St. Martin’s First Debut Fiction from St. Martin’s Press

Spring-Summer 2015 A SAMPLER OF DEBUT FICTION FROM ST. MARTIN’S PRESS SPRING-SUMMER 2015

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Everybody Rise 3 - 28 Stephanie Clifford Make Your Home Among Strangers 29 - 52 Jennine Capó Crucet Murder at Barclay Meadow 53 - 62 Wendy Sand Eckel Letters to the Lost 63 - 75 Iona Grey The Devil’s Making 76 - 85 Seán Haldane The Evidence Room 86 - 102 Cameron Harvey The Casualties 103 - 125 Nick Holdstock The Secrets of Lake Road 126 - 139 Karen Katchur Between the Tides 140 - 156 Susannah Marren Still Life Las Vegas 157 - 176 James Sie Fishbowl 177 - 192 Bradley Somers Hello, I Love You 193 - 214 Katie M. Stout The Book of Speculation 215 - 240 Erika Swyler Hangman’s Game 241 - 266 Bill Syken Three Rivers 267 - 280 Tiffany Quay Tyson The Art of Baking Blind 281 - 293 Sarah Vaughan on-sale 8/18/15

“A masterful tale of social climbing and entrenched class distinctions, as seen through the eyes of an outsider who desperately wants in. Tense, hilarious, and bursting with gorgeous language. Stephanie Clifford is a 21st-century Edith Wharton.” - J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times best- selling author of The Engagements

It’s 2006 in the Manhattan of the young and glamorous. Money and class are colliding in a city that is about to go over a financial precipice and take much of the country with it. At 26, bright, funny and socially anxious Evelyn Beegan is determined to carve her own path in life and free herself from the influ- ence of her social-climbing mother, who propelled her through prep school and onto the Upper East Side. Evelyn has long felt like an outsider to her privileged peers, but when she gets a job at a social network aimed at the elite, she’s forced to embrace them.

Recruiting new members for the site, Evelyn steps into a promised land of Adirondack camps, Newport cottages and Southampton clubs thick with socialites and Wall Streeters. Despite herself, Evelyn finds the lure of belonging intoxicating, and starts trying to pass as old money herself. When her father, a crusading class-action lawyer, is indicted for bribery, Evelyn must contend with her own family’s downfall as she keeps up appearances in her new life, grasping with increasing desperation as the ground under- neath her begins to give way.

Bracing, hilarious and often poignant, Stephanie Clifford’s debut offers a thoroughly modern take on classic American themes - money, ambition, family, friendship - and on the universal longing to fit in.

STEPHANIE CLIFFORD is a Loeb-award winning New York Times reporter who has covered business, media and courts for the paper. She grew up in Seattle and graduated from Exeter and Harvard. Clifford is also a regular guest on NPR and has appeared on Today, CBS This Morning and Dr. Oz. I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time went on and on. . . . People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights f ashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist. . . . Where is it all? —A nton Chekhov, “A Lady’s Story” (1887)

T at faraway shore’s looking not too far. —S tephen Sondheim, “Opening Doors,” Merrily We Roll Along (1981)

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053-60813_ch01_1P.indd 1 01/14/15 1:55 pm chapter one

Sheffield-Enfield

“Your pearl earrings are rather worn down. T ey’re starting to look like molars,” Barbara Beegan said to her daughter, poking with a cocktail knife at pâté that was so warmed by the sun that it was nearly the consistency of butter. “Don’t you ever take them of ?” Evelyn’s right hand jolted up to her ear and rubbed at an earring, which did feel lumpy. She’d bought them as a prep- school graduation gift for herself, and over the years, wearing them during showers and swims and tennis games must have eaten away at the earrings’ round perfection, but it wasn’t something she’d noticed until now. “You wanted me to wear them,” she said. “I wanted you to look like you were dressing to watch the lacrosse game, not playing in it. You could at least polish them every now and then. People must wonder if you can’t take care of your things. I think this pâté has salmonella. Can you f nd something else to put out?” Evelyn sidled along the edge of the 1985 beige Mercedes. Her mother had bought it, used, after Evelyn’s orientation at Shef eld, her prep school, once Barbara realized none of the old- money moth- —-1 ers would deign to drive a fresh-o f - the-lot BMW like the Beegans —0 —+1

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had shown up in. T e Mercedes was parked just a few inches from the next car, an old Volvo—there was hardly a post-1996 car to be seen on the f eld—and Evelyn opened the door to slide her hand into a picnic basket in the backseat. She groped wedges of warm cheese in Saran Wrap, warm wine . . . a warm container of cream cheese? No, olive tapenade; and, guessing that the tapenade was the least likely to cause food poisoning, retrieved that. A roar went up from First Field, a few hundred yards away; the crowd approved of her choice. It was Shef eld-En f eld, her prep school’s version of a homecoming game, and the spectators were absorbed in the lacrosse matchup. Shaking her hair forward to cover her earlobes, Evelyn side- stepped up to the table at the car’s trunk, one of the freestanding ta- bles lined up all along Shef eld Academy’s Second Field, which had been transformed into a parking lot for the day’s game. A few tables had special banners draped across them, Sheffield- Enfield Spring 2006; the alumni association gave these to alums who donated more than $10,000 a year. Tables to Evelyn’s left held rounds of triple-crèmes that were melting onto their trays in the May heat. To her right, bottles of white wine and Pellegrino were sweating from the exertion of being outdoors. She noticed ancient alumni toddling by in their varsity sweaters, which they insisted on wearing even in May, and made a mental note. Her bosses at People Like Us would be interested in that. She was turning to go to the f eld house when there was a squelch- ing sound, and she saw Charlotte approaching, waving two boxes of water crackers in triumph in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other. For such a tiny person, narrow- hipped enough that she often shopped at Gap Kids, Charlotte was leaving enormous gullies in the ground as she took huge steps in her rain boots. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but the humidity had created a walnut-brown halo of frizz all around her pale face. “Success!” Charlotte said, stomping toward Evelyn. “Babs would have, like, sold me into white slavery -1— had I not found these.” 0— +1—

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“She didn’t make you get the crackers, did she? I told her not to. Sorry, Char.” “Listen, at least water crackers are actually something I can f nd. I was worried she’d send me to root you out a husband.” Charlotte stuck out her tongue, and Evelyn side-kicked her in the shins, but the rub- ber of the boots made her foot bounce of . “Here,” Charlotte said, handing over the Styrofoam cup. “Cider.” “In May?” “In May?” Charlotte mimicked, in a British accent. “What, you’ve been working at People Like Us for a day and you f nd the common people’s habits confusing?” “I’ve been working there three weeks, Char, and my plan for sign- ing up the nation’s elite is already in full ef ect.” Evelyn gestured toward the spectators. “It’s basically People Like Us membership sign-up day today. T e people here just don’t know it yet.” “Ah, Charlotte, you located some crackers.” Barbara Beegan had reemerged, casting a blockish shadow over the girls. Her pedicured toes were strapped into f at sandals, which merged into pleated powder- blue pants with sturdy thighs bulging within, up to a crisp white ox- ford. She ended in dry butter- colored hair arranged in thick, fat waves, and a pair of big black sunglasses. In her prime, after a diet based on green apples, Barbara Beegan had been thin; now she was the kind of stout woman who covered up the extra weight with precisely tai- lored clothes. She smelled, as she always did, of leather. She frowned as she examined the boxes. “T ese have pepper in them, though.” Charlotte made a silent Munch- scream face at Evelyn. “Well, Mrs. Beegan, they were all I could f nd.” “T ey’ll have to do, I suppose,” Barbara said, looking over Charlotte’s head. “Say thank you, Mom,” Evelyn said. “Yes, thank you,” Barbara said listlessly, and began arranging the crackers in a semicircle. “I live to serve,” Charlotte said, bowing brief y. “Ooh, there’s —-1 —0 —+1

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Mr. Marshon. Do you think he’s still mad at me from when I reen- acted the defenestration of Prague with his snow globe? History teachers probably hold grudges a long time, right? I’m just going to say hi. Back in a jif .” Evelyn took the opportunity to slip away. Second Field’s grass had turned muddy and choppy from the tire tracks and the Tretorn tracks—Charlotte was smart to wear boots—and Evelyn picked her way over the chewed-up terrain to the f eld house. She watched in amusement as one alum tried to rein in a toddler while wiping down a Labrador who had apparently been swimming in the Ammonoosuc, but when the alum looked at her, she quickly coughed and looked away. In the eight years since she’d graduated, she had not been back to Shef eld much, not wanting to see her classmates boasting about their children and jobs and weddings while Evelyn muddled along at her textbook- marketing job. Barbara, on the other hand, had been a steadfast alumna despite not actually attending Shef eld, and every year would call up Evelyn, pushing her to go to Shef eld- Enf eld, and every year Evelyn would say no. Evelyn’s penance for this resis tance was a recurring lecture about how she was aging and needed to meet someone soon and shouldn’t give up chances to meet eligible alumni. T is year, though, was di f erent. After the textbook publisher laid her of a few months ago, she’d managed to talk herself into a job at People Like Us, a social- networking site aimed at the elite’s elite. Even Charlotte, who was brilliant about business, thought that social-networking sites were going to be huge, and Evelyn sensed if she was a success at People Like Us, she could choose what ever job she wanted. In the interview, Evelyn had dropped a few references to Shef eld and, pulling from her memory of her upper- year class Novels of the Gilded Age, Newport. When the co- CEOs asked her how she’d ac- -1— cess the target members, she’d bluf ed, mentioning two Upper East 0— Side benef ts and making it sound like she’d attended them when she +1—

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hadn’t. T e made-up details she’d provided about the parties, the f ower arrangements, and the specialty cocktails came out of her mouth surprisingly easily, and though it had made her feel of , she’d reasoned that everyone stretched the truth in interviews. For $46,000 and a lot of stock options—Charlotte said this was how it worked these days—Evelyn became the director of membership at People Like Us, charged with recruiting society’s f nest to set up pro- f les on the site. Now, three weeks after she’d started, she needed some actual recruits and had headed to Shef eld’s homecoming for that reason. She could hear the fragments of a cheer coming from First Field, where the game was in its third quarter. It was the same cheer she had learned when she had arrived at Shef eld as a prep, the school’s term for freshmen. T e cheer was a paean to the gryphon, the school’s mascot. Hearing it, a stooped man with watery blue eyes looked toward the sound and valiantly waved a tiny Shef eld f ag, as though he were expecting troops from that direction to liberate him. T e cool gray stone of the f eld house of ered a change from all the sound, and Evelyn followed the familiar path to the girls’ bathroom, past the hockey rink on one side and the water- polo pool on the other. Inside, under the f uo rescent lights, Evelyn leaned over the gray- concrete slabs of the sink, which stank of beer (that was the recent alumni; she’d barely seen a beer among the older alums all day) and was lit- tered with red plastic cups. She reached into her bag, pulled out a sunglasses case, f ipped it open, and extracted a f annel lens cloth. Leaning so close that she could see the thin f lm of grease forming on her nose, she carefully rubbed one pearl earring to a Vermeer-like shine. It was pockmarked, she admitted, but in her usual self- examination that she performed before seeing her mother, she hadn’t caught it. She brief y made eye contact with herself. Precisely one time, when she was twelve, she was told by one of her father’s law partners that she’d be a heartbreaker someday, but it had yet to come true. At —-1 twenty- six, she felt like she still hadn’t grown into her features, and if —0 —+1

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she hadn’t by now, she probably never would. Her hair was mousy brown and hung limply past her shoulders, her face was too long, her nose too sharp, her eyes too small. T e only body part she thought was really spectacular was her pointer f n ger. She’d resisted her moth- er’s suggestions—“suggestions” was putting it mildly—of highlights, lowlights, a makeup session at Nordstrom. “You’re telling everyone around you that you don’t care,” Barbara liked to say. At least at Shef eld-En f eld this weekend, she and her mother had reached a tentative truce. Going to the school was one thing Evelyn had done right in her mother’s eyes, even if, as Barbara said, Evelyn had failed to build on it. Evelyn had made a promising start when she became friends with Preston Hacking, a Winthrop on his mother’s side (“Fine old Boston family,” Barbara said) and, obviously, a Hacking on his father’s. She’d remained close with Preston, but she had failed to parlay that into anything useful, Barbara believed. Eve- lyn’s other best friend from Shef eld was Charlotte Macmillan, who was the daughter of a Procter & Gamble executive and whom her mother still referred to as “that girl in the pigtails” after the hairdo Char had worn when she had f rst met Barbara. Evelyn rubbed at the other earring. Folding her upper body over the sink until she was an inch from the mirror, she rotated and polished the earring, then rotated and polished it again for good measure. Her mother couldn’t get her on that front. As she heard people approaching, she jumped back from the mir- ror and turned the faucet on, so when alumnae with maroon s’s on their cheeks burst in, she had a plausible explanation of what she had been up to. “Good game,” she said brightly, pulling a paper towel from the dispenser. With the mud trying to suck of her ballet f ats, Evelyn resumed her post at the card table behind her mother’s car and began spreading olive paste in careful curves on one of the of ending pepper crackers. -1— “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my cheerful little earful.” 0— Preston Hacking’s voice was reedy and nasal and familiar, and, +1—

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hearing it and seeing the edge of his worn- down Topsiders below her, the guarded smile that had been f xed on Evelyn’s face since she’d left the f eld house ballooned to a full grin. She spun on her toes and threw her arms around Preston, who picked her up with a yelp, then set her back down, out of breath from the exertion. Preston looked exactly the same as he had at Shef eld, tall and thin, with thick, loosely curled blond hair, red glasses, and lips that were always in a half smile, the f ne features of someone who had never gotten into a f ght and instead had politely submitted to the haz- ing imposed on the well- bred boys as preps. Evelyn remembered hearing he’d been duct- taped to the statue of the Shef eld founder for several hours and, upon release, had of ered his tormentors a cigar that he had in his sport- coat pocket; it was a Cuban. An ancient, scratchy- looking Shef eld sweater was hooked over his elbow—his grandfather’s, or his great- grandfather’s, Evelyn couldn’t remember. “Pres! I thought you were leaving me with the geriatric society. What took you so long?” “I had, and still have, a massive hangover, and felt I could not take the cheer and school spirit of people such as you. Good God, woman, what was in those martinis last night?” “Maybe they roof ed you.” “If only. Maybe it was the bathtub gin they seem to serve at these things. I knew I should have brought something up from the city. You can never trust the liquor ser vice in rural New Hampshire. Would you get me a Bloody?” Preston pleaded. Evelyn brought out one of the cut-crystal glasses her mother had brought up from Mary land, and mixed a bit of vodka from a leather- covered f ask with tomato juice. She wondered where her mother had obtained all these bartending accoutrements. T ey seemed to have showed up en masse when the family moved from their exurban ranch house to the grand and crumbling old house in Bibville when Evelyn was in elementary school. With that came aristocratic airs and f ne glassware, she thought as she watched the vodka glug out —-1 from the bottle. “I think my mom brought celery, but she’s run of —0 —+1

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somewhere. And there was ice, but I think it’s all melted. You might have to have warm tomato juice.” “Horseradish. Poppycock,” Preston said. “More vodka. More. More. More. Good. If I don’t get a drink in me soon, I might have to regurgitate all over this pretty picnic.” He gulped down a long sip. “Now that your thirst is being quenched, why don’t you make yourself useful? Babs and I have been trying to sort out how these chairs unfold, and we clearly have not been able to master it.” “Yes, we all remember your ill-fated forays into manual labor. Put me to work. I’ve always dreamt of being your handyman.” Preston balanced his glass on the car’s bumper, and was crouched, f ddling with a washer, when Barbara Beegan returned. He jumped up. “Mrs. Beegan, what a plea sure,” he said. “Preston, what a delight. Evie said she saw you last night, during the young people’s outing, but I’m glad I got to see you myself today.” “Well, not so young anymore. Did she tell you we’re now in the middle-aged alumni grouping? Once you’re more than f ve years out, it’s all over.” Evelyn elbowed him in the ribs, and tried to make it look like an accident in case her mother was watching, but it was too late. “She’s almost thirty. It’s not surprising,” Barbara said. “I’m twenty-six, Mom. I’m not almost thirty,” Evelyn muttered. In fact, though, when she’d walked by the current students, she’d re- alized that, to them, she was one of the sea of vaguely old alums who used to fumble through the dorms during Shef eld-En f eld and talk about what color the carpet was in their day. “Almost twenty- seven,” Barbara said, turning to look at her daughter. “Nearly twenty-f ve,” Evelyn said. With a kick, Preston got one chair, then the other, into place. “Done and done. You both look like you’ve found the fountain of -1— youth. Your daughter has me hard at work as usual. Is Mr. Beegan 0— here as well?” he said. +1—

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Evelyn returned his drink to him. “For your labor,” she said. “No, Dad had to work this weekend.” “Ah, well, I’m sure he’s sad to miss it.” T is drew no response, so Preston picked up a cracker. “I read about a case he was involved in, in the Journal. I think it was a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical com- pany in—” “Aren’t they all,” Barbara interrupted with a bright tone. “It’s been ages since I saw you last. You’ve been in London?” “Just moved back to New York,” Preston said. “T at’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful, Evie? I always tell her she needs to keep better track of her old friends. How are your old friends? T at darling Nick? And that handsome brother of yours? Are they single?” Evelyn handed her mother a cracker with cream cheese on it. “All right, Mom, we don’t need to review every single person Preston knows for marriage eligibility.” “I’m just having a conversation, Evelyn. She can be so sensitive. Now. Tell me about you, Preston. You must be dating someone.” “T e course of true love never did run smooth, Mrs. Beegan,” Preston said. “Of course, you have ages before you need to settle down,” Barbara said. Evelyn rolled her eyes and stuf ed a cracker in her mouth. To Bar- bara, Preston asserted that New York life was treating him well, and his work as an inde pen dent investor was going swimmingly (though Evelyn had never been able to pin down exactly what it was Preston did or invested in). He said that Evelyn was doing terrif cally in the city, which Evelyn thought he lied about rather nicely, and Barbara raised her sunglasses to the top of her head, her albino- blue eyes bright- ening and a satisf ed smile appearing with the compliment, which Barbara accepted as though it were about her. Exchanges complete, they separated, stepping away from one another as smoothly as if they were f nishing a minuet. As Barbara said she would f nd them —-1 all seats in the stadium. —0 —+1

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A bellow from three rows of cars away arose, with a “Ha—CKING” an octave apart. T en a “Beegs!” “Oh, good Lord,” Preston said to Evelyn. T e caller, whom Evelyn f nally diagnosed as Phil Giamatti, a kid from rural New Hampshire who’d overdosed on caf eine their lower year, trundled over. To the untrained eye, Phil appeared to be dressed even more snappily than Preston. His checked purple shirt, Evelyn guessed, was T omas Pink. His pants were Nantucket Reds. He wore sockless Gucci loafers. Evelyn remembered when he’d arrived at school in his oversized chambray button- downs and jeans. He smacked of price tags these days, and he was drenched in cologne, some brand that no doubt came in a black- leather- encased bottle. “How are you guys?” He grabbed Evelyn with meaty hands to lean in and smack his wet lips on her cheek. “Nice to be up here out of Manhattan, huh?” “It’s always nice to be at Shef eld,” Evelyn said f atly. She hadn’t liked Phil in high school, where he was always trying to copy Char- lotte’s tests, and she liked him even less with money. “I know, right? Good to leave work, too. Banking is crazy, man.” “So I hear,” Evelyn said. “It’s like, when you’re doing deals the way I am, it’s just nonstop. It’s like up at f ve a.m. and in the of ce ’til one a.m. But it’s work hard, play hard, right? Models and bottles?” “Models and bottles is not exactly my scene,” Preston said haughtily. “Models not your style, Hacking?” Evelyn felt heat in her ears; she hoped Phil was not going where he seemed to be going. “Pres’s style—” she began. But Phil continued. “You need male models and bottles? T at better?” Evelyn didn’t have to look at Preston to know that her friend would be scarlet. “Preston is a male model, Phil,” she said icily, which -1— wasn’t the greatest of retorts, but she couldn’t think of anything else. 0— “Good luck with your banking.” +1—

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“Hey, I was just joking,” Phil said as they walked away. “Hey, hey, Hacking? Hey, Beegan?” Evelyn strode back to the card table, where she rearranged some of the cocktail knives to give Preston time to compose himself. Finally, he swallowed so hard she could hear it. “I don’t know what he was talking about,” Preston said. “Me, either,” Evelyn said evenly. She handed him a cracker with olive paste, smiling, armed with a topic change. “So, would you rather?” “Ooh, what?” said Preston, seizing on their old game. “Would you rather have to spend every dinner party for the rest of your life seated next to Phil Giamatti, or have an aboveground pool in your front yard?” “So elitist, Evelyn, my dear. What’s the website you’re working for now? Not Our Class, Dear?” “Very funny. You realize I’m going to sign you up.” “Nay! I eschew technology.” “You’re going to have to embrace it. You have lineage and a respect- able old name and, presumably, alcoholic uncles leaving you grand for- tunes. You’re exactly who they want. Don’t worry. I’ll help you make a charming prof le.” “T e answer, by the way, is aboveground pool. Dinner parties are too precious to spend with the likes of Phil.” “Agree,” Evelyn said. “What are we talking about?” Charlotte had skipped up and thrown her thin arms around both of them. “Phil Giamatti,” Evelyn said. “You’re not recruiting him for PLU, are you?” Charlotte said. “Dahling.” Evelyn held her nose and looked down at Charlotte. “He is not PLU-caliber.” “Dahling, I wouldn’t have ventured. Certainly not PLU,” Charlotte said in her British voice. “I think Ev gets bounty- hunting points the more ancient the family money she signs up.” “Well, if People Like Us gets Evelyn back to Shef eld, I’ll accept —-1 it,” Preston said. “It’s good to all be here together.” —0 —+1

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“I mean, of course we couldn’t get our act together to hang out in New York,” Charlotte said. “Isn’t that New York, though?” Evelyn considered the cracker she had broken into shards. New York when you’re young, everyone in her hometown of Bibville said with reverence when they heard where she lived, having never lived in New York when they were young. Evelyn tried to love it, and some- times did, when she was wearing heels and perfume and hailing a cab on Park on a crisp fall night, or when the fountain at Lincoln Center danced in the night light, or when she watched Alfred Molina as Tevye sing “Sunrise, Sunset” from her seat in the second balcony and felt her brain go still. T e city hummed in a way Bibville never had, and the taxis were hard to get because everyone had somewhere to go and it was invigorating. And then it became grating: the taxis just became hard to get. She’d learned how to live in New York. She knew now never to eat lunch from the hot bar at Korean delis, never to buy shoes from the brandless leather joints that popped up in glass retail storefronts in Midtown, that there was more space in the middle of subway cars than at the ends, and that the f owers sold at bodegas were usually sourced from funerals. Yet she wasn’t living a New York life. Despite her grand plans, she’d spent most days plodding to work and home from work without moving her life ahead. It was crowded, and loud, and dirty, and too hot, then too cold. It required an enormous amount of energy and time just to do errands like getting groceries. She was always sweaty after she got groceries. She had expected to feel more at ease now that Charlotte and Preston were both back in New York. She thought the three of them would be together all the time, a merry band of Sondheim characters working at love and life from their tiny apartments, all getting to- gether on Sundays to punch each other up and drink wine on the roofs of their buildings. Instead, Charlotte, after working as a Gold- man Sachs analyst— a year in which Evelyn saw her friend maybe once -1— every two weeks and all Char talked about was how much she was 0— working— had gone back to Harvard for business school. Charlotte +1—

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had been back in the city almost a year, working for the intense private-equity f rm Graystone, which meant her nights and weekends were mostly spoken for. Preston, meanwhile, had submerged himself into his preppy set upon his return from London. Evelyn had kept up with the few friends from Davidson College that had moved to the city, but their lives were starting to take wildly divergent directions. One was an actress and had just moved to Bushwick, and it would take three subways and, probably, the purchase of a shiv for Evelyn to navigate there safely. A second had gotten engaged and was moving to Garden City, Long Island. T e four years since her Davidson graduation had gone by at once too slowly and too quickly, and Evelyn found herself in her mid- twenties without the life she had expected to have. Girls her age were either forging ahead in their careers or in serious relationships that would soon produce rings and engagement parties. Her mother had of ered to pay for Evelyn to freeze her eggs, and she hadn’t turned down the of er right away. It wasn’t so much that she wanted a hus- band and babies. But it would be nice to have a place for once, to have people look at her and think she was interest ing and worth talking to, not to have them politely fumble for details about her life and get them wrong and instantly forget her. (Murray Hill, right? No, the Up- per East Side. Ah, and Bucknell? No, Davidson.) People Like Us seemed like it could be her chance, even if her parents didn’t see it that way. Her father said that that group hardly needed another way to cut itself of from everyone else. And her mother’s response when Evelyn had told her about it was, “So rather than bothering to get to know the interest ing social set in New York, you’re now acting as a sort of paid concierge to them? T is is why we sent you to Shef eld?” She admitted she’d long been intimidated by the group of people she was now supposed to recruit. Earlier at the game, she had scouted out some of them, wondering if this social set would get its comeup- pance as time went on, the guys devolving into thick- stomached —-1 drinkers, the girls becoming haggard. T at would prove that her —0 —+1

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mother hadn’t been right about the appeal of this group. Yet the girls looked great, easy and free with just the tiniest hint of private- beach tan, enamel Hermès bracelets clinking on their wrists, and the guys looked handsome and self-assured, bankers and lawyers and politicians- in- training. Eavesdropping, she’d overheard them dissecting an eti- quette violation at a San Francisco private club, and had initially backed away, worried they would pass her over and make her feel like nothing. Given her new job, though, she forced herself to talk to a couple of them whom she knew through Preston, and she’d managed to line up a few candidates for PLU. Evelyn was determined to make this work, to prove to her parents and to the people who’d overlooked her that she could do this, that she was someone. T e city thought she wasn’t going to make it. T e city was wrong. Preston had been sidelined by a friend of his father’s, and Evelyn and Charlotte started heading toward the stadium. Another cheer started, and the girls did their hand motions in unison:

When - we f ght - we f ght - with literary Tropes - and themes - and leit - motifs because we Are - the school - that’s known - for melancholy Wri - ter types - and po - et laureates and If - lacrosse - is not - our forte then we Urge - the oth - er team - to try composing I- ambic - penta - meters, allusions, Ripostes, similes And puns!

Close to the end of the cheer, the Shef eld side lost the rhythm, but they screamed out “puns” in unison, as though it were the ultimate insult to the other team. Barbara, taking up half a row of seats with a giant stadium blanket, waggled her f ngers at Charlotte and Evelyn. Shef eld got the ball and -1— the crowd started shouting as Evelyn squeezed in. 0— “Your earring looks smudged,” Barbara said. +1—

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“Mother, I am going to throw the earring into this crowd if you do not stop harping on it,” Evelyn said, as she heard a snort from Charlotte. Barbara rearranged herself on the blanket, and the crowd howled a mass downward arpeggio when Enf eld took the ball back. It’s all right, it’s okay, you’re gonna work for us someday, rose the cheer from the Shef eld side.

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60813_ch01_1P.indd 17 01/14/15 1:55 pm chapter two

Next Stop, Lake James

Evelyn looked at her bed, strewn with dresses, sweaters, jeans, boots, sandals, and f eece, and tried once again to narrow down what she’d need for an Adirondack weekend. She f ipped open her ringing cell phone. “Hi, Mom,” she said. “Are you bringing the Lilly?” Barbara said. “Honestly, Mother, you’re calling me to see what I’m packing? I’ve been to Preston’s place, remember? You haven’t.” “You’ll never regret bringing a Lilly Pulitzer dress to a summer weekend,” Barbara said f rmly from the other end of the line. Evelyn was headed to Preston’s summer house in Lake James, in the Adirondacks, for Memorial Day, with the goal of recruiting more People Like Us members. Upon starting the job at People Like Us, Evelyn had waited a few days for the co- CEOs, Arun and Jin-ho, to tell her what the membership goals were and how she was supposed to achieve them—go to Spence School pick-up with a sign-up sheet? T ey hadn’t, though. People Like Us was a true start-up: an unrefur- -1— bished of ce in Chelsea, folding tables serving as desks, beige IBMs 0— salvaged from some previous start-up. +1—

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T e idea for the site, and the funding, came from a Swiss septua- genarian who was a Habsburg, and wanted to connect with people of his ilk as he traveled to Dubai or the Maldives. He had hired Arun and Jin-ho, Stanford Business School grads, and had left the rest up to them. T ey, in turn, seemed to be leaving the membership strategy completely up to Evelyn. Evelyn started by studying the website New York Appointment Book and the social pages of the Times, trying to get a feel for who was who in society and who People Like Us might want as its Amer- ican members. Her notion was that PLU should start with top- tier members to create buzz and exclusivity. At the top of Evelyn’s list was Camilla Rutherford. Evelyn had seen Camilla in person only once, when Evelyn was at the bar at Picholine, passing time with an overpriced Old Speckled Hen until Barbara Cook’s Broadway! at the Vivian Beaumont started. T e maître d’ was on the phone with someone for a good twenty minutes, giving the person turn- by-turn directions from Chelsea. When Camilla walked in, the waiters hushed as though Madonna had arrived, and the maître d’ apologized for having given such unclear directions. Evelyn, who had overheard the whole thing, thought they were perfectly clear and wondered why the man was so contrite. T en she glanced at Camilla, and just the fact of the girl’s conf dence, not to mention her beautiful hair and perfectly pressed silk blouse, made Evelyn feel wrinkled, her hair greasy, her toenails ratty. Babs was well aware of Camilla, and had pushed her as a friend even when Evelyn was at Shef eld. Evelyn had heard of her even then. At Shef eld, Camilla-from- St. Paul’s was a conversation topic when- ever Preston’s New York set returned from vacations. Camilla was now an associate director of special events for Vogue, a job reserved for the beautiful and the chic, women who added luster to parties simply by showing up. On Appointment Book, the one social site that social- ites actually read, Camilla emerged as the clear center of Young New York. In a tiered dress the color of milky cof ee, Camilla Ruther- —-1 ford lounging on a bench at the Met for its Egyptian wing party. At —0 —+1

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the Young Collectors Council for the Guggenheim, in a black silk blouse and zigzag skirt, holding champagne. In a f amenco- looking getup that Evelyn would never have been able to pull of at “For Whom the Belles Toll,” a Spanish Civil War– themed fund-raiser for the New York Public Library. Identifying Camilla as a prospect was easy. Signing her up as one was the challenge. T at’s when Evelyn remembered that Camilla had a camp in Lake James, where Preston had his summer place, and inspiration had struck. T e way to approach these people was on their literal turf— not on city streets, where any huckster or green- energy evangelist with a clipboard could approach them, but at their hard-to- get-to sum- mer homes where Evelyn’s very presence would show she belonged. She’d e-mailed Preston to see if he was spending Memorial Day at Shuh-shuh- gah, his Lake James camp, and he’d e- mailed back, “Comme d’habitude.” “Can I crash?” she’d replied, and his response was a simple, “Oui.” T ings with old friends were so nicely simple. Earlier in the week, she’d done a membership- strategy presen ta- tion about her idea, showing Arun and Jin-ho pictures of the “Belles Toll” event and a few others. “Look at how the people are interact- ing,” she’d said. “Why has anyone come to this fund- raiser, other than a love of the library? It’s because their friends asked them. ‘Buy a table.’ ‘Give at the Supporters level.’ T at’s how this world works. T ere are people at the center, and they are the inf uencers. T ey set the trends. T ey’re the ones who are dictating what parties to go to. Where to vacation. What sites someone might want to sign up for,” she said. “Focusing on numbers instead of quality is a suref re way to lose any credibility we have with this group. So. We’ll take a page from their own playbook. It’s going to be one- on- one recruitment, one- on- one appeals, just like we’re putting together a library fund- raiser. A quiet sell.” She’d ordered cards for People Like Us, nice card stock, and handed them out to the staf members who were headed to -1— Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons and Aspen for 0— +1—

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Memorial Day to give to the right sorts. Arun and Jin-ho had been impressed. Barbara was still jabbering away, and Evelyn walked to her win- dow, where she swiped her f n ger across the thick grime- dust that had accumulated overnight. “I hadn’t seen Preston in so long before Shef eld-En f eld. Whatever happened with the two of you?” Barbara said. “Nothing happened. He was in London for, what, three years? So I barely saw him.” “His brother, too,” Barbara was saying. “He was a nice young man. Shef eld turns them out well.” “Bing went to med school in the Virgin Islands because he couldn’t get in anywhere in the States. And he has, like, an eight-year- old.” “Well. Don’t rule out men who’ve been married. Divorced men would be very grateful to have someone young and pretty on their arm.” “Mother, there is an end button on this phone, and I am not afraid to use it.” Evelyn jammed the phone between her shoulder and ear, and began tossing clothes in her duf el. Her train was leaving soon. “I always thought you and Preston would get married,” Barbara continued. “His manners are lovely and he’s so good at tennis. A man like that would make life easy, Evelyn. T ink of how easy it would be to entertain, or go out to parties, with a husband like that. Who actually enjoys social interaction and always has such a funny thing to say. Preston’s always the belle of the ball. T e beau of the ball, I suppose.” Evelyn folded a thick wool sweater. She had considered it, too— the simple math of her and Preston marrying, leading their lives like a f gure eight, doing their own activities during the day, coming to- gether at night for parties and dinners, separating again afterward, presumably taking lovers on the side. She always screened her life- with- Preston scenes in black-and- white, accessorized with tiny round martini glasses and long cigarette holders. What she could not —-1 —0 —+1

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imagine was a night alone in the same house— without even getting to the mechanics around avoiding sleeping together, she shuddered at the awful intimacy of his wet toothbrush. “What is your plan for the summer, Evelyn?” “Lake James, at the moment.” She knew her mother was asking about the rest of the summer. Some marketing people at her former employer, the textbook publisher, had gone in on a summer share on the Jersey shore, but even if Evelyn had had the money for that, she didn’t know what to say to those people, who made frat-boy jokes about dirty Sanchezes and quoted Caddyshack. On the other hand, staying in New York in summers wasn’t all that appealing, either; last summer had meant lots of Sam Adams Summer Ale by herself on hot weekend days where it seemed like just her and the Domini- can Day parade. “You’re doing that so you can do your website sales. At any rate, you can’t just rely on Preston’s mother’s hospitality every weekend. A single woman is a strain on every hostess. It’s a strug gle to f nd a sin- gle man for a dinner partner.” “Mom. I’m already going to Lake James. Take your victories, okay? And, for the fourteenth time, it’s not website sales.” “Did you pack the Lilly?” Evelyn shook her head. “Good- bye, Mother.” She tapped the phone on the bed, then stuf ed the Lilly Pulitzer dress into her bag. Evelyn dragged her duf el to the slow elevator and through her building’s lobby. She lived on the Upper East Side, in an apartment she could barely af ord despite its being in a “troubling” part of the neighborhood, as her mother put it. When Evelyn had rented it, she had never lived in Manhattan before, and didn’t realize desirable real estate changed midblock. T is had landed Evelyn in a building called the Petit Trianon, on the wrong side of T ird. When Barbara sent letters to Evelyn, she always addressed them to Evelyn Topfer Bee- gan, Le Petit Trianon, as though Evelyn resided at a country estate. -1— She passed the plants f ghting for sunlight in the lobby, overcast 0— with a f uo rescent- green tinge. T e victor these days was an aloe vera +1—

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whose giant tentacles lay despondently on the tiled f oor. Some time ago the plant had spawned, and a young handyman had put the ba- bies in tiny planters, with Free to Good Homes in front of the makeshift nursery. When Evelyn had returned from the bodega that morning, a homeless person had already peed on them, leaving a dark and stinking puddle around their bases.

When Evelyn stepped of the train at the Lake James station seven hours later, the sky was veiled with low gray clouds and held the threat of snow. In May, as the rest of New York bowed to summer, the Ad- irondacks clasped winter as tightly as they could. Winter was their season and they weren’t going to let go of it so easily. Evelyn shivered. T e train hooted away, and though Evelyn knew the station was close to the road, she couldn’t even hear car engines. Preston was having a whole crew up this weekend. Nick Geary, Preston’s best friend since middle school who had gone on to Enf eld and Dartmouth, for one. He was in the consumer- products group at Morgan Stanley, so Charlotte dealt with him all the time in her private-equity job, where she worked on consumer- products acqui- sitions. T ere was also some acquaintance of Nick’s from Morgan Stanley whom Charlotte also knew. Charlotte had deci ded to come last- minute, after nonstop harassment from Evelyn, and then Bing, Bing’s girlfriend, and Bing’s kid were also up. Evelyn thought she could get at least a few of them onto the site, and she wanted to f nd other recruits at Lake James parties. Lake James was gorgeous; she had to give it that. Even the train station was. In front of her was a small blue station house, the short concrete length of the platform, and beyond, green trees in every di- rection. T e wind picked up sharply, then quieted just as suddenly, and the trees rattled their leaves, an imitation of the sound of rain, but then they, too, settled into silence. Evelyn had dressed for “summer” rather than “mountains,” and —-1 pulled her cotton cardigan close around her. Looking to her left, to —0 —+1

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the other end of the platform, she saw a tall, black- haired f gure in a dark suit. He looked about her age, but his shoulders rolled forward, giving him the stoop of a much older man. He was looking out at the trees and seemed lost. T ey both turned toward the station house and got there at the same time. He grabbed for the doorknob, fumbling with it, but man- aged to open the door for her. He was around six- three, with corre- spondingly exaggerated features that reminded her of a Croatian basketball player she had once seen when forced to watch a Lakers- Knicks game. She stepped in front of him to the small square wait- ing room, with blue walls and simple brown wooden benches along the sides. She looked at him carefully again, trying to match him with any of the Lake James people she had done research on. Evidently she had been studying his suit too closely. “I came from work,” he blurted, pulling at his tie. “I f gured,” Evelyn said, smiling. “Either that or Lake James is becoming an important business center.” He half smiled, but it did nothing to wash away the ner vous ness on his face. “So, I guess, you’re Emily? Nick said you’d be on the same train.” Nick’s friend, then. Preston hadn’t said anything about him other than he worked at Morgan Stanley, but this guy didn’t strike Evelyn as a Nick cohort—he seemed unpolished, even kind of nice. “Evelyn. Evelyn Beegan. You’re staying at Preston’s?” He reddened as he shook her hand. “Yeah, he didn’t, ah, mention it? T at we’d be on the same train? Sorry. I work with Nick, and he thought it would be fun if I came. Up.” “Right. Well, I’ll bet it will be. I’m sorry— I didn’t catch your name,” said Evelyn. T e guy’s awkwardness made her feel at ease by comparison. “Oh. Gosh. I’m sorry. Scot. Scot Tannauer.” He held out his hand, then withdrew it just as quickly, and shook it out as if he had carpal -1— tunnel syndrome. She couldn’t tell whether he was attracted to her or 0— +1—

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terrif ed of women. He took a look around the station house. “I’ve never been to the Adirondacks before. I read up on it.” “I didn’t know there was much reading to be had on it.” “Oh, yes. Yes. T e history of the mountains, and the great camps, and the Vanderbilts and the other families who came up here.” “Bankers even then,” Evelyn said with a light laugh. “Oh— yes— I get the joke,” he said, looking down at his suit. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—” “Sorry. Just. No. I’m just—” “So you were saying? T e great camps?” “T e architecture is really something. It’s an interest ing style that was replicated in some of the national- park lodges, but real ly no- where else.” Evelyn began to ask about who the architects had been, but the station house door opened and Nick Geary stepped in wearing white tennis shorts and a white polo shirt. His hair was still chocolate- brown and perfectly f oppy, his eyes the same dark blue, his skin per- fect, and his lips a deep red that girls would’ve killed for. His nostrils were the only problem, large and quivering; they had no doubt seen their share of coke, Evelyn thought as she smiled and kissed his cheek. “Nick!” “Evelyn. It’s been ages. How’s the singing?” he said, not as distantly as Evelyn had expected. “Sir,” he said to Scot, nodding at him. “So I’ve been deputized as your chauf eur for the day. Hop in. Evelyn, how much luggage do you need for a three- day weekend? Jesus Christ.” “T e singing?” Scot asked. “I was real ly into musicals when I f rst met Nick. I’m surprised he remembers.” “Oh,” Scot said, sounding like a horse neighing.

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053-60813_ch01_1P.indd 25 01/14/15 1:55 pm on-sale 8/4/15

The arresting debut novel from award-winning writer Jennine Capó Crucet

When Lizet-the daughter of Cuban immigrants and the first in her family to graduate from high school-secretly applies and is accepted to an ultra-elite college, her parents are furious at her decision to leave Miami. Just weeks before she’s set to start school, her parents divorce and her father sells her childhood home, leaving Lizet, her mother, and Leidy-Lizet’s older sister, a brand-new single mom-with- out a steady income and scrambling for a place to live.

Amidst this turmoil, Lizet begins her first semester at Rawlings College, distracted by both the exciting and difficult moments of freshman year. But the privileged world of the campus feels utterly foreign, as does her new awareness of herself as a minority. Struggling both socially and academically, she returns to Miami for a surprise Thanksgiving visit, only to be overshadowed by the arrival of Ariel Hernandez, a young boy whose mother died fleeing with him from Cuba on a raft. The ensuing immigration battle puts Miami in a glaring spotlight, captivating the nation and entangling Lizet’s entire family, especially her mother.

Pulled between life at college and the needs of those she loves, Lizet is faced with difficult decisions that will change her life forever. Urgent and mordantly funny, Make Your Home Among Strangers tells the moving story of a young woman torn between generational, cultural, and political forces; it’s the new story of what it means to be American today.

JENNINE CAPÓ CRUCET is the author of the story collection How to Leave Hialeah, which won the Iowa Short Fiction Award, the John Gardner Book Prize, the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the Miami Herald and the Latinidad List. A PEN/O. Henry Prize winner, Bread Loaf Fellow, and recent Picador Fellow at the University of Leipzig in Germany, she was raised in Miami and teaches English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln. They had carved their names and address on me, and I would come back. —maxine hong kingston, the wom an warrio r

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canals zigzag across the city I used to call home. Those lines of murky water still run beside and under expressways, now choked by whorls of algae—mostly hydrilla, a well-known invasive, though that’s likely the only algae I ever saw growing up in Mi- ami. Even just ten years ago, before it took over, you could fl oat tangle-free down those waterways from neighborhood to neighbor- hood, waving to strangers from your inner tube as they wave back and wonder whether or not you need rescuing. While they were married, my parents used the canal across from the house they owned until just before I left for college in ways that make my current research group howl. Every Tuesday, at the weekly lab meetings I help our principal investigator run, each of us in the group is supposed to cata log the slow progress we’re making toward understanding the demise of coral reef systems everywhere. But being one of the institute’s lab managers means I’ve been work- ing on this project longer than any of the postdocs or graduate students we hire, so my segment of the meeting has another goal: I try each week to make our PI laugh at least once by revealing, like —-1 —0 —+1

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a prize behind a curtain, some new and highly illegal thing my mom or dad tossed into that canal’s water. My dad: every single drop of motor oil ever drained from any of the dozen or so cars he’s owned and sold over the years; a stack of loose CDs I once left on the couch and forgot, for days and days, to put away, each of them dotting the water’s surface like a mir- rored lily pad; an entire transmission. My mom: a dead hamster, cage and all, the failed project of my older sister Leidy, who was charged with keeping it alive over Christmas break when she was in fi fth grade; any obvious junk mail, before I knew to grab the brochures from colleges out of her hands lest she send them sailing from her grip; dried- out watercolors, homemade tape recordings of her own voice, parched hunks of white clay—any and all signs of an attempt to discover some untapped talent she hoped she pos- sessed wound up in the water. Too many things got dumped there. I know this was wrong—knew it then. Still, I say to my drop-jawed colleagues when they ask how we could’ve behaved so irresponsi- bly, what do you want me to tell you? I’m sorry, I say, but it’s the truth. Starting my segment of our meetings this way has let me turn Miami’s canals into a funny family story. But I know which stories not to tell, which stories would make these partic u lar listeners un- comfortable. Once, when my dad was thirteen, a friend from ju- nior high dragged him and some other guys to a nearby canal to see a dead body he’d found there. My dad told me this story only once, the summer after Ariel Hernandez was sent back to Cuba after months of rallies and riots. I’d asked him if what people like my mom said was true: that Ariel had seen his mother’s body fl oat- ing in the Florida Straits, had watched sharks pick her apart be- fore his rescue. This story was his only answer. So I asked him, What did you do, did you tell anyone? We just left it in the canal, he said. It got worse and worse, then one day it was gone, problem solved. -1— My dad didn’t say any more, even when I asked him why he’d kept 0— the body a secret. He doesn’t have any evidence to prove this +1—

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actually happened, and there’s no verifi able record I can look up to confi rm it, but the fact that he’s never mentioned it again—that he’ll deny this story if I bring it up now—tells me it’s true. My dad’s canal isn’t far from the one in front of our old house, the one I still think of as mine. The two waterways are probably connected, and though I don’t know exactly how you’d navigate from one to the other, I’m sure it can be done. Years after that summer, managing my fi rst lab at the institute and working for a parasitologist studying the ef ects of sewage run- of on canal-dwelling snails, I slipped under another city’s slick wa- ter: I lost my grip on the concrete shelf lining that partic u lar canal and screamed as a refl ex, which meant the contaminated water fl ooding my ears and nostrils had— via my open mouth—an ad- ditional (and an exceptionally gross) way to enter my system. My head submerged, the image of all these objects—the body, the CDs, the hamster cage, all of it somehow still intact and fl oating in Miami’s water—surged over me. I found I couldn’t kick my legs, fearing that I’d cut open my foot on a transmission that couldn’t pos- sibly be there: I was already on the West Coast by then, far from the canal my parents had abandoned to another family almost a de cade earlier. The parasitologist hauled me out from the nastiness, made some unfortunate joke about Cubans and the coast guard, then spent the drive to the hospital apologizing for said joke, which he claimed was truly of ensive in that it wasn’t even that funny. Nurses plugged antibiotic-fi lled sacks into my arms, the hope being that intravenous administration would keep the various organisms that’d bombarded my body from calling it home for too long. I called each parent from my sublet a couple days later once I’d been discharged. — I don’t know why you do that nasty work, my mom said, an- gry because I’d waited to call her. She preferred the rush of an emer- gency, the play- by- play of panic. My father asked, after having me explain the basic facts of my —-1 treatment, Did you call your mother already? When I said yes, he —0 —+1

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said, Good girl, Lizet— his voice the same as if I’d brought home a decent report card or gotten rid of a Jehovah’s Witness at the door without bothering him for help. Good girl, Lizet. I was almost twenty- eight. Neither parent brought up the canal across the street from us during that phone call—I didn’t let either conversation go on very long because I didn’t want to hear that other story, another supposed truth about our canal, one my family has always claimed but which I don’t know I believe. It goes like this: When I was three years old and left under the very temporary supervision of my then fi ve-year- old sister while my mother spoke with our backyard neighbor, I marched into the ga- rage and rummaged through piles of old-clothes- turned- cleaning- rags and half- empty bottles of detergents and oils, found the fl oaties used to buoy me in the Atlantic Ocean, and blew them up on my way across the street to the water. By my mother’s account, I stood on the sheer edge of the canal and blew these things up the way I’d seen my father do it—bending forward as I pushed air into them, as if that motion helped— then licked them to slip them up my arms. By my father’s account, I went over there with the fl oaties already on, my arms hovering out from my sides so that from behind, I resembled a tiny body builder. (Sometimes they say I was barefoot, but that can’t be true. I would remember, I think, the asphalt embroidering my heels, shredding the pads of my toes. I would remember the sting of every step there.) By all accounts— even my sister’s, who you could argue was too young to have an account, but that’s not how stories work—I took several huge, shoulder-raising breaths before launching myself into the canal’s crowded water. In some versions I pinch my nose; in some I know to breathe out as I hit the water; and in others still the water rushes into me through this and other openings, mandating that I be prescribed antibiot- ics the minute my parents, who take embarrassingly long to dis- -1— cover me fl oating across the street, explain to the triage nurse in 0— +1—

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the hospital’s emergency room from where it is I’d just been pulled. Versions of this story change from teller to teller, from time told to other time told. But every version ends with almost the same lines: She was fi ne! All that worrying, all that time and money and cry- ing wasted—and for what? She was fi n e . It made us want to kill her.

