Chapter Text
***August 25, 2026***
"I still don't see why we have to get dressed up to drink tea," Randall Goren said disconsolately, pulling at his tie.
"It isn't really about tea," his mother, former NYPD detective and squad captain Alexandra Eames Goren, tried to explain again as she gave one final look at herself and her blue flowered-print tea gown in the long mirror.
"It's like a nice restaurant," his sister Olivia offered, checking her full-skirted blue-and-violet tartan print dress beside her mother.
Randall sighed. "A girl thing."
Robert Goren, sharp in a navy-blue suit, pale-blue shirt, and black-and-navy striped tie, chuckled. "Be fair, buddy. They did the escape room with us yesterday morning and hung around Lewis's shop all afternoon while we talked cars. Remember about compromises."
"I thought we all enjoyed the escape room, and Mom likes cars," Randall reminded as Bobby straightened his blue tie for him and attempted a last taming of his unruly dark hair, then muttered that he almost would have preferred the American Girl store.
"I don't care about dolls," Olivia had retorted loftily. "I'm practically thirteen and I only played with dolls at infants' school."
"Thirteen's not much unless you have a bar mitzvah," Randall shrugged, resigning himself to the tie and suit jacket.
"Everyone contributed to the wish list," Alex pointed out. "You had the Columbo escape room, sweetie, and we all wanted to visit Lewis. Today, for lunch we're doing Cole's Tea Room, which Min and I chose, and we'll go to Radio City Music Hall."
"I know someone there who can get us into parts of the building no one ever sees any longer," Bobby reminded, lastly checking himself out in the mirror. Alex gave him an approving smile--he was growing a full beard out again, and she thought its silvery color gave him a dashing air--and lifted the apartment keys from the big Florida seashell next to the front door.
"Eames," and the children always smiled in the affectionate way their father still called their mother by her last name, "do you think this new gimmick will help save Cole's?" As he spoke, Bobby shepherded the family out of Steve and Liz Hogan's apartment and made certain the door was locked.
Out of nowhere in May, sometime soon after Randall's adoption was finalized, Alex's brother-in-law Stephen announced that it was "high time" he took his wife on a second honeymoon cruise. It was scheduled for late August into early September, and, since St. Gregory's Academy didn't start classes until after Labor Day, he proposed to the Gorens that, while he and Elizabeth were away, they use their apartment; bring their collie and the budgie and spend two weeks in New York City visiting old haunts and old friends.
Carlos Serrano lobbied to house-sit and keep alive the little tomato and cucumber plants growing in buckets outside their sun porch, to which they agreed. Their young neighbor and friend had grown even more serious since the February incident where a pedophile ring had spirited away his best friend Tito. Bobby and Alex both knew he was chafing to do something adult to contribute to the family finances (he and his younger sister Luciana were supported by their abuela, Abril Diaz), so they had proposed an acceptable salary, then happily decamped to the Hogan apartment.
Wise to her family's ways, Alex had suggested that no one take a book along, since they would probably buy more; predictably, on their first full day, they had spent an afternoon at the Strand near Union Square. She had joked that she would bring her laptop while they lost themselves in the four-story bookstore, but the whole family had found something to read. Now Bobby was carrying a worn paperbound book from 1928 called Frederick's Guide to New York, which had a description of their destination in its heyday.
=== two days earlier ===
Alex was sitting in bed absorbed in the newest Scarpetta novel when Bobby appeared in the doorway. He still read to the children at night, although even several of their friends had ventured that they thought either Olivia or Randall would have outgrown the ritual by now, but neither had asked him to stop. They were now dipping into books with more adult themes--he was currently reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, totally appropriate for a New York City visit.
He watched her read for a few minutes, head bent, hair tied back and draped over her right shoulder, noticing the softness of her expression, glad to see that she looked more relaxed each day. He had worried about her since they returned from SpaceFest; the shock of his being held at gunpoint along with former colleague Lynn Bishop and actor Mason Wagner had an effect that she tried to shrug off, but he could not avoid noticing. During their first week home, she had trouble sleeping, and even now, later in August, at least once a week he felt her restlessly slipping out of bed.
