Just a Kiss Away (2 page)

Binondo District, Manila, 4:00 P.M.

The house stood tall, impressive by its sheer height. Prized white coral rock formed the walls around the city estate, walls that blocked out the strange foreign mix of cultures on the island, walls which also ensured that the area within was the way the owner wanted it—private, protected, and perfect.

There were two iron gates, one in front and one in back, embellished with an intricately carved grapevine motif, the exact same design used in the high transom windows of the house. Layer after glossy layer of thick black paint coated the gates and the small iron grilles that crowned the many windows of the house. Not one spot of the ever-prevalent island rust marred the home of Ambassador LaRue, of the Belvedere, South Carolina, LaRues, owners of Hickory House, Calhoun Industries, and Beechtree Farms.

Within those precious coral rock walls there was no bustle, just a courtyard paved in rich burnt-red imported tiles identical to those that shingled the steep pointed roof of the house. No breeze fanned the dark glossy leaves of the crape myrtle trees that stood like proud sentries in that still courtyard. But beads of humidity spotted and sparkled from the thick climbing vines of Chinese honeysuckle that draped just like South Carolinian wisteria from the wrought-iron balconies of the second story.

A fragrance swelled through the courtyard, the rich, sweet smell of the tropics. Breaking the silence, a distant tapping drifted down from an open corner window in the second story. The tapping was slow, yet for some odd reason had the sound of impatience. It faded for a moment, then grew, faded, then grew, repeating over and over until it stopped with the suddenness of a gunshot.

Eulalie Grace LaRue plopped into a chair and rested her chin on a tight fist. She frowned at the tall clock ticking away its eternal minutes. It read four o’clock. She switched fists. That took up two more seconds. She sighed—a delicate, all-encompassing southern sound, honed to perfection over the years by the genteel alumnae of Madame Devereaux’s Ladies’ Conservatory, Belvedere, South Carolina. That took up four whole seconds.

She glanced at the clock again, wondering how three hours could seem like years. But it had been years, she reminded herself, seventeen long years since her father left Hickory House, the ancestral home of the LaRues of South Carolina, for his foreign post somewhere in Europe.

Her mother, a descendant of John Calhoun, had died in childbirth when Eulalie was two, so her father had left her in the care of her five older brothers and a few trusted family servants. She could still remember how, days after he’d left for his foreign post, she had asked her eldest brother, Jeffrey, where the place called Andorra was. He’d taken her hand and led her down the curved mahogany staircase to the giant dark oak doors of the room Eulalie had been forbidden to enter—one of the many things forbidden her because she was female. At the time, her five-year-old mind had dubbed her father’s study “the forbidden room,” but over the years there were so many “forbiddens” she had run out of terms.

On that particular day when her brother first opened the doors, she had balked, standing in the doorway twisting the blue velvet ribbons that held back her blond hair. He’d reassured her that it was all right for her to come into the room as long as one of her five brothers was with her. She could still remember the sense of awe with which she had tentatively followed Jeffrey into that huge, dark, wood-paneled room.

The room had seemed stuffy and tight and she’d felt a flush of heat that made her stomach tighten. She’d taken a few deep breaths and hardly had a chance to take in her surroundings before her brother led her to the tall globe that stood next to a massive desk. He spun the globe, an action that’d made her even dizzier until he stopped it, and showed her a small pink spot on the map. He told her that was where her father was.

She could remember staring at the small pink dot for the longest time. Then she’d asked if their father would be okay and when he would come home. Jeffrey had just looked at her for a long moment, then told her what a pretty little LaRue lady she was, with her big blue eyes and silky blond hair, just like their mother, and that little girls, especially the LaRues, needn’t worry about such things. At that exact moment, Eulalie had been struck with the stomach ague, and she’d upchucked on the desk.

Jeffrey never answered her question.

And in the subsequent years, the question had still been evaded. Yet whenever a letter from her father had come, Jeffrey had always brought her into the study—first making sure she was well—to see the colored dots on that globe: from Andorra to Spain to Hejaz to Persia to Siam and, most recently, to the Spanish colony of the Philippine Islands. Somewhere around the age of fifteen, Eulalie had stopped asking when her father would come home, but she’d never stopped hoping.

