The Wedding Veil(96)

Edith closed her eyes again, tears spilling down her cheeks. Somewhere, lost in time and space and memory, the pealing laughter of Tarheel Nell would fill empty halls, and celebrations with friends would soothe broken hearts. Edith’s dream. George’s dream. It had not died. It could not die. No, as long as Edith was here, as long as Biltmore stood proud, her perfect family, those idyllic days, would continue to exist. George’s dream would live on.





JULIA It’s You





It had taken six months. Six months for everything, really. Six months for me to walk across a stage and receive a diploma that I knew I had really, truly earned. Six months for Babs and me to decide, once and for all, that we must dispose of the Vanderbilt veil in the proper way. (What that was, we weren’t sure. It wasn’t like an American flag, where the protocol was stipulated.) And six months—along with his engagement to the woman he’d cheated on me with—for me to truly accept, deep down, that Hayes was not the one for me. When the habit of leaning on him had faded, I realized that I was finally standing on my own two feet. The thing that scared me most was that now, months later, I barely thought of him. I didn’t hate him, didn’t miss him. He simply did not occur to me. What a terrible thing to think… But it was the truth. My truth. It had taken separating myself from Hayes, walking away, to discover what that was.

Now, my butterflies had butterflies. I had just had my very first New York City job interview. It was at the same firm I had interned at, so I felt comfortable if not totally confident. I had carried a folded-up postcard inside the breast pocket of my suit for good luck. It—comically—had a picture of Garrison Towers, the building that had made Conner famous, on the front of it. The back read:

Darling Julia,

Look at you! Look AT YOU! You have done it. You have fought through so many hard things to get this dream. You have gone through so much to create this life for yourself. You are an inspiration to me, and you will be an inspiration to many. No matter what your future holds from here, please remember how very proud I am of all you are and all you do.

All my love,

Babs



As I put my hand to my pocket, I had a flashback of standing with Sarah in the airport bathroom, removing my wedding gown, of her telling me I deserved someone who wrote me love letters. I realized now that I had had that all along.

As I rode the elevator down to the first floor, I marveled at the idea that I might get to work in this big city with these huge buildings all around me, that I might get to learn from the greats. Jumping off this ledge all alone was a little scary, of course. But I had prepared for this. I was ready.

I walked across the marble floor and out the revolving door. I was looking down at my feet—revolving doors always made me a little nervous—and, as I stepped out onto the sidewalk, I almost ran right smack into a man.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said, looking up. Then I laughed, my nerves from the interview floating away, the sheer absurdity of this moment not quite taking hold yet. “It’s you,” I said.

“It’s you,” he responded, grinning at me.

I stood quietly for a moment, letting the serendipity of it all, the glow of standing in the presence of Conner Howard, wash over me. “How did you know I would be here?!” I exclaimed.

He laughed. “Well, I received a postcard at my office with very specific instructions from someone named—”

“Babs?”

He nodded.

“My grandmother,” I said. Why was I not surprised? She was the very best kind of meddler.

“You hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Your grandmother said I should take you to Sarabeth’s because you really like their pancakes. And she made sure to mention that she’d like you to bring a bottle or two of syrup back home to her.”

I laughed. Oh, Babs. “I can’t bring syrup in my carry-on,” I said.

“Then you’d better mail it,” Conner said, wide-eyed. “I don’t know this woman, but I can assure you I don’t want to cross her.”

Conner reached his hand out to me. I took it, and we started walking in the direction of Central Park—and Sarabeth’s. We stopped briefly in front of the Pulitzer statue across from the Plaza. The bronze nude of Pomona, the goddess of abundance, was located in perhaps one of the most bustling areas of New York. I wondered how many times people walked past her in a day, never realizing that they were passing in front of the work of one of the world’s greatest sculptors, Karl Bitter.

“Have you ever been to Biltmore Estate?” I asked Conner.

He shook his head.

“There are several Bitter pieces there,” I said, thinking of Boy Stealing Geese and the Fashionable Romance exhibit that day with Babs when I remembered how strong I could be, when I realized that if my grandmother could move forward in her life so could I.

“Did you know that it was actually Konti who finished this sculpture, not Bitter?” Conner asked.

I shook my head.

“Karl Bitter was killed the night he finished the plaster mold of this statue. He pushed his wife, his great love, out of the way of an oncoming car, and he was crushed by it.”

It made me cringe. “How awful,” I said. “I had no idea. But just think of that, of your legacy standing tall and proud in the center of the greatest city in the world, of being immortalized in that way.” I gasped. “Like you, Conner. You have created something lasting and real, something that will stand in this city forever.”