§ § § - June 22, 2007
Christian showed up for lunch at the main house, somewhat to Leslie's surprise; she was feeling worn-out already, mostly from the clothes-shopping spree Helen had taken her and Ivy on. Roarke greeted Christian and inquired, "Have you succeeded in completing the repair projects you intended to do?"
"All but one," Christian said with great self-satisfaction, "and I plan to work on that this afternoon, then take the rest of the day off. Perhaps I'll take the triplets down to the beach where I run sometimes, and let them play in the sand." Leslie glanced at him, her thoughts off and running, but decided to refrain from commenting, lest her fatigue loosen her tongue too much.
"Excellent," Roarke said. "Leslie tells me that Miss Krakowski's fantasy is progressing quite satisfactorily; and I have done what little is possible to do with Mr. Rollins' fantasy."
"Which is what?" Christian inquired, always interested in the fantasies, helping himself to several spoonfuls of the large "tropical garbage salad", as Mariki called it, that waited in the middle of the table.
Roarke told him about the Rollins fantasy, and Christian stilled in mid-reach, serving spoon in the air, staring. "You're not actually serious, for fate's sake."
Roarke chuckled. "It is rather unorthodox, but Mr. Rollins feels at his wits' end, trying to operate his father's resorts on his own. He has evidently panicked to such an extent that he feels this is the only way he can extricate himself from his problems."
"Rollins doesn't need a fantasy, he needs a good psychiatrist," Christian said with an eye-roll, finishing filling his salad bowl. "Of course, that's only my unsolicited opinion, you understand. But I'd prefer to refrain from offering the opinion that was solicited."
Now it was Roarke who paused in surprise. "I beg your pardon?"
"Your friend Helen of Troy. She seemed to feel it necessary that her budding protégée should have my opinion as well as her own and Leslie's. To tell you the truth, I find her clinging. She has a way of simpering all over me and making me feel…" He hesitated, glanced at Leslie, then shrugged and muttered, "Like a sex object."
Leslie snickered; she just couldn't help herself. Christian's nasty look prompted her to say, "Well, maybe that gives you an idea how women feel when men treat us that way."
"Did you think I have no sympathy for how some men think women are nothing more than convenient knickknacks? Truly, Leslie, your opinion of me must be much lower than I had dreamed." He mixed his salad a little, spearing a mandarin-orange slice with his fork and then pointing it at her. "I thought you knew me better than that."
"Is there some problem between you?" Roarke asked. "I sense a squabble developing."
Leslie made a face; there was no hiding anything from him. "It goes a little deeper than that. I thought it might be helpful for Ivy to attend a birthday party for Christian come Tuesday, and he started griping and moaning about it, the way he always does. I got fed up and told him it looks like ingratitude, when all we want to do is get together with him, observe his birthday and enjoy ourselves. Even when it's just family and friends, he objects. I mean, I know he hates parties, but I think that's carrying it too far!"
Roarke met Christian's gaze and let out a small amused huff. "You are, of course, entitled to your ideas about parties, Christian, but in this case I'm afraid I must agree with Leslie. I suspect that you're so accustomed to protesting the necessity of your attendance at any party, anywhere, that even a small party meant to convey felicitations on your birthday has you rebelling out of pure habit."
Speechless, Christian began to turn very red, a rare sight on him. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but just sat there for a minute or so, floundering. At last he expelled something forceful in his own language before flopping back in his chair and grumbling, "I hate to admit it, but I can see your point, now that you state it that way." He blew out a loud breath. "The problem is that even birthday parties have a way of going public, whether during the celebration itself, or after the fact. I'm just sick of having my life splashed all over the world's tabloids."
"Complain if you want, my love," Leslie said, "but it'd be just plain rude to deny all the royal-watchers a chance to wish you a happy birthday. That's no more often than any other day of the year, you know." She reached across and squeezed his wrist. "I thought it was really sweet of you to step up and invite Ivy and Janet to the party on your own, even though they're strangers to you. And you know I wouldn't have asked except that this is kind of a special circumstance."
"Just call me generous," Christian muttered, glaring at his salad.
