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April in Palm Springs marked the end of tourist season. The heat was beginning to stretch into the downright uncomfortable range, locals packing it up for their more temperate stomping grounds for the summer, and only the most foolish of visitors picked this for the beginning of a prolonged stay.
But after the latest setback with surviving Wickham, Gigi was definitely feeling like that sort of fool.
Five months out of her life and still HE was still screwing with her. And what made the whole thing downright unacceptable was she was allowing it to happen-- it wasn't as if George was even aware of this latest setback. She rather doubted he'd care-- after all, he'd gotten what he had wanted from her and moved on.
She shouldn't be fleeing to her childhood sanctuary just because she saw his face in a crowd.
Maybe I deserve this heat, she thought darkly.
But the stronghold she'd built up inside herself these past five months rebelled at that, knew it was a that old Hyde trying to pull her back to the dark place she'd pulled herself from. Things were definitely looking up-- since the fiasco had broken out, she had managed a successful semester at school and had won an internship...
... an internship that was suppose to start tomorrow.
Gigi leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her bare legs and staring at the peeling nail polish on her toes, the only part of her body submerged in the water.
Because it was beginning to dawn on Gigi that any lingering fear of George Wickham had long since been replaced by a simmering anger, not the sort of thing to cause a flight to the old vacation home that had brought so much comfort to their family over the years.
But Gigi didn't have the luxury of time to explore that thought further, as the sound of the garage door creaking to life heralded the arrival of her brother.
She hadn't called William, but she had known he'd track her down.
He always did.
By the time Gigi had retreated inside, shocked by the cold blasts of the air conditioner against her swimsuit clad body, William was just emerging from the garage. Gigi could hardly find evidence of the two hour drive-- William was as well pressed as ever, though her eyes were quick to see that he'd ditched his tie.
“I think two weeks is a little close between brotherly rescues,” William pushed his sunglasses back onto his forehead, but Gigi noted he had kept his earpiece in place. Which meant this was probably going to be a short and sweet visit, that he’d pick her brain, make sure she was okay, and then turn round for the Pemberley offices and whatever he had left behind in Los Angeles.
He was probably on hold with a new investor, Gigi thought, guiltily. She knew how busy her brother was, especially since their father had died. Knowing him, he spent the whole trip trying to hammer out a deal at the disadvantage because I had to go and screw up.
But Gigi frowned then, catching his words finally. “Nothing happened two weeks ago, William. I was okay.”
Her brother's smile was tight. "Seems to me someone needed a little saving from that friendly Domino programer."
"I was doing just fine," Gigi protested, wandering towards the den and sprawling on the obscenely comfortable sofa. She knew William would follow and continued speaking. "And she wasn't hitting on me, she was just curious about what my plans were now that I'm out of the pool permanently. She was a fan, you know, of the swimming.”
William hrumphed, that awful sound in the back of his throat, the one she couldn't stand, yet had found herself wishing for the moment she'd walked into the vacation home. It was just so undeniably him— a signal he desperately needed to change the subject, but wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“I remember a time you hated it here,” William finally said, still looking around the den. It was still decorated with the stone carvings from Africa their mother had been obsessed over before she got sick. Gigi could still remember the local art dealer their mother had charmed, an earnest man who set up a booth at the Saturday market and was there every week, hell temperatures be damned.
Piece by piece mother had bought him out, stashing her prizes one by one across every possible surface, most of the collection safe in the vacation home. And even now, the smallest figurine in the collection rested on Gigi’s nightstand back in Los Angeles, one of the last gifts her mother would give her.
”One day I’ll have every piece he owns,” Gigi could just picture her mother boldly declare, a ghostly specter carefully arranging the sculptures like so had so often done, so that the largest bust caught the best light. It was the prize of the collection, a round, roughly hewn stone, etched with great skill on one side to reveal a forlorn female face. “And if he’s still hauling back more pieces when I’m gone, well, it is up to you kids to finish the collection.”
