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“Fine, but nothing too metallic.” He removed his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose as we rode past the tasting barn and the sales barn. There were buildings scattered around. I had zero clue what they were all for. Maybe a few held big vats of wine. That made me think of I Love Lucy and then my mind went off on a tangent.
“Hey, do you got pretty Italian girls stomping grapes with their bare feet in one of them barns?” I asked, easing off the road onto a thin blacktop lane with private property signs tacked to towering maple trees that shaded the road. Up on a knoll sat the chalet that Henry called home.
“Not a one, sorry,” he countered, sitting up then rubbing at his eyes. He seemed to do that a lot, I was noticing. “Please pull up front. Barnaby will tend to your belongings and then he’ll park the car in the garage.
“I can tend to my own shit,” I replied before I could stop myself.
“As you wish,” he wearily answered, making me feel like a jerk for being so in his face when he had a headache.
“Sorry, I just got this pride thing. You know how it is when you’re a little height challenged.” He grunted. Right, he didn’t know. He was a lanky string bean of a man. “Well, when you’re on the shorter side of six feet you got to be a little snappish at times. People like to push short guys around more. I learned fast as a kid that I had to come back fast either with my words or my fists. Ma preferred words, but a lot of my coaches preferred fists. I’m good with both.”
“I meant no disrespect to your height, which is a perfectly normal height, I’m sure.”
“Totally normal. The average American male is five foot nine, so all you towering giants are the ones who are out of the normal range.”
“Well, I’m not an American-born man, but I assume that that average would be similar in France.” We crested a bend in the drive. There sat the Gaudion home on a small rise. The front was nothing but glass, both the first and second floors. When you were inside, every window looked down on vines and the lake. Gray stonework covered the sides of the chalet. There was an open balcony that embraced the elegant European style home. The grounds were small in comparison to some other mansions overlooking the water, but they were meticulously kept. No weeds growing up along the light post like back at Ma’s. ?Course, Henry had hired gardeners and Ma had me or one of my cousins to mow and weed eat. I always felt a little smaller entering this monument to incredible wealth and success. Stupid to feel lesser, but I grew up dirt poor in a deeply ethnic Flushing neighborhood. This kind of place was something that my neighbors both back in Queens and here in most of Watkins Glen dreamed of. “Pull up to the doors, please.”
I did as asked, cutting the engine a few hundred feet from the heavy front doors.
No sooner had the car quieted the doors opened and Barney, the butler, exited into the bright noon sun, not a hair out of place. Okay, I needed to stop with the hair jokes since the dude was a chrome dome like Professor Xavier. Dark suit with no adornments, bald as a cue ball, almost as tall as Henry, and properly British. Barney—or whatever famous butler as I liked to call him because it made his dark gray eyebrow twitch—wasn’t a fan of mine. I think he lumped me in with any kid or dog that arrived at the chalet. He tutted after me as if he feared I might break something or lift my leg on one of the spindly chairs stuffed everywhere in the house. Seriously, you couldn’t spin a cat without hitting some antique chair or settee or desk. Between the crazy expensive furnishings and the oil paintings on the wall—one of which I suspected as a real Van Gogh but I couldn’t be sure without maybe smelling it since old Vinnie had a thing for pipes—it was no wonder Barney was anal about people touching anything. I wasn’t into that kind of house. Homes were made to live in. If you wanted to look at furniture but not touch or sit on it then go to a museum. But hey, what did I know?
“Good afternoon, sir,” Barney said as he opened the passenger door, his sharp dark eyes flickering to me and then back to his boss. “Is there an issue?”
“Just too much sun,” Henry answered as he slid from the car. Barney made a soft grunt and touched his employer on the arm, gently with just the tips of his fingers, and began leading him into the mansion as I sat behind the wheel gawking. “Is the burgundy room ready for our guest?”
“Yes, sir, Bridgette is just now fluffing the pillows,” Barney replied, his sight locked on the house now.
“Good.” Henry paused, turned, and bent at the waist, his brows tight once again. “I’m going to lie down for a bit. Barnaby will return in a moment to show you to your room. If you wish for his aide with your bags then simply tell him. Thank you for taking over for the drive home, Philip. It is appreciated.”
“Sure,” I called, leaning forward to try to get a peek at his pretty peepers, but they were hidden behind his glasses. “Hope your head feels better!”
“Merci,” he said and was elegantly led—with just fingertips—into the chalet, leaving me sitting in an Audi that cost more than my mother’s house while spinet shit flowed out of the speakers and staring into the foyer of a house as big as four homes back in Queens.
“We ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto,” I whispered to my jockstraps in the back seat.
Chapter Four
Henri
A soft rap on my bedroom door signaled the arrival of Barnaby.
I sat up in my bed, the covers still neatly made around me as I had stretched out on top of the duvet and massaged my temples while calling for the king’s man to come in. That was a small joke between Barnaby and me, but by all the gods, it was a fitting term. He was far more than a butler or majordomo. He was one of my best friends, and also, since the death of my beloved Papa, a father figure.
Slipping in around the stout oak door, he carried a pot of tea and fresh madeleines.
“Please, turn on the light,” I whispered, easing to the edge of the bed enough so that my toes brushed the plush carpeting. “What time is it?”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” he replied as he set the large silver tray on a small tea table placed in the corner of the white and peach master suite. “I know you dislike sleeping too long during the day as it disrupts your nighttime rest, so I thought to pour tea and bring some treats. Would you like some of your headache powders?”
“No, thank you, it’s eased now. I’d misread the weather forecast, and the sun was far too bright for me.” I slipped off the thick mattresses, letting my bare toes dig into the carpet, then pushed to stand. “My rush to see what upset had happened with our good pastor caused the mistake.”
“Ah, I see. Those things happen, sir. May I enquire as to why you were not wearing your bioptic driving glasses?” His question was freed into the darkened room like a bird from a cage. The query sounded innocent enough, but I knew what he was getting at. I’d known the man my entire life, same as Madame Lorrie. They’d both come over from France with Papa and Mama all those years ago to serve as they had for years. Madame was widowed and childless, so she had no great ties to her homeland. Barnaby had never had a partner that I was aware of, nor any children, so leaving Europe behind had been an easy call for him.
“I was so shaken by the request to take Mr. Greco into our house that I forgot they were in the glove box,” I lied as I padded over to the table and took a seat.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Greco is troubling news indeed. He’s currently outside chatting up the gardening staff as they try to mulch the flowerbeds. I did ask him to stop so the crew could finish their work in a timely manner, but he smiled in that way of his and told me a redundant story about one of his cousins and a penguin.”
“That sounds like him,” I replied, hiding a tired smile in my teacup. The tea was perfectly brewed, a light touch of fresh mint adding to the herbal mix that I drank. Modern medicine could only do so much for my JMD, so I tried other means to ease the strain. Tea and Madame’s freshly baked goodies worked wonders for weary eyes and flagging spirits. “He seems to have an endless supply of relatives, all who appear to be rather flamboyant in some manner.”
