Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (5 page)

Brooks was asking her something, and she realized she hadn't been listening at all. “You have a whole room full of dignitaries here,” she told him, gesturing at the milling guests. “Why me?”

“Because you make good copy,” he told her bluntly. “I write about you, and I've got half a chance of getting it placed somewhere other than in the footnotes.”

“And I should help you because…”

“Look,” he said, “this is a big deal, what's happening here—a sovereign nation was saved from being erased off the map. But we both know John Q. Public doesn't give a rat's ass about that. He's too busy texting his vote for
American Idol
to worry about the state of some third-world country he's never heard of.”

“Don't think writing about me is going to change that.”

“It will if you do something outrageous that'll play well on YouTube.”

“What, like drive across Europe wearing Depends? I can see you're completely tuned into the solemnity of the occasion,” she said.

“Seriously,” he said, “how does a nice girl like you wind up toppling warlords and dictators?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“When people think of world court personnel, they think of seventy-year-old guys in musty robes. Not…” He gave her a meaningful look.

She forced herself not to respond. One of the strictest rules of this job was to increase public perception of the court's mission. “First of all, you could clarify the trial was through the International Criminal Court, which was created only six years ago, so it's not some venerable, old institution. And honestly, the only reason I served as a prosecutor is that the lead counsel and his deputy got sick right before the first hearing.” Willem De Groot was an older man who shared her passion for a just cause. Hooked up to a dialysis machine, he had guided her and his staff through the case, week after week.

“So it was a matter of luck meeting opportunity,” Brooks said.

“Bad luck meeting necessity,” she clarified. “I'd give anything if he could be here tonight.”

“You really don't want to be the star of this, do you? What a waste of looks and talent.”

“You seem preoccupied with my looks.”

“It's the dress. You had to have known it would affect men this way, even without jewelry. I assume you're making a statement.”

“I'm opposed to diamonds for obvious reasons. And so many other stones are questionable that it's simpler to wear none. But pearls! They're produced by oysters and hunted by happy divers, right? I should take to wearing pearls.”

“You could wear pearls in the video,” he said.

Sophie was about two sips of champagne away from ditching this guy. “You're obnoxious, Mr. Fordham. And I'm leaving. Everything is about to start.”

“One final question and I'll leave you alone,” he added.

“Go ahead.”

“Will you let me take you to dinner tomorrow night?”

“That doesn't sound like leaving me alone.”

“But does it sound…like a plan?”

She hesitated. He probably had a degree from an Ivy League school, a pedigree back to the
Mayflower
and a brazen sense of entitlement. Still, going to dinner with him meant not eating alone. “I'll have my assistant call you to arrange things.”

“It's a dinner date, not an international summit.”

“My assistants are excellent at arranging things,” she assured him. A date with this man might be a diversion. Her romantic past was…undistinguished. Perhaps that was the word for it. Forgettable teenage gropings in high school had given way to slightly more sophisticated dating in college—frat parties and raves. And then there was Greg. They'd married before they even knew who they were. It was like grafting together two incompatible trees—tolerable at first but eventually the differences could not be ignored. Had she loved him? Everyone loved Greg. He was the adorable, charming, indulged youngest of the four Bellamy siblings. How could anyone not love him? This sense that she
should
love him had sustained the marriage over sixteen years, long enough for her to be absolutely certain the love was gone. Afterward she had walked around shell-shocked for several months.

Only last fall had she dared to stick her toe into the dating pool. The first time a man had asked her out, she had regarded him as if he'd spoken in a dead language. Go out? On a date? What a novel idea.

Thus began the dating phase, which was infinitely preferable to the postdivorce shell-shocked phase. Her first prospect was a diplomatic protection agent who was more interested in showing off his 007 trappings—an alert device hidden in his lapel, a cigarette pack that could dispense cyanide gas—than in discovering who Sophie actually was. Despite her disenchantment, she'd tried to move seamlessly into the sleeping-around phase during which a newly divorced woman indulged her every fantasy. Women who slept around always seemed as though they were having such fun. Yet Sophie found it disappointing and stressful and quickly retreated to the benign safety of casual dating. She told herself she would stay open to the possibility that one day one of the attachés or diplomats or Georgian nationals she was dating would unexpectedly inflame her passions. So far, it hadn't happened.

