It's in her eyes.
Chapter 1
I looked up at the strange white building and looked around me bewildered. Oh that's right I fell asleep in the car. We must be there by now. Kellerman's. The place where everything changed. Not that I was there or anything. Heck I wasn't even conceived at that point let alone born and old enough to remember anything. The summer of 1963. The story I'd heard so many times I could have been there. The story told so many times and in so many different ways.
Nana was talking to a middle-aged man with a clipboard who looked very self-important in my opinion. This must be the guy Mama was telling me about. The Kellerman guy, what did Mama say his name was? Neil I think. The owner's sleazy grandson. I remember Mama telling me he took control after his grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack.
I turned around to see Aunty Lisa talking to a guy I didn't recognise but she seemed to know him. He was probably here last summer when her and grandma came to stay.
Every summer since 1963 the Houseman family spent the last three weeks of the season at Kellerman's resort in the Catskill Mountains that dominated New York state. Mama wasn't a part of this tradition and hadn't returned here from the end of that fateful summer until her untimely death when I was just seven years old.
She never did tell me who my father was, only that he was a very handsome man and that I took after him a lot. Nana and Grandpa never told me who he was either although I do remember Grandpa cursing "Castle" anytime something went wrong. Not that that ever helped and I still don't know who he is ten years later.
It is the summer of 1981, when everyone called me Baby and it didn't occur to me to mind. OK is it just me or do you have this feeling of déjà vu to, like we've done all this already. I think I heard that somewhere before and it just seemed like a cool thing to say. Oh that's right, Mama used to start her stories like that. Grandpa always called me Baby after my mother until he died last year after a severe stroke. Yet the nickname stuck.
I was knocked out of my daydream by Lisa (she hates it when I call her aunty, says it makes her feel old) rapping on the window. I opened the door and looked up into her face.
'Were you planning on staying in there all night, Baby?' I sighed. No doubt she couldn't wait to get to her room so that she could unpack her suitcases. I dragged myself out of the backseat of the family car. The good old dark green Chevy. Kellerman looked me up and down with disapproving eyes but when he turned to question Nana he was all politeness.
'Why, Mrs. Houseman, I don't think I have had the honour of meeting this young lady before. What is her name?' I looked at him in contempt. Already I felt a strong dislike for the overweight man standing in front of me. Talking about me as if I wasn't there. Asking Nana as if I was a mute or thick and unable to answer for myself.
Nana shot me a warning look. She knew how my temper flared under such circumstances. 'Why this is Baby, my Granddaughter.' She then turned down to me with such a look of warmth and pride that whatever anger I felt towards the prat standing in front of me immediately dissolved. Plus the look of shock on his face would have made anyone laugh. Just then another car pulled up behind ours and he moved on to greet his other guests.
I looked around me at the wide expanse of space. Green fields, the great oval down the slope that was a bustle of activity with several things going on at once. A round old man with a bullhorn announcing the activities that were happening and those about to start. To the right side and behind the main house you could see all the guest accommodation. To the left you could see the staff quarters. Over on the right, slightly in front of us you could see the large white gazebo standing in all it's glory on top of the small hill, watching over everyone and everything.
Just like Mama described it all those years ago. 'Baby, come on!' Lisa shouted behind her. With all the fuss going around us nobody even turned their heads to see what was going on, for which I am extremely thankful. We arrived to the cabin. I was pleased to see a large cabin with spacious rooms, unfortunately there were only two bedrooms so I had to share with Lisa while Nana took the other room. I wasn't really to fussed abut putting my clothes away neatly so I just stuffed half of them in the drawer that was left to me and hung up the other half in the small gap between Lisa's clothes and the wall. With all that done I thought I was so exhausted that I lay down on the bed for a moment and fell asleep.
I dreamed about Mama again. She was laughing as she always did in my memories of her however I never realised at the time the wistful look in her eyes. My Mama was beautiful. With her curly, and often out of control light brown hair and her soft doe like eyes I've always thought she was the most beautiful person I've ever seen. Not like aunty Lisa's contrived beauty or even Nana's mature looks. I wish I could say I looked like her but I don't, not really. Apparently I look like my father apart from my mothers eyes and hair which softy curls. Maybe that's why Grandpa always looked at me with such a fierce disdain every time I did something wrong. Perhaps that's the reason he was always was harsher than necessary with me. Perhaps the other features are the reason I inherited my mothers nickname.
I was taken out of my dream by Lisa shaking me hard. 'Baby, will you wake up and get ready. We're going up to the main house for dinner and we don't want to be late.' Oh joy. But there was no arguing with Lisa so I got up and went to the well proportioned communal bathroom. There I tidied myself up and made myself look presentable. When I went back into the room there was a dress laid out for me to wear. Too weary to argue I just pulled on whatever was there, I didn't have the drive to look at it properly, and walked into the living room where Nana and Lisa were waiting.
Dinner. A perfectly respectable affair. A large room painted in bland colours with neat little seating arrangements and silver table wear. Good food. Not as good as Nana's but home cooking's always better. Bigger portions too. I looked at my meal in slight disappointment. I'd never been greedy but even I needed more food than this. Nana was also slightly disappointed although she was far to polite to say so. She did however, comment on how the dishes were a lot larger last time they had come down here.
And after the dinner there was dancing. Lisa got up and danced and so did Nana. They were twirled around the dance floor by their partners in traditional family dances. Oh how I wish I could dance. I was never allowed to take lessons like all the other girls. I wasn't even allowed to listen to music. Nana was quite relaxed really but about this she was absolutely certain. No music. No dancing. I glanced wistfully at the couples twirling around, some far more effortless than others.
I noticed the music pick up into something far more fun and upbeat. I could see a couple walking straight to the middle of the floor and dance far more skilfully and gracefully than I've ever seen, outside a movie. All the other couples stopped and gave these two a wide berth and stood there as I did, entranced by their dancing.
At that moment I realised the man standing behind me with his arms folded across his chest. I turned slightly to glance in his direction. His broad chest was set off by the dinner jacket he wore. He stood watching the two with critical, bright blue eyes, set in a handsome face. I turned back to the dancing. But the more I thought about it the more I had the feeling that I'd seen him before. I turned around properly this time to get a good look at his face.
Yes it was definitely familiar. The dark brown hair that was greying ever so slightly at the temples. The tanned skin spread over the well proportioned face with a chiselled jaw which suited him so well and set off his features. The straight nose and set mouth. The electric blue eyes that were all of a sudden boring into mine with almost the same intensity as I was looking into his.
Author's Note: please review, I'd love to know what you think, whether I should continue... and if i could have a beta to double check as well.
Kate