“Imagine the church? Just think of your handsome groom smiling from the end of the aisle!” Bunchy chimed in.
Cornelia smiled, thinking of her fiancé. “Oh, he’ll look handsome,” Edith said as the photographer snapped away. “But you, my dear, are simply breathtaking.”
After a dozen or so more photos, Mrs. Donahue appeared at the top of the stairs. “All right, all right,” she said, scolding. “That’s enough or we are going to be late.” Cornelia, for one, was relieved. But before she could get out the door, she wondered what it would be like to return to this house—which some would say was too large to ever be a home but was, undoubtedly, for Cornelia—as a Cecil.
A lump formed in her throat at the thought. Before the lump could turn to tears, her mother helped her out the door, and Cornelia gasped at the sight of Old Frank, Biltmore’s longtime gatekeeper, on the esplanade, in a brand-new coat—a wedding gift from her mother—and a jaunty top hat. “Frank!” she declared. “You are more than dashing! Aren’t you every bit the gentleman?” As he reached her, she leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, much to his delight.
Frank dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief. “Our little Nell is all grown up.” Frank had been on the estate even longer than Cornelia and doted on her like a kind uncle or close family friend; he had played games in the garden with her when she was a child. Remembering the jacks he always kept in his pocket for days that seemed to stretch too long, she squeezed his arm just as Mrs. Donahue began shooing her to the car.
“That car is for you and your bride, Frank,” Edith said, pointing to the fifth car in line.
“For us?” Frank gasped.
Dear Frank was overcome with joy.
Bunchy and Edith squeezed in beside Cornelia in the back seat, taking care not to crush her dress or veil. Cornelia regretted that her friend Rose wouldn’t be beside her as she stood at the altar. But Rose was pregnant and couldn’t very well be expected to stand. Still, she would be sitting in a reserved seat near the front where her friend could see her, and in some ways, that was almost better. Mr. Plemmons, the driver and family friend, turned and winked at the bride. “Am I getting you to the church on time or driving the getaway car?”
Bunchy laughed delightedly. “Bite your tongue!” Edith exclaimed.
Cornelia smiled at Mr. Plemmons, thinking that this had almost been the perfect day so far. She had never expected something like this, something so wonderful, to happen to her. She had fallen head over heels in love with Jack Cecil. She might even go so far as to call it love at first sight. But, in spite of her joy, a part of her was nervous about the changes marriage might bring.
All she could think about as they drove away was that, yes, she was destined to become the next mistress of Biltmore. But, in a matter of hours, never again would she walk through the door of her home as a Vanderbilt.
JULIA Permission
After a day of sunning on the deck, swimming in the sea, and laughing together, I told Conner that I needed to get back to the bunk room. He rolled over on top of me. “There is absolutely no way I’m letting you go, Julia. No way.”
I sighed and lay back, the sand feeling warm against my neck and upper back, the water cool on my feet. We were lying in the shallows of a nearby, unnamed island, and truthfully, I couldn’t imagine going back to my dank, spartan bunk room when the luxury of the yacht was a possibility. “Tomorrow is technically my day off,” I said sleepily.
“Your last day is your day off?” He laughed. “Then you must stay with me,” Conner said, kissing my neck, burying his face in my hair.
I nodded. I would have said yes to anything he wanted from me at that moment.
He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at me. “I want to picture what you’ll be doing you when you get back home. What are your plans? Will you really go back to school?”
I smiled. He was so sweet. “Well, my grandmother has this charming stone mountain cabin that looks like it came out of ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ I’m going to go there to get my ducks in a row.” I paused and bit my lip. Saying this next part was going to make it real. “And after that, I’ve decided: if they’ll let me, I’m going to go back and finish.”
Conner smiled. “That’s fantastic news!”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?”
I sighed. “What if they won’t let me back in?”
He peered down at me intently. “I’m not sure I can help you unpack that problem unless you tell me why you quit in the first place.”
I had never told the whole story to anyone but Sarah because, in my heart, it felt so heavy, so big. But here, on the sand with the sun streaming down, I realized that maybe it wasn’t. There were trillions of grains of sand on this little stretch of beach. My little problem suddenly seemed small, insignificant.
“I feel really dumb because it isn’t going to sound like a big deal,” I began. “But when it happened, it felt like it was the end of the world.” I paused. Conner was quiet, waiting. I knew I wasn’t getting out of telling him this time.
He rolled back over, lying next to me on the sand. “I won’t look at you while you say it. That will help.”
“I guess,” I said, looking up at the sky. “I was working on my final project for my second semester of my professional degree. I had already had my site plan approved, so I wasn’t even really that worried about it.”
“Okay. I’m tracking.”
“Do you know who Alex Winchester is?”
Conner laughed. “Um, yeah. Obviously. Basically the master of small-space living as we know it.”
“It is really something to find someone who is the same kind of super nerd as you.”
He laughed and turned on his side, rubbing his thumb down my cheek. “It is. I just never imagined that she would be quite so beautiful and captivating.”
I could feel myself blushing as he leaned forward to kiss me.
“So, Alex Winchester.” Conner turned back to face the sky.
I nodded. “I really wanted to challenge myself on the project—and, honestly, I wanted to impress Professor Winchester—so I decided to go way above and beyond. I talked to my grandmother for inspiration, and after doing a lot of research, I eventually drew this graduated living community that was very different from anything else I’d seen. It was green and sustainable and arranged in these sort of pods…” I trailed off, feeling sick just thinking about it. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but I was so proud of it. I’m embarrassed to say that I daydreamed about the praise, how excited everyone would be by my innovative idea.”
“And?”
“And, evidently, the idea was impractical, expensive, and if I was ever going to make it as an architect, I was going to have to learn to follow the rules. Professor Winchester told me that, if that project was any indication, I would never make it as an architect.” I said this part fast, so the pain couldn’t touch me, so I couldn’t feel the sheer humiliation of being told by one of my heroes that I wasn’t good enough.
Maybe other people’s opinions shouldn’t matter that much. But Professor Winchester’s, who was not only an expert but also the one signing off on my thesis project, mattered quite a lot.