I wondered if maybe my failure wasn’t that big a deal after all. People stumble. I will get back up, I decided, as I, literally, got back up.
As the sun glinted on the water, I felt lighter somehow. Walking down the mountain, I felt better than I had in a while. I was going through a transition phase in my life, but wasn’t that normal? I could salvage things; I could get back on track.
Back at the resort, Trav had pulled his hair into a bun and was wiping his face with a towel. He was sitting at the end of the dock, and I sat down beside him. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at me.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “If it’s really okay, I’ll stay for two more weeks.”
Trav smiled. “Excellent. It’s just two classes a day. I’ll send over the schedule.” He turned back toward the water and said, “Then what?”
I smiled because, for the first time, I was finally okay with not knowing.
Back in my room a few minutes later, I sat down at the dark-stained mahogany desk by the window and pulled out a postcard that had a picture of the sun setting behind the mountain I had just climbed that morning. I wrote:
Dear Babs,
I’m staying for two more weeks. Can you believe it? Teaching paddleboard yoga, clearing my head, figuring out my next steps. But I’d also really love your advice… Speaking of, how would you feel about a trip to Asheville? We could eat at all our favorite restaurants and visit our favorite place? And maybe… I could stay for a bit? Either way, see you soon!
Xs and Os,
Julia
If Babs would let me stay at her house for a while, I could figure out the future. I would need to call the school, first, of course, see if going back was even a possibility. Get in touch with financial aid. Reapply to the program… It suddenly felt overwhelming. But then again, I had plenty of time to make a decision and still be back for the fall semester.
I looked out the open window at the dozens of sailboats dotting the water with their grace and majesty. I wondered if Conner was still on one. It would be, quite frankly, hard to miss.
That old insecurity that I wouldn’t make it as an architect—the one that constantly drove me back to the familiarity of Hayes—set in. But that part of my life was over. Finally. I got up, stretched, and walked out onto the porch, leaning on the rail. I had two choices: I could dwell on what I should have done differently, or I could move forward.
I liked the idea of that.
CORNELIA Queen of the Nile
March 24, 1923
Cornelia leaned toward the mirror in her bedroom on K Street in Washington, took a pencil to her eye with a quick flourish, and leaned back again, examining her appearance. At twenty-two years old, everything about her was vibrant, fresh, and vivid.
“You are the picture of Cleopatra,” Edith said, sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapping her arm around one of its four posters. “Perhaps even more beautiful.”
When Cornelia had asked her mother what her costume should be for the fancy dress ball being hosted by Commissioner Rudolph—president of the governing body of Washington—and his wife, Edith’s answer had been almost immediate: “A strong, beautiful woman who is a bit mysterious. Cleopatra!” Edith was the queen of the fancy dress ball, having hosted some of the most lavish ones of the past few years, and she always knew what the best outfit would be.
Cleopatra—the queen of Egypt, the inheritor of Greece’s vast cultural gifts, and, perhaps best of all, a woman who had lived out one of the world’s greatest love stories… Yes, Cornelia couldn’t think of any woman quite so fabulous or fantastical to portray, especially now that, she had to admit, finding a love of her own was on her mind. The war was over, the men were home, and the country’s spirits were as gay and heady as she could remember. The parties were glorious and there was so much fun to be had. This was Cornelia’s time to shine.
As Edith lowered the bronze headdress, adorned with snakes and jewels, onto Cornelia’s head, Cornelia examined herself in the mirror once again. She wore a flowing gold gown cinched at the waist, and a bejeweled collar hung heavy on her neck. She looked quite startingly like the Queen of the Nile.
Edith sighed wistfully as Cornelia stood. “Ah, to be young and in the prime of life again, with everyone and everything out there waiting for you.”
Cornelia gave her mother a once-over. “Mother, you might not be as young as you once were, but I’d daresay you are certainly in your prime, and every eligible man your age seems to be jockeying for the position by your side.”
Edith had been connected in the papers to more than one man, even though she very, very seldom talked to Cornelia about her romantic pursuits. They were all perfectly nice men. Some were powerful, and very rich, and Cornelia knew that if Edith had been a different woman, she would have married one of them to offset some of the financial difficulties they had endured since George’s death. But she was a devout widow, and even after all these years, she felt it inappropriate to choose a second husband when her daughter had yet to choose a first. Who Cornelia would marry was more an object of fascination in the papers than who Edith would marry, if that was even possible.
“Your father was the man by my side, Cornelia,” Edith said simply. “And, since then, you have been the woman by it. I need nothing more.”
“You don’t even need Governor Morrison?” Cornelia asked playfully. Her mother was trying to be coy, but she was missing tonight’s party to have dinner with the North Carolina governor, who was in D.C. on business. And she must like him, because fancy dress balls were Edith’s favorite.
Edith rolled her eyes. “What about you, dear? Are any of the interested parties catching your eye lately?” Cornelia had begun to feel a vague sense of unease, of longing for something she couldn’t quite place. In her set, that longing usually led in short order to an engagement. She assumed she needed to choose a person to spend her life with. That would settle what felt so very unsettled within her. She thought of her friend Rose, of how happy and content she was in her pretty little house in Biltmore Village, with her husband, Andy. Then again, hadn’t Rose always seemed happy and content? Bunchy, on the other hand, ran from the very idea of marriage like it might drown her. Her wildest and freest friend seemed to gain all her joy from nights out on the town, raucous parties, and flirtations with men she had no intentions of getting serious with. Cornelia didn’t quite feel like she fit in either of her best friends’ categories.
Cornelia sighed and slinked down in her vanity chair. “I’m just grateful you’re not forcing me into one of those horrible arranged marriages to a foreigner,” she said, shuddering. “I simply cannot understand why all these American women marry men from abroad, only to use their family fortune to restore a rotting castle without proper plumbing and electricity.” More than a few of Cornelia’s contemporaries—and even her own family members—had left the US with their broke-but-titled husbands, as was all the rage among their set.
Edith laughed. “Yes, Nelly. You have made your feelings quite clear—and quite public, I might add.”
Cornelia rolled her eyes. Seemingly every paper in the country ran ridiculous spreads declaring that she and Edith would keep their money in the United States.