“Okay, wifey, let’s take it down a notch.” I barely noticed how nice it was of him to put our matching bags in the overhead compartment, I was so taken.
“I mean, the lines and the symmetry… The way you implemented those half floors.” I gasped.
We sat down side by side and got situated. Then he placed his hand on mine. “Are you joking?” He looked around. “Did someone put you up to this? Because there is no way anyone in the world is nerdy enough to have a favorite building, especially not one designed by me.”
“Um, no. No one put me up to this. I’m honestly just that nerdy.”
“So, are you an architect too?”
As his question seared through me, I felt the detestable scrunch between my eyes that my mom said was going to give me wrinkles. Maybe technically I was. Or, at least, could be. But Iwasn’t in the habit of sharing my failures with cute plane strangers, so I just said, “You could say I’m an architecture enthusiast.” There. That was true.
“May I get you something to sip on before we take off, Mr. and Mrs.…” she trailed off.
Conner smiled at the flight attendant with the grin that had changed for me in the past few minutes. Where I had been interested in but a little annoyed by this stranger, now I was completely starstruck.
“Have you decided yet whether you’re going to take my name?” he asked.
Earlier I would have said no, but now… “Um, yes.” I looked up at the flight attendant. “Julia Howard has a nice ring, doesn’t it?”
Conner laughed and squeezed my hand. “I’ll have an IPA and Julia here would love—”
He turned to look at me. “Oh, honey, you know,” I said playfully, suddenly feeling giddy. “I always have a rosé before takeoff.”
He looked back at the flight attendant. “You know what? We’re celebrating. How about some champagne?”
My mind raced with questions for one of the foremost architects in the country who had also proven himself to be funny and kind. So, no, today had not gone exactly the way I had planned. But, even still, I was going to end it by drinking champagne with a cute guy. As the plane took off for its four-hour flight, my problems started to seem so far away—and, for the first time in a long time, I felt like anything was possible.
CORNELIALaid to RestMarch 6, 1914
Thirteen-year-old Cornelia Vanderbilt had always preferred Asheville to Washington, D.C., but, even still, this house on K Street had felt like home. Now, her heart racing in her chest, she knew it would never feel like home again.
“Daddy!” Cornelia screamed breathlessly, shaking her father’s arm. “Daddy!”
“George!” Edith yelled, uselessly, putting her hand to her husband’s face.
Cornelia and Edith had returned upstairs after getting George’s glass of water and newspapers and found him slumped over, lifeless.
“Emma!” Edith screamed to her lady’s maid. “Get Dr. Mitchell immediately!”
“Dr. Finney said you were fine, Daddy!” Cornelia screamed. “Wake up!” Her shouts turned to sobs.
Cornelia’s and Edith’s eyes met over George, Cornelia’s hotpanic turning into a deep, silent dread. She noticed her mother was breathing hard as they shared a look, a knowledge: they had lost him.
Just the night before George had seemed almost well to Cornelia, joking about keeping the boys in D.C. away from his daughter, who was attending an all-girls school but who still had plenty of opportunity to come in contact with suitable young men. George had had nothing more than a routine appendectomy. He had been to one of the finest surgeons in the country. Hehadto be okay. He justhadto.
Time seemed to stand still as Edith wrapped her arms around Cornelia, her own tears choking her. Minutes later, Dr. Mitchell, the family’s physician, arrived to confirm what they already knew: George was gone.
It was as if Cornelia could feel a part of herself slipping away too. Who would read to her now? Talk to her about art and music, study the globe and imagine all the places they would visit next? And, one day, when she was quite grown up, who would walk her down the aisle at her wedding? Cornelia began to feel faint. If it weren’t for her mother’s strong arms holding her up, she felt certain she would have collapsed onto the floor.
It wasn’t until days later, when Edith and Cornelia were on a train for New York to bury George, that Cornelia finally asked, “If you go too, Mother, what shall become of me?”
Edith took Cornelia’s hand sympathetically. “I’m not going anywhere, darling. It’s you and me against the world now.”
“Butwhat if, Mother?” Cornelia could feel the heat rising in her face. Did her mother not even have a plan?
“You have Aunt Pauline, Aunt Natalie, and Aunt Susan tolook after you, sweetheart. But I promise, nothing’s going to happen to me.”
Somewhat pacified by the thought that she did, indeed, have plenty of family and that they wouldn’t leave her alone on a street corner to rot if the worst happened, Cornelia then asked, “Why isn’t Daddy being buried at Biltmore? It was the place he loved most. It’s the place where we will be.”