The first time, he'd padded in her wake to find her curled on the loveseat in the front parlor with the lamp on low, one of her old favorites in front of her, but she had spent much of the time staring into the fireplace with its bouquet of artificial sunflowers for summer. When she put her book down as if returning to the bedroom, he had raced upstairs, barricading himself in the bathroom with the light on until she was in bed and his breathing was level again. Once he slipped back under the covers, he'd uttered a sleepy murmur and reached for her as if in need of reassurance, and she had burrowed into him for solace. After that, he left her alone, snuggling with her when she returned, and the restlessness had ebbed.
Truth be told, he wasn't over the incident, either. The barrel of the Glock haunted him as the punishment room at Tate's had, a small round hole that grew to enormous proportions and swallowed him whole in his dreams. He was talking it out with Dr. Chaudry, as he knew Alex must be, and worried about yet so many other things: Carlos' taciturnity, his failure to hear from Harry Cavanaugh out in Pennsylvania...and Randall's upcoming first day in the Upper School at St. Gregory's. He saw so much of himself in Randall--yet Randall was more vulnerable, not having endured the prolonged tempering of infidelity and mental illness, long-term hand-to-mouth, and the ever-present fear of "what if."
"Are you even here, Bobby?" Alex asked.
She had set the book on the nightstand and was watching him with those steadfast caramel-colored eyes that had borne him through so many crises; he'd dreamed of them when they'd been apart.
"Five hundred yard stare," he answered sheepishly, then padded, barefoot, to her side of the bed, and sat at the edge of the mattress, his right hand resting on her thigh under the blanket and sheet. "How does it feel to be home?"
She had her hands folded in her lap, the very picture of a model student, her head tilted to the left, thinking of their arrival the previous day, dickering with the garage attendant at the Hogans' building, then transporting their pets and then their suitcases upstairs before emerging into the overheated streets to the nearest market, despite Lizzie having left the refrigerator stocked with milk, juices, covered dishes for their first few nights, loaf cakes and ice cream for desserts--even a box of dog biscuits.
"Everything looks the same--and it sure does smell the same." Alex's grin was mischievous, for the overwhelming scent of car exhaust, subway ventilation shafts, cigarettes, trash cans with lids ajar, hot pretzel vendors, and hot metal had been both nostalgic and pungent. "But..." She looked earnestly at him, laying her hand over his, "...but home is with you...and our kids..." Here her eyes twinkled. "...and what Abbi calls 'our little zoo.' We could be in Africa now, or Asia, and I would be home."
"Eames," he began, leaning forward, and she did so as well, so their foreheads touched. Unexpectedly, he said, "I'm sorry...about Saunders..."
"As if you expected a spoiled TV producer's son to show up with a pistol at a friendly talk to clear the air?" she asked skeptically. "A pistol given him by a mobster's son who probably would have taken the ruby ring he wanted and left him high and dry? You aren't boarding that guilt train again, Agent Goren. I don't want you saying, 'I should have known.'"
"Yes, Captain Eames," he responded in mock obedience.
"We're here to sightsee and chill," she added as their heads parted.
"Definitely sightsee," he agreed, thinking of the previous day.
"Papa, why hadn't you ever been to 30 Rock?" Olivia had asked, bemused, when they went to the roof of Rockefeller Center. Thunderstorms had popped up as they ate breakfast and made ready for the day, and the air was rain-washed and clear when they admired the view.
Bobby had chuckled, "New Yorkers never go to their own tourist attractions. I lived in Milbury two years before I even hiked up to the mill with your mother."
"Sounds weird to me," Randall had said.
"We have a week's itinerary already," Alex reminded him now, and her voice took on a secretary's cadence. "Wednesday is lunch at Mama Rosa's with Mike and Carla, museum trip to be decided. Jack, Patty, and Eleanor are going to the zoo with us on Friday, and on Saturday evening we're invited to dinner with Olivia and Noah at the Carisis on Staten Island. Sunday is whatever matinee we can get tickets for, and dinner...somewhere, since Sardi's is closed."
"You've forgotten Thursday, O my Captain," he joked.
"Have not!" Alex replied with mock indignance. "Mets vs. the Brewers 7:10 p.m. And Monday's the Cloisters and the also the Cathedral of St. John the Divine because Min wants to see the places Madeleine L'Engle wrote about in The Young Unicorns."
