?”
He didn’t answer with words. But he did answer. He spun me, pushing me up against one of the chimneys, wrapping one hand around the back of my knee and hitching it around his hip, opening me up to him.
And he thrust against me. Yes. He thrust against me again, his eyes now burning down into mine. Yes, yes.
Wonderful, brilliant friction was building as he pressed into me again and again. Cold brick and stone scratched my back, incredible. Bits of papery soot rained down from above, collecting in our hair, fantastic. My right foot scrambled to find purchase on the gravelly surface, twisting this way and that and even rolling painfully enough once that I knew I’d feel it the next time I tried to run. Fucking awesome. Because while my right foot was rolling, my left foot and all its toes were pointing skyward as oh my God I can’t believe Archie Bryant was dry humping me straight into an insane orgasm.
“Oh my God,” I heard myself say, heat blooming everywhere. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
He cinched me tighter around his hip, rocking into me, using his body to bring me higher and higher.
“Clara,” he said, and my name on his lips caused me to shatter. Broke me wide open. Waves coursed through me as starry streaks crossed the sky above. As I clung to him, panting, boneless, witless, all I could think was that I never wanted to come down from this roof again, if it meant I could stay wrapped around this guy.
And once the meteor shower had finished, this thought spurred me into action faster than anything else could have, and as soon as politely possible, I kissed him and ran back downstairs.
Danger. Danger. Danger.