The Rules of Love & Grammar (9 page)

The hallway is lit, but the rooms are dark. I poke my head into each one, zigzagging from one side of the hall to the other, turning lights on and off as I go. A bedroom, another bedroom, a study, a third bedroom, a laundry room, an office, the master bedroom. Finally, I come to the end of the hall, and, even in the near darkness, I can see there's a room that's not a bedroom.

I flip the wall switch, and the space floods with light. Flowers are everywhere, color bursting around me. A little cry escapes my lips. It's a corner room, with the two outside walls and ceiling made entirely of glass. A greenhouse. This is it. Mom's shrine. I remember wondering why anyone would want a greenhouse upstairs and later finding out it was because Mom wanted it. For Renny. I take a long, deep breath.

There have to be at least two hundred orchids in here, most in baskets made of wooden slats. The baskets are suspended from the ceiling by wires, and the long, green roots of the orchids are growing through the slats, hanging down like Rapunzel's hair. More orchids are in pots, arranged on a large glass table in the middle of the room.

I spot phalaenopsis with blossoms of white and pink and purple; cattleyas, the traditional “corsage” orchid, with flowers of pink and white and yellow; cymbidiums of gold, red, and cranberry; dendrobiums with pale yellow petals; and vandas with blossoms of blue and pink and purple, so big the flowers barely seem real.

The scent is so sweet, I want to swoon, and the colors are almost blinding, from the softest pink to the brightest orange. I wish I could put my arms around the whole room. It's like something from a fairy tale. My heart is drumming, happiness rushing through me.

There's a wicker chair in the corner where the two glass walls meet. I walk over to sit down, to take it all in, to steady myself. That's when I see him, standing in the doorway, wearing a pale-gray shirt open at the neck, jeans, and a black jacket. I jump. It's Sean Leeds.

“Didn't mean to scare you,” he says. “Are you all right?”

“Me? Oh, sure, I'm fine.” I can feel my face turn pink, my heart race, and a prickling sensation go up and down my arms. Cluny's never going to believe this. Oh God, I hope he wasn't there to witness my singing debut downstairs.

He steps into the room and glances around. “Just checking. When you locked yourself in the bathroom for twenty minutes, I thought—”

“How did you know I was in the bathroom?” I try to steady my breath.

“I saw you go in. I came by a couple of times and knocked.” He pauses and raises an eyebrow. “Did you find your contact lens?”

“My contact…Oh, yes. Yes, I did.” I point to my eye. “Thanks.”

Sean leans over the table and picks up a pot holding a cattleya. The orchid's yellow-and-pink blossoms look like bells attached to five-pointed stars. “I figured if I didn't follow you up here, I'd never get to talk to you. I've been trying to get your attention all night.” He turns the pot around, viewing the blossoms from all angles, and then sets it back on the table.

My head suddenly reconnects with my body. “Really?” I manage to utter, a dry little croak.

“Sure. From the second I saw you in that dress.”

I freeze. Oh, no. It's not what I thought at all. He's going to give me some brotherly advice on what is and isn't appropriate to wear to a New England version of a Hollywood party.

“Yeah, I know I made a bad choice.” I look away at the spidery blossoms of an arachnis. The plant is teeming with flowers, bright yellow spotted with orange.

Sean walks toward me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Are you kidding? You look dynamite in that dress.”

I can't believe he's saying this. I can't believe Sean Leeds is touching my shoulder. I'm sure he's just being nice. Or looking for a little attention. I don't blame him, his breakup with Sydney Parker having been splashed all over the tabloids.

“Oh, you're just being nice,” I say.

“You don't think you look dynamite?”

“Uh, no. Just the opposite. Someone like Regan Moxley could pull this off with no problem, but not me.”

“Whoa, whoa.” His hand slides down my arm. “Who is this Regan Moxley?”

I feel every part of his warm hand on my cool skin, as though each of his fingers is breathing new life into me. “She's been hanging around Peter all night. Tall, thin, blond.” I pause.
“Southern.
”
I pronounce it the way Regan does, with her Texas drawl.

