Over the rim of his glass, Coriolanus took it all in: his twenty-foot-high ceilings, corniced and pristinely white; the ornate crystal chandeliers hanging from them, lending a soft, glittery quality to the vast saloon; dense velvet drapes neatly cinched at their middles by tassel tie-backs, a luxuriant navy offset by silver ropes, offering a tremendous view of the Capitol's evening skyline framed by his tall arched windows; liveried Avoxes weaving amongst his awed guests, bearing shining platters of fine wine, champagne, and delectable canapés; others manning his bar, serving liquor and cocktails to people wearing their Sunday best and admiring, envious expressions.
This was what the Snow penthouse was meant to look like, he thought with deep satisfaction that did not make its way to his face.
Snow lands on top.
The Grandma'am had insisted that Coriolanus had the penthouse to himself onward of his twenty-first birthday, as befitted a young man of his status—as his bachelor pad. Strabo and Ma had not hesitated to welcome her and Tigris into their flat. Ma, for one, embraced the change wholeheartedly. It was too big and too quiet for just the two of them, she'd always claimed. Too big and too quiet without Sejanus, she'd undoubtedly meant.
For some time Coriolanus felt a prick at his conscience. The Grandma'am and Tigris were his family—the only ones he'd really known, besides—and Snows as much as he was. But it wasn't like he was the one chasing them out. None of it had been his idea, and he secretly relished the notion of having his own place. It definitely added to his lure, when he dropped the casual mention that they—he, and whoever was in his company then—could take it back to his apartment as the establishments called for final orders. The ladies positively swooned.
Best of all were the mornings: Silent. Anthemless. Peaceful.
As such, Coriolanus had seen to much of the renovations personally. He had all of the bedrooms refurbished, with the intention of preserving the Grandma'am's and Tigris's even after they had been vacated. Should either—or both—of them be seized by sudden homesickness and have the urge to return, they would be allowed to. His goodwill assuaged his guilt.
When they actually moved, Tigris, at least, had left so much behind he'd half anticipated her to pop back up every other day. She didn't, of course; not until recently, anyway, and that had been a one-off. His grandmother had suggested he occupied the master suite then; after all, he was the master of the house. Coriolanus was not so easily persuaded on this front, however.
It had belonged to his parents, and regardless that he had overhauled the whole place so that it was unrecognisable, he couldn't even stand in the doorway without seeing blood-soaked sheets and flashes of his expiring mother. Sleep would be impossible in there. He had it closed off, the maids only permitted to clean when he wasn't at home. Coriolanus continued the use of his own room to this day. It was unmistakably smaller, but it had accommodated all his needs for twenty-one years, and could accommodate him still.
Not forever, though. Resolved to overcome the horrors associated with the suite, he envisioned himself living inside one day in the arbitrary future. Or perhaps not so arbitrary. When he got married seemed a fitting time—a sufficiently significant juncture in his life, unquestionably—for the ultimate "upgrade." Till then...
Coriolanus did, however, commandeer the adjoining study, which had been his father's. A brand new mahogany furniture set had been brought in, and legions of encyclopaedias and scholarly tomes procured to fill the bookcases lining the walls. His individuality was reflected in the family portraits he had specially commissioned.
From the Grandma'am's collection of old photographs that had somehow survived the war, he'd found one he had forgotten had been taken: Decked in his handsome purple velvet suit, Coriolanus had to be around four. Beside him, his mother sat elegantly in an upholstered chair, one hand on his shoulder, the other resting on the gentle bump that bulged underneath her lavender silk number. His father stood behind them, tall and formidable-looking in his decorated military uniform. He chose this one, and had another taken of him, the Grandma'am, and Tigris. Both pictures had been enlarged and hung on either sides of the fireplace.
The space above the mantle was reserved for one of Coriolanus's own—perhaps his wedding portrait, or one with his wife and children. For now, in that absence, he had selected to display a painting of the city in winter, its magnificent, brightly-coloured buildings capped in white, a subtle yet artful reminder of what was as invariable as the seasons...
Receiving similar restorations to their former glory were the formal living and dining rooms. Others that had been previously sealed off due to emptiness, however, mostly did not. The bulk of the latter resided on the west half of the penthouse, and Coriolanus could not definitively say what had inspired him when he conceptualised it to become his dedicated entertaining zone. All he knew was that he had no other purpose for them.
Ma had volunteered to house all the help in a desperate attempt to alleviate the emotional bleakness of her lodgings—as if providing quarters for the butler and cook and packing a dozen Avoxes into the apartment would diminish the void in her life that was the size and shape of District 2! Coriolanus raised no objections, though. Rather, he made it sound like she was doing him a huge favour, which, he supposed, she was. She ate it all up.
With all the culinary affairs happening downstairs under her watchful eye, or—better still—by her very hand, he got rid of the kitchen. Three fully-furnished guest rooms on the east side were deemed ample; everything else had been torn down until, at one point, only the load-bearing beams remained. The entryway from the communal elevator had been transformed into a posh foyer, complete with an artificial skylight, sleek marble flooring, and panelled walls that camouflaged doors leading to the private sector.
At the end of the long passage, a wide ingress on the left heralded the saloon that doubled as the common drawing room, which was bisected crosswise by the bar incorporated between a pair of fluted granite columns that concealed the structural supports. Surrounding this centrepiece in a symmetrical fashion were opulent coffee and tea tables, sofas and armchairs, where his guests now lounged and mingled, awaiting the equally-dimensioned banquet hall to be officially opened.