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a now-defunct airline is mostly responsible for giving me and Ariel Hernandez the same day as our Miami Homecom- ing: Thanksgiving 1999. He was a fi ve- year- old Cuban boy rescued from a broken raft by fi shermen earlier that day after watching ev- eryone else on the raft, including his mother, die; I arrived that night, a day later than I’d planned because I underestimated, hav- ing never done it, just how chaotic fl ying on the busiest travel day of the year could be. And even though we each eventually set foot in the city our families called home, no one was expecting either of us to show up the way we did. That fi rst fl ight back home from college— which, I should con- fess, was only my second time ever on an airplane— started of badly enough that when I got to Pittsburgh and learned my connecting fl ight was overbooked, I should’ve asked the airline to just send me back to New York for Thanksgiving. Staying on campus for the hol- iday was the original plan anyway, the one designed by my dad months earlier, before he’d moved out, the plan my mother and sis- -1— ter thought I was following: I was not supposed to come home for 0— Thanksgiving. It was not in the bud get, or el college lay-a- way , or any +1—

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of the other euphemisms my dad had used to describe how we would fi nance the astronomically expensive education I was mostly fail- ing to receive. The four thousand dollars a year my family was ini- tially expected to pay toward my tuition at Rawlings College seemed to my dad (and to me, back then) an insane amount of money, a fi gure almost as ludicrous as the forty-fi ve thousand dollars Rawl- ings expected from each of its students every year. The aid pack- age later approved after our appeal— the one with my parents’ marital status revised to say “Formally Separated” and my dad’s address changed to “Unknown”— brought the amount down to something me and my mom together could earn, a fl ight to up- state New York and another back in December being all our fi nal bud get said we could af ord. But we hadn’t taken into account some- thing called federal work-study— a mysterious line in my aid pack- age that I thought had something to do with working for the government or joining the army, and so I’d ignored it, hoping it would disappear. I got to campus for freshman orientation, marched into the aid of ce to pay my fall bill in person with a check my mom had written out three days before in tense, tired script, and learned from my aid of cer that work- study was just a job on campus—an easy one, usually. Nothing to do with the government at all. I was one of the very fi rst students to come in, which meant I had my pick of jobs, and so that fall, I’d spent the hours between classes working in the library, searching bags for mistakenly stolen books when the sensors hugging the doors went of . Which is how I’d managed to save enough for the Thanksgiving ticket and the shuttle ride to my mom and sister’s new- to-me address. I was surprising everyone, even myself: I was home for a holi- day we didn’t really celebrate. Eating turkey on a Thursday seemed mostly arbitrary to my Cuban-born- and- raised parents, and so to my sister and me growing up. Still, my entire school career up to that point celebrated America and its founding—the proof: a half- dozen handprint turkeys stuf ed under my mother’s mattress, now —-1 in a Little Havana apartment instead of our house— and I must’ve —0 —+1

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been feeling sentimental for stories of pilgrims and Indians all get- ting along around a feast the night I scoured the Internet for a ticket home. Also, the fact that everyone at Rawlings (in the dining hall, around the mailboxes, before class while waiting for a professor to arrive, even in the morning bathroom banter bouncing between girls in separate shower stalls—all conversations in which I had no place until I decided to fl y home as a surprise) couldn’t stop talk- ing about family and food only made me want the same thing even though I’d been fi ne without it my whole life. So as people talked around their toothbrushes about the aunts and uncles they dreaded seeing, I recast the holiday as equally important to some imaginary version of the Ramirez clan and booked the trip, then mentioned going home one October morning as I towel-dried my face. A girl from my fl oor who’d barely noticed me before fi nally introduced herself— I’m Tracy, by the way, but people call me Trace—and told me, as she spat toothpaste foam into the sink, how jealous she was that home for me meant Miami Beach. I didn’t mention that I lived miles from the ocean, just like I didn’t mention—to anyone— that I’d drained my fall savings on this trip. A day later than the Wednesday printed on my original ticket, and a good hour after most of East Coast America would’ve fi nished their turkey and potatoes and apple pie and all the other All-American things all Americans eat on Thanksgiving, I shuf ed down the aisle of a plane, my bag catching on the armrests then slamming back into me the whole way out. I stepped through the squarish hole in the plane’s side—I still couldn’t believe this open- ing counted as a door—and the night’s humidity swooped over me like a wet sheet, plastering my already-greasy bangs to my forehead. An old white man behind me huf ed, Dear Christ, this place! Part of me wanted to turn around and snap, What do you mean, this place, you stupid viejo? You want to freaking say something about it? But the part of me that had calmly worked with the gate agent in Pittsburgh to -1— fi nd an available hotel room once it was clear they’d sold more tick- 0— ets than seats on my connecting fl ight— the part that a week earlier +1—

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had borrowed my roommate Jillian’s blazer for my academic hear- ing without mentioning the hearing itself—knew exactly what he meant. My bangs, which I’d blown out to give the rest of my hair some semblance of neatness, curled and tangled in that oppressive, familiar dankness. When I reached up to fi nger- comb them back into place, a motion that had been a refl ex throughout high school, my nails got caught in the new knots. The Miami International Airport terminal smelled strongly of mildew. The odor seemed to come up from the carpet, each of my steps releasing it into the air. That terminal was one of the last to be renovated; the only TVs in it back then had one of three jobs: to display a pixilated list of arrivals, or of departures, or to re- lay the weather, updated every fi fteen minutes. There was no re- cap of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, no local news about a food kitchen blaring overhead— the TVs weren’t connected to the outside world that way. If they had been, my ignorance about Ariel Hernandez might’ve ended right then, before I’d even stepped through the airport’s automatic glass doors and into the Miami night. It would’ve been at least a warning. After explaining my overbooked fl ight and how my original shut- tle reservation had been for Wednesday evening, and after an ab- surd amount of clicking on a keyboard and many Mmm-hmm s and almost no eye contact, the woman behind the shuttle service’s counter managed to squeeze me onto a ride-share leaving in ten minutes. —But you getting of last, she told me, the clicking suddenly stopping as she held up a fi nger to my face. Her acrylic nails— pink- and- whites that needed refi lling— had slashes of diamonds glued across their long, curved tips. I could see her real nails growing up under them, like echoes. —I got you, I said, happy to recognize something I hadn’t seen in months. I sat at the very back of the blue van after reluctantly handing —-1 over my bag to the driver: I didn’t have any cash for a tip and —0 —+1

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almost told him so as we wrestled over it, each of us wanting to make sure we got the credit for putting it away. The ticket in my hand said Zone 8: Little Havana. I read it twice before remembering that it wasn’t a mistake. I’d lived in Hialeah my whole life except for the very last week before I left for Rawl- ings. I’d memorized the new address, but only because I’d entered and reentered it on all sorts of forms during orientation, correct- ing and updating it on anything I’d submitted before that fall. Even to someone from Hialeah, Little Havana was a joke back then, the part of Miami only the most recent of refugees called home, a place tour buses drove through, where old Cuban men played dominos for tourists and thought that made them celebrities. But none of these geograph i cal distinctions mattered at Rawlings. There, when people asked, So where are you from? and I said, Hialeah, they answered: Wait, where? And so I gave them a new answer: Miami, I’m from Miami. Oh, they’d say, But where are you from from? I was from from Miami, but eventually I learned to say what they were trying to fi gure out: My parents are from Cuba. No, I’ve never been. Yes, I still have family there. No, we don’t know Fidel Castro. Once I learned what I was supposed to say, it became a chant, like the address I’d memorized but didn’t think of as home. People packed in around me. An el derly white couple— the wrin- kled man helping the wrinkled woman up the steps of the van, hold- ing her by her bracelet-crammed wrist—creaked their way onto the seat bench in front of me, spreading out in the hopes of keep- ing anyone from sitting by them. It didn’t work: a young-looking lady pushed in beside them. She wore smart gray pants and a match- ing blazer with patches on the elbows, and she looked like she could maybe be a professor somewhere except for the fact that she was clearly Latina; I’d yet to see a Latino professor on the Rawlings campus, though I knew from pictures in the school’s guidebook that there were a few somewhere. But then I thought, Maybe she teaches -1— at FIU or Miami Dade. Maybe she’s new there. Her hair was pulled 0— back tight, slicked smooth with gel. To the old couple she said, Good +1—

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eve ning, and they nodded back at her. The old woman scooted closer to her husband, the orange cloud of her hair touching his shoulder. She turned her face—the side of it dotted with brownish spots, a few whiskers sprouting from a fold under her chin—and inspected the young woman the way I’d just done before turning away. —Coral Gables, the old woman said. She leaned forward, put her hand on the driver’s chair. Our stop is Coral Gables, near the— Gerald, just tell him how to get there. — The man knows, Sharon. It’ll be fi ne. He grunted this with a sturdiness that would’ve shut me up. It’ll be fi ne, I repeated in my head. I rested my forehead against the window— surprised, after so many cold weeks in New York, by the warm glass. Outside, the sun dipped behind buildings and palm trees, only the red welt of it still visible. I hadn’t decided yet if I should use this trip home to confess my issues at school to my mom; I’d bought my ticket weeks before things started to look so bad. I was straight-up failing my chemistry course, but by Thanksgiving this problem was only a footnote to a list of other issues, the most serious being that I had accidentally plagiarized part of a paper in my freshman writing class and would soon be meeting again with the Academic Integrity Committee about what this meant in terms of my status as a student at Rawlings. I’d testifi ed at my hearing a week earlier: I’d attempted to correctly cite something, but I didn’t even know the extent to which that needed to be done to count as correct. The committee said it was taking into consideration that fact that I’d gone to Hialeah Lakes High. Several times during my hearing, they’d referred to it as “an underserved high school,” which I fi gured out was a nice way of saying a school so shitty that the people at Rawlings had read an article about it in The New Yorker. They’d expected me to know about this article— You mean to tell us you aren’t familiar with the national attention your former school is receiving?— as well as that magazine when the only one I ever read back then —-1 was the Vanidades my mom sometimes mailed me after reading them —0 —+1

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herself during her shifts directing calls at the City of Miami Build- ing Department. I’d swallowed and told the committee no, I was not aware. The committee was also, in general, worried about my ability to succeed at Rawlings given that I was considering a biol- ogy major. The truth was, I didn’t really know if I should major in biology, but I planned to major in biology anyway because I’d read it was one of the largest, most popu lar majors at Rawlings, and therefore (I reasoned) couldn’t possibly be that hard. The truth was, I had enough to worry about that Thanksgiving before my fl ight got canceled, before I’d ever heard the name Ariel Hernandez. And just like the fact of me even being in the city in a van headed her way, my mother knew about none of it.

-1— 0— +1—

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in pittsburgh, the airline had sent me to a hotel that was only a short “courtesy” ride away from the airport, and like the hotels we passed now—scummy buildings on the fringes of Miami International, on the fringes of the defi nition of hotel—the rooms could be rented either for the night or by the hour. There was a time when hotels like this terrifi ed me, but I’d spent enough hours in them with my boyfriend Omar during my se nior year of high school that I was no longer shocked to see a prostitute hanging out by a vending machine or waiting in a car and snif ng her own arm- pits, thinking nobody’s looking. Still, I’d never spent the night in a place like that, and I was alone, and the room—which just as re- cently as that summer had seemed so fun and illicit and beautiful in this murky, hope- fi lled way— just felt gross, the sheets and towels, to the touch, all one step shy of dry. We rolled through the city, our route apparently not needing the expressway. Around us, the noise of rumbling sound systems and way- too- much bass faded in and out depending on the stop- lights. We eventually pulled up to a sprawling ranch house in a nice —-1 part of the Gables I’d never seen, and the old people left the van —0 —+1

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without saying goodbye to anyone, and I was relieved, now that I was back in Miami, that there was no need to be polite. Even this far inland, I could smell the salt in the air every time the door slid open. I hadn’t been this close to the ocean in months, and out of nowhere, the air made my mouth water. My eyes welled with tears— more water rushing to meet the ocean that I didn’t even know I’d missed. My imaginary profesora and I were apparently the driver’s last two stops. She’d scooted in from the edge of her row after the old people left and was now directly in front of me. The mass of her hair was corralled into this thick bun, shiny and hard from the gel keeping it under control. The dark center of the thing, like an en- trance to a tunnel, seemed to stare right at me. I had the urge to stick my fi nger in it, see how far it would go, but then she let out this big sigh and her shoulders drooped forward and shook. She brought her hands to her face, sucked in a wet breath through her fi ngers. The driver’s eyes swerved to the rearview mirror, and he lifted his eyebrows at what ever he saw there. He looked away to the road, but then his eyes met mine in the mirror and he shifted in his seat, cleared his throat when he looked away again like she was my problem. So I grabbed onto her bench and scooted forward, saying with mostly air so she wouldn’t really hear me, Uh, hey. She leaned back on the bench— I moved my hand out of the way just in time— and, still through her fi ngers, she sucked in air and said, God. Then she wiped her cheeks with her whole palm, pushing with the same fi erceness that Leidy’s son, my baby nephew Dante, used when smashing his own hands into his face as he cried. She bent down and snatched something from of the fl oor—her huge purse. It hit her lap with a sound like steps creaking, the leather stretching as she rooted around in it. She pulled out a compact and fl ipped it open. In the mirror she used to inspect her face, I could only see a tiny circle of her at a time: her weak, ruddy chin; her -1— bare, wide lips, the almost-straight teeth they revealed then hid; 0— her fl ared nostrils as she used her pinkie nail to swipe something +1—

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from the right one. Then, a fl ash of her full, dark eyebrow—and below it, her right eye, still ringed in perfect black eyeliner, the lashes still well- shellacked with mascara. None of it smudged by tears at all. I sat back against my bench, confused as to whether or not what she’d just been doing, not fi ve seconds before, was crying. She tugged at the corner of her eye, lifting it, and I’d been staring for exactly too long when I realized what she watched in her mirror was me. She snapped the compact shut, slid her purse of her lap and onto the bench, and turned to face me. She smiled—a square, forced grin that even showed the crooked bottom teeth I’d missed before— then dropped her head back to her purse. She said, Sorry, I’m being weird. Her voice didn’t sound like I thought it would, and I was sur- prised I’d expected something specifi c. It was deeper and quieter than I thought it should be, and there was no Miami accent in it, no sharpness to her I. And what she said made her sound like my roommate Jillian, who was constantly describing the things she did as weird or random, even when they were neither weird nor random. Her face still turned to her purse, she asked, Are you headed to Hialeah, too? — Yeah, I lied. — Wait though, she said. Where did you go to high school? She hopped in her seat and twisted her whole body my way, her hand now on the seatback between us. In seeing her get so excited about such a stupid, irrelevant question, I wanted to take away all the distinction I’d given her by thinking of her as a professor. I didn’t know yet that this question— when you’re from Miami and talk- ing to someone else from Miami after you’ve both left it—was the shortcut to fi nding out which version of the city had raised them. Out the window, the sun disappeared along with the clean, empty streets of Coral Gables, and that neighborhood started to melt away into the run-down strip malls—with their bakeries and liquor stores and Navarro Pharmacies and neon- signed cash- only restaurants— —-1 that looked more familiar. —0 —+1

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When I didn’t answer right away, she said: I went to Hialeah Gardens. She said the school’s name like a punch line, pointed to herself with all four of her fi ngers and her thumb back at me, as if saying, Can you believe that? But I didn’t get the joke: Gardens was our big rival in football, a sport we tended to dominate, but they killed us almost every year in soccer. A handful of kids from both teams at both schools went to college on athletic scholarships each year; that was how most of the few students headed to college at all from ei- ther school managed to make it there. — Oh cool, I said. I went to Hialeah Lakes. — Wow, she said, nodding. Yikes, she said. That’s rough. She lowered her head and nodded harder, waiting for me to nod along with her. A rectangle of light came in through the van’s win- dow and scrolled over her face, turning her skin greenish, and I thought maybe she was lying about going to Gardens, or that maybe I was wrong and she wasn’t some kind of Latina like me. — Were you crying just now? I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Because it looked like you were crying. The woman let her hand drop from the seatback, and I added, I’m just saying. —I’m, she said, I was being weird is all. She laughed a little and said, I just fl ew in from Michigan. I’m in my last year of a postdoc there. Then she rolled her eyes, as if the defi nition of postdoc were writ- ten in the air above us. I lifted my chin and squinted, but she didn’t say more, and I tried not to think about how much I still didn’t know, even after almost a whole semester away at a real school. The rectangle of light slinked over the seat and found my arms, pass- ing over them and turning them the same green. — I’m in college, I said. I’m a freshman. I came home for the break but my fl ight got screwed up yesterday. -1— She showed me all her teeth again, but her lips slipped over them 0— in a more natural way. She asked where I went for school, but +1—

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I fl apped my hand in front of my face, like the question smelled foul. I didn’t expect her to know the school. My boyfriend Omar had never even heard of it before I’d applied, and my own sister had trouble remembering the name, though she blamed me for that, since I’d applied to Rawlings without my family knowing about it and—as a necessary result of that— without their permission. — It’s this school in the middle of nowhere called Rawlings. —Rawlings College? she said more loudly than anything she’d said so far. That’s where you go? As in, one of the top liberal arts schools in the country? That Rawlings? I couldn’t believe she’d heard of it. I couldn’t believe she knew to say liberal arts. My surprise at this almost matched hers. She shook of her open mouth and said, Hold up, so you must be a super genius. — Not really, I said. But yeah, it’s— it’s like a really good school. We both nodded, and I felt ready to brag a little, to tell her how a few weeks earlier the school had thrown an all-day party for everyone on campus— even us new students— under this huge tent on the quad to celebrate this one professor winning the Nobel Prize in economics. The school had sprung for hundreds of these goofy caps with part of the prize-winning theorem (which meant noth- ing to most of us, as several of the speakers that day joked) printed on the front and the words ’99 nobel bash on the back. After eat- ing my weight in free fancy cheese, I got up the courage to ask the now-super- famous professor to sign my cap’s bill, and that request made him chuckle—I feel like a movie star! I didn’t even bring a suitable pen! he said. Then, after we located a suitable pen, his hand shook as he signed and he accidentally smudged the signature. To the smudge he said, Oh drat!, which apparently meant he felt badly enough about it to fi nd me another free cap, and he signed that one, too. I wanted to say how later, I caught him of ering to sign other people’s caps, and I couldn’t believe I’d given a Nobel Prize win- ner an idea. Maybe I’d even tell her—since she was from home, —-1 since she’d gone to Gardens—that eating all that cheese had backed —0 —+1

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me up like nothing I’d ever felt, and so I didn’t shit for two days, but neither did my roommate (she’d dragged me to the celebration in the fi rst place but had disappeared by an ice-cream bar I didn’t fi nd until I was already too packed with cheese), and how just as my roommate confessed her no-shitting to me, she ripped this huge fart—the fi rst of hers I ever heard despite us living in the same rect- angle for almost two months— and I laughed so hard I fell out of my desk chair and onto the fl oor with a fart of my own. But this woman, before I could think of how to best tell the story, put her hand over my hand and set her face in this serious way, her eyeliner thick under her bottom lashes, and said, It’s not a re- ally good school. It’s a fantastic school. Congratulations. I shrugged, said thanks, and tried to slide my hand out from under hers, but she grabbed it and said, No, really. Getting in there is a huge freaking deal. You should be proud as hell. And from a school like Lakes? Holy shit, girl. Outside, the houses whizzing by had bars over their windows: it meant we were closing in on my old neighborhood, but those bars—it’s like I’d never noticed them before. I shrugged again and looked down at the fl oor; it was covered in clear candy wrappers. I imagined someone here before me, on this same route, eating a thousand mints, readying her breath for whomever she’d come to Miami to see. The woman lifted my hand of the seat and said, You know that, right? That you should be proud? Her mouth was shut, the muscles on the sides of her jaw fl aring in and out. I fi nally pulled my hand away, balled it into a fi st. I said, Yeah, I know. She said, Good, and slid her palms along the sides of her head to check the gelled-back precision of her hair. I shifted my feet and the wrappers crunched beneath them. Water stains climbed the canvas of my sneakers, where winter slush had soaked in and dried -1— and soaked in again. They were ruined, and that of cially made 0— them my winter shoes. +1—

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— How are you doing in your classes so far? she asked. I looked up from the fl oor and caught the driver staring at us in his mirror. He yelled, Hialeah! And since I knew that wasn’t re- ally my neighborhood anymore, and since this woman’s question proved she didn’t want my Nobel Bash story, I fi gured I’d try out how it felt to stop the game of me being this credit to where I was from, this beginning of a success story, and instead, fi nally admit the truth to someone who maybe would understand. — I’m doing bad, I said. Her thick eyebrows slid together and they somehow looked more perfect like that. She leaned her face forward, closing her eyes and crinkling the skin around them in a pained way that I thought said, Go on, tell me, I’m listening. I said, I’m doing really bad, actually. I don’t know why it’s so hard. Everyone else seems to just know stuf and I— I don’t. It’s like I’m the only one. I don’t even know how I got in sometimes, that’s how hard it is, how much I’m messing up. So yeah. It’s going really, re- ally bad for me. — Oh god, the woman said. It’s— what’s your name? — Lizet, I told her. — Lizet, she said. It’s bad- lee. — What? — You’re doing badly. Not bad. Bad- lee. I sat there with my mouth open, possibly making a dumb sound with the air seeping out from it. I could taste it then: my bad breath, the breath of someone who’d kept her mouth shut all day. I blamed the new sting in my eyes on this breath and said, Right, okay. Out the van’s window, we passed my old high school, which hadn’t changed since the summer: the eight-foot- tall, barbed-wire- topped fence surrounding the city block on which it stood, the win- dowless two-story facade with the words hialeah lakes painted on it in all capital letters, the whole building the same gray as the —-1 concrete surrounding it. I had to touch the window again to make —0 —+1

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sure it wasn’t freezing: It was the gray of the winter I’d just left, and when my hand felt the warm glass, I let it rest there, my fi ngers a barricade sparing me from the next block we sped past, then the next block, with the mini- mall that housed the My Dreams II Ban- quet Hall, where, if we could’ve af orded the formal party, my Quinces would’ve probably happened. I tried to remember who I’d been friends with at fourteen, before Omar came along and replaced them: which girls or boys I would’ve asked to make up the four- teen couples of my quinceañera court. I chanted their names, fi rst and last, in my head and over the word badly as each couple added themselves to the list; I invented last names where I no longer re- membered them, all to distract myself from the salty water brim- ming at the edges of my vision. —Oh no, the woman fi nally whispered. No, don’t—I didn’t mean it like— — Señora? the driver said. The van stopped. — Shit, she said. This is me. She dug around in her purse and said, Here, take this. I want you to e-mail me. She held out a little card—a business card. I took it from her, making sure my thumb covered her name. The seal for the Mich- igan school took up the whole left side, the side my thumb couldn’t cover. — I know you don’t know me, she said. But I’m— I’m a resource. We’re two girls from Hialeah who left for, you know, better things, right? More opportunities? And I want to help you any way I can. We have to stick together, right? That same square smile, wrecking her face. The driver unbuck- led his seatbelt. He turned on the blinkers—the tinny, rhythmic tick of them fl ashing on and of behind me— and got out of the van. I nodded. -1— — Awesome, she said. Cool. OK, well— 0— She scooted her purse along the bench, pushing it ahead of her +1—

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like a boulder. As she slid open the door, the humidity outside fl ooded the van again, and it hit me from behind too, as the driver opened the back doors to get her suitcase. I felt my bangs curl, but her hair stayed perfect, the gel doing its job. She hopped down, hauled her purse to her hip, then straightened out her pants and blazer, tugging at the wrinkles as she stood just outside the van. She leaned a little away from the purse, struggling to keep it bal- anced on her shoulder and looking crooked as a result. The wheels of her suitcase dragged against the asphalt outside. The grating sound they made moved away from me, ended when the driver placed the bag by her side. —Gracias, she said to the driver, who’d already left her there and was on his way back to the van. She watched me for a little too long, her eyes zipping around my face like she was trying to memorize me in my seat on that vinyl bench before sliding the door between us closed. She inhaled then, so hard that her shoulders rose, the purse slipping. — Please e- mail me, she said. Do it, OK? She shifted the purse to her other shoulder, said, Good luck with everything. I got the feeling she really meant it, like she was saying this to some old version of herself, but when she shut the door—not hard enough; she had to open it again and then slam it— I took the card in my other hand and ripped it in half, then ripped it in half again, then again and again, until the feathery edges of the paper wouldn’t let me pull them apart any more. I let this bland confetti, damp- ened by the sweat on my palms, slip piece by piece down to the van’s fl oor, where they nestled in with the mint wrappers left by someone before me who’d done a better job of planning for this last leg of their trip. I wished for a piece of gum, for something to bring the saliva back to my mouth. I knew I had nothing, but I tugged my backpack closer to me and looked anyway, hoping some other version of myself had thought ahead. —-1 The driver— after shouting, La Pequeña Habana! over his —0 —+1

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shoulder to me, his fi nal passenger—left me alone in the back. I eventually found a stub of an eyeliner pencil at the bottom of my bag’s front pocket, and I used my refl ection in the now-dark win- dow to line my eyes as best I could, the blocks of my old neighbor- hood blurring by. I also found an unwrapped cough drop, and after smudging the lint of with my thumb and blowing on it a few times, I decided to pretend I knew how it got there in the fi rst place and tossed it in my mouth. It was so old that it didn’t taste like anything, and little traces of the paper wrapper once protecting it somehow materialized and scratched around in my mouth like bits of sand. I swirled this almost- something for a long while, tricked myself into believing the cough drop hadn’t yet totally dis- appeared.

-1— 0— +1—

053-60396_ch01_2P.indd 22 12/13/14 12:08 pm on-sale 7/28/15

A delightful cozy debut featuring Rosalie Hart—an endearing, bread-baking heroine—and a sup- porting cast of highly original small-town characters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland

Rosalie Hart’s world has been upended. After her husband confesses to an affair, she exiles herself to her late aunt’s farmhouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. With its fields untended and the house itself in disrepair, Barclay Meadow couldn’t be more different than the tidy D.C. suburb she used to call home. Just when Rosalie feels convinced things couldn’t get any worse, she finds a body floating in her marsh grasses. When the sheriff declares the death an accident, she becomes suspicious. The dead girl, Megan, reminds her of her own daughter, who has recently gone off to college, and she feels a responsi- bility to find out the truth.

Rosalie confides her doubts to her friends in her creative writing class, and they ask to join her investi- gation, beginning the search in earnest. Meanwhile, Rosalie works on restoring Barclay Meadow to its former glory-with help from the rugged Tyler Wells, a farmer who once leased the land. When Rosalie discovers her aunt’s favorite bread recipe on a yellowed index card, she begins baking, and with her deep love for nourishing others rekindled, she starts to feel alive again. But as she zeroes in on the truth about what happened to Megan, she begins getting ominous threats. Determined to get justice for Megan and protect the new home she’s begun to build for herself, Rosalie races to catch the killer in this deftly plotted and heartwarming debut.

WENDY ECKEL is a psychotherapist who lives in Annapolis, Maryland, where she enjoys her family, multiple pets, and life on the water. She has spent her life delving into the mysteries of the human heart, revealed through the stories and insights of her clients, friends, and family. A story teller in her own right, Wendy’s debut novel takes many twists and turns that lead to that one place she knows best - the heart of her characters. Murder at Barclay Meadow is her first novel. When I took offi ce, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web. . . . Now even my cat has its own page. —Bill Clinton

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. —Buddha

Rosalie, come and dust some fl our on your hands and drop the dough on the bread board. Now knead it with every part of your hands: fi ngers, palms, and fi sts. Don’t think, just breathe through your young heart. Bread’s very es- sence allows us to nurture those we love, and feel con- nected to the good solid earth. For me, baking bread is like coming home. —Charlotte Gardner

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60524_ch00_1P.indd vii 12/11/14 3:40 pm ONE

efore my only child left for her fi rst year of college, she suggested BI create my own Facebook profi le. Annie said we could “friend” one another, and chat online. That way she wouldn’t have to tell me all the details of her life in a daily phone call or tedious texting. I could read all about what she was up to, who her new friends were, and what music she liked. The problem was, so could her other fi ve hundred- plus friends. Ultimately, though, it was the private “chat” feature that sold me. So I created a profi le, such that it was. After two months, I had yet to post a picture or write what was on my mind. My profi le didn’t declare my relationship status or where I lived because those things had recently changed, rather abruptly, I should add. Inspiration struck on a crisp, cool day in October when I posted my fi rst status.

Rosalie Hart Still reeling after discovering a dead girl fl oating in my marsh grasses. —-1 ••• —0 —+1

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 1 12/11/14 3:39 pm 2 Wendy Sand Eckel

Mr. Miele was delivered by UPS one day in late October. He was the fi rst friend I’d made in the month since I moved into a two- hundred-year- old house bequeathed to me by my aunt Charlotte. Wedged between the bread box and my now diminished toaster, the coff ee bistro’s brushed steel sparkled in the low afternoon sun. Al- though my aunt’s kitchen was large enough, with tall, white cabi- nets and a wall of windows that faced the south, much of the space was taken up by a stone hearth so massive I could stand up in it. Not everyone could stand in it, but at fi ve foot four, my head barely brushed the fl ue. Freshly ground coff ee beans fi lled the room with a seductive, earthy aroma. I tucked the Washington Post under my arm and car- ried a double- shot mocha skim latte dusted with cinnamon out to the screened porch, sat down, and stretched my legs out on an old wicker ottoman. The scent of mildew lurked in the faded fl oral chintz cushions. This old house screamed for attention and at least a bucket of bleach. Later, I thought, and took a long sip of coff ee. I decided to begin with the back of the paper. I’d start with the crossword and Sudoku puzzles, peruse the advice columns, and even- tually work my my way to the hard news. Lately I had the attention span of a goldfi sh. As I folded the paper open to the crossword, I looked out at the Cardigan River rushing by at the end of the sloping lawn. I started to look down at the paper but stopped. A shock of color caught my eye. It stood out like a fl ower in a desert— the bright turquoise vivid and glaring against the gunmetal gray water. My nerve end- ings buzzed with foreboding. I set my cup down, swallowed hard against the dry lump in my throat, and steeled enough courage to stand up. The sun warmed my skin as I walked. Innocent puff s of high -1— clouds dotted the sky. An osprey glided by and settled into a twiggy 0— nest. I shielded my eyes as I approached, my sneakers squeaking on +1—

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 2 12/11/14 3:39 pm Murder at Barclay Meadow 3

the grass. I stopped abruptly and covered my nose and mouth when a putrid stench saturated the air. Despite the dread squeezing my heart, I continued. And then I saw her—facedown in the river. She was cradled by marsh grasses, the lapping water rocked her gently. Grass reeds were tangled in her lifeless hair. Nausea roiled my stomach. Just before I threw up, I noticed what had caught my eye. Strapped to her back was a dainty cloth pack. I recognized the cheerful colors. A Vera Bradley pattern: doodle daisy.

A few hours later I paced through the kitchen waiting for the sher- iff and his deputies to fi nish. Night had crept up the lawn, making shadows of the men as they worked. The lights on their vehicles bathed the house in manic red and blue fl ashes like a disco. When they fi rst arrived, Sheriff Joe Wilgus, a large, brooding man with inky black hair, asked me endless questions about the young woman who was now zipped into a thick, rubber bag. My teeth chattered when I spoke and I chewed every one of my nails down to the skin between questions. After I apologized for throw- ing up on the crime scene, the sheriff seemed to realize I had noth- ing helpful to say and sent me inside. I noticed a stain on the white enamel of my sink as I made yet another pass. I dusted it with cleanser and scrubbed vigorously. I heard a throat clearing and spun around to see the sheriff standing in my kitchen. His broad shoulders and over six feet of height fi lled the small alcove. “Sheriff ?” I brushed my hair from my face with the back of my hand. “Missus Hart.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. Do you need to talk to me?” He shifted his weight. His leather holster creaked. “Not unless —-1 you have something more to say.” —0 —+1

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 3 12/11/14 3:39 pm 4 Wendy Sand Eckel

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry to be so useless.” His eyes took in my kitchen. They lingered on Mr. Miele. He gave his head a small shake. “Would you like some coff ee?” “Is that what that thing is? Looks more like something out of Star Wars.” “I’ll take that as a yes?” He settled his bulk into my aunt’s spindly antique chair. I fi lled two cups and set one on the table in front of him. “It’s French roast,” I said. “Extra bold.” He looked up. A deep scowl furrowed his brow. “You mind tell- ing me why you’re living out here?” I stepped back from the table. This was my fi rst time answer- ing that question. “Well . . . um . . . I inherited this farm from my late aunt—Charlotte Gardner. You may have known her? And . . . well, my husband and I recently separated and . . .” Separated. Is that what I was now? No longer defi ned by my qualities, I was simply “separated”—like an egg white from yolk. I placed a hand over my stomach and prayed I wouldn’t throw up again. “I wondered if anyone would ever move into this old place,” the sheriff said. “Seemed a shame to have so much good land go fallow.” His eyes met mine. “You do intend to plant some crops, now, don’t you?” I swallowed hard. “Yes. Of course.” I looked out the window. An ethereal fog was rising like a spirit from the dewy grass. I hadn’t thought much about the fi elds. I didn’t know how many there were or what, if anything, had ever grown in them. In truth, I hadn’t de- cided how long I would even be living in this old house, let alone whether or not to plant a seed. “Sheriff . . .” I said, anxious to move the subject away from my -1— planting crops. I set some cream and sugar on the table cloth and 0— sat across from him, tucking my leg underneath to boost my height. +1—

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 4 12/11/14 3:39 pm Murder at Barclay Meadow 5

He tapped the end of his nose. “You got some cleanser on your face.” “I do?” I snatched up a napkin and wiped my nose. “You were saying.” I wadded the napkin in my fi st. “What have you learned about the girl?” “Seems she was a student.” He stirred a heavy dose of cream into his coff ee and set the spoon on a napkin. The coff ee bled onto the white square. “Had a John Adams College ID.” “A student.” I thought immediately of my Annie. “Have you told her parents yet?” “We let the college handle that side of things. Our dispatcher is notifying President Carmichael.” He took a long sip and set the cup back in the saucer, his thick fi ngers barely able to grasp the delicate handle of my aunt’s Spode cup. “But why aren’t you telling them?” “Well, you see, Missus Hart . . .” “Please,” I said. “Call me Rosalie.” I smiled over at him. “As I was saying, Missus Hart, colleges have to be careful about these things. If parents hear students are drowning in the Cardigan River, it can, well, let’s just say it might keep people away.” “How can you be so certain she drowned?” “Didn’t you fi nd her oatingfl in the river?” “Yes,” I said. “But how do you know someone didn’t put her there?” He leaned forward, resting on his elbows. “Do you know the last time we had a murder in this county?” “No, of course not,” I said quietly. “Sixteen years ago when old Percy Tate drank too much at Bee- man’s bar, went home and shot his wife because he thought she was an intruder.” He fi nished his coff ee in one gulp. “So, how many —-1 people would you fi gure drowned in the Cardigan this year?” —0 —+1

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 5 12/11/14 3:39 pm 6 Wendy Sand Eckel

“I’m guessing more than one.” I lowered my eyes. “You live out here by the river,” he said, tension tightening his voice, “and you think it’s just a pretty view. But what you don’t see is the current rushing underneath. Even the best swimmers can’t stay above the water with it tugging at them, tiring them out, and then sucking them in.” He leaned back. The chair complained. “We’ve had seven drown so far this year. And now Megan makes eight.” “Megan?” My eyes shot up. “Her name is Megan?” “Now why is that so interesting?” “I guess hearing her name makes it all the more real.” “Finding a dead body didn’t make it real enough for you?” “Yes, of course. But . . . well . . . now I’m thinking about the poor mother who chose such a pretty name for her daughter. She’ll be devastated. It’s the worst thing that can happen to a parent. Do you have children, Sheriff ?” He ignored my question, reinforcing my feeling of being con- sidered an outsider. This was the Eastern Shore of Mary land, a fl at stretch of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, dotted with farms and quaint little towns. It was known as “the land of pleasant living,” a simple place where people prided themselves on being unguarded, friendly, and, beyond anything else, loyal. People like me from the other side of the Chesapeake Bay were viewed as interlopers who breezed through on their way to the coast, or, far worse, settled on the pristine land the locals believed belonged to them. Two more offi cers shuffl ed into the room. “We’re about done, Sheriff ,” the taller man said. “Body’s on its way to the coroner.” “All right.” The sheriff pushed himself up to a stand. The other deputy twirled his hat in his hands. He was young— -1— baby-faced; sweat bubbled along his hair line. “Boss?” he said. “With 0— the way she was bloated, you fi gure she was in there a few days?” +1—

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 6 12/11/14 3:39 pm Murder at Barclay Meadow 7

“I’m guessing three.” “Probably from that college party we busted up down on the water Friday night,” the taller deputy said. “Those dumb kids had the keg at the end of the dock. I’m surprised they all didn’t fall in.” “But if she was at a party . . .” I stood quickly. “Wouldn’t some- one have noticed her missing?” The sheriff looked over at me. “You ever go to college?” “Yes.” “You ever stay out all night?” My face warmed. “You said the party was three days ago. Surely someone has missed her by now.” “They didn’t miss her enough to notify me.” “But—” “You see, Missus Hart,” the sheriff interrupted, “you can con- jure up all kinds of theories, but in police work, we only know what we know.” He fi xed his hat on his head. “Now, I’d like you to put this whole incident behind you. It’s no longer your business.” The taller deputy smirked. He elbowed the other one. “Sounds like somebody’s been watching a few too many Law and Order mar- athons.” I frowned. Then I noticed Megan’s backpack in his hand. The colors were muted by the muddy river and the cloth had dried. He held a Ziplocbag in his other hand. I looked closer, trying to make out the contents through the plastic. An accordion of condoms stood out among otherwise benign possessions—a lip gloss tube, a small brush, a Smartphone that couldn’t possibly work anymore. So much for evidence. I looked harder. There was something in the back of the bag. An envelope with blurred, handwritten lettering. No ad- dress. No stamp. Maybe a name? I tried to read. Two words. Was the fi rst letter an “I”? “Hey . . .” The deputy ducked the bag behind his back. “What —-1 do you think you’re looking at?” —0 —+1

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 7 12/11/14 3:39 pm 8 Wendy Sand Eckel

“What does it say on that envelope?” I said. I felt the sheriff ’s eyes on me. I stole a glance at him. A scarlet red fl ush was working its way up his neck. “I believe I just told you this was no longer your business.” He looked at the deputy and held out his hand. The young man knew to give him the evidence bag. Without another word, Sheriff Wilgus headed toward the front door. The deputies fell in behind, and the three offi cers walked through my adopted home in a slow, de- liberate, almost possessive cadence. They glanced into rooms as they passed, their eyes traveling over the diminished wallpaper, the cut crystal in the corner cabinet, the sepia- enhanced photographs of my ancestors. “Whatever happened to old Missus Gardner?” a deputy said. “She pass or what?” Sheriff Wilgus stopped and appraised the woodwork around the front door. “Had a stroke or something, I think. Good thing Tyler’d been checking up on her. She could’ve been dead for weeks before somebody found her otherwise.”

-1— 0— +1—

053-60524_ch01_1P.indd 8 12/11/14 3:39 pm on-sale 5/26/15

An accomplished novel from a talented writer, Letters to the Lost is a stunning, emotional love story. Iona Grey’s prose is warm, evocative, and immediately engaging; her characters become so real you can’t bear to let them go.

I promised to love you forever, in a time when I didn’t know if I’d live to see the start of another week. Now it looks like forever is finally running out. I never stopped loving you. I tried, for the sake of my own sanity, but I never even got close, and I never stopped hoping either.

Late on a frozen February evening, a young woman is running through the streets of London. Having fled from her abusive boyfriend and with nowhere to go, Jess stumbles onto a forgotten lane where a small, clearly unlived in old house offers her best chance of shelter for the night. The next morning, a mysterious letter arrives and when she can’t help but open it, she finds herself drawn inexorably into the story of two lovers from another time.

In London 1942, Stella meets Dan, a US airman, quite by accident, but there is no denying the impossi- ble, unstoppable attraction that draws them together. Dan is a B-17 pilot flying his bomber into Europe from a British airbase; his odds of survival are one in five. In the midst of such uncertainty, the one thing they hold onto is the letters they write to each other. Fate is unkind and they are separated by decades and continents. In the present, Jess becomes determined to find out what happened to them. Her hope—inspired by a love so powerful it spans a lifetime—will lead her to find a startling redemption in her own life in this powerfully moving novel.

IONA GREY has a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, an obsession with history and an enduring fascination with the lives of women in the twentieth cen- tury. She lives in rural Cheshire with her husband and three daughters. Prologue ! Maine, February 2011

he house is at its most beautiful in the mornings. T He designed it to be that way, with wide, wide windows which stretch from f oor to ceiling, to bring in the sand and the ocean and the wide, wide sky. In the mornings the beach is empty and clean, a page on which the day is yet to be written. And the sunrise over the Atlantic is a daily miracle he always feels honored to witness. He never forgets how different it could have been. There are no curtains in the house, nothing to shut out the view. The walls are white and they take on the tint of the light; pearly pale, or pink as the inside of a seashell, or the rich, warm gold of maple syrup. He sleeps little these days and mostly he is awake to see the slow spread of dawn on the hori- zon. Sometimes he comes to suddenly, feeling that familiar touch on his shoulder. Lieutenant, it’s 4:30 a.m. and you’re f ying today . . . A circle is closing. The f nger tracing it on the misted glass is slowly com- ing around to the top again, to the point where it all began. The memories are with him almost constantly now, their colors fresh, voices vivid. Dawns of long ago. The smell of oil and hot metal. The plaintive, primitive thrum of engines on the f ight line and a red ribbon on a map.

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 1 04/01/15 12:48 am 2 Iona Grey

Today, gentlemen, your target is . . . It is such a long time ago. Almost a lifetime. It is the past, but it doesn’t feel like it’s over. The ribbon is stretching across the ocean outside his win- dow, beyond the distant horizon, to En gland. The letter lies amid the bottles of pills and sterile needle packs on the night- stand beside him, its familiar address as evocative as a poem. A love song. He has waited too long to write it. For years he has tried to reconcile himself to how things are and to forget how they should have been, but as the days dwindle and the strength ebbs out of him he sees that this is impossible. The things that are left behind are the things that matter, like rocks ex- posed by the retreating tide. And so he has written, and now he is impatient for the letter to begin its journey, into the past.

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 2 04/01/15 12:48 am 1 ! London, February 2011

t was a nice part of London. Respectable. Aff uent. The shops that lined Ithe street in the villagey center were closed and shuttered but you could tell they were posh, and there were restaurants—so many restaurants—their windows lit up like wide-screen TVs showing the people inside. People who were too well- mannered to turn and gawp at the girl running past on the street outside. Not running for f tness, wearing Lycra and headphones and a focused expression, but messily, desperately, with her short skirt riding up to her knick- ers and her unshod feet splashing through the greasy puddles on the pavement. She’d kicked off her stupid shoes as she left the pub, knowing she wouldn’t get far wearing them. Platform stilettos; the twenty- f rst-century equivalent of a ball and chain. At the corner she hesitated, chest heaving. Across the road was a row of shops with an alleyway at the side; behind, the pounding echo of feet. She ran again, seeking out the dark. There was a backyard with bins. A security light exploded above her, glittering on broken glass and ragged bushes beyond a high wooden gate. She let herself through, wincing and whimpering as the ground beneath her feet changed from hard tarmac to oozing earth that seeped through her sodden tights. Up ahead there was the glimmer of a

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 3 04/01/15 12:48 am 4 Iona Grey

streetlight. It gave her something to head toward; she pushed aside branches and emerged into a narrow lane. It was f anked on one side by garages and the backs of houses, and by a row of plain terraced cottages on the other. She swung round, her heart bat- tering against her ribs. If he followed her down here there would be nowhere to hide. No one to see. The windows of the houses glowed behind closed curtains, like slumbering eyes. Brief y she considered knocking on the door of one of the small cottages and throwing herself on the mercy of the people inside, but realizing how she must look in her clinging dress and stage makeup she dismissed the idea and stumbled on. The last house in the little terrace was in darkness. As she got closer she could see that its front garden was overgrown and neglected, with weeds growing halfway up the peeling front door and a forest of shrubbery encroach- ing upon it from the side. The windows were blank and black. They swal- lowed up her ref ection in their f lth- furred glass. She heard it again, the beat of running feet, coming closer. What if he’d got the others to look for her too? What if they came from the opposite di- rection, surrounding her and leaving no escape? For a moment she froze, and then adrenaline squirted, hot and stinging, galvanizing her into movement. With nowhere else to go she slipped along the side of the end house, between the wall and the tangle of foliage. Panic made her push forward, tripping over branches, gagging on the feral, unfamiliar stink. Something shot out from beneath the hedge at her feet, so close that she felt rough fur brush brief y against her shin. Recoiling, she tripped. Her ankle was wrenched round and a hot shaft of pain shot up her leg. She sat on the damp ground and gripped her ankle hard, as if she could squash the pain back in to where it had come from. Tears sprang to her eyes, but at that moment she heard footsteps and a single angry shout from the front of the house. She clenched her teeth, picturing Dodge beneath the streetlamp, hands on his hips as he swung around searching for her, his face wearing that partic u lar belligerent expression—jaw jutting, eyes narrowed—that it did when he was thwarted. Holding her breath, she strained to listen. The seconds stretched and quiv- ered with tension, until at last she picked up the sound of his receding feet. The air rushed from her lungs and she collapsed forward, limp with relief.

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 4 04/01/15 12:48 am Letters to the Lost 5 The money crackled inside her pocket. Fifty pounds—she’d only taken her share, not what was due to the rest of the band, but he wouldn’t like it: he made the bookings, he took the money. She slid a hand into her pocket to touch the waxy, well-used notes, and a tiny ember of triumph glowed in her heart. ! She’d never broken into a house before. It was surprisingly easy. The hardest part was crawling through the hedge, and beating through thorny ropes of brambles and spires of stinging nettles in the garden as her ankle throbbed and burned. The glass in the back door was as brittle and easy to break as the crust of ice on top of a puddle, and the key was still in the lock on the other side. The kitchen was small, low-ceilinged. It smelled musty, as if it had been shut up for a long time. She turned around slowly, her eyes raking the gloom for signs of life. The plant on the windowsill had shriveled to a twist of dry leaves set in shrunken soil but there was a kettle on the gas stove and cups hanging from a row of hooks beneath the shelf on the wall, as if the occu- pant might come in at any moment to make a cup of tea. She shuddered, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. “Hello?” She spoke loudly, with a conf dence she didn’t feel. Her voice sounded peculiar; f at and almost comically Northern. “Hello— is anyone there?” The quiet engulfed her. In a sudden f ash of inspiration she fumbled to f nd the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a cheap plastic lighter. The circle of gold cast by the f ame was small, but enough to show cream tiled walls, a calendar bearing a picture of a castle above the date July 2009, a kind-of vin- tage cupboard unit with glass- fronted doors at the top. She moved forward awkwardly, reaching out to support herself on the door frame as pain sank its teeth deeper into her leg. In the next room the glow of the tiny f ame out- lined a table by the window and a sideboard on which china ladies curtseyed and pirouetted to an invisible audience. The stairs rose from a narrow pas- sageway. She paused at the foot of them. Staring up into the darkness she spoke again, softly this time, as if calling to a friend. “Hello? Anyone home?”

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Silence greeted her, and the faintest breath of some old-fashioned perfume drifted down, as if she’d disturbed air that had been still for a long time. She should go up to check that there was no one there, but her aching ankle and the sense of absolute stillness deterred her. In the room at the front she let the f ame go out, not wanting to risk its glow being spotted from outside. Drooping curtains were half pulled across the window, but the light from the streetlamp f ltering through the gap was enough to show a sagging and lumpy settee pushed against one wall, with a blanket made up of crocheted squares in clashing colors covering its back. Cautiously she peered out, looking for Dodge, but the pool of light around the streetlamp was still and unbroken. She sagged against an armchair and breathed a little easier. It had been an old person’s house, that much was obvious. The tele vi sion was huge and comically outdated, and an electric bar f re stood in front of the boarded-up grate. Against the front door a pile of mail had gathered like a drift of autumn leaves. She limped back into the kitchen and turned on the tap above the sink, letting the water run through the clanking pipes for a few moments before cupping her hands beneath it and drinking. She wondered who owned it and what had happened to them; whether they’d gone into a home, or died. When someone died their house got cleared out, surely? That’s what had happened to Gran’s, anyway. Within a week of the funeral all the clothes and pictures and plates and pans, as well as Gran’s vast collection of china pigs and the fragments of Jess’s shattered childhood had been packed up and dispersed so the council could get the house ready for the new tenant. The darkness felt mossy and damp against her skin. Goosebumps stood on her arms beneath her fake- leather jacket. Maybe the own er had died and not actually been discovered? Some masochistic instinct brought out by the dark and the quiet made her picture a body decaying in the bed upstairs. She dismissed it briskly, reasserting common sense. What harm could the dead do to you anyway? A corpse couldn’t split your lip or steal your money, or close its f ngers round your neck until stars danced behind your eyes. Suddenly she felt bone tired, the pulse of pain in her ankle radiating outward so that her whole body throbbed with exhaustion. She made her way haltingly back to the front room and sank onto the sofa, dropping her

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 6 04/01/15 12:48 am Letters to the Lost 7 head into her hands as the enormity of the events of the last hour over- whelmed her. Shit. She’d broken into a house. An empty and neglected one maybe, but even so. Breaking and entering wasn’t like nicking a packet of crisps from the corner shop because you didn’t want to be called a skank for having a free school dinner. It was a whole different level of wrong. On the upside, she had escaped. She wasn’t on her way back to the f at in Elephant and Castle with Dodge. She wouldn’t have to endure the lust that aff icted him after a beery eve ning watching her sing in the slutty gear he made her wear. Not tonight, not ever again. The f rst thing she’d do when her ankle was better was f nd a charity shop or something and spend a bit of the precious money on decent clothes. Warm clothes. Clothes that actually covered up her body, rather than displaying it like goods in the window of a cut- price shop. Wincing, she lay back, resting her leg on the arm of the sofa and settling herself on the cigarette- scented cushions. She wondered where he was now; whether he’d given up looking and gone back to the f at to wait, conf dent that she’d come back eventually. She needed him, as he liked to tell her; needed his contacts and his bookings and his money, because without him what was she? Nothing. A Northern nobody with a voice like a thousand other wan- nabe stars. A voice that no one would ever hear if it wasn’t for him. She tugged the crocheted blanket down from the back of the sofa and pulled it over herself. In the wake of the adrenaline rush her body felt heavy and weak, and she found she didn’t actually give a toss where he was, because for the f rst time in six months what he thought or felt or wanted was of no relevance to her whatsoever. The unfamiliar house settled itself around her, absorbing her into its still- ness. The noise of the city seemed far away here and the sound of cars on the wet street had receded to a muted sigh, like waves on a distant beach. She stared into the shadows and began to hum softly, to keep the silence at bay. The tune that came into her head was not one of the songs she had belted out on the stage in the pub earlier, but one from the past; a lullaby Gran used to sing to her when she was small. The words were half- forgotten, but the melody stroked her with soothing, familiar f ngers, and she didn’t feel quite so alone.

