Only His Lost Light

Chapter 2: Aster House

I reported to Aster House at eight the next morning with my laptop, two boxes of office supplies, and a printed copy of my transfer terms.

The club occupied a slate building on the east harbor, behind a gate that opened only when a member's car approached. The front desk smelled like cedar and lemon polish. A wall of framed photographs showed men in dinner jackets holding fishing rods and women in silk dresses looking out at the water.

My badge said MARA ELLIS, GUEST RELATIONS.

It did not say communications, events, or foundation staff.

A woman with silver hair and a navy suit came out from behind the front desk. "You must be Mara. I'm Judith Bell, the club manager."

"Thank you for meeting me."

"I wasn't given much choice. Adrian called before seven."

"I've been told I'm handling events."

"You're handling some events. You'll also be managing member requests, booking private rooms, and whatever else comes through the door." She looked at my boxes. "Your office is upstairs. It's small."

"I've had smaller."

"That makes one of us."

She led me past a dining room with a view of the marina. Men at a long table lowered their voices as I passed. One of them said, "That's the girl."

I kept walking.

My office was a narrow room with a desk, a filing cabinet, and a window that looked onto the service entrance. The computer was new. The building, the furniture, and the people were not.

Judith set a brass key on the desk. "The second cabinet is the club's event archive. Don't move anything without a record."

"Who has access?"

"Me, the general counsel, and whichever Vale employee remembers the cabinet exists."

"That would be me, apparently."

She studied my face. "You're not the first person Adrian has sent here after making a mess somewhere else."

"Is that what happened?"

"I don't know. I don't ask him questions he doesn't want to answer."

Before I could ask more, the phone rang. Judith picked it up, listened, and then covered the receiver.

"Your first member request. Mr. Vale wants the east salon ready for lunch. He has a guest."

"I can do that."

"He asked for you specifically."

I understood the trap before I walked into it.

The east salon had one table set for two. Aster House staff had laid out a white linen cloth and a vase of pale flowers. Adrian sat facing the harbor. Celeste stood beside the window with her arms crossed.

"You're working already," he said.

"I'm on the schedule."

"I asked for the private room."

"Then you have it."

Celeste turned toward me. "I didn't ask for this."

"I know."

Adrian looked at the place settings. "Could you make sure we aren't interrupted?"

"Certainly."

I left the door open.

He looked at me. "Close it."

"The club's privacy policy says the door remains open unless both guests request otherwise."

"That's a new policy."

"It's been in place since last year."

That was technically true. I had written the policy after a member complained that staff had been made to wait outside a room for two hours while a guest demanded repeated service.

Celeste came to stand near the door. "Leave it open."

I walked out without looking back.

At noon, Judith called me to the front desk. A member had complained that I was "not properly trained" and wanted someone more senior to manage his event.

"I'm sorry," I said. "What did I do?"

"You didn't know which wine he expected at a luncheon he hasn't booked yet."

"I see."

"I told him we'd be glad to discuss the menu once he made a reservation."

"Was that wrong?"

"Not according to the handbook." Judith's mouth twitched. "He is paying a lot of money to be wrong in public."

I worked through lunch, finding the club's event records and building a usable calendar. Much of the archive was paper. Much of it had no index. The newest files were on a shared drive I couldn't access.

At two, Adrian's assistant emailed me a draft of the transfer announcement. It described me as a "specialist in private guest services." Nothing mentioned my foundation role or my communications experience. It included a photograph of me beside Adrian at last year's gala.

I deleted the photo from the draft and sent it back with edits.

At four, I found a stack of old event invoices in the archive. The top invoice had a date from the year before. It listed a photographer, a florist, and a "guest appearance fee" charged to the foundation's outreach account. The appearance fee was paid to Vale Heritage Services.

There was no guest name.

I looked at the next invoice. Same charge. Same account. Different date.

I took a picture with my phone, then stopped. The club's record policy required a written log. I entered the file numbers, dates, and storage location into the archive register.

At six, Adrian came to my office.

"Why did you revise the announcement?"

"Because the draft misrepresented my work."

"It was meant to be simple."

"It was meant to make me sound like a hostess."

"That's part of the position."

"It's not the whole position."

He shut the door. "You could make this easier."

"By agreeing to a description I didn't write?"

"By not making me fight every sentence."

"I wasn't aware we were fighting."

His eyes moved to the open archive cabinet behind me. "What are you looking at?"

"Club invoices."

"Then look at club invoices."

"I am."

He stepped closer to the desk. "Don't rummage through foundation records."

"They're filed in the club archive."

"Somebody filed them incorrectly."

"Then I'll note it in the log."

He held my gaze for a long moment. "You think everything can be solved with a log."

"No. But a log can make it harder to pretend something never happened."

Adrian turned away. "Do your job, Mara."

"I am."

He left. I waited until his footsteps faded before I wrote the conversation into my own notebook.