"Maybe next week we can take them on the ferry, and to Brooklyn," Bobby continued thoughtfully.
Alex gave a cat smile. "We'll be very busy. Maybe we ought to think about getting to bed."
He laid a soft kiss on her forehead. "I'm not sure I'm sleepy yet. Maybe I'll start the book of treatises on Jung that I bought."
She blinked at him and patted the hand still on her thigh. "I don't believe I mentioned sleeping."
"Jung will just have to get old, then," he chuckled.
. . . . .
"Is that what you think, that Cole's revival of the Tea Room is only a gimmick?" Alex asked, tucking the apartment keys into her purse.
Years ago, Bobby had explained to the kids, back when New York City had numerous department stores, most women didn't work, so they would go to these stores to shop, meet friends, and even have their hair done, eat at a store luncheonette, visit a store exercise room, or see a fashion show. Some department stores even had a special restaurant just for women shoppers, often called a tea room. It would be a chic place with soft music playing in the background, shining white tablecloths and napkins, bone china teacups and silver spoons and forks, and often they would have food specialties: ice cream sundaes, for instance, or hot muffins.
"A gimmick I hope works--either that or Cole's goes the way of Gimbels, Sears, Wanamaker's, and A. T. Stewart."
"Sears was never a proper department store," Alex scoffed, but she understood. The two last bastions of the old-guard department stores, with books, stationery, sewing notions, and more, and not just glorified clothing and shoe stores like Saks and Bergdorf's, Macy's and Cole's were what remained in the city, and Cole's barely had its head above water. The new investors, a consortium of Japanese and Saudi Arabian partners, had just sunk a small fortune into remodeling the aged "cast iron" emporium.
In the end, the idea of ice cream and muffins finally tipped the scales for Randall, and he was more cheerful by the time they hit the subway. He was now into the boyish "growing phase," and the way he attacked his meals even impressed Bobby.
"At least Cole's has rustled up some American investors," Alex remarked as they waited on the subway platform.
"Ginkou/Masaaref offered just about everyone a piece of the pie. Bill Gates and Bezos skipped on it, I heard," Bobby agreed, "but the Mulroneys have taken a share--they wouldn't have dared if Regina Mulroney was still at the family helm--and Lydia de Ruysch supposedly has invested enough that she's on the store's board of directors. Rumor is that she's running the show for Ginkou/Masaaref."
Randall asked, "You mean there's a real person named Lydia de Ruysch?"
"You know the name?"
Randall looked abashed. "Well, remember my dad told Mommy and me that he worked on Wall Street? He would talk about these people he worked with, and the one he mentioned most was Lydia de Ruysch. I remember it because it was such a funny name. But after the trial, I figured he just made up the names."
"Definitely not made up. The de Ruysch family goes back to New York's founding European colonizers, the Dutch. They arrived soon after Peter Minuit and his ilk. The family were bankers in the Netherlands, and they're still big players in the New York financial market. She's taken a personal interest in Cole's. She wants to make it as it was in its heyday of the 1910s through 1940s."
"How did she put it in that Face to Face interview last month? 'The elegance of Art Nouveau with the immediacy of the Web.'" Alex chuckled. "She won't win any Oscars for original dialog."
"She's not stuffy like that awful Mr. Copeland, is she?" Olivia asked, her head turning this way and that as the subway platform became more crowded. She was the extrovert of the pair of children, and, even after her early upbringing in Paris, she still marveled at the contrasts: well-worn baseball caps and saggy pants on some, elegant turbans and brilliantly patterned robes on others, proud women in fake furs and long elegant nails, diffident businessmen in similar dark suits and power ties with fiscal assets in their eyes and briefcases dangling from their fists; raucous teens and shy preschoolers, nannies and Con Ed workmen, diplomats and sad-eyed drug addicts--all the warp and woof that made up the fabric of New York City. They moved so much faster than Parisians! Even the scent was different: errant exhaust fumes, heated metal, excavated earth, the musky scent of marijuana, with an overlay of earthier ones.
"Lydia de Ruysch? Oh, no, she's more like...remember Jeffrey Copeland's aunt Danielle from the book conference? Jeffrey introduced her to us just before we left for home."