He looks at me, head tilted. “With the toothpick legs and the lion's mane? Are you kidding? You rock that dress. It wouldn't do a thing for her. Besides, she could never pull off that Marilyn Monroe act you did.”

Oh, no, he did see it. My stomach plummets, and for a second I don't know what to say. “I should never have—”

“Oh, yes, you should,” he says, giving my arm a little squeeze before taking his hand away. “That was the most fun I've had at a party in ages.”

I can't believe he really means this, but his expression is sincere. I finally muster up the courage to thank him.

“So, what are you doing up here?” he asks.

I could tell him the long version, but I opt for the short one. “I thought I recognized the house from when I was young. I knew I'd be right if I found this room.”

“It's a pretty cool room.” He gently touches a cobalt-blue blossom on an orchid next to me. “Look at this thing. Beautiful, huh?”

“That's a vanda.”

“A what?”

“A vanda. A type of orchid.” I can't believe I'm upstairs at Peter's party, talking about an orchid with Sean Leeds.

“I've seen lots of these before,” he says. “But I never knew what they were called.”

“You've probably seen those as well.” I point to a plant with white blossoms speckled with hundreds of tiny purple-pink dots. It looks as though a painter sat there for hours decorating them with a single hair of a brush. “That's a phalaenopsis.”

“It's gorgeous,” he says as he bends down to smell the blossoms.

“Oh, those don't smell like anything,” I tell him. “Try the one at the end of the table, in that big pot.” I point. “The one with the yellow-and-cranberry-colored blossoms.”

He leans toward the pot. “Umm. That one smells great.”

“It ought to. It's a cattleya.”

“A what?” He looks up.

“A cattleya.” Then I add, “Two
t
's.”

“Huh?”

“It's spelled with two
t
's.
C-a-t-t
…” I stop because I can't remember what comes next. Is it
ly
or
le?
Neither seems right. My mind is too fuzzy to figure it out. “Yeah, well, two
t
's. The main thing is that it's beautiful and it smells great.”

“Beauty and fragrance,” Sean says, glancing at me before inhaling the flower's scent for a second time.

“That one over there.” I point to one of the large hanging pots. Long, narrow leaves and clusters of blooms cascade over the side. “That's a cymbidium.
C-i…
No,
c-y…
Oh, never mind.”

Sean gives me a puzzled look. “How do you know so much about orchids?”

I step toward the cymbidium, conscious of putting one foot in front of the other, making sure I don't trip or do some other stupid thing. The orchid's peach-colored petals, gently striated with darker peach, are almost hypnotic. “My mother and my sister used to grow them. They had a little greenhouse. When the orchids bloomed, they used to bring them into the house and make arrangements.”

“You never got into it?” Sean says, coming over to stand beside me.

“I learned enough by osmosis.”

“I guess you did.”

I'm staring at the orange blossoms, and I can feel him staring at me. Finally, he says, “So, what was it like growing up here?”

I look at him. “In Dorset?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, well, you know. It was like growing up in any small town, I guess. When I was a kid, we skated on the pond behind the firehouse in the winter, rode bikes in the summer, went to concerts on the beach. You kind of knew everybody, and everybody knew you. It hasn't really changed much, especially in that way. That part can also be a real drawback, though.”

“I think it sounds pretty nice, people really knowing one another. I'll bet they look out for each other.”

“Yeah, I guess that's true.”

“Your friend Cluny still lives here. That says something.”

“I suppose so. It's a good place to raise kids.” I step away from the cymbidium.

“You know, you're lucky,” Sean says. “Being from a place like this, knowing this kind of life. L.A. is a completely different story. There's never any privacy. Too many tabloids and blogs to fill. And there's so much pressure to be part of the scene—to go to parties with people you'd rather not even be around, to live a lifestyle that becomes so second nature, you don't even blink when someone down the road puts a vineyard on their estate or surrounds their house with a six-pool moat.” He picks up a yellow and pink cattleya blossom that's fallen onto the table. “I grew up in L.A., and I can tell you, Hollywood is like quicksand. By the time you realize you've been sucked in, it's too late.” He gazes at the blossom between his fingers. “It's too late for me, anyway.”

