Chapter 45
Elaine was up at six-thirty the next morning.
By seven a.m., she had showered and dressed and was sitting
at the “teacher’s desk” in the den, sipping a cup of coffee she’d made for herself
in the kitchen, preparing for her first day of home-schooling with Alexander. Fenia
came in about eight and helped her get a fire started to warm up the room. There
was a charming wood stove between the desk and the picture window. Like most
houses in the Mediterranean, the villa had individual heating/AC units for
nearly every room, but the fireplace heat was, as Fenia said, “much warmer and
very cozier.”
Preparation for Alex’s Grade 3 lessons was harder than she
imagined. Pretending to be familiar with the Atlas Education System curriculum
may have scored points with Spyro during the interview, but it made her feel
stressed. In truth, she had only skimmed through the sample Atlas materials
online. Fortunately, the previous governess always planned out the boy’s
lessons two weeks in advance, and she had left the schedule behind along with
the rest of the materials, so that part was done for her, at least for the next
ten days. Teaching math, handwriting, vocabulary, spelling, art, social studies
and so on to an elementary school child was all new to Elaine. She hoped she
could appear experienced enough to make Spyro think she knew what she was
doing.
* * *
The “eight-thirty sharp” breakfast started just when Spyro
said it would, a little after nine, Greek time. Fenia rang a small dinner bell
in the dining room that softly echoed through the house to signal that the food
was ready.
When Elaine left the den, she walked through the hallway
that led past the library and the Jackson Pollack painting that hid the wall
safe behind Spyro’s desk flashed by the corner of her eye. Elaine had to make
an effort not to glance at it or look into the room. Kathy had given her the
combination of the safe before leaving France, and from her mother’s
description, some of the contents besides the financial statements could be
useful, even incriminating. Kathy said there were life insurance policies,
income tax returns, certificates for stocks and bonds, birth certificates, and
a bundle of passports which she thought were probably fake. Before traveling to
Marseilles to see Elaine, Kathy had simply snatched the envelope that contained
the financial statements, an envelope she had seen Spyro pull out and replace
many times, and fled.
But it would be a while before Elaine made any attempt to
access the safe. With all the servants moving around the house as well as the
property outside—maid, cook, gardener, driver, etc.—she would first have to
know all their daily patterns well before she took such a risk.
“Kalimera, Patricia!” Spyro said, when she entered
the dining room. Elaine said good morning back in Greek and glanced around—the
room was huge, and housed a long table, obviously designed for banquets. The
table itself was unusual, made of polished oak.
“What lovely chairs,” Elaine commented, as she sat down. They
were upholstered in mauve velvet.
Kathy gave a short laugh and glanced at Spyro. He merely
grunted and looked away. Apparently there had been some friction about the
choice of furniture.
As Elaine seated herself, Alexander and Kathy were already
filling their plates—Fenia served the breakfast buffet-style, the center of the
large glass table filled with dishes of eggs, bacon, toast, sliced tomatoes and
cucumbers, yogurt, honey, jams, and some croissants, along with freshly squeezed orange juice and Greek
coffee. Though Tony would never have approved, Elaine was beginning to like the
Greek coffee already. Similar to Turkish coffee, it was made on a stove top
using unfiltered coffee grounds and was thick and foamy, with plenty of
caffeine kick.
Kathy made her feel like an unwelcome interloper, avoiding
eye contact and radiating an almost palpable coldness towards her. Elaine had
never thought she had inherited any good qualities from her mother, but now she
realized her proven ability to take on undercover assignments and impersonate
other people might have been passed along through the genes—Kathy was an
excellent actor. Elaine thought it was crystal clear to Spyro, Costa, Fenia,
and probably even Alexander that she despised the pretty and much younger new
governess.
On the other hand, if her mother was such a good actress,
maybe she’d been acting with Elaine, too? She told herself that she had to be
careful with Kathy.
While they ate, Spyro made small talk about the weather. His
prosthetic hand whirred softly every now and then when he changed from a knife
to a fork or picked up his glass. Now she could see why her mother never
mentioned it—he was so adept at using it that it was scarcely noticeable.