It would ended up the last piece her mother brought home, and Gigi realized with a flash of guilt that she’d forgotten that promise made so long ago. In all the years that had past since her mother had died, not once had Gigi returned to that market, the memories of mother and daughter shopping binges always still too fresh, too painful, too raw.
But Gigi realized that thinking back no longer brought a twinge to her heart— her mother never would have wanted either of them to avoid a place just because she was gone. Maybe I’ll stop in at the Saturday market while I’m here, see if the man was still in business.
“Isn’t it funny how what once endeared only hatred can grow to be a place of comfort?”
Gigi snorted. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never found the den a comfortable place. Sure it has the plushest couch in the place, but all of mom’s abandoned collections are pretty unnerving. Never had a problem with clowns, but masks and carved, blank faces? Bleh.” Gigi shuddered. If she was going to finish the collection, it definitely wouldn’t be for her enjoyment. “But you never went in here, either. Not after mom passed.”
William’s eyebrows shot up, that familiar punctuation to a thought she couldn’t quite read. He shook his head, his eyes still not quite meeting hers. “I wasn’t referring to the den, but Palm Springs in general.”
“What? I’ve always loved Palm Springs, William! You must be confusing me with someone else, like Caroline. She always hated it when the Lee’s dragged her out here. Or maybe you have me confused with yourself, considering how long it has been since you’ve been down here for something that isn't directly tied to helping fix a mess I’d gotten myself into.”
William, ever the dotting brother, reached a long arm over to awkwardly pat Gigi’s shoulder. With her brother, it was always the thought behind the gesture that mattered. “Well, that’s what big brothers are for, remembering things you’ve conveniently forgotten. Because there was a time that you hated Palm Springs— the tantrum you pulled in the car when we were driving up here for the first time isn’t something I’d likely ever forget.”
Gigi simply stared, disbelieving. She had to have been three, maybe four the first time they’d visited the vacation house— it had been back when Pemberley was still heavily in the educational software business, back before the tech bubble burst. “I have no memory of that.”
“You don’t remember the snowmen in the desert?”
* * *
“I don’t understand why we have to go to the desert. I want to make a snowman!” Gigi kicked at the back of her father’s seat, but her small feet were just too far away for the satisfying thud she was aiming for. Her sparkly Keds barely skidded across the tanned leather.
“We’re spending Christmas with your grandmother, Gigi. We’ll go up to Tahoe later in the season, but the heat is good for her spirits.” Her father eased the car to a stop, mindful of the yellow light. The SUV behind them laid into their shrill horn, but her father just frowned into the rearview mirror. “Especially with Dad gone in the wreck.”
“So why are hers more important than mine?” Gigi retorted, crossing her arms and frowning with all her might at the barren stretches of sand, sad little clumps of parched plants, and boulders straight out of the Flintstones cartoons her nanny would put on when she wanted some privacy. “Christmas should have snow! And snow angels!”
Beside her, William laughed, though he hid it behind the most fake cough Gigi had ever heard and pretended to read his science textbook. He was such a little clone of their father, Gigi frowned, wishing her Keds would reach her brother at least.
She did not like it when he laughed at her like that, and then tried to cover it up with such a terrible lie. But then again, William was hopeless at being sneaky, even when it was trying to mask his amusement.
“You’ll understand when your older, Gigi.” Her mother said with the same patience she held for annoying computer codes that refused to run correctly. Gigi rather thought the whole thing like one giant game of wack-a-mole, only with words and strange symbols, hitting the keys until everything is knocked firmly into place. “Family is the most important thing, especially around the holidays.”
But Gigi refused to be consoled, moodily staring out the window, frowning at the long stretches of barren land interrupted by short oasis's of palm tree guarded gated communities. She knew outside the car it would be so hot she might as well be swimming through the thick air itself, a far cry from the morning breezes back home in LA. Well, if the winds were going the right direction.