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! Light was f ltering through the thin curtains when she woke, and the slice of sky visible in the gap between them was the bleached bone white of morn- ing. She went to adjust her position and instantly pain f ared in her ankle, as if someone had been waiting until she moved to hit it with a sledgehammer. She froze, waiting for the ripples of agony to subside. Through the wall she could hear noises; the rise and fall of indistinct voices on the radio, then music and the hurried thud of feet on the stairs. She sat up, gritting her teeth as she put her foot to the f oor. In the icy bathroom she sat on the loo and peeled off her shredded tights to look at her ankle. It was unrecognizable; puffy and purpling above a foot that was smeared with dirt. The bathroom didn’t boast anything as modern as a shower, only a deep cast-iron bath with rust stains beneath the taps and a basin in the corner. Above this there was a little mirrored cabinet, which she opened in the hope of f nd- ing something that might help. Inside the shelves were cluttered with boxes and bottles that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a museum, their faded labels advertising the mysterious medicines of another time; Milk of Magne- sia, Kaolin, Linctus. In among them, on the bottom shelf, there was a lipstick in a gold case. She took it out, turning it around between her f ngers for a moment before taking off the lid and twisting the base. It was red. Bright, vibrant scarlet: the color of poppies and pillar-boxes and old-fashioned movie-star glamor. An indentation had been worn into the top, where it had molded to f t the shape of the lips of the user. She tried to imagine her, whoever she was, standing here in this bathroom with the black- and- white tiles and the mold- patterned walls; an old woman, painting on this brave daub of color for a trip to the shops or an eve ning at the bingo, and she felt a burst of admiration and curiosity. There was a roll of yellowing crepe bandage on the top shelf of the cup- board, and she took this and a packet of soluble aspirin into the kitchen. She unhooked a teacup and f lled it with water, then dropped in two of the tab- lets. Waiting for them to dissolve she looked around. In the grimy morning light the place looked bleak, but there was something poignantly homely about the row of canisters on the shelf, labeled “tea,” “rice,” “sugar,” the scarred

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 8 04/01/15 12:48 am Letters to the Lost 9 chopping board propped against the wall and the scorched oven gloves hanging from a hook beside the cooker. The cup in her hand was green, but sort of shiny; iridescent like the delicate rainbows in oily puddles. She rubbed her f nger over it. She’d never seen anything like it before, and she liked it. It couldn’t have been more different from the assortment of cheap stained mugs in the f at in Elephant and Castle. She drank the aspirin mixture in two big grimacing gulps, her throat clos- ing in protest at the salty- sweetness, then took the ban dage into the front room where she applied herself to the task of binding up her ankle. Midway through she heard whistling outside, and stopped, her heart thudding. Foot- steps came closer. Dropping the bandage she got to her feet, tensed for the knock on the door or, worse, a key turning— With a rusty, reluctant creak the letterbox opened. A single, cream- colored envelope landed on top of the heap of garish junk mail and takeaway menus.

Mrs. S. Thorne 4 Greenf elds Lane Church End London UNITED KINGDOM.

It was written in black ink. Proper ink, not biro. The writing was bold and elegant but unmistakably shaky, as if the person who had written it was old or sick or in a rush. The paper was creamy, faintly ridged, like bone or ivory. She turned it over. Spiked black capitals grabbed her attention.

PERSONAL and URGENT. If necessary and possible PLEASE F O R WA R D .

She put it on the mantelpiece, propped against a chipped jug bearing the slogan “A Present from Margate.” Against the faded furnishings the envelope looked clean and crisp and opulent. Outside the world got on with its weekday business, but in the little house time faltered and the day dragged. The initial euphoria of having got away

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from Dodge was quickly eroded by hunger and the savage cold. In a cupboard in the kitchen she discovered a little stash of supplies, among which was a packet of f g rolls. They were almost two years past their sell-by date but she devoured half of them, and made herself save the rest for later. She kept try- ing to think of where to go from here, what to do next, but her thoughts went round in futile circles, like a drowsy bluebottle bashing senselessly against a closed window. She slept again, deeply, only surfacing when the short February day was fading and the shadows in the corners of the room had thickened on the nets of cobwebs. The envelope on the mantelpiece seemed to have absorbed all the remaining light. It gleamed palely, like the moon. Mrs. S. Thorne must have been the lady who had lived here, but what did she need to know that was “Personal and Urgent?” With some effort she le- vered herself up from the sofa and scooped up the landslide of mail from be- neath the letterbox. Wrapping the blanket around her shoulders she began to go through it, looking for clues. Maybe there would be something there to hint at where she’d gone, this mysterious Mrs. Thorne. Most of it was anonymous junk offering free delivery on takeaway pizzas or bargain deals on replacement windows. She tried hard not to look at the takeaway menus, with their close-up photographs of glistening, luridly colored pizzas, as big as bicycle wheels. In among them she found a newsletter from All Saints Church with “Miss Price” scribbled at the top, and several f imsy mail order catalogs selling “classic knitwear” and thermal nightwear ad- dressed to Miss N. Price. No mention of Mrs. Thorne. She tossed the church newsletter onto the junk pile and stretched her cramped spine. The idle curiosity that had prompted her to start the search had faded when it yielded no instant answer, and the pizza photographs made her feel irritable and on edge. Since she wasn’t even supposed to be here it was hardly her responsibility to make sure the letter reached its destination, and it wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough of her own problems to sort out. She didn’t need to take on anyone else’s. But still . . . She got up and went over to the f replace, sliding the letter out from be- hind the clock. “Personal and Urgent”— what did that mean anyway? It was

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 10 04/01/15 12:48 am Letters to the Lost 11 probably nothing. She knew from Gran that old people got in a state about all kinds of random things. The paper was so thick it was almost like velvet. In the gathering dusk it was diff cult to make out the postmark, but she risked taking a step toward the window to squint at the blurred stamp. Bloody hell— USA. She turned it over and read the message on the back again, running her f ngers over the underlining where the ink had smudged slightly. Tilting it up to the dying light she could see the indentation in the paper where the pen had scored across it, pressing hope into the page. Personal and Urgent. If possible . . . And before she knew what she was doing, before she had a chance to think about all the reasons why it was wrong, she was tearing open the envelope and sliding out the single sheet of paper inside.

The Beach House Back Creek Road Kennebunk, ME 22 January 2011 Darling girl, It’s been over seventy years and I still think of you like that. My darling. My girl. So much has changed in that time and the world is a different place to the one where we met, but every time I think of you I’m twenty- two years old again. I’ve been thinking a lot about those days. I haven’t been feeling so good and the meds the doctors have given me make me pretty tired. Not surprising at ninety years old, maybe. Some days it seems like I barely wake up and lying here, half sleeping, all those memories are so damned vivid I almost believe they’re real and that I’m back there, in En gland, with 382 Squadron and you. I promised to love you forever, in a time when I didn’t know if I’d live to see the start of another week. Now it looks like forever is f nally running out. I never stopped loving you. I tried, for the sake of my own sanity, but I never even got close, and I never stopped hoping either. The docs say I don’t have much time left, but I still have that hope, and the

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feeling that I’m not done here. Not until I know what happened to you. Not until I’ve told you that what we started back then in those crazy days when the world was all upside-down has never really f nished for me, and that those days— tough and terrifying though they were— were also the best of my life. I don’t know where you are. I don’t know if the house on Greenf elds Lane is still yours and if this letter will ever reach you. Hell, I don’t know if you’re still alive, except I have this crazy belief that I’d know if you weren’t; I’d feel it and be ready to go too. I’m not afraid of Death— my old adversary from those f ying days. I beat him back then so I’m easy about letting him win this time around, but I’d give in a hell of a lot more gracefully if I knew. And if I could say good- bye to you properly this time. I guess that pretty soon none of this will matter, and our story will be history. But I’m not done hoping yet. Or wishing I could go back to the start and do it all again, and this time make sure I never let you go. If you get this, please write. My love Dan

Oh. Ohhhh . . . She folded the letter in half again and shoved it hastily back into the en- velope. She shouldn’t have touched it; would never have done if she’d thought for a minute it would be so . . . serious. Life-and-death kind of serious. Per- sonal and urgent. But it was too late now. The letter had been torn open and couldn’t be resealed. The plea sent out from across the world by a dying man had been heard, however inadvertently, by her and no one else. And so now she had a choice: to ignore it, or to make some attempt to f nd Mrs. S. Thorne. Who- ever she might be.

053-60540_ch01_4P.indd 12 04/01/15 12:48 am on-sale 5/5/15

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel In the ramshackle capital of one of the last colonies in North America, a few thousand settlers aspire to the values of the Victorian age while coexisting beside a population of native Indians that vastly out- numbers them. Their cautious peace is challenged when a body is discovered: Dr. McCrory, an American alienist whose methods included phrenology, Mesmerism, and sexual-mystical magnetation.

Chad Hobbes, recently arrived from England, is the policeman who must solve the crime. At first it seems the murderer was an Indian medicine man who has already been arrested. It would be easy for Hobbes to let him swing for the murder, but his own interest in an Indian woman from the same tribe causes him to look at the case in more detail. And once he does, he discovers that everyone who knew McCrory seems to have something to hide.

Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, Seán Haldane’s The Devil’s Making portrays a frontier where cultures clashed on the eve of a new country’s birth. SEÁN HALDANE was born in England in 1943, he grew up in Northern Ireland, and in 1967 moved to Canada where he lived until 1994 in Quebec, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island. He now lives in London, England. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and at University College Oxford where he obtained First Class Honours in English Language and Literature. Subsequently he completed a PhD in Psychology at Saybrook Institute (now Saybrook University), San Francisco, and trained and became licensed in Clinical Psychology. He has worked as a psychologist and neuropsychologist, mainly in memory clinics, in Canada and in the UK, most recently as Head of Neuropsychology in the NHS in East London. He is best known as a publisher (The Ladysmith Press, Quebec, 1968-1974), a writer of psychology books (Emotional First Aid, Couple Dynamics) and literary studies (Donne, Hardy), and as a poet: his first published volume of poems was in 1968, and his most recent is Always Two: Collected Poems 1966-2009. And since this outward I, you know, Must stay because he cannot go, My fellow-travellers shall be they Who go because they cannot stay… Across the mountains we will roam, And each man make himself a home: Or, if old habits ne’er forsaking, Like clockwork of the Devil’s making, Ourselves inveterate rogues should be, We’ll have a virtuous progeny; And on the dunghill of our vices Raise human pineapples and spices.

From Te Delinquent Travellers by S T Coleridge, 1824.

It is a world by itself, with no law ruling except force, no compunction except fear, no religion except that of the devil.

Description of ‘Te Happy Land’ from Te Sliding Scale of Life, by James McLevy, 1861. 1

27th May – 20th October 1868

Tellurophobia. Te only word (apart from Chad Hobbes on the fy leaf) I have written until now in the one hundred and forty days out of Portsmouth to Vancouver Island. Perhaps it’s my anger at the maniac Captain which has kept me staring at the blank frst page, whenever I have opened this maroon leather journal my mother gave me. His intention – announced at the frst of one hundred and forty hellish dinners in his cabin – was to make the voyage without a single landfall. Te Ariadne, ‘one of her Majesty’s men of war’ (she is only a three masted corvette with 18 guns) would be dependent on no Blacks (by which he meant the inhabitants of South America) or Yankees (ditto of North). He wasn’t going to dirty his decks with soot, he declared glowering at Mr Scott the engineer, chugging in and out of the Plate, or Callao, or San Francisco. Te Ariadne would enter Esquimalt Harbour as it had lef Portsmouth, under pristine sail. My frst fantasy of the voyage was dashed. Not even the one or two day stops for supplies which I had expected in the parts Darwin had visited with the Beagle. Not even a distant sight of the pampas. Or of the Galapagos, which we avoided in a wide arc. Te Captain, once underway, had a rabid phobia of land. Or to be exact it was the opposite of rabies, not a fear of water, a hydrophobia, but an equally furious fear of earth, a tellurophobia. (I am proud of this coinage.) Te closest we got to land afer Land’s End and the Scillies was Tierra del Fuego. Even the Captain couldn’t avoid this. Afer crossing the Equator at English midsummer, we had gone through autumn into winter in a few weeks. Tere was an increasing pall of cloud and drizzle then wet snow as in early August we passed through a Strait before rounding the Horn. I leaned for a whole afernoon over the starboard rail, with snowfakes catching in my beard and dripping down my neck from my sou’wester, peering at the gloomy headlands. Tere Darwin, in 1835 on the Beagle, had seen the beacon fre lit in farewell by the poor Fuegian, Jeremy Button – who had been bought for a pearl button, taken to London for fve years, almost forgetting his own language, then returned by the Beagle to this wilderness.

7 Now there was not a spark to be seen. Where was Jeremy Button? Two months later, afer passing through another brief summer on the water, with the orange sun bisecting the sky as if tracing the equatorial on the frst mate’s sextant, we sighted land again, a wall of dark grey, blanketed in lighter grey cloud, not unlike Tierra del Fuego. ‘Forty eight North,’ Robbins remarked. (He has been my only friend on this voyage). ‘Where Drake gave up searching for the North West passage in ffeen-whatever- it-was, turned around, then headed South again.’ Robbins had joined me at the rail for a moment and muttered, ‘I’d better move on, or that bloody man will have my shore leave.’ As night fell we beat in towards the coast, which divided around us into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and as the twin blufs of cloud-covered land on each side darkened and disappeared, the sails were run down, the anchor dropped with a rattle and splash, and lights set. Te ship strained like a dog at a leash. For a while I stared out into blackness. Ten as the rain battered more heavily on the foot-smoothed familiar deck, I picked my way across it and into the hatchway. A hurricane lamp swung jerkily above the steps which I descended, as I thought, with the sea legs of an old sailor. Te 140th – I’ll spell it out, the ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH – evening at the Captain’s table. He sat at the head, with 5 naval ofcers, 3 ofcers of Marines, the ship’s surgeon, and myself, cramped together down the sides. I was the only landsman, and the only one with a beard, since the navy required its ofcers and men to be clean shaven. I was on suferance, an unwelcome guest. Not that the Captain was friendly with his ofcers either. I had given up wondering how such a man could exist, breed children as he evidently had on his poor wife in Norfolk, and go to sea and live close-quartered with his ofcers for months, yet keep all conversation to brief discussions of the weather, supplies, and ship’s management – from which, of course, I was excluded. Tis had suited me, or so I told myself on my long deck walks, or my days out of the rain looking at this blank journal or reading Darwin again, at the small table in the cabin I’ve shared with Robbins who was seldom there until dog-tired at night. Sometimes I could keep him awake for a while, the candle sputtering between our narrow grey-blanketed bunks, and ask him about the navy, his life at home in England, his undeclared love for the inevitable local maiden – ‘a dear girl.’ But nothing about the

8 future. Robbins himself had never lef home waters. He had no more clue than I about the New World, although he had found time to read a few chapters of my Four Years on Vancouver Island by Mayne. I had not had the courage to quizz the Captain about the place, although he had already spent a year at Esquimalt, where he was now returning with a hold full of arms and ammunition and a fresh Company of Marines. Normally the Captain would wash down his salt beef with half a bottle of claret, then sip one glass of Port with his indescribable Stilton cheese on indestructible biscuit. But this evening he was into a second bottle of claret in no time, and the ofcers who had religiously followed him for 139 evenings in drinking half a bottle of claret each and one glass of Port, now sent the cabin boys for a second bottle each. I had been economizing and would have to settle my bill before leaving the ship the next day, but I fnished my own bottle which had lasted me four dinners, and recklessly sent for another. Was this the Captain’s way of celebrating the end of the voyage? But he was choleric as ever, fxing me with eyes like cold blue taws – as we used to call marbles at school: ‘Not every immigrant arrives in British Columbia on one of her Majesty’s Ships of War.’ ‘I dare say. I’m sorry I couldn’t have made myself useful in some way.’ ‘Useful? At what?’ ‘I’m not sure.’ I looked at the ofcers across the table for support. Robbins’s face was as stony as those of the others, none of whom had ever spoken a word to me beyond ‘Pass the mustard.’ ‘Nothing for you to do’, the Captain went on. ‘A Man of War doesn’t usually take passengers. Unless a political bigwig. You’re not that, are you? It might have looked better if you’d been hired on as something or other. But as what? You read that scoundrel Darwin, but you’re not a naturalist. And this is not a survey ship. I’m damned if I’m going to let the Ariadne become the Beagle!’ (Tis was a reference to his terror, as Robbins had described it, that his ship would be used in survey work around Vancouver Island). ‘You studied Divinity at Oxford, I was told, but you’re not a parson. Anyway, I’m the parson here. I conduct the services. I read the funerals. You’re not a surgeon, Mr Giles here is that. So what are you?’ ‘No idea.’ I took a large sip of my claret and studied the lumps of mashed potato on my plate.

9 ‘You’re a young man with pull!’ Glaring around at the stony faces. ‘His uncle is Captain Hobbes, of the Adverse. It’s his father who’s the parson. Another parson’s son for the Colonies!’ Te others, sat tightly around the table, gufawed obediently. ‘My uncle assured me I’d be a welcome guest on this ship. He insisted, in fact. I was quite ready to take passage on one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ships or another merchantman.’ ‘For £60 in steerage with a pack of scum, or £90 frst class with shopkeepers and pen-pushing clerks.’ Te Captain set down his knife and fork with a clash. Te cabin boys scurried to take away the plates. Tey brought in dishes of pudding – prunes in lukewarm custard – at the same time setting the battered curved wall of the huge Stilton in front of the Captain, and bringing biscuits, new plates, glasses, and the crystal decanter of Port, although everyone still went on with their claret. Later, afer we had gobbled up our pudding, the Captain started up again. ‘Why didn’t you join the navy then?’ ‘I frst wanted to go into the church, like my father. Ten I changed my mind.’ ‘Another young man who believes we’re descended from the apes! I know it all! Te broken-hearted mother, the outraged father! Te bitter arguments around the vicarage table! Te crisis of faith! Am I correct?’ ‘More or less. Not quite as simple, if you’ll forgive me.’ I took a glug from my second glass of Port, come around from Mr Giles. ‘Yes, of course. You’re right. Te family quarrels and so forth. But what happened was simply that I changed from reading Divinity to reading Jurisprudence – a new subject at Oxford, since only 1850. You might say that from studying the divine law I had changed to studying natural law.’ Tere was a sudden snort from Robbins, who covered it up with a cough, glancing at the Captain who said sharply, ‘Yes, Mr Robbins?’ ‘Well, I mean, really, Hobbes, you do sound niminy-piminy.’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘Ah! You’re a barrister.’ Te Captain again. ‘No. I took my degree, but I had run out of money. More was not forthcoming from my family. I can’t aford at the moment to go to an Inn

10 of Court, although perhaps I shall when I return to England. Te other option of course is to become articled to a solicitor. But I want to see the world, and I thought I might try British Columbia.’ ‘What? Try what?’ ‘Tere are at least a dozen solicitors in the Colony. I’ve written ahead. And I have a letter of introduction to …’ ‘To the Governor!’ (Exultantly). ‘To the Honourable Sir James Seymour! Do you know what, Gentlemen? Every young reprobate, every remittance man, every played out seedling of a good family who comes to this Eldorado, frst goes to the Governor in his “castle” – a glorifed shack, if you please – with a letter of introduction! And do you know what the frst Governor, Sir James Douglas, used to do?’ Te Captain took a gulp of Port. Ten he reached for the curved silver knife whose ivory handle stuck out of the Stilton, hacked a blue-yellow piece of the inside of the crumbling brown wall, speared it, and held it up for efect. ‘He would open the letter, glance at it, then lead the young suppliant over to a chest of drawers. Gentlemen, I am not talking about a tiny escritoire. I mean damn nearly a wardrobe. Starting at the top he would open, solemnly, one drawer afer another. Each drawer was stufed with letters. In the bottom and fnal drawer, which was also stufed – with letters of introduction, Gentlemen – he would put the new one. Ten it was “Goodbye Sir. Very good of you to call. Goodbye now!”’ Uproarious laughter from all. ‘I don’t have a letter of introduction to Governor Seymour.’ ‘You don’t? What? An immigrant without a letter of introduction to the Governor? It’s unheard of.’ Te joke had been milked enough, so he became serious again. ‘Dear boy, the Colony of British Columbia has at present no more than twelve thousand inhabitants, seven in Victoria and perhaps fve on the mainland, although including a couple of thousand yellow faced Chinese – “Celestials” as they are called – and surrounded by at least ffy thousand Indians. Te Gold Rush has been and gone. Tey are, as they would put it in their Yankee way, “fat broke”. If it weren’t for our base at Esquimalt, with the Zealous and its fve hundred men, plus the company of Marines we are replacing, and the other company on San Juan Island, they would not have much to make a living by. Tey say Victoria is the Garden of Eden!’ His audience raised its collective head at this change of tone. ‘Te Garden of Eden! But it’s the Devil’s own job to make a living there!’ His

11 laughter turned to a kind of choking. ‘For whom, then, is your letter of introduction?’ ‘Mr Justice Begbie. From my tutor at Oxford. Tough I believe Mr Begbie went to Cambridge.’ ‘Oxford. Cambridge. Landlocked, both of ’em. In the middle of marshes. Stagnant. No wind. Vile places…’ At this point the thread of the Captain’s conversation became abruptly unravelled, and he wandered into myriad digressions about the landscapes of the English and other coasts. Eventually he lurched of to bed. Te ofcers looked at each other sheepishly, and began to exchange fuddled talk about the procedures for landing in the morning, as if to prove they were still sober. With a buzzing in my head, I got up and said Goodnight. I climbed the companionway intending to take a brief stroll on deck. When I opened the hatch door, all I could see in the shaf of golden light was rain pelting down slantwise. I shivered, closed the hatch, paid a visit to the ‘head’, then went to my cabin and to bed. I couldn’t sleep. Te wallowing of the ship at anchor was foreign afer the rolling and pitching of the open sea. Images of four months on the Ariadne crowded my mind: the Marines in their monotonous drills on deck, the sailors with their own precise drill on sails and ropes. I wondered if they too were boozing it up on the last night of the voyage, in the bowels of the ship where they lived and I had never been. I resent my own innocence. Te ship is like school with its boys and masters, and Oxford with its undergraduates and tutors. All my education has been intellectual. Te crashing disillusion with Christianity. Te mental gloom of a life in which the candle of faith has been snufed, between the fnger of Darwinian science and the thumb of my dislike of the deans and bishops, who were to have been my mentors. I’ve thrown it all over. I’ve been sitting up late, writing in this diary at last, my eyes beginning to hurt in the light of the oil lamp, dimmed so that Robbins can sleep. It’s all in the past tense now.

Ofen in that hard narrow bunk I have found myself imagining women – about which I know almost nothing. Women I had never met but who fgured in the more salacious legal cases I had studied – murdered by their husbands for unfaithfulness. Te whores of Oxford lingering in the shadow of St Ebbe’s

12 church, bait for divinity students. Te servant girls at home, easy prey for a spoilt boy with a sovereign in his hand and the moral ascendancy of being a gentleman, well-spoken and well-groomed – but also deadly, since they could get pregnant and make claims. My dear older brother Henry was found with a maid in the summer house afer dark: she was dismissed, not pregnant thank God, but with a parting gif of money. Dear weeping Mother, and indignant Father. Tey knew, however, that the Chad who had repudiated God would not become immoral with women. Tat was for Henry who went to church regularly and without a thought, and joined the army in a modest regiment our father could aford. I’ve shucked of my beliefs, but I’ve never taken my my clothes of in front of anyone. Te night before Henry went of to his regiment we went for a drink in the village tavern, the Trout – it’s by a stream. We both drank too much cider and when I went out to relieve myself in the moonlight I saw Sally, one of the barmaids, coming back in. She took my arm and drew me towards a hedge in the dark. ‘Do you want a feel?’ she said, and she pulled up her dress and apron and took my hand and stuck it between her legs, into her drawers. As I felt her my whole body buzzed with the sort of shock you get from an electricity machine, only less sharp, a sort of tingling. She kissed me on the lips and stuck her tongue into my mouth, writhing down below against my fngers, then pulled back slightly and said ‘Won’t you do me then?’ She unbuttoned my trousers with one def movement and pulled out my member, huge like a donkey’s, and pulled it into the wet of her, leaning back into the hedge. Just as my body had fooded with tingling my brain now fooded with a thousand reasons for pulling away from her – which I did with a jerk backwards. I ran away into a nearby feld in the dark and my seed spilled onto the grass. ‘Natural law’ instead of God’s. Yes, I sounded niminy-piminy at the Captain’s table, too fussy in my defnitions, although I feel hurt by Robbins having said so. I hope the Colony will cure me. I’m here to fnd myself. I’m deciding, now, to write a full story of my experience of this New World I am entering tomorrow. I want to record my observations – as Darwin would – like a ‘scientist’, in the sense defned by that Cambridge philosopher Whewell: without philosophy and introspection. But these last few paragraphs are already introspections. I have drawn a line down the side of my text to mark them out. Tey can be discarded from the objective story. But who am I writing the story for? For Darwin, or people like him who I imagine will be

13 interested? To bring it out as a book? Mayne’s account of Vancouver Island is humdrum. Surely I can do better than that. But I am no author, and already I am providing observations of life on the Ariadne, even an account of the Captain’s table talk, which could never be published. I feel as if I am writing for an unseen friend – an unknown friend whom I have yet to meet.

14 on-sale 6/2/15

This atmospheric and beautifully written police procedural is set in Florida where a murder of a young mother shook a small bayou town to its core. Twenty years later, the victim’s daughter returns to the scene of the crime and learns that the tragedy of her past has very real conse- quences for her future.

Everyone in Cooper’s Bayou knows the story of Raylene Atchison, the local woman who was murdered on the banks of the bayou, and her daughter, Aurora, who was found on the steps of the mini-mart, alone. But when Aurora, who was raised far away from Cooper’s Bayou, returns to Florida to settle her grandfather’s estate, she learns that the suspect in her mother’s murder was wrongly accused. Aurora meets Josh Hudson, a cop who has been put on administrative leave at the Evidence Room, a ware- house of dusty and forgotten items that could hold the key for solving Raylene’s murder. Together, Josh and Aurora delve into the past and find that the answers they are seeking lie just below the surface of the bayou they thought they knew.

Spanning decades of secrets and lies and featuring a setting that comes alive as a character in its own right, Cameron Harvey’s THE EVIDENCE ROOM is a stunning debut mystery from a new literary talent.

CAMERON HARVEY’s inspiration for THE EVIDENCE ROOM came from a business trip to Florida, where she stayed in a haunted hotel, as well as an old segment from the TV show “Unsolved Mysteries.” In addition to writing, Harvey likes to travel (she’s visited all seven conti- nents) and bake. CHAPTER ONE

July 17, 1989 Dr. James Mason was more comfortable with the dead than the living. It was morbid, sure, but sitting alone in his offi ce, James had to admit it was true. At no time had his distaste for the living been more palpable than this week. He was interviewing new techs, and the process was exhausting. The spelling errors on their applications were beyond atrocious—since when was “morgue” a diffi cult word? And the outfi ts that some of them wore to the interview? Well, they absolutely defi ed descrip- tion. There was no question about it; the world was getting dumber, and he was getting older and less able to tolerate it. He could have gone home. That was the reason he had the beeper that clung to the inside of his coat like a troublesome in- sect. James neither liked nor trusted the little machine, and so he preferred to stay in his offi ce in the Cooper County morgue during peak hours—between two and six in the morning— and wait. A multicar accident on the causeway had consumed the bulk of the night. Now it was almost four-thirty, and he could catch up on some paperwork.

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James caught a glance at his refl ection in one of the stainless- steel refrigerators. Not bad for forty. His hair was now almost completely the color of burnished metal, except for his two short sideburns, which stubbornly retained the reddish auburn of his youth. His face was smooth, having not yet fallen victim to the relentless Florida sun. He still had a lot of good years left, James thought. It was a good thing too, because there was certainly nobody else in the offi ce with half a brain, let alone the smarts and patience it took to do his job. Buzz. The sound of the intake door buzzer jolted James out of his chair to a standing position. He glanced at the police scanner, still humming and gurgling incoherently on his desk. Protocol mandated that the responding offi cers notify him in advance if he was needed so that he could prepare— call one of the techs for help or head for the crime scene him- self in the beat- up blue van. He was always reminding the cops: the medical examiner had primary jurisdiction of the crime scene. Buzz. Showing up unannounced ranked high on James’s some- what lengthy list of pet peeves. Ringing the buzzer twice was just rude. James stalked towards the garage door, punching the button to lift it with an angry closed fi st. With a chorus of squeaky protests, the door began its slow ascent, revealing the feet, pants, untucked shirt, and fi nally the blotchy face of Detective Floyd Rossi, squinting in the rain. James hated Rossi. He was one of those irritating people who was perpetually in a good mood for absolutely no reason. You would think a cop, of all people, would know better. Even at this ungodly hour, Rossi wore a clownish lopsided grin.

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Frowning, James looked past him for a van, for a body. All he saw was a little girl. “Oh, Doc. Thank God,” Rossi began, ducking under the door before it was fully opened, accompanied by a cloud of bugs from the humid night. Without bothering to remove his shoes or even wipe his feet, he marched past James into the pristine autopsy suite, half leading and half dragging his small charge by one of the puffy sleeves of her bubble-gum- pink windbreaker. “Detective—” Rossi clamped his hands on James’s shoulders, and for one awful moment, James was sure he was going to hug him. In- stead, he looked straight into his eyes and spoke. “Doc, I really need you to watch her for a little while. Just a little bit.” “Rossi, have you lost your mind? You want me to babysit? Here?” “Listen, Doc. We found her about half an hour ago, outside Margie Belle’s mini- mart. Social ser vices won’t be here until nine, and I would keep her with me, but I just got a call that there’s a”—here he paused and lowered his voice, eyes fl icker- ing towards the little girl, who remained expressionless— “body out on the water. I can’t take her with me.” “What about the hospital?” James swept his eyes over the autopsy suite behind them. In the half-light, his spotless exam- ining table and the rubber biohazard bins took on an other- worldly sheen. “Or the station? This is no place for kids.” Rossi covered the little girl’s ears, his meaty hands framing the oval of her upturned face. “We think she may be related to the vic we found on the bayou. She may have witnessed something, and the killer’s in the wind. I can’t risk him fi nding her at the hospital. We’ve got every cop in the department

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down at the scene. The night shift dispatcher’s at the station by himself, but I’m afraid the perp might show up there too look- ing for her. I’ve got nowhere else to bring her. Please, Doc. She’s just a kid.” For some inexplicable reason, James felt himself nodding. “Thanks, Doc.” Rossi released the little girl from his grip and ruffl ed her hair, as if he were greeting a beloved pet. “Bye for now, sweetie.” The girl shot Rossi a look of unbridled reproach, which James found immensely endearing. Rossi frowned and rose to his full height. “She hasn’t said a word since we picked her up.” “We’ll be fi ne,” James heard himself say, even returning Rossi’s silly thumbs- up sign. He hit the button for the garage and watched Rossi jog back to his cruiser. The little girl turned her face up to James. Someone had brushed her dark hair into pigtails, and the humidity had curled them into two damp spirals. Someone had buttoned her jacket that morning, tucked her feet into white Velcro-strap sneakers with rosebuds emblazoned on the sides, even dotted her tiny half-moon fi ngernails with glittery polish. Someone loved this child, so why had she been left alone? “I don’t know much about children,” James admitted out loud. The girl regarded him blankly. “My sister has two kids,” he continued. “They’re younger than you, though.” James thought about his twin toddler nephews, with their constant earsplitting screams and perpetually runny noses. “I don’t know if you’d like them very much. I certainly don’t.” He led the girl into the autopsy suite and gestured towards a stool, as though he were seating her in a fancy restaurant. She instantly turned to the glass jars of tools on the counter. He liked that she didn’t seem afraid of the place; just curious. James

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wasn’t sure what a kid this age knew about death. Nowadays, everyone believed in sugarcoating everything until kids reached a certain age, when they would be abruptly informed that there was no Santa Claus, bad things happened to good people, and everyone they knew, including themselves, was someday going to die. It was better—and surely less traumatic—to just be up- front from the get-go, James thought. “Those are my tools,” he began in what he hoped was not too academic a tone. “I use them on my patients. When they come here, it’s my job to fi gure out why they died. Like a puz- zle. Do you like puzzles?” The girl nodded so vigorously that the pigtails bobbed up and down. She drew a breath, and James felt sure that she was going to speak, but she stayed silent. “Well, then maybe you’d like to be a doctor someday.” James was beginning to get the hang of this one-sided conversa- tion thing. In fact, he rather liked it. “How about something to drink?” James had no idea what kids her age drank. Undoubtedly some sugary concoction. The morgue refrigerator yielded a sorry selection—some diabetic- friendly shakes from one of the techs, and his secretary’s six- pack of Tab. James tugged one of the sodas free of its plastic harness and opened the pull tab too quickly, sending a spray of soda across his eyeglasses. He turned to see the little girl staring at him with an amused expression, the corners of her mouth twisting into a tiny smile. “Yeah, that’s funny, huh?” he said, removing the glasses and wiping them with the cuff of his shirt. “Here you go.” She took the can from him with both hands and returned to her perch. The back closet was stacked high with unclaimed prop- erty from the deceased who had come through, ready to be

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boxed up for the evidence room. James wondered if there were some kids’ toys or games back there. “I’ll be right back,” he told her, but when he turned on the light in the closet, there she was right at his heels, a solemn little soldier, grasping the leg of his pants in her fi st. It was a small gesture, the kind of thing that kids probably did all the time, but James felt an odd tightness in his throat, and an un- familiar warmth bloomed in his cheeks. He looked down at her, and she yawned. “Are you tired?” She nodded. He was an idiot. Of course she was tired; it was almost fi ve in the morning. James steered her towards his offi ce and pointed to the couch. She shrugged off her windbreaker, clambered up on the couch, and curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest. The fi rst few fi ngers of sunlight were beginning to poke through the blinds in front of them. James pressed the blinds closed and folded the small jacket over his chair. And then he noticed it. Underneath the tag inside the little jacket, printed in runny blue Magic Marker letters. Aurora Atchison. The name hit him like a fi st, the shock of it traveling the length of his spine. “Aurora.” He said it out loud without thinking. She bolted up and stared at him, her eyes somehow clearer now, as though she had fi nally been able to hoist herself out of a dream. She closed the distance between them quickly, scrambling into his lap, clutching the lapels of his lab coat, burrowing into the folds of his shirt. Soundlessly she clung to him, but the face she pressed against him was wet with tears.

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“Aurora.” He whispered it like a prayer, over and over, rocking her gently back and forth. Outside, the sound of sirens split the dawn, and James covered Aurora’s ears as Rossi had, protecting her against the terrifying crescendo, bearing the news closer and closer.

053-60034_ch01_4P.indd 7 04/02/15 6:38 am CHAPTER TWO

July 17, 2014 The police department’s booth at the Cooper’s Bayou Annual Founders’ Day Fair was occupied by the oldest beauty queen Detective Josh Hudson had ever seen. Josh had volunteered for set-up duty, and the booth was supposed to be empty; but somehow he wasn’t surprised to see the el derly woman in a tiara, reclining barefoot in a plaid lawn chair in the center of the enclosed space. Coming across the unexpected just went with the territory around here. He took a few steps closer to investigate. The woman’s shiny chartreuse satin gown was hiked up around her knees. A German shepherd sprawled on the burned grass at her feet, its velvety tan-and- black head pressed against her alabaster shins. Josh slid the backpack from his shoulder, and the folder fi lled with photographs of missing people shifted in its depths. He had planned on getting here early enough to post the pictures, culled from a daylong dig through the county case fi les. It was a long shot, but these fairs brought all kinds of people out

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from different places; you never knew who might have a key to fi nding someone who was lost. He dug out the fair map, sure he’d written down the incorrect stall number. Nope, he was in the right place. “Excuse me, ma’am. I think you may be in the wrong—” “Hush!” The woman brought an index fi nger to her lips. The motion woke the dog, who exhaled loudly and settled back down without glancing in Josh’s direction. “Keep your voice down.” She motioned Josh closer. Josh slid his backpack from his shoulder and knelt at her feet. In a town like Cooper’s Bayou, nestled in the swampland south of Tampa, Florida, a tiny enclave of only two hundred residents, everybody knew everybody else, but this woman was a stranger. She had the tiny, fi ne- featured face of an old- fashioned doll, her eyebrows carefully penciled on, her lips outlined in a crimson bow shape. Above her tiara, her silver hair rose in a gravity- defi ant funnel, to which several glittering butterfl y clips clung for dear life. She was sizing him up too; he could see that. Her rheumy eyes traveled the length of his T- shirt and alit on the badge clipped to his waist. “You’re a policeman,” she breathed. It wasn’t relief in her voice, but something else, something halfway between surprise and mild amusement. “Yes, ma’am. Here to set up our booth for the fair. I’m Detective Josh Hudson.” Josh fl inched inwardly at the sound of it. Two years on the force, and the title still fi t him like a bad pair of pants, clinging in all the wrong places. Detectives solved mysteries; they found lost people. Josh had spent the last two years chasing possums out of locals’ yards and letting people out of speeding tickets.

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And he hadn’t yet found the one person he’d returned to Cooper’s Bayou to fi nd. The woman tipped back her head and laughed, a booming, unexpected guffaw that did not match her delicate frame. “Of all the hiding places—I chose the police fair booth. I wouldn’t make much of a criminal, would I? Lord mercy.” She adjusted the tiara. “And it seems I lost my manners along the way! I’m Iola.” Josh grinned. There was something of his Tennessee grandmother in Miss Iola; genteel and headstrong. “And what, may I ask, are you hiding from, Miss Iola?” “Oh, please don’t take me back there, Detective Hudson,” Miss Iola stammered. “I can’t go yet. I’m not ready yet.” The stark longing in her voice compelled Josh to take her hand in his own. Her skin was almost transparent, the blue patchwork of veins so close it seemed as though they might break the surface. “You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.” She squeezed his hand. “You don’t understand, Detective.” “Tell me.” “She’s a witch,” Miss Iola confi ded. “Excuse me?” “Trinity Patchett. She’s a witch.” Josh suppressed a smile. Trinity Patchett was one of the fair’s administrators. Josh had worked with her on a police fund-raiser. A mean- looking brunette with a too- high pony- tail, Trinity had a voice that could shatter glass and a leader- ship style that would make Stalin blush. He didn’t blame Iola for running away; he admired her for managing to escape. “And what business did you have with Miss Trinity?” “She’s in charge of the pageant this year. She’s bringing us all back, all the past winners. I thought it would be fun, but once I saw that she was going to be parading us around like a

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sideshow—I took off running. You should see these women, Detective. It isn’t right. And those unruly children in this year’s pageant! They raise them like wild animals. You never heard such a racket in your life.” Josh fought to keep a straight face. “So you won the pag- eant when, last year? Year before?” “Something like that,” she said with a wry smile. “I was born and raised in Cooper’s Bayou, but I haven’t been back here since. And what about you? I seem to recall some Hud- sons living over by Bayou Triste. Is that your kin?” “Yes, ma’am. My father’s family.” It was an important dis- tinction in Josh’s mind. He searched Miss Iola’s face for signs that she knew something of his father, but she was spellbound by some other memory. “He followed my mama to Tennessee, where I was raised.” “A man from Tennessee asked me to run away with him all those years ago.” Her fi ngers ghosted across Josh’s stubbled cheek. “He was a handsome fella, had those Windex- blue eyes like you.” “And he let you out of his sight?” Miss Iola turned her attention to the dog, patting his belly in concentric circles. It was a moment before she spoke again. “Not while he was alive. He passed on a few years back.” “I’m sorry, Miss Iola.” “Don’t be,” she said. “Time’s a funny thing. You think your world’s going to end when you lose somebody, but life just goes on. It’s cruel, in a way. I thought coming back here would be a way to move forward, but there’s nothing here for me. Nothing but memories.” “I understand,” Josh said. And he did, in a way that she didn’t realize. He’d returned to Cooper’s Bayou for the same reason; trying to fi nd a past he couldn’t fi x.

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“So, Detective Hudson, are you going to turn me in?” There was no way he was going to, and she knew it. She was playing him like a fi ddle. “No, I’m not, Miss Iola. But if you’re going to stay for a bit, you can’t just sit there lounging in the sun with your dog. I’m going to have to put you to work.” Miss Iola made a humphing noise. “My daddy was a shrimper. I’m not afraid of a little hard work. And this lovely creature isn’t my dog. He just took a liking to me, my little beau. Somebody’s probably looking for him too.” Josh bent down and scratched the dog behind the ears. “Well, we’ll handle one mystery at a time. First, I need some help hanging these up.” He opened the manila folder and laid the photographs on the picnic table in front of them. They were all shapes and sizes, the faces of the missing staring back at them from yellowed family snapshots, school photographs with blue-sky backgrounds, candid images of birthday parties and beaches. Some of them had been cut from group photos, so that an arm or shoulder reached out of frame. Some had been missing for longer than Josh had been alive. “All these people are missing?” Miss Iola ran her fi ngers along the edges of the pictures, cloaked in plastic. “Lord Mercy. Veda Fontaine.” She tapped a black- and- white portrait of a brunette, eyes wide and lips pursed, a cluster of pearls resting in the hollow of her throat. “That’s Miss Veda. My mama knew her. She disappeared when I was just a kid.” Miss Iola nudged another photo aside, revealing the picture of Liana. Josh’s sister. An ache split Josh’s insides, an old stitch giving way to a wound underneath. Nobody would ever notice a family resemblance; Liana had their father’s fair skin and

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hair, while Josh, like his brother, had the dark curls and olive skin that were their mother’s. She shouldn’t be in this array; Liana wasn’t really missing. Not in any offi cial police sense of the word, anyway. Josh felt Miss Iola’s gaze and turned away from Liana’s image. “I don’t know how we’re going to hang these pictures, Miss Iola.” Josh scanned the tent. Someone was supposed to drop off easels, but they hadn’t. The tent walls weren’t an op- tion either. Around them, drops of moisture saturated the can- vas enclosing the stall, the day’s humidity clinging to every surface. “I’ve got an idea,” Miss Iola said, scooping a plastic bag out of the supply bin at the back of the enclosure. “Clothesline. We could hang the pictures that way.” She held up the bag of clothespins for Josh to see. Together they stretched the cord the length of their stall and pinned up the pictures, one by one along the line. Forgotten Faces, Josh scrawled in marker on a piece of shiny poster board, and below that Help Solve My Mystery. The two of them stood back and admired the display. “Nothing tastes better than a hog on a log,” announced a voice behind them. Josh turned to see Boone Lambert holding aloft a pork drumstick. Boone, Josh’s partner on the force, was the red- headed reincarnation of Paul Bunyan, with a little more pad- ding. A third-generation cop, Boone had treated Josh like a kid brother since his arrival in Cooper’s Bayou. Josh was a regular at Boone’s Sunday barbecues, along with whatever lo- cal single woman Boone’s wife, Laura Jane, was hoping to set Josh up with. “Have you seen some of the food they’ve got here, Josh?”

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Josh chuckled and feigned surprise. “And here I was, thinking we were on the clock.” “I was working,” Boone insisted. “The Good News Bible Camp people called in a complaint about the voodoo woman’s booth.” He tore a hunk of meat off the drumstick caveman- style and spoke as he chewed. “Also, we’ve got a missing per- son—a lady from the pageant.” “Yeah, I might have a lead on that.” Miss Iola, who had retreated to her lawn chair, appeared at Josh’s side. “I guess it’s time for me to turn myself in. I’ve taken enough of your time, Detective Hudson. You have been so gracious.” Boone raised an eyebrow at Josh. “Miss Iola Suggs?” “Guilty,” Miss Iola said. Boone chuckled. “Well, ma’am, I can’t say I blame you for hightailing it out of there. That Trinity Patchett and her pag- eant cronies sure are crazy. All the same, it’s best to let them know you’re safe.” He glanced at the clothesline of missing faces. “Is this what y’all have been working on?” “It’s just marvelous, isn’t it?” Miss Iola winked at Josh. “You really think someone might give us a tip?” “You never know,” Josh said to Liana’s picture. “Just takes one.” “That’s what I like about you, Hudson,” Boone grinned. “You’re an optimist. Some might say a fool.” “One of those,” Josh agreed. On top of the folding table, Josh and Boone’s scanners be- gan to crackle in unison. “Here we go,” Boone said. “Ten bucks says we have to haul someone’s drunk rear end out of the creek again. Excuse me, ma’am.” He spoke into the receiver. “Go ahead for Boone and Hudson.”

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“Niney Crumpler went missing this morning.” Captain Rush’s voice, veiled in static, sizzled and popped through the speaker. Boone gave Josh the thumbs-up. “Told you. Damn, I’m good.” “Lucky guess,” Josh returned. “I’ll go.” Niney was prob- ably passed out after raising hell somewhere, but even so, he needed to be brought home safe. Josh took a step towards Miss Iola to say good- bye and almost tripped over the German shepherd. “Boone, do you know anything about this dog?” “Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about him. He’s from Ham- bone PD.” “Did they loan him to us or what?” The dog lifted his head and unfurled his enormous pink tongue in their direction, as though aware they were discussing him. “They wanted to know if we had a use for him before they hauled him off to the pound. I guess he failed out of K-9 training.” Boone laughed. “Pretty dumb, huh? I thought shep- herds were supposed to be smart.” “Well, I don’t know about that. You failed out of what, sixth grade? And you didn’t turn out so bad.” Miss Iola chuckled. “Is that what passes for humor up there in Tennessee?” Boone scoffed. “Let me know when Niney is home safe and sound. Come on, Miss Iola. Let’s get you back to your kingdom.” Josh pecked Miss Iola on the cheek. “Take care, now, Miss Iola. That Trinity gets out of line, you give me a call.” Miss Iola pressed a kiss into Josh’s cheek and whispered into his ear. “I hope you fi nd who you’re looking for,” she said. The words fl ooded Josh’s insides, fi lling in the hollow places. He steadied himself, reaching down to pet the dog. Beneath

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his palm, he felt the animal’s heartbeat, even and steady. “Well, Miss Iola’s beau, I guess you’re coming with me,” he said. “C’mon, Beau. Let’s fi nd old Niney.” With the German shepherd matching his stride, he trotted in the direction of his car.

053-60034_ch01_4P.indd 16 04/02/15 6:38 am on-sale 8/4/15

In Nick Holdstock’s The Casualties, a man recounts the final weeks of his neighborhood before the apocalyptic event that only a few of the eccentric residents will survive.

Samuel Clark likes secrets. He wants to know the hidden stories of the bizarre characters on the little streets of Edinburgh, Scotland. He wants to know about a nymphomaniac, a man who lives under a bridge, a girl with a cracked face. He wants to uncover their histories because he has secrets of his own. He believes, as people do, that he is able to change. He believes, as the whole world does, that there is plenty of time to solve his problems. But Samuel Clark and the rest of the world are wrong. Change and tragedy are going to scream into his and everyone’s lives. It will be a great transformation, a radical change; and it just might be worth the cost.

Written by a rising literary star whose work has been published in notoriously selective publications such as n+1 and The Southern Review, The Casualties is an ambitious debut novel that explores how we see ourselves, our past and our possible futures. It asks the biggest question: How can we be saved?

NICK HOLDSTOCK‘s fiction and essays have appeared in a wide range of US and UK publica- tions, including The London Review of Books, The Southern Review, n+1, Dissent, Vice, The Independent, and Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the author of The Tree That Bleeds: A Uighur Town on the Edge (Luath Press Ltd 2011), a book about life in China’s Xinjiang province, and China’s Forgotten People (I B Tauris 2015). In 2012 he was awarded a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship for fiction. He lives in Edinburgh. -1— 0— +1—

053-60151_ch00_1P.indd ii 10/27/14 1:34 PM For all our outcry and struggle, we shall be for the next generation not the massive dung fallen from the dinosaur, but the little speck left of a humming- bird.

