<0015 The Road to the Estate>
After trying on a stage outfit that looked like “anime heroine cosplay,” Cynthia finished dinner with the senior members, eating Cajun food they had ordered through Uber Eats.
They rehearsed together for another two hours, and before they knew it, it was nearly eight in the evening.
Lydia studied the slightly stiff look on Cynthia’s face.
“That’s enough getting in sync for today. We’ll start rehearsing in earnest tomorrow—Saturday. Cindy’s probably tired.”
Katty nodded as she wiped down her trumpet mouthpiece.
“Agreed. Long-distance travel is no joke.”
Cynthia did her best to look undaunted.
“I can keep practicing!”
But the senior members were already coiling the microphone cables, putting the trumpet back in its case, and closing the piano lid.
In the end, Cynthia had no choice but to set down her brand-new bass guitar, which still smelled faintly of fresh wood.
Louise turned off the rehearsal-room lights.
“Cindy, you stayed at Lydia’s place last week, didn’t you? Come stay at my house tonight.”
“Oh… wouldn’t I be imposing? You have your son and your husband at home, Ms. St.Claire….”
“We have plenty of spare rooms. My son will sleep in the room next to mine… and my husband is in Baton Rouge right now.”
Louise’s calm explanation carried a faint note of reproach toward a husband who was not coming home on a Friday night. Cynthia failed to notice it and merely murmured,
“Baton Rouge…?”
She had heard the name somewhere before, but it was still the name of an unfamiliar city she could not quite place.
“It’s the Louisiana state capital, about an hour and a half west of here. The negotiations over a state grant have dragged on, so he says he’s spending the night there. He says he can’t come home to see his family, but apparently he can stay at his parents’ house? Ha.”
Only then did Cynthia realize that Louise was complaining about her husband. She could not think of anything to say.
“So there’s no need to feel awkward. Come with me.”
Louise closed the subject of her husband’s absence as neatly as she had closed the piano lid. At that point, Cynthia no longer had any real reason to refuse the invitation.
“Then… thank you for having me.”
Katty burst out laughing.
“Cindy, you’re not on any heart medication, are you? Try not to be too shocked when you get to Louise’s place.”
“What?”
“For commoners like you and me, whatever we imagine, what we see there will go beyond it.”
Cynthia grew even more confused, unable to understand what Katty meant.
Lydia joined in from beside her.
“Even I couldn’t help being shocked, and I lived in a mansion before my divorce.”
Was it some enormous, magnificent mansion?
Thinking that, Cynthia nodded before she quite knew what she was doing.
“Yes. I’ll try not to be surprised.”
Katty and Lydia left first.
Not long after Louise sent a message on her phone, the Lincoln Continental pulled up beside the road where Louise and Cynthia were waiting, its engine subdued and quiet.
Mr. Whitaker stepped smoothly and briskly out of the driver’s seat.
“A pleasure to see you again.”
Once again, Mr. Whitaker opened the rear door for Louise and Cynthia.
Overwhelmed by the courtesy, Cynthia bowed her head before getting into the car.
Vrrrum.
The Lincoln Continental’s long, low body traveled down the darkened road with a restrained exhaust note.
The cabin was quiet, insulated from the noise outside. The rear seat was especially spacious and comfortable, and the ride was almost entirely free of jolts.
Louise, seated to Cynthia’s right, spoke softly about various things.
She told Cynthia about Louisiana and New Orleans—their history and society, their geography and culture—all of it very different from the eastern United States where Cynthia had grown up.
The stories were plainly worth hearing.
But Cynthia had spent hours on a plane that day and then rehearsed with the band. She could not easily fight off the fatigue that was overtaking her.
Oh, no. I can’t start closing my eyes already.
Louise’s voice beside her was soft and measured.
The faint scent of lavender perfume drifted from her as well, making Cynthia feel deeply at ease.
Um… I can’t fall asleep already.
The thought did not last long.
Cynthia rested her head against Louise’s shoulder and slowly drifted off to sleep.
Meanwhile, the Lincoln Continental climbed onto the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.
Louise did not wake her. Without moving the shoulder Cynthia was leaning against, she quietly gazed out the window.
Beyond the glass, there was nothing but the black lake and the concrete barrier caught in the headlights. Far away, a few navigational lights blinked in the darkness.
<0016 Welcome to My Home>
The Lincoln Continental, which had been traveling at a steady speed, gradually came to a stop.
Cynthia slowly opened her eyes in the back seat.
“…!”
Realizing that she had been leaning against Louise all this time, Cynthia quickly sat upright.
“I’m sorry. I must have dozed off.”
Her face turned as red as if she had been drinking.
Louise gave her a generous, affectionate look.