"Not in this mood, you aren't," Leslie chided, keeping her voice gentle for the sake of the triplets, who were just now approaching with Haruko. "Come on, my love, it's just a little party. And don't forget last year's anonymity fantasy." She winked when he grunted, and turned to the triplets and their favorite sitter. "Hi there."
"Sorry we're late," Haruko said, "but Tobias had to go to the bathroom." She tapped the little boy on his shoulder. "Tell Mommy and Daddy about the bathroom."
"I go baffroom all by myself!" Tobias announced proudly. "Wash hands too." He raised them at his parents and grandfather, palms out, fingers spread wide.
"That's wonderful, sweetie!" Leslie exclaimed, leaning out of her chair to give her son a hug. Tobias beamed, hugging her back.
"Very well done, Tobias!" Christian agreed, his expression much brighter. "And how are my girls doing, hm?" He grinned at his two daughters.
"Hungwy, Daddy," Karina said and giggled.
"Then come and take your chairs," Roarke suggested, "and we'll all have lunch. Did you know your father's birthday is almost here?"
Susanna climbed onto the chair designated as hers; the triplets had at last outgrown their high chairs and now sat on sturdy wooden chairs, three in a row to Leslie's right at the table. They were each bolstered by two large, thick books so that they could properly reach the tabletop. "We have birfday too, G'ampa," she said.
"Yes, yours was not so long ago," Roarke agreed, "but this is for your father."
"Daddy's birthday," Leslie added.
"Happy birthday in advance, Mr. Enstad," Haruko offered. "I won't be here—we're going to Japan to see my grandmother again. She's doing okay, but my father's afraid Chikako and I won't know her very well unless we see her as often as possible." She grinned at Christian's, Leslie's and Roarke's inquisitive looks. "We don't, really, but she's such a nice and sweet old lady. She makes doll clothes for Chikako, and she actually gave me a genuine pearl necklace. She's full of stories about my father as a kid, too."
"So how long will you be gone?" Christian asked while Leslie tied bibs around the triplets' necks. They were still messy eaters.
"Two weeks," Haruko replied. "I kinda heard through the grapevine that Noelle Tokita and Brianna Harding would love to sit for the triplets. Mrs. Harding was visiting my mother and it came up in their conversation."
"Hm," Leslie mused, "I'll have to talk to Maureen and Myeko about that. You'll be heading off to college after this year, and there're still another two years before the triplets start kindergarten. Noelle and Brianna are both thirteen now. If we have them stay with the kids now and then, they'll get used to them, and then they can take over when you go off to school."
"In a way I'm sorry to go," Haruko admitted. "The kids are just so cute and sweet. But I'm sure Brianna and Noelle will make great sitters. Well, I'm off to lunch, see you after."
They waved her off and Leslie watched her go, slowly settling back into her chair. "All the kids are growing up," she mused aloud. "I can't believe Haruko's turning seventeen soon and heading for her last year of high school."
"We all get older, my Rose," Christian said, good humor restored, as he loaded the triplets' plates with chunks of fruit and vegetables and a couple of small slices of ham apiece. "And I guarantee you that you'll wish our children were that age long before they actually reach it." He grinned and dropped a kiss on her lips before resuming his seat.
"So what, exactly, has happened to Miss Krakowski thus far?" Roarke asked Leslie at last, once everyone was busy eating.
"Well, we took her over to Lauren's sister Deborah's salon and had her hair done; she wanted to handle that first. Ivy's hair was so insane—all tangled and knotted up in those manic corkscrew curls she's stuck with—that Deborah spent fifteen minutes just combing out all the snarls. Then she gave Ivy one of those Japanese-style chemical-straightening treatments, and by lunchtime Ivy looked totally different already. Her hair's straight as can be, nice and shiny and smooth. She had Deborah style it like mine, except without bangs. When I left to come over here, she was still staring at herself in the mirror and touching her hair as if she couldn't believe it could look like that."
Christian and Roarke laughed. "What's the plan for after lunch?" Christian asked.
"A clothes-shopping spree, and then after that, Helen's going to give Ivy a makeup lesson. I think Ivy's a lot more open to the whole thing now that she's seen what a miracle Deborah performed on her hair. She was so excited when I left."
"Good," said Roarke. "I'm very pleased to see that things are progressing so well. A fine job, Leslie. I'll look forward to your report this evening."