I don't tell him I'd trade the life I have in a second for a chance to go to L.A. and start something new. “That sounds a little dramatic,” I say.

He laughs. “Sorry. But I
am
an actor.”

“I'm sure there are a lot of great things about L.A. you're overlooking because you're just too close to it.”

“Maybe,” he says, but he looks unconvinced. He's silent for a moment, and then he says, “Does your family still have the greenhouse?”

I run my finger down the skinny leaf of a dendrobium. “Oh, no. That was a long time ago.”

“No more orchids?” He looks disappointed.

“No. Mom doesn't grow them anymore. She stopped after…” I take my hand away. “She just lost interest.” I close my eyes for a moment, and when I open them Sean is standing before me, very close. Neither one of us speaks.

A quiet piano introduction, with notes like raindrops barely hitting the surface of a pond, signals the beginning of another song, “Silver Springs,” by Fleetwood Mac. I lean against the table and listen as Stevie Nicks sings.

“Pretty song,” Sean says. “I saw them play it once in concert.”

“It's sad, though. Stevie Nicks wrote it about Lindsey Buckingham,” I tell him. “When they were breaking up.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said. I was thinking about Peter and what might have been between us. I hope Sean doesn't think I was referring to his breakup with Sydney Parker.

“They say people do their best creative work when they're in pain.”

I've always heard that. “Do you think it's true?”

He shakes his head. “I don't know. I'd like to think people can do their best when they're happy. But maybe pain pushes us to reach for things we wouldn't have reached for otherwise.”

I wonder about Mom and all of the houses she designed after Renny died, and the houses with the shrines, like this one. Maybe those houses were her best work. Maybe the shrines made them her best work.

Sean steps closer, pushes my hair back, and gently places the cattleya blossom behind my ear. Then, before I realize what he's doing, he takes me in his arms, and we begin to dance, moving slowly around the glass table and under the hanging jungle, the scent of orchids filling the room. Somehow my feet stay under me as the voice of Stevie Nicks floats over us.

I'm not sure whether this is real or not. Part of me is trying to figure that out, and the other part of me is just trying to take in the moment for everything it is—the weight of Sean's hand on my back, the feel of his fingers clasped in mine, the faint scent of something citrusy on his skin. He dips me, and I laugh. Then he brings me back up.

I feel like Leslie Caron dancing with Gene Kelly in the dream scene from
An American in Paris.
They dance and sway, and Gene twirls her into his arms, all against the backdrop of the City of Light and a misty, blue fog. I'm not sure I'm even breathing, but somehow I'm moving, still drinking in the sensation of Sean's body against mine.

And then I hear a voice.

“So this is where you went. I've been looking all over for you, Grace.”

We stop, and I pull away. Peter is in the doorway. He's smiling, but there's something else in his face, just the smallest bit of tension, or maybe it's confusion. I don't think he's happy we're here.

“Ah, we found the greenhouse,” Sean says, with a lightness I could never muster right now. “Hope you don't mind us taking a peek. I heard it was up here, and I thought I'd drag Grace with me to see it.”

“Yes, it's stunning,” I say. Now I know why he's such a successful actor. I could never have composed myself like that.

Peter's eyes are on the cattleya blossom behind my ear. “Yeah, sure, no problem. I didn't mean to interrupt.” He looks as though he's leaving, but then he pauses. “You know, there's a DJ downstairs…if you really want to dance.”

He's still smiling, but his voice sounds a little clipped. Is he angry because we came up here? Is he jealous because Sean was dancing with me?

“So, are you coming back down now?” Peter asks, as though he doesn't want us up here alone. I could put his mind at ease about Sean in a second. But maybe I won't.

“Yeah, we're coming,” Sean says. “Thanks for letting us snoop.”

I follow them through the hall and down the staircase. Peter stops at the landing, letting Sean go on ahead. “Sean's going through kind of a hard time right now,” he says. “I'm sure you've heard. Just keep that in mind.”