She regarded Brooks and wondered if he might be the one to make her drop her natural reserve. To make her remember what it felt like to be held in someone's arms.
Not tonight,
she thought.

“You'll have to excuse me,” she said, and headed for the dais.

She looked around for a place to set down her champagne flute, and approached a passing waiter. He didn't seem to see her.

“Pardon,” she said.

The man jumped, and a glass fell from his tray, shattering on the marble floor. In the immediate area, people fell silent and turned to stare. At the periphery of the room, the security agents tensed, prepared to take action.

“I'm sorry,” Sophie murmured. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

“It's nothing,
madame,
” he murmured, his accent very thick. She was about to ask him where he was from when she caught the look in his eyes. It was a glittering, burning fury all out of proportion with a broken glass.

Sophie lifted her eyebrows, wordlessly conveying a warning, the way she might to a key witness. He moved slightly, and the light fell on his face, illuminating ebony skin highlighted by twin rows of shiny scars, a pattern of ritual scarring that looked vaguely familiar to her. He was Umojan, she surmised. Employing him was a nice touch by the caterer, and it explained his inexperience.

The waiter started to move away.

“Pardon me,” Sophie said to him.

He turned back, seeming more agitated than ever.

You're a waiter,
she thought,
get over yourself.
She held out the champagne glass. “Can you please take this? They're about to begin.”

He all but snatched it from her and stalked away.
Touchy fellow,
she thought.
We just liberated your country. You ought to be happier about that.
She dismissed the incident from her mind. Focus, Sophie, she told herself. You're about to meet a queen.

T
he group on the raised dais at the end of the ballroom consisted of three of the justices from the International Criminal Court, another from the Court of Justice, a liaison from the United Nations and the queen of the Netherlands herself, whose bloodlines went back through seventeen generations of Dutch royalty. Sophie joined the rest of the prosecution team on a lower tier, where the event producer's assistant had instructed them to wait. This group included Sophie's best friend and colleague, Tariq Abdul-Hakeem. Like her, he was an assistant deputy to the ICC and they'd worked together on the case. She'd known Tariq from their intern days in London, years ago, and he was one of her favorite people in the world. He was also one of the most attractive, with the kind of looks found in high-fashion spreads—creamy skin and intense eyes, and features that appeared to have been shaped by an idealistic sculptor. He was a gifted linguist and had the most delicious English accent. While working together, they'd become more than colleagues. He was one of the few people in the world she'd opened up to, telling him about the situation with Greg and her children.

“Are you all right, Petal?” Tariq whispered to her.

“Of course, I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be?”

“Quite possibly, you're somewhat
bouleversée
by the fact that your ex-husband is getting married today.”

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture, even though she knew Tariq would not be fooled. “So he's getting married. We knew it was coming. He's a guy. It's what they do. They remarry.” She gave a small, soft laugh. “Somebody's got to finish raising them.” Despite her sarcasm, she remembered Max's text message with a twinge, along with the perennial unanswerable question—was this career worth the price she'd paid?

“Such a generous opinion of the male sex,” Tariq said. “After tonight's ceremony, I'm taking you out and getting you so drunk you'll forget your own name.”

“Sounds delightful.”

“Isn't that what you Yanks do, go out and get—what's the term?—shitfaced?”

She sniffed. “You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't even drink.”

“But I
buy
drinks. I'll take you to Club Sillies after this.”

Sophie knew she would go, and she'd be the envy of every woman there, at the hottest nightclub in The Hague, a place frequented by the European elite. Tariq never failed to turn heads; he was elegant, with a subtle layer of sadness in his regard. The sadness was real, but few people knew the reason for it. Oxford-educated, one of the top jurists in the free world, he dedicated his every waking moment to the law. Yet as a gay man, and a Saudi, he struggled every day; in his native country, same-sex relations carried a penalty of death.

“Anyway,” she said, “thank you for the offer. I really should get home afterward. I have work—”

“Yes, Allah forbid that you should have anything resembling a life.”

“I have a life.”

“You have work—at court, and at the office, and in the field—and then you have sleep. Oh, yes. You also have that entirely dreadful sport you do.”

“It's not dreadful. Distance swimming is good for me.” She was always in training for some kind of extreme race or another. She never placed first. Ever. But she always finished. Every time.