‡ ‡ ‡
When they got to the luau, it seemed less crowded than usual; when Leslie saw Ivy Krakowski hovering nervously on the perimeter, she had a feeling that if there had been the usual number of people, Ivy wouldn't have been enticed here at all. She looked relieved when she saw Christian and Leslie. "Oh, good," she said. "Familiar faces."
Christian and Leslie looked at each other. "You haven't seen anyone else at all that you know?" Leslie asked in surprise. "Not even your sister?"
"Oh, Janet got a really bad sunburn on the beach. She fell asleep over some boring book she brought, and didn't wake up for almost three hours. The only thing that brought her back to life was the tide rolling in and splashing her feet. So she's plastered aloe cream all over herself and taking it easy."
"Ouch," murmured Christian in sympathy. He swept a quick glance around the luau area and raised a brow, mostly at his wife. "What about your friend, Lady Helen?"
Leslie, who'd been wincing on Janet's behalf, looked too and then smiled wryly. "We should've known. There she is, on the other side of the clearing, chatting up some native guys. She never could stay away from the men, according to Father."
"Hm," muttered Christian. "As long as she stays away from me, I don't care what she does." He realized Ivy was looking at him and cleared his throat. "Are you going to try doing a little mixing, then? If I recall correctly, part of your makeover is inside, as well as outside."
"Oh…Helen suggested I just start out slow. Find somebody I know and go in with them, and get something to eat, and…" She hesitated a moment, her face growing puzzled. "I don't get this part. She said to just wait for them to come to me. Where does she get the idea anybody's gonna do that?"
Christian studied her carefully for the first time. Ivy wore a simple white sheath with short sleeves and a thin gold chain belt around the waist, and matching shoes with low heels; her hair, now sleek and gleaming in the torchlight, framed a face that had been totally transformed by a subtle makeup job. Ivy Krakowski had turned into a very pretty woman. "Have you seen yourself in a mirror?" he asked her.
"Well, I kind of couldn't help it. I was watching while Helen was making up my face. But I'm still the same old me on the inside, you know. I still don't really trust anyone. After all, do you know how many people saw me when I first got off the plane this morning?"
Leslie smiled at her. "Do you know how many more people didn't see you when you got off the plane? Ivy, don't concentrate on the negatives. Just think of the positives. You look fabulous. And sooner or later, people are going to notice, and they just might come up to you and make some conversation. Especially guys. I'm not sure what it is, maybe something in the air on this island, but when single guys come to the luau, they always gravitate toward pretty women—and that even includes shy, nerdy guys." She winked.
Ivy laughed, a little reluctantly. "Not even shy, nerdy guys would be interested in me," she asserted. "Even the nerds made fun of me in school."
"Come on," Leslie scoffed, staring at her.
"Seriously," Ivy insisted. "I figured it was because there was more than one nerd in the school, but there wasn't anybody else like me."
Again Christian and Leslie exchanged glances, and Leslie finally gave in to her curiosity. "Just exactly what were you like in school that made kids pick on you?"
Ivy drew in a deep breath and lifted her hair away from her neck; there was an old circular scar on her right-hand side, a few inches under her ear and slightly in front. The scar had faded with age and Helen had artfully concealed it with makeup; but now that their attention had been drawn to it, both Christian and Leslie could see it. "This. I had a huge mole there—and I mean huge. The thing was as big around as the mouth of a cup, and raised from the skin a good two inches. It was dark brown and impossible to miss." She met Leslie's wide eyes. "Remember my hair before you and Helen took me to your friend's salon? I've worn it like that since I was old enough to start school. I grew it as long as I could, as bushy and thick as possible, trying to hide that mole. For ages we couldn't afford the surgery to remove it, and insurance wouldn't cover it because they said it was cosmetic surgery. But no matter how hard I tried, there was just no way to keep it from sight, so I spent my entire school career being picked on."
"Janet said you had some friends before you moved," Leslie remembered.
"Yeah, I did, but only because we lived on a street where everyone knew us and we were all longtime friends. Everybody accepted me there. I did get picked on in my old school in Wisconsin, but I still had my friends, so it was easier. Then my father's company sent us to New Mexico, and I didn't have that support system anymore. From then on, I was the school freak, the outcast."