“Why not close your eyes a little longer? It’s only natural that you’re tired today.”
Instead of going back to sleep, however, Cynthia looked around at where the car had stopped.
Woods farther north, beyond Lake Pontchartrain.
A stone sign stood beside a two-lane road that ran deep into the forest.
Devillis Estate.
A long stone wall extended behind the sign. Beyond it stood a sliding iron gate, a red-and-white barrier arm, and a guardhouse.
The guard touched the brim of his cap in a casual salute. Mr. Whitaker returned the gesture from the driver’s seat.
The Lincoln passed beneath the newly raised barrier arm.
“Is this your family home, Ms. St.Claire?”
“No. The gate we just passed is the entrance to the grounds of my family home.”
“The grounds….”
“The house is another half mile in.”
“…What?!”
Cynthia’s mind stopped working.
She had assumed the house would appear as soon as they passed through the iron gate.
It did not.
This was not the entrance to the house. It was the entrance to the vast tract of land on which the house stood.
The private drive inside the estate was straighter and more orderly than the public road outside.
The Lincoln Continental glided through the dark woods with a low, smooth hum.
Cynthia looked out the window.
Woods. Road. More woods. Still more road.
“We’ve arrived.”
Only after Mr. Whitaker opened the rear door did Cynthia finally come back to her senses.
As Louise got out first, she also picked up the Eastpak backpack resting at Cynthia’s feet.
Cynthia was too dumbfounded even to think of taking back her own bag.
“I wish you both a pleasant evening. Until next time.”
Mr. Whitaker gave them a courteous farewell, then drove away in the Lincoln.
“Welcome to my home.”
Louise said it brightly.
Only then did Cynthia look up.
It was not an overwhelmingly grand mansion.
At least, not when compared with the scale of the estate they had just driven through.
But it was a mansion nonetheless.
Cynthia turned to look back at the garden, and her gaze stopped for a moment on the fountain at its center.
“There’s a garden. No, that’s not the point… there’s a fountain too?”
She turned around again and looked up in turn at the two-story building before her and the white marble columns flanking its entrance.
The mansion looked as though an old French manor had been transplanted into the forests of the American South.
It bore the marks of time, but it had been carefully maintained. The columns, window frames, and doors had all been kept clean and in good repair. On the wooden door, which still retained a muted sheen, hung a bronze lion’s-head knocker with a ring held in its mouth.
Cynthia stared at the lion’s-head knocker. Rather than something a person struck to enter a house, it looked like something one faced to ask permission from a family.
“…It really is a mansion.”
Louise smiled as if it were nothing.
“It isn’t that large.”
Cynthia could not answer.
That was the most frightening thing she had heard all day.
A woman in her fifties, dressed in a neat gray suit, was waiting in front of the mansion.
The guardhouse must have notified her in advance.
She welcomed the two of them with a warm smile.
“Welcome, Miss Louise. And welcome, Miss Cynthia.”
“Miss Cynthia…? I’m just a student.”
“Yes, Miss Cynthia. Please make yourself comfortable.”
It was impossible to tell whether the woman had not heard her or had simply chosen to ignore the objection. She reached for Louise’s handbag and Cynthia’s backpack.
Louise declined with a shake of her head.
“Good evening, Mrs. Vanderwalt. Has Claudie been asking for Mommy?”
“A few times. He’s working on his picture-journal homework now.”
Mrs. Vanderwalt opened the door for them.
Only then did Cynthia realize that Louise was still holding her backpack.
“Oh, I’ll carry that!”
Cynthia hurriedly took the backpack, then looked cautiously at Mrs. Vanderwalt.
“Um… Mrs. Vanderwalt.”
“Yes, Miss Cynthia?”
“Are you a relative of Ms. St.Claire?”
Mrs. Vanderwalt smiled gently.
“If you study the family tree long enough, you’ll find a connection. But I’m not here because I’m related to Miss Louise. I’m the estate manager.”
“The estate manager?”
“Yes. I oversee the estate’s operations and its staff. In old-fashioned terms, you might say I’m the head butler and head housekeeper rolled into one.”
Cynthia froze.
“There are head butlers and head housekeepers in twenty-first-century America?”
Mrs. Vanderwalt continued to smile warmly.
“It was an analogy. My proper title is estate manager.”
“Oh. I see….”
Cynthia stared blankly through the open door at the interior of the mansion.
A heavy chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. The gleaming floor beneath it.
Portraits on the walls.
And an estate manager standing beside the door as though there were nothing unusual about her presence.
Cynthia finally understood.
She was witnessing the way America’s old-money class still lived in the modern age.