“You know Gigi, we can still build a snowman.” William leaned as far as his seatbelt would allow, smiling. “Even out here in Palm Springs.”
Was William trying to tell a joke? Gigi turned her frown towards her only sibling, suspicious of his weirdly carefree grin. William always smiled like he was holding precisely 68% of himself back, carefully tagged, bagged, and catalogued for internal safety against the outside world. Had someone replaced William with a Darcybot?
“You’d need snow for that, dummy! It doesn’t snow in the desert!”
William turned his book over towards her, pointing to a picture that showed a man using a street broom to push small clumps of snow down a sidewalk lined with palm trees. “Actually it does. This happened in Palm Springs in 1978— maybe it can happen while we’re here?”
“And even if it doesn’t snow,” their father spoke from the front seat, catching Gigi’s eyes in the rear view mirror and smiling. “We can always go up to the tram to Chino Canyon. This time of year there’s always snow up there."
Gigi sighed— they weren’t far from grandmothers, so it wasn’t like she’d get her way and they’d turn around for Tahoe for a proper snowy Christmas. “I guess Palm Springs isn’t so bad after all then”
“Don’t worry Gigi, I promise we’ll make a snowman.”
And indeed they did— and it became a tradition that survived three straight Christmases, broken only by the year their parents had to wine and dine aunt Catherine to invest in a rebranded Pemberley Digital… and the loss of their mother the year after.
* * *
“I wonder if there’s any snow up the canyon.” Gigi’s eyes sparkled. “It has been YEARS since we’ve made a desert snowman. I can’t believe I almost forgot about them!”
“With as hot as it was outside?” William shook his head. “I’m not going out there to find out. It would be easier to check a webcam.”
Yet even as he spoke, William’s eyes were caught on the sparkling blue pool in the window beyond the den, his hands tugging at his immaculate collar.
It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots, to know what he was really getting at. With William, you had to read behind the lines— her brother took subtle to an entirely new level.
Gigi turned away, busying herself with dusting lint from a row of figurines at arms length from the couch. “Feel free to take a dip, William, I’m sure you’ll find the water refreshing. And no, I haven’t been in the pool.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised, you haven’t been in the water since Wickham.” William spat out George’s name, with more heat than he’d held back when the fiasco had initially blown up. Time had healed neither of their wounds, it would seem, even five months on. “Gigi, don’t you think enough is enough?”
“Say that to the committee that smacked me with the ban. I can never compete again, remember?” Gigi shook her head, trying to pull back the anger still lingering in her mouth— sometimes it felt like she was choking on phantom water, drowning under the expectations of those she’d failed. Maybe it was a good thing her mother had died before she’d really gotten to see Gigi swim…
“You could fight it,” William suggested, his eyes as soulful as a wounded puppy, desperate to make good. “No one ever saw any footage.”
“It doesn’t matter. The committee ruled it conduct detrimental to the image of USA Swimming. It didn’t matter that I had no idea George was shooting— the fact that we’d been there to begin with…”
“Gigi, I know swimming still means the world to you. You missed the Olympics this time, but if you could put yourself in the water again, if we could find you a new coach, I know you’d make Rio. You broke records, Gigi.”
But she shook her head— even if her brother didn’t realize it, the whole mess was futile, had been the first day she’d said yes to Wickham. “You don’t know what it means to lose a part of yourself like that. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t really part of what Geor—what he was planning to do. I can’t magically go back and make everything right again— I’m always going to be banned. The fact is I’m out of competitive swimming for good, so what’s the point of getting in the water again?
“The point is it is 105 degrees out there and my little sister is afraid to go in the water she loves because that bastard took it away from her.” William growled, a sound so very alien to her brother that Gigi nearly fell from the couch in shock.
It was the first time they’d really talked about things since the last incident, when Wickham had showed up with vague comments of a tape and his desperate need for money.
She’d taken off for Palm Springs then, too… spent the whole time in the den, staring out at the empty pool strewn with weeds and grit from a recent sandstorm, rocking back and forth from her perch on the sofa.
