Extract from LOVED ME ONCE

From CHAPTER FOUR: MAGGIE’S VIEW OF LAKE VIEW

As the extract begins, it’s the week before Christmas in the mountains of midstate New York. We join Mr. Beverly, the Events Manager at Lake View Lodge and Maggie McLaurin, a professional trainer and communicator. Mr. Beverly has just finished showing the newly arrived Maggie the seminar facilities booked by her company, WHT Consulting, for the next few days and is now giving her a mini-tour of the atmospheric Victorian resort as he walks her toward the elevator leading to the suite reserved for her. As they continue down the long, dim corridor of the old mountain lodge, instead of the Christmas carols that are supposed to be the afternoon’s program in the Tea Lounge, they hear dance music. The music reminds Maggie of Miles Brewster, a well-connected Boston business acquaintance who’s been more or less on her radar for almost two years but has never progressed past an easy friendliness. As far as she knows, Miles is back home in Boston, but they have dinner arrangements the coming weekend in New York, where Maggie lives.

As the corridor meandered along, Maggie became aware that the Christmas carols had been replaced by dance music, Gershwin she thought. It made her think of Miles. He was especially fond of Gershwin.

“Catchy music,” she commented, but Mr. Beverly was frowning.

“Thank you, but it isn’t what’s supposed to be playing. Do you mind if I look inside the Tea Lounge to make sure everything’s all right?”

The music shifted, from the lilt of the Gershwin song to a more-plaintive ballad, the sort to which her parents had danced as music drifted across the warm summer night from the phonograph in the living room. She could almost recall the words, something romantic, yet wistful. She remembered sitting on the stairs, clutching her teddy bear, watching the two of them moving slowly, the closeness of their bodies and precision of their movements giving meaning to lyrics she did not understand. “Castles in Spain” – those words she had understood. Her parents had been to Spain, had stayed in a castle. There was a picture of the two of them standing close together on the ramparts, looking out toward the sunset horizon of a crimson sea. In the photograph, they looked impossibly young – younger than the duration of her memory – and happy. Her eyes filled with tears. Perhaps her father had been the lucky one, to die while he was still himself. She doubted her mother could even remember the castle in Spain, much less the late-night dances with the husband now dead for over three decades.

When they reached what turned out to be the Tea Lounge, its sliding doors were open. Mr. Beverly paused and looked inside. It was a larger room than any other they’d passed, probably forty feet square with beamed ceilings, a bank of windows at the far end, and a substantial ceiling fixture dimmed to the level of candlelight. Before the windows, at one side, stood an enormous Christmas tree whose lights were reflected in the glass, their glow a warming color against the near-darkness. The music was coming from a quartet playing next to the tree – violin, cello, flute, and baby grand, its shiny black surface also reflecting the tree lights. On one wall a sizable fire blazed on a stone hearth large enough to walk into. Clusters of small chairs with balloon-shaped backs sat around the perimeter of the room, and, in its center, parquet provided a dance floor that was being used by one couple. They moved gracefully across its polished surface, their form so classic that Maggie almost felt she was watching one of the old Fred Astaire movies that had so fascinated her on TV when she was no more than eight or nine. The whole thing was beautiful, and unexpectedly moving, an image of the sort of elegant pleasure that this time of year should bring, but so rarely did. Perhaps the scene affected Mr. Beverly in the same way, for he hesitated before advancing into the room. It was only after he’d begun to move toward the quartet that Maggie realized several older women were sitting together, close to the tree, watching the dancing couple.

They were worth watching. They did not put a foot wrong but seemed to be drawn along by the music, the man leading and the woman following as a single unit. It was clearly a case of movement as art and a couple still very much in sync, she thought, but then she took a closer look and realized that this almost certainly wasn’t a couple as such. The woman was much older, probably in her seventies and beautifully dressed in a rose-colored gown that swung around her legs, while the man, wearing a dark well-cut suit, couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty. Mother and son, Maggie decided. The music stopped when Mr. Beverly reached the end of the room, and the dancing male said something to the woman and walked over to where Mr. Beverly had begun to talk to the pianist, who was evidently the leader of the group.

She waited just inside the door, watching. When the younger man arrived, Mr. Beverly turned as if about to confront him, then his body posture changed and he extended his hand, his smile visible even from the door. Must be an honored guest, Maggie thought wryly. Then the two men turned and headed toward her as the quartet resumed its playing of Christmas carols. The younger stopped for a moment to say something to his former partner, then he looked up and straight into Maggie’s eyes, and she saw that it was Miles.

An odd sort of feeling came over her, a kind of warmth that she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was as if she’d been wandering alone, and now suddenly felt she’d reached what she’d been seeking and, amazingly, it was Miles who waited there. A tingle went through her body, and she hugged herself. It seemed to take the two men an eternity to cross the room to where she stood. Mr. Beverly immediately began to apologize.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Mr. Beverly said. “It turns out that Mr. Brewster,” he nodded toward Miles, “was giving a treat to the ladies. They expressed a desire to dance, and he persuaded the musicians to make it possible. He’s evidently been taking turns with each.”

Meanwhile, Miles had reached out and enveloped Maggie in a tight hug, saying to Mr. Beverly, “Don’t worry, Bev, it’s perfectly respectable. We’re old friends.” Maggie was immobile. The whole thing was so unexpected. Her heart had actually stood still before it began to beat wildly. She stepped back, glad of the dimness of the lighting, sure that she was blushing. Miles said nothing as she moved away, but the look he gave her was quizzical, even appraising, making her even more uncomfortable.

“Mr. Beverly was about to show me my room, but I think I’d rather hear what you’re doing here,” she told him.