<0017 A Glass of Water>
When Cynthia stepped through the entrance of the mansion, the first thing she saw was a central hall open all the way to the second floor. Semicircular staircases curved upward on either side, and a gallery corridor with a balustrade overlooked the hall from the second floor.
A chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling. It was a real chandelier, without a trace of dust, every piece of glass sparkling separately.
The tiles covering the floor were so smooth that Cynthia worried the soles of her sneakers might dirty them.
Old paintings and mirrors hung on the walls, while polished antique furniture stood along the corridors.
Nothing looked new, nor did any of it try to conceal its age. But none of it looked worn out.
Long years preserved with money.
That was the only way Cynthia could describe it.
Three people stood beneath the chandelier.
Mrs. Vanderwalt, in her fifties. A neatly dressed man in his forties beside her. And a woman in her twenties standing with both hands folded like a hotel front-desk employee.
All three were smiling.
The man in the center spoke.
“Welcome. You must be tired after such a long journey.”
Cynthia could not answer immediately.
The mansion. The chandelier above the hall. The porcelain tiles beneath her feet. Antique furniture that might have been two hundred years old.
And three people bowing to her at the perfect angle.
“Ms. St.Claire… does your family home have… a concierge team?”
The words escaped before she could stop them.
Louise looked slightly troubled, yet remained perfectly composed.
“They’re not exactly a concierge team. They manage my family home.”
“The people who manage the house… live here full-time?”
Cynthia repeated the question in a daze. The young woman, the youngest of the three, answered without disturbing her impeccable smile.
“That is correct. Please make yourself comfortable, Miss Cynthia.”
Cynthia clenched her trembling jaw.
Comfortable? How am I supposed to be comfortable in this house? I’m just the daughter of Brooklyn bakers.
“Please give me your bag. I’ll take it to the guest room.”
The young woman took the Eastpak backpack from Cynthia’s unresisting hands and lightly climbed the stairs.
Louise took Cynthia by the hand and pulled her farther inside.
“Why are you standing there so stiffly? Come in and relax.”
“Um… should I take off my shoes? Or… am I allowed to step on this floor?”
Before Louise could answer, the middle-aged man spoke with an easy smile.
“Miss Cynthia, you may leave your sneakers on. You are our guest today. The floor will simply have to make allowances.”
Mrs. Vanderwalt joined in.
“There is no need to be nervous. Our job is to make sure our guests never feel uncomfortable.”
“Uh… mm. Mmm. Um.”
Cynthia tried to force out some kind of acknowledgment, only to realize that her throat had gone dry.
“Excuse me, but could I have a glass of water…?”
“Of course, Miss Cynthia. We have mint-lemon water, ice water, room-temperature filtered water, and sparkling water.”
Apparently, even water did not come simply in this house.
Several possible answers flashed through Cynthia’s mind.
I’m sorry. Just give me a glass and I’ll pour it myself. No, never mind. I can drink tap water from the bathroom. No, that’s not right either. I’ll just go without.
But any of those answers would clearly make the situation worse.
Cynthia held her breath for a moment and chose the response that seemed least damaging.
“Just plain filtered water, please….”
“I’ll prepare the water you requested.”
The middle-aged man strode away and soon returned with a glass of water resting on a silver tray.
A white napkin for her mouth and a small silver candy dish had been placed beside it.
“Th-thank you. Mr…?”
“Cedric Pedersson. Please feel free to call me Cedric.”
Mr. Pedersson offered her the glass with a subtle smile.
Stay calm. Don’t be intimidated by a glass of water.
Cynthia gathered her courage and slowly drank the water. Then she wiped her mouth with the white napkin.
As she placed the napkin back on the silver tray, Cynthia noticed two or three translucent white crystals in the little silver candy dish. They looked like pieces of rock salt, and her face stiffened again.
“Oh, those are sugar-free mint candies. They’ll cool your throat.”
Louise picked up one of the mint candies as she spoke. Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, she placed it in Cynthia’s mouth.
The gesture was as effortless as feeding candy to a child.
Cynthia froze with the candy in her mouth.
“I’m going to change first. Let them explain things while I’m gone.”
With that, Louise climbed the stairs and disappeared.
A moment later, the young woman descended the staircase on the opposite side. Wearing the same smile as before, she said,
“Miss Cynthia, I placed your backpack on the chair to the right in the guest room. Of course, I did not open the zipper.”
Cynthia had to make another effort to hold on to her sanity.
“Oh. Uh, yes. Thank you, Ms…?”
“Jennifer Flynn. Please feel free to call me Jennifer.”
Ms. Flynn completed her introduction without losing her composed smile. Then she gestured toward the stairs with both hands.
“May I show you to the guest room now?”