—Djuna Barnes, Nightwood

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60151_ch00_1P.indd v 10/27/14 1:34 PM Prologue

as we approach the anniversary, let us try to think back. Back through the bright lights, then through the darkness, to the start of this century. At that time there was a small city called Edinburgh, which was the capital of what was then Scotland. It was a small city of half a million built between seven hills, one of which was an old volcano that was believed to be safe. Though its best days were past, the city was still thought of fondly. However, the place of which I wish to speak played little part in —-1 either the city’s past or present. It was an old cobblestoned street —0 —+1

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known as Comely Bank. Though no battles were fought there, and no kings were crowned, it was still an exceptional place. The shops of Comely Bank sold food, clothes, books, music, al- cohol, and medicine, plus many other things we would be familiar with (after all, it has been only sixty years). There were larger shops that were cheaper and had more products to choose from, but to reach them you had to drive to the edge of town. On the way the buildings shrank from high apartment buildings that contained hun- dreds of people to small, squat houses built of stone where only one family dwelt. After that the houses stopped and you were driving through an area of such desolation it seemed like a place and time before civilisation. There were no buildings or streetlights, just rocks and twisted trees. You wondered what would happen if your car broke down. You’d set off to fi nd a house or shop, and at fi rst you’d walk at a normal pace, maybe even whistle. But soon that blasted landscape would make you nervous and your heart would beat faster; you would walk more quickly, looking left and right, sometimes be- hind, telling yourself you were being stupid and there was nothing to fear. You’d laugh at your foolishness, and then a black shape would fl icker at the edge of your vision and you would justrun . And so the residents of Comely Bank bought from the local shops. It was easier, and they enjoyed the predictability of the diff erent shopkeep ers: Mr. Asham was unfailingly civil; Mr. Campbell was snide. Sam was patient, always helpful; Caitlin avoided your eyes. They were also familiar with their fellow shoppers, whom they smiled at, or even spoke to, whilst standing in a queue. This was far from common practice. If you did this in the supermarket at the end of the world, people looked startled or scared. It is true that some of Comely Bank’s customers did not enjoy this kind of familiarity, and on the contrary, found being addressed by a stranger so rude and -1— invasive it was like the glint of a knife. But these were sour, unpleas- 0— ant people; most enjoyed the meetings. They produced a sense of +1—

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community absent elsewhere in the city. People recognised each other; they knew each other’s names, where they lived, what they did for a living, if they were married, if they had children. This alone made Comely Bank an unusual place. However, what made it truly remarkable was not how its residents interacted. Whilst most of its people were wholly of their time—in that they did not believe in God, had small families, took holidays to faraway places, enjoyed electrical consumer goods, believed in things like equality, democracy, and the worth of the individual—there were a few who stood out. This was partly due to the way they looked) their size, their face, the way they walked), but mostly because their ideas went against the grain. They worshipped God, wished for death, or were chaste. They re- fused to own property. Yet for all their eccentricities, they had a place in Comely Bank. Most people saw them as quaint characters who added colour to daily life. They were the human equivalents of the commemorative plaques on the walls, the statues of great leaders, the dried- up wells into which people dropped coins in exchange for luck. They were relics of a long- past age that were worth preserving. There have been many changes over the last sixty years. Our cit- ies are cleaner; we commit less crime; we manage our desires. If there are no statues or plaques on our streets, it is because we prefer to look forward. So if I speak of these characters fondly, it is not because I am nos- talgic for that era. Quite the opposite. I just think we should remem- ber the old world as it actually was. Not only the average, but also the exception.

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 3 10/27/14 1:38 PM Part I

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 5 10/27/14 1:38 PM 1. A Curious Man

sam (short for “samuel”) clark, born 1988, was the only child of William and Rebecca Clark. Like most murderers, he was unexceptional. There were richer men, more intelligent men, men with more appealing faces, men who could tell a joke or funny story better (the same was true for women). He defi nitely was not one of Comely Bank’s relics; no one thought him a “character.” But to get to know the more interesting residents of Comely Bank, we must begin with him. In 2016 Sam was twenty-eight and single. He worked in a sec- —-1 ondhand bookshop whose profi ts went to the National Society for —0 —+1

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the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. This charity was founded in 1884, sixty years after the founding of the Royal Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Animals. It is not just the order in which these charities were founded that is revealing. That both needed to exist had led some to suggest that hurting defenceless creatures was a part of British culture. There was certainly no shortage of people who wanted to sup- port Sam’s charity by working in the shop for free. Without wishing to diminish the kindness and generosity of these volunteers, it must be said that most of them were deeply troubled. They were alcohol- ics, misfi ts, former criminals, or just very lonely, boring people who lived through their pets. When these people told Sam their problems he listened closely and did not interrupt. He was fl attered to be trusted with their se- crets; it made him feel as if they shared a special bond. But he was mistaken. Their pain was so deep and abiding they would have told anyone. It was from them that he learned about the jealousy, sadness, be- trayal, and longing that seethed beneath the visible life of the street. When Sam looked at the queue in the post offi ce he did not just see strangers waiting. He saw a pulsing pink line of aff ection that jumped from the head of “Spooky” standing at the back; it leapfrogged the heads in front to reach the head of Indira, who never once turned round or gave any intimation that she felt herself being adored. Sam’s volunteers were not his only source of information about the residents of Comely Bank. Every day people brought him bags and boxes of books they no longer wanted. From these he could de- duce the person’s job, where they had been on holiday, their po liti- cal views, what kind of food they liked, what their hobbies were, if they knew languages besides English (which was more the excep- -1— tion than the rule, English being a lingua franca at that time), if they 0— had been learning to draw and paint, if they had physical or psycho- +1—

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logical problems, if they were interested in war, if they believed in God or gods or spiritual forces that lacked names and personalities but were still all- powerful. Even the condition of the books was revealing. Their owners al- ways left a trace of themselves in the pages. It is hard for most people today to understand how books could be so personal. What diff erence did it make that the texts of the past were written on pages? When people then read the works of Tagore or Lu Xun, their eyes were consuming the same words as those we see on our screens. As for the books themselves, they were mass produced, identical. This changed as soon as a person began reading. Then they folded page corners over, opened the book so wide its front and back covers touched, turned pages with food- smeared hands, underlined passages, scribbled comments in margins, wrote thoughts or a phone number on its blank pages, forced it into a coat pocket, tore strips from a page to write on, rested a cup or mug on its cover, left it lying in direct sunlight, spilt water on it, took it into the bath, sat or slept on it, highlighted signifi cant passages with fl uorescent pens, drew smiling faces next to parts they liked, drew frowning ones next to parts they hated, tore out pages they thought off ensive, tore out pages they thought brilliant, sprayed perfume or cologne on its pages, substituted their name for one of the characters, unstitched the binding then reordered the pages, crossed out every word con- taining the letter T, crossed out every female name and wrote the bitch in their place. Of course, a maltreated book was not proof of its own er’s bad qualities. It was merely suggestive. Someone who bent a book’s cover and pages till it was folded double might not have been a callous, thoughtless person. They could still have believed that every book contained the potential to instil wonder, joy, sparks of enlighten- ment. —-1 But Sam’s favourite aspect of the books was the ephemera they —0 —+1

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contained. He found airline tickets, bank statements, receipts, birth- day cards—best of all, a postcard, photo, or letter. Sam put these in a battered tin chest the size of a bathtub that had belonged to his grandfather, who had spent thirty-fi ve years in the merchant navy and only appeared at Sam’s house once a year, usually without warn- ing. Dinner would be a slow and gruelling event during which his parents struggled to pass the baton of conversation, usually by speak- ing of what had happened since his grandfather’s last visit. Unfortu- nately this was an event in which the old man refused to compete. He sat quietly, listening with a slight smile, only speaking when directly addressed. His only burst of loquaciousness was telling Sam a bed- time story, or rather stories, because they jumped between places and people. They were tales of boats, typhoons, and beautiful women who could throw knives. Fortunes were found, friends be- trayed; men were tied to masts. His grandfather often got charac- ters’ names confused, or used two diff erent ones for the same person, but Sam didn’t mind. It was part of the telling. Sometimes the sto- ries were just memories of people his grandfather had known— those he had sailed with or met in a port—and these often had no end. These were the stories young Sam had liked best, the ones he could fi nish himself. He had been almost eleven when his father came into his room early one morning. His father did not turn on the light, so Sam could barely see his face when he said, “I have some sad news.” His father didn’t sound sad. The funeral was well attended, mostly by old men with beards who ignored Sam and his parents. In the will Sam’s grandfather left him two hundred pounds and the trunk. In March 2016, the chest was almost full. By then Sam had been working in the shop for eight years, opening ten to fi fteen bags a day, dealing with over a thousand books a week. He didn’t keep most of -1— what he found, but it had still accumulated. The top layer was com- 0— posed of the most recent additions, plus a few letters and diaries he +1—

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 10 10/27/14 1:38 PM the casualties | 11

often reread, hoping to fi nd a phrase he had overlooked, some name or event that had meant nothing before, the way that every piece put into a jigsaw makes another possible. Amongst these favourites were sixteen letters from “George” to “Iris,” all ending with the phrase Forgive me; a Christmas list scrawled in green crayon, with NO writ- ten by each item in an adult hand; and a black leather- bound note- book in which someone had recorded everything they bought, where they had bought it, and its price, between June 2008 and August 2009. The notebook was titled Book 29 and smelt strongly of smoke. As for the rest of the chest’s contents—perhaps fi ve thousand items—they were mostly forgotten. Sam was more interested in fi nd- ing out new things. During the rare moments when he was not in the shop, he wandered the streets of Comely Bank, glancing in win- dows, loitering in shops, sitting on benches, observing people and listening to conversations in which he took no part. He was like a ghost that everyone could see. If you had asked him why he did this, he would have shrugged, smiled, and said something about being interested in people. A few thought him a little strange. Nobody, including him, thought he could do harm.

—-1 —0 —+1

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 11 10/27/14 1:38 PM 2. Lost

c o m e l y b a n k h a d a n o l d stone bridge that crossed the Water of Leith. Whenever Sam went over it he always paused to look down, partly to see the swift, brown river, but also in hopes of catch- ing a glimpse of the man who lived beneath. Alasdair was fi rst seen in Comely Bank at the start of spring 2015, and after a few nights of sleeping in the park he installed himself under the bridge. Though it was dark, cold, wet and uncomfortable, Alasdair thought it an excel- lent place. He put great stock in the powers of water. The best kind -1— was fast and north fl owing, because this made the air magnetic. Mag- 0— +1—

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 12 10/27/14 1:38 PM the casualties | 13

netic air was good for the blood, because it made the iron in the blood more active, and what was good for the blood was good for the brain, because it used blood, and so the water was good for memory and thinking, and also for vision, because the eyes were part of the brain. On fi ne days Alasdair liked to stand on the pavement above while looking upstream. He took slow, deep breaths and thought of how his brain was getting stronger. Soon he would be able to remem- ber his second name, where he was from, and what he had done for the fi rst forty years of his life. The other reason Alasdair liked the spot was that many people went by. Each of these was interesting and contained a lesson. He could immediately tell why someone’s complexion was poor, why they wore glasses, why they looked depressed. He was constantly surprised that people did not want to hear that their spots were caused by fear, that their poor eyesight stemmed from eating cheese, that they masturbated too much. This was vital information; it was about their health. But although many found Alaisdair’s opinions unpleasant, often embarrassing, they didn’t walk away. It was rude to ignore someone, however crazy they sounded. As the passersby reluctantly paused to listen, they faced the dilemma of where to rest their eyes. Not because Alasdair was ugly or disfi gured: If viewed in isolation his features were those of a handsome man. The problem was that they seemed disarranged. His ears were too far back. Though his brown eyes were appealing, they were so misaligned that he squinted. As for the long and shapely nose, it seemed entirely supported by the up- per lip. Only the mouth, with its crown of dark bristles, looked prop- erly placed. This was where people glared when Alasdair told them how to be happier, taller, grow back some of their hair. It was usually at this point, when the person was scowling, that Alasdair asked to come home with them. Though living under the —-1 —0 —+1

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bridge had many advantages, it was hard to cook or take a bath, ac- tivities that were both important for a person’s health. But the only person who let him stay was old Mrs. Maclean. That night Alasdair slept well, except for the fact he woke up cry- ing. The next morning, before he left, Mrs Maclean off ered him a large cut-crystal bowl on which was inscribed, To Eileen, in grati- tude for forty years of ser vice. When he hesitated, she said, “Go on, take it,” in so desperate a tone he fl ed from her house. This was the problem with owning too many things: It drove people mad. The only items he owned were his bicycle, a penknife, a cig- arette lighter, and a copper bracelet he wore for the good of his teeth. He’d have taken the bowl if Mrs. Maclean had been less insis- tent. Not because he wanted it for himself, but so he could sell it. For Alasdair was something of an entrepreneur. His bicycle was always laden with things he found on the street. In addition to bags of books, clothes, ornaments, and plates, there would be a ripped lampshade, broken toys, electrical cables coiled round the frame like loving boa constrictors. His hunting grounds were the streets around Comely Bank, with the exception of a broad, tree- lined road at the edge of the park. The houses there were impos- ingly large and eerily deserted. There was too deep a hush, a sense of something awry. Even going near there made him so anx- ious he had to put his feet in the river and slowly count down from one hundred. He sold the items he found in a small market that took place on weekends in the church car park. People brought their unwanted books, clothes, and house hold items and sold them for less than they usually cost. Alasdair saw most of the traders every week, but he had little contact with them. Although they were pleasant -1— people, they made him sad. They came to get rid of their things, and 0— usually succeeded—but then, often late in the day, some sort of +1—

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panic began. They asked a friend, or their spouse, or a partner, to keep an eye on their stall so they could look round. Few came back empty handed. They were excited, thrilled with discovery; they had fi nally solved the momentous question of what to put on the chest of drawers. This was the problem with having a home: It asked to be fi lled. Each room had to be decorated, furnished, stocked with its proper objects. People spent all their time working to earn money to make their houses perfect. They thought that every lamp, rug, and cush- ion was a step towards peace. If they’d been told that it would be far better for them to sell their house and everything in it, and then leave the country, they would just have laughed. Even Alasdair was not immune to the lure of ownership. Al- though he sold most of the things he found, there were some he wanted to keep. One morning he found a set of place mats that had been spattered with paint. On each were sailing ships that looked so full of speed and grace they threatened to glide off the mat. He stared at their masts, rigging, and sails while a light breeze rustled his bags. His nose fi lled with a stinging sensation. He thought of the sea. He spent the afternoon scratching the paint off the mats. First from a clipper, then a schooner, then a galleon. He was halfway through a barque when the knife cut into his hand. The wound was not deep, and the river numbed it, but the interruption was enough. The mats were no good without a table, and once he had that, he would need plates, cutlery, glasses, napkins, a tablecloth, chairs, a vase for beautiful fl owers. He broke the mats with a rock. But he had more trouble getting rid of the photograph album he found in a stack of newspapers in early March 2016. The album was covered in shiny, scaled skin; its pages were made of thick —-1 card. The photos showed three generations of a family and were —0 —+1

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labelled with place names and dates. The earliest was titled Porto- bello, 1925.

The fi nal picture was labelled Aberfeldy, 1938.

There were perhaps thirty pages in the album, each with two photos. Although the pictures were from long ago, little seemed to have changed. People had houses, and these houses had things, and -1— this made people unhappy. 0— +1—

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 16 10/27/14 1:38 PM the casualties | 17

He saw the same crowds of people, desperate to buy more.

But although these pictures seemed to confi rm his worst fears— that the sickness of the present had its roots much further in the past—he could not stop looking. This was the danger of pictures: they contained so much. The more one looked, the less one knew. They —-1 —0 —+1

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raised too many questions. For example: What was the relationship between these women? Were they neighbours, friends, or sisters? Which of the men behind the women (if any) were married to them? Was it fashion or coincidence that made the women carry their coats on their left arms? Were there really, as the sign claimed, Dances Every Evening ? However much one studies the image, there can be no answers. In its absence, we supply it ourselves. We mistake a casual glance for devotion, think silence proof of a feud. As for Alas- dair, when he looked at three of the pictures, he saw grounds for hope:

-1— 0— +1—

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 18 10/27/14 1:38 PM the casualties | 19

Whether dancing or posing by the edge of the fi eld, these women were happy together. Their smiles stemmed from a love that did not depend on what they gave to each other, what they owned, what they hoped to acquire. But although the album was important, Alasdair did not want to keep it. If he did, if it was his, then it would need a shelf. The shelf would need a wall, and thus a room, and then there would be car- pet, chairs, pictures, curtains, a table, a rug. He would have a house, a home. It would be his tomb. He knew he should destroy the album. Instead he placed it with the other things for sale. So long as someone bought it, the end re- sult would be the same. That Saturday he sold a record player, a walking stick, a lion made of china. Then Mr. Campbell, who owned an antique shop on the street, asked to look at the album. His ver- sion of what happened appeared in the local newspaper several days later.

March ,  As both a long-time resident of Comely Bank and the proprietor of a successful business, I am ex- tremely concerned about the rise in street crime. —-1 —0 —+1

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After listing various minor acts of vandalism—broken glass out- side his shop, damage to his car—he implied that this was connected to the homeless.

What no one seems willing to admit is that most of these unfortunate creatures need psychiatric care. Most are confused and angry, many prone to violence. Only yesterday I was threatened by a man selling things at the car- boot sale. Although they were of no great value, I was concerned that they might have been stolen. One of the items, a photo- graph album, clearly did not belong to him. Rather than confront him about his theft, I decided to pur- chase it then try to locate its rightful own er. Before I gave him the money I took a moment to check through it.

This was when Alasdair saw the greed on Mr. Campbell’s face. There was something obscene about the way he moistened his lips as he turned the pages.

I was shocked when he snatched the album from me then said it was not for sale. When I tried to reason with him, he began making off ensive re- marks. He berated me for wearing glasses and said I had eye cancer.

During the following weeks Alasdair was frequently seen staring at the album, even under a streetlamp at night. The pictures made him feel content. For he must have had a mother and father, who must -1— themselves have had parents. The fact that he couldn’t remember 0— +1—

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their names or faces didn’t change that they too had worked, gotten married, raised children, gaily danced in their garden. From then on, when he stood on the bridge, the water fl owing fast beneath him, the iron pulsing in his blood, he no longer called out people’s diagnoses. Instead of telling them to eat more carrots or wash their faces with urine, he held out the album and said, “This is my family.” People who had previously ignored him now began to stop. They wanted to see where he had come from, whether what was wrong with him had started early on. When they realised the pictures were too old to be of his immediate family, most were not disappointed. They inspected the album as avidly as they did shop windows. They liked to see the past: It was proof of progress. Alasdair no longer questioned having the album. It wasn’t some- thing he owned. He was just looking after it. He took care of it for three months. Then, on a warm night in May 2016, four men came under the bridge. All of them wore black masks. They did not speak when they pushed him to the ground, nor while they kicked him. They off ered no explanation. It was as if he didn’t deserve to know why. Consciousness, when it returned, was like being slammed into the ground. First came an instant of numbness, then the impact of pain. He lay and listened to the river. He could only open one eye. Light was bleeding into the dark by the time he could move. When he sat up he saw the wreck of his bicycle. The frame was buck- led, the cables ripped; both its wheels were bent. This was incon ve nient, but it did not upset him. Unlike Sam, he didn’t care about the history of things. A book’s job was to give you knowledge. A knife was something you cut with. Objects were only a set of functions that could be replaced. If his bicycle could not be fi xed, he would fi nd another. —-1 —0 —+1

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But the album was diff erent. It was unique. It was a piece that had broken off the giant blank of his past. And it was not on the path. Not in the long grass. Not further downstream. Not in the rubbish bins on the street. Not at the police station. Not at the library. Not in the paper recycling centre. Not on the shelf of books in the pub. Not in the rubbish bins by the park. Still not at the police station. Still not at the library. Still taken from him.

-1— 0— +1—

053-60151_ch01_1P.indd 22 10/27/14 1:38 PM on-sale 8/4/15

A haunting story about the destructive power of secrets, The Secrets of Lake Road is an accom- plished and gripping suspenseful women’s fiction debut.

Jo has been hiding the truth about her role in her high school boyfriend’s drowning for sixteen years. Every summer, she drops her children off with her mother at the lakeside community where she spent summers growing up, but cannot bear to stay herself; everything about the lake reminds her of the guilt she feels. For her daughter Caroline, however, the lake is a precious world apart; its familiarity and sameness comforts her every year despite the changes in her life outside its bounds. At twelve years old and caught between childhood and adolescence, she longs to win her mother’s love and doesn’t understand why Jo keeps running away.

Then seven-year-old Sara Starr goes missing from the community beach. Rescue workers fail to uncover any sign of her-but instead dredge up the bones Jo hoped would never be discovered, shattering the quiet lakeside community’s tranquility. Caroline was one of the last people to see Sara alive on the beach, and feels responsible for her disappearance. She takes it upon herself to figure out what happened to the little girl. As Caroline searches for Sara, she uncovers the secrets her mother has been hiding, unraveling the very foundation of everything she knows about herself and her family. The Secrets of Lake Road by Karen Katchur is a riveting novel that is impossible to put down and hard to forget.

KAREN KATCHUR lives in Eastern Pennsylvania with her husband and two daughters. The Secrets of Lake Road is her first novel. CHAPTER ONE

No one touched the bottom of the lake and lived. If you were lucky, you’d surface wide-eyed and frantic, babbling at the dark- ness, the thickness of what lay below. If you were unlucky, un- derwater recovery dragged the lake for your body. As Caroline unpacked her duffel bag in the small bedroom where she had slept every summer since she could remember, she wondered who would be brave or stupid enough to try to touch bottom this summer. The cabin door to The Pop- Inn creaked open and closed with a bang. Caroline rushed to the window to see who it was. A warm breeze blew, carry ing the dampness of the lake and the smell of a barbecue. The leaves rustled in the hundred-year- old trees. She looked down the dirt road that led into the colony, catching her older brother, Johnny, pass by. If he noticed her watching, he pre- tended he didn’t. He wasn’t fi ve steps away when he lit a ciga- rette, a habit he perpetuated at the lake but never at home. Rules at the lake were lax if they existed at all. He blew smoke from his lips and whipped his head to the side, sweeping the wavy bangs from his eyes. He walked down the hill —-1 with a swagger that was uniquely his, cool and a little cocky, but —0 —+1

0053-60551_ch01_1P.indd53-60551_ch01_1P.indd 1 112/13/142/13/14 7:107:10 amam 2 • KAREN KATCHUR

with enough insecurity that hinted at a sensitive side and, as much as she hated to admit it, a certain charm. Caroline hoped Gram didn’t see the cigarette. “No smoking in front of Gram,” their mother had warned repeatedly during the three-hour drive from their home in New Jersey to the lake. But at sixteen- years-old, Johnny always did what Johnny wanted to do, no matter what anyone said. In a way she believed their mother was trying to protect Johnny from Gram’s wrath, a dis- position Gram reserved solely for Caroline’s mother, but appar- ently her mother was as oblivious to that fact as she was to other things, in Caroline’s opinion. She returned to unpacking, putting clothes into the dresser she and Gram had painted white last summer. Her mother walked into the room and handed her clean sheets. While she made up the bed, her mother leaned against the doorjamb with a far- off look in her eyes. Her long dark hair cast shadows in the hollows of her cheeks, making her face appear gaunt, haunted. The way her mother looked, her expression, reminded Caro- line of the lake. There was a place inside of her mother as vast and as murky. It must be a sad place, because she often heard her cry. She imagined it was also a place where her mother felt trapped. She’d pull at her clothes and hair as though she were tangled in fi shing line. Sometimes she’d run out of the house and drive off. Sometimes she wouldn’t return home for days. Gram said we all run from something, whether it was a terrible childhood or a bad marriage, or perhaps we run from ourselves, and Caroline’s mother was no different. Caroline understood what Gram was saying, but she couldn’t help but wonder why her mother was always running from her. “All set?” her mother asked when Caroline had fi nished mak- -1— ing up the bed. 0— +1—

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“Looks like it.” She ran her hand over the new green quilt Gram had stitched, smoothing out the wrinkles. “I’m going to see what Gram needs from me.” Her mother walked away, leaving her alone to fi nish unpacking. Caroline unrolled her new poster of the latest boy band and pinned it to the wall. She particularly liked the lead singer, and it wasn’t because she was boy crazy. She liked his skateboard. Okay, maybe she liked his hair, toothy smile, and fl awless skin. That reminded her. She dug into the bag in search of sunscreen. She felt around and pulled out her cell phone. No bars or messages. She wasn’t surprised. She tossed it into a drawer. It wasn’t like anyone from home would miss her enough to text. And even if someone did want to contact her for some reason, it was next to impossible, since the lake was nestled deep inside the Pocono Mountains and what was considered a dead zone. Gram’s voice rang out from the kitchen. She paused to listen. “Why not?” Gram asked. “I have things to do,” her mother said. “You always have things to do. What things, Jo?” “I don’t know. Things.” A cabinet door was closed harder than usual. “Can you at least stick around for a few days and help me clean out that back closet and porch? I can’t do it by myself,” Gram said. Her mother sighed heavily. A second or two passed before she grumbled, “Maybe.” But Caroline knew her mother’s maybes were always nos. She had learned at a young age that maybe was just her mother’s way of putting off the answer you didn’t want to hear. Could she get ice cream? Maybe. Could she go to the movies? Maybe. Could she get a skateboard? Maybe. —-1 —0 —+1

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No ice cream. No movie. No skateboard. Another cabinet door slammed, rattling the dishes inside, and Caroline fi gured Gram understood what maybe meant too. Caroline went back to digging into her bag, pulling out an extra bathing suit and shorts. The cabin’s screen door squeaked open and closed this time without a bang. Her heart beat a little faster. Someone was sneaking out and she knew who. She dropped the clothes onto the bed, raced out of her room, passed Gram in the kitchen, and bolted outside. Her mother waved as she hopped in the car and pulled away from the cabin. Gravel and dust kicked up from the tires of the old Chevy as she headed down the dirt road. Caroline swiped her eyes. Crybaby, she scolded herself. At twelve years old, she should no longer need hugs and kisses good- bye from her mother. And yet she still wanted them.

Gram opened the screen door. “Are you hungry for lunch?” Caroline shook her head. “I’m going to see who’s around.” She dragged her feet, and puffs of dirt covered her sneakers. No matter how many times Gram planted seeds, only sparse patches of grass grew under the shade of the old maple trees. Most of the cabins in the colony had yards. Very few were able to get grass to grow. Caroline grabbed her bike from the ground. It was considered a boy’s bike, with the bar going across the frame rather than scooping down like a girl’s would. She had asked the man who had sold her father the bike what the difference was other than the obvious disparity with the bar. He had said the design of the -1— scooped frame dated back to when girls wore skirts and dresses 0— rather than pants. Otherwise, there was no difference in the per- +1—

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for mance or the ride. She wasn’t about to wear a skirt or a dress, so the boy’s bike it was. She coasted down the dirt hill and crossed onto Lake Road, the main thoroughfare connecting the colony to the lake, and stopped in front of the Pavilion, a big wooden building that served as the hub of the lake community. Nervous excited energy buzzed just below her skin, the kind of energy that bubbles to the surface with the prospect of things to come. The Pavilion was the unoffi cial meeting place, where her friends gathered, where they hung around the snack stand, bathing suits dripping wet, eating hotdogs and French fries while the jukebox played songs that were older than their parents. She checked her pockets, fi nding the quarters she always carried when she was there to play the retro pinball machines and arcade games, hoping for a shot at the high- est score of the summer. The lake spread out on both sides behind the Pavilion. The water shimmered and baked in the hot sun. Ducks milled around looking for handouts of crackers and stale bread. Caroline took a deep breath and smelled the faint scent of fi sh mixed with the earthiness of algae, a distinct smell she associated with summer- time. She dropped her bike on the side of the Pavilion next to her friend Megan’s, a pink girl’s bike, the same bike she had had since they were nine years old. Johnny and a bunch of his friends were sitting on the steps outside the large double doors. He had his arm slung around a girl’s shoulder, and a cigarette dangled from his fi ngers. The girl’s breasts spilled out of her tank top, and al- though Caroline tried not to stare, she did anyway. She couldn’t help it. The girl had large breasts, and Caroline knew it was the girl’s chest her brother was after. She felt a little sick and a little sorry for the girl. Sometimes her brother was a real jerk. —-1 “What are you looking at?” Johnny asked. —0 —+1

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“Nothing much,” she said, and approached the steps. She started up on nervous legs, taking her time not to trip or bump into Johnny or his friends. Two girls leaned away as she stepped toward them. She reached for the railing to steady herself, feel- ing self-conscious, like a little kid, the way she felt whenever she walked by Johnny’s best friend, Chris. He was one of the few locals who lived at the lake all year long. Something about his slightly dirty hair and his wide smile made him look as though he was up to no good. The thought gave her a sort of thrill that made her all the more uncomfortable. He was wearing swim trunks, his T-shirt draped over his leg. His skin was bronze and his stomach cut. His one eye was two different colors, half green and half brown, the other solid brown. She couldn’t explain how, but his two-toned eye made him that much cuter. Once, she had overheard Mrs. Nester at the Country Store tell a customer his eye made him look as though he were off- kilter, and maybe that attributed to his reckless behavior. “Something ain’t right in there,” she had said, and pointed to her head. Caroline didn’t believe this to be true. If anyone bothered to ask her, she would say there wasn’t a thing wrong with him. He was perfect. Chris grabbed her ankle as she passed. He fl ashed a playful smile and stared at her with his captivating eye. “Don’t let the snappers get you,” he said. Her brother laughed and fl icked his cigarette butt over her shoulder. For a split second she thought about telling her brother to screw off. Two summers ago he nearly had his toe chomped off by a snapper and he about cried. Do you remember that, tough guy? But of course, she wasn’t going to get into a sibling battle -1— in front of his friends, in front of Chris, a battle she was sure to 0— lose. +1—

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Chris released her ankle and her skin seemed to melt where his hand had been. She hurried up the rest of the steps and raced inside. The building was dark without the bright sunlight, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. “Caroline!” Megan called, waving her arms wildly. “Get over here.” Megan was standing in front of the old jukebox, and as soon as Caroline was within reach, Megan threw her arms around her and proceeded to jump up and down, jiggling them both. She let Megan twirl her in circles, feeling totally ridiculous and un- accustomed to so much silly exuberance. When Megan fi nally released her, she gave Caroline the once- over. She returned the favor and noticed Megan’s heavy blue eye shadow, pink shiny lips, and the two new bumps under her T- shirt. As if the pink bike wasn’t enough, Megan had gone all girly on her in the last year. Megan started talking fast, in a rush to catch up on everything she had missed since their last text messages, which turned out not to be much, even when you considered how short and few the texts tended to be. Mostly, Megan babbled about some boy, Ryan, she was crushing on. Caroline told her about playing soft- ball, her struggling grades, and how she was glad summer was fi nally here. “I hope there are some cute boys this summer,” Megan said. “Maybe someone new. You do want a boyfriend, don’t you?” “No,” Caroline said much louder than she had intended. Megan shrugged. “Why not?” “I don’t know.” “Well, I do.” “What for?” “Duh.” Megan rolled her blue-lidded eyes and turned toward —-1 the jukebox. “I don’t want to be the only one starting seventh —0 —+1

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grade who hasn’t been kissed.” She turned back toward Caro- line. “And I mean properly kissed, tongue and all.” Caroline must’ve made a face as though she had tasted some- thing awful, because Megan’s eyes opened wide and she said, “It’s not gross.” “If you say so.” “It’s not.” Megan looked back at the old jukebox. The outside world had moved on in terms of technology, but the lake and its community refused to succumb to any pressure to change. It was the sense of familiarity, of sameness, that Caroline found com- forting year after year. She wished she could say the same about her friend. They were both silent. The air between them felt awkward and strange. She didn’t want to think about the things Megan talked about, about kissing boys, but her mind jumped to Chris anyway. Her ankle tingled where his hand had touched her, the skin still warm. She bent down and swiped the feeling away, pre- tending she had an itch. She cleared her throat. She wanted to say something to make the queerness in her stomach and the weirdness between her and Megan go away. “Come on,” she said, and tugged Megan’s arm, thinking if she could get her to jump into the lake, the water would take care of everything else. For one, it would wash the paint off Megan’s face and she would look more like the Megan from summers past. Two, it would rinse away the heat from Chris’s hand on her skin— and what ever feeling that came with it, the one that squirmed in her stomach, would drown.

Caroline continued to pull Megan through the Pavilion and out -1— onto the beach. No one stopped them to check for swim passes. 0— No one cared. Caroline tossed her baseball cap, kicked off her +1—

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sneakers, and stripped from her shirt and shorts to the one-piece bathing suit she wore underneath. The sand was hot to the touch. The girls hurried past the chain- link fence with the sign swim at your own risk, and stepped onto the pier. Caroline looked around for anyone she might recognize, and spotted Adam. His family was one of the regulars who rented a cabin on the lakefront. He was a few years younger, at ten years old. His body was thin and birdlike. His summer buzz cut made his ears appear too big for his head. On either side of Adam were the Needlemeyer twins, Ted and Ned. They were one year younger than she and Megan, and as they walked toward them, she could’ve sworn she heard Megan call the boys babies under her breath. The twins ribbed Adam, bumping him in the shoulder. Adam shoved Ted back. “I’ll do it when I’m ready,” he said. “Do what?” Caroline asked. Behind Adam was the high dive, and beside it the low dive and the one most used. “We dared him to jump off the high dive and touch bottom, but he’s too scared. Chicken. Bwack, bwack, bwack.” Ted fl apped his arms. “Am not.” Adam shoved him again, which only coaxed Ted into fl apping his arms faster. “Let’s see you do it,” Megan said to Ted. “What? You don’t think I can?” Ted folded his arms, puffi ng up his chest. “I think you’re just as scared as Adam,” Megan said, and lay down on the pier, positioning her body under the sun’s rays. “I’m not scared,” Adam said. His face paled, and he looked as though he might cry. Caroline stepped in front of him to shield him from the others. She didn’t want Adam to cry, nor did she want them to see —-1 if he did. —0 —+1

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“Go on,” Ned said to his brother. “Let’s see you do it. I dare you.” Ted glared at his twin and then turned toward the ladder and started to climb. For as long as Caroline had known them, neither brother would ever back down from a dare. It was a brother thing, or maybe a twin thing, always trying to one up each other. Caroline watched Ted ascend. She had to shield her eyes from the sun when he reached the very top. “This is stupid,” she said. Ted walked to the end of the board. His brother called up to him, “Pencil jump.” He dropped his head as though he were hoping no one would suggest how he had to do it, but of course his brother did. “Fine,” he said, and hesitated, head bowed, staring at the water below. “Bwack, bwack, bwack.” Ned fl apped his arms. Ted wavered. Ned kept squawking, taunting him. Until he jumped. Caroline pulled in a sharp breath. At the last second Ted spread his arms wide to prevent a deep plunge. He hit the water with a slap. “Chicken!” Ned called when Ted surfaced. Then he turned to Adam and said, “Your turn.” Caroline looked at Adam, whose face was no longer pale, but more ash gray. “Don’t try,” she said to him. “It doesn’t mean you’re a chicken. It means you’re smart.” She climbed the ladder to the low dive, but everyone knew you could never touch bot- tom jumping off the low dive. The lake was just too deep. Still she said, “Watch this, Adam,” and pencil jumped clean into the water. At fi rst it was cool and refreshing, but the farther she sank, the temperature dropped to near freezing. And although she kept her eyes closed, the darkness of what lay below deepened. She -1— kicked her long legs wildly, her arms paddling at a frantic pace, 0— +1—

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and propelled to the surface, relieved when her head broke above water and her lungs breathed in air. “Doesn’t count,” Ned said when Caroline climbed the ladder and stepped back onto the pier. “You have to do it from the high dive.” Caroline made a face at him. Ned resumed fl apping his arms like a chicken. A little girl poked her head out from behind him. She was maybe six or seven years old, with blond braids and bright blue eyes. Her bathing suit was yellow with pink polka dots. She must be new to the lake. Caroline had never seen her before. “Hi,” Caroline said, pushing Ned out of the way. “Is this your fi rst summer here?” The little girl smiled and nodded. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Sara,” she said. “I’m Caroline.” She pointed to Megan, who hadn’t moved from sunning herself. “That’s my friend Megan. And the boys, well . . .” The boys had stopped teasing one another, and they jumped off the pier, splashing around in the lower end of the lake. “Don’t listen to them. They’re not very smart.” Sara’s eyes widened. “Why not?” “Because they’re not. They were just being stupid.” Sara twisted her mouth to one side as though she was con- sidering what Caroline was telling her. A woman wearing a wide-brimmed sunhat was standing on the beach waving her arms at them. Caroline waved back. “Is that your mom?” The little girl nodded. “I’ll just be a minute,” Sara’s mother called. “Okay,” Caroline called back. “What are they up to now?” Megan interrupted, pointing to —-1 —0 —+1

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Adam and the twins. Adam was holding something in his hand. The twins were hunched over him, looking at what ever he had found. Megan stood. “I’m going to fi nd out what it is.” Caroline hesitated, wanting to follow her. But Sara’s mother had turned her back, and Caroline couldn’t just walk away from the little girl. “So,” Caroline said, looking over her shoulder at her friends. The circle they made around Adam tightened while she tried to think of something to say to Sara. “Do you like to swim?” Sara smiled and nodded again. “Me too.” Caroline looked toward the beach, where Sara’s mother was struggling with a beach umbrella. “Did you feed the ducks yet?” “No,” Sara said. Caroline used to love feeding the ducks when she was Sara’s age, although she couldn’t remember the reason why she had thought it was so fun. “Ask your mom if you can feed them.” She glanced at her friends again. The twins were holding what ever Adam had found, and Adam looked upset. “The ducks like it when you do,” she said absently, wondering what the twins were teas- ing Adam about this time. Megan motioned to Caroline. “Come here!” she called. But Sara’s mother still had her back turned as she continued to fi ght with the beach umbrella. Caroline glanced at her friends again. Adam’s face was fl ushed. “Did you ever touch bottom?” Sara asked. “What? No,” Caroline said. “Never.” Megan continued waving her over. Caroline shifted her weight from her right foot to her left, gazing at her friends. Sara stared -1— at the diving boards. 0— Finally Caroline couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know +1—

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what her friends were up to. Sara’s mother had said she would only be a minute. She reasoned Sara wouldn’t be left alone for long. She bent down so she was at eye level with the little girl. “Wait for your mom, okay?” Sara nodded. “Okay,” she said, and in the next moment she was racing down the pier. “And remember,” she called, “the boys were just being stupid!”

—-1 —0 —+1

0053-60551_ch01_1P.indd53-60551_ch01_1P.indd 1313 112/13/142/13/14 7:107:10 amam on-sale 7/21/15

A debut novel following the fortunes of the happy-on-the-surface Morris family as it slowly comes apart after making a move from New York City to an affluent suburb Lainie Smith Morris is perfectly content with her life in New York City: she has four children, a handsome surgeon husband, and good friends. This life she has built is shattered, however, when her husband Charles announces he has accepted a job in Elliot, New Jersey, and that the family must relocate. Lainie is forced to give up the things she knows and loves.

Though Charles easily adapts to the intricacies of suburban life, even thriving in it, Lainie finds herself increasingly troubled and bored by her new limited responsibilities, and she remains desperate for the inspiration, comfort, and safety of the city she called home. She is hopelessly lost—until, serendipitously, she reconnects with an old friend/rival turned current Elliot resident, Jess. Pleased to demonstrate her social superiority to Lainie, Jess helps her find a footing, even encouraging Lainie to develop as an artist; but what looks like friendship is quickly supplanted by a betrayal with earth-shattering impact, and a move to the suburbs becomes a metaphor for a woman who must search to find a new home ground in the shifting winds of marriage, family, career, and friendship.

Between the Tides is an engrossing, commanding debut from tremendous new talent Susannah Marren..

SUSANNAH MARREN is originally from Long Beach Island, New Jersey. She currently lives in Manhattan with her family and still spends her summers on the Jersey Shore. Between the Tides is her first novel. for we were born by the sea, knew its rose hedges to the very water’s brink. — WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower

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—-1 —0 —+1

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M

he selkies are sea creatures, half woman, half seal. They wiggle out of their seal skins on the rocks to lie in the weak T winter sun. One fi sherman watched with his binoculars from his fi shing boat and waited.” “He loved the prettiest one!” Claire interrupts. “That’s right, darling girl,” I say. Jack sticks out his tongue. “Who cares about some stupid sealy lady?” he shouts. I stop the story. “Jack, please sit down.” Jack returns to the couch beside Tom, his big brother, who is on his iPad. Jack yawns and props his eyes open wide with his fi ngers. “Boring, Mom!” “More! More!” Claire screams. She jumps off the chair and starts dancing around the den, waving her hands like fl ippers in her crazy water dance on land. “More!” she screeches. Matilde, my solemn child, interrupts, “Mom, are you a selkie?” I laugh and look out the den window that faces west. It is too dark —-1 to see anything. “No, darling girl, I’m not a selkie.” —0 —+1

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“But you love the water and you swim every day. When we go to Cape May you lie on the jetties just like the selkies. You never answer us when you’re on the beach . . . it’s like you’re not even there. . . . Remember last February when—” “Matilde, I am not a selkie.” “Mommy,” Claire cries, “the sealy skin! The fi sherman! Finish the story.” Perhaps Charles is right and I ought to quit this tale. It isn’t Cin- derella or Snow White; there is no prince with whom to live happily ever after. “Mom?” Matilde is waiting. “Okay . . . well . . . the beach is empty in December when the fi sh- erman sees his chance. He sneaks up near the rocks and comes close to the prettiest selkie.” “He takes her skin, Mommy! The man takes her seal skin!” Claire begins to sob as she always does at this part in the story. “That’s true, Claire darling. The man takes her seal skin while she is in the icy sea. When she comes back to the shoreline, frantic to fi nd her sealy coat, he is holding it in his hands. He tells her she has no choice but to go with him, without her coat she will drown. But he promises to love her forever, that they will marry and have a family. That’s the deal.” The “forever” part gets to me. “And she marries him!” yelps Claire. She begins to dance again. “She marries him and they have babies!” Claire is the cheerful one; she bounces from one side of the room to the other. She passes Tom and Jack, who watch her as if she were an alien creature. I wonder if Jack and Claire will ever share a thought, an interest. Fraternal twins are not a matched pair. “Until one day . . .” I look up. “Jack, are you listening?” Jack covers his ears. “I don’t care about seals and babies. It’s gross!” “A dull story for the boys,” says Charles. He is in the doorway, ap- pearing out of nowhere, as usual. He is so stealthy, Charles, more -1— burglar than surgeon. 0— +1—

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The children race to him and grab at his arms and hands, his legs, anything that is their father. Except Matilde, who stays close to me. “Lainie, how about another story? Something more realistic? You could read to them from Tom Sawyer.” Matilde leans in toward my ear. “I know why you like the story. I know you’re a selkie. I saw your sealy skin.” Everyone is waiting. “What sealy skin? What are you talking about, Matilde?” “In the hall closet, hanging in a zippered bag. A black, thick coat,” she answers. “Hairy.” “Oh, that. That’s from my grandmother. You’re right, it is made of seal, a long-dead seal. I wouldn’t wear it. I don’t have the guts to ditch it. I guess I’m sentimental.” No one else speaks. Claire is frozen in mid- dance. Matilde says, “The sealy needs her coat to go back to the sea. She has a land family now but she misses the sea.” “That’s right. That’s how it works,” I whisper. “The days become fl at for her, days without any sun.” “Until she fi nds the coat!” says Claire, twirling around in circles. Charles enters the room now, fully present, taking up the oxygen. His loafers make a clicking sound on the wood fl oor. “Forget the sealy coat,” he says. He is tall and strong, buff. He lifts weights, runs through Morn- ingside Park in rain or shine. Sometimes he wakes me predawn and invites me to run with him. “C’mon, Lainie,” he’ll say, “shake up your schedule and run this morning. Forget the pool every day.” “Okay, Charles, soon.” Although I don’t mean it. I walk the reservoir, around the track slowly, only to be by a body of water. I want water, any kind, like a vampire wants blood. Matilde is the one in the family who understands. She is only twelve but she realizes that if I didn’t paint pictures of water, I wouldn’t exist. If we didn’t live by the Hudson River or go to the ocean every summer, to my hometown, I’d wither and die. Charles sits down in “his” green leather chair next to the fi replace —-1 —0 —+1

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and faces my largest and best-known work of art, Trespassing: Drift- wood. The six-by- eight- foot painting has overwhelmed the living room these years, making me proud, sad, regretful, and attached to Charles. His eyes are on the piece as he speaks. “I have big news. Might as well talk now, while we’re together.” I tilt my head and Matilde sits next to me on the couch. “Claire,” I say, “come here.” Claire pushes between us and I put my lips to her damp and clammy forehead. “Tom?” says Charles. “Can you settle down with Jack?” Jack slides out of Tom’s reach and runs to Charles’s lap, clapping and yowling. Charles gives me one of his “Can’t you control these children?” looks while he tousles Jack’s hair and hugs him. Who can blame Charles for choosing order; he is a famous surgeon, skilled, pop u lar, a pe- rennial Best of the Best in New York magazine. When he dons his scrubs, patients and nurses swoon. He is booked years in advance. Dr. Morris, Dr. Morris, Dr. Charles Morris. At home with his children, he softens—he only place and only time that he is soft. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” says Charles. “A big surprise.” “You know how I hate surprises, Charles,” I say. “Finish the sealy coat story,” Claire says. “Mommy, please?” Charles glances at Claire and then turns to me. “Lainie, you must stop with these stories before—” “What is the surprise, Dad?” Tom asks. “Before what?” Am I missing something here? “Surprise! Surprise!” Jack jumps up from Charles’s lap. They have the exact same eyes, neither the color of water nor the color of the sky. Instead, they are dark blue, the color of dusk. “Hush,” says Charles, and I become very still to set an example. I put my fi ngers to my lips and stare at each of my four children. The only sound is of Candy out in the kitchen, opening cupboards to start the children’s dinner. “What is the surprise, Dad?” Tom asks again. “Well, I wonder if you see anything different about me?” His voice -1— becomes light and self-satisfi ed at the same moment that my heart 0— starts to race. +1—

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“You have on blue!” Jack shouts. “A blue jacket, Daddy!” Charles is wearing a navy blazer, and he usually wears a suit to work. A darkish one or grayish or striped, the same as the other sur- geons. “Yes, Jack, I’m in a blue sport coat.” “You’re home early, a half hour earlier,” Tom says. I nudge Matilde and then Claire but neither attempts to guess what is different. Charles keeps it going. “What else? What is different about me today?” I close my eyes and wrap my arms around myself as if a wind is coming through. “I don’t understand,” I say. “What are you telling us?” “Lainie, you and the children are looking at the new head of or- thopedic surgery at the Elliot Memorial Hospital. The chief of the goddamn department!” I don’t think I’ve ever seen Charles so euphoric, his bottom teeth show when he smiles. The children and I stare at him. “Elliot Memorial in Elliot, New Jersey? How will you commute with your schedule?” I ask. “You get to the hospital now by six in the morn- ing most days and it’s twenty blocks from our apartment.” “Well”—Charles clears his throat—“that’s the other part of the surprise. Remember a while back when we were in Rye to look at houses and then went to Playland? How Jack loved the Ferris wheel? Then we went to New Jersey and went to a McDonalds drive-through?” I stare at my work and admire how it is illuminated by the chang- ing hours of the day and the slant of light through the windows, es- pecially at twilight. “That was more than a year ago, Charles, and we nixed it. We nixed the entire idea of moving out of the city,” I say. It was a troubling time when Charles had a yen to look at houses. Those car trips were revolting and slow. Claire was always carsick. Matilde was sullen because she was missing whole Saturdays with her friends, with whom she was no doubt sneaking cigarettes and —-1 having makeout parties at a terrifyingly early age. Charles and I would —0 —+1

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speak in the front seat, assuming that the children couldn’t hear, eval- uating each town and community, the pros and cons of life beyond the city. Charles’s many laments about New York cluttered my head. “Let’s not move,” I told Charles after Jack fell in love with a tree house in some unknown suburb. “I have a feeling it isn’t right for our family.” “Tree house! Tree house!” Jack screamed on the ride home. “Climb the tree house.” Charles let go, one of the only skirmishes he’s ever lost in his life- time of wins. “No tree house, Jack. I’ll build you a tree house some- day, don’t worry.” That was the last discussion about it until today when Charles was offered this plum job. What better ticket out of Manhattan than that? Who would dispute such an imprimatur for my husband? “Actually, we should be moving to Elliot. To Somerset County, New Jersey, Lainie. How else can I manage?” Charles asks. Tom, taking his cue from his father, grabs Jack’s arms and they swing around the room. Is Tom serious, is he okay with leaving everyone behind in New York for his father’s new position? Doesn’t he view his father as famous enough already? Then again, Tom has wanted what his father wants since the day he was born. I’m sure that Charles wishes that the rest of us would be as pleased as he and Tom are. Yet we’re not. Suddenly my toehold in the down- town art scene, albeit a tenuous one, is in jeopardy. My chances of reclaiming the spot everyone thought I was destined to occupy could be obliterated by a move to a suburban nirvana. “Lainie, you’ll love it. A place with woods, sprawling grounds, acres . . . You say that you want to spend more time in nature.” “Woods? Grounds? Is there any water in Elliot? Anything like Coney Island or the Rockaways, where I go to paint?” I walk to the window and stare fourteen fl oors below to the Hudson River. Has he ever understood that I require water twenty- four hours a day? It matters little since my husband has decided for -1— us anyway. 0— The boys are celebrating because they believe that Charles is able +1—

