The Story of Lansing Lotte (20 page)

It wasn’t Layne that attracted my attention first that night. It was Guinie. She’d cornered me inside the house, near the wide-open French doors. A chilly fall breeze blew in to cool the extreme warmth of the wall length fireplace that was ablaze like a bonfire. Guinie’s face was aglow behind the mask and her hair lit in the firelight. She looked otherworldly as I had heard Arturo label her.

“How could you?” she started.

“How could I what?”

“How could you finger fuck, Layne?”

If Guinevere DeGrance had hit me with a guitar, I would have been less shocked than the words that just crossed her mouth.

“Excuse me,” I exaggerated.

“Layne? You touched her.”

“That’s none of your business,” I snapped in my embarrassment.

“It is when Layne tells me.”

My mouth fell open.

“That’s right. She told me about the shower.”

If I ever blushed, it would have been then, but I was so angry my face could have turned red from the heat rising inside me.

“Why would she tell you that?”

“Because she wants me to know that you’re with her, but she thinks you’re in love with me.”

“I’m not with her, and why would she think I’m in love with you?”

“She’s convinced you still harbor feelings for me from when we were in high school.”

“I…” I had to stop. I couldn’t lie. I did still have feelings for her.

“Lansing?” she said, her voice lowering from her anger a moment ago.

“I…” I swallowed hard as I watched Guinie’s masked face shake back and forth.

“I do. Have feelings for you.” I sighed, feeling like the weight of the world was lifted by letting those words out of me.

“You can’t,” she said softly.

“I can’t help myself,” I pleaded.

“You have to. You have Layne.”

“I don’t have Layne.”

“You can’t string her along, Lansing. She’s fragile.”

“She’s fine,” I hissed, “and I’m not stringing her along. She knows where we stand.”

“And where is that, Lansing?”

I turned in the direction of the voice just outside the open door. In the darkness, Layne blended with the black shimmer of the lake in the distance. Her gown blew with the wind like the ripples behind her.

“Layne? I…”

I didn’t have a chance to answer as she disappeared into the night.

If shock was the first Fate revealed that night, horror became the second as I chased after Layne. I had no idea where she could have gone in the dark surroundings of the Corbin property, but I knew I had to search for her. I ran out the French doors onto the stone patio and through an opening in the low garden wall to find Elaine pacing back and forth in the middle of the vast grassy property between the house and the lake. She was walking briskly back and forth, back and forth, and as I approached she appeared to be talking to herself.

“Elaine?” I said out of breath, “Have you seen Layne?”

“Layne Ascolat?”

“Yea.”

“No, I haven’t.”

I started to walk away, taking a course to the left first, toward the boathouse that jutted out into the lake.

“Wait. Lansing I have to talk to you.”

“Elaine, it has to wait. I have to find Layne.”

“Lansing, please. This is really important. It can’t wait.”

“Look, I promise I’ll come right back after I find Layne.”

“That’s not good enough, Lansing. You said you would call me and you didn’t.”

“I know and I apologize, but really, I have to go. I’ll be back as soon as I find her.” I had taken a step or two backward, still facing Elaine with my back to the boathouse as I spoke.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted into the cold night air.

As if Fate hadn’t been cruel enough, Layne heard that admission loud and clear as she gasped somewhere behind me. I turned to face the darkness and I could only make out her shadow. She blended with the night and it was eerie that I couldn’t see her face to read a reaction. I was shocked myself and about to decline the baby, but Elaine continued behind my back.

“I’m two months along. From the night we slept together. The night of Arturo’s disappearance.”

I was holding my breath as the cool air surrounding me was suddenly suffocating me. I tried hard to block that night from my head, the night of my sexcapade with Elaine. I was hardly in my mind that night, anyway. I had been drunk after Arturo ran from the building with Perk and Hollister. When Guinie refused to talk to me again. I decided to fuck them all and drink like a fish. Little did I know it would end with me getting fucked by Elaine Corbin.

“That can’t be,” I said to Elaine, as I stared at the shadow of Layne.

“It is. I haven’t been with another man before or since. It can only be you, Lansing. You are definitely the one.”

Those words haunted me and a memory from long ago drifted into my mind. I had heard them uttered by Elaine Corbin before. Her voice was clear and she must have moved closer behind me. I still did not break my gaze in the direction of Layne.

“Layne?” I said tenderly. I suddenly felt the cold sweep over me. I knew I had to address her delicately. Like I might address Fleur.

“It will never be me, Lansing.” Her voice was confident, determined like the girl who told me all about her opera career hopes in New York City, a few weeks ago.

“I’ll always be second.”

“That’s not true,” I said with a sigh.

“Stop lying to me, Lansing.” Her voice had an edge of anger leaving it suddenly shaky.

“Better yet,” she added, quieting her tone, “stop lying to yourself.”