"Ach," murmured Christian, shaking his head. "It's amazing how cruel and insensitive people can be. But I see you did eventually have it removed."
Ivy nodded. "After I got out of high school, I took correspondence courses to become a medical transcriptionist, so I wouldn't have to go out among people, and I could work at home once I found a job. I didn't make a lot of money, and again, insurance wouldn't cover it, so I spent five years saving up the money for the surgery." Ivy sighed and glanced over at Helen. "I didn't even tell her that, you know? She saw the scar and asked how I got it, and I lied and told her it was an accident. But what I just told you…that's what really happened. I know it's hard to imagine, but somewhere in here I've got a picture of me before the mole came off. Maybe you'll see what I mean." She began digging in the little white purse with its gold chain handle that dangled off one arm, and after a moment pulled out a change purse. She reached into a hidden pocket and withdrew a small photograph, which she handed to Leslie. "That's my senior picture. The only one I ever bought, because my parents begged me to have at least one keepsake of my senior year. They display a copy on their wall at home, but it's been scanned and the mole airbrushed out so I don't look so…freaky. This is the only copy left of the original unretouched picture."
Leslie blinked once or twice while Christian looked over her shoulder. The bushy, knotted dark hair that all but shrouded Ivy's unsmiling face in the photograph had been drawn back by a couple of silver barrettes, exposing an enormous mole for all the world to see. It had covered the side of Ivy's neck. "Holy fates," murmured Christian. "I can see why it was the bane of your existence."
"I had to be careful what I wore. I couldn't button collars all the way because they squeezed the mole and it hurt like crazy. Even turtlenecks didn't really hide it because it made such a huge bump on the side of my neck."
"I can't believe insurance refused to cover the surgery," Leslie said, disgusted at the idea. "My gosh, Ivy, that's just cruel, and I don't mean just the kids in your school. I guess that's insurance companies for you, though."
"Yup." Ivy took the picture back and buried it in her change purse again. "I kept that picture to remind me of what I used to go through, and why I was never going to any high-school reunions as long as I lived. I don't care that I finally did have the surgery and got that thing taken off. To those kids, I'll always be that freak with the mole."
Leslie could see where her rationale came from, and didn't bother arguing with it; but she had to wonder. The mole was long gone, the scar was hidden by makeup, and Ivy's whole appearance had changed. Roarke had mentioned at supper that the twenty-year reunion of Ivy's class would probably participate in the luau, and Leslie had a feeling they might very well have trouble placing Ivy, at least at first. But would Ivy give them the chance to figure out who she was?
Christian glanced over at the buffet, which at the moment was sparsely populated. "I think we're early; as a matter of fact, Leslie and I ate lightly at supper so we could have room for some of the food here. Suppose we go to the buffet and get something to eat, before the rest of the island remembers there's a luau this evening and swoops down on us?"
Even Ivy laughed at that, and Christian escorted her and Leslie over to the buffet, where they filled plates and stood making idle chitchat. After a little while Helen drifted in their direction and, upon seeing whom Ivy was with, stopped short and groaned, closing her eyes for a moment before joining them. "No, Ivy, dear, this isn't what I meant by waiting for someone to approach you."
"Their Highnesses are the first ones who did," Ivy said with a shrug. "To tell you the truth, Helen, I really don't mind. I'm just as happy talking with them…" She caught herself and tossed Christian and Leslie an embarrassed glance. "That is, as long as they're willing to put up with me."
"It's no hardship at all to stand and talk with you," Christian assured her, earning a surprised smile in return.
"No, not a bit," Leslie agreed, with a slight reservation. She knew Ivy heard it, for the latter woman cast her a glance tinged with panic. Gently she said, "Of course, the purpose of your fantasy is to help you gain self-confidence in dealing with people."
"There's that," Christian allowed.
"There certainly is that," Helen said, poking him in the chest with one finger. She used this as an excuse to let it linger there while she went on, "I'm sure Leslie has some rounds to make, and you really shouldn't let Ivy use you for protection, so why don't you come along with me for a while?"
Leslie's lips began to curl inward as if she were sucking on a lemon, and she sidled over to Helen. "As a matter of fact, Lady Helen, I'm not actually due to make rounds till it gets really crowded here, and so far that hasn't happened. Now I'd like you to do me a favor and remember one little thing: Christian is married. To me, in case you were wondering."