That spiral staircase they'd discussed did not come to fruition after all, but a private elevator had been realized, connecting the Plinths' downstairs unit to this one and the roof accessible only to them.
Although the Grandma'am's confusion had markedly improved since Coriolanus's homecoming, her body had inevitably succumbed to age, and she could no longer be on her feet unaided. Relying on a walker initially, she eventually yielded to his and Tigris's pleas to heed her physician's warnings of potentially deadly falls given the osteoporotic state of her bones. Surely, it was a matter of pride, for there were no lack of attendants—Avoxes, nurses, Ma—to push her around in her wheelchair round the clock, and the lift made the journey to her beloved rose garden manageable, if not effortless.
Being confined to that wretched mode of transportation in public, however, was an entirely different issue—inconceivable, as far as the Grandma'am was concerned. So she steered clear of all callers unless they were family visitors, in which case she would have been dressed and helped into her seat at their dining table, where she would perch throughout the engagement that was restricted to nothing more than a gathered meal.
Certain occasions necessitated her leaving the abode, nevertheless, and they occurred with increasing frequencies these days: the funerals of her peers. Even then, especially then, the Grandma'am did not bow to weakness, leaning heavily on the likes of canes and aides, hobbling on knees that protested under her weight. No such attempt could be counted upon tonight, though. His frivolities did not merit her exertion, and part of Coriolanus was relieved for it. He loved the old lady, but her tongue was an unruly thing stuck in the past and prone to embarrassing not only herself.
True, he was getting closer to her imagined presidency every day, but his goal needed to be acknowledged as his own ambition, not a fantasy of his senile grandmother, not a line to be mixed up with one of her many ridiculous tales of bygone days, and absolutely not to be made a laughingstock of society.
Neither Strabo nor Ma could be expected as well. Ma had never been a fan of their ways here in the city, and the feeling was mutual. She wasn't quite hostess material besides, not by a long shot. To her credit, she had the decency, furthermore, to be aware that she stood out from the Capitol crowd like a sore thumb—bless her. While Strabo tolerated networking as part of his job, his steadily deteriorating health in recent years had precluded it. His doctors could not precisely identify the cause: the man did not drink, and the cigars he dabbled in during business functions could not have sparked such a dramatic decline. How strange.
Based on his routine, they attributed it to stress; slowing down was recommended. As a result, Strabo resigned his CEO position, albeit not to Coriolanus. It had been proposed—indeed, he had been the first choice—but he had modestly declined the opportunity, expressing his desire to continue pursuing his career in the military. It was a speedier and more proven route towards his endmost objective, he did not say. And if anything could boost his résumé and strengthen his odds, it would be Gamemaking, not being an industrialist, even if it was in munitions. There was also the fact of how wrong it would ring for a Snow to be working for Plinth Industries. It wasn't the same as inheriting the company.
While Strabo appointed his second-in-command, another district fellow, to the role, he still retained his capacity as chair of the board, holding—together with Ma—a majority of the corporation's shares, which would, in time, be Coriolanus's. Despite the reduced responsibilities, he tired quickly; a day in the office promised an all-night recovery. His meetings with his successor went from weekly, to fortnightly, until it was all he could do to attend the quarterly review alongside other board directors.
Stepping up here, Coriolanus was named interim chairman owing to his "inexperience" in the field, as if his Master of Business Administration degree was simply a piece of paper. Oh, the audacity of these district folk. Oh, how he would make them pay, he thought as he demonstrated his worth, shutting their pathetic district traps with his flair.
For almost a year now, he was the bona fide captain of the ship. With Strabo's retirement had come his stake in the enterprise, and Ma, who liked nothing better than to sever ties with the venture that was the root to all her misery, swiftly followed suit. Coriolanus had every right and power to enact the revamp that, for the moment, only existed in his head, but the present was not the time. Instead, he made a great show of reinforcing his indebtedness by nominating Strabo as an honorary adviser, but his contributions were as nominal as his title, considering he was essentially bedridden.
As for Tigris, Coriolanus couldn't even begin to divine what was on her mind. Her behaviour towards him had grown highly unpredictable, and while he had a suspicion as to why, she blamed it on her busy schedule.
After all those years slaving away under Fabricia Whatnot, she had finally carved out a name for herself, and he was gladdened. Her label—TGRS—started out online as a one-woman operation from her room on the eleventh floor. Refusing his money, even when he'd termed it a loan, she had little capital to play with; just the sum total of her savings from her meagre salary as an apprentice that hadn't needed to be exhausted by household expenditures since the Plinths' wealth arrived. Aside from raw materials, most of her funds were invested in advertising. Cheap labour came in the form of interns she hired at a token wage, while house calls and doorstep deliveries masked the reality that her brand had been without a boutique.
But it had all worked out. TGRS now boasted an atelier-cum-shopfront just several streets from the Corso, and a part-time assistant came in every Monday so that Tigris wouldn't be slogging seven days a week. Honestly, she spent so much time there nowadays, it was like she was trying to maximise her rent by sleeping (if she still did any of that) in the studio too.
The stores were all closed by now, though, so Coriolanus swept his eyes across the saloon in search for his cousin. That was when he spotted her.
That was when he spotted Lucy Gray Baird.