As You Wish Read online

  She took the cold beer Alejandro handed her and leaned back in her chair. “This is disgusting,” she said. “That little twerp Leonardo copies someone else’s design and gets paid six figures. We kill ourselves doing the actual work and we barely get a living wage.”

  Alejandro said in Spanish, “Then you should make a better design.” Diego translated.

  “He’s a plant expert, not me. All I’ve done in garden design is draw a circle on a piece of paper. And I only did that because I wanted—” She stopped. The men were looking at her hard. How did she know about Alejandro’s knowledge of plants? “Besides,” she said loudly, “Mrs. Bellmont wouldn’t listen to me. What do I know about gardening?”

  “You know as much as that little thief does,” Alejandro said, and again Diego translated—while frowning at his brother.

  “She wants some famous name to do it, so she can brag to the other women.” Elise stood up. “Maybe I should say my name is Caliente and that I have a degree from some made-up school in Italy.”

  The two men were staring at her.

  “What?” She looked down at herself. Her clothes were too big and she’d already pulled sticks out of her hair. “What’s wrong?”

  “A rich man’s daughter,” Alejandro said. “Bryn Mawr.”

  “I understood that name.” She didn’t wait for Diego to do an unnecessary translation. “Bryn Mawr isn’t exactly known for garden design. I studied a lot of art history. The closest I ever got to learning about garden design was studying Monet’s water lilies.”

  The men were still staring at her.

  Elise’s voice was rising as she tried to make them understand. “Mrs. Bellmont would never look at anything I proposed. She and my father can’t stand each other. He said that one time she made a pass at him, and after he turned her down, she...”

  The men had their backs against the kitchen counter. They were waiting for her to see what they did.

  “A woman scorned,” Elise said. “It’s quite possible that Audrey Bellmont would love to hire the daughter of a man who humiliated her.”

  Alejandro and Diego smiled at her. A seed—a big one—had been planted. Elise got the drawing pad and pencils out of her suitcase. Where did she begin?

  Diego put a plate of refried beans and rice beside her. “We go back to the Bellmonts’ on Friday. You have two days to come up with something to show her.”

  “But I don’t know how to do this,” Elise said. “I’ve had no training. I don’t even know the size of the garden.”

  Diego picked up the rolled plan off the countertop. “It’s all here. Just change it.”

  “But—”

  “Eat, then get to work,” Diego said.

  Elise had an overwhelming sense of “I can’t” and “I don’t know how.” Alejandro said, “I hate the fishpond,” and Diego translated.

  “Me too,” Elise said. “Her dogs would eat the poor fish. One time my mother said that Audrey Bellmont wanted to be a professional dancer but she got married instead so she gave it up.”

  Again, the men were looking at her.

  “A dance pavilion,” Elise said. “A concrete form. Round. Then a building of lattice where she can sit. In the back, it has mirrors and a ballet barre.” She picked up the pad and began to sketch. She knew just where it could be built in the garden.

  Hours later, when she fell asleep over her sketch pad, it was Alejandro who carried her to bed.

  “I’m dirty,” she murmured, half-asleep.

  “You can shower in the morning.”

  She was too sleepy to notice that he spoke in English. “Pink astilbe. No! Red firecracker plants. What are those funny-looking ones that curve? They’re thick and fuzzy.”

  “Coxcomb.”

  “Right.” She yawned. “You have to choose the plants. What grows on Long Island? Isn’t there some kind of wild orchid around here?”

  Her eyes were closed and Alejandro kissed her forehead—then wiped his mouth. She was indeed quite dirty. She was barefoot but otherwise fully clothed, but he didn’t dare remove anything. Smiling, he went to his own bed. He was glad to see that the scared look was beginning to leave her eyes. Maybe it was on its way to being permanently gone.

  The next morning, Elise was at the kitchen table when the men came in to breakfast.

  She still hadn’t showered.

  Alejandro leaned against the counter, drinking coffee and smiling at her. He looked at Diego. “Tell her I’ll come by for her at noon and take her to get whatever she needs.”

  “You tell her,” Diego said, and went outside to begin loading the truck.

  But Alejandro said nothing as Elise was engrossed with the drawings, and the men left her there. At noon, Alejandro returned to the house. Elise had showered and put on some of her own clothes. As she got into the truck with him, she started talking. “I have no idea if my plan is any good or not. I’ve not seen anything else like it. Worse is that I can’t remember exactly what my mother said about Mrs. Bellmont. Maybe it was sarcasm and she never was a dancer. I’m planning what I call a Dancer’s Garden, but she may hate it.”

  Elise sighed. “Anyway, I think the cabana should be wired so there can be music. I found some sculptures online for copies of Degas’s ballerinas. I like coming around a corner and seeing something beautiful. Mrs. Bellmont has over two acres so I could do a lot with that.”

  She put her head back against the seat. “The truth is that I don’t know what I’m doing.” Alejandro just smiled at her as he pulled into a parking lot in front of a used bookstore.

  It was one of those places that had lots of old hardbacks on shelves, on the floor, stacked on chairs. Nothing in the store had been cleaned in years.

  “Perfect!” Elise said as she got out of the truck.

  Inside, he held the books as she picked out ones on garden design and a few on dancing.

  “It’s a good thing you can’t understand me because I want to tell you that you are the most beautiful pack mule ever put on this earth.”

  Alejandro did his best to look blank, but she saw his smile.

  After he paid for it all—and the books were wonderfully cheap—he drove her to an office supply store and she got paper, pencils, and a scale ruler.

  * * *

  When Elise awoke on Friday morning, she lay quietly in the twin bed and listened to Alejandro breathing. Usually, she woke thinking of pouncing on him, but today she wanted to slip in beside him so he’d hold her and say encouraging things—in his choice of language. In Swahili for all she cared. She just needed someone to tell her she could do this. Could push herself onto Mrs. Bellmont, who she remembered as a rather bad-tempered woman—like her mother.

  Elise closed her eyes for a moment, thinking about how she was the product of two very aggressive parents. Win at all costs! had been their motto. And that included their daughter.

  They’d never seen a reason for Elise to make any decisions of her own, from her clothes to her friends, her education, even to her husband. As a child, Elise had realized that the easiest way to deal with them was to just give in. They loved her, didn’t they? They had her best interests in mind, didn’t they?

  It was only after she found out that her parents had always known about Carmen that she doubted everything.

  When Alejandro turned in the bed, she looked at him. Sleepy-eyed, whiskery cheeks, he was one fabulous-looking man. He raised his eyebrows in question.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “If I reveal myself to Mrs. Bellmont, what if she calls my father? He hired security guards. What if he shows up with them?”

  Alejandro shook his head, then threw back the sheet and went to her. He took her shoulders and pulled her out of the bed to stand in front of him. For a moment, he put his forehead to hers, his hands tight on her shoulders.

  She took a few deep breaths. “Okay, I get i