Helen stared at her, eyes widening in sheer surprise at Leslie's flinty gaze. Then, to Leslie's disbelief, she looked at Christian. "Well?"
By now Christian had lost whatever patience he might still have had with her. "Well what?" he asked icily.
"Are you going to let her control you that way?" Helen wanted to know, tracing abstract patterns on Christian's shirtfront with a long fingernail.
Christian reached up and deliberately removed Helen's hand from his chest, his hazel eyes glacial, his tone equally so. "Just to answer your question, I let no one control me. You forget, I'm a prince, and no one controls a prince." He squeezed Helen's wrist until she let out a little gasp, then dropped it as though it were a toxic substance. "Leslie is right. Not only am I married to her, I'm very happily married to her. You'd do well to remember that, and to remember that while many other couples may not take their marriage vows seriously in this day and age, we do. Those vows mean something to us, and if you think I'll allow you to breach them, you'd be wise to think again. There are any number of unattached men on this island at any given moment. My advice is to concentrate on one or two of them, if you're looking for someone to dispose of your weekend with."
Helen breathed loudly and deeply through her nose, so that they could hear her doing it; then, before she could react, Roarke appeared. "My dear Helen…Miss Trask," he corrected himself at sight of Ivy. "You astound me. I never would have believed you capable of such a wanton display of covetousness."
Helen pouted at him. "You just don't understand, Roarke. It's been centuries since I saw as prime a male specimen as this one. Just look at him—he's sheer perfection." When she said centuries, Roarke shot her a look; it took her a moment to realize what he meant before she shrugged with minimal apology.
Christian didn't notice this exchange; he was too incensed. "He is unavailable," he interjected through gritted teeth.
"Indeed he is," Roarke backed him up. "Besides, don't forget your true reason for being here!" He surveyed Ivy with a smile. "Miss Krakowski, you look lovely."
Ivy turned red. "Oh…thank you, Mr. Roarke. Helen really worked wonders."
Helen looked pleased at that. "I did, didn't I? She really has turned into a beautiful young lady, and I'll consider it a personal failure if no men approach her this evening."
"It'll be their loss," Leslie said.
"As a matter of fact, here come some people now," Roarke said, indicating behind them, and as one Christian, Leslie, Ivy and Helen turned to see a knot of people around Ivy's age, mostly males but a few females as well, making their way in their general direction.
"Oh…my…God," Ivy breathed, drawing everyone's attention to her. Leslie blinked in alarm; Ivy had gone so pale she looked as if she might faint.
"What's wrong?" Helen asked.
"Those are some of my old classmates," Ivy gasped, and suddenly her breathing got fast and shallow, her eyes wide and glistening with panic. "Get me out of here—don't let them see me, please!"
"It's too late, they already have," Helen said with a maternal frown. "Don't forget, Ivy, you're a knockout now. They won't know what hit them!"
Ivy gulped so hard they could hear it, but she stayed in place, which as far as Leslie was concerned was a small miracle in itself. The laughing, chattering group reached the buffet and playfully jostled each other in the process of grabbing plates and choosing their food; then someone spied Christian and Leslie and all but shouted, "Hey, look—we've got royalty here tonight! Famous-people alert!"
"Oh, herregud," Leslie heard Christian groan almost under his breath, but to his credit, he stayed where he was and his expression became what she called "professionally pleasant", the face he wore when dealing with the general public in his role as prince. He smiled and nodded as people filed up in front of him and greeted him, though Leslie could see the strain in his smile as he found himself answering several inane questions. A few remembered the protocol and bowed or curtsied, but most either forgot or didn't bother. As a princess by marriage, Leslie got her share of the attention too, although there was actually one person who wanted to ask her something that had to do with her job. Roarke took over for that one, leaving her to face the hordes along with her husband. Helen hovered on the sidelines, looking as if she wanted some of that adulation for herself, while Ivy shrank behind Leslie and Christian, trying not to be noticed.
Finally Helen caught sight of her latest protégée and cleared her throat loudly, so that everyone stared at her. "Folks, I'd like to present a friend of the prince and princess," she said grandly. "For heaven's sake, don't just stand there hiding!"