"Oh, yeah," Randall recalled. "She was nice. Remember? She said she had a boyfriend named Randall in high school."
"And you were so embarrassed," Alex returned fondly. "Well, Lydia is the same. She supports social causes--the LGBTQ Defense Fund, for instance--and also law enforcement improvements. I met with her several times when I worked on the Joint Taskforce. She’s on several city upgrade committees and is working with the new mayor."
"Here comes our train," Bobby interrupted, and, after a crowd spilled from the line of cars onto the subway platform and headed for the stairs, he and Alex inched their way into the subway car, the children cocooned between them.
Randall was uneasy in overcrowded situations, so Alex rode herd on him to make certain he didn't become uncomfortable. She thought how different it was for their children than it had been for her and Bobby. She remembered riding the subway with only her 12-year-old sister at age seven, and how she and Lizzie navigated just fine. She knew that both Bobby and his late brother had free run of the MTA by age eight--but of course they'd been born "city kids," and the early and mid-70s were a much more innocent time. Even when the crime rates soared in the city in the late 70s, the crimes were usually confined to certain neighborhoods. Warned of pickpockets on the subway, so, with fare money and comic book and candy funds carefully hidden, they were never really frightened.
Olivia had ridden the Metro in Paris, of course, but always accompanied by her mother or her nanny, and Randall was a suburban kid, so they kept them close at hand. And even then, from where she stood, Alex could see New York kids riding alone, with musical instruments, reading books, staring at cell phones...
"Ma'am," offered a young man in a striking hip-hop t-shirt who was seated near them, "would you like to sit down?"
Alex smiled. "Thank you so much, but we only have three stops. You might try the woman behind us..."
The woman in question was grateful for the seat, profusely thanking both the polite youth and Alex, and the Gorens were soon at their destination.
"And there it is," said Bobby, looking upward as they emerged from the older-style subway station.
"It looks like something from Paris!" Olivia enthused.
"It certainly doesn't look like the same place," Alex marveled as people circled them while they admired the building that had changed radically since they had stopped living in the city.
The last time Alex had seen Cole's regularly, before her retirement, the gracefully arched windows were blocked with dirty screens or vintage, faded-green window shades, some perpetually obscured by vinyl banners promoting the store's website, and the marble and ironwork exterior was grimy from decades of pollution. It was in the style of A.T. Stewart's original 1846 "Marble Palace," but with Art Nouveau ironwork around the display windows and at the first-floor level, simplified for the upper stories. The exterior had been sandblasted and the ironwork restored.
Too, for years anachronistic modern doors had replaced the originals at the store's three entrances, giving the vintage building an ugly, patchwork appearance. Now, lighter, automatic reproductions of the original Art Nouveau doors, with their gently coiling lily branches and blooms, returned the redesigned building to its classic appearance. All the ironwork had been retouched with colored and gold metallic highlights, and the Cole's logo, the top hat and walking stick as familiar as the Macy's star, was cleaned and restored.
Outside on the lampposts and on each of the exterior doors hung a poster swirled with carmine red, ultramarine blue, and palest silver, the Cole's top hat/walking stick logo in black centered upon it, and on top, in swooping calligraphy in white, "Cole's Resurgens."
"That's Latin," Olivia said instantly.
"It means 'rebirth,'" Bobby confirmed. "Ms. de Ruysch and her conglomerate are determined to bring the place back to life."
Inside, the store certainly looked reborn. The limp 60s and 90s upgrades were gone, and, while the interior walls were more clean-lined than in 1910, as many of the vintage dark wooden-framed display cases as possible had been returned to service to give the first floor a classic look. Faux Art Nouveau lanterns supplemented the recessed modern lighting with energy-efficient LED bulbs providing warm light.
To make the store as striking as possible upon entry, Cole's had positioned the jewelry and watch departments, with their glitter and attraction, at the center of the main floor. Expensive gold, sterling silver, and precious gemstone pieces were featured on one side; less expensive costume jewelry and more-reasonably priced timepieces and smartwatches were displayed on the other. Randall tugged at Olivia's arm, pointing wordlessly at a Rolex Cosmograph Daytona "Rainbow" watch priced at $450,000.00.
