The entrance to the house looked just as ornate as the driveway gates. There were paired entry doors with glass in the top halves and about five marble steps up to them.
"It's just the sort of house you don't see built anymore," Ami added. "All those decorative brackets, the cornerstones, the cresting along the roofline. No one can afford to build such a home. I think we should give it a name, don't you? Famous houses all have names, like Tara in Gone With the Wind. Maybe you'll come up with an idea. Wade doesn't even try," she added critically.
"How about calling it Our House?" he said, and smiled into the rearview mirror.
"Ha, ha," Ami returned. She shook her head at me. "Wade has about as much creativity as one of his elbow pipes or whatever they're called."
"Fittings, Ami, fittings. You should at least have some idea about the business that provides all this."
"Right," she said. "I'll take a class on it."
We went around the house to what looked like a definite add-on, an attached garage in the rear.
"I'm dropping you two off, Ami, and heading back to the company," Wade said.
"Couldn't you take some time off today?"
"I'll be back early. I promise."
"Promise? When Wade makes a promise, it's like the weather report. Twenty percent chance of rain," Ami said.
"Very funny. I will be home early," he stressed.
"You better. It's a special evening tonight," Ami warned him.
The rear door of the house opened, and a stout woman emerged, dressed in a light blue maid's uniform with white lace trim. She looked about sixty, sixty-five years old. Her hair was dark brown with gray strands throughout, cut very short. She wore no makeup, not even lipstick, which she could have used; her lips were almost as pale as her complexion. I noticed that her forearms were heavy, and her hands quite large for a woman's hand. She moved quickly to the trunk of the car. Wade had pushed the button that opened it automatically.
We stepped out.
"This is our housekeeper, Mrs. Cukor," Ami said. "She's been working for the Emersons ever since she came from Hungary, which is a long time ago."
Mrs. Cukor paused and turned to us.
"This is Celeste, Mrs. Cukor. She's coming to live with us, as you know."
"Hello," she said quickly, barely looking at me, and turned back to my suitcases.
"Wade used to call her Mrs. Cookie, didn't you, Wade?"
"When I was four," he said.
"Wade's father still calls her Mrs. Cookie," Ami told me.
"My father often acts like he's still four," Wade muttered.
"I never heard you tell him so," Ami teased. Wade grimaced.
"I don't have to tell him. He knows it."
"I can carry that," I said when Mrs. Cukor took out the second suitcase.
She held them both in firm grips, gazed at me a moment, her dark eyes narrowing as if she thought I was out to take her job and was warning me off. Then she turned without speaking and walked toward the door. If they were heavy for her, she didn't reveal it. There was no strain in her shoulders.
"Mrs. Cukor never likes to seem incapable of doing anything," Ami said. "It's rubbed off on the Emersons because she's worked for them so long. Emersons are perfect in every way, in their bodies and their minds, right, Wade?"
"Right. So long, Ami," Wade sang. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, which she immediately fanned as though a fly had landed on her face. He turned to me. "Welcome to our nameless home, Celeste. I hope you'll have a good experience here," he said.
"Thank you," I told him, and he got back into the car.