Leslie watched Ivy slink reluctantly out from behind her and Christian; her former classmates peered at her with interest, particularly several of the men. "Wow, gorgeous, what's your name?" one asked with an exaggerated wink.
"Ivy," she ventured in a tiny voice.
"You look fantastic," said another man. "How about a real dinner with me over at the hotel? I'll treat you to anything you want on the menu."
"I'll do better than that," the first man said. "Dinner and dancing."
"How about dinner and dancing and a moonlight stroll on the beach?" offered still another man. By now Ivy was blinking in astonishment, and the color had returned to her face; her mouth had fallen open and she was gaping at each man as he spoke.
"Hey, that's funny, we used to know an Ivy," remarked a woman curiously, which made the first three men squint more closely at Ivy.
The fifth and final person in the group, another woman, gasped. "Hey, I think that is her! I mean, it sure looks like her."
The first man laughed loudly. "Are you kidding? Old Holy Moley would never have showed her face around here. We scared that freak but good from appearing in public." Ivy whitened again; Christian stiffened with anger on Ivy's behalf, and Leslie wanted to slap the guy's smug face.
The third man had been studying Ivy carefully; now he had the audacity to reach out and lift Ivy's hair away from her neck. "Can't be her, there's no mole there." Ivy flinched away from him and tried to duck back behind Leslie.
Fed up, Leslie folded her arms over her chest and glared at them. "As a matter of fact, this is Ivy Krakowski," she said coldly, "and she happens to be a friend of ours."
The same man exhibited even more gall by reaching around Leslie and pulling back Ivy's hair again, this time grasping it tightly so she couldn't twitch aside. "Damn if it isn't! I see the scar now. Huh…" He dropped Ivy's hair, and she turned her back on him, head drooping. "I didn't know they could remove that kind of monstrosity without killing her."
"I believe we can keep far better company than this," Christian remarked, icicles hanging off his voice. The two women and the second man finally found the grace to blush and backed away a few steps; the first and third men looked at each other and shrugged.
"Sure, fine, if you wanna hang around a freak like Holy Moley," the first guy said. The rest, including the ones who'd blushed, laughed, though it died quickly under Christian's disgusted glare.
"Come on, Ivy, let's find someone else to talk to," Leslie offered softly.
"No thanks," Ivy muttered. "I'm leaving." She took to her heels and vanished from the clearing in a twinkling.
Helen was wrapped in a righteous wrath. "You should all be ashamed of yourselves for carrying on such juvenile games. How old are you people, anyway? The two of you," and here she jabbed an index finger into the chests of each of the two men who had picked on Ivy, "must be the fathers of little gangs of bullies—that is, if any woman ever had the bad taste to marry you and bear your brats in the first place." Christian snickered, but he and Leslie heard nothing else, for they were on their way out of the clearing in Ivy's wake. Behind them, Helen's voice continued scolding.
"I hope Ivy doesn't blame us for her high-school reunion being here," Leslie said.
Christian glanced behind them and settled a hand on her back. "Well, I don't imagine you knew about it, but I admit, I wonder if Mr. Roarke wasn't aware of it. How many times has he told your guests that he knows about everything that happens on his island? If that's true, I can't help thinking he set it up this way deliberately."
"He's also told a lot of guests that things like that are sheer coincidence," Leslie said, though her tone was uneasy. "He told Ivy's sister that this was one of those."
Christian eyed her. "There seem to be a few too many 'coincidences' on this island for my taste," he observed, and she felt her cheeks grow hot. He smiled. "Oh, don't worry, my Rose, I'm not blaming you at all. You're only human, daughter or not. You couldn't have known about it. I'm only saying that it seems suspicious."
Leslie remained silent, but in her deepest heart she had to agree with him. She hated to think her father could be so cruel as to set up such situations deliberately, despite the fact that she'd seen it happen in countless fantasies through the years. It wasn't the first time she had considered it; the question had occurred to her many times, but she had never had enough nerve to actually discuss it with Roarke. Most of the time, she had eventually drawn the conclusion that, if Roarke did arrange these situations with a particular purpose in mind, he was merely doing it for the fantasizer's best interests. In this case, she mused, if it really wasn't a coincidence, perhaps he'd arranged it as a test of Helen's coaching powers. But then, in light of the failure of the encounter at the luau, did that mean it was Roarke's foresight or Helen's coaching that was faulty?