After a few minutes, Costa appeared in the hallway, rolling
a carry-on size suitcase behind him. Evidently he had come in through the villa’s
back door, which led to the guest house where he and Fenia lived.
Spyro wiped his mouth on a napkin, said, “Excuse me,” and
then rose from the table and joined Costa out in the hallway. He walked the
security chief towards the front door, speaking softly to the man in Greek. It
sounded like he was giving Costa instructions.
Elaine then heard the front door open and close. Out the
window, she glimpsed the limo pulling around, presumably to take Costa to the
airport.
Spyro came back into the dining room and sat back down, not
looking at Elaine.
She wondered where Costa was going.
* * *
At 10:30, Elaine and Alexander were in the den, sitting
side by side at the teacher’s desk. Elaine was already hard at work, going over
his math lesson, encouraging him, making him do some of the exercises by
himself, but math was his best subject, and it was easy. Reading was his worst—he
didn’t like it, thought it was “boring.” Apparently this was a source of
contention between the boy and his father, who obviously valued reading very
highly and prided himself in how much he had educated himself by reading on his
own, according to Kathy.
Elaine noticed that throughout the lessons, Spyro
occasionally appeared near the doorway, listening. He hovered at the threshold
for a couple of minutes, checking her progress, she thought, and then went
away. Even though she did not have any credentials or formal experience teaching
children, she did feel a certain confidence about her ability, as she’d spent a
good bit of time teaching Ryan the past few years, preparing him for
kindergarten.
At noon they took a break. Alexander led Elaine by the hand
into the library to pick up the Atlas Reading Supplement that had arrived in
the mail. Spyro had told her about them and said that they usually arrived by
mid-week.
The envelope was on Spyro’s massive desk along with a neat
stack of letters.
Elaine stopped after taking only one step inside the door
as Alexander approached his father’s desk. She hadn’t seen Spyro for the last
half an hour and had no idea where he was.
Alexander picked up the AEI envelope and gave a heavy sigh as
he ripped it open, dragging his feet as he walked back to her. He pulled the
booklet from the envelope, barely looking at it as he handed it to Elaine.
It was titled, How Do Airplanes Fly?
“You’re not interested in how airplanes fly?” Elaine said.
“No. Are you?”
“Well, it would be nice to know.” She thought of Luna when
she said this. “I’m always a little nervous when I fly.”
Alex gazed at her with amazement, looking her up and down. “Wow,
you can fly?”
Elaine laughed. “I meant on airplanes.”
He reached out and took her hand in a surprisingly
masculine way. “Don’t worry, Patricia, I’ll protect you.”
Elaine chuckled, and she gently pulled her hand away. He
was adorable, she had to admit, and already a little flirt, too. She had to be
careful not to get too close to him. This thought, and the feelings they
stirred inside her, gave her another short bout of Bad Mother Guilt, but she
pushed it aside.
She gazed past Alex, at the abstract painting behind the
desk. The Jackson Pollack “drip painting” style was immediately recognizable.
This particular work was a continuous, angry-looking mass of wobbling, crisscrossing
red, blue and yellow lines. If there was a signature on it, Elaine couldn’t see
it, but she guessed it was an original Pollack and worth millions.
“Do you know who painted that?” Elaine said. She said this
mainly as a stall to better assess the room, especially the windows that looked
out over the garden—the curtains were wide open.
“Yeah, I know who painted it,” Alex said, turning to look
at it.
“Who?”
“Jackson Polock.”
Elaine frowned. “Jackson Pollack,” she said,
pronouncing the name properly. She was embarrassed by the ethnic slur. “That
other word you used isn’t nice, Alex.”
The boy laughed good-naturedly. “I know. That’s just how
Kathy says it.”
Now Elaine felt even more embarrassed, but of course Alexander
had no idea that Kathy was her mother.
“And what do you think of my masterpiece, Patricia?” Spyro
said from behind them.
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