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do anything. Claire comes to where I stand and reaches for my hand. Hers is sticky and I wonder if someone gave her ice cream. Not Candy, who is under strict orders not to give the children treats before dinner. Matilde? Probably. She has a tendency to please Claire. “How did this happen, Charles? How could you get a job without my knowing that you were looking for one?” I ask. “Serendipitous, I suppose. I was at that faculty dinner, the one at the UN dining room that you decided not to attend. Gerard mentioned the opening to me and one thing led to another . . .” “And you interviewed without saying a word to me?” “I didn’t expect it to go anywhere.” Charles clears his throat. “You know that I could never be head of surgery here, Lainie.” Charles, who has a new job and gets to displace his entire family in the pro cess. “Lainie?” I’m silent, a statue. The children watch their father. “Lainie?” “I’ll be fi ne.” My voice is crushed and strange. Matilde’s gaze is far-off—as if she’s pretending that we’ve all met tonight for the fi rst time. “Of course you will be fi ne,” Charles says. “What a move for our family! This is what people aspire to, Lainie. More space, a more gentle life. The Elliot hospital is challenging . . . fresh . . . exciting. The city has become . . . tougher and we need a bigger place. The children will have a fi nished basement to run around, to play ping- pong. Lainie, you’ll have a real studio. No more painting in the al- cove or the laundry room. . . .” One man’s poison, another man’s cure. Then the reality of the situation hits Tom. “What about school? Where will we go?” “New schools for everyone,” says Charles. “Claire and Jack will begin kindergarten in a public school. A very fi ne public school. The school system in Elliot is stellar. The college entrance rate out of high school runs at ninety- seven percent.” Matilde shudders at what’s next. She and Tom will be going to a —-1 public school too—Tom for ninth grade and Matilde for seventh. Still —0 —+1

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her brothers are cheering and their father is the winner. On our side it’s misery and fear. Matilde’s rising panic is palpable. She goes everywhere in the city with her posse of friends— I’m sure that I don’t know the half of it. She’s never been the “new girl,” but she knows what happens to them. Meanwhile Charles and Tom seem to be trading thoughts in air- waves. What are they imagining, that I’ll become a suburban mother cloaked in khakis from J. Crew, carpooling like my cousin Agnes does in Fairfi eld County? For Tom, the fantasy of the right mother is fast approaching. “Your mother is on board, aren’t you, Lainie?” Charles asks. “You’re on board, aren’t you, Matilde?” On board. Claire walks over to Tom and tugs on his shirt. “Piggyback?” “Not now, Claire.” Tom moves beside Charles. “Would anyone like to know something about the town or how far it is from the city?” Charles asks. No one answers. He stares in my direction. “Any curiosity about where we’re going?” Tom says, “Sure, Dad, tell us.” Would anyone want to know that it’s all hills and valleys? Would any- one want to know it’s landlocked— another world completely? “Well, it’s about an hour outside the city, in Somerset County. Right next to Bedminster, New Jersey. Horse country. Very horsey.” Horsey? Charles couldn’t possibly be thinking of getting one, could he? None of us seems to understand what he’s saying. He is talking about over an hour of travel to get to the places I love: the Seventy- ninth Street Boat Basin along the Hudson, the promenade at Carl Schurz Park that fl anks the East River. Places where I sit and paint or meditate on the composition of a new work, a place where one might hallucinate waves out of small ripples. “It’s not the sea or the bay,” I say to the girls every time we visit a New York waterway, “but at least it’s better than no water. On a boat you can buck the current -1— and that’s an adventure.” Now there will be horses instead of boats, 0— woods instead of rivers. I shake my head. +1—

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“Did you hear what I said, Lainie?” “I heard. Why horse country?” “There’s nothing more lovely,” Charles says, as if we’re discuss- ing the Impressionist wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The rolling hills, the privacy. Maybe you’ll want to take riding lessons, Lainie, with the girls.” I twist off my wedding band and twirl it on the end table. The in- scription reads Love Is Eternal, not that Charles thought it up. It’s what Abe Lincoln had written in Mary Todd’s ring. I’ve often thought that the jeweler must have suggested it to Charles along with a few other ideas. “The commute to New York is fairly painless,” Charles continues. “As long as you get yourself to the Summit train station, the trains run often enough. Plenty of express trains.” “How far is Elliot from Summit?” I start pacing. Charles waves his hand and doesn’t answer. Claire starts more water dancing. Matilde puts her hands on her shoulders. “Claire, stop, please, Mom and Dad are talking.” Matilde smiles at Charles. I imagine that she doesn’t want to take sides. Charles is a cool dad, a fi ne father. He picks her up later at her friends’ apartments than I would like. He stays and chats with the parents on a casual Sunday afternoon while I’m always rushing home to get back to work. Charles allows Matilde and Tom to skip Sunday school, claiming they have too much homework to be pressured. He is the handsomest father and he’s never too tired to take the children wherever they need to go on a weekend. He takes them to musicals, to the Hayden Planetarium, to ride bikes in Central Park. Matilde loves to walk on Upper Broadway with him, stopping at Starbucks. “When do we move, Dad?” Matilde asks. “That’s a very good question, Matilde. A logical question.” Matilde shoots Tom a triumphant glance. “We’ll move sometime during the summer,” says Charles. “So you’ll have a little time there before school starts to get to know the place and meet some kids.” —-1 “Charles,” I say as calmly as I can, “what about the shore?” —0 —+1

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“We’ll have to skip it this year, Lainie. Everything is changing. For the better.” “Charles, we always go to the shore for the summer, that’s the deal. That’s always been the deal.” My voice is hard, crisp. I’m counting on the jetties, the strong sun of summer, the smell of seaweed, the clam beds, surf fi shing. Swimming. My husband stands up and Tom and Jack do the same. They are directly in front of my work, and although it is enormous, they are ruining a view of the lower frame made of seashells and sea glass, turtle backs and debris. “Well, maybe we could rent the house out for a month. I’m think- ing aloud. . . . Maybe put that money toward the house in Elliot that we’ll rent fi rst . . . while we shop for houses. . . . Getting some income from the shore house would be useful.” “Useful,” I repeat. I walk over to the couch to sit between Matilde and Claire. The three of us melt into it, our human skin branding to the fabric. “I’m tired, Mom,” says Matilde. “Like a grandmother must feel.” “I know,” I say. “Mommy, what happens to the prettiest selkie?” asks Claire. “Where does she go?” Charles is at the doorway and the boys are beside him. Candy is outside holding up a wooden spoon and the lid to a pot. “Do I need to bang?” she asks. “Dinnertime for the little ones!” Charles looks at his watch. “Dinner, Lainie?” “Yes, we have an eight- thirty. With Jane and Robert.” “Don’t go.” Claire grabs my arm. “Mommy, please don’t go. You have to fi nish the story. Where is the prettiest one, the selkie mother?” Charles turns to us and then he leaves without another word, moving down the wooden hallway with his methodical step. “Ah, the prettiest one.” I straighten up. “Hey, Mom? Do you think you’ll have to wear nail polish once we move to this place?” -1— “I’m sorry, Matilde?” I examine my short fi ngernails with their 0— residue of charcoal. +1—

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“You know, be like the other mothers. Dad said he’s going to have a big job.” “Mommy!” Claire shouts. “The selkie mother?” “She has children and she loves them very much, Claire. For years she tends to them and is a good mother and a good wife. There are days when she almost forgets her sealy skin and she seems resolved to life on land. Other days she visits the rocks and remembers her selkie roots: a distant memory for her until one morning there is a rainstorm and the ceiling starts leaking. The mother climbs up to the raf ters to plug the leak and she fi nds her sealy skin that her hus- band has hidden away. She cries over her old coat that has stiffened and is withered and dry. Her sad salt tears moisten the coat so it looks more like a seal coat.” I stop speaking and the room gets cold. “Then what?” asks Claire. “Mommy, what?” “Later, Claire,” Matilde says. “Claire. C’mon, Candy has dinner on the table and the boys will eat up the good stuff. Mommy and Daddy are going out with friends. Mommy has to get ready.” “The prettiest one jumps into the ocean!” says Claire. “I know she does, Mommy. I know already! But she has to come back, right, Mommy, back to her children!” Matilde scoops Claire into her arms. Claire is struggling, pound- ing on Matilde’s shoulders. Matilde looks at me and I give in. “She does come back, my darling girl.” Claire cries anyway; her face is blotchy. Then Matilde cries and so do I. M

“No, Charles, not to night.” I am as far away from him as possible in our queen-size bed, not far enough to keep me from his ever-magnetic pull. Lying in bed with Charles is a reminder of our shared history and the private currency we trade in. Before children, before the idea of children. Those days we used to trek along the coast, those nights —-1 we read Yeats, mostly “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and the —0 —+1

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Maud Gonne poems to each other. Sometimes there were no stars in the sky and only a silver moon. He pledged to be my friend, my best friend. Charles, who once kept me safe. He sits up, switches on the light, and looks at me. I look away. He takes my head in his elegant surgeon’s hands, runs his fi ngers down my jawline, and turns me to face him. He leans down and kisses me. “Lainie. Lainie. We’re not moving to Minnesota. We’re moving an hour out of the city.” If only what Charles said could infl uence me. “I don’t want to leave New York,” I say. “You might change your mind,” Charles says. “I don’t want to leave my life.” “What life? What will you be giving up? You can have anything you want. You can have everything you want, Lainie.” He starts kiss- ing my earlobe, a preliminary move. “Why is that?” I ask. “You would have your very own studio. A large studio.” A smart bait for me, his fi rst method of conviction. I’ve worked at my dress- ing table or in a corner of the living room ever since we converted my studio into Tom’s bedroom two years ago. “You’ll make new friends. There’s an Arts Council right in town to join, get to know some other artists. Elliot is where people go when they are successful, Lainie. You’ll be getting a new life, a greener life, isn’t that what we strive for?” I grew up on the Jersey shore and know nothing of a backyard— who needs a backyard when your front yard is the beach, the ocean, infi nity? A place I stay in the summer with the children while Charles comes and goes, bobbing on his own raft and never a swimmer. If Charles is not enamored with the seaside, he appreciates Cape May enough for our family to go every summer. There I spend hours painting by the jetties, facing the open sky. Along the coastline I’m in search of scraps of beach life. Each day I swim wherever and however I can. If it’s the ocean I do the Austra- lian crawl beyond the lifeguards’ buoys and fi ght the undertow; in -1— the bay I swim on my back and the minnows beneath tickle me. In a 0— +1—

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pool I take over the fast lane. I smash through, doing a butterfl y, while dreaming of bodies of water, the ones you cannot claim as your own. Charles is neither a New Yorker nor an island child and has been a bystander since he arrived in the city. That’s what comes of grow- ing up in Utica, on his grandfather’s dairy farm. He has some twisted form of Heidi inside him. He drinks whole milk with abandon, not fat free, eats Swiss cheese, and believes in a simple life that he isn’t able to defi ne. He was going to be a veterinarian until he realized the only way to be a luminary in medicine was to be a surgeon. Cut- ting humans, not animals. While Charles hungers for farm life, to this day I long to jump out of bed and race along the ocean. I want noth- ing more than to dive in and swim until I forget about places enclosed by land and privilege. His eyes bore into mine. He begins his mantra, one I have heard for what seems years but with a new spin. “Lainie, we have our chance. The city isn’t an ideal place to raise kids, you know that. Remember the pervert on West End Avenue when you were with the twins? Wasn’t there that child stalker by Gracie Mansion? Tom has been mugged twice. Matilde sees a rat family right on Broadway and Ninety- fi rst Street almost daily. The children need fresh air, room, nature, pets— a real life. New York isn’t real. I have been asked to chair a department.” I listen to his persuasion, knowing that when Charles speaks to an audience, most heads in the room nod in approval at his words, what ever they are. I’ve been in the marriage for too many years; I have radar for false promises, I’m not part of his constituency. Be- sides, what is he talking about and how does he know where the other artists will be? He tugs at my camisole and pushes my boxer shorts to the fl oor. He starts stroking my breast. I open my eyes and his face is pre- cariously close to mine. I can’t recognize his bone structure in the shadows and I’m confused for a brief second. Has Charles’s affec- tion not seen me through the ups and downs of our marriage? Being close to Charles is a sensation that I crave, a method of outlasting —-1 —0 —+1

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the lost hours, the frictions over money, children, his work, my work, in the same order. I settle in. Sex has always worked between us. I surrender to his caress partly because I’m hooked on the sex, partly because I won’t win this one. I want to be like other wives, where the passion fades fi rst, not last. His voice has that raspiness that I know too well in sleep or in the waking hours. “You are beautiful,” he says. The moonlight is low through the largest window to the right of our bed, facing west. Charles doesn’t appear to be in husband mode. He climbs on top of me and I place my hands on his neck and then on his biceps. I move toward him, hoping he means it about being beautiful since yesterday he remarked that I was tired and wan. My body yields to what was; I sell out in the midst of Charles’s master plan. I bend into him as best I know how. After Charles falls asleep and exhales a rhythmic, satisfi ed breath of a paramour, I have a sense that I’m on a sailboat that is rocked by the winds that blow in an unpredictable direction. I close my eyes and fl oat on my back against the tide. I decide it’s okay to put our apartment on the market, a home that we both love, despite his complaints. Charles wins as if I have no free will. Or too much free will. I hand over the only existence I know, remembering a lesson of my grandmother’s is that the future is pre- ordained. Nothing is coincidence, each of us experiences many lives.

-1— 0— +1—

053-60237_ch01_1P.indd 16 10/31/14 5:13 PM on-sale 8/11/15

An astonishing literary debut about a young man who, in the search for clues into the disappear- ance of his mother twelve years earlier, discovers himself in the process.

When Walter Stahl was five-years-old, his mother drove away in the family’s blue Volvo and never came back. Now seventeen, living in the dregs of Las Vegas, taking care of his ailing father and marking time in a dead-end job along the Strip, Walter’s life so far has been defined by her absence. He doesn’t remember what she looks like; he’s never so much as seen a photograph but, still, he looks for her among the groups of tourists he runs into every day, allowing himself the dim hope that she might still be out there, somewhere.

But when Walter meets Chrysto and Acacia, a brother and sister working as living statues at the Venetian Hotel, his world cracks wide open. With them he discovers a Las Vegas he never knew existed and, as feelings for Chrysto develop, a side of himself he never knew he had. At the same time, clues behind his mother’s disappearance finally start to reveal themselves, and Walter is confronted with not only the truth about himself, but also that of his family history.

Threading through this coming-of-age story are beautiful, heart-wrenching graphic illustration, which reveal the journey of Walter’s mother Emily: how she left everything to chase a vision of Liberace across the country; and how Walter’s father Owen went searching for her amongst the gondolas of the Venetian Hotel.

In Still Life Las Vegas, the magical collides with the mundane; memory, sexual awakening and familial ties all lead to a place where everything is illuminated, and nothing is real. JAMES SIE was born and raised in Summit, NJ., the son of immigrant parents, a Chinese father and an Italian mother. After attending Northwestern University, he lived in Chicago for many years, working as an actor and an award-winning playwright of literary adaptations. Currently, he lives in Los Angeles with his husband and son, where he works as a voiceover artist in animation, most notably in Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness; King of the Hill and Jackie Chan Adventures. Still Life Las Vegas is his debut novel, featuring graphic illustrations by Sungyoon Choi. -1— 0— +1—

0053-61066_ch00_1P.indd53-61066_ch00_1P.indd vivi 002/13/152/13/15 9:509:50 pmpm PREFACE

It always starts with a blue Volvo, driving away. No, that’s not right. It starts with graphite poised above a new white page. Or f ngers crouched over a keyboard. And then, a memory. One that of en involves a blue Volvo, driving away. T e memories are not always mine. T ey come from varied sources, but over time, I’ve claimed them as my own. I have so many of these beginnings: bits and pieces of the past transcribed over the years, squirreled away in un- lined notebooks, virtual folders, and, of course, lining the twisted corridors of my most unreliable brain. Time to lay them out, end to end, and see what manner of creature is being conjured to life. About the Volvo. Did she hesitate behind the wheel$ key in the ignition, hand on the key, ready to turn over the engine$L o c k -A c c -O n -S t a r t $a n d split her life from the early- morning quiet of the known world into the inevi- table roar that followed? I don’t know. Yet. But I’ve got a new cup of quarters by my side, as they say, and I’m ready to start feeding. Away to Las Vegas we go. —-1 —0 —+1

0053-61066_ch01_1P.indd53-61066_ch01_1P.indd 1 002/13/152/13/15 9:539:53 pmpm —-1 —0 —+1

0053-61066_ch01_1P.indd53-61066_ch01_1P.indd 3 002/13/152/13/15 9:539:53 pmpm EMILY WISCONSIN EARLIER

She drove the blue Volvo station wagon away from Vee’s house with a sober determination, like it was a lame horse she was leading out of the barn. She was going to drive both the car and herself over the nearest clif , or, rather, it being Wisconsin, the nearest steep embankment. But sailing south along I-94, in the early morning before rush hour, she found she couldn’t let go of the Volvo and she couldn’t let go of the road, and the highway racing before her seemed to of er a faster route to oblivion than sailing of into some moderately inclined culvert. All might still be lost, in time. T ere were other opportunities up ahead to smash into and through some guardrail on her journey. Colorado, now there were some clif s worth driving over. But she needed speed, more speed, and the ballast in the car was too heavy to let her f y down the highway, no matter what the speedom- eter was registering. So she twisted her upper body like a contortionist and managed to snake her right arm around and under the baby car seat behind her in order to unshackle it from the upholstery, and with a desperate, sudden yank which would cause her a good deal of shoulder pain later that night, she managed to hoist the seat over the gear shif —-1 —0 —+1

0053-61066_ch01_1P.indd53-61066_ch01_1P.indd 5 002/13/152/13/15 9:539:53 pmpm [6] JAMES SIE

and partly into her lap. Moments later it was pushed clumsily (under- standable at ninety-f ve miles an hour), out the passenger- side win dow. It bounced twice along the highway like a skipping stone before skid- ding to rest on the side of the road. T ree minutes later the second car seat, toddler- size, followed. (T e two abandoned car seats were accounted for later that day; the second one landed in the middle of a lane, causing the rush- hour traf c delay that Owen heard on the clock radio as he was trying to will himself awake; the other was discovered and identif ed by Vee in her car, just outside Racine. Neither was saved.) And for a time af er, Emily did feel lighter, her mind clear, even excited, and her breathing deepened for the f rst time in almost f ve weeks. T is continued until just past Madison. Approaching the slowdown that was inbound Chicago traf c, she began noticing through her rearview mirror the imprints of the baby seats in the upholstery. Also, a small teething ring, a scattering of Cheerios, and a grimy diaper rag. T e backseat, the entire backseat, was gone by the time she hit Iowa.

-1— 0— +1—

0053-61066_ch01_1P.indd53-61066_ch01_1P.indd 6 002/13/152/13/15 9:539:53 pmpm WALTER VIVA LAS VEGAS! LATER

T ose who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. T at’s what they say, but I’m not so sure. I’ve learned my history, and I go on repeating it. I repeat it, on average, eight times a day, f ve days a week. Time of for lunch. It’s not my own history. I’m a minion of Viva Las Vegas!) the historical- museum- slash- tourist- trap now in its twelf h shabby year on Fremont Street. I made the mistake of f nishing my high school course- work a full seven months before the end of the year; I was in such a hurry to eject myself from that par tic u lar hell that I forgot there was nowhere for me to go once I got out. So now I’m waiting out my time before graduation here in my own little neon Purgatory. Not Hell, but close. Hell with a waxwork Elvis Presley. Viva Las Vegas! is also Purgatory for most of the people who throw down their ten bucks to the King and enter, a good place to do penance until the hangover clears and they’re ready for the slots. It’s dark, quiet by Vegas standards. I think that’s why this place has hung on as long as it has: it’s hopelessly outdated, so lacking in any kind of glamour or excite- ment or even decent lighting that it feels innocent. It’s so tacky it’s —-1 virginal. —0 —+1

0053-61066_ch01_1P.indd53-61066_ch01_1P.indd 7 002/13/152/13/15 9:539:53 pmpm [8] JAMES SIE

I’ve got the f rst shif of the day, and I’m late. T e red digital readout in the lobby has been displaying tour in 1 minute3 for about ten. I throw on my dreaded red vest, a striped polyester number that f aps around my skinny body like wings. T ere also used to be these tiny striped straw hats we had to wear that made me look like a giant anorexic Disney pen- guin, but luckily the tops of those have, mysteriously and si mul taneously, all been punched out. Yrma behind the ticket desk has corralled the f rst group. She sighs heavily when she sees me coming through the curtains and shif s her weight to the other side of the desk, where she can punch a button that changes the readout above her. T e slack- jawed Yrma (pronounced EAR-ma) has the coloring and consistency of burnt caramel pudding, and she moves at the pace a burnt caramel pudding might move, were it mobile. T e digital readout changes from tour in 1 minute3 to tour starting now333) the red words blinking urgently, doing their best to justify the two additional exclamation points. Usual crowd. T ree se niors, a mom with a stroller looking to beat the heat, f ve Korean tourists and a teenage couple) locals who, thank the gods, I don’t recognize from school. T ey’re wearing faded T’s and torn jeans, and their arms hang limply over each other like they’ve both just been saved from drowning. T e guy smirks at me. His eyes are dark and hard. T e girl just pouts and nuzzles into Smirky Boy’s collar bone. I take my position by the turnstile. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Viva Las Vegas. Right this way.” We’re supposed to draw out the “Vee” part of “Viva” so that it builds an excitement) “Veeeeva Las Vegas!”) and punctuate that with a big sweep of the arm up into the air. I can’t bring myself to do it. None of the tour guides can, except for Kenny, who’s new and operates at three exclamation points at all times. His rousing tours are known to cause fainting, mass suicides, and bleeding from the eyes. He’ll be assistant manager in no time. “Watch your step, please.” T e guests f le past me into the f rst room, led by the three se niors, who are from Texas, I’m guessing. T eir matching -1— pastel i love texas T- shirts kind of give it away. T e f ve Koreans turn 0— out to be two couples together and one Asian woman by herself, who’s +1—

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got the kind of hair that’s constantly f apping over the front of her face, and dark glasses. She stares down at the f oor and looks away from me as she pushes through the metal bar. Could be thirty, could be sixty. Could be the right age. Could be . . . I get that old, ref exive urge to stare her down, cata log her face, but I brush it away. Childish habit, like biting your nails or wetting the bed. “Nice vest,” Smirky Boy cracks as he saunters through. What ever. I’m not the one wasting twenty bucks. Just wait. He who smirks last, and all. Once they’ve clicked past the turnstile it’s the point of no return. Anyone who has bought a ticket because of Elvis beckoning in the win dow or the sound track of him singing “Viva Las Vegas” in the lobby is going to be sadly disappointed. Elvis is not part of this tour. Elvis would rather have puked up fried peanut- butter- and- banana sandwiches than be part of this sad, sad pilgrimage. I’m part shepherd, part guide, leading my sheep to each display and making sure no one strays from the path. T e f rst diorama starts us of in 1829. A mannequin with dark hair and a conquistador helmet stands, one hand resting on a plastic palm tree, the other shielding his eyes from the baby spotlight shining directly on his face. T ere’s a dusty rubber snake hissing at his feet. Sand all around. Here I go. “On Christ- mas Day 1829, Rafael Rivera set foot on an oasis in what would be known as the Las Vegas Valley. He was a part of a party led by Antonio Armijo, looking for their way to Los Angeles. ‘Las Vegas’ means ‘the Meadow’ in Spanish. . . .” Rafael’s supposed to be scanning the horizon of this brave new world. T is is the extent of his movement: his head turns thirty degrees to the lef . His head turns thirty degrees to the right. His hand doesn’t even move with his forehead, it just stays frozen in a permanent salute position. But the sheep are still into him. Lots of murmuring, lots of “oh!”s and head nods. Cameras click away at Rafael, at the sand and the tree. Every- one’s carried away by the emptiness because of the promise it holds. T ey can’t wait to see the magic that turns all this sand into casinos. —-1 Everyone except for the teenagers, who hang in the shadows and snicker —0 —+1

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to each other, and the Asian woman with the sunglasses, who’s not look- ing at Rafael either. What’s she here for? Next room: Mormonville. “In 1855, Mormons began settling in the area to protect the mail route from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. T e fort you see in front of you is a replica of one made by the Mormons out of clay- and- grass bricks known as adobe. . . .” Mormonville gets a few dull head nods. T e Railroad Town display gets less. T e sheep are getting tired of all this dirt and dust. Where’s the vice? they won der. Mormon life is not what you’d call electrifying. Or maybe it’s my pre sen ta tion. I’ll bet Kenny whips them into a frenzy. Adobe forts!!! Lead mining!!! Still no questions, except one. As we pass out of 1905 into the next room, one of the women in the Korean foursome hurries up to me. “Excuse me,” she whispers, already smiling in apology, “ehm, would you mind, to tell me please, are you, ehm, Filipino? Japa nese?” T is is not an uncommon question. Asians can’t f gure me out, and it drives them nuts. I’m like Asian, but stretched tall. Long body, small features. Curly dark hair. Like one of those long- necked aliens, with a wig. I get Mongolian a lot, or Siberian; once I got albino Samoan. T at was creative. Sometimes, if they’re rude, I’ll tell them I’m Swedish, just to watch their heads explode. “Viet nam ese,” I tell her, because she’s decent. “Half Viet nam ese.” “T ank you!” the woman gasps, like I’ve handed her a pre sent. She scurries back to the group and sets of a f urry of Korean whispers. T ey can’t believe it. Viet nam ese? Impossible! What must the other half be? Giraf e? I’m worth the price of admission, right there. And what about her, the one with the sunglasses? Is she wondering, too? But when I glance back she’s already passing me on her way to the next room. She’s small. Her hair’s got some gray in it, I think. Hard to tell in this light. She’d be the right age. She could be Viet nam ese, too. She could be. I shake my head, but the words “she could be” play over and over again like a stupid nursery rhyme you can’t get erased from your mind. -1— A life- size animatronic Bugsy Siegel welcomes the sheep to the 0— MegaResort room, which gets a big reaction. Cameras start clicking +1—

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again. It’s a miniature replica of the Strip right before the end of the mil- lennium, waist high and encased in Plexiglas you can walk around. All the old monuments are there: the Eif el Tower, the canals, the Pyramid, and the Empire State Building. T e resort names roll of my tongue like gold coins: Luxor. Bellagio. Monte Carlo. “And please check out our Wall of Fame, featuring some of Las Vegas’s best and brightest entertainers.” I’ve never heard of most of them. T ey all smile with their mouths open too wide, like they’re wait- ing for someone to pitch something in) grapes, or quarters. Liberace’s there, at the end. I know him, of course. He’s not only a part of Las Vegas history, he’s part of mine. T is is my favorite room, because it’s the Las Vegas of my parents. I can replay their doomed history here in three dimensions. It’s like a giant, unfolding pop-up book, spread out to tell my father’s story of the time my mo ther was lost, and found, and lost again. In miniature, I can watch her enter the back door of the Venetian with the harlequin man; I can see my father chase the blue Volvo down Buccaneer Boulevard, feathers f ying out of the win dow; I can pick the both of them up like tiny dolls and place them together, gently, in the little plastic gondola for their f nal meeting . . . T e could- be- Vietnamese woman with the sunglasses is breaking the rules. She’s bent over, looking straight down at the Venetian Hotel. Her hands are pressed hard against the glass, her face so close she could kiss it. T e do not touch display sign is under her right elbow. My mouth opens but the words jam up in my throat. I know it’s not my mo ther, I’m sure of it, but the woman is so intent on seeing what she’s seeing) what is she seeing? My ghosts? Hers? She’s so still; to disturb her would be wrong, it would be like waking a sleepwalker. She could be. She could be. “Could we move on?” a voice bleats in my ear. I Love Texas, mint green, is looking at me with a worried expression. I feel my face blotch- ing red: I’ve been wandering; the sheep are anxious. Time to wrap up. By now, even the Koreans have realized how ripped of they’ve —-1 been. Luckily, the tour ends with a movie, so I don’t have to face their —0 —+1

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disgusted looks. In the tiny auditorium, they arrange themselves on rows of hard benches. I f ick the switch. T e movie’s basically one big infomercial, courtesy of the Las Vegas Tourism Board. “Vegas Now!” swoops in with a he li cop ter view of the Strip, then a series of quick cuts. All the new attractions of the last f ve years are included: the Fallen Twin Towers Memorial Statue and Light Show (mournful bagpipe in- terlude); the giant Laughing Buddha of the Shanghai Hotel (Chinese zithers plinka- plinka- plinka- ing from speakers in his elbows); and the magnif cent Green Dome of the New Baghdad Palace (complete with live Middle Eastern ululation, set to a salsa beat). Pick a world, any world. Smirky Boy and Pouty Girl are going at it. T ey’ve been waiting the whole tour for just this moment. At my place by the door, I can see them sitting in the dark in the back row, body pressing hard against body. T eir limp arms slowly animate themselves, slithering into each other’s shirts. I can’t look away. His tongue f ickers in her mouth; he writhes against her leg and his shirt rides up, revealing new, white skin. I should throw them out, but I can’t move. Smirky’s eyes open. I see them glittering in the dark. He watches me watching him, and smiles, mouth open, and dives in again. I jerk my head away. T at’s when I realize) the woman with the sunglasses is missing. I do a head count. She’s def nitely gone. I leave the auditorium and retrace my steps quickly, room f owing into room f owing into room, back in time to the beginning but all the spaces are empty. Rafael stands alone, scouting for no one. And then I’m running, fast- forward now through the years, arriving into the darkness of the movie ending and me f ick- ing the lights on just in time, pointing the way to the gif shop and trying to f gure out exactly how I missed her leaving me)I m i s s e d h e r leaving me again.

-1— 0— +1—

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It was outside a rest stop in Cozad, Nebraska, that Emily’s destination became clear to her. Until then, she hadn’t really considered where she was heading; Emily was keeping thought to a minimum. I-80 was the perfect highway for just that)no deviation, no decisions along the route, and nothing to stir up memories, either: the endless array of farm and f eld, and farm and f eld, reminded her of nothing but farms and f elds. She was able to just drive, noting the mile markers accumu- lating along the way, the steady press and release of the accelerator under her foot. T e monotony was a blessing. And not once did she feel the need to shake a f nger out the window and yell, “Moo- cows! Look!” Watching the odometer tick of the life of the Volvo gave Emily a grim kind of plea sure. She liked imagining how the speed, the dust, and the miles were all conspiring to wear down the car. Emily, she of the faithful three- thousand- mile oil and f uids checkup, the woman who kept an extra three- ounce bottle of metallic blue paint in the glove com- partment for touch- ups, was, in ef ect, hastening the car’s demise, and it gave her satisfaction. She could punish it, at least. —-1 She needed to leave for everything to stop. She had thought going —0 —+1

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to Vee’s in Wisconsin would help put life on hold, but that was impossi- ble with Walt around. Life didn’t stop for a four- year- old. Vee could take care of the cooking, the cleaning up, could even help with Owen, Emily’s sedated husband, but she was no comfort at all to Walt, who wanted Emily, and only Emily, just at a time when the touch of anyone was enough to make her stomach clench. She hadn’t felt that way since just af er Walt was born. During those terrible months, the merest hint of exuberance in her husband’s smile was enough to send her reeling to the bathroom. She had such an acute sense of panic then, of being responsible for everything when all she wanted to do was sleep. But this time it was worse. Much worse. Af er arriving in Wisconsin, Emily would stare at Owen’s inert, drugged body lying in her child- hood bed and imagine screaming at him, “Get up! Get up! Do some- thing!” even though she knew that wasn’t fair. Her husband was sinking fast into a depressive episode, which she understood was a) clinical, b) diagnosed, and c) perhaps unavoidable, but more than that, she knew there was nothing he could do that would make her forgive him. It was she who needed to get out. T e Lucky Stop was exactly what Emily was looking for: a local truck- er’s hangout, small, ramshackle, three loose boards shy of condemned; no place for children. Her previous stops for cof ee and restrooms so far had been hit- and- miss: Truck stops were generally safe; Mickey D’s were out, of course (play structures and Happy Meals), and so were the more well- known fast food establishments. Too many station wagons in the parking lot and she veered away immediately, no matter how full her bladder was. No, the Lucky Stop was perfect: nobody in sight but a muddy pickup truck at the pumps and a woman in a dirty green apron chatting with the driver. T e name on the front sign was so faded it might have been part of the wood grain. No one was inside. T e Lucky Stop contained not only a gas station and a con ve nience mart, but a lunch counter as well. It was a tiny one: -1— three torn gray vinyl stools patched up with gray duct tape, a dusty 0— countertop, one small grill and a deep- fry basket. A grimy box fan blew +1—

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hot air into the hot air, and a yellow f y strip hung above the cash regis- ter, lazily revolving. Four f ies, two f ies. Four f ies, two f ies. She stood in the doorway, dust particles f oating down a shaf of light like a screen between her and the counter. She was a movie archaeolo- gist, stepping into an exotic, long-forgotten temple. Years of calorie count- ing, label watching, and nutritional vigilance fell away. She sat down. T e menu, posted behind the f y strip on a board with removable letters, was a model of economy:

Hambrger $2 Add cheese .50 Grill cheese $1.50 Chi ken fried steak $4 Fries $1 0nion Rings $1 Pennzoil sale $3.50 Lottery tiks here

A piece of cardboard was tacked up next to the menu board with the beverages listed: cof ee (two sizes), Coke, and Diet Coke. T e door f apped open and the woman with the apron bustled in. “Sorry, sugar,” she called out as she made her way behind the counter. Her hands were smudged from leaning against the truck’s tires and she tried wiping them onto the still- green spots of her apron. “T at man just goes on. What can I do you for?” Emily studied the board intently. “Chicken fried steak,” she enunci- ated carefully. T e woman reached down into the small refrigerator (without washing her hands, the old Emily noted) and pulled out a gray breaded oblong, tossed it into the wire basket and set the basket into the oil, where it bub- bled weakly. “You want fries with that?” Yes, Emily would have fries. And cof ee. “No prob lem,” the gas attendant/waitress/cook said, grabbing a hand- —-1 ful of frozen fries from a crumpled bag in the freezer and throwing —0 —+1

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them af er the steak. T e oil barely registered the addition. “M’name’s Lydia. Where you comin’ from?” Lydia looked to be about the same age as Emily, pushing toward mid- thirties, but with much more mileage clocked in. Her hair was the shade of sand, pulled back into a loose ponytail. T ere was a mole, liver- colored, by the side of her mouth. “Chicago. I mean, Milwaukee,” Emily said. “Mm. Milwaukee. T at’s nice. Never been there.” Lydia took a plas- tic jug from the refrigerator and poured some thick, coagulated white liquid into a plastic cup. To this she added a spoonful of Heinz chipotle sauce from a glass jar. “T is is my secret,” she told Emily, winking. “Gives the gravy some kick. You like it hot?” Emily usually avoided anything spicier than Dijon mustard. “Hot. Yes,” she said. Lydia plopped an extra spoonful of sauce into the cup, then set the cup into the micro wave and punched in a minute. She poured out a cup of cof ee. “You Filipino?” she asked brightly. Emily of ered her a tight smile and a shake of her head. “My brother’s wife is Filipino,” Lydia said, by way of explanation. “Where you headed to?” Emily f xed her eyes on the cof ee mug set in front of her, then raised her gaze up the arm that placed it there to Lydia’s grease- stained shirt to Lydia’s mole. “I have no idea.” “Mmm.” Lydia turned away, hoisted the fry basket up, gave it a shake, and pulled out the cutlet with metal tongs. She slapped it down on a hamburger bun upon which a translucent sliver of tomato and a leaf of iceberg lettuce nestled, waiting. Two quick stirs of the heated gravy, then that was slathered over all. A rainfall of crisped fries, and the plate was complete. Lydia slid it over to Emily. “Enjoy.” Emily paused, head bowed over her food to avoid Lydia’s gaze. T e thought of eating this gargantuan, deep- fried, trans- fatty mess in front of its maker seemed suddenly too intimate, too obscene. Her stomach -1— churned. 0— +1—

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A car honked twice out by the pumps. Lydia wiped her hands on her jeans and excused herself, leaving Emily alone. She started of slowly, nibbling on one fry) hot and crisp. T en an- other, dispatched in two bites. She took up the sandwich carefully with two hands. Gravy was spilling along its seams. She brought the un- wieldy mass up, opened wide, and dove in. T e sof ness of the bun sink- ing under her teeth gave way to the sudden crispiness of the breading, and as her teeth bit down, the squirt of hot oil and juice exploded in her mouth. T e smokiness of the surprisingly tender meat, the sweetness of the bread, the silky saltiness of the gravy, and the f ery sauce igniting all: it was the worst and best thing she had eaten in f ve years. She devoured it in less than a minute. “T e condemned ate a hearty meal!” Emily turned to the door still pinching a cluster of gravy- swabbed fries; she hadn’t even heard Lydia enter. “Must have been hungry.” Emily nodded and quickly shoved the fries into her mouth. She swal- lowed and reached for the napkin dispenser. “Good. Good,” Lydia said. “Glad you liked it.” Her words were light, but her eyes f xed hard on Emily. “Saw what you did to your Volvo out there,” she said in a friendly voice. “You got lots of space now, without them back seats.” Emily looked back at Lydia, her eyes expressing only the mildest in- terest. Lydia stayed by her side, rubbing the vinyl of one of the stools with her hand, back and forth. “You could sleep in there,” she went on. “T at’s what I did, f rst time I got out here. Slept three months in my car, and it weren’t near as nice as that one.” Emily focused on the crumpled napkins in her hand, carefully wip- ing each f n ger. “I don’t sleep,” she said quietly. Which was true; she couldn’t remember the last time she slept for any signif cant amount of time. Lydia continued as if she hadn’t heard. “What’s that in the back? An instrument?” “An accordion.” —-1 —0 —+1

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“Funny thing to take, and no suitcase.” Lydia kept twiddling with the stool in front of her, as if she were waiting to be invited to sit down. “I remember when I run out of my house, f ve years back, I grabbed my Kitchen Aid hand mixer. Forgot my address book, forgot my underwear, but took the mixer. Don’t know what I thought I’d be mixing, but . . . your brain don’t think of those things.” Again, the hard look. “No, no it don’t,” she said aimlessly, and then, sharply, “You got kids?” Emily felt her stomach constricting. She kept looking at the cof ee mug. “I got three,” Lydia volunteered, as if Emily had answered her. “Two little girls and a boy. We all slept in a Chevy wagon. T ree months. Me in the front seat, boy in the backseat, girls in the way back. T ey were young, it was all right. Long time ago. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, right?” Lydia slipped onto the stool. Her knee touched Emily’s. “Look, honey,” she said sof ly, “you don’t look so good. You in some trou ble?” T e knocking of knees sent Emily sliding out of her body and to the furthest corner of her mind, where she could watch her corporeal self proceed from a safer distance. Emily was pushing her plate away from her. Emily was taking up another napkin. Emily was wiping her mouth. Lydia leaned her face closer. “You don’t have to tell me.” She f ngered the little silver cross around her neck. “T ere’s all sorts of places you go could go. If you wanted to . . .”)here her voice lowered )“ g e t s a f e . I f y o u wanted to.” Emily made no move, which Lydia took as a sign of complicity. She leaned closer, so close that Emily could smell her unwashed hair. “You know what helped me? What really helped?” Emily registered the touch of Lydia’s f ngers on her shoulder. From her distant corner she willed her body not to f inch. Lydia gave a glowing smile and lowered her head, conspiratorial, almost f irtatious. “Let me ask you this, honey. Have you been saved?” Emily’s eyes widened. She almost laughed. Here was one ave nue -1— she was quite certain she wouldn’t be traveling down. She had dealt 0— with this kind of thing many times before: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptist +1—

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evangelicals, Emily had turned them all successfully out from her gate in Chicago for years. She had defenses for this, well practiced and obdu- rate. It was almost a relief. “Don’t worry about me,” she said coolly, pulling her purse close and getting out her wallet. Lydia didn’t move. “I just know, it sure helped me.” Emily f icked out a ten. “I’m f ne.” Her condescension was mighty. As she sailed out of the Lucky Stop, rest room key in hand, Emily did feel f ne, and mighty, leaving Lydia and her wide-open mouth to catch f ies and other people’s souls. Emily was not going to be saved, not at all. She turned the corner and began running for the bathroom door but already knew it was too late. T e twisted knot in her stomach f nally re- leased, and with it, her beloved sandwich. A moment later she was kneel- ing on the ground, arms wrapped around herself, heaving out the last remnants of chipotle gravy and bitter cof ee. And it was there, next to the bits of once- again steaming sandwich, that she found the feather. It was by her knees: a bright patch of color amidst the totality of bleached dirt and gravel. T e feather should by all rights have blown away, but there it was, its vermillion brilliance held fast by the merest wisp of scrub. T e feather was unsullied, and when Emily picked it up she could tell by its sof ness and texture that it was the real deal)an exquisite, fan- shaped marabou feather, big enough to cover her palm. She looked up immediately, as if expecting more to rain down from the sky, or to spot the large, exotic bird that could have shed such a trea sure. Instead, the sky yielded up a vision. Set dark against the f erce radi- ance of the sun: a man’s face, wreathed in an ef usion of burning feath- ers. T e kindest of smiles beamed down upon her, perfectly even teeth glowing white from the shadows. Sof , black eyes twinkled like bright rhinestones. “Come,” he said breathily. T e sound was everywhere. He was Comfort. He was Forgiveness. He was Liberace. Liberace, come not to save her, but to of er guidance. In a moment of dizzying clarity she realized where she was heading. Where she had —-1 been headed to all along. Her wheels were already pointing south. —0 —+1

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• She would drive to Las Vegas. • She would f nd Liberace’s museum. • She would take the pills.

Emily looked down at the feather she held in her hand, and then up again, but he had disappeared, leaving nothing else behind but the vast blue sky.

-1— 0— +1—

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A goldfish named Ian is falling from the 27th-floor balcony on which his fishbowl sits. He’s longed for adventure, so when the opportunity arises, he escapes from his bowl, clears the balcony railing and finds himself airborne. Plummeting toward the street below, Ian witnesses the lives of the Seville on Roxy residents.

There’s the handsome grad student, his girlfriend, and his mistress; the construction worker who feels trapped by a secret; the building’s super who feels invisible and alone; the pregnant woman on bed rest who craves a forbidden ice cream sandwich; the shut-in for whom dirty talk, and quiche, are a way of life; and home-schooled Herman, a boy who thinks he can travel through time. Though they share time and space, they have something even more important in common: each faces a decision that will affect the course of their lives. Within the walls of the Seville are stories of love, new life, and death, of facing the ugly truth of who one has been and the beautiful truth of who one can become.

Sometimes taking a risk is the only way to move forward with our lives. As Ian the goldfish knows, “An entire life devoted to a fishbowl will make one die an old fish with not one adventure had.”

Bradley Somer’s Fishbowl is at turns funny and heartbreaking and you will, no doubt, fall in love with his unforgettable characters.

BRADLEY SOMER was born in Sydney, Australia and grew up in Canada and holds degrees in Anthropology and Archaeology. His short fiction has appeared in literary journals, reviews and anthologies. His debut novel, Imperfections, published in Canada, won the 2013 CBC Bookie Award for debut of the year. Bradley currently lives in a little old house in the city of Calgary, Canada, where he works on his writing projects and tries to ignore the wild growth that his back- yard has become. 1 In Which the Essence of Life and Everything Else Is Illuminated

There’s a box that contains life and everything else. This is not a fi gurative box of lore. It’s not a box of paper sheets that have been captured, bound, and fi lled with the ink- ings of faith, chronicling the foibles and contradictions of the human species. It doesn’t sport the musty smell of ancient wis- dom and moldering paper. It isn’t a microscopic box of C, G, A, or T, residing within cell walls and containing traces of every- thing that ever lived, from today back through the astral dust of the Big Bang itself to what ever existed before time began. It can’t be spliced or recombined or subjected to therapy. It’s not the work of any god or the evolution of Darwin. It’s not a thou- sand other ideas, however concrete or abstract they may be, that could fi ll the pages of this book. It’s not one of these things, but it’s all of them combined and more. —-1 Now we know what it isn’t, let’s focus on what it is. It’s a —0 —+1

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box containing the perpetual presence of life itself. Living things move within it, and at some point, it will have been around long enough to have contained absolutely everything. Not all at once, but over the years, building infi nite layer upon infi nite layer, it will all wind up there. Time will compile these experiences, stacking them on top of each other, and while the moments themselves are fl eeting, their visceral memory is everlasting. The passing of a par tic u lar moment can’t erase the fact that it was once present. In this way, the box reaches beyond the organic to the ethe- real. The heartbreaking sweetness of love, the rending hatred, the slippery lust, the sorrow of losing a family member, the pain of loneliness, all thoughts that were ever thought, every word ever said and even those which were not, the joys of birth and the sorrows of death and everything else will be experi- enced here in this one vessel. The air is thick with the antici- pation of it all. After it’s all done, the air will be heavy with everything that has passed. It’s a box constructed by human hands and, yes, if your be- liefs trend that way, by extension, the hands of God. Regard- less of its origin, its purpose is the same and its structure refl ects its purpose. The box is partitioned into little compartments in which all of these experiences of time are stored, though there’s no order to their place or chronological happening. There are compartments stacked twenty-seven high, three wide, and two deep that house this jumble of everything. Mel- vil Dewey, the patron saint of librarians, would cringe at the mere thought of trying to cata log the details of these one hun- dred and sixty- two compartments. There’s no way to arrange or structure what happens here, no way to exert control over it or systematize it. It just has to be left a mess. -1— A pair of elevators connects all of these compartments. 0— Themselves little boxes, each with a capacity of ten people or +1—

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4,000 lb./1,814 kg., whichever comes fi rst. Each with a little plaque attached to the mirrored wall near the panel that says it’s so. The irritating pitch of the alarm that sounds when there’s too much weight inside also says it’s so. The elevators trundle tire- lessly up and down their dingy shafts, diligently delivering arti- facts and their custodians to the diff erent levels. Day and night, they shuttle to one fl oor and then to the next and then back to the lobby. There’s a staircase too, in case of fi re or power outage, so the custodians can grab the artifacts most dear to them and safely exit the box. The box is a building, yes. More specifi cally it’s an apartment building. It sits there, an actual place in an actual city. It has a street address so people who are unfamiliar with the area can fi nd it. It also has a series of numbers so lawyers and city sur- veyors can fi nd it too. It’s classifi ed in many ways. To the city it’s an orange rectangle with black crosshatching on the zoning map. “Multi-Residential, High-Density High-Rise,” the legend reads. To many occupants it’s a “one- bedroom apartment for rent, with underground parking and coin laundry facilities.” To some it was “an unbelievably aff ordable way to experience the con ve nience and excitement of downtown living. This two- bedroom, one- bathroom condo with uninterrupted city views must be seen to be believed,” and is now home. For a few, it’s a place to work on the weekdays. For others, it’s a place to visit friends on the weekends. The building was constructed in 1976 and has hobbled through time ever since. When it was still new, it was the tall- est building on the street. Now that it’s older, there are three taller ones. Soon there will be a fourth. For the time, it was an elegant and stately building. Now it seems dated, belonging to a period in architectural history that has its own name, a name that was not known at the time it was built but is applied know- —-1 ingly in hindsight. —0 —+1

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The building was renovated recently because it was in much need. The concrete was painted to hide the spalling cracks and compiled graffi ti. The drafty windows and gappy doors to the balconies were replaced to keep the eve ning chill outside and the temperate air in. Last year, the boiler was upgraded to pro- vide adequate hot water for washing up. The electrical was up- dated because building codes have changed. It was once a building entirely full of renters. Now, it is a condominium where most people own but others still choose to rent out their suites to off set other investment risks, to “diversify their portfolios.” The building fulfi lls an Arcensian mission of carry ing everything mentioned thus far, housing the spirit and the chaos of life and those beings in which they reside, through the fl oods and to safety every time the water recedes. Depending on where you live, this box may be just up the street. It may even be within walking distance from where you read these words. You may drive past it on the way home from work if you work downtown but live in the suburbs. Or you may even live there. If you see this building, pause for a second to ponder what a marvelous arcanum it is. It will sit there long after you turn the last page in this book and long after we are dead and these words have been forgotten. The beginning and end of time will happen there within those walls, between the roof and the park- ing garage. But for now, only a handful of decades old, it’s a growing marvel in its nascent days and this book is a short chronicle of its youth. Spelled out above the front door, bolted to the brick in weep- ing, rusty black metal lettering, is the name of the building: the Seville on Roxy.