All that hope and prayer came to fruition three months ago, when another letter had come to Hickory House. She had been arguing with her brother Jedidiah about whether she should be allowed to take the carriage to a special tea without a brother in tow—a request she knew was fruitless, but was nonetheless worth the effort since it killed the boredom of that afternoon—when Jeffrey had called a family meeting. Jedidiah had immediately scowled at her and asked what the hell’d she done now.

Offended by his attitude, yet no less anxious to hear what Jeffrey had to say, she’d used every bit of Madame Devereaux’s training and stuck her nose high in the air, grabbed her skirts in hand, and walked right past her scowling brother with all the ladylike grace of an organ hymn, for about five feet . . . . Then she’d hit a sour note. She’d tripped on the silk fringe of the Aubusson carpet and had reached out to grab the nearest thing—the mahogany smoking stand. They both went crashing down, along with her brothers’ imported cigars and fifty-year-old French brandy.

Eulalie chewed a nail and frowned at the memory. It had taken three days to convince her brothers, especially Jed, that she could travel to the Philippines as her father’s latest letter had requested. She could still remember the joy she’d felt when Jeffrey read the letter. Her father wanted her to come to the Philippines as soon as possible.

All five brothers had started arguing about it. Jeffrey said he still felt she was too young, but then, he’d always thought of her that way because he was fifteen years older than she. Harlan said she was too fragile, Leland claimed she was too naive, and Harrison said she was too helpless, but Jeffrey read on, and all those fears were put to rest, because her father had arranged for her to travel with a family, the Philpotts, Methodists who were on their way to save the heathens of the lower Philippine island of Mindanao.

Eulalie had been so excited. The excitement died the minute Jed had opened his mouth. Although eight years her senior, he was the most vocal of her brothers. He’d claimed that wherever she was, an accident would happen. Immediately five sets of blue male eyes had turned to the empty spot where the smoking stand had once stood. Then they’d all looked at her.

She’d claimed he’d never forgiven her for falling into that old dry well when she was three and he was the only one small and thin enough to be lowered down to save her. She’d said it wasn’t fair to blame her for something that happened when she was three. For three days they argued, mostly Eulalie and Jed. He had rambled on, likening her to the opening of Pandora’s box. He’d spouted off a parcel of things that could happen to her and made her sound like the plague. She’d argued she wasn’t a jinx, as he’d said. Everyone knew there was no such thing. His only answer had been that he had the scars to prove it. So by Saturday night she was reduced to tears, deep sobs that swelled from her disappointed depths like the sea in a storm. She cried all night.

But God must have been on her side because it was the sermon on Sunday that freed a puffy-eyed Eulalie from Jed’s claim. Pastor Tutwhyler picked that exact morning to talk about how superstitions were the devil’s foolery, and a true Christian would never succumb to such ideas. She could have run from the LaRues’ front pew and kissed the man the moment he’d started preaching. After the service she’d heard Mrs. Tutwhyler talking about how the Reverend was inspired by Belvedere’s newest establishment, a palm reader from New Orleans. But Eulalie didn’t care what inspired it. The sermon had done the trick.

And now, three months later, she was here, sitting in a bedroom of her father’s home in Manila, waiting as she had for all those years. She’d arrived a day earlier than expected and her father was in Quezon Province, supposedly returning by noon today.

A knock sounded at the door and Eulalie looked up. Josefina, her father’s housekeeper entered, a piece of paper in her hand. “I’m sorry, missy, but your father’s been delayed.”

Her stomach dropped, and the air in the room seemed suddenly stuffy. She wanted to cry, but she didn’t. She sagged back in the chair, disappointment making her shoulders droop far more than Madame Devereaux would have ever allowed. She took a deep breath, gave the ticking clock one last look, and did what she’d been forced to do for so many years. She waited.

The jungle thickened.
The machete couldn’t cut through fast enough. The bushes blocked Sam in. He dropped to the ground and crawled under the wood ferns, dragging himself over the hard exposed roots and clammy earth. Lizards shot past him. Several bamboo beetles over two inches long crept over from the thick humus that covered the jungle ground. Twigs and damp leaves caught on his hair, pulled at his eye-patch string. He stopped to unhook it, breaking off the green twig that had snagged it. A milk white sticky sap dripped from the broken vine. Sam rolled, dodging the liquid. It was a leper plant whose sap could eat an acid path through human skin in less than two minutes.