For Tariq, whose only athletic activity was a dash for the elevator, her sport seemed madly dangerous.

“Paddling about in a wet suit in freezing waters is mad. You need to have some fun, Petal. You need a life beyond work. And don't think I don't know why you refuse to un-bend a little. Because if you were actually to have fun and enjoy something, that would interfere with your penance.”

“You don't know the first thing about doing penance.”

“Guilt is not the exclusive domain of Christians,” he pointed out. “You feel guilty about your kids, so you refuse to allow yourself to enjoy anything. Simple as that. And clearly it doesn't do a bit of good. Whether you're in court prosecuting terrorists or riding a bicycle along Hogeweg during tourist season doesn't matter.”

“True. I'm still separated from my kids.”

“Here is what you're giving your kids—a mother who cares enough about the world to make it a better place for them. Do you really think they'd rather have you driving carpool to soccer practice and the mall?”

“Sometimes, yes.” She knew it was unproductive, but couldn't help wondering if things would have turned out differently for Daisy if she had been more present.

“My dear mum was there every day, and look at me. A quivering mess.”

“A well-adjusted person.”

“An outcast. A heretic.” He spoke jokingly, but she sensed his underlying pain, different from her own yet somehow familiar.

“Stop,” she said in an undertone. She and Tariq were both career-focused. Trying to escape the person he really was, he had made this court his life. “It's all I have,” he'd told her many times in the past. “Fortunately, it's all I want.”

Sophie couldn't say the same, so she said nothing. She saw the premier and queen moving toward them, and cleared her throat to warn Tariq. The queen of the Netherlands looked like everyone's favorite aunt, displaying an abundance of personal charm twinkling in her eyes as she went about her duties, treating each person as though, in that moment, they were the most important person in the world.

“Thank you very much for your service,” she murmured as the line of dignitaries passed.

I'm a dignitary,
thought Sophie.
What do you know, I'm a dignitary.

When she was presented, she responded with a poise she'd been practicing for days, dipping slightly into a curtsy, addressing the queen as
Uwe Majesteit.
It was all very solemn and ritualized, no surprises. No one would ever know that deep down, her Inner Girl was exulting. She was meeting a queen, a real live queen.

Queen Beatrix was a lawyer like Sophie. Maybe the two of them would have talked, compared shoe-shopping experiences, swapped gossip like girlfriends.

She imagined the conversation. “Have you seen the new George Clooney movie? I like your earrings. Which museum did they come from? What's it like having an airport named after you? And tell me about your family. How do you make it work?”

Yes, that was the burning question. The thing Sophie wanted to ask other working women. Here they were watching the rebirth of a nation, and she was fixated on domestic troubles. All she wanted to know was how Beatrix managed to run a country and still keep her marriage intact, her family together.

Some things, said a quiet inner voice, you sacrifice.

The queen was a widow now, her children grown. Sophie wondered if she had regrets, if she wished she'd done something differently, spent more time with them, had more parent-teacher conferences, restricted their TV, read them more good-night stories.

Color guards presented the flags of the UN and the court of the Netherlands and finally, with grave ceremony, the flag of Umoja, planting it like a tree behind the dais. The newly appointed ambassador, Mr. Bensouda, took his place at the microphone. Behind him stood six attendants, each holding a ceremonial medal of honor. By the end of the night, one of them would belong to Sophie.

“Mesdames et messieurs,”
the ambassador said,
“bienvenue, les visiteurs distingues….”
He launched into the saga of his country.

The medals were bestowed and praises sung. Her black dress perfectly showed off the token of thanks from a grateful people. Interesting notion for a line of clothing, she thought, her mind wandering. Garments for dignitaries, with hidden credential pockets and necklines fashioned to display medals to advantage. Then she realized what she was doing—trying to detach herself from this huge moment. She couldn't help it. Something was missing from her life and she could not pretend otherwise. How could she have a triumph like this without her family to witness it? The thought brought about a flash of resentment toward Greg. This was a big day for him, as well, though she wished she could stop dwelling on that. Still, it wasn't every day the man who had once been your husband married someone else.