It was amazing what a difference five months could make
"I'm not afraid," Gigi softly corrected her brother. "At least not of the water. I know it is still out there waiting for me... but I'm not ready yet, because I haven't figured out what I am without it."
"You are so much more than your swim records, Gigi." William shook his head sadly. "I know what some people were saying about your internship to Pemberley, but you won it on your own merits. Elicia chose you because you’d be the best fit for Domino.”
Gigi stood abruptly, rubbing the backs of her hands on her bare thighs, an old unconscious ritual left from her swimming days. “You don't understand, William, competitive swimming was my life. Getting to London was what drove me all those years-- swimming was the only thing that I felt naturally gifted at, what I knew I could be the best at. But I have to find a new path, and having to rebrand myself, just like our parents had to rebrand Pemberley all those years ago... that's what is really scary. Before Wickham, I was just that happy girl who made a name for herself in the pool. But after? Nothing is certain.”
She hadn’t realized that William had stood and drawn parallel to her until he rapped her shoulder lightly. She knew what his silence, and the gesture, really meant.
“Are you going to make me go into the pool today?” She demanded, narrowing her eyes.
William's smile was beatific.
“Even if I have to drag Bing down here to throw you in.”
* * *
An hour later found the two with their legs dangling into the sparkling blue water, sharing what little shade the small umbrella offered. It was still scorching out-- their swimsuits had dried practically the moment they'd pulled themselves from the water-- but Gigi found sitting so close to one another a comfort.
Even if her brother was a furnace on the best of days.
“Maybe one day you’ll bring a girl here,” Gigi playfully rolled her shoulder against William’s. “Hopefully soon, I’d like to be an Aunt one day. You should get on that, and soon, before your face gets stuck in that awful frown.”
It was easy to see why most of his friends called him Darcy when he raised an eyebrow like that. “Pushing the cart before the horse, Gigi?”
“Well Bing has been getting after you to join him on his latest adventure.”
“Wasn’t he at Harvard?”
“Don’t you ever check twitter?” Gigi rolled her eyes. “I know, that’s what you have Fitz for. Caroline tweeted they might be heading up to Santa Barbara— I don’t think Harvard agrees with Bing.” Gigi twisted towards the Lee property, her eyes lingering on the ill-kempt shrubs and heavily leaning palm tree. “They never come down to Palm Springs anymore.”
“Hm… if you come back to LA in time to start your internship, I might feel like I could take that vacation after all. We need a Darcy at Pemberley, even if she’s in the graphic design team.”
Gigi rewarded her brother with a smart smack on his shoulder. “I’ll be running the company once I graduate, I’ll have you know!”
William sighed. “I count on it, Georgiana. There has to be a life outside of the company…” He coughed then, as if realizing he’d let out an abnormal burst of emotion. “And I might as well track Bing down and have him do something about that tree.”
“Why William Darcy, is that a wish for a personal life I detect?” Gigi nudged William’s shoulder once more. “You might be ready for a wife after all.”
William quickly stood, shaking out his trunks. “We need to get you out of Palm Springs. The dynastic notions this place breeds are bad enough with Aunt Catherine.
“Still badgering you about uniting the families through Caroline?” Gigi smiled, sticky sweet as any of the cocktails from Tropicale’s bar
But William did not rise to the bait, reaching down to rub her shoulder in that comforting way of his. A reminder that he’d be there, always. She fought to keep her face level, least he see just how much that simple gesture affected her.
“Are you going to be okay, Gigi? Because if you need me, I can cancel the rest of my meetings for the week…”
Gigi shook her head, swallowing down the lump in her throat. "I'll be fine, I guess I just needed one last trip to the Homeland before the internship began. This is the last place we were all a family... I guess I just felt like this was where I could get my feet back under me. Thanks for coming after me."
William's hand tightened on her shoulder. "That's what big brothers are for," He smiled. "And besides, you'd do the same for me."