-1— 0— +1—

053-59804_ch01_2P.indd 4 10/30/14 4:23 PM 2 In Which Our Protagonist, Ian, Takes a Dreadful Fall

Our story doesn’t begin with a goldfi sh named Ian’s perilous plunge from his bowl on the twenty-seventh- fl oor balcony where he, for as much as he can comprehend, has been enjoying the view of the downtown skyline. In the long shadows of the late- afternoon sun, the city is a picket fence of buildings. There are dusty-rose glass ones, re- fl ecting a Martian sun. Others are gunmetal-blue mirrors, and still others are simple brick- and- concrete blocks. There are of- fi ce tower thrones proudly wearing corporate logo crowns, and there are hotels and apartment buildings, prickly with balco- nies ribbing every side of their vertical space. All of them have been shoved into the ground, into a grid that brings some order to their apparent incongruity. Ian looks out over this megalithic fl ower garden of skyscrap- —-1 ers and sees only as much wonder as his mind can muster. He’s —0 —+1

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a goldfi sh with a bird’s- eye view of the world. A goldfi sh held aloft on a concrete platform with a god’s perspective, one that’s lost on a brain that can’t fathom what it is looking at, but by that fact, the view is made even more wondrous. Ian doesn’t take his plunge from the balcony until chapter 54, when a dreadful series of events culminates in an opportunity for Ian to escape his watery prison. But we start with Ian for a few reasons, the fi rst being that he’s a vital thread that ties hu- manity together. The second is, with a fi sh’s brain capacity, time and place mean little because both are constantly being redis- covered. Whether he takes his fall now, fi fteen minutes from now, or fi fteen minutes ago doesn’t matter because Ian can nei- ther comprehend place and time nor comprehend the order that each imposes on the other. Ian’s world is a pastiche of events with no sequence, no past and no future. For example, just now, at the beginning of his career as a Cypriniforme skydiver, Ian remembers that his watery home still sits there on a thrift-store folding table with fl aking green paint. His bowl is empty now, save for a few pebbles, a little pink plastic castle, a fog of algae on the glass, and his roommate, Troy the snail. A rapidly growing length of empty air spans the dis- tance between the bowl and its former resident. It doesn’t matter to Ian that this event doesn’t actually happen until chap- ter 54 because he already forgets how it came to be. Soon he will forget the bowl he spent months living in. He will forget the ludicrous pink castle. With time, the insuff erable Troy will not just fade to a memory; he will disappear from Ian’s experi- ence all together. It will be as if he never existed at all. While falling past a twenty-fi fth- oorfl window, Ian catches a glimpse of a middle-aged woman of considerable size taking -1— a step across the living room. The glimpse, a fl eeting fl ash in 0— the mind of a creature with no memory, has the woman +1—

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wearing a beautiful gown, her movements as elegant and graceful as the drape and fl ow of the fi ne material she wears. The gown is a stunning shade of red. He would call it carmine if he knew the word for it. The woman’s back is to Ian, who admires the tailored cut of the gown and how it accentuates her volup- tuous form and the valley of her spine between her muscular shoulder blades. She’s in the process of stepping around a cof- fee table. The way she moves betrays a level of shyness and a hint of terror. Her toes point slightly inward, her knees touch lightly together. Her hands are clasped on one side, one arm held apologetically across her belly and the other resting on her hip. Her fi ngers are knotted into a nest. There’s also a round hulk of a man in the center of the living room. The man has an arm outstretched to her, thick hair on his thick forearms, sporting a blissful look in his eyes. His face is calm, which is in contrast to the anxiety shown by the woman. A hint of a smile curves his lips. He wears the look of how a loved one’s embrace feels. All of this is a fl ash, an inert moment as Ian passes the twenty- fi f t h fl oor on his approach to terminal velocity. With a goldfi sh’s sensibility, Ian cannot fathom the oddly divine nature of the ex- istence of this constant velocity. If he could, Ian would wonder on the beautiful and quantifi able order that gravity imposes on the chaos of the world, the harmony of a marriage between a constant acceleration and an ultimate speed that all objects in free fall reach but don’t breach. Is this universal number divine or simply physics, and if it’s the latter, could it be the work of the former? Having very little control over his descent, Ian tumbles freely and catches sight of the expansive pale-blue sky above and hun- dreds of fl uttering white sheets of paper, twisting gracefully through the air, graciously fl itting and swooping after him like —-1 a fl ock of seabirds to a trawler. Around Ian, swirling in the wind, —0 —+1

053-59804_ch01_2P.indd 7 10/30/14 4:23 PM 8 Bradley Somer

are exactly two hundred and thirty- two pages of a dissertation in progress. One of these fl oating sheets is the title page, the fi rst to fall and now teetering on a breeze below all the others, upon which is printed in a bold font “A Late Pleistocene and Holocene Phytolith Record of the Lower Salmon River Canyon, Idaho,” under which is an italicized “by Connor Radley.” Their descent is much more delicate than the clumsy, corklike plummeting of a goldfi sh, which evolution has left ill prepared to pass a rapidly decreasing number of fl oors of a downtown high- rise. Indeed, evolution did not intend for gold- fi s h t ofl y. Neither did God, if that’s what you believe. It really doesn’t matter. Ian can neither comprehend nor believe in either, and the result of this inability is the same. The cause is irrele- vant at the moment because the eff ect is irrevocable. As his world pitches and spins, Ian catches fl ashing glimpses of pavement, horizon, open sky, and the gently swirling leaves of paper. Poor Ian doesn’t think how unfortunate it is that he isn’t an ant, a creature known to be able to fall a thousand times its body length and still hexaped on its merry way. He doesn’t lament the fact that he wasn’t born a bird, something that is ob- viously lamentable at present. Ian has never been particularly introspective or melancholic. It’s not in his nature to contem- plate or to lament. The core of Ian’s character is a simple amal- gam of carpe diem, laissez- faire, and Namaste. “Less thinking, more doing,” is the goldfi sh’s philosophy. “Having a plan is the fi rst step toward failure,” he would say if he could speak. Ian is a bon vivant, and given the capacity to ponder, he would have found it a statement of the language’s character that English has no equivalent descriptor and had to steal it from French. He’s always been happy as a goldfi sh. It doesn’t dawn -1— on him that, with the passing of another twenty- fi ve fl oors, un- 0— +1—

053-59804_ch01_2P.indd 8 10/30/14 4:23 PM Fishbowl 9

less something drastically unpredictable and miraculous hap- pens, he’ll meet the pavement at considerable speed. In some ways, Ian is blessed with the underanalyzing mind of a goldfi sh. The troubles associated with deeper thought are replaced with basic instinct and a memory that spans a fraction of a second. He’s more reactionary than plotting or planning. He doesn’t dwell or ponder at length about anything. Just as he realizes his predicament, it blissfully slips from his mind in time to be rediscovered. He sleeps well because of this; there are no worries, and there is no racing mind. Alternately, physiologically, the repeated realization of the terror of falling is quite draining on a body. It’s the rapid-fi re re- lease of adrenaline, the repetitive pokes in his fl ight response, that stresses this gold- encased nugget of fi shy flesh. “Now, what was I doing? Oh my, I can’t breathe. Oh shit, I’m falling off of a high- rise! Now . . . what was I doing? Oh my . . .” Blessed indeed are the thoughtless. But, as was pointed out earlier, when he was tumbling from the twenty- seventh- fl oor balcony, before he got here to the twenty- fi fth, our story doesn’t begin with Ian.

—-1 —0 —+1

053-59804_ch01_2P.indd 9 10/30/14 4:23 PM 3 In Which Katie Approaches the Seville on Roxy on a Vital Mission

Our story begins about half an hour before Ian takes the plunge. It starts with Katie, Connor Radley’s girlfriend. That’s her stand- ing at a pharmacy door two blocks up the street from the Se- ville on Roxy, looking out at the late- afternoon sun. She rests one hand on the handle, but instead of opening the door and leaving the store, she looks up Roxy. The sidewalk bustles with shoulder- to- shoulder pedestrians, and the road is clogged, bum- per to bumper, with the mounting rush hour traffi c. There’s a construction site next to the pharmacy, in front of which a billboard reads, “The Future Home of the Baineston on Roxy, 180 luxury suites now selling.” A clean line drawing shows a boxy glass high-rise building bracketed by green trees, with people walking by the front. The trees and people are ab- -1— stract sketches compared with the clarity with which the build- 0— ing is depicted. A sticker splashes across one corner of the +1—

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billboard. It reads, “40% Sold.” It peels and curls a bit at the edge, which makes Katie wonder how long it has been up there. Her eyes are drawn to the people in the sketch, anonymous and blurred with movement, bodies fi lling space more than people living lives. The construction site had been busy with gawking workers wearing hard hats when she entered the pharmacy ten minutes ago. The air smelled like burning diesel and concrete dust. She ignored their gazes. She could hear them talking but only caught enough lewd snippets of their conversation to inform her that she was their topic. It was enough to make her feel uncomfort- able but not enough to inspire her to confront the pack of them about their impropriety, had she been able to muster the courage. The site is now deserted, and the machines are all quiet. A solitary fi gure stands at the chain-link gate. He wears a blue uni- form that has a “Griffi n Security” patch on one shoulder and the name “Ahmed” stitched on the chest. There’s a chair beside him with prolapsed orange sponge billowing through a rip in the covering. Katie is a beautiful young woman with short brown hair, kohl-encircled pale-blue eyes, and a sharp chin. She hasn’t been contemplating the street as much as waiting for the workers to grab their lunch boxes and leave. She pushes the pharmacy door open and steps into the street, her petite frame encountering the soft, round one of a mountain named Garth. Garth is a scruff y, unshaven man who wears concrete- smeared work pants and a hard hat. He smells of physical labor, of sweat and work and dust. Garth has a backpack strapped to his shoulders, and he carries a bulging black plastic bag in one hand. With the other hand he reaches out to steady Katie as she takes an uncertain step back, ricocheting off of his bulk. —-1 “Sorry,” Katie mumbles. She’s slightly embarrassed, but her —0 —+1

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mind is elsewhere. She’s distracted by her task at hand to the exclusion of the world around her. Garth smiles. He’s ever conscious of his size and how intim- idating he seems to those who don’t know him. His default re- action is to try to defuse any ideas that he’s a threat. “It’s okay,” he says and stands in an awkward silence for a moment, seeing if Katie will say anything else. When she doesn’t, he nods to her and carries on his way. Katie watches Garth cross the street against the light, dodg- ing the cars merging into traffi c. He moves up Roxy in the di- rection of the Seville, his shuffl ing steps hurried. She waits in front of the buzzing neon pharmacy sign, not wanting to seem like she’s following him and not questioning why she cares if it would appear that way. She mills about long enough to make Ahmed from Griffi n Security eye her suspiciously. Katie doesn’t notice Ahmed fi nger his walkie- talkie and drop his hand to his utility belt, resting it on his holstered 240 Lumen Guard Dog Tactical Flashlight. Indeed, Katie doesn’t even know a fl ashlight could be tactical or what would make it so. Standing in the traffi c noise washing over the street, Katie thinks of Connor. She thinks of when they fi rst met at the uni- versity. He was the teaching assistant for a class she was taking, and she had attended his offi ce hours with questions about an upcoming exam. They went for coff ee afterward and talked about everything but the class. Connor is handsome and charm- ing, and she was fl attered at being the center of his attention. He seemed so interested in her mind and thoughts. She imme- diately felt a connection with him, a chemistry that made her wonder if love at fi rst sight could be real. It still seemed unbe- lievable that it could actually exist when all this time she had suspected it may just happen in romantic comedies and novels. -1— Katie then thinks of the physicality of their relationship over the 0— past three months, less a few days. Katie told him that she loved +1—

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him, and lying in the tangle of sheets after a heated bout of love- making, he had merely grunted and was seemingly asleep. In hindsight, beyond their fi rst coff ee together, there have been exactly two homemade dinners, three movie dates, and eight binge- drinking bar nights of booze and dancing (unlike most men, Connor is an amazingly sensual dancer, his body seeming to respond to her feelings). The rest of their time to- gether has consisted of a near nightly rooting in Connor’s apart- ment. Katie is aware of her affl iction of falling in love more quickly and for fewer reasons than most need. It’s not that she doesn’t realize the heartbreak this has caused in her life, but she refuses to quell her romantic heart because it brings her joy as well. She thinks back to the string of men she has happily introduced to her family, having them over to dinner to meet her parents and her sister. She remembers the immersive, warm comfort of everyone talking, everyone laughing around the table. Then she remembers the number of subsequent family dinners she has attended alone, either having called it off for one shortcoming or another or having been told that it was not her, it was him. These end in quiet conversations with her mom and sister, late in the night, tending to her broken heart while her dad sleeps in his chair in the living room. Above their quiet whispers around the kitchen table, they could hear TV proclama- tions from the living room, from “Jesus is the answer” to “Call the PartyBox now, hundreds of beautiful singles are on the line waiting for you.” Katie’s sure there are other people in the world with her ability to fall in love. She sees her affl iction as a good thing and refuses to become jaded by her many rejections. Her be- lief is that love doesn’t make one weak; it does the opposite. She thinks that falling in love is her superpower. It makes her —-1 strong. —0 —+1

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Today, she’s intent on fi nding out if Connor Radley loves her back. A horn bleats from the traffi c on Roxy and jolts Katie from her reverie. She blinks, looks up the street, and doesn’t see Garth lumbering anywhere amid the herd of pedestrians. She decides that she has waited long enough. It’s time for reckoning. She will either get reciprocation of her feelings or go back to her apart- ment alone, eat the junk food she has just prepurchased in the pharmacy, purge Connor Radley from her thoughts, and start fresh tomorrow. With this fi rmed resolve, Katie sets off along the crowded sidewalk. At the corner, she waits for the light to turn in her favor and then crosses the street. Ahmed of Griffi n Security lets his muscles relax now that the threat has passed. There’s a tinge of sadness that he didn’t get to try out the moves he practiced with his tactical fl ashlight while standing shirtless in front of his bedroom mirror. He re- moves his hand from the fl ashlight’s holster, and his fi ngertip slides from the corrugated plastic surface of the walkie- talkie button. Katie cranes her neck and looks up at the twenty-seven fl oors of the Seville as she approaches. He’s up there, she thinks, in the concrete box at the top. She can see the underside of his balcony and the little glass square of his apartment window. Then, too soon, she stands be- fore the intercom keypad at the front doors. The doors are locked against vagrants, and beyond the street refl ected in the glass stretches the lobby. It’s dimly lit by rows of fl uorescent lights and looks sad and empty. Katie presses four buttons on the apartment intercom and waits while it rings. A few seconds pass before the speaker pops to life. There’s a trembling inhalation, and then a timid voice -1— comes through. 0— “Hello?” +1—

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Katie’s distracted by a little boy bumping into her thigh. She looks into his surprised face until a man runs up and grabs the child under the arms. “Gotcha, kiddo,” he says and the child squeals and laughs at his dad. They carry on down the sidewalk. Katie turns back to the intercom panel and hangs up. Wrong apartment number. She checks the directory. She had dialed Ridgestone, C., by accident, just one digit off and one line under Connor’s. She runs her index fi nger across the names to double-check his buzzer number and then pokes the four num- bers for Radley, C. The intercom rings twice before an answer comes through. “Yep,” Connor’s voice crackles within the small grated speaker in the intercom box. “It’s me,” Katie says. There’s a burst of static and then silence. Connor’s voice blares through the speaker, much louder than before. “Who?” “It’s Katie.” There’s another burst of static. It sounds like something be- ing dragged over the mouthpiece on the other end. The door buzzes, and the lock clicks.

—-1 —0 —+1

053-59804_ch01_2P.indd 15 10/30/14 4:23 PM on-sale 6/9/15

Grace Wilde is running—from the multi-million dollar mansion her record producer father bought, the famous older brother who’s topped the country music charts five years in a row, and the mother who blames her for her brother’s breakdown. Grace escapes to the farthest place from home she can think of, a boarding school in Korea, hoping for a fresh start.

She wants nothing to do with music, but when her roommate Sophie’s twin brother Jason turns out to be the newest Korean pop music superstar, Grace is thrust back into the world of fame. She can’t stand Jason, whose celebrity status is only outmatched by his oversized ego, but they form a tenuous alliance for the sake of her friendship with Sophie. As the months go by and Grace adjusts to her new life in Korea, even she can’t deny the sparks flying between her and the KPOP idol.

Soon, Grace realizes that her feelings for Jason threaten her promise to herself that she’ll leave behind the music industry that destroyed her family. But can Grace ignore her attraction to Jason and her unde- niable pull of the music she was born to write? Sweet, fun, and romantic, this young adult novel explores what it means to experience first love and discover who you really are in the process.

When KATIE M. STOUT isn’t writing, you can find her drinking an unhealthy amount of chai tea and working on her goal to fill up every page of her passport. Chapter One

Big Brother, I want you to know something: It wasn’t your fault, not any of it. And I’m so sorry. Sorry for ditching the family and for shipping off to the other side of the world. But, mostly, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when it mattered. I should have told someone before it got bad. It’s just that you’re my big brother; you’ve always been the strong one. And I miss that. You’re probably laughing hysterically right now, imagin- ing me— the foreign language– challenged child— bumbling my way through the airport, a lonesome little white girl with a Southern accent and too much hair spray. Just know that with every step I take farther from home, the more I miss you. Maybe this trip will give me time to fi gure things out. I certainly hope it does, anyway. I could end this letter with “from Korea, with love” like

053-60094_ch01_4P.indd 1 04/15/15 6:21 am 2 Katie M. Stout

that James Bond movie in Russia, but the plane hasn’t landed yet, so I’ll just leave you with . . .

Almost in Korea, with love, Grace

The subway doors open, and a fl ood of boarding passengers sweeps me and my two giant suitcases onto the train. Elbows jab into my sides, and the wheels on my bags run over toes as a thousand of my closest Korean friends pack into the tiny metro car. Half an hour inside the Republic of Korea, and I’ve already been thrown into the life of a national. All the seats are full, so I park my bags in front of an el- derly woman, her eyes half-obscured by folds of wrinkled skin, holding a plastic sack full of something gray and . . . slithering. Octopus, maybe? I straddle one of my suitcases and sit, letting myself sway with the rocking of the train and giving my jet- lagged body a rest. Like I haven’t just been sitting on a plane for fourteen hours. The man beside me plays the music on his MP3 player so loud I can hear the singer wailing through the headphones, and he stares at me like I’m an alien. I avert my gaze, letting it roam the rest of the car. I’m one of two Westerners leaving the airport station, and basically everyone besides me is on their phone. Except for that couple a few feet away, who manage to canoodle in the microscopic- size standing room, whispering to each other in Korean. South Korea. It still hasn’t registered yet— that I left every- thing, everyone back in Nashville and set up camp in the “Far East.” I’m standing on a Korean train rattling through Korean tun- nels toward my new Korean school. I am insane. For possibly the millionth time since my plane took off from Atlanta, I ask myself what I’m doing. Sweat moistens my palms,

053-60094_ch01_4P.indd 2 04/15/15 6:21 am Hello, I Love You 3

and I have to close my eyes, my breathing bordering on hyper- ventilation. Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. I go through the entire periodic table of elements three times, the repetition numbing my brain and slowing my pulse, empty- ing my mind of any anxiety. My AP chemistry teacher taught me the trick, told me it helped him calm down. I discovered this sum- mer that it works for me, too. The train stops at the next station, and we lose a few pas- sengers but gain even more. The crowd shifts, pushing and pull- ing me against the tide of bodies, and I curse myself for not being willing to wait twenty minutes for the express train, which has assigned seating. Waiting longer would beat getting assaulted every time a new passenger boards the commuter train. I glance down at the scrap of notebook paper I stashed in- side the pocket of my jean shorts earlier, double-checking the name of my stop a dozen times. The automated female voice announces the name of the next station, which thankfully sounds a lot like what I’ve written pho- netically on my paper—Gimpo . The train lurches to a stop, and I grab the handles of my bags, forcing my way through a mass of humanity thicker than Momma’s grits. I stagger onto the platform just as the doors close, and, mus- tering as much gumption as I have, pancake any stray Koreans as I force my way through the crowd fi ghting to board the train. Once I climb the escalator and maneuver through the automated gate, I emerge into the surprisingly thick humidity of a Korean summer. My grip on my suitcases tightens as I make my way to the line of taxis on the street. I ford through the throng of tourists with their own luggage. The metro can’t take me all the way to the Korean School of Foreign Studies from Incheon International Airport. Normally,

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I could take the subway to this stop, then get on a public bus—as the representative from the school suggested to me via video chat last week— but when I planned this trip, I knew I wouldn’t want to venture that with my luggage and zero knowledge of the area. I stand by the curb and scan the line of taxis until I spot one of the drivers holding a sign that reads Grace Wilde. I throw him a frantic wave, and he meets me halfway to the van. He helps me lift my bags into the back, and I collapse into a seat in the middle row. He peers at me in the rearview mirror, obviously waiting for some kind of direction. I guess his superiors didn’t inform him of our destination. Biting my lip, I fl ip through my Korean phrase book searching for the right words. “Ahn nyeong ha se yo!” Hello. “Umm . . . ” I stare at the Romanized translations, the multitude of consonants and letter combinations I’ve never seen— let alone pronounced— mixing inside my travel- weary brain like a blender on high. “Where you go?” the man asks. “High school!” I sigh, thanking God this man speaks at least a little English. “Korean School of Foreign Studies. On Ganghwa Island.” “Oh, I know, I know.” He shifts out of park, and we merge into traffi c. I sink lower and let my head rest on the seatback. The long hours of traveling are beginning to catch up with me. I was so hyped on adrenaline when we landed in Seattle and again in Incheon that I didn’t think about the fact that I hadn’t slept even a minute on either of my fl ights. But now a dull ache pounds just behind my eyebrows, and sleep seductively whispers to lull me out of consciousness. Sunlight glares off the cars in front of us. We drive farther away from the city, away from Incheon—and away from Seoul,

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South Korea’s capital, which sits only about an hour by train from the airport. Fast food restaurants and digital billboards are quickly replaced by a long bridge that shoots us across the narrow chan- nel of water separating the island from the mainland. As the van bumps down off the bridge and onto island soil, I watch buildings pop up around us. Not a city, really, but a town. It reminds me of a beach town I visited with my family back in middle school, one of those with hole-in- the- wall restaurants on every corner serving local fi shermen’s latest catches, where the population doubles during tourist season and all the shops close at six in the eve ning. But instead of a diversity of people— white, black, Latino, Indian— I see only Asian. Dark hair. Dark eyes. I fi nger my own blond curls, which fl attened along the jour- ney but still hang down to my elbows. Momma likes to call my hair my “crowning glory,” a gift from her side of the family. I’ve always loved it; it matches perfectly with what my sister, Jane, calls my “hipster look,” but I now realize it makes me stick out here like a goth at a country concert. And trust me when I tell you, that’s pretty obvious. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, both country and otherwise. When your dad is one of the biggest record producers in the country music business and your brother has topped the country charts fi ve years in a row, you start to learn your way around the Mecca of the music lover. I’m tempted to reach into my purse and pull out my iPod. I can think of at least ten songs that would fi t this moment per- fectly, my own background music to this new life I’ve started. But I resist the urge, wanting to make sure the cab driver has my full attention in case we need to communicate in broken English again. It only takes us a few minutes to pass through the entirety of the town, and then the cab’s climbing up a hill into the mountains,

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which tower over the coastline. We drive up and up, until a thin layer of fog hovers over the road, and we emerge at the crest of the hill. To the right is an overlook of the town we just drove through, then the channel, and in the distance, Incheon, though I can’t see it. On the left side of the street, though, is a giant arch that stretches across the entrance to a plaza-like area, gold Korean characters glittering in the fading sunlight. My new home. We stop just in front of the arch, and I step out of the cab. But once I’ve pulled in a breath of campus air, my stomach clenches. The cabbie lifts my suitcases out of the van, and I fumble with my wallet, examining each bill carefully before handing him the money. The taxi pulls away, and I turn my back on the gorgeous coastal view to stare up at the white stone building directly across the plaza, its gigantic staircase leading up to what I assume are classrooms and offi ces. I can’t help but wonder how different life would be if I’d done what my parents wanted— stayed at the same elite prep school for senior year. I would have kept all the same friends, gone to all the same parties, been hit on by every aspiring musician trying to get to my dad, and watched my ex-boyfriend date every other girl in school like the douche he is. But instead of a stuffy prep school in Nashville, I’m here. Completely alone in a foreign country, searching the grounds for the administration offi ces and the school rep who said he would help me get settled in. Magnesium. Aluminum. Silicon. Moving here was my idea. Phosphorous. Sulfur. I can do this. Chlorine.

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I can do this. Argon. I can. Do. This.

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“This is your room.” The school rep, Mr. Wang, stops outside a door in the long hallway on the third fl oor of the girl’s dorm. He takes my key and knocks, then unlocks the door. We enter into a narrow, white-walled room with bunk beds that take up nearly all the fl oor space. Two desks are shoved against the opposite wall, and there’s just enough room to walk be- tween them and the beds without having to turn sideways. A girl sits at one of the desks, her shoulder-length black hair bobbing as she shoots up to her feet, a massive smile brightening her face. “You are okay now?” Mr. Wang asks in his thickly accented En glish, inclining his head toward my roommate and dropping the room key into my palm. “Yes, thank you.” I bow my head like I read is the custom and watch him leave, my pulse kicking into high gear when the door slams shut. My roommate lets out a little squeal, throwing her arms

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around me. I back up, both my suitcases clattering to the white tile fl oor. She bounces up and down with me still in her arms until I push her back with forced laughter. “I’m so glad you’re here!” She claps her hands in excitement. “And you’re American!” Her dark eyes are half-hidden behind thick, white-framed plastic glasses with lenses so big they look like they should be on a grandma’s face, but I can still see them light up at the mention of the magic word, which I’ve already noticed makes you a ce- lebrity around here. But this girl is different from the people I met in the administration building— her American accent is im- peccable. She has a pale, narrow face, with eyes turned up at the edges and pink lipstick that every teen in the eighties would have coveted. And despite her ridiculous T- shirt, she’s pretty in a tiny, impish way. “My name’s Sophie.” She shoots out her hand and keeps it there until I hesitantly shake it. “Well, actually it’s Sae Yi, but my En glish name is Sophie.” “I’m Grace.” “It’s so nice to meet you.” She’s still beaming at me. “They didn’t tell me you were American. Did they tell you anything about me?” I reach down to pick up the handles of my suitcases, but she beats me to it. She hefts one onto the bottom bunk, which sports a bare mattress. I lift the other and place it beside the fi rst. “Umm . . . no,” I say, searching the room for a closet or dresser or something. I spot two miniwardrobes, stacked on top of each other. Talk about space conservation. “Well, I’m Sophie, and I’m a senior. I’m from here.” She holds up a fi nger, as if to stop my train of thought. “ ‘Here’ being Korea, not Ganghwa. I live in Seoul, which is way better than this old place.” She wrinkles her nose, then brightens an instant

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later. “But I grew up in the States. That’s why my En glish is so good. And—and it’s just so good to meet you!” Her cheeks red- den. “But I already said that.” A chuckle falls from my lips unconsciously. This girl’s crazy, but at least she’s nice. “It’s just that it will be nice to speak English again with some- one,” she continues. “You wouldn’t believe how tiring it is only speaking Korean when you grew up with En glish.” I unzip one of the bags and begin to unpack my clothes, shoes, and toiletries. My entire life inside two suitcases. It’s sort of pitiful, in a way, that I fi t it all into two such small spaces. Of course, I didn’t need a suitcase for the emotional baggage I’ve dragged along with me from Nashville. “So you’re American, then?” I ask, though Sophie probably doesn’t need my prompting to keep up her soliloquy. “Well, technically, I’m a Korean citizen, since I was born here. But my twin brother, Jason, and I lived with my dad in New York from the time we were babies. We visited Korea every summer, but we didn’t move here until we were fourteen to be with our mom in Seoul.” “And now you’re here on the island?” She scowls, the fi rst negative emotion I’ve seen cross her face yet. “Unfortunately.” I laugh. “Why come if you didn’t want to?” She sighs, dropping down into her desk chair. “It’s a long story, but it involves my brother running away from home and dragging me along with him, even though I was top of my class last year and a total shoo- in for top this year. I had to leave all my friends and everything.” With a grunt, I grab a pile of clothes and make to drop them in one of the wardrobes, but I realize once I’m standing in front of them that the doors are closed and my hands are currently oc- cupied.

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“Here, let me help!” Sophie opens the doors. “You’re on bottom. Just like the beds. I thought it’d be better if that matched. You know, easier to remember.” I take in the excitement that’s practically oozing out of her, and a fresh wave of exhaustion washes over me. Jeez, I need some sleep. Sophie frowns. “Oh, you look tired. How long have you been traveling?” “Over twenty- four hours, including layovers.” Her eyes bug. “Then you need to get into bed! I’ll be quiet so you can go to sleep.” She runs her fi ngers across her mouth like a zipper, and another laugh escapes my lips. I’m gonna like this girl. I manage to unpack enough of my stuff to take a quick shower and brush my teeth and crawl into bed, after covering it with the school-provided sheets. True to her word, Sophie keeps silent at her desk, her knees pressed against her chest, poring over a magazine. I pull out my phone for the fi rst time since I landed in Korea and see three missed calls from Momma. I have no idea why she felt the need to call again after I told her I’d arrived. It’s not like we talked much when I was home, so why start now? Maybe opting for the international phone plan wasn’t such a good idea after all. She left a voice mail: “Hey, Grace. Are you at the school yet? Let me know. But don’t call if it’s too early here because you know I need my eight hours of sleep. Call soon. Bye.” It’s nine o’clock and home is fourteen hours behind, so she’s most likely about to wake up and get ready for her yoga class. Later, she’ll probably be carting around my younger sister, Jane, and making plans for a lunch date with one of the wives of Dad’s partners. I’m just surprised she took the time to call before going

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to bed last night. There’s no message from Dad, though that’s not surprising. I can’t remember the last time he initiated a conversa- tion with me. I click over to the celebrity gossip site I frequent, reminding myself—as I do every time—that this is pointless. I scroll through the latest articles, but none of the headlines catch my attention. With a sigh, I toss my phone onto the bed and ignore the curious eyes of Sophie, who watches me like I’m some kind of museum exhibit. After a few good punches to my pillow, I settle in deep be- neath the blanket I insisted on bringing from home, the one my aunt quilted for my sixteenth birthday. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, and I wish I had thanked her properly before she died last year. But now it’s one of the few things that remind me of home. It still smells the same— like lilac fabric softener and my favor- ite perfume. I take in a deep breath and swallow the sob that catches in the back of my throat. The heavy silence of the dorm room presses against my chest, and I blink back hot tears. What have I done? Why didn’t I listen to Momma and Dad, and just stay in Nashville? I kept telling my- self as I packed up my things, as I boarded the airplane, that this was the right thing. If I wanted to keep any sort of relationship with my mother, we needed to be separated for a while. I still have no idea why I decided we needed an entire ocean between us or why I even chose Korea— it was just the fi rst place that popped up on Google when I typed in “international boarding schools,” probably thanks to Jane’s search history, since I’m not the only one who considered getting out of Tennessee. My fi ngers curl tighter around the quilt and press it against my face in hopes of muffl ing my sniffl es. I’ve got to hold it to- gether. I didn’t cry leaving the States. I didn’t even cry over the “incident,” as Dad liked to call Nathan’s downward spiral. So why am I barely holding it together now?

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I scramble for the fi rst element in the periodic table, but my sleep- deprived brain is at capacity. Out of sheer frustration, I put my earbuds in and fl ip on the sleep playlist on my iPod, letting the soft melodies wash away all thoughts. I spend the next hour holding back tears and the crippling loneliness that echoes inside my head, competing for dominance with the music reverberating through my ears, until I fi nally slip into blissful sleep and escape.

My sleep is cut short, however, when sunlight blazes through the blinds and right onto my face. I fumble for my phone and see that it’s only seven o’clock, but I’m completely awake. I lie in bed, tossing and turning, until I hear Sophie shift atop her mattress above me. She climbs down from the top bunk, stands in the middle of the four-by-four-foot square fl oor space and stretches her arms above her head. Yawning, she waves at me. “Did you sleep well?” she asks. I murmur a yes, though my sore limbs and aching head pro- test. Sophie and I throw on clothes, and once we’ve both deemed our hair and makeup good enough to be seen by the outside world, she says, “Do you want to go to breakfast with me? I told Jason I’d meet him at eight- thirty.” “Sure.” I stuff my feet into a pair of ankle boots and clap on a straw fedora I found at a consignment store in Nashville. After tossing my phone and Korean phrase book into my satchel, I follow her out the door. Students pass us in the hall, and they all smile and bow their heads in greeting. Although most of the girls we see are Asian, I spot a few that look Filipino or maybe Pacifi c Islander and others with darker complexions and hijabs, maybe from India or somewhere in the Middle East.

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When I researched the school, I was drawn to the fact that it boasted all classes taught in En glish and that it’s apparently more relaxed than most Korean schools, which can be intense in both academics and discipline. Because it’s targeted to foreign students who speak a myriad of native languages— mostly kids of foreign dignitaries, high- profi le CEOs, or wealthy Eu ro pe an expatriates—English serves as the common language for them all, a fact that still baffl es me. I complained every day about the two years of Spanish I took—my sister, Jane, is the one with the ear for languages. But the people here have been taking English classes their entire lives. America is seriously behind the foreign language instruction curve. But while English may be the common language, most stu- dents we pass stick with other kids who look like them and speak their own languages. A group of girls pass us, their black- haired heads bent close, giggling. One points at me, and heat climbs up my neck. But I force down the embarrassment; she probably wasn’t even talking about me. Sophie leads me out of the dorm and onto the plaza I saw when I fi rst arrived. More students occupy it than last night, some boys playing with a soccer ball, another group just sitting and laughing. A greenery-lined path leads around the plaza, which is circled by a ring of classroom and administrative buildings that stare down at me with condescension, like they’re daring me to fail, like they know I can’t handle this. A sidewalk leads a little farther up the mountain to more buildings, which Sophie tells me are the boys’ dorms. Despite the crowds of students milling around, the noise level across campus is hardly more than a hum. Coupled with the trees planted in front of and all around the buildings and the mountains towering over us, the quiet makes me feel more

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like I’m at one of those relaxed resorts than a school full of teenagers. We climb the stairs up to a chrome building with red Korean characters, which Sophie tells me reads Dining Hall. The caf- eteria has its own building? How big is this place? I mean, I know it’s a school for rich kids, but still. The dining hall is easily three times the size of my high school lunchroom, and anxiety pools in my stomach as I peer around the room— I’m in way over my head. Light fi lters in through the sloped glass ceiling, illuminating the myriad of long tables and benches fi lled with students, and providing a view of the mountains sur- rounding the grounds. I get in line behind Sophie, listening to the languages swirling around us. They buzz in my ears like white noise, none of them distinct from the others. As we draw closer to the serving line, I sniff at a scent un- like anything I’ve smelled before. Sophie picks out some kind of soup with green leaves fl oating in it, but I steer clear of anything I don’t recognize and opt instead for an omelette that I think has vegetables in it, maybe some kind of meat, I can’t tell. When we get to our table, I realize the only utensils avail- able are silver chopsticks. Sophie fi shes out the green bits from her soup with her chopsticks like a pro. How she’s going to get the broth out of that bowl is something I’d like to see. Hesitantly, I cradle the chopsticks with my thumb and middle fi nger. I pick up a piece of egg, which almost instantly slips back onto my plate. This pro cess continues for a solid thirty seconds before I’m able to successfully transfer food into my mouth. I fi - nally elect to hold the plate close to my lips and rake the salty omelette into my mouth. Other people are doing it, so it can’t be bad manners. Sophie checks her phone with a frown. “I don’t know where he is,” she mutters.

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She scans the cafeteria, and I follow her gaze, searching faces for one that looks anything like hers. But I can’t pick out anyone specifi cally in the sea of people I’m currently drowning in. A wide smile breaks out on Sophie’s face, and she waves her arm frantically above her head. I turn and spot a guy in a blue-and- white striped sweater left unbuttoned, with sleeves bunched at the elbows over a V- neck T- shirt. He strides toward us, hands stuffed into the pockets of his skinny jeans. He’s taller than most of the other guys I’ve seen here, with inky black hair that sweeps across his forehead and full lips that look a lot like Sophie’s. He’s the hottest boy I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of cute boys. I struggle to keep my mouth closed and eyes inside my head as he comes to our table. And I’m not the only one staring. He leaves a wake of girls behind him who stare and point, and a few even snap pictures with their phones, their heads swiveling around, making sure nobody saw them. Surprise zips through me. Maybe girls are just more open here about guys they think are cute. I’m pretty sure taking pic- tures of the guy and pointing at him behind his back in a crowded lunchroom wouldn’t fl y in the States. But I’m pulled out of my cultural comparisons when he says something in Korean to Sophie, his voice clear and deep, and my heart sputters a little, which probably makes me just as bad as those other girls. When was the last time my mouth went dry at the sight of a boy? Not since Isaac, my ex, when we met at that teen club where he was the DJ. When you grow up around cowboy hats and giant belt buckles worn by boys trying to get into your pants so your dad will give them a record deal, it’s hard not to be attracted to slouchy hats, Converse, and fl annel. “Don’t be rude, Jason,” Sophie scolds playfully, tilting her head toward me. “This is Grace, who speaks En glish.”

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I fl ash him my brightest smile, but he answers with a stony expression, his eyes running a quick scan across me. My enthu- siasm fl ickers. But I ford through the blow to my confi dence. “It’s nice to meet you.” He doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring until my cheeks ache from holding my smile. I fi ght the instinct to glance down at my white lace blouse and black jean shorts to make sure nei- ther sport a food spill. “She’s my roommate,” Sophie says, coming to my rescue and diverting Jason’s attention. “She’s from America!” Her voice rises to a squeal on the last word. “Sit with us.” He sweeps the room with his gaze, a determinedly bored air about him and a glazed look in his eye, even though he has to see all the girls pointedly not looking at him. I’m starting to wonder if Sophie got all the people skills while they were incubating in the womb. “I already ate,” he says, thankfully in English—for my ben- efi t? “I have to meet Tae Hwa in the music room. Are you going to The Vortex to night?” Her grin falls, and I’m irrationally tempted to punch Jason for causing it to disappear. “Of course,” she says with forced levity. He nods, then glances at me again, before turning and walk- ing back through the cafeteria toward the exit. I stare after him, smarting at his obvious lack of both friendliness and regard for me as a human being. “Is he always that cheerful?” I ask, unable to bite back my sarcasm. Sophie waves away the question. “He’s just quiet.” But the disappointment that’s swallowed her eyes says something dif- ferent. After breakfast, Sophie volunteers to show me around cam- pus; she arrived a few days before me and already knows where

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everything is. The school is gigantic, the size of a small college rather than a high school— multiple classroom buildings and everything. She fi gures out where all my classes will be—all in the same room, like in elementary school—and points out the building, which is on the opposite side of campus as our dorm and on top of a hill so high it might as well be Everest. Sweat beading on the small of my back, I ask Sophie if we can sit and rest for a minute. We settle on a bench beneath a gnarled tree inside a small pavilion between two buildings. I wipe moisture off the back of my neck. It’s not as hot here as in Tennessee, but the humidity sticks to my skin and sucks sweat out of my pores until I feel wrung dry. “I’m going to have to walk this every day,” I say, the horri- ble realization slamming into me like a Mack Truck. “You should buy a bicycle,” Sophie says. “It will help with getting around campus and the island.” A sigh escapes my lips. “I already miss my car.” She laughs. “Korean people don’t drive as much as Amer- icans. It’s time for you to become Korean. Or, at least like someone living in Korea. Isn’t that why you came here in the fi rst place?” No, it’s not, and I could tell her exactly why I came, but I’m not ready to talk about it. Not to anyone. South Korea is my escape, my Restart button, where no one asks for my autograph when I go shopping or knows the rumored balance of my savings account. This is where I get to start over. As we head to the dorms, I think back to meeting Sophie’s brother this morning. He said something about a band room. Does that mean people play music here? I mean, normal music, like rock or hip- hop or folk. Or is it only traditional Korean stuff? “Does your brother play an instrument?” I venture. An ironic smile curls Sophie’s lips, and she chuckles under her breath. “You could say that.”

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“What does he play?” “Guitar.” So people do play Western music. “Is there a music program here at all?” I didn’t bother to check when I applied. Dad wants me to fol- low in his footsteps and take up the mantle of the company when he fi nally decides to retire, but business isn’t my thing. Never has been. I may have music in my blood, but I have no head for the market— I wouldn’t know which artists should be invested in. And I doubt he wants me to run his multimillion-dollar corporation into the ground. So I’m thinking about studying chemistry in college— basically, the furthest thing from music you can get. Of course, it helps that balancing chemical equations and performing experi- ments that could potentially blow up the lab rings my bell. “I think there’s a symphony- esque band,” Sophie says. “Like violins, cellos, that sort of thing.” “I take it he’s not in that one.” Now she laughs for real. “Defi nitely not. He’s in a band, but I don’t think it’s one the school would sponsor.” “What kind of music is it?” Sophie stops in the middle of the walkway, and it takes me a good fi fteen seconds before I realize she’s no longer walking beside me. I backtrack until we’re even again. “You should probably know this now,” she says, hesitance creeping into her voice. She stares at me carefully, as if gauging my reaction. “Jason is . . . famous.” “What?” “He’s a famous singer. Here in Korea.” My eyebrows shoot up, waiting for her to either cry, “Just kidding!” or, “How crazy that we both have famous families!” But she says nothing, just waits for my response, and I realize she must know nothing about my family.

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This can’t be a coincidence. Either fate or the director of residency— or maybe both— must have thought we’d have a lot in common. And the way the girls in the cafeteria acted— it makes more sense now, explains why they took the pictures. All things considered, they were pretty calm about a celebrity in their midst. I might have expected a mob. Or at least a few asking for autographs. “That’s cool. What’s the name of his band?” I ask, keeping my tone as blasé as possible. Her entire body seems to sigh, like she’s been holding on to this dark secret since we met. “Eden.” I snort. “Why— because they’re perfect?” “Exactly!” Oh. “They debuted at the end of last year, and they’ve sold a lot of albums. Have you heard of them?” “Can’t say I have.” She nods, picking up our walk again. “That makes sense. No one listens to KPOP in America.” My eyebrows rise. “KPOP?” “Korean pop music.” “Right. KPOP.” Didn’t Jane listen to that stuff in middle school? Or maybe it was Japanese pop music, which would be . . . JPOP? I can’t re- member. She went through an Asian obsession phase about two years ago, when she owned enough Hello Kitty paraphernalia to stock a toy store. Even when we tried to tell her there’s more to Japan than Hello Kitty and sushi. “The band is sort of taking a break right now,” she says. “That’s why they’re here, to sort of get away from everything. But they’re playing a small show at a club tonight, that lets in under-

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age people, to try out a few new songs. It’s called The Vortex. You should come! It will be fun.” I swore not to hang out at clubs anymore after Isaac, but it’s not like I have anything better to do. And I highly doubt my ex- boyfriend would be a DJ at a KPOP concert. In Korea. A snicker escapes my lips. KPOP. Heh. “Sure,” I say. “I’d like to hear them.” “Great!” She links her arm through mine and giggles. My instincts scream for me to free my arm, but her enthusi- asm is contagious and I fi nd myself laughing along with her. Even though the familiar pain that’s haunted me since the beginning of the summer still lingers in the back of my brain, I’m able to keep it quiet for now. I know it’ll resurface—it always does—but right now, I let myself consider the possibility that maybe I really am getting a fresh start. And if I am, it’s time for me to grab on to it with both hands.

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I came across this book at auction as part of a larger lot I purchased on speculation. The damage renders it useless to me, but a name inside it led me to believe it might be of interest to you or your family... Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, ran off to join the circus six years ago.

One June day, an old book arrives on Simon’s doorstep. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things-including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of “mermaids” in Simon’s family have drowned-always on July 24, which is only weeks away.

As his friend Alice looks on with alarm, Simon becomes increasingly worried about his sister. Could there be a curse on Simon’s family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he stop it in time to save Enola?

The Book of Speculation is Erika Swyler’s gorgeous and moving debut, a wondrous novel about the power of books, family, and magic.

ERICA SWYLER is a graduate of New York University. Her short fiction has appeared in WomenArts Quarterly Journal, Litro, Anderbo.com, and elsewhere. Her writing is featured in the anthology Colonial Comics, and her work as a playwright has received note from the Jane Chambers Award. Born and raised on Long Island’s North Shore, Erika learned to swim before she could walk, and happily spent all her money at traveling carnivals. She blogs and has a baking Tumblr with a following of 60,000. Erika recently moved from Brooklyn back to her hometown, which inspired the setting of the book. The Book of Speculation is her debut novel. june 20th

erched on the bluff’s edge, the house is in dan- ger. Last night’s storm tore land and churned water, littering the beach with bottles, sea- P weed, and horse shoe crab carapaces. The place where I’ve spent my entire life is unlikely to survive the fall storm season. The1 Long Island Sound is pep- pered with the remains of homes and lifetimes, all ground to sand in its greedy maw. It is a hunger. Mea sures that should have been taken— bulkheads, terracing— weren’t. My father’s apathy left me to in- herit an unfixable problem, one too costly for a li- brarian in Napawset. But we librarians are known for being resourceful. I walk toward the wooden stairs that sprawl down the cliff and lean into the sand. I’ve been delinquent in breaking in my calluses this year and my feet hurt

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where stones chew at them. On the north shore few things are more hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . essential than hard feet. My sister, Enola, and I used to run shoe- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh less in the summers until the pavement got so hot our toes sank hn hk io il sy SY ek eh into the tar. Outsiders can’t walk these shores. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh At the bottom of the steps Frank McAvoy waves to me before hn hk io il sy SY ek eh turning his gaze to the cliff. He has a skiff with him, a beautiful hn hk io il sy SY ek eh vessel that looks as if it’s been carved from a single piece of wood. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Frank is a boatwright and a good man who has known my family since before I was born. When he smiles his face breaks into the splotchy weathered lines of an Irishman with too many years in the sun. His eyebrows curl upward and disappear beneath the brim of an aging canvas hat he’s never without. Had my father lived into his sixties he might have looked like Frank, with the same yellowed teeth, the reddish freckles. To look at Frank is to remember me, young, crawling among wood set up for a bonfire, and his huge hand pulling me away from a toppling log. He summons memories of my father poised over a barbecue, grilling corn— the smell of charred husk and burning silk— while Frank regaled us with fishing stories. Frank lied hugely, obviously. My mother and his wife egged him on, their laughter frightening the gulls. Two people are now missing from the tab- leau. I look at Frank and see my parents; I imagine it’s impossible for him to look at me and not see his departed friends. “Looks like the storm hit you hard, Simon,” he says. “I know. I lost five feet.” Five feet is an underestimate. “I told your dad that he needed to get on that bulkhead, put in trees.” The McAvoy property lies a few hundred yards west of my house, farther back from the water with a terraced and planted bluff that’s designed to save Frank’s house come hell or, literally, high water. “Dad was never big on listening.” “No, he wasn’t. Still, a patch or two on that bulkhead could have saved you a world of trouble.” “You know what he was like.” The silence, the resignation. Frank sucks air through his teeth, making a dry whistling sound. “I guess he thought he had more time to fix things.”

