my decision to go to NYU, and my choice of scholarly concentration (“Fairy tales are for children!). When she’d finished belittling my new employer, she asked if this meant I’d broken up with “that boy in California.” When I told her no, she said it was only a matter of time; if we were serious about each other we would have managed to live on the same side of the country by now.
Adelaide’s and Annie’s verdicts haunted me on the way to visit Paul in California. Oddly it was the dream I’d had at the Hart Brake Inn that made me feel like they might have a point, as if I’d been unfaithful to Paul and bought Honeysuckle House so I could be with that moonlight lover. The fact that my knees turned to water every time I remembered the dream seemed to corroborate that theory, as did the fact that the moonlight lover reminded me of the fairytale prince of my adolescent fantasies. I felt like I’d betrayed Paul with my ex-boyfriend. It made me wonder if a part of me hadn’t always been waiting for the return of my fairytale prince—the same part of me that was okay with living three thousand miles away from my boyfriend.
When I got to L.A., though, I explained to Paul about the boxes of Dahlia LaMotte’s papers in the attic and he began to relent.
“You mean you can write about them—even reproduce them—as long as the originals stay in the house?”
I showed him the codicil to the deed that said so.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” he asked, rewarding me with the wry crooked smile that had first warmed me to him in our sophomore English class. “That’s brilliant, Cal. We’ll have enough to buy a place in Manhattan when you publish your next book!”
As much as I was relieved that he’d forgiven me, I still had the uneasy feeling that my rashness (and the spectral infidelity he didn’t know about) had been forgiven because it had been judged profitable. So I spent the two weeks in L.A. feeling a little like a high-priced hooker, trying to convince myself that having erotic fantasies about an imaginary lover was not the same as cheating. So what if I recalled the way the moonlight had carved sinuous muscles out of shadow when I looked at Paul? Or that I remembered the touch of those pearly lips when Paul kissed me? It was only a dream—and one I hadn’t had again since that night at the Hart Brake Inn. And if I cut my trip a day short so I’d have time to settle into the new house before term began, it didn’t mean I was longing to be back at Honeysuckle House to see if the dream would come back there.
Did it?
If I’d believed in the pathetic fallacy—that the weather in a novel reflected the emotions of the heroine—I’d have had to suspect that my purchase of Honeysuckle House had indeed been dictated by a malevolent force. I drove up to Fairwick in a torrential rainstorm that threatened to blow my new green Honda FIT off the highway. When I got to Fairwick all the houses on my street were dark. The power must be out, I thought, wondering how often that happened. I considered going first to the Hart Brake Inn and asking Diana for a room—or at least a flashlight and candles—but when I drove up in front of Honeysuckle House I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to claim it as my own. Even the wind seemed to be pushing me up the front steps (there was that pathetic fallacy again!), urging me to the front door. I glanced up at the fanlight, but the face was dark and somehow brooding, with no light shining through the stained glass. Like the lover in my dreams before the moonlight awakened him. I had a feeling that he was somewhere in the shadowy house, waiting for the sound of my key to awaken him. I now held the big old-fashioned key that Dory had sent me in the mail wrapped in brown paper and twine, poised centimeters from the lock. It felt heavy in my hand, weighted with all the questionable decisions I’d made over the last month.
I’d passed up a possible career in
Adelaide’s and Annie’s verdicts haunted me on the way to visit Paul in California. Oddly it was the dream I’d had at the Hart Brake Inn that made me feel like they might have a point, as if I’d been unfaithful to Paul and bought Honeysuckle House so I could be with that moonlight lover. The fact that my knees turned to water every time I remembered the dream seemed to corroborate that theory, as did the fact that the moonlight lover reminded me of the fairytale prince of my adolescent fantasies. I felt like I’d betrayed Paul with my ex-boyfriend. It made me wonder if a part of me hadn’t always been waiting for the return of my fairytale prince—the same part of me that was okay with living three thousand miles away from my boyfriend.
When I got to L.A., though, I explained to Paul about the boxes of Dahlia LaMotte’s papers in the attic and he began to relent.
“You mean you can write about them—even reproduce them—as long as the originals stay in the house?”
I showed him the codicil to the deed that said so.
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” he asked, rewarding me with the wry crooked smile that had first warmed me to him in our sophomore English class. “That’s brilliant, Cal. We’ll have enough to buy a place in Manhattan when you publish your next book!”
As much as I was relieved that he’d forgiven me, I still had the uneasy feeling that my rashness (and the spectral infidelity he didn’t know about) had been forgiven because it had been judged profitable. So I spent the two weeks in L.A. feeling a little like a high-priced hooker, trying to convince myself that having erotic fantasies about an imaginary lover was not the same as cheating. So what if I recalled the way the moonlight had carved sinuous muscles out of shadow when I looked at Paul? Or that I remembered the touch of those pearly lips when Paul kissed me? It was only a dream—and one I hadn’t had again since that night at the Hart Brake Inn. And if I cut my trip a day short so I’d have time to settle into the new house before term began, it didn’t mean I was longing to be back at Honeysuckle House to see if the dream would come back there.
Did it?
If I’d believed in the pathetic fallacy—that the weather in a novel reflected the emotions of the heroine—I’d have had to suspect that my purchase of Honeysuckle House had indeed been dictated by a malevolent force. I drove up to Fairwick in a torrential rainstorm that threatened to blow my new green Honda FIT off the highway. When I got to Fairwick all the houses on my street were dark. The power must be out, I thought, wondering how often that happened. I considered going first to the Hart Brake Inn and asking Diana for a room—or at least a flashlight and candles—but when I drove up in front of Honeysuckle House I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to claim it as my own. Even the wind seemed to be pushing me up the front steps (there was that pathetic fallacy again!), urging me to the front door. I glanced up at the fanlight, but the face was dark and somehow brooding, with no light shining through the stained glass. Like the lover in my dreams before the moonlight awakened him. I had a feeling that he was somewhere in the shadowy house, waiting for the sound of my key to awaken him. I now held the big old-fashioned key that Dory had sent me in the mail wrapped in brown paper and twine, poised centimeters from the lock. It felt heavy in my hand, weighted with all the questionable decisions I’d made over the last month.
I’d passed up a possible career in
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