I didn’t answer at first. I felt like we were having a silent stare down, only I couldn’t see her innocent eyes. If she could, I’m sure she would be beaming enough hatred at me to melt my soul.

“I’ve loved you since high school, but it was never enough. You always wanted Guinie.”

I remained quiet. I couldn’t argue with that.

“And now this, with Elaine? It’s hard to be second, Lansing, so hard. You should know.  You’ve been second a long time, as well.”

Her words hurt for their truthfulness and I heard Elaine suck in a breath. I hadn’t realized she still remained behind me to hear the interchange. I was suddenly angry to share that sensitive conversation with Layne before Elaine.

“Go away, Elaine,” I bit, my anger clear.

“I’m not leaving until we talk,” she demanded.

“Now this,” Layne repeated. “I could never be first.”

“This has nothing to do with you, Layne.”

“You’re right because there’s nothing between us,” she said. I could imagine her literally spitting the words at me.

“Layne, I didn’t mean that. Come closer to me so we can talk.”

“You’re having a baby now, Lansing, with Elaine. I would never be first. A baby needs to come first. I would still be second.”

“Layne, you aren’t second. Come here so I can see you.”

I took a step forward but I sensed that she took a step back.

“I’ll always be second, Lansing. I know all about being second. But you, you’ll never be more than the best friend. You’ll always come in second place, too.”

Her words froze me and I watched her disappear again.

Fate was not done with me yet. It took several minutes before I could move. Even when I started to follow the general direction of where Layne had gone, I heard Elaine Corbin say, “Let her go,” at the same time that Guinevere called out my name. I honestly didn’t know who to respond to first. So, my heart took over my head, and I turned toward the sound of Guinevere’s voice.

“Don’t do it, Lansing,” warned Elaine, but I did just what I shouldn’t have done. I followed the siren voice that called to me like a drowning sailor.

“Where’s Layne?” Guinevere asked with concern, as I approached her standing on the flagstone patio.

“She ran off again in the dark. I was about to follow her when Elaine stopped me.”

“Did Elaine tell you her exciting news?” I could hear the smile in Guinevere’s voice, as well as the pain. The loss of her own baby was still very much inside Guinie, as I saw in her eyes the other night when she looked at Fleur in my arms.

“I did tell him the news, just now,” Elaine’s voice dripped with venom that I’d never heard before. “And you can be the first to congratulate us.”

The words hung heavy in the air, haunting like the spirits that roamed the earth that night.

“Us?” Guinevere choked.

“Lansing and I,” Elaine’s voice was an octave too high in her excitement, making her sound evil.

“Elaine,” I warned with a hiss.

“Lansing?” Guinie questioned.

A hand slipped around my upper arm and gripped it tight, in warning. I felt like a rabbit trapped by a predator, if I ran I’d be pounced on and killed immediately.

“I didn’t want to tell you who the father was until I had told him myself,” Elaine beamed. “Isn’t it exciting? The prophecy is true after all.”

Guinie hung her head. I continued to stare at her, while I felt the noose continue wrapping around my arm.

“I’m…I’m very happy,” Guinie swallowed, “for you both.” She had crossed her arms over stomach, as if protecting herself, and she turned on her heels to reenter the warmth of the Corbin home.

I spun in the opposite direction to face Elaine.

“How could you?” I growled.

“What, honey?” her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“How could you blurt all this out in front of them, without telling me first?”

“I tried to tell you, Lansing. Remember you were going to call me, but you never did.”

No words had been more fatal for me. Never making a phone call had been my undoing, all those years ago. I never made the promised call to Guinevere DeGrance. After those high school years of anxiously admiring her from afar, wanting to talk to her, but feeling too awkward to do so, I had missed my chance.

The night I kissed her, I came back to Ingrid Tintagel’s, where I lived during the week to find who I thought was my mother, Vivian, and Mure Linn with Ingrid. I had just turned eighteen. My mother had missed the day of celebration, as it was during the week. I thought at first she was there to surprise me, and surprise me she did; when I was blasted with the truth: the truth of my upbringing under her care, the truth of my parents, and the truth of my inheritance.

When I had turned sixteen, and was in need of attending the Performing Arts Academy, Mure Linn worked on my behalf to break the trust fund that had been established for me, payable upon my eighteenth birthday. A donation was made to a scholarship fund – my scholarship – to attend the prestigious school. I had been living the lie that I was a special case, when all along I had been one of them: a trust fund baby, as well as, the other kids who attended. My humble understanding of my presence at the school had prevented me from approaching Guinie earlier and all along I was one of her own society.

When I turned eighteen, the entirety of the trust was handed over to me, as my grandparents were dead, along with my father, who I learned of that night. He had been restored to his family’s fortune after my disappearance. The grief my grandparents felt from abandoning their own son, in a sense, reunited them with him when he lost his. I was the sole owner of Logres Construction, a construction company that worked to restore or build skyscrapers. It was the same company that was currently repairing
Dolores Guard
after the fire.