"I saw one of those in Galleries Lafayette once. You could buy a house in Maine like Donna and Zes have for that," Olivia whispered in amazement.
With the publicity over the redesign and reopening of many departments, the store was very busy, with salespersons in business dress helping customers. They rode the original wooden escalators up to each floor, checking out the fresh new decorations, the retro lighting, and the vintage touches among clothing, housewares and appliances, electronics and hardware, finally past the huge book, toy, and stationery departments, and up to the top floor, most of which was executive and business offices, but where a portion was reserved for the tea room and its adjacent kitchen, from which savory scents arose.
Both children were used to "fine dining" from Mother's Day and Alex's birthday, when dress clothing and "Sunday manners" were de rigueur, but even Randall looked around "The Olive Tree" tea room with his mouth parted. The far side of the tea room overlooked the main street, and the wooden-framed, arched windows had surrounds of copperwork Art Nouveau olive trees. The windows themselves had remotely operated modern shades, seamlessly blending the two eras. Plush burgundy rugs with olive-green olive branches inset into the pile, and cozy square wooden tables covered with snow-white tablecloths and napkins folded into simulated mountain peaks dotted the room. The place settings were of ironware with sturdy silverware and tall tumblers. The round-backed chairs, four to a table, had woven backrests.
Opposite the windows, on a long wall, Parisian-style Art Nouveau posters hung in gold frames between plush olive-and-cream drapery, and long wooden tables with inlaid tops (for use at the Sunday buffet, Alex whispered) lined the wall, alternating with tall jardinieres filled with fresh gladioli stems.
Two square Doric columns divided the room into three sections.
Now a server approached the window table the maitre d' had assigned them. She was tall, with a tawny complexion and thick, dark hair pulled back into a neat bun, and a little frilled cap perched over her forehead. She wore a bright olive-green, full-skirted uniform dress, with a full, ruffled white apron over it, and unobtrusive black orthopedic shoes in a 1930s eyelet style over black stockings.
"Good afternoon," she greeted them warmly, distributing imitation-leather-bound menus. "Welcome to the Olive Tree at Cole's. This is our luncheon menu. Our specialties today are scratch-made chicken pot pie and the Brittany truffle omelette. I will return in a few minutes with rolls and butter. It's a warm day, but would anyone care for coffee or tea?"
Alex ordered a tea and Bobby a coffee, and the server bustled away to inquire of the needs of two women just being seated several tables away. Bobby flipped open his 1928 Frederick's guide and read, "'A singular treat for any New York visitor is to sample the delectable dishes available at the "tea room" of Cole's Department Store. Belying its twee name, the establishment offers sustenance for both hearty eaters and dainty appetites; the specialties of the house include a savory chicken pot pie filled with moist slices of white and dark meat, julienne-cut carrots and potatoes, and a thick gravy under an exquisitely flaky crust, and Chef Malinois' authentic Brittany truffle omelette, a light but filling meal that includes imported French truffles and fresh eggs directly from Sullivan County farms.'
"Seems today's specials are the classics," he concluded.
"Although I doubt the eggs come from Sullivan County any longer. Their farm is probably a half-dozen subdivisions by now," Alex responded wryly.
The menu was a charming combination of vintage favorites--salmon croquettes, chicken à la king, olive loaf and flaked salmon sandwiches along with the pot pie and truffle omelette--and newer items such as open-faced roast beef and turkey served over baked-on-the-premises brioche bread, plus chicken tenders as a children's option, all printed in sepia ink on "aged" paper.
"Please tell me you won't order chicken tenders," Olivia murmured to Randall.
"But I like them," he protested.
"But the chicken pot pie sounds wonderful, like Papa's chicken stew under a flaky crust! And no peas in it sound even better." Olivia ate peas, but she considered them not much more appetizing than the hated green beans.
"The truffle omelette sounds very tempting," Alex mused.
"What's a salmon croquette?" Olivia asked.
"Think of the crab cakes we ate in Mystic," Bobby advised. "Made with flaked salmon and an egg binder, then breaded and fried."
"Unless you grew up on a strict budget the way we did," Alex reminded with a grin, "where they were made with chicken and stretched out with mashed potatoes."
"I've tried to blot those from my memory," Bobby said, making a face.