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“Probably,” I say. Who knows what my father thought? . “The water’s been coming up high the last couple years, though.” “I know. I can’t let it go much longer. If you’ve got somebody you trust, I’d appreciate the name of a contractor.” “Absolutely. I can send someone your way.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I won’t lie, though, it won’t be cheap.” “Nothing is anymore, is it?” “No, I suppose not.” “I may wind up having to sell.” “I’d hate to see you do that.” Frank’s brow furrows, tugging his hat down. “The property is worth something even if the house goes.” “Think on it some.” Frank knows my financial constraints. His daughter, Alice, also works at the library. Redheaded and pretty, Alice has her father’s smile and a way with kids. She’s better with people than I am, which is why she handles programming and I’m in reference. But we’re not here about Alice, or the perilous state of my house. We’re here to do what we’ve done for over a de cade, setting buoys to cordon off a swimming area. The storm was strong enough to pull the buoys and their anchors ashore, leaving them a heap of rusted chains and orange rope braid, alive with barnacles. It’s little wonder I lost land. “Shall we?” I ask. “Might as well. Day’s not getting any younger.” I strip off my shirt, heft the chains and ropes over a shoulder, and begin the slow walk into the water. “Sure you don’t need a hand?” Frank asks. The skiff scrapes against the sand as he pushes it into the water. “No thanks, I’ve got it.” I could do it by myself, but it’s safer to have Frank follow me. He isn’t really here for me; he’s here for the same reason I do this walk every year: to remember my mother, Paulina, who drowned in this water. The Sound is icy for June, but once in I am whole and my feet curl around algae- covered rocks as if made to fit them. The anchor chains slow me, but Frank keeps pace, circling the oars. I walk un- til the water reaches my chest, then neck. Just before dipping

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under I exhale everything, then breathe in, like my mother taught hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . me on a warm morning in late July, like I taught my sister. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh The trick to holding your breath is to be thirsty. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh “Out in a quick hard breath,” my mother said, her voice soft just hn hk io il sy SY ek eh by my ear. In the shallow water her thick black hair flowed around hn hk io il sy SY ek eh us in rivers. I was five years old. She pressed my stomach until mus- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh cle sucked in, navel almost touching spine. She pushed hard, sharp hn hk io il sy SY ek eh fingernails pricking. “Now in, fast. Quick, quick, quick. Spread your ribs wide. Think wide.” She breathed and her rib cage ex- panded, bird- thin bones splayed until her stomach was barrel- round. Her bathing suit was a bright white glare in the water. I squinted to watch it. She thumped a finger against my sternum. Tap. Tap. Tap. “You’re breathing up, Simon. If you breathe up you’ll drown. Up cuts off the space in your belly.” A gentle touch. A little smile. My mother said to imagine you’re thirsty, dried out and empty, and then drink the air. Stretch your bones and drink wide and deep. Once my stomach rounded to a fat drum she whispered, “Won- derful, wonderful. Now, we go under.” Now, I go under. Soft rays filter down around the shadow of Frank’s boat. I hear her sometimes, drifting through the water, and glimpse her now and then, behind curtains of seaweed, black hair mingling with kelp. My breath fractures into a fine mist over my skin. Paulina, my mother, was a circus and carnival performer, fortune- teller, magician’s assistant, and mermaid who made her living by holding her breath. She taught me to swim like a fish, and she made my father smile. She disappeared often. She would quit jobs or work two and three at once. She stayed in hotels just to try out other beds. My father, Daniel, was a machinist and her constant. He was at the house, smiling, waiting for her to return, waiting for her to call him darling. Simon, darling. She called me that as well. I was seven years old the day she walked into the water. I’ve tried to forget, but it’s become my fondest memory of her. She left us in the morning after making breakfast. Hard- boiled eggs that had to be cracked on the side of a plate and peeled with fingernails, get-

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ting bits of shell underneath them. I cracked and peeled my sister’s . egg, cutting it into slivers for her toddler fingers. Dry toast and or- ange juice to accompany. The early hours of summer make shad- ows darker, faces fairer, and hollows all the more angular. Paulina was a beauty that morning, swanlike, someone who did not fit. Dad was at work at the plant. She was alone with us, watching, nod- ding as I cut Enola’s egg. “You’re a good big brother, Simon. Look out for Enola. She’ll want to run off on you. Promise you won’t let her.” “I won’t.” “You’re a wonderful boy, aren’t you? I never expected that. I didn’t expect you at all.” The pendulum on the cuckoo clock ticked back and forth. She tapped a heel on the linoleum, keeping quiet time. Enola covered herself with egg and crumbs. I battled to eat and keep my sister clean. After a while my mother stood and smoothed the front of her yellow summer skirt. “I’ll see you later, Simon. Goodbye, Enola.” She kissed Enola’s cheek and pressed her lips to the top of my head. She waved goodbye, smiled, and left for what I thought was work. How could I have known that goodbye meant goodbye? Hard thoughts are held in small words. When she looked at me that morn- ing, she knew I would take care of Enola. She knew we could not follow. It was the only time she could go. Not long after, while Alice McAvoy and I raced cars across her living room rug, my mother drowned herself in the Sound. I lean into the water, pushing with my chest, digging in my toes. A few more feet and I drop an anchor with a muffled clang. I look at the boat’s shadow. Frank is anxious. The oars slap the surface. What must it be like to breathe water? I imagine my mother’s con- torted face, but keep walking until I can set the other anchor, and then empty the air from my lungs and tread toward the shore, try- ing to stay on the bottom for as long as possible— a game Enola and I used to play. I swim only when it’s too difficult to maintain the balance to walk, then my arms move in steady strokes, cutting the Sound like one of Frank’s boats. When the water is just deep enough

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to cover my head, I touch back down to the bottom. What I do next hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . is for Frank’s benefit. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh “Slowly, Simon,” my mother told me. “Keep your eyes open, hn hk io il sy SY ek eh even when it stings. It hurts more coming out than going in, but hn hk io il sy SY ek eh keep them open. No blinking.” Salt burns but she never blinked, hn hk io il sy SY ek eh not in the water, not when the air first hit her eyes. She was moving hn hk io il sy SY ek eh sculpture. “Don’t breathe, not even when your nose is above. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Breathe too quickly and you get a mouthful of salt. Wait,” she said, holding the word out like a promise. “Wait until your mouth breaks the water, but breathe through your nose, or it looks like you’re tired. You can never be tired. Then you smile.” Though small- mouthed and thin- lipped, her smile stretched as wide as the water. She showed me how to bow properly: arms high, chest out, a crane taking flight. “Crowds love very small people and very tall ones. Don’t bend at the waist like an actor; it cuts you off. Let them think you’re taller than you are.” She smiled at me around her raised arms, “And you’re going to be very tall, Simon.” A tight nod to an invis- ible audience. “Be gracious, too. Always gracious.” I don’t bow, not for Frank. The last time I bowed was when I taught Enola and the salt stung our eyes so badly we looked like we’d been fighting. Still, I smile and take in a deep breath through my nose, let my ribs stretch and fill my gut. “Thought I was going to have to go in after you,” Frank calls. “How long was I down?” He eyes his watch with its cracked leather strap and expels a breath. “Nine minutes.” “Mom could do eleven.” I shake the water from my hair, thump- ing twice to get it out of my ear. “Never understood it,” Frank mutters as he frees the oars from the locks. They clatter when he tosses them inside the skiff. There’s a question neither of us asks: how long would it take for a breath- holder to drown? When I throw on my shirt it’s full of sand; a consequence of shore living, it’s always in the hair, under the toenails, in the folds of the sheets. Frank comes up behind me, puffing from dragging the boat.

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“You should have let me help you with that.” . He slaps my back. “If I don’t push myself now and again I’ll just get old.” We make small talk about things at the marina. He complains about the prevalence of fiberglass boats, we both wax poetic about Windmill, the racing sail he’d shared with my father. After Mom drowned, Dad sold the boat without explanation. It was cruel of him to do that to Frank, but I suppose Frank could have bought it outright if he’d wanted. We avoid talking about the house, though it’s clear he’s upset over the idea of selling it. I’d rather not sell ei- ther. Instead we exchange pleasantries about Alice. I say I’m keep- ing an eye out for her, though it’s unnecessary. “How’s that sister of yours? She settled anywhere yet?” “Not that I know of. To be honest, I don’t know if she ever will.” Frank smiles a little. We both think it: Enola is restless like my mother. “Still reading tarot cards?” he asks. “She’s getting by.” She’s taken up with a carnival. Once that’s said, we’ve ticked off the requisite conversational boxes. We dry off and heft the skiff back up on the bulkhead. “Are you heading up?” I ask. “I’ll walk back with you.” “It’s a nice day,” he says. “Think I’ll stay down here awhile.” The ritual is done. We part ways once we’ve drowned our ghosts. I take the steps back, avoiding the poison ivy that grows over the railings and runs rampant over the bluff— no one pulls it out; anything that anchors the sand is worth what ever evil it brings— and cut through the beach grass, toward home. Like many Napaw- set houses, mine is a true colonial, built in the late 1700s. A plaque from the historical society hung beside the front door until it blew away in a nor’easter a few years back. The Timothy Wabash house. With peeling white paint, four crooked windows, and a sloping step, the house’s appearance marks prolonged negligence and a serious lack of funds. On the faded green front step (have to get to that) a package props open the screen door. The deliveryman always leaves the door open though I’ve left countless notes not to; the last thing I need is to

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rehang a door on a house that hasn’t been square since the day it hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . was built. I haven’t ordered anything and can’t think of anyone who hn hk io il sy SY ek eh would send me something. Enola is rarely in one place long enough hn hk io il sy SY ek eh to mail more than a postcard. Even then they’re usually blank. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh The package is heavy, awkward, and addressed with the spidery hn hk io il sy SY ek eh scrawl of an el der ly person— a style I’m familiar with, as the library’s hn hk io il sy SY ek eh patrons are by and large an aging group. That reminds me, I need to hn hk io il sy SY ek eh talk to Janice about finding stretchable dollars in the library bud get. Things might not be too bad if I can get a patch on the bulkhead. It wouldn’t be a raise, a one- time bonus maybe, for years of ser vice. The sender is no one I know, an M. Churchwarry in Iowa. I clear a stack of papers from the desk— a few articles on circus and carnivals, things I’ve collected over the years to keep abreast of my sister’s life. The box contains a good- sized book, carefully wrapped. Even before opening it, the musty, slightly acrid scent indicates old pa- per, wood, leather, and glue. It’s enveloped in tissue and newsprint, and unwrapping reveals a dark leather binding covered with what would be intricate scrollwork had it not suffered substantial water damage. A small shock runs through me. It’s very old, not a book to be handled with naked fingers, but seeing as it’s already ruined, I give in to the quiet thrill of touching something with history. The edges of the undamaged paper are soft, gritty. The library’s whal- ing collection lets me dabble in archival work and restoration, enough to say that the book feels to be at least from the 1800s. This is appointment reading, not a book you ship without warning. I shuffle my papers into two small stacks to support the volume— a poor substitute for the bookstands it deserves, but they’ll do. A letter is tucked inside the front cover, written in watery ink with the same shaky hand.

Dear Mr. Watson, I came across this book at auction as part of a larger lot I purchased on speculation. The damage renders it

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useless to me, but a name . inside it —Verona Bonn—led me to believe it might be of interest to you or your family. It’s a lovely book, and I hope that it finds a good home with you. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions that you feel I may be able to answer.

It is signed by a Mr. Martin Churchwarry of Churchwarry & Son and includes a telephone number. A bookseller, specializing in used and antiquarian books. Verona Bonn. What my grandmother’s name would be doing inside this book is beyond me. A traveling performer like my mother, she would have had no place in her life for a book like this. With the edge of my finger, I turn a page. The paper nearly crack- les with the effort. Must remember to grab gloves along with book stands. The inside page is filled with elaborate writing, an excessively ornamented copperplate with whimsical flourishes that make it barely legible. It appears to be an accounting book or journal of a Mr. Hermelius Peabody, related to something containing the words portable and miracle. Any other identifiers are obscured by water damage and Mr. Peabody’s devotion to calligraphy. Skimming re- veals sketches of women and men, buildings, and fanciful curved- roof wagons, all in brown. I never knew my grandmother. She passed away when my mother was a child, and my mother never spoke about her much. How this book connects to my grandmother is unclear, but it’s interesting nonetheless. I dial the number, ignoring the stutter indicating a message. It rings for an exceedingly long time before an answering ma- chine picks up and a man’s weathered voice states that I’ve reached

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Churchwarry & Son Booksellers and instructs to leave the time hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . and date in addition to a detailed message as to any specific volume hn hk io il sy SY ek eh I’m seeking. The handwriting didn’t lie. This is an old man. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh “Mr. Churchwarry, this is Simon Watson. I received a book from hn hk io il sy SY ek eh you. I’m not sure why you sent it, but I’m curious. It’s June twen- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh tieth, just six o’clock. It’s a fantastic specimen and I’d love to know hn hk io il sy SY ek eh more about it.” I leave multiple numbers, cell, home, and library. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Across the street, Frank heads toward his workshop, a barn to the side of his property. A piece of wood tucked under his arm, a jig of some sort. I should have asked him for money, not a contrac- tor. Workmen I can probably find, the money to do the work is an entirely different matter. I need a raise. Or a different job. Or both. A blinking light catches my eye. Voice mail. Right. I punch in the numbers. The voice at the other end is not one I expect to hear. “Hey, it’s me. Shit. Do I call enough to be an it’s me? I hope you have an it’s me. That would be good. Anyway, it’s me, Enola. I’m giving you a heads-up. I’m coming home in July. It would be good to see you, if you feel like being around. Actually, I want you to be around. So, I’m coming home in July, so you should be home. Okay? Bye.” I play it back again. She doesn’t call enough to be an it’s me. There’s noise in the background, people talking, laughing, maybe even the sound of a carnival ride or two, but I might be imagining that. No dates, no number, just July. Enola doesn’t work on a nor- mal timeline; to her, leaving a month’s window is reasonable. It’s good to hear her voice, but also concerning. Enola hasn’t called in more than two months and hasn’t been home in six years, not since announcing that if she spent one more day in this house with me she’d die. It was a typical thing to say, but different in that we both knew she meant it, different because I’d spent the previous four years taking care of her after Dad died. Since then she’s called from time to time, leaving rambling messages. Our conversations are brief and centered on needs. Two years ago she called, sick with the flu. I found her in a hotel in New Jersey, hugging a toilet. I stayed three days. She refused to come home. She wants to visit. She can. I haven’t touched her room since she

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left, hoping she’d come back, I suppose. I’d thought about turning . it into a library, but there were always more immediate concerns, patching leaks, fixing electrical problems, replacing windows. Re- purposing my long- gone sister’s room wasn’t a priority. Though perhaps it’s con ve nient to think so. The book sits by the phone, a tempting little mystery. I won’t sleep to night; I often don’t. I’ll be up, fixating. On the house, on my sister, on money. I trace the curve of a flourished H with my thumb. If this book is meant for me, best find out why.

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053-59920_ch01_7P.indd 12 3/30/15 11:21 AM he boy was born a bastard on a small to- bacco farm in the rich- soiled Virginia hills. Had his birth been noted, it would have T been in the 1780s, after a tobacco man could set his price for a hogshead barrel, but before he was swallowed up by all- consuming2 cotton. Little more than clapboard, his diminutive home was moss tipped and permanently shuttered against rain, flies, and the ever- present tang of tobacco from the drying shed. His mother was the farmer’s wife, strong- backed Eunice Oliver. His father was Lemuel Atkinson, an attractive young man and proprietor of a traveling medicine show. With little more than a soft endear- ment and the lure of a gentleman’s supple hands, Eu- nice gained three bottles of Atkinson’s Elixir and a pregnancy.

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The farmer, William Oliver, had three children to his name al- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . ready and did not look kindly upon a bastard. Once the boy was hn hk io il sy SY ek eh up, walking, and too large to survive on table scraps, Mr. Oliver hn hk io il sy SY ek eh led the child into the heart of the woods and left him to fate. Eu- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh nice cried mightily at having her son taken, but the boy remained hn hk io il sy SY ek eh silent. The boy’s great misfortune was not that he was a bastard, hn hk io il sy SY ek eh but that he was mute. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh He survived several years without words to explain them. In light the boy was hungry and fed himself however he could, picking berries with dirt- crusted hands; when he happened upon a farm, he stole from it on silent feet. A meat- drying house meant a night’s shelter and weeks of food. In dark he slept wherever there was warmth. His days shrank, becoming only fog, moun- tains, and a thick of trees so full the world itself fell in. The boy disappeared into this place, and it was here that he first learned to vanish. People may live for a century without discovering the secret of vanishing. The boy found it because he was free to listen to the ground humming, the subtle moving of soil, and the breath- ing of water— a whisper barely discernible over the sound of a heartbeat. Water was the key. If he listened to its depth and mea- sure and matched his breath to it, slowing his heart until it barely thumped, his slight brown frame would fade into the surround- ing world. Had any watched, they would have seen a grubby boy turn sideways and vanish into the trees, becoming like a grain of sand— impossible to differentiate from the larger shore. Hunger, his enduring companion, was all that kept him certain that he lived. Vanishing eased his survival, enabling him to walk into smoke- houses and eat until heat and fumes drove him out. He snatched bread from tables, clothing from trees and bushes where it dried, and stole what ever he could to quiet his body’s demands. Only once did he venture to the home that had abandoned him, when his memories of it had grown so vague he thought them imag- ined. He happened upon the gray house with the slanted roof and

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was shocked to find it real and not a remnant of a dream. He lifted . the latch on a shutter just enough to peer through with a deep brown eye. This vantage showed the interior of a bedroom lit by what moonlight the ill- fitting shutters allowed. A man and a woman slept on a straw mattress. The boy looked at the man’s rough features, the stiff dark bristles jutting from his chin, and felt nothing. The woman lay on her side, brown hair spill- ing across the edge of her smock. Something woke in the boy, a flash of that hair brushing the back of his hand. He crept into the house, past a long table and the bed of a sleeping child, and slipped into the room where the woman and the man slept, his body remem- bering the way as though it had traveled it thousands of times. He gently lifted the bedsheet, slid beneath, and closed his eyes. The woman’s smell was at once familiar, lye soap and curing tobacco, a scent that lived deep inside him that he’d forgotten. Her warmth made his chest stammer. He fled before she woke. He didn’t see the woman rouse the man or hear her tell the man that she’d had the sensation of being watched, or that she’d dreamt of her son. The boy did not return to the house. He walked back into the woods, searching for other shelter, other food, and places that didn’t make his skin burn. On the banks of the muddy Dan River, not far from Boyd’s Ferry, was the town of Catspaw, named for the shape of the valley in which it lay; it was colored the ochre of the river’s loam and dusty with the tracks of horses and mules. The freshets that plagued Boyd’s Ferry would later cause Catspaw to melt back into the hills, but at the time the settlement was burgeoning. The boy traveled the Dan’s winding edge until he stumbled upon the town. It was frightening but filled with potential; washerwomen boiled large tubs of cloth- ing, sloshing soap and wash water down to the river, men poled flat boats, and horses pulled wagons along the banks and up through the streets, each carry ing women and men. The cacophonous jumble of water, people, and wagons terrified the boy. His eyes darted until they latched onto a woman’s bright blue dress and

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watched as the heavy cloth swung back and forth. He hid behind a hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . tree, covered his ears, and tried to slow his heartbeat, to listen to hn hk io il sy SY ek eh the breath of the river. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Then— a wondrous sound. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Heralded by a glorious voice, a troupe of traveling entertainers hn hk io il sy SY ek eh arrived. A mismatched collection of jugglers, acrobats, fortune- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh tellers, contortionists, and animals, the band was presided over by hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Hermelius H. Peabody, self- proclaimed visionary in entertainment and education, who thought the performers and animals (a count- ing pig deemed learned, a horse of miniature proportions, and a spit- ting llama) were instruments for improving minds and fattening his purse. On better days Peabody fancied himself professorial, on worse days townsfolk were unreceptive to enlightenment and ran him out of town. The pig wagon, with its freshly painted blue sides proudly declaring the animal’s name, “Toby,” bore scars from un- fortunate run- ins with pitchforks. The boy watched townspeople crowd a green and gold wagon as it rolled into the open central square. Close behind were several duller carts and carriages, some with round tops fashioned from large casks, painted every color in creation, each carry ing a hodge- podge of people and animals. The wagons circled and women pulled children to their skirts to keep them from running too close to the wheels. The lead wagon was painted with writing so ornate it was near indecipherable; on it stood an impressive man in flam- boyant attire— Peabody. Accustomed to lone traveling jugglers or musicians, the townsfolk had not encountered such a spectacle before. Never had there been such a man as Hermelius Peabody and he was fond of saying so. Both his height and appearance commanded attention. His beard came to a twisted point that brushed his chest and pristine white hair hung to his shoulders, topped by a curly hat that flirted with disintegration; that it held together at all ap- peared an act of trickery. His belly blatantly taunted gravity; rid- ing high and round, it dared his waistcoat’s brass buttons to contain it and strained his red velvet jacket to its limit. Yet the most remark- able thing about Hermelius Peabody was his voice, resonating

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through the valley with a rich rumbling that grew from deep within . his stomach. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are indeed fortuitous!” He motioned to a lean man behind him. The man, who had a thick scar that tugged at the corner of his mouth, whispered into Peabody’s ear. “Virgin- ians,” Peabody shouted. “Before you is the most amazing spectacle you shall ever see. From the East I bring you the greatest Orient contortionist!” A willowy girl scrambled onto a carriage roof, tucked a leg behind her head, and tipped forward to stand on one hand. The boy was transfixed. He inched from behind his tree. “From the heart of the Carpathians,” Peabody shouted and lifted his arms to the sky, “shrouded in the depths of Slavic mysticism, raised by wolves and schooled in the ancient arts of fortune- telling, The Madame Ryzhkova.” The crowd murmured as a stooped woman wrapped in a broadloom’s worth of silk emerged from a curved- top wagon and extended a twisted hand. Peabody’s voice resonated with the wild part of the boy, croon- ing and soothing. He inched toward the spectators, toward the wag- ons, snaking between bodies until he found a spot behind a wheel to best view the white- haired man with the voice like a river. He crouched, balanced on the tips of his toes, listening, timing each breath to the man’s. “Once in a lifetime, ladies and gentlemen. When else will you see a man lift a grown horse using one arm alone? When else, I ask, will you next encounter a girl who can tie herself into a proper sail- or’s knot or a seer who will tell you what the Lord himself has des- tined for you? Never, fine ladies and gentlemen!” With a flurry of movement, the performers hopped back into their carts and wag- ons, rolled down thick canvas coverings, and pulled shut the doors. Peabody remained, pacing slowly, running a hand over his buttons. “Noon and dusk, ladies and gentlemen. Threepence a look and we’ll happily accept Spanish notes. Noon and dusk!” The crowd dispersed, returning to carting, washing, marketing, and the ins and outs of Catspawian life. The boy held his position at the cart. Peabody’s sharp blue eyes turned to him.

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“Boy,” the voice intoned. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . The boy fell backward and a whuff of breath left him. His body hn hk io il sy SY ek eh refused to heed the command to run. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh “That is quite a fine trick you have,” Peabody continued. “The hn hk io il sy SY ek eh vanishing, the popping in and out. What do you call it? Ephem- hn hk io il sy SY ek eh eral, ephemerae, perhaps? We’ll think of a word or mayhap invent hn hk io il sy SY ek eh one.” hn hk io il sy SY ek eh The boy did not understand the sounds tumbling from the man. Boy felt familiar, but the rest was a jumble of beautiful noise. He wanted to feel the material that wrapped around the man’s stom- ach. The man approached. “And what do we have here? You are a boy, yes? Yet you seem to be comprised of muck and sticks. Curi- ous creature.” He made a clucking sound. “What say you?” Pea- body dropped a hand to the boy’s shoulder. It had been months since the boy had encountered a person. Unused to touch, he shud- dered under the weight and, doing what fear and instinct com- manded, pissed himself. “Damnation!” Peabody hopped back. “We’ll need to rid you of that habit.” The boy blinked. A rasping sound escaped his lips. Peabody’s face softened, a twitch of his cheek betraying a smile. “Do not worry yourself, lad; we’ll get along famously. In fact, I am relying upon it.” He wrapped a hand around the boy’s arm and pulled him to standing. “Come. Let’s show you about.” Afraid but fascinated, the boy followed. Peabody led him to the green and gold wagon where a neatly hinged door opened onto a well- appointed room with a desk, piles of books, a brass lantern, and all the makings of a comfortable home for a traveling man. The boy set foot inside. Peabody looked him over. “You’re dark enough to pass as a Mus- sulman or Turk. Here, chin up.” He bent down, hooking a finger under the boy’s jaw for a better view of him. The boy flinched. “No, you’re too wild for that.” Peabody sat heavily on a small three- legged chair. The boy wondered that it didn’t break under the man’s weight.

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He watched the man think. The man’s fingers were clean, nails . trimmed. Different from the boy’s. Though his size was frighten- ing, there was gentleness to him, the crinkles around his eyes. The boy scurried close to the desk where the man sat, listening to his rumbling. “We haven’t done India before. India,” Peabody said to himself. “Yes, an Indian savage, I think.” He chuckled. “My new Wild Boy.” He reached down as if to pat the boy’s head, but paused. “Would you like to be a savage?” The boy did not respond. Peabody’s brows lifted. “Can’t you speak?” The boy pressed his back to the wall. His skin felt itchy and tight. He stared at the intricate ties on the man’s shoes and stretched his toes against the floor. “No matter, lad. Yours will not be a speaking role.” The corner of his mouth twisted. “More a disappearing act.” The boy reached to touch the man’s shoes. “Like those, do you?” The boy pulled away. Peabody frowned, an expression discernible by the turn of his moustache. His sharp eyes softened and he spoke quietly. “You’ve not been treated well. We’ll fix that, boy. You’ll stay the night, see if it settles you.” The boy was given a blanket from a trunk. It was scratchy, but he enjoyed rubbing it across his temple. He huddled against the man’s desk, pulling the blanket around him. Once during the night the man left and the boy feared he’d been abandoned, but a short time later the man returned with bread. The boy tore into it. The man said nothing, but began scribbling in a book. Occasionally his hand would drift down to pull the blanket back over the boy’s shoulder. As sleep overtook him, the boy decided he would follow this man anywhere. In the morning Peabody walked the boy through the circled wagons, keeping several paces ahead, and then waiting for him to follow. When they came to an imposing cage affixed to a dray wagon, Peabody stopped.

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“I’ve thought on it. This will be yours; you’re to be our Wild hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . Boy.” hn hk io il sy SY ek eh The boy examined the cage, unaware of the other eyes that hn hk io il sy SY ek eh looked from their wagons, watching him. The floor was scattered hn hk io il sy SY ek eh with straw and wood shavings that kept it warm in the evenings— a hn hk io il sy SY ek eh good consideration, as the boy would be barefooted and naked. On hn hk io il sy SY ek eh the outside of the cage hung lavish velvet curtains that Peabody had hn hk io il sy SY ek eh liberated from his mother’s drawing room. The curtains were weighted by chains— to close out the light, Peabody said— and rigged with pulleys. Peabody demonstrated how to surprise an au- dience by snapping them open the moment a Wild Boy defecated or committed an equally abhorrent act. “It was the previous Wild Boy’s, but we’ll make it yours.”

The boy took to the act. He enjoyed the cool metal against his skin, and the act allowed him to observe as much as he was ob- served. Faces gawked at him, and he stared back without fear. He tried to understand the rolls women wore their hair in, why their hips appeared larger than men’s, and the strange ways that men groomed the hair on their faces. He jumped, crawled, scrambled, ate, and voided where and how he pleased. If he did not like a man,

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he could sneer and spit without repercussion, and would be re- . warded for the privilege. He experienced the beginnings of ease. Without the boy’s knowledge, Peabody studied and tailored the act, learning the intricacies of the boy’s disappearing, perhaps bet- ter than the boy himself understood. If he left the child in the cage for the length of a morning, the boy would crouch low to the floor, his breaths would become shallow until his chest barely moved, and then, quite suddenly, he would vanish. Peabody learned to slowly raise the curtain on the disappeared boy. “Hush, fine people,” he instructed, sotto voce. “No good can come from frightening a savage beast.” Lifting the curtain was enough to rouse the boy from dissipa- tion. As spectators drew in close to what they presumed was an empty cage, the boy revealed himself. The abrupt appearance of a savage where there had been none made children shout; beyond that, the boy needed do little more than remain mute and naked to drive a crowd to frenzy. The boy found his new life pleasing. He discov- ered that if he made his penis bobble or flaunted his testicles, a prim woman or two might swoon, after which Peabody would draw the curtain and declare the act successful. He began searching for ways to frighten, hissing and snarling, letting spittle drip from his mouth. When Peabody patted his shoulder and pronounced, “Well done,” the boy felt fullness in his stomach that was better than food.

Though the Wild Boy cage was his, the boy did not sleep in it. Be- neath the sawdust and hay lay a hidden door; after the curtains were drawn he undid the latch and climbed into the dray’s box bottom, where a wool blanket was stored for him; from there he made his way to Peabody’s wagon, where a change of clothing was kept for the prized Wild Boy. Peabody would sit at the far end of the wagon chewing at his pipe while writing and sketching by lantern light, occasionally pausing to give a conspiratorial look. “Excellent take, my boy,” he’d say. “You’ve got a certain flair. Mayhap the best Wild Boy I’ve had. Did you see the missus faint?

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Her skirts went over her head.” His belly shook as he clapped the hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . boy on the back. The boy understood that the man liked him. He’d hn hk io il sy SY ek eh begun to recall words from a time before the woods, words like hn hk io il sy SY ek eh boy, and horse, bread, and water, and that laughter was good. The hn hk io il sy SY ek eh more he listened to Peabody talk, the more language began to knit. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Peabody spoke differently to the boy, with a quieter voice than hn hk io il sy SY ek eh he used with others. The boy did not know that within short weeks hn hk io il sy SY ek eh of their acquaintance, Hermelius Peabody had begun to think of him as a son. It began when Peabody did not want the boy to spend an un- seasonably cool night in the Wild Boy cage. Perhaps the boy’s thin- ness inspired pity, but Peabody decided offering the boy a warm place to sleep was a good business investment and would reflect well on his soul. The boy curled up on a straw- stuffed cushion, the same cushion on which Peabody’s son, Zachary, had once slept. Some- thing inside Peabody shifted. Zachary had set out years before to make his fortune, leaving Peabody proud but at a loss. He looked at the sleeping boy and realized his latest acquisition might fill that space. When the boy woke he was greeted by a pile of clothing that was to belong to him. The knee britches and long shirts were no simple castoffs; they had been Zachary’s. In the eve nings, the boy sat on the floor of Peabody’s wagon, listening, picking out names, places, acts. Nat, Melina, Susanna, Benno, Meixel. Peabody schooled him little in social niceties, as he deemed them useless, instructing instead in showmanship and con- fidence born of understanding an audience. At first the boy did not want to know about the people who looked at him through his bars; he was pleased that the cage kept them at a distance, but curiosity sprouted as Peabody made him watch other acts, the tumbler, the bending girl, and the strongman. “Watch,” he said. “Benno looks at the lady just so, draws her in, and now he’ll pretend he’s about to fall.” The tumbler, balanced on a single hand, wobbled dangerously and a woman gasped. “He’s in no more peril than you or I. He’s done the same trick with that very wobble since I picked him up in Boston. We lure them in, boy, lure them and scare them a little. They like to be frightened. It’s

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what they pay for.” The boy began to understand that those who . watched were others. The boy, Peabody, the performers were we. Over a series of weeks, Peabody taught his Wild Boy the art of reading people. Prior to each eve ning’s show he sat with the boy in the Wild Boy cage. Together they peeked through the heavy drapes and observed the crowd. “That one there,” Peabody whispered. “She clutches the hand of the man beside her— that one’s half affright already. A single pounce in her direction and she’ll have a fit.” He chuckled, round cheeks spilling over white beard. “And the big man— puffed-looking fellow?” The boy’s eyes darted to a man huge as an ox. “See if he won’t try his hand against our strongman.” He murmured some- thing about using the second set of weights for the show. The boy began to think of people as animals, each with their own temperament. Peabody was a bear, burly, protective, and pre- disposed to bellowing. Nat, the strongman, broad browed and quiet natured, was a cart horse. Benno, whom the boy had started to take meals with, possessed a goat’s playfulness. The corded scar that pulled Benno’s mouth downward when he spoke fascinated the boy. The fortune- teller was something stranger. Madame Ryzhkova was both birdlike and predatory. Despite great age, her movements were twitching and brisk. She looked at people as though they were prey, her eyes bearing the mark of hunger. Her voice stood the hair at his neck on end.

They were setting up camp after leaving a town called Rawlson when Peabody took the boy aside. “You’ve done well by me.” He tapped his hand lightly on the boy’s back and pulled him away from sweeping the cage. “It’s time I do well by you. We cannot continue calling you boy forever.” Peabody led him between the circled wagons to where a fire burned and members of the troupe took turns roasting rabbit and fish. Darkish men some might have called gypsies played dice; Su- sanna, the contortion girl, stretched and cracked her bones against a poplar tree, while Nat sat cross- legged, holding the miniature

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horse securely in his lap, stroking its stiff hair with a dark hand. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh . Weeks prior the boy would have been frightened by them, but hn hk io il sy SY ek eh now as Peabody tugged him toward the gathering, he felt only hn hk io il sy SY ek eh curiosity. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh Peabody took the boy under the shoulder and hoisted him high hn hk io il sy SY ek eh into the air, then set him firmly atop a tree stump near the fire. hn hk io il sy SY ek eh “Friends and fellow miscreants.” His silvery show voice stopped hn hk io il sy SY ek eh all movement. “We have to night an arduous, yet joyful duty. A won- der has traveled among us in this Wild Boy.” The troupe closed in around the fire. Wagons opened. Melina, the juggler with striking eyes, stepped down from her wagon. Meixel, the small blondish man who served as a trick rider, emerged from the woods covered in straw and spit from tending the llama. Ryzhkova’s door creaked open. “This lad has earned his weight and is well on to making us wealthier. It is our duty to name him so that one day, my most es- teemed friends, he will be master of all he surveys.” The fire burst and threw sparks like stars into the night. “A strong name,” Pea- body said. “Benjamin,” called a voice. “A true name.” “Peter.” “A name that carries importance,” said Peabody. Inescapable, the voice buzzed inside the boy, tickling parts of his skull. He stared into the fire and felt his heartbeat rise. “He is called Amos.” Madame Ryzhkova spoke softly, but her words sliced. “Amos is a bearer of burdens, as will be this boy. Amos is a name that holds the world with strength and sorrows.” “Amos,” said Peabody. Amos, the boy thought. The seer’s eyes glinted at him, two black beads. Amos. The sound was long and short, round and flat. It was his. Meixel found his fiddle and played a bouncy melody that started Susanna dancing and brought about drinking and laughter. Amos watched and listened for a time, but slinked away once he could tell he’d been forgotten. He spent his naming night stretched across the mattress in Peabody’s wagon. Silently he repeated this moni-

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ker, hearing each syllable as it had sounded on Madame Ryzhko- . va’s lips. Amos, he thought. I am Amos. Late in the night Peabody returned to the wagon and sat down to sketch in his book. It was long hours before he extinguished his light. As he did so, he spared a glance over his shoulder to where the boy lay. “Good night, my boy. Dream well, Amos.” Amos smiled into the darkness.

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Former Sports Illustrated reporter and editor Bill Syken brings a decade of experience in sports journalism to his fiction debut, a masterfully plotted mystery set in the world of pro football.

After losing his starting position as a college quarterback to a shoulder injury, Nick Gallow has remade himself as a punter. Now in his fifth year in the pros with the Philadelphia Sentinels, Nick spends most of his time on the sidelines. He no longer makes winning plays, and when the team visits a hospital, the sick kids would rather talk to the players they’ve actually heard of. But Nick is unexpectedly thrust back into the spotlight when he witnesses the murder of the new all-star draft pick on the eve of the team’s summer minicamp.

Nick has no plans to get involved. Despite the murder, his focus is squarely on an uppity rookie player eyeing his roster spot. But after a second attack hits closer to home and the police go after the wrong man, Nick finds himself driven by the chance to be a hero again.

In Hangman’s Game, Syken offers a seasoned sportswriter’s take on the contemporary culture of football and the will to play on despite the game’s toll on the body and mind.

For Sports Illustrated BILL SYKEN traveled to American Samoa to write about football, to Hawaii to cover a Pipeline body surfing competition, and to the Bahamas to attend a reunion of seven former cover models for the Swimsuit issue. But his most significant assignment brought him to a Colts minicamp in Indianapolis where he was inspired to write Hangman’s Game by a punter he noticed throwing crisp passes during a drill. Syken has also worked on the staff of The Centre Daily Times and The Augusta Chronicle and at two other magazines: Art & Antiques and On Magazine, which was a Time. Inc. technology publication. How often have miscarriages of justice been overturned because some punter wouldn’t stop digging?

— THE DISTANT ECHO by Val McDermid

—-1 —0 —+1

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I figured it out once. I calculated the time I spend actu- ally performing the task that gives my job its title, and it came out to fi fty-one minutes per year. Not even an hour. And that calculation is generous, believe me. The total grows if I in- clude practices, but still, that leaves me with a lot of anticipa- tion to chew through. Tonight—it is early June, and warm— I am wearing my one and only suit, which is black and made to mea sure, and I stand outside of the Jeff erson, a short- term residential apart- ment building that’s been my home for the last fi ve years. My dinner companions are running a couple of minutes late, but I am handling the wait like the pro that I am. Soon enough, the Jeff erson’s doors hiss open, and out shuf- fl es a towering black man in a red clinging workout shirt, baggy jeans, and sneakers. Though we have never met, I have seen enough news footage to recognize him as one of the men I am dining with tonight, Samuel Sault. The newest, richest member of my team, the Philadelphia Sentinels, has short- cropped hair and a neatly trimmed goatee, a wide mouth that is slightly downturned, and eyes set far enough apart that I won der if he has more peripheral vision than your average human. He is as tall as advertised, at six foot seven, though he looks so thin that I immediately assume his listed weight —-1 of 301 pounds is a media- guide fi ction. I wonder if this skinny —0 —+1

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pass rusher isn’t a waste of the second-overall pick, the latest mistake of our found ering franchise. Samuel is also staying at the Jeff erson, directed here by our mutual agent and the third member of our dinner party, Cecil Wilson. Although I imagine Samuel’s tenancy will end as soon as he fi nds a mansion that he deems worthy of slicing off a chunk of his $12 million signing bonus. I’ve stayed at the Jeff erson entirely out of superstition—I took a fully furnished room here when I surprised everyone, including myself, by making the Sentinels as a rookie free agent, and I continue to stay here because I am absolutely sure that the moment I buy a home or sign a long- term lease, the Sentinels will cut me. I raise a hand, which Samuel ignores as he goes to a spot a few yards down from me on the Jeff erson’s semicircle drive- way and stands, eyes down and arms folded. I study him for a moment and see that he’s more sleek than skinny, really. Most players his weight have a certain puff to their muscula- ture, but Samuel’s torso is fl at as a fashion model’s. He is broad in the upper body, with bulk packed into his shoulders and upper arms—it looks like he has ham hocks stuff ed into his sleeves. Maybe that listed weight of 301 is more honest than I thought. The jeans he is wearing are of a loose cut, and could be concealing a disproportionately large butt and thighs. In football, it’s all about the butt. I have never once seen a pro- fessional player with a narrow ass. “Samuel?” I say, walking over to him. He looks up and briefl y meets my eyes and then looks down again, without answering. Perhaps he is assuming that I am an autograph seeker. “I’m Nick Gallow,” I say. “We’re having dinner together.” -1— He turns toward me, surprised. “I’m a client of Cecil’s, too,” 0— I add. “I’m the Sentinels’ punter.” +1—

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“Hey,” he says fi nally, with a slim smile and brief raise of the eyebrows. He then goes back to staring at the ground, except now he is bobbing his head ner vously. From news stories I know the basics of Samuel’s background: that he grew up in rural Alabama and lived with his parents through college, shunning off ers from bigger schools to live at home and attend the nearby Western Alabama, which is a historically black college. In these stories, all encomiums to country humility, Samuel’s quotes had been sparing and few. Samuel’s head- bobbing is so odd that I won der for a moment if he is not just shy, but autistic. Or maybe he has Asperger’s. Or something. It is all too easy to imagine how a “slow learner” with Samuel’s physical gifts might glide through college, especially at a small school that would have believed itself blessed to host such a rare talent. Or it may just be that Samuel is feeling overwhelmed. Yes- terday he signed his contract, and this morning he was hailed as a team savior on the front pages of both the Inquirer and Daily News. And he would have seen the Inquirer, at least, be- cause the Jeff erson slides the paper under the door of its guests every morning. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say to Samuel. “I’m looking for- ward to playing with you.” Samuel nods, eyes still trained on the pavement, showing no interest in grabbing on to the simplest of conversational lifelines. He looks so cowered that it is hard to believe that he is the same person the press has dubbed “Samuel Assault” for his ability to infl ict pain. During his three years in college, he injured eleven quarterbacks, knocking them out of games with broken arms and collarbones, torn knee ligaments, rup- tured spleens, and concussions. —-1 As the two of us stand there waiting, residents fl ow into —0 —+1

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the Jeff erson, almost all of them turning to gawk at this colos- sal young man as they pass. At last, Cecil pulls into the driveway, driving a rented black Escalade. Usually I see him in a Ford Focus. A portly man with shaggy black hair, moony dark eyes, and a not-quite- walrus mustache, Cecil managed a hardware store before switching careers and becoming a football agent six years ago. I was his fi rst client, and for a few years his only one. Cecil shakes hands with Samuel— which I note because Cecil and I have always hugged. “How you doing, buddy?” he says to Samuel. “Have you met Nick?” “Yeah,” says Samuel quietly. Even in familiar com pany, Samuel shows an unusual amount of diffi dence, especially considering he is a twenty- one- year- old multimillionaire. Cecil shakes my hand, too. “Love the suit, Nick!” he says. “Love the car,” I answer. “What are you listening to in there? 50 Cent? Cee Lo?” “Trisha Yearwood,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. As he scratches, the sleeve of his suit jacket pulls back to reveal a gold watch with a black leather band. That is new. “So how obsessed are you with Woodward Tolley right now?” Cecil asks me with a grin. Woodward Tolley is a rookie free agent punter that the Sentinels signed last week to com- pete with me for a roster spot. Cecil’s smile is meant to show he’s not concerned with this threat to my job. Of course now that he has Samuel, my revenue stream is something he can aff ord to joke about. “Trying not to think about him too much,” I say. “And how’s that going?” Cecil laughs. When I don’t join in, he pats me on the elbow and adds “C’mon, you can handle -1— that kid in your sleep.” Cecil then turns to Samuel and asks, 0— “So where would you guys like to eat?” +1—

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Samuel shrugs with indiff erence. “Nick, you choose,” Cecil says. “You’re the local.” “Let me think,” I say. Rittenhouse Square, on which the Jeff erson stands, has a high-end restaurant that serves hundred-dollar Kobe beef cheesesteaks, but I don’t want to endorse that sort of absurdity. We could head toward North- ern Liberties, a neighborhood where new and interesting restaurants are popping up all the time. But then Cecil isn’t a guy who likes his food interest ing, and Samuel probably isn’t, either. We also need a place where my suit and Samuel’s work- out shirt will be equally appropriate. “Let’s go to Stark’s,” I say. Stark’s feels like a safe choice for an eve ning that already seems like it could use some help. Stark’s is a steak house, and a pop u lar players’ hangout. I al- most never go there, but it is staff ed by young and agreeable waitresses who reportedly do everything they can to make Sentinel players feel welcome.

I am riding in the backseat when an e-mail pops up on my phone. It is from someone I’ve never met, and whose acquain- tance I have no interest in making. It is my girlfriend Jessica’s husband.

Hello, Nick. This is Dan Steagall, Jessica’s hus- band. I would like to invite you to our house for din- ner. Jessica has told me wonderful things about you, and I would appreciate the chance to get to know you. I am away this week and part of next, but just name a date after that, and we’ll make it happen. Do you like lamb? I cook a mean lamb. —-1 Thanks. —0 —+1

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I feel caught. The e- mail’s benign language suggests that he believes Jessica and I are merely friends, but I can’t help but be concerned. Dan works at the Philadelphia branch of the Federal Reserve, and he has a hand in the managing of our nation’s economy. I have seen photos of him, and he is physically slight, certainly not the sort to challenge me to a duel. But I imagine he would seek revenge in some form if he learned exactly how Jessica and I spend our time together. Yesterday after noon, for instance, she and I had engaged in yet another one of our role- playing games. These games had many variations, except that my character was always named Troy. Yesterday I was Troy the organic turnip farmer, who valiantly peddled his produce door- to- door because Big Gro- cery wouldn’t give him a break. Troy was so weary, so mis- understood, and so in need of love . . . “Hey, Samuel,” says Cecil. “Did you have a chance to get to the Franklin Institute and walk through their big human heart?” “Nah,” Samuel says. “Didn’t feel like it.” Dan’s invitation has come at a time when I really don’t need the distraction. The Sentinels have a minicamp in just a few days, and I will be going against my new competition, this Woodward Tolley. I need to focus on him, not Jessica’s husband. Without replying, I forward Dan’s message to Jessica with the comment WTF? Jessica must have slipped up somehow, is all I can fi gure. Jessica is intelligent, but also restless. She is a painter, but she does not feel the need to sell her work. I have always seen her ennui as our primary vulnerability to being caught. The third -1— or fourth time we were together I actually said to her, as we 0— lay in bed, “You should try to keep yourself a little more busy. +1—

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I don’t want you to let your husband catch us just because it’s Wednesday and you’re bored.” “But if I weren’t so bored, my darling,” she answered me, stroking my neck, “what would I be doing with you?”

