thing.”
Looking at the big, sturdy, grinning man with the cleaver poised over the poor dead bird is sending waves of nausea over me. I avert my eyes. “I think . . . I might be a vegetarian,” I say.
“Praise God.” Liz lets out a long sigh of relief. “It’s coming back to you! I knew it would.”
“No, I was just guessing.”
The next album is wedding pictures, a beaming young Liz who looks startlingly like the Elyse in the mirror, in a white princess gown. Half the album is empty, though, like someone just pulled out every other picture. I look for a clear picture of the groom, my father’s face, but it’s mostly Liz and her bridesmaids.
She wants to zip through them quickly because I’m not in them, but I’m fascinated. “Is that the church downtown? Who’s that lady standing next to you in that one?”
“That’s my mother, your Grandma Bets.” She points to the gray-haired lady in the flower-sprigged lavender dress. The woman doesn’t look healthy at all; in fact, Liz is helping support her on the left side while on the other side a guest is steadying her right arm. The guest is grinning with obscenely crooked teeth. Grandma Bets’s brilliant ruby necklace only makes her neck look more wrinkled. “Said she could rest easy now that she’d seen me walk down that aisle.” Liz’s ringed fingers drift toward her throat, and I can see the oval ruby resting against her collarbone.
Hesitantly I say, “I’m . . . sorry for your loss.”
Liz’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “Momma’s doing just fine.” She snaps the book shut. Creepy.
The sound of tires winding up the driveway makes Liz hop to her feet. “Ah, that must be Candace and Aiden, the young couple from California.”
Sure enough, when Liz opens the door, there’s a college-aged woman in a designer sundress, her chestnut hair in a short, tousled cut, standing beside a thin goateed man in his early twenties, dressed in dark colors. Between them are two black Samsonite suitcases. They introduce themselves to all of us and to each other as Candace and Jim.
You have to hand it to Liz. When the real Jim shows up, she doesn’t lose her professional composure for even a second. “Welcome to Preston House,” she says with her warm innkeeper smile. “Come in, both of you. Candace, are we still waiting for one from your party?”
Candace gives an impish grin. “Aiden dumped me last week, but we’d already booked the trip, so I decided to go anyway. I mean, I’m not going to miss fair weekend in Summer Falls just because of some guy.”
“We’ll make sure you have a fabulous time and forget all about him,” Liz says, patting the young woman’s arm.
“Solo vacations rock,” Jim tells her. “You really get to be one with the place you’re staying.” He stretches his arms and breathes a sigh of pure relaxation. “See? I think I’m already feeling the drop!”
“The drop?” I say.
“Oh my god, lucky!” Candace squeals with envy. “When my ex and I came last year, it took me, like, days before I felt any different. But then when I did it was awesome.”
I have no idea what they’re talking about ‘feeling’—relaxation? But something about Candace’s perky laughter bugs me. It’s like she’s talking up some fabulous Disneyland ride. Not a real town where real people live. People like me.
“This house you’re staying in,” Liz says, “is the original construction built by our town’s founder, William Phillips Preston, in 1897.” You can tell she’s said it a hundred thousand times, but there’s still a pride in her tone.
“God, I’d give my eyelashes to live here.” Candace takes off her sunglasses and turns to Jim. “Can you imagine one couple had this whole mansion to themselves?”
“Preston and his wife did have servants,” Liz reminds her, a few fibers of disapproval woven into her silky voice as if to say, Servants are people too. It’s the first sign of independent thinking I’ve
Looking at the big, sturdy, grinning man with the cleaver poised over the poor dead bird is sending waves of nausea over me. I avert my eyes. “I think . . . I might be a vegetarian,” I say.
“Praise God.” Liz lets out a long sigh of relief. “It’s coming back to you! I knew it would.”
“No, I was just guessing.”
The next album is wedding pictures, a beaming young Liz who looks startlingly like the Elyse in the mirror, in a white princess gown. Half the album is empty, though, like someone just pulled out every other picture. I look for a clear picture of the groom, my father’s face, but it’s mostly Liz and her bridesmaids.
She wants to zip through them quickly because I’m not in them, but I’m fascinated. “Is that the church downtown? Who’s that lady standing next to you in that one?”
“That’s my mother, your Grandma Bets.” She points to the gray-haired lady in the flower-sprigged lavender dress. The woman doesn’t look healthy at all; in fact, Liz is helping support her on the left side while on the other side a guest is steadying her right arm. The guest is grinning with obscenely crooked teeth. Grandma Bets’s brilliant ruby necklace only makes her neck look more wrinkled. “Said she could rest easy now that she’d seen me walk down that aisle.” Liz’s ringed fingers drift toward her throat, and I can see the oval ruby resting against her collarbone.
Hesitantly I say, “I’m . . . sorry for your loss.”
Liz’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “Momma’s doing just fine.” She snaps the book shut. Creepy.
The sound of tires winding up the driveway makes Liz hop to her feet. “Ah, that must be Candace and Aiden, the young couple from California.”
Sure enough, when Liz opens the door, there’s a college-aged woman in a designer sundress, her chestnut hair in a short, tousled cut, standing beside a thin goateed man in his early twenties, dressed in dark colors. Between them are two black Samsonite suitcases. They introduce themselves to all of us and to each other as Candace and Jim.
You have to hand it to Liz. When the real Jim shows up, she doesn’t lose her professional composure for even a second. “Welcome to Preston House,” she says with her warm innkeeper smile. “Come in, both of you. Candace, are we still waiting for one from your party?”
Candace gives an impish grin. “Aiden dumped me last week, but we’d already booked the trip, so I decided to go anyway. I mean, I’m not going to miss fair weekend in Summer Falls just because of some guy.”
“We’ll make sure you have a fabulous time and forget all about him,” Liz says, patting the young woman’s arm.
“Solo vacations rock,” Jim tells her. “You really get to be one with the place you’re staying.” He stretches his arms and breathes a sigh of pure relaxation. “See? I think I’m already feeling the drop!”
“The drop?” I say.
“Oh my god, lucky!” Candace squeals with envy. “When my ex and I came last year, it took me, like, days before I felt any different. But then when I did it was awesome.”
I have no idea what they’re talking about ‘feeling’—relaxation? But something about Candace’s perky laughter bugs me. It’s like she’s talking up some fabulous Disneyland ride. Not a real town where real people live. People like me.
“This house you’re staying in,” Liz says, “is the original construction built by our town’s founder, William Phillips Preston, in 1897.” You can tell she’s said it a hundred thousand times, but there’s still a pride in her tone.
“God, I’d give my eyelashes to live here.” Candace takes off her sunglasses and turns to Jim. “Can you imagine one couple had this whole mansion to themselves?”
“Preston and his wife did have servants,” Liz reminds her, a few fibers of disapproval woven into her silky voice as if to say, Servants are people too. It’s the first sign of independent thinking I’ve
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