Epilogue I

Epilogue I

Deseut - Stacey Kent

 

I went back to Vienna with his gorgeous ring on my finger but that didn’t mean life stopped moving. My contract with ANP lasted for another 8 months, so I kept my eye on our future and went back to work. All of the women at the office noticed the ring first and word had trickled down to Niklas who had done his best to avoid me.

The only thing that changed between Fierro and I was that we had to learn to make time for each other. I got into the habit of sending letters, it was actually fun browsing all the stationary stores for just the right paper and pen. He got in the habit of calling me and occasionally send me pictures . .  even if it was  just pictures of flowers. I actually enjoyed the small bundle of letters I’d collected and I tucked them away in a beautiful mahogany box .

Rose got the best of it because she didn’t have to go to Boston. I’d become obsessed with moving to France so we sent Rose to Parkington Dell, a so-so French boarding school outside of Paris so she could get used to the country before the big move. She’d board there for now and become a day student once we moved.

Then as it tends to go with us. . . things got strange

It started with Château Mercier

After the New Year I'd decided to start house hunting in France

Elegant, bygone and prestige was what I was looking for. Something with a lot of room and a lot of spare land.  I’d started at Sotheby’s but all the houses lacked a certain. . . charm. So, I went a bit off the beaten path and attended a tour of government owned properties in the French state of Yvelines. They were all old great houses that had been abandoned by French aristocrats over the years, some had been vacant since World War I. They had no historic prestige and were up for grabs for anyone who was willing to do just a little bit of work.

I first set eyes on Château Mercier on a cold January morning. I was stuck in the middle of two couples in the back of a golf cart as the government estate laywer drove us down Mercier's long 100 yard drive. It lead to a the main gate that opened up to the grand old house.  Mercier was built in 1815 and was 10 miles from the main neighborhood with a few acres of undeveloped land. It had everything and while technically in the small city of Versailles it was only 30 minutes from Paris. I had to jump on it and the lawyer was willing to work with me on the price.

I had to beg Fierro to come out to see it the very next weekend.

He met the lawyer and I at the gates of the property and to my surprise Fierro had Rose with him. She still had on her Parkington Dell school uniform. It was a blue jumper and yellow blouse. I liked this uniform much better than her other ones. The French had style

“Rose”, I said, “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“It’s the weekend”, she said clicking through her pink iPod shuffle.

Fierro and the the lawyer, Mr. Barnaby shook hands in introduction.

“You got quite a good deal on this château,  it’s turn of the century. One of the first big houses in France to get electricity.” Mr Barnaby said in a lilting Irish accent. We drove in Mr. Barnaby’s car up the paved pathway to the château, when I got to the end of the drive I felt a little disorientated. Very disoriented.

This wasn't right.

“What’s this”, I asked Mr. Barnaby.

“Château Mercier”, Mr. Barnaby answered.

The long drive ended infront of an imposing mold infested country château with a collapsed semi-dome roof turned black from the elements, the high smooth stone façade was crumbling and covered in colorful and very profane graffiti. The 16 mirror glass windows were blackened and a gaping hole in the front of the house served as the front door.I smelled foul water coming from the man made pond out front. Judging by the trash floating in it . . .this place was literally a dump.

“What is this ? This is not the house we looked at, Mr. Barnaby. This is not Mercier”

“Yes it is”, Mr. Barnaby said, “You said it had so much potential.”

I walked up to the house hoping it’d turn back into the masterpiece it had been when I first saw it. I had seen that. Hadn't I ?

“Nope. This isn’t right.” I walked into the house and everyone followed. There was a second terrible odor like rotting wood, “There is a hole in the ceiling for and---are those bats ?”

“We were standing right here when you signed the papers.” The lawyer said.

“You signed papers”, Fierro finally said something, “Are you telling me you bought this place, Ms. DeLune ?”

“It was on auction I had too, but it didn't look like this. Look I took pictures. It was gorgeous”, I grabbed my phone and when I flipped through the album I saw the same old decrepit house, “Oh, fuck.”

“Clara how much did you pay for this.” Fierro asked.

“Don’t worry, she got a deal”, the lawyer said, “We got it down to 4.5 million.”

“Well, I don’t want it”, I said before Fierro could say anything, “How is selling this even legal. It’s a cesspit.”

“Clara”, Fierro said evenly, “What is going on ? What have you done ?”

“I don’t know, this isn't’ right, Fierro. I would have never bought this disgusting heap of stones. It just looked so. . . I . . .”

“You might be able to sell it once you fix it up.”, the lawyer said, "But you still have to pay taxes."

Fierro who had lived in his fair share of old houses surveyed the crumbing spiral staircase and gaping hole in the roof.

“It will be costly. We are going to have to put everything we have into this place just to sell it.  Clara what were you thinking ?”

“I don’t know, I’m—“

Rose had come out the car and walked to the middle of the foyer or what I assumed was the foyer. I motioned nervously for her not to step into a mysterious oozing liquid on the ground. She peered up at the stupid hole in the ceiling , then up at the decayed spiral staircase. She held her hands out and did a slow spin. Then another.