Stark’s Steak house is situated not far from the Delaware River, in an area where the urban grid opens up. The building is a low- slung gray rectangle with the name written on its upper left corner in neon red script. Stark’s is upscale, but it is not intimate. They do a volume business. The place has an ex- pansive parking lot, which is nearly full when we arrive. We park off to the left, and we have a good forty-yard walk to the entrance. The Stark’s lobby is defi ned by its wall of fame, featuring autographed eight- by- tens of the players who have eaten here over the decades. The photos tilt heavily toward stars of the sixties and seventies, and many of the photos are in the goofy style of the old football publicity stills—men in buzz cuts leap- ing or charging in front of empty bleachers. The pictures aren’t just of Sentinels, either; the wall features players from around the league who visited when they were in town for a road game. The restaurant is busy, with the tables full in the lower tier and many well- dressed men, mostly in their thirties and for- ties, hovering near the bar. It is then that I notice Jai Carson, the Sentinels’ star line- backer, in the restaurant’s upper tier, which is reserved for VIPs— which, here, usually means athletes. Jai is wearing an electric-blue tracksuit, and he seems to be in typically high spirits. He is on his feet with a cocktail in his hand, entertain- —-1 ing friends with a bawdy story. Though I can’t actually hear —0 —+1

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what he is saying, I feel confi dent that Jai’s story is bawdy be- cause he appears to be pantomiming a sex act, thrusting his crotch as he holds on to an imaginary pair of hips. Perhaps anticipating such antics, the maître d’ has seated Jai and his crew in a deep corner of the upper tier. Jai’s dining companions include only one Sentinel that I can see— his best friend on the team, Orlando Byrd, the 342- pound defensive tackle who goes by the nickname Too Big to Fail. The other guys at the table come from Jai’s pri- vate stock of friends, buddies from his hometown of Memphis that I have often seen milling around the locker room. Jai concludes his story with a broad slapping gesture that is greeted with whoops of laughter—the loudest being his own. He spins in a 360, a giddy pirouette, and as he settles down, he notices us. And by us, I mean Samuel. His eyes light up, and his arms open wide. “Fuck me!” Jai shouts across the dining room. “There’s a beast in the house!” Jai hops down the couple of steps and charges across the main dining fl oor and throws his arms around Samuel, who has watched Jai’s approach with something other than antici- pation. On contact with Jai, he fl inches. “Shit, rookie,” Jai says, stepping back, taking in Samuel’s size. “You stacked up!” Samuel does loom over Jai, his chin level with the line- backer’s tapered eyebrows. Even though Samuel is maybe fi fty pounds heavier than Jai, he is the leaner of the two. Throw in a couple other physical details—like Samuel’s straight and fi rm hairline compared to Jai’s shiny dome, shaved to mask male pattern baldness—and it is hard not to look at the two -1— defensive players and see Jai as the old model and Samuel as 0— the new and improved version. +1—

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“Hi, I’m Cecil Wilson, Samuel’s agent,” Cecil says, hand extended to Jai. “Cecil Wilson, congratulations!” says Jai, shaking his hand energetically. “You got your boy signed quick, didn’t you? I bet the bosses love you.” The last line, though delivered in a friendly enough tone, is not a compliment. Cecil has in fact been getting ripped on football message boards for having Samuel agree to a con- tract in June, at least a month earlier than is typical for top rookies. The critics argue that Samuel could have received more money if he waited until August, when full training camps convene. The agent for the player chosen third overall publicly proclaimed that he was going to be seeking more money for his client than Samuel received, because “he was not going to let the market be set by a neophyte.” If Cecil notices the backhandedness of Jai’s compliment, he betrays no sign of off ense, and Jai now turns to me with blank expectation. He seems to be waiting for an introduc- tion. He doesn’t know who I am. Unbelievable. As a punter, I am used to slights to my ego— casual insinuations that I am not a real player, not actually part of the team. But if Jai doesn’t recognize me, after fi ve years in the same locker room, this will top them all. Times ten. “Hello, Jai,” I say evenly. “Hey, man,” he says, extending his hand to me as if he is doing a corporate appearance, and I am the salesman of the month. “Good to see you.” With no indication whatsoever that he knows we are teammates, Jai turns his attention back to silent Samuel, who still has not said a word. —-1 “I can’t wait to see you and Samuel on the fi eld together,” —0 —+1

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Cecil says, rubbing his hands together with pronounced eager- ness. “Who are they going to double-team? They won’t know what to do!” “You know it,” Jai says. “Samuel and JC are going to fuck some major ass together. I bet there’s quarterbacks at home right now clinching their buttholes up tight just thinking about it!” This is Jai as he ever is, continuously and joyously profane. Samuel’s jaw clenches and his posture rises— I am guessing this is diff erent from the dinnertime chatter back home with his parents—and his eyes zero in on Jai’s necklace, which asks in shimmering rhinestone lettering: want to? Samuel’s silence is making Jai uneasy. His eyes dart, search- ing for signs of appreciation. No showman likes a mute audi- ence. Jai then asks Samuel a question he shouldn’t ask, one that a more cautious person might have swallowed, understand- ing that the wrong answer would create unspeakable discom- fort: “You do know who JC is, right?” Jai Carson’s personal mission over the last decade has been to get his face on as many tele vi sion programs, talk shows, magazine covers, video game boxes, and roadside billboards as he could. He recorded his own CD, Sack Dance, starred in a reality dating show, and he also has a line of JC earrings. Hell, he has even been on The View. There could be no bigger insult for Jai from anyone, let alone a rookie on his own de- fense, than to say: I don’t recognize you. In response to Jai’s question, Samuel scans the dining room, as if he is looking for the “JC” that this boorish and -1— insistent stranger is talking about. For all the awkwardness of 0— +1—

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the moment, I smile inwardly. Jai is paying the price for re- ferring to himself in the third person. “Samuel comes from a poor family,” Cecil says, placing his hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “Very poor. They don’t have tele vi sion. And he lived at home all through college. So he’s kind of a TV illiterate.” Given Samuel’s muteness, the word illiterate lingers uncomfortably in the air. “At the draft, Sam- uel didn’t know who Chris Berman is,” he adds with a ner- vous chuckle. Jai considers this explanation, and though I am sure he believes himself to be a bigger deal than any ESPN broad- caster, he makes an eff ort to appear placated by Cecil’s words. “That’s cool, that’s cool,” Jai says. “I know about being poor. When I was growing up, all I could aff ord to eat was pussy.” Jai laughs at his joke, as do Cecil and I. Samuel’s nervous smile could, I suppose, pass for an appreciative response. At this point, the Stark’s hostess inserts herself into our group. She looks to be in her mid- thirties, which is old enough to qualify her as the den mo ther of the restaurant’s young female staff . “Good evening,” she says. “Are you all joining Mr. Carson’s party? We can pull up another table.” “Let’s do it,” Jai says. “I know there’s a lot of ugly mother- fuckers in my group, but these are quality people.” He shouts across the restaurant, “Hey, Cheat Sheet. Stand up!” The man who rises from Jai’s table is maybe fi ve foot six, skinny, and wearing a bright purple jacket with an orange shirt and pants. He smiles, fl ashing a full grille of gleaming gold. “He’s my pastor,” Jai says. —-1 —0 —+1

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Somehow I don’t think the presence of that par tic u lar pastor will appeal to Samuel’s country values. But still, we need to accept this invitation, before this potential rift between the defense’s veteran leader and its high-priced rookie opens any wider. “Let’s . . .” I start. “No.” Samuel says this quietly and fi rmly while looking at Cecil. “I see a table over there,” Samuel mutters, and begins walking into the dining area— not toward the players’ section but to an empty table on the far side of the regular dining room. The hostess grabs three menus and runs out in front of Samuel, attempting to gain control of the expedition. Up to this point, I have been feeling sorry for shy, shel- tered Samuel, but his refusal is unmistakably rude. “Well, fuck me,” Jai says, mystifi ed. Then, angrier: “Fuck me!” For Jai, the phrase is like “Aloha” or “Shalom,” in that it carries many diff erent meanings, dependent on situation and infl ection. I wish I could tell you that I have never seen anything like this, a simple disagreement that quickly escalates into high- grade hostility, but football is populated by thin- skinned competitors who see every confl ict as an urgent test of their manhood. That’s great when it’s fourth-and- goal on the one; less so when you want a peaceable dinner. “Later, buddy,” I say to Jai with a shrug, and I hold out my fi st for a bump. He looks at me dubiously before returning my bump with a shot that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to a punch. -1— At our table, the three of us study our menus quietly. 0— “Porter house or rib eye, the eternal question,” Cecil says with +1—

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forced jollity. I won der if Cecil is thinking about what a disas- ter that was. I certainly am. Just as a nation divided against itself cannot stand, a locker room divided itself cannot win. Between Jai’s ego and Samuel’s reticence, it is not clear who will initiate peace talks. Soon we are greeted by our waitress, who is quite a sight. I would guess that she is in her early 20s. Like all the waitstaff , she wears a pale pink dress shirt and a short black skirt. She has blond hair that she wears tied up on top, feline green eyes, and round, freckled cheeks. She is the shortest girl on the fl oor, which accentuates that she is also the most buxom, the lone girl here whose curves dominate her straightaways. “Howdy,” she says with a broad grin. “I’m Melody.” “Howdy,” I say. “I’m Nick.” And then I introduce Cecil and Samuel. “Are you Samuel Sault?” Melody asks Samuel, eyes wide. “Yes,” Samuel says quietly. And that is all he says. Though he is making strong eye contact with her breasts. After a decent interval of silence, Melody taps pen on pad and asks for our order. “I’ll have the rib eye,” Cecil says. “Medium rare. With creamed spinach and mashed potatoes.” “Excellent,” she says, and turns to Samuel. “How about you, big fella?” “Same,” Samuel says. “Very well. And you, sir?” “I’ll have the broiled salmon,” I say. “And for side dishes— the broccoli, can they steam that?” I ask. “I think so, but I’ll check. You get a second side as well.” “Just the steamed broccoli will be fi ne.” “And what if they can’t steam the broccoli?” —-1 “Then no sides for me.” —0 —+1

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“Really?” She eyes me curiously. “You have a beauty pag- eant coming up or something?” Cecil snickers. “Every day, miss. Every day.” “For your drink, let me guess . . . club soda with lemon,” Melody says. “Am I right?” That is exactly what I was going to order, but I suddenly don’t want to admit that. “Lime, actually.” “You really wanted lemon, right?” she says with a grin. “You’re saying ‘lime’ to fuck with me?” “Fine,” I say. “Lemon.” Maybe it’s because I’m in need of a distraction, but this waitress’s sauciness feels entirely wel- come. I check her left hand to make sure this one doesn’t have a husband. The ring fi n ger is clean. “Anyone ever call you Mel?” I ask her. “Not if they want me to answer,” she says with a chuckle. “Mel- o- dee. Three syllables. Trust me, I’m worth the eff ort.” She winks and walks away. Samuel unabashedly eyes Melody as she goes. He smiles boyishly, his eyes relax, and I see that he is handsome when he’s happy. His teeth are a little here and there, but in a sweet sort of way. I can picture that smile in an aftershave commer- cial, or on the cover of GQ, if he wants to make that happen. Samuel excuses himself to go to the bathroom. When he is out of earshot, I say to Cecil,, “He’s not the most loquacious fellow, is he?” “He’s a good kid,” Cecil snaps. “He’s just out of his element. You should see where he grew up. It’s like they got indoor plumbing a few weeks ago. He’s in shock just being here.” “If you say so,” I say. I grew up in a small town, too, though -1— I only came to Philadelphia from Upstate New York, and I 0— had always wanted to live in a city, whereas Samuel seems to +1—

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have been forcibly relocated here by the magnitude of his talent. And when I arrived in Philadelphia, none of the locals knew who I was, and none of them were counting on me to make their Sundays happier ones. “Samuel is going to need help,” Cecil says. “I need you to look out for him in the locker room, and keep him on the right track. Can you do that for me?” I don’t really think I can help much— Cecil may be over- rating my infl uence— but I owe Cecil my best eff ort, seeing as I wouldn’t be a Sentinel without him. I came from a small school and had only punted for one season in college, and I wouldn’t have drawn a single invitation to a training camp without his aggressive campaigning on my behalf. He was the only agent who even thought I was worth representing. We made it here together. “Mr. Wilson,” I say. “I’ll do everything I can.” Samuel is now walking back from the men’s room, mov- ing quietly but more erect, without the diminishing shoulder slouch from earlier in the eve ning. I look across the restau- rant and see that Jai is staring at Samuel predatorily, track- ing his movements. All the guys at Jai’s table are doing the same. Even from this distance I see a distinct malice in their gaze. Samuel, oblivious to the eyes upon him, arrives at the table with an amused smile. “They have a picture of me in the john,” he says. Stark’s posts the sports page on a tack board stationed above the urinal, so guys can read while they pee. Today’s headline, if I recall correctly, is “Can Sault Save the Sentinels’ Defense?” Jai has no doubt read that story as well— and given that he considers himself the soul of our defense, he surely did not —-1 care for the implication that it needs to be saved. —0 —+1

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I know how on edge I have been the last few days, simply because the team signed Woodward Tolley to compete for my job. While Jai’s job is not threatened by Samuel’s arrival, his status as alpha dog certainly is. “Maybe we should order a bottle for Jai’s table,” I say. “Good idea,” Cecil says. “I’ll take care of it when the wait- ress returns with our food.” A few minutes later Melody is back with their steaks and my salmon. “Hi, sweet thing.” This is Samuel, greeting Melody as she places food in front of him. Great. “Where are you from, Samuel?” Melody asks eagerly. If she can recognize Samuel, the details of his contract— $64 million with a $12 million bonus and $30 million guaranteed— are likely embedded in her frontal lobe. “Alabama, ma’am,” Samuel says. “Vickers, Alabama.” “ Really,” she says. “Welcome to the big city. And just to let you know, those red and green things you see hanging in the middle of the street? They’re traffi c lights.” Samuel titters and then goes silent. Melody waits with pro- fessional patience for the next beat in the conversation. Mean- while, steaks in the kitchen go from medium to well. “Miss, I have a request,” Cecil interposes. “Please send a bottle of champagne to Jai Carson’s table. Cristal if you have it.” Look at Cecil, name- checking champagne brands. “Tell them it’s from Samuel.” “I’ll get on it right away,” Melody says, placing her hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “They’ll be very impressed.” She walks to the back, without having looked at me once. -1— As I fork my way through my salmon and steamed broc- 0— coli, I glance back and forth between the kitchen and Jai’s +1—

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table, hoping to see Melody return with the champagne be- fore Jai and his friends leave. I can see Jai studying the bill, unsheathing his wallet and dropping a pile of cash on the table. Then he and his guys all stand up and begin to move out. The path of their exit steers them closer to us. “Bye-bye, motherfuckers,” Jai shouts as he passes the near- est point to our table. “Don’t nobody take my shine. You don’t know who JC is, you going to fi nd out real soon.” Sigh. Back in college, I had majored in anthropology, and last season I could have written a master’s thesis entitled “Con- stant Defeat and its Eff ects on Inhabitants of a Closed Soci- ety.” As the losses accumulated, I could see players blaming one another, tuning out coaches they no longer respected, con- cluding that fate was against them, and anesthetizing them- selves to the weekly ritual of failure by deciding that all that mattered was fi nishing the season without getting hurt. If Samuel and Jai’s fi rst meeting is any indication, this year promises to be yet another chapter in an ongoing study in the behav ior of losers. And of course, now that Jai has left the restaurant, Mel- ody emerges from the back, bottle in hand, only to discover that there is no one to whom she can deliver our conciliatory gesture. She heads our way, grimacing and shaking her head. “I’m so sorry,” Melody pleads. “I had a big order that was running late, and then it turns out I had to go back to our storeroom to get your Cristal. And the storeroom was locked, and I had to fi nd the manager, and then he had to fi nd the key, which wasn’t where it is supposed to be . . .” “Don’t worry about it,” Cecil says politely. “It happens.” —-1 “Do you still want the bottle?” Melody says. —0 —+1

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Cecil considers the question. Did the former hardware store manager, however newly enriched, want to blow fi ve hundred dollars on booze he never wanted in the fi rst place? “Keep it for yourself,” I say to Melody. “My treat. I’ll even autograph it for you.” I take the bottle from her hand and write my name and, more importantly, my phone number, on the label. They should all know that there is another player at the table, even if he doesn’t have a $64 million contract with $30 million guaranteed. “Give me a call sometime,” I say as I hand the bottle back to Melody. “Nick Gallow,” Cecil says, amused. “Going for it on fourth and long.” Melody’s cheeks fl ush—in excitement, I hope. “Well, thank you,” she says, sounding confused but also pleased. “I have always appreciated the kindness of strangers.” “You’re welcome,” I say. “But isn’t the line, ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers’?” “I don’t depend on it, I’m not that dumb,” Melody says, cradling the champagne aff ectionately. “But I do appreciate it when it comes along.” Afterward, I assure Cecil that I will reimburse him for the champagne—and then to shut him up I pull out my wallet and hand him $500. We carve through the rest of our meal with quiet effi ciency. The conversational highlight is when I ask Samuel about his training regimen. “Cars,” he says, not looking up from his plate. Samuel has cut his steak into tiny pieces. Before he picks up a bite he drags it around in a pool of steak sauce on his plate. With this latest -1— piece he appears to be tracing the letter K. 0— “Cars?” I ask, confused. “You race them?” +1—

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“No,” he says tersely, as if my remark was made out of con- descension, not confusion. “I push ’em.” “I’ve seen him do this,” Cecil says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “I keep telling Samuel it could be a great ESPN feature, it’s very visual. He pushes a car from one side of a fi eld to another. It’s a perfect workout for a lineman. He stays low, it builds leg drive, and it’s all short bursts, just like he’s in a game.” “How’d you come up with that?” I ask Samuel. “I dunno,” he says. “Just did.” “C’mon, Samuel,” Cecil says. “Tell him the story.” Samuel takes a bite of steak and doesn’t say anything. So Cecil begins. “One day, Samuel’s mo ther is out at the Walmart down the road and her car breaks down,” Cecil says. “A Chevy Mal- ibu, I believe. So she calls a tow truck. But then it turns out the tow truck costs like a hundred dollars . . .” “One- fi fteen,” Samuel mutters. “. . . a hundred and fi fteen,” Cecil continues, his thick fi n- gers interlaced on the table. “Which is more money than she has to spare. So Samuel pushes the car to the repair place himself. And remember, this is in August, in Alabama. It’s sweltering. Samuel’s father— he’s a long-haul trucker—is away on a job. And the repair place is fi ve miles down the road. . . .” “Four,” Samuel says. He has a new piece of steak on his fork and he is tracing the numeral “4” in the sauce. “Four miles,” Cecil says. “That’s still a lot. And how many days does it take you to push it down the highway, all by your- self?” “Two,” Samuel says, changing his drawing pattern to a “2.” “After two days he gets it to the shop, and they get the es- —-1 timate, and they can’t aff ord that either. So Samuel pushes —0 —+1

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the car back home. Then football season starts, and Samuel is tossing aside off ensive lineman like they are cardboard cut- outs.” “I’ll have to try it sometime,” I say, genuinely impressed. I won der why Samuel wouldn’t want that story told. Maybe he thinks it makes him sound poor and backwoods. Or perhaps he has an instinctive re sis tance to his uncalculated actions be- ing transformed into myth. We clear our plates within minutes. At one point I look up from my food and catch Samuel staring at me, and his eyes quickly return to his steak. I had woken up this morning thinking that I would spend the night with Jessica, whose husband left this after noon for a business trip to Switzerland. But I canceled out on her when I received Cecil’s invitation. If I could go back in time, I would stick to my plans and send Cecil a particularly thoughtful e- card.

After dinner Cecil suggests that we drive to the Sentinels’ sta- dium, operating on the logic that this shitpile of an eve ning might look more like a sundae if he can somehow place a cherry on top. “We’ll be quick,” Cecil assures me when I object. “Just a few minutes at the stadium, then it’s back home. Samuel likes to get to bed early.” “As do I, Cecil,” I say. “As do I.” I am tucked into the backseat of Cecil’s Escalade like a child. Samuel sits mutely in the front passenger seat, staring straight ahead. A smaller man might disappear in his silence, -1— but Samuel looms. 0— We arrive at the stadium and the parking-lot gates are +1—

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closed, and there is no guard to whom we can fl aunt our in- sider status. We circumnavigate the dark metal hulk—opened for business in 2002, capacity 74,000—but we can’t fi nd a way in. Cecil pulls over to the curb, quiets the engine, and opens his door. Apparently we are to stand on the sidewalk and gen- ufl ect as if we are superfans who have come to the stadium on a pilgrimage. All we needed to complete the picture are some Sentinels banners to wave forlornly in the night. We disembark from the Escalade and stand three abreast by the chain- link fence, looking up at the stadium, its halves curving inward like the mouth of a Venus fl ytrap. “Kind of ugly, isn’t it?” Samuel says. I laugh. “It sure is.” My phone buzzes. I have a text from Jessica, who, after my cancellation, apparently hasn’t made any other plans for the eve ning.

I’m feeling tightness in my upper thighs. I think I need my trainer friend Troy to come by and loosen me up.

Her note is a reference to our fi rst meeting, which took place three years ago at the Jeff erson gym. Jessica and her husband stayed there for a month when they were relocating to Philadelphia for his job with the Federal Reserve. She and I were in a spin class together, facing each other on opposite bicycles. After the class we were stretching and she suggested that if we went up to her apartment we would have much more room to splay out. She didn’t call me Troy that day, but she has in subsequent reenactments. —-1 “Darn it, I left my phone in the car,” Cecil says. “I should —0 —+1

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get a picture of Samuel at the stadium. Maybe I can send it out on Twitter.” “You tweet now?” I ask. “I’m managing an account for Samuel,” Cecil says. “He needs one. It is 2009, after all.” He dashes back to the car for the phone. As Cecil disappears Samuel kicks at the chain-link fence with his high- tops, setting off a metallic rattle. I am guessing Twitter was not his idea. I am also guessing that this photo op is the reason Cecil, that budding media impresario, wanted to come to the stadium. If only he could fi nd his phone. He searches under the car seats with one loafered foot on the side- walk and the other in the air. Samuel stands by the fence, chin jutting out, eyes closed, fi ngers curled around the links, looking imprisoned. “Hey, Samuel,” I say. “Just take care of your job, you’ll be fi ne. Better than fi ne. You’ll own this city.” Samuel opens his eyes and studies me. “I know,” Samuel says softly. “I will.” Whether he means that he would do his job or own Philadelphia, I am not really sure. Cecil comes back, grinning, holding his phone up like a trophy. I am thinking that I don’t need to be in these pictures; Cecil seems to have the same idea. He leads Samuel a few steps up the sidewalk, positioning him to get a better angle of the stadium in the background. “How about a smile?” Cecil says. And after that request is not immediately granted, Cecil adds, “Think of something happy. Your parents and your sister will be up from Alabama in a couple of days to help you look for a home. That’s going -1— to be fun, right?” 0— +1—

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Right. While Cecil continues to try to coax joy from his model, I respond to Jessica’s earlier text message.

If your thighs are tight, I think Troy has a tool that might come in handy.

I don’t like a single one of the words I’ve just typed, but I don’t want to improve the message either. Maybe my half- hearted eff ort will tamp Jessica’s enthusiasm and bring this riff to an early end. Not that I don’t enjoy silly double enten- dres every now and then. It’s just that ironically cheesy, two- bit innuendo, when you’re not really in the spirit of it, can feel incriminatingly like plain old two- bit innuendo. I am think- ing that Troy needs to meet an unhappy accident, and soon. I hit the Send button. Then, as if timed to the depression of my fi nger, I hear a thunderous crack, which is accompanied by a fl ash. The crack rattles from my ears down to my feet. I drop instinctively into a crouch. Then another crack, and I hear the screech of a car rac- ing down the street. I look up and see Cecil stumbling toward me. “Drop, drop!” he shouts to me as he falls against the fence. I lower myself to the ground as a burning smell penetrates my nos- trils. I see a car’s red taillights already fi fty yards gone and speeding away. The car has a bumper sticker with a quarter moon. The moon seemed to be grinning. My hearing is muffl ed by the blasts, but I can make out a guttural groan from Cecil, who is on the ground, propped up against the chain- link fence. He is holding his wrist and his yellow shirt is darkening across the bottom. Samuel lays —-1 —0 —+1

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motionless on his back with his head turned to the side and a puddle expanding rapidly around his body. A gush of blood seeps down the sidewalk, over the curb and into the street. The fl ow is torrential; it is like a main has broken. Samuel’s broad mouth is open, as are his eyes, as if he can’t believe it either. I step close, into the river of blood. The warm liquid soaks through my shoes. “Samuel?” I say. His head is tilted more over to the side than it should be, with his cheek resting fl ush against the sidewalk. He doesn’t answer, and he won’t. Samuel’s head seems unnaturally angled, I now realize, because it is no longer completely attached to his neck. I have spent so much of my life training; for this I am com- pletely unprepared.

-1— 0— +1—

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A massive storm was coming straight for Mama’s little plot of land in the Mississippi Delta and there was no way any of them could outrun the weather.

For three years Melody Mahaffey has been on the road, touring as a keyboardist with a terrible Christian pop band she can hardly stand. So when her mother calls, full of her usual dire news and dramatic pro- nouncements, Melody is relieved to pack her bags and call it quits. But at the sprawling, defunct Three Rivers Farm her family calls home, Melody is shocked to discover her father is dying. Even worse, her mother has abandoned the family, leaving Melody the sole caretaker of her father and brain-damaged brother. Sure that her daughter will do the right thing, Geneva leaves to seek spiritual guidance and break things off with her long-time lover.

Rain begins to fall and an epic flood threatens the Mississippi Delta. While Melody tries to get a handle on the chaos at home, a man and his little boy squat on her land, escaping their own nightmare. Obi is on the run from a horrific mistake, and he’s intent on keeping his son with him at any cost. When the storm arrives, though, they have no choice but to take shelter in Melody’s house. And the waters just keep rising.

A lifetime of lies, misunderstandings and dark secrets bubble to the surface as the flood destroys the land and threatens their lives. Set against the fertile but dangerous landscape of the rural south near the fictional town of White Forest, Mississippi,Three Rivers beautifully weaves together three parallel stories, told over three days, as each character is propelled headlong into the storm.

TIFFANY QUAY TYSON grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and attended Delta State University. Her short fiction has been published inThe Tulane Review and Peeks & Valleys: A Southern Journal. She lives in Denver, where she has served on the board of directors for Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and occasionally leads workshops for the Lighthouse Young Writers Program. 1990

—-1 —0 —+1

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saturday The preacher’s wife delivered the crumpled note early that morning. Come home. I must leave. Your father is dying. Your brother is not able. The woman, who was balancing a grimy toddler on one jutted hip, asked Melody if there was anything she could do to help. Melody asked about a phone. The woman used her hand to wipe a streak of snot from the toddler’s upper lip and told Melody the church offi ce would be unlocked at eight. By quarter after, Melody perched on the corner of a polished wooden desk and dialed her child- hood home. Except for a row of yarn-woven God’s eyes and a stack of Jesus pamphlets, there was not much about the offi ce that marked it as religious. The fi re- and- brimstone, hand-to- God preachers of Melody’s youth had retired. Nowadays, churches were led by slick men in designer suits, who preached more often about prosperity than about eternal damnation. Against her ear, the phone rang and rang. No one hur- ried to pick up a phone in her house. Mama could very well —-1 be sitting right next to the phone, painting her fi ngernails —0 —+1 3

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 3 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson bright red, and saying, as she always did: A ringing phone does not demand urgency on my part. Daddy would still be sleeping. Bobby could be anywhere. Years earlier, Melody had bought her parents an answer- ing machine, thinking it would be the perfect gift. “Now you can just let it go to the machine and call people back whenever you feel like it,” Melody told them. “Oh, my,” her mother said. “I hope you kept the receipt. I can’t have people calling and getting a machine. It’s just so tacky.” What Melody wouldn’t give for a bit of tacky right now. “Well, hell’s bells.” She wanted to say something stronger, but manners or superstition prevented her from swearing in a church, even though she was alone and it was just the offi ce, and even though she’d stopped believing in God. Oh, she still believed it was possible that God existed, but she didn’t believe he cared. She didn’t believe anyone was going to answer her phone call, either. She pulled the phone from her ear and nearly had it back in its cradle when she heard her brother’s voice. Bobby shouted, “Hello? Hello!” “Hey there.” Melody tried to remember the last time she’d actually spoken to Bobby. “What’s going on? Mama called.” “When are you coming home?” She coiled the phone cord around her fi nger. “I’m not sure. Can you tell me what’s going on with Daddy?” The cord was sticky, the victim of an exploding soda or some kid with jam-coated hands. She wiped her fi nger on the hem of -1— her T-shirt. “Is Daddy around? Maybe I could just talk to 0— him directly.” +1— 4

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 4 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Three Rivers Bobby barked a harsh laugh into Melody’s ear. “Oh, he’s around, all right. He’s around.” Melody was supposed to be patient with Bobby. Since the baptism, he’d been a little off . It was like his brain got switched to a channel that didn’t come in clear for anyone else. “Why don’t you run and get him?” She kept her voice as even and pleasant as she could. “I thought you were home coming, home coming, com- ing home.” Ah yes, there it was, not quite a stutter, but a vocal tic that was the most visible (or audible) reminder of Bobby’s baptism. “I will,” she said. “I just want to talk to Daddy for a min- ute. Can you fetch him for me?” Bobby huff ed. “Well, he can’t talk. He’s hooked up to tubes. Phone won’t far, far, far reach. Reach that far.” “Tubes? What sort of tubes?” “Hang on.” A loud clattering echoed through the line. She heard Bobby’s voice, distant but still clear enough. “I’m checking. I’m trying to fi nd out.” “Daddy wants to know when you’re coming home.” Melody sighed and made a request of last resort. “Okay, then, let me talk to Mama. Can you just put Mama on the phone?” Bobby said Mama had disappeared, gone that very morn- ing. Melody was annoyed but not surprised. Mama had a long history of leaving for days or weeks at a time. “I don’t suppose she said where she was headed this time, did she?” —-1 “She doesn’t ever,” Bobby said. “You know that, Sissy.” —0 —+1 5

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 5 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson He hadn’t called her Sissy since they were very young. Mel- ody softened. He was still her little brother. “I’ll be there tomorrow,” she promised. “I’ll get there as early as I can.” She hung up the sticky phone and headed out into the rising heat.

A Christian music festival is no diff erent from any other music festival except that there are more young children, fewer tattoos and halter tops on display, and no alcohol for sale. At nine in the morning, however, there was nothing about the festival grounds, a scrubby fi eld behind the Holy Redeemer Baptist Church just outside Memphis, that set it apart from any of the dozens of weekend music festivals be- ing held in cities across America. Melody meandered a bit, not ready to break the news to her bandmates that she wouldn’t be traveling on with them to Orlando. The girls would be furious. There was no way they would fi nd an- other keyboardist who could harmonize on such short no- tice. They’d have to cancel the gig. They were scheduled to perform tonight and Melody decided that would be her fi nal per formance with Shout with Joy. She strolled past the shuttered booths that fl anked the grounds. Later, these booths would off er up greasy corn dogs, fried Twinkies, chicken on a stick, cherry lemonade. Even now, the scent of fried dough and sugar hung in the air along with citronella and diesel fumes. Melody was hun- gry. She was always hungry. Food was the last temptation of the Christian musician, and Melody was weak. It would -1— be a relief to leave this behind. She didn’t know how she’d 0— stayed for so long. She’d started playing with Joy and Shan- +1— 6

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 6 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Three Rivers non in college. It was a way to earn a little money on the weekends. Before she knew it, Joy had slapped her name on the band and found a manager. Melody thought she’d play with them until something better came along, but nothing better ever had.

It was early evening when they took the stage. Melody’s polyester pants strained against her stomach and thighs. A day of arguing with Joy and the girls had sent her off to the food trucks, where she’d scarfed down a bratwurst and funnel cake in the heat of the afternoon. Now she felt bloated and angry. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head, drawn by the massive amount of hair spray she used to keep the teased and curled strands in place. Thank goodness it was a short set, just fi ve songs unless the crowd demanded an encore. Unlikely. Melody leaned in and struck the chord for the last num- ber, a dreadful song that she’d never have to play again, but something was wrong. Her mic was dead. None of the other girls were playing. Melody leaned back, raised an eye- brow at Shannon, who looked away. Joy addressed the audience. Her mic was working fi ne. “I wanted to take a moment and let our fans know that one of our group is leaving the fl ock. Our keyboardist and backup singer Melody has decided to abandon the path. I know you’ll all join me in praying for her, praying that she’ll see the light and seek truth in the love of Jesus Christ.” Melody seethed. How dare she call her a backup singer. Melody’s voice carried the band, and Joy knew it. Joy’s voice —-1 was just good enough for bad karaoke. Her face went hot. —0 —+1 7

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 7 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson Sweat trickled beneath her bra, soaking the cheap blouse to her skin. Her chest burned, both from anger and the bratwurst. “And now,” Joy said. “Our fi nal number, ‘Heart Happy Heaven.’ Join in if you know it.” Melody struck the keyboard, her muscle memory in- grained with the instinct to perform. She harmonized. Her mic was live now. Of course it was. They needed her voice. Shannon’s voice was fl at and tended toward nasal. Joy’s was predictable, bland. Worse, she insisted on writing songs like this one, full of sappy lyrics and lazy rhymes. “Heaven” paired with “seven,” of course, and “rise” with “lies,” but the kicker was the last line of the chorus: And the angels appease us / when fi rst we see Jesus. Melody had argued with Joy over that line. “Why would the angels need to appease us? Is Jesus a disappointment?” There was no reasoning with Joy. She was convinced the song would be a hit. It wasn’t. She sang the horrid line and then, as the music ended and before the applause, she said the following: “Joy, you’re an enormous cunt.” The nasty word echoed across the stunned crowd. A baby cried. A woman coughed. Otherwise, silence. If Mel- ody accomplished nothing else, at least she’d squelched the polite applause that usually followed Joy’s dreadful song. And Joy, oh Joy, stumbled backwards like she might faint. Melody turned her back on the audience and stomped off the stage. She tried to muster some dignity, but as she -1— stepped off the back stairs, the too- tight polyester fabric of 0— her pants ripped right along the seam of her ass. +1— 8

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 8 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Chapter Two

Obi snuck out into the predawn mist while Liam slept. When they fi rst took to the land, he had worried about leaving his young son alone, even for short stretches. It wasn’t that he worried anything would happen to the boy— there was more danger in the city—it was that he thought Liam would be afraid. Now, though, Liam was at home by the river and Obi didn’t fret about whether he might wake up and believe Obi had abandoned him as his mother had. They were a team. Together they had become so used to the constant rush of the river fl owing past that the noise of the water was the same as silence. Together they made the land their home. Obi picked his way through the pine trees, placing his feet by instinct to avoid cracking branches hidden beneath the needle-covered ground. He crouched down in the midst of a circle of trees, a place where he could hear the bubbling water of an underground spring, and he waited. He’d chosen this spot the day before, when he noticed the smooth areas rubbed onto the bark of the trees and the —-1 piles of shiny brownish-green pellets scattered on the —0 —+1 9

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 9 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson ground. It was close to their campsite, but not too close. Obi peered in the direction of the spring and listened for the telltale rustle among the trees. He heard the buck be- fore he saw it and he shouldered his rifl e in anticipation. The buck stepped out into a small clearing, sniffi ng the morning air and stretching out its neck toward the sunrise. It was a beautiful deer, reddish brown with a soft streak of white across its throat. Its antlers were symmetrical, with three points on each rack. The deer was just beginning to shed the velvet coat of spring. Obi squeezed the trigger. The buck crumpled to its knees, head and chest falling fi rst, back end timbering down behind. A doe and a young, spotted fawn leapt across the clearing and crashed into the woods. Obi stayed put, watched the downed buck just long enough to be sure the animal was no longer breathing. He approached his kill and pulled his bowie knife from a sheath strapped onto the belt loops of his jeans. He fi gured the buck weighed about 150 pounds, small enough to handle but large enough to yield a generous amount of meat. He sliced the animal open from breastbone to penis, removed the buck’s testicles and also its bladder, which was thankfully empty. Entrails spilled out onto the pine needle nest of the forest fl oor when he rolled the carcass. Obi’s hands and shirt were covered with blood and the warm salty smell of the animal clung to his nose. He separated the tough muscle of the diaphragm from the chest cavity with a few sure strokes, severed the esophagus and the windpipe, and -1— pulled out the heavy heart and slippery liver. Obi dragged 0— the animal back to his campsite, where he strung it from a +1— 10

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 1010 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Three Rivers tree to allow the blood to drain. As he reached above his head to cut the rope, he dropped his knife. It came down, blade fi rst, on his cheek, missing his left eye by less than an inch. Obi put his hand to his face and felt warm blood puls- ing from the wound. His knife was sharp and the incision was clean, so it didn’t hurt much. His heart pounded with the knowledge that he could have lost his eye. “Ow, Daddy!” Liam pointed at his father. “I’m all right,” Obi said. “How about a trip into town?” Liam rubbed his eyes, yawned and stretched like a satisfi ed cat. Sunlight was just beginning to fi lter through the trees. He’d strung the carcass up on a high branch to discourage predators, but he didn’t have much time to dress and butcher the deer. The heat rose quickly at this time of year. He drove to a truck stop that was also a small grocery on the side of the highway. It was open twenty-four hours a day, and Obi knew it would have what he needed. “Stay in the truck,” he told his son. Liam was stretched out with his back against the seat and his feet propped up on the dashboard. His eyes were closed, but Obi knew he was awake. He wore nothing but a pair of faded red shorts. A cluster of mosquito bites decorated Liam’s calf. His chest and arms were smooth and fl awless. His hair was long and curly and the color of soft brick, and it framed his freckled face like a halo. Obi reached out and gave Liam’s tummy a tap. “Hear me?” Liam nodded without opening his eyes. He looked like a starfi sh splayed on a bit of dry sand. The store was empty but for the clerk reading a maga- —-1 zine behind the counter. She didn’t glance up when Obi —0 —+1 11

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 1111 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson entered. Air-conditioning blared, though the morning was cool. He picked up a container of kosher salt, a sack of red potatoes, and a bunch of carrots. He’d rather take the veg- etables from a backyard garden and save his money, but the season was wrong and the carrots grown in Mississippi were puny anyhow. He grabbed a cheap tube of antiseptic cream and a box of large bandages. On impulse, he grabbed a handful of chocolate bars that were on sale beside the reg- ister. The woman working behind the counter put her magazine aside and rang up his purchases. She looked at him and recoiled. “You okay, mister?” Obi knew he should have changed his shirt and cleaned his hands before coming here. It was not deer season, and there were heavy fi nes associated with hunting out of sea- son, besides which, he did not have a hunting license. He knew he looked terrible, probably smelled worse. It was never a good idea to attract attention. He smiled at the woman and felt the gash under his eye open up; a warm trickle of blood ran down his cheek. “Little accident.” He wiped the blood with his palm. “Looks worse than it is.” She pushed his change across the counter, not touching his hands. Obi gathered his purchases and returned to his truck. Liam was on his stomach now, his head facing the seat back, his knees bent against the passenger door and his feet dangling out the window, soles toward heaven. When they got back to camp, the deer had dripped the last of its blood onto the ground. Obi cut the buck down and then hung it again, this time with the head up. He -1— sliced around the animal’s throat to free the hide and pulled 0— +1— 12

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 1212 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Three Rivers the skin off using his knife where he needed to release the muscles. He sliced off one of the buck’s ears, washed it in a bit of cold river water and set it aside to dry as a gift for Liam. While he worked, Liam ran back and forth, dipping his feet into the icy cold river water. Obi was proud of how the boy moved, swift and silent and graceful. He be- longed to this place, and Obi had no regrets about taking him from that other life. That woman from Social Services might even be impressed by how much Liam had grown. Obi sliced through the joints of the deer’s back legs and cut away the rump steaks. Most of the meat he cut into bite-sized pieces for stew, peeling away the tendons and connective tissue. He sliced the hams into strips and bur- ied them in a pile of kosher salt. He fi lled his largest stew pot half full with water from the fresh stream and built two fi res: one from coal and soft woods that sent up licks of fl ame and boiled the water in the pot, the other smoky and dry, a bed of coals topped with oak chips. Over the dry fi re, Obi set up a crisscrossing frame of branches and stretched salted strips of meat across the wood. The smell of the smoke mingled with the fresh game and wafted out along the banks of the river. Obi used the side mirror on his truck to examine the cut beneath his eye. The gash was deep and swollen. Obi dipped a cloth in a bit of river water and ran it along the wound. He scraped out the dried blood and the dirt and pressed to staunch the fl ow of fresh blood. It stung. Liam stood beside him, took the bloody cloth from him, and handed him a fresh one. When the blood coagulated, Obi —-1 —0 —+1 13

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 1313 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm Tiffany Quay Tyson smeared the antiseptic cream into the wound and covered it with a bandage. It needed stitches, but he didn’t have the guts to stick a needle so close to his eye. “I’m hungry,” Liam said. Obi touched the boy’s hair. “Let’s make some breakfast.” “Can we eat the deer?” “Not yet,” Obi said. “Tonight we’ll have a feast.” He rummaged around in the back of the truck, searching through their supplies. “How about pancakes? We still have some of those blueberries we picked.” Liam pulled out the skillet and held it up like an off er- ing. “Pancakes it is.”

-1— 0— +1— 14

0053-60686_ch01_1P.indd53-60686_ch01_1P.indd 1414 001/06/151/06/15 7:097:09 pmpm on-sale 5/5/15

There are many reasons to bake: to feed; to create; to impress; to nourish; to define ourselves; and, sometimes, it has to be said, to perfect. But often we bake to fill a hunger that would be better filled by a simple gesture from a dear one. We bake to love and be loved.

In 1966, Kathleen Eaden, cookbook writer and wife of a supermarket magnate, published The Art of Baking, her guide to nurturing a family by creating the most exquisite pastries, biscuits and cakes. Now, five amateur bakers are competing to become the New Mrs. Eaden. There’s Jenny, facing an empty nest now that her family has flown; Claire, who has sacrificed her dreams for her daughter; Mike, trying to parent his two kids after his wife’s death; Vicki, who has dropped everything to be at home with her baby boy; and Karen, perfect Karen, who knows what it’s like to have nothing and is determined her facade shouldn’t slip.

As unlikely alliances are forged and secrets rise to the surface, making the choicest pastry seems the least of the contestants’ problems. For they will learn—as as Mrs. Eaden did before them—that while perfection is possible in the kitchen, it’s very much harder in life.

SARAH VAUGHAN studied English at Oxford and went on to become a journalist. After eleven years working at The Guardian as a news reporter, health correspondent, and political corre- spondent, she started freelancing. She currently lives in Cambridge with her husband and two children. The Art of Baking Blind is her first novel. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

W.B. Yeats: ‘The Second Coming’

I truly believe that life is improved by cake.

Dan Lepard: Short & Sweet {

522HH_tx.indd 7 09/05/2014 09:46 Prologue

April 1964 {

522HH_tx.indd 1 09/05/2014 09:46 Imagine your perfect home: a gamekeeper’s lodge or rambling farm- ‘house, the walls wreathed in wisteria, brick warmed by the sun. Picture the garden: bees drunk on the nectar of hollyhocks, the air shimmering with summer. An apple tree rustles and drops early fruit. ‘Now imagine this house made of gingerbread, its sides gently golden; royal icing piped along the rooftop and studded with sweets. Plant sugar canes in the flower beds; drench with jelly tots; pave with smarties. Pause and admire this culinary doll’s house. Your ideal home and all-too-brief treat.’

athleen Eaden puts down her pen and chews her bottom K lip in dissatisfaction. That wasn’t what she wanted to write. She places her creation on the floor and stretches out in front of it, tweed skirt rucking up and long legs splayed like a child’s behind her. The Axminster carpet feels comforting and she wriggles deeper, slim waist pulled upwards, the thick pile snug against her pubic bone. Propped up on her elbows, she peers at the house and breathes in the scent of Christmas: ginger; cinnamon; golden syrup; muscovado. Orange zest. A touch of cloves. The roof tiles are dusted with sugar and if she reaches, ever so care- fully, she can adjust that heart-shaped knocker that’s slipped on its still-wet icing. There, that’s better. With one gentle tweak, the sweet shifts on its iced glue. It’s still not perfect, though, this kitsch delight she has spent the past four hours constructing. The tiles are wonky

3

522HH_tx.indd 3 09/05/2014 09:46 Sarah Vaughan

and the cut-away windows should be better aligned. She bends closer. Light slants through them and disappears into gingery darkness. Oh, schoolgirl error. She reaches for her pen: ‘Use a ruler to position your windows.’ Or perhaps they should be mullioned? Her lips move silently as she lays out instructions for the readers of Home Magazine. Her hand speeds so fast she ruffles the cream Basildon Bond but her writing remains immaculate: gracious loops that chase across the page in Quink of royal blue. She re-reads what she has written. She’s still not got it. Not captured the reason she loves making gingerbread houses even though doing so makes no earthly sense at all. She tries to clear her mind to stave off the anxiety of a deadline. The jangling chords of the Beatles’ latest hit crowd her head, the melody upbeat and addictive. ‘I don’t care too much for money,’ sing the Fab Four and though, at twenty-seven, she is too old to be swayed by mop-haired boys, she finds herself momentarily distracted by the jauntiness of the tune. She must get on. Lowering herself, she squints through the gingerbread windows. Perhaps she is approaching this from the wrong angle? Why would Susan, her six-year-old niece, love this – and what appeals to the six-year-old in her? A gingerbread house is more than the sum of its parts: more than sweeties and gingerbread soldered with royal icing, glossy with egg white and thick with sugar. There is some- thing fantastical about this fairytale house . . . And, suddenly, she has the answer. Tears burn. She blinks hard. Not now. She hasn’t the time for this. She must finish her column. Breathe deeply, she tells herself: in for two, out for five; in for two, out for five. She sits back on her haunches then lifts the house to her

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522HH_tx.indd 4 09/05/2014 09:46 The Art of Baking Blind

desk and busies herself with her papers. A cup of cooling Earl Grey rests on the top and she almost spills it as she reaches to take a sip. The self-pity is still there – a knot so hard she imagines it visible through her slight ribcage – and she tries to swallow it down with a bigger gulp. Still there? Yes, of course. Only ever a breath away: so close it can readily overwhelm her. But it can’t do. She needs to get on top of this. She picks at a spare dolly mixture and squishes it against the roof of her mouth. The sweetness seeps through her tongue and slips down her throat, insubstantial yet distracting. She takes another sip of tea. There, that’s better. ‘The doyenne of baking with the enviable figure’ wouldn’t behave like this, would she? The description – concocted by Harper’s – usually provokes a sardonic smile. Now, though, she tries to accept the compliment at face value. Her hands flutter to her waist as she smooths down her skirt and tries to right herself; her thumbs rest in the shallows of her hip bones. Perhaps there are some benefits, after all. She leans back and straightens the paper. Now, if she can just ignore the sadness that corrodes her stomach, she might be able to finish this column. She sniffs brightly and tries to re-read her last paragraph. The script wobbles and blurs. Oh for goodness sake, Kathleen. She uncaps her fountain pen in a flurry and, determined to ignore the tears that prick, yet again, despite her best efforts, Kathleen Eaden begins to write.

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522HH_tx.indd 5 09/05/2014 09:46 Cakes

522HH_tx.indd 7 09/05/2014 09:46 People often ask me the secret of my baking. Shall I tell you? There is none. Anyone can bake provided they master a few basic principles and, at least until accomplished, follow the recipe to the letter. Nowhere is this more important than in making cakes. A variation in the temperature of the oven or in the measurement of ingredients; a failure to sift or to fold in sufficient air can lead to the most dismal sponge. But get it right and the most ethereal of cakes is entirely possible. So the rules: always use eggs at room temperature and fat, either butter or a margarine like Stork, that has softened. Use flour containing a raising agent, sieve it to introduce extra air, and fold in lightly to encompass more. Always prepare your tins before cooking and preheat your oven. Place the tins in the oven gently, and shut the door softly as though leaving a sleeping baby. And never check your sponges until at least two-thirds of the cooking time has elapsed. Once your golden creations have been removed from the oven, leave them for a couple of minutes before you ease them from the tin. Then place on a wire rack so that air can circulate. When cooled, sandwich with the finest jam and dust with icing sugar. Serve with a pot of afternoon tea. The perfect Victoria sandwich must be light, moist and scented with fresh eggs and vanilla. It should feel decadent but not excessively so. A slice of Victoria sponge, filled with raspberry jam or, in summer, whipped cream and freshly hulled strawberries, is a daily treat you can feel justified in indulging. Just take three eggs and six ounces each of sugar, fat and self-raising flour, and heaven in a cake tin can be yours.

Kathleen Eaden: The Art of Baking (1966)

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January 2012

icki Marchant breathes on her chill French windows V and carefully traces a heart. A fat tear of condensa- tion slithers down and she stops it with her finger and writes an A for Alfie. The letter weeps and she wipes the pane gently, chasing moisture with crisp squares of kitchen roll. I must be going mad, thinks Vicki. Either that or I’m just plain miserable. Outside, ball bearings of hail pound the frozen blades of grass. Well, it’s hard to feel cheerful in January. The joy of Christmas – a joy felt so wonderfully through three-year-old Alfie – has rudely ended; packed away along with the deco- rations: this year, golden pears and partridges; rococo cherubs; icicles and stars. January – or bloody January as she tends to think of it – is all about abstinence, penitence and being sanctimonious, as friends embark on an alcohol-free, dairy-free, wheat-free month. No one wants to come to dinner in January – and if she can persuade a fellow mum to lunch it’s a frugal affair: broccoli soup without the Stilton languishing from Christmas; all offers of home-made stollen, Florentines and mince pies laughed aside quite firmly. ‘No, really, I couldn’t,’ her neighbour, Sophie, had insisted yesterday as Vicki pressed a full cake tin

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on her, and had sounded quite panicky as if she were going to force-feed her. Yet it’s not the general abstinence that most frustrates her but the sense of limbo. The sub-zero temperatures mean Alfie can’t race around the garden and there are only so many times a week she can go to a soft play barn. Without the gift of snow or sunshine ‘the big freeze’, as the media has dubbed it, has become one long grind of de-icing cars and salting paths, of finding sufficient layers and contending with Alfie’s whingeing if, as invariably happens, she forgets his welly socks. She gives a sigh, thick and laboured. Outside, the hail has stopped abruptly, the only evidence the icy marbles nestling in the grass. The grey sky is as unyielding as ever; the bare trees still; the ground quite barren. No sign of the snowdrops and tête-à-têtes she and little Alf planted in October. Her garden seems devoid of hope. She turns on her coffee machine and measures out enough grains for a double espresso, hoping a burst of caffeine will reinvigorate her and improve her morning. For, if she is honest, and she always tries to be, her frustration has nothing to do with the weather at all. My name is Vicki Marchant, she imagines announcing at yet another interminable playgroup, and I am a fraudulent stay-at-home mother. A mum-of-one with none of the demands of numerous offspring or any of the pressure of having to work. I have a beautiful, healthy boy who loves me. And I do adore him. But I’m still not sure I’m very good at or – whisper it – always enjoy motherhood. Oh, and here’s the joke. I’m an ‘outstanding’ primary school teacher, according to Ofsted. Someone who’s supposed to know what they’re

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doing. So why do I find it so hard looking after my own small child? It wasn’t meant to be this way, she thinks, as the machine groans then belches hot coffee grains at her. When Alfie was born, the plan had always been to give up work to immerse herself in her baby and subsequent children. Her Shaker kitchen would be covered in poster-paint masterpieces; her lengthy garden would boast hens, herbs and flowers; and each day would bring new adventures for her Petit Bateau- clad child. She hadn’t counted on the drudgery of early parenthood with a child who refused to sleep and a husband who refused to get up; or on her rage when her boy decorated her Farrow & Ball walls with his handprints; or her impotence when a fox massacred the hens. You would have thought a primary school teacher would have known that toddlers prefer church playgroups, with their interminable rich tea biscuits and weak instant coffee, to babyccinos in Starbucks; and that a trip into town would always lead to dramatic meltdowns, Alfie’s body as taut as a board as he struggled against being put in a buggy, as powerful as a coiled spring as he wriggled free of her grasp. She should have known that glitter would always be sprink- led all over the kitchen and that, at three, he could not hope to produce anything other than a sodden clump of papier mâché. Yet, somehow, she had forgotten, or been naively optimistic. She had thought she could conquer any problem with a calm voice and an endless supply of smiley stickers. No, motherhood isn’t turning out quite as she’d envisaged, at all. There’s just one thing she feels she can do with Alfie, she reflects, as she wipes the coffee grains from the surface and

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refills the machine, and that is baking. And so this is an activity in which they have started to excel. They began with cupcakes, over which she maintained overall artistic control. But they soon progressed from gingerbread men to tuiles; from pizza bases to sourdough; from jam tarts to tarte tatin. Alfie, who quickly learned that he got a strong reaction if he slopped water on to the floor or glue on to the table when painting, has discovered he gets a better one if he cracks an egg correctly, the slippery white slopping into the mixing bowl ‘without bits of shell’. Mummy sings when she bakes, and if her brow creases when he becomes over-exuberant with the sieving – and flour and cocoa sprinkle the floorboards – any irritation is momentary, dissipated by the heartening smell of sponge cooking and the sensual experience of licking the bowl. For Vicki, baking with her boy is tangible evidence that she is a good mother. ‘Did you make these yourself – and with Alfie?’ her friend, Ali, had quizzed her only on Monday as she had handed her a vintage cake tin with a smile of dismissal. She had felt a distinct glow of satisfaction at her friend praising not only the creations but the fact that she had made them with her child. ‘God, how do you stand the mess?’ Ali had continued. ‘Must be the teacher in you! I never bake with Sam.’ As always, she had felt mild pity. ‘He loves it.’ She had shrugged, with typical self-deprecation. And, on cue, her tousle-haired boy had looked up and given her a quick grin, his hand slipping into hers as he offered Ali’s three-year-old a home-made biscuit. ‘And so do I.’ Today, however, that sense of satisfaction evades her.

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Irritation niggles as she takes in the sea of Lego, the washing wilting on the maiden, the socks wrenched off on a whim and discarded, one dangling from Alfie’s ergonomically ideal chair, the other kicked under a toy box and curled like a stale croissant, waiting to be swooped up. She sighs then forces herself to breathe more calmly, taking in the aroma of lemon, sugar and butter now flooding her kitchen, bathing her in a delicious citrus fug. A timer pings and she opens the oven, and brings out an exquisitely cooked tarte au citron. The viscous yellow glows against the crisp golden pastry, blind-baked to perfection. And Vicki smiles.

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