One deep relieved breath and he crawled farther. The vines and jungle seemed an endless trap. The sound of hacking still echoed from behind him. They hadn’t reached the thick stuff. That knowledge sent him on, crawling over the damp ground, completely entrapped by twisted jungle cover. Sweat still eked from every pore in his body. It was sweat from the humidity and sweat from his nerves.

A slick black vampire snake with a bite more torturous and deadly than a stake through the heart slithered among the vines near his head. He lay still as stone. The sound of hacking knives and splitting bamboo broke from behind him. Without taking a breath, he watched the small reptile’s glassy green stare. Luckily, the snake’s thick-lidded eyes were turned away from him. Its jet-colored triangular scales undulated as it slid in a sinuous motion up, over, and through the tangled roots.

From behind him, the hacking stopped. So did Sam’s heart. The men had reached the dense thicket of jungle. His heart took up the beat again, growing louder and louder. Between the snake and the soldiers, Sam was trapped.

The narrow street swelled
with people—Spanish, Chinese, and native—a common island sight, unlike the frilly pink parasol that was the exact color of the Calhoun azaleas. It twirled like a brilliant silk top above the dark natives who milled in the busy street. The parasol paused, letting a Filipino family pass by. The woman turned and chided her daughter along. The daughter, a lovely girl of about thirteen, giggled and, in their native language, said something to her parents. The man and woman laughed, joined hands with the smiling daughter, and disappeared into the crowd.

Beneath the shade of that absurd little pink parasol, Eulalie turned quickly away, her stomach somewhere around her throat. It didn’t do any good to wish for something that could never be, but she couldn’t help feeling a little lonelier and a little sadder.

She picked nervously at her high lace collar, now little more than a damp bit of scratchy linen that had flopped over her mama’s wedding cameo. She tried to block out the image of the family while rearranging the collar. Her fingers hit the cameo, paused, and unconsciously ran over the delicate carved contours of the brooch. She attempted to smile, but failed, swiping in agitation at her damp hair instead. She looked heavenward, at the sun, as if seeking the strength she needed to ignore her desire for the loving parents she’d never had. A long moment passed before she moved her parasol a bit closer to her head, an attempt to block out the heat of that withering tropical sun.

Her expression pensive, she gave a small sigh for what could never be, and she walked through the Intramuros, where the old walled sections still protected the inner city of Manila. She went out one of four dark gray-stone arches and into the outlying northern streets, heading for the marketplace. Josefina said the Tondo market was a busy, teeming place where she could bide some of her time until her father returned from the interior that night. She had been so nervous and anxious that she’d spent the morning pacing and watching the tall clock in the salon. Finally she’d chewed one nail to the quick before she decided that the housekeeper was right.

Parasol twirling, she stepped up on a primitive walkway and continued along, her small, squat heels tapping a hollow sound like a bamboo marimba, only slower, for a lady never hurried. Instead, she glided, just as Madame Devereaux bred into her girls, imagining the yards of skirts as sails, moving around her in a slow undulating rhythm like a wave hitting the shore. A true lady could feel the correct tide of rhythm as naturally as a native felt the beat of a drum.

Her French kid shoes—the new ones with the darling square toes in shiny black creaseless patent leather—crunched on a bed of slick stones inlaid in the middle of the dirt walkway. She’d heard tell that the stones were there to pave the dip where tropical rainwater and mud collected nine months out of the year.

She stepped on a stone and sank ankle-deep into mud. She jerked her foot out of the mud hole and hobbled over to the adobe building across from her. She closed her parasol and leaned it against some stacked baskets lined up like tin soldiers along the walkway. Hankie in hand, she cleaned her shoes and then stared at the ruined hankie. It wasn’t worth saving, so she tossed it into a spittoon and turned to retrieve her parasol. In one quick motion, she popped it open and turned, never seeing the baskets teeter and fall, one by one, like dominoes down the walkway.

Of course she went in the opposite direction of her father’s house, nestled in Binondo. The streets were filled with wagons, carts, and crowded horse-drawn trolleys emblazoned with the name Compailia de Tranvias. Josefina had told her about the trolleys and how her father felt about them.

A fatal disease called surra ran rampant, sucking every bit of life from the native horses. The trolley company didn’t care, choosing instead to run the poor animals until they literally dropped dead in the streets. Sympathy for the horses and anger at the company’s cruel practice kept her father from using the trolleys.