The waitress returned with rolls and butter, and took their orders. Soon they had been served--Randall dug into a chicken pot pie as did his sister and declared it good, and Alex and Bobby traded forkfuls of truffle omelet and open-faced turkey while the children looked embarrassed at their parents feeding each other--and were almost finished when a pleasant woman's voice exclaimed disbelievingly, "Alexandra Eames? Is that you?"
Alex turned, then smiled broadly at the middle-aged blonde approaching the table, her surprised face melting into a welcoming grin. "It is you! My goodness! I haven't seen you in..."
"About ten years," Alex finished, rising to greet her. Bobby stood as well, well trained in manners by his mother, but Olivia had to shove Randall's foot under the table as a reminder before he gave up his fork and rose respectfully.
"Oh, my goodness, no," the woman said chattily, "please sit down and finish your meal, and I hope it's everything you hoped it would be."
"It's delicious, ma'am," confirmed Olivia, bobbing her head up and down.
"I could eat another one," Randall confessed.
The woman appeared delighted. "Please sit--you don't mind if I bring a chair over and sit a few minutes? I have a dozen things to do, but I had to say hello, Alex!"
The maitre d' hurried from out of nowhere to bring her a chair from an empty table. The stranger settled next to Alex, a plump woman with very long blond hair braided at the back of her head, pale blue eyes, and a finely made-up face, her hands dotted with dainty rings, including a large diamond solitaire, and her nails professionally done. She had the air of someone who knew the finer things in life but was not haughty about them; even Bobby could see that, although her retro-style dress and shoes were casual, they were not cheaply made, and diamond teardrops swayed from her earlobes.
"This is my friend Lydia de Ruysch," Alex introduced, "as I think you've gathered, and Lydia, this is my family: my husband Robert Goren," and Bobby, still standing, extended a hand across the table to shake before sitting down again, "and our daughter Olivia and our son Randall."
"I'm happy to meet you all," Lydia said in a musical voice. "It was always such a pleasure working with Alex, even though it didn't happen very often. But I don't remember you being married the last time we worked together--how times change!"
Alex bit her lip, her eyes on the tablecloth for a second before they came back up dancing. "Well, I retired a year after we last talked, and things...happened once I moved to Connecticut..." Bobby's eyebrows twitched as she pinked and continued, "Bobby and I ran into each other again--we'd worked together ten years earlier--and things...just fell into place."
De Ruysch's indulgent smile told them she could piece together the rest of that portion of the story.
"The children were...a happy surprise, though," Bobby said with affection, patting Olivia's hand. "A friend of ours and her...partner...lost their lives in a car accident, and in her will she asked that we be Olivia's guardians. And Randall was our foster son until May, when we made it official."
Alex met Randall's eyes, and she added softly, "They truly have been a blessing." Then she spread her hands and enthused, "Lydia, this is all so beautiful. I can't believe what a difference you've made to this old place. Please, tell us what's been going on!"
So as the children finished their lunches and they all ordered dessert--"What's parfait?" Randall whispered to his sister, only for her face to light up. "Trust me, you'll like it!"--de Ruysch launched into a waterfall of words about working with the investors, trying to balance affordable refurbishment against the desire to restore each floor as accurately as possible, fitting modern technology into the vintage look, and recruiting out-of-work craftsmen from the Workforce Development Program to recreate architectural details while giving them much-needed employment. Olivia and Randall mostly concentrated on the huge parfaits with their layers of whipped cream, chocolate ice cream, mini chocolate chips, and sliced strawberries.
The maitre d' came with their check, but de Ruysch waved him away with, "Emile, this meal is comped." Alex valiantly protested, but de Ruysch argued that it was a thank you for the help Alex had provided long ago. Randall had taken the opportunity to use the restroom, so that the two women were still chatting when an older woman's exasperated voice stopped de Ruysch in mid-word. "Lyddie, dearest! For heaven's sake, I've been calling you for over an hour."
De Ruysch's face had the weary expression of one forced to deal with the impossible, but she apologized, "I'm sorry, Tante Marika, but I ran into an old friend. I could not be impolite." Her smile was strained, but she added formally, "Tante Marika, this is my old friend Alexandra Eames, whom I worked with some years in the past, and this is her husband, Mr. Robert Goren, and their daughter Olivia."