“I like it”, she said her voice echoing in the house, “It’s quite, Papa. Just like in Carriglaine. It’s so quite. I want to stay.”

Mr. Barnaby held the deed for Château Mercier out to me and I just wanted to burn it and run. Sighing, I grabbed it from him.

“Well, Rose I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

+++

Anything that wasn’t nailed down was sold to make that damn château inhabitable. We needed as much cash on hand as possible to even hire a construction crew.

Fierro put up half the equity from the business and he sold his house in Holland and all the roses in the flourishing greenhouse he and Emile had set up there. I put my condo in Vienna on the market and moved into a discount hotel by the airport. I sold my two least favorite Birkham bags and a handful of designer dresses. Rose became a day student at Parkington Dell, with Emile commuting her back and forth.

The first 75,000 dollars went into patching old pipes and the foundation in order to get the place up to code. The second 75,000 went into ripping out the black mold infested walls and floor.  150,000 went into fixing the sewage and updating the electricity. The exterior cleaning and patching up was a cool150,000.  It cost 200,000 for landscaping plus another 200,000 to fix the upstairs and move the upstairs kitchen downstairs..the the place sort of came together.

The changes we made were all cheap and superficial, just thin layers of pretty modern design covering the old bones of the house. It was cheaper to put as few walls back in as possible and I suddenly understood why open floor plans existed.

For the last half million I splurged on marble floors for the foyer and staircase, hoping it would hide the patchwork job that was Mercier. I'd had to talk my sisters into letting me sell the beach house  which I would end up regretting later.

In retrospect I probably should have sold my engagement ring. It was maybe a bit showy and I just knew that all the diamonds on it had to be worth at least a half million. I just couldn’t part with it. It was so beautiful and heavy. . . like a paperweight.  A paperweight Fierro wasn’t going to escape from under.

I moved into Château Mercier on my birthday, it was the day after my contract ended with ANP. I’d asked Niklas out to lunch to say good-bye. . . but he never showed.  I just cut my losses and caught the earliest flight to France.

I picked up my car from the airport and drove slowly through Paris, then hopped on the A13 for Versailles. I parked into the circle driveway in front of the house and walked in with just a single suitcase and tote bag full of sheet music. The outside was pristine and the warm stone was smooth to the touch. It was breathtakingly beautiful, there was something abut the elegant mirror glass windows that gave it an air of sophistication.

The commercial crew we had to hire to do most of the work was still working on the outdoor dining area. I took out the shiny silver key and it slipped effortlessly into the brand new doors.  The foyer was flooded with light from the 16 mirror glass windows bouncing off the clean white marble floors, which were still covered in plastic.

I did a quick walk around, the kitchen appliance and large built in bar were still covered in plastic. The dinning room was empty and in the back was the former drawing room which I made into my home studio. Standing in the middle of the studio was a John Lennon Imagine series vertical piano.I ran my hands over the cool glossy surface and the etching of John Lennon on the side.

 I took the steps one at a time and admired the view from the landing. I turned down the east wing of the second floor and pushed open the door to my bedroom. When I opened the door I saw among the moving boxes  was the ghostly apparition of my younger self.

I froze for a second.  . . then blinked.

“Rose what are you doing here ?”

She had her tinted glasses on top of her head, her usually mess wavy black hair had been straighten and she wore I in a high ponytail, just like I used to do as a child.

“I wanted to explore the house”, she said.

“You shouldn’t be here alone with just the construction crew.”

“Why not ?”, she asked

“It’ just not. . . well . . Also You’re supposed to be in school right now.”

She looked me in the eye. Rose wasn’t the type to try and explain her way out of bad behavior She just accepted she had been caught and moved on. I later found out this incident involved taking one of my credit cards and ordering a car.

“I’ll call the school and tell them you’re sick but this is the last time, Rose. The three of us are going to make a long happy life here. . . in this house. So you have to be on your best most. . . ordinary behavior.”

“I will. I promise.”

“You’re not getting off that easily, you’re going to spend all day helping me unpack and go grocery shopping”

Since Rose always needed prompting I placed a box labeled ;dresses' into her arms and pointed her to the walk-in dressing room.  I opened a box labeled 'trinkets' putting away each item, one at at time.

Château Mercier is a lot like us, beautiful on the outside but a mess under the surface. The pipes didn’t always give hot water, the furnace barley worked and sometimes a tile or cheap crown molding would fall apart.

But it was home

And pretty soon we had our first house guest

Then I woke up one night miles away in a strange theater

 . . . and now there is this masquerade party.

Oh, and Rose

Rose lied

The house wasn’t so quite after all.

But that’s a story that’s just getting started.

 

A/N

I’m not sure what’s happening. I can’t believe I finished with Part I. This doesn’t even feel real.

So did anyone else catch that Clara often calls Mr. Fierro, Fierro, like Emile does ? Her dialogue will start doing this now that they are engaged. This will kind of come up later but just so you  know Clara and Fierro are going to be engaged for a very very long time. Longer than this serial goes on for.