I wondered what was more important and what would win out in the end.
15
We were both nervous. Twice we started to talk at the same time and laughed.
“Okay. You go first,” I said.
“I was just going to say that I’ve avoided going home so long that I feel like a stranger to the place, too,” he said.
“Weren’t you home during the summer?”
“Just for a few days. I attended a seminar in international politics at Antioch University in New Hampshire. Actually, I chose it for the ride. I spent three days on the road enjoying the trip. I had just gotten this car. But I am interested in the subject, and it was a great place to be. There were students from a number of states and two from the U.K. Both were attending Oxford. We’ve stayed in touch. They’re both guys,” he added for my benefit.
“Did you tell your mother you were going to be at the house tonight?”
“Sorta.” He smiled. “I said I would drop in to get some things I need and might hang out. She just told me she would be out until eleven or so and not to leave a mess. She refuses to acknowledge the mess has been there for years, only it’s not dust or smudges on the windows.”
“I think I’m just as nervous about going to your house as I’m going to be about returning to mine,” I said.
“Relax. My house is a mind blower. You won’t have time to be nervous. You’ll be busy gobbling up everything with your eyes.”
When we arrived at the large, scrolled black iron gate and it opened slowly to reveal the long, winding driveway, I couldn’t help but agree about that. As we went up, the house was more and more impressive. It seemed to rise higher and higher. Beside it, something I couldn’t see from the road below, was a four-car garage. Windows were lit above the garage in what Troy explained was the house manager’s apartment.
“House manager?”
“Dean Wagner. He was here before we bought the house, and my father kept him working for us. Lucky he did. My father is barely capable of changing a lightbulb, not because it’s too difficult, but he doesn’t have the patience for anything mechanical, and there is a lot of technology equipment involved with this house and the grounds. The sprinkler system for the lawns is as elaborate as the ones on most golf courses, and there are literally three hundred different lightbulbs to change inside the house and on the outside of the property. Dean takes care of the pool as well. Of course, he has a half dozen on his staff. He’s a tough boss, and any one of them is lucky to last six months.”
“He was here before? How old is he?”
“I think Dean’s about seventy, although you’d never know it looking at him. He’s not a weight lifter or anything; he’s naturally strong. I’ve seen him lift stuff that would take two or three men to budge. He keeps to himself. All I really know about him is that he was married, but his wife died before their second wedding anniversary, and as my father once told me, he stepped out of the world and married the property. He’d be lost without it.”
He parked in front of the large, short but wide tiled stairway that led to the front entrance. Two deliberately weathered-looking sconces were hung on both sides. The arched brass doorway was at least nine or ten feet tall.
“Dean doesn’t respect my father,” Troy added. “He obeys him only because he respects the property.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can tell by the way he looks at him. I could practically write his thoughts. Dean thinks that a man who can’t tighten a screw is worthless, regardless of how much money he’s earned. It’s funny,” he continued, still not moving to get out of the car, “but when I was growing up, I wanted to prove myself to Dean more than I did to my father, and that was even before the incident I witnessed. I would fix anything I could just to impress him.”
He turned to me. “I suppose that’s sad, a young boy looking up to an employee more than to his own father.”
“I don’t know, Troy. I love my father, and I suppose I respect him, but he did disappoint me when he chose to flee rather than stay and fight for us. I know he’s trying to make up for it. I guess we have to start thinking of them as people flawed as much as anyone and not heroes.”
He smiled. “When I’m right about someone, I’m right,” he said. “And I’m right about you. C’mon. Let me show you Kublai Khan’s Xanadu.”
He came around to open my door and led me up the steps. Instead of a key for the lock, there was a box with numbers on it. He punched in the code, and the door clicked open.
“Magic,” he said. “Otherwise, you can be sure my mother would have a butler.” He opened the door for me.
The foyer was half as big as most homes I knew. The black marble floor glistened. Immediately on the right was a shelf for shoes and what looked like the slippers worn by nurses and doctors during surgeries.
“What is all this?”
“My mother insists that anyone who doesn’t take off his or her shoes wear them. See why I compared the house to an operating room?”
He handed me a pair. We sat on the black leather settee and took off our shoes.
“She’d know if we didn’t,” he said, nodding at a security camera in the corner of the ceiling.