Olivia rose from her chair, along with her parents, at the woman's approach; she was reminded so much of her late father's formidable wife, Madame Pepin, that she involuntarily curtsied. Their hostess added, "Their son Randall is in the rest room," then finished hastily, "This is my aunt, Marikje Van Amstel."
"Pleased to meet you," Mrs. Van Amstel declared in a voice that would have chilled champagne. Despite her age, which Alex estimated as early 70s, she was a slim, athletic woman with a cap of hair that could only be described as "salt and pepper," and an oval face with a pointed chin, alert grey eyes under meticulously plucked eyebrows, a slim nose, and a prim mouth. Her complexion alone told the world she took rigorous care of her skin and not with drugstore products. To complete the effect, she was clad in a Saint Laurent suit and silk blouse in shades of amber, a genuine fur stole around her shoulders despite the summer heat, and classic Christian Louboutin pumps.
The only aspect of her appearance that made her look the least bit approachable was the fluffy, inquisitive-nosed golden Pomeranian she carried, and even he was imposing, with a collar that looked as if it were studded with genuine diamonds.
"Since I was passing by Cole's," and the very way she spoke told them she had deliberately stopped by to call her out her niece as well as talk to her, "I wanted to let you know I won't be available for our customary dinner on Thursday. I'm taking Flounce," and the Pom wagged its tail, "and my assistant to the cottage in Tannersville through Sunday evening. I find I have some business to attend to in the area, and will be visiting friends as well."
"We'll see you next week, then, Tante Marika," de Ruysch said, nodding. "Is there anything I can help with while you're away?"
"I take care of my own," Mrs. Van Amstel returned, "you know that, Lyddie. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Goren. Child. Good-bye," and she nodded regally to everyone and turned on her heel, tap-tap-tapping her way back to the elevator.
De Ruysch was crimson and stammered, "I a-am s-s-so sorry...she can be...formidable."
Alex had watched Lydia de Ruysch work calmly and competently with every type of person, from the previous no-nonsense mayor to flighty actors doing promotional gigs for the city, and had never seen her so discomfited.
Bobby offered mildly, "We can't pick our relatives, Lydia. Don't worry about it."
Now Randall padded up, wide-eyed. "I waited until the coast was clear, in the door to the bathroom. 'Livia, was that what your Dragon Lady was like?"
"Randall," Alex reproved, "that isn't polite."
"I think she could give Madame...uh-" Olivia was still staring down the corridor leading to the elevators.
"-a run for her money?" Bobby suggested.
Olivia nodded and sat down; it wasn't often that people left her at a loss for words.
De Ruysch laughed ruefully. "Randall has a point. Tante Marika can be off-putting. But really, she's just very old-fashioned, a lady-of-the-manor type. Like Penelope Keith's character in To the Manor Born, harmless." Then she sighed and sat back down. "I'm sorry to say I'm grateful that she's not a blood relative. She's my late uncle's--my mother's brother's--second wife. Very old money, older than the Knickerbockers, and equally old-school and opinionated. She doesn't understand why I devote so much time to what she calls my 'goody two-shoes' projects. She has her specific charities and feels that's enough, although she's unbent enough to head and sponsor the Cole's Christmas toy drive this year."
She eyed Olivia sheepishly as they rose from the table. "This world needs more powerful women--but not her type of static power. One needs to change with the times." She paused, her eyes troubled. "I'm sorry this luncheon had such a bad ending."
"It hasn't been a bad ending at all," Alex countered firmly, and hugged her. "We were able to chat and you met Bobby and the kids. Just a blip in our day."
"Will you still be here next Thursday, and if so, will you come for luncheon?" de Ruysch entreated. "We're having a fashion show luncheon, 'Casual Days' we're calling it--men's and women's casual fashions," she added when she saw Randall's pained look, "with special treats--chocolate mousse parfaits and raffle prizes. And half the proceeds go to the New York ASPCA. Please. It's at noon, and there's no need to dress up. The food will be buffet style. I'll make sure you get invitations."
Bobby tilted his head at Randall, who bowed his head, then came up smiling.
"We'd love to," Alex accepted, pulling her son to her side for a hug.
... to be continued ...