A podium and microphone transformed normal people into long-winded bombasts, and Sophie was trapped on stage with the crowd of dignitaries. Tonight, she'd foolishly, recklessly had two and a half glasses of champagne. As a result, she listened to speeches about the historic event in a state of supreme discomfort, with a bladder so full that her back teeth were floating.

No one seemed to be in a hurry to leave the dais. She couldn't wait another moment. She had to decide which was the bigger diplomatic faux pas—leaving the dais before she was dismissed, or wetting herself in front of the queen.

Sophie made her move. She took a step back, slipping behind the line of people as she followed the black snakes of electrical cables that connected the lighting and sound. At the back of the dais, she stepped down and slipped out through a side door to an empty corridor.

She rounded a corner and encountered a pair of men in dark clothing, their shoulders dampened by melting snow. They stiffened and whirled on her, and Sophie froze, holding her hands with the palms facing out. Security agents, she thought. They were suspicious of everything. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I'm trying to find the lavatory.”

She followed signs to the ladies' room. Passing through the antechamber, she smiled briefly at the attendant, a sleepy-looking older woman reading a copy of a Dutch gossip magazine.

Sophie used the restroom, then went to a sink to freshen up. From one of the stalls came the unmistakable sound of someone being sick. Lovely. What idiot would get drunk at an event like this? Sophie wondered. She had no evening bag, so she had to pat her hair with a damp hand and dab at her makeup with a tissue.

A girl came out of the stall. It was Fatou, the girl who had sung so beautifully earlier. Despite her dark skin, she looked pallid, yet her eyes were clear, not bleary from drinking or drugs. She stood at one of the sinks, hands braced on the countertop, her hair falling forward. She turned on the water and rinsed her face and mouth but somehow looked even worse when she finished.

“You seem ill,” Sophie said to her in French. “Should I try to get some help for you?”

“No thank you,
madame,
” Fatou replied. “I'm not ill.” She touched her stomach.

Sophie wasn't sure what to say to that. The girl was clearly too young to be starting a family, yet there was something about her that Sophie recognized. A tiny gleam of excitement mingling with desperation. Sophie recognized it because she had been there, too, and so had her own daughter, Daisy, for that matter. “You're expecting a baby,” she said quietly.

Fatou stared at the floor.

“Do you have someone to look after you?” Sophie asked.

She nodded. “I am a student intern. I live with a family in Lilles. I suppose, under the circumstances, that is fortunate. But my hosts are not going to be happy about this.”

“They will be. Not right away, but…perhaps eventually.” Sophie spoke from experience. At the same time, she felt a welling of sadness and regret. She hadn't been there for Daisy, the way her own mother hadn't been there for her.

Fatou stepped back and straightened her dress, a traditional garment made beautiful by the girl's youth.

“Better?” Sophie asked.

“For now.”

Sophie placed two euros on the attendant's tip plate and stepped out into the colonnaded hallway. Through a window in the high-ceilinged corridor, she caught a glimpse of fat white snowflakes coming down fast and thick, illuminated by the floodlights outside. Soon, the courtyard and gardens would be a panorama of winter white.

“What does it feel like?” Fatou asked softly over her shoulder.

“The snow?” Sophie made a snap decision. A very un-Sophie-like decision. She took Fatou by the hand and tugged her toward the exit to the courtyard. “Come. You can find out now.”

Sophie was aware that it was risky to disappear even for a few minutes from a professional event. But she was feeling strange and reckless tonight. The case that had consumed her was officially over. Her children were half a world away in the sunny Caribbean, watching their father remarry. Never had she felt so disconnected yet also aware of how fleeting and tenuous some things were, such as snowfall in coastal Holland. A greeting from a queen. An anthem sung by war orphans. Or the youth of a girl who was pregnant before she was done with childhood herself.

The arched doorway, shadowed by a pair of brooding security cameras, framed a world transformed. Fatou gasped and said something in her native tongue. Then she balked under the dagged canvas awning. Sophie stepped out into the fast-falling snow, turning her face up to feel the soft flakes on her cheeks.

“See, it's harmless,” she said. “Much more pleasant than rain.”

Fatou joined her in the stone-paved courtyard. Her face lit up with pure wonder, reflecting the glow of the sodium vapor floodlights. She laughed in amazement at the sensation of snow. It now covered everything in a pristine layer of white. “It is,
madame,
” she said. “It is a wondrous thing.”