“No reason you can’t do both,” he said reasonably. “I’ll tag along and explain.”

He did have a reason, of sorts – his mother, he said, had asked him to check out a specific venue for a business party she was thinking of throwing and he thought it would be more fun to do it when he knew Maggie would be here. They could at least meet for dinner. When he said that, Thomas Beverly gave Maggie a look that, although friendly, could only be described as having more an air of evaluation than was entirely comfortable. It made her suspect that the hotel manager knew Miles very well.

The three of them rode a somewhat creaky elevator to the hotel’s fifth floor. “We don’t count the mezzanine,” Thomas Beverly explained.

Off the elevator he continued to point out other features. “Our master suites on this floor are off that corridor. They consist of a sizable sitting room and two to four bedrooms, each bedroom with a private bath. If you require larger accommodation during your stay, Ms. McLaurin, I’m sure we could arrange to have you moved.”

“What’s already arranged will be fine,” she assured him hastily. His manner, which had been pleasantly professional from the outset, had suddenly become gracious, and she knew why. It was the fact that Miles had shown up. Everyone, it seemed, knew Miles, or at least knew his family. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Miles had substance. Her mother would have approved of Miles, especially when she was still totally herself. He was exactly the sort of man she would have been pushing at Maggie. Was that why she hadn’t warmed more to him before, at least romantically? The lack of attraction had nothing to do with his looks or personality. She’d always thought him appealing, and the giggly girls weren’t the only ones who noticed how well he wore his clothes or the deep blue of his eyes.

Now he was interesting. Not handsome, better than handsome – compelling. She caught her breath, puzzled. What was going on here? When his arm brushed hers as they walked along the corridor to her room, she instinctively moved away, already far too sensitized to his presence to invite further contact. She realized that she should say something, anything, that she’d been far too quiet.

“When did you arrive?” she asked Miles.

“Last night,” he told her. “I had some things to do.”

“In connection with the event?”

“Definitely in connection with an event,” he told her.

Mr. Beverly had stopped before the last door, at the end of the corridor. “I think you’ll like this accommodation. Because of its location, as I mentioned earlier, it has windows and balconies that overlook both the lake and the gardens.”

As she’d expected, the junior suite was more than acceptable, with its vaguely Victorian furniture and two sets of large French doors, presumably leading onto the balconies. It was a pretty room, with rose-upholstered chairs, real watercolors of forest scenes in gilt frames, and a rose-and-tan carpet with a faded pattern of random paisley. Through the French doors that led into the bedroom area, she could see that the color scheme carried through. Even the bed had a coverlet of faded tan-and-rose paisley.

Mr. Beverly continued to point out the features of the junior suite, telling her that the fireplace worked. “Your first fire is laid, and you’ll find additional wood in the chest next to the hearth. If you need more, just call downstairs, and your room attendant will take care of it.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, impressed. She might be on her way out at WHT; but at least she was going out in style.

“Where did they put you, Mr. Brewster?” the manager asked, turning to Miles. ‘Did your usual preference become available?”

“The Prince Albert,” he nodded. “Just what I wanted.”

“And your other arrangements?” Mr. Beverly lowered his voice somewhat, and Maggie found herself wondering if Miles had brought one of his girls here. More to the point, she found herself caring if he had, which was something completely new.

“Yes, thanks. The staff’s handled everything perfectly, Bev,” Miles grinned. “As usual.”

“Excellent. Now if you will excuse me . . . ” Mr. Beverly started to leave, then turned back. “I almost forgot, Ms. McLaurin. Your office requested a couple of spa appointments for you. The first is for one of our special seventy-five-minute facial treatments, and it’s due to begin in,” he checked his watch, “a quarter of an hour. I’m sure we can change the time if that’s inconvenient . . . ” He glanced at Miles as if to get his approval, then turned his eyes back to Maggie.

“No,” Maggie said hastily. “The appointment is fine. I think a facial would be wonderful. Just what I need after a long day.” She had been feeling awkward standing next to Miles, not ten feet from a bed. She wondered if the manager would leave the two of them, thinking they wanted privacy. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, all things considered. What happened downstairs had blindsided her. She needed time to sort out this odd feeling, this unexpected shift in her reactions to Miles. Here was breathing space, an excuse for leaving the room that was provided by circumstances.

“I’ll go with you, and you can point me in the right direction.”

“I know where it is,” Miles said. “It’s next to the gym. I’ll show you.”

“Excellent, excellent,” Mr. Beverly said absently, looking at his BlackBerry, his mind already on the next thing he had to do. “I’ll see you back to the elevator lobby and leave you two on your own.”

After he left them in the elevator to continue to the ground floor, Maggie turned to Miles and said the first thing that came into her mind. “That was very nice of you to dance with those women in the Tea Lounge.”

“I enjoyed it,” he told her, looking sincere. “I hope I can still get that much fun from something when I’m their age.”

“I didn’t know you could dance like that.”

“I have many unsuspected talents,” he said, smiling, “and others with which you are definitely familiar, such as ordering food. In fact, I’ve reserved a private dining room next to the hotel dining hall, and we’re having dinner there. Just meet me at the reception desk at 8:30, and I’ll show you the way. There’s something of a dress code, by the way.”

“No jeans or bare feet,” she grinned, feeling  a sense of relief. If he were here with someone else, surely he wouldn’t be asking her to dinner.

The elevator came to a creaking stop, and they went into the corridor where, a few feet away, was the entrance to the spa.

“Well, maybe designer jeans,” Miles grinned. “But definitely no bare feet.” He leaned over and kissed her, his lips warm and firm, then opened the door to the spa and ushered her inside, her cheek still tingling.

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© 2009, Gail Hewitt. All rights reserved.

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