She and Christian retired for the night about an hour later, but the conundrum kept Leslie awake for a long time while it spun around her head. The clock said nearly midnight when she heard the foyer door open downstairs, and she got up and slipped out of the room, driven at last to pursue the issue.
"Ah, there you are," Roarke said, taking in her attire.
She pulled in a fortifying breath. "Father, there's something I need to talk to you about. It has to do with Ivy and what happened at the luau."
"What did happen?" Roarke inquired, going to the desk and taking his chair there. He gestured at one of the leather chairs. "Sit down and tell me about it."
Leslie remembered then that one of Ivy's former classmates had distracted him and he had gone with her to have a discussion. "That's right, you didn't see it. Well, those people started talking…" She went on to describe the events while Roarke listened attentively; when she finished, his face was filled with concern and a trace of disappointment.
"I see," he mused. "A terrible shame that some people seem to have no manners."
"Helen was giving them what-for about it when we left," Leslie said, "and I think it's disgusting myself, but that isn't what's keeping me awake. I was afraid Ivy would get upset with us because her high-school reunion was here the same weekend she was. I know you told Janet Littleton it was a coincidence, but…well, Christian pointed out that there are a lot of 'coincidences' like that around here. I've seen it myself, so many times I couldn't count them all. Are you really sure these things are just coincidences, considering the sheer number of them? Or do you set them up that way for the purposes of the fantasy being granted? Like this reunion, for example. Janet was pretty strident when she said Ivy would never go to one of those, and Ivy herself told us she wouldn't, and why."
Roarke nodded. "Yes, the mole she once had. I knew about that."
"Uh-huh." Leslie rolled her eyes. "Of course you did. Anyway, that fantasy was scheduled months ago, and the committee setting up that reunion undoubtedly requested their reservations even longer ago than that. You had to have knowingly put them on the same weekend, because you knew that Ivy's makeover would have its ultimate test in front of her old classmates—and not only that," she rushed on as she was stricken by a new idea, "you thought it'd be good for Ivy, to get her out of her shell, just as her sister said. And if Ivy had confidence and a complete overhaul, courtesy of Helen of Troy, you figured there was no reason on earth for her to stay away from the reunion."
Roarke let several seconds elapse while she caught her breath; then he smiled. "I tell you this now only because you are my assistant, Leslie. But yes, I do often deliberately set up those 'coincidences' you scoff at. Not all of them, mind you. The universe has a force all its own, and I certainly can't control it, no matter what you may believe." He winked, and she grinned sheepishly. "Some coincidences do crop up entirely on their own, but I nudge others along. And yes, you guessed correctly that I will arrange such 'coincidences' in order to benefit a guest—even if said guest believes it's anything but beneficial."
"Is that what you did with Ivy's fantasy?" Leslie persisted.
Roarke smiled again. "How better to put Lady Helen's powers to the test?"
"Well, it failed," Leslie told him bluntly, "though I don't know whether that means Helen's talents leave something to be desired, or you just had a bad idea making Ivy face her old classmates in the first place, makeover or none."
That made Roarke chuckle. "While it may sound to you as if I am attempting to avoid culpability, it's not just a test of Lady Helen's talents. It's also a test of Miss Krakowski's willingness to follow through on the lead she was given."
"Then it might not have been anybody's fault. That is, unless you blame her classmates for being such small-minded morons."
Roarke laughed at her terminology. "There is little that can be done about that, I'm afraid. What matters now is what Miss Krakowski decides to do in the face of their recognition of her despite all the changes."
"If she crawls back into her sheltered life, I have to admit I couldn't blame her. They all laughed at her, and that one idiot even called her by that awful nickname they must have saddled her with back then. And that was after they had a good look at her and saw her new clothes, her new hairstyle, her makeup and even that the mole was gone. It just shows what jerks they are. Ivy was right. She said that to those people, she'd always be 'the freak with the mole', and I quote her."
Roarke arose and she followed suit. "Perhaps by morning, once everyone has had some time to sleep on it, something will change for the better. Why don't you try to get some sleep now so we can be there for Miss Krakowski should she need us."
