Argh Ink

I’ve been thinking about Zelda and James, and I realized that I have once again committed the same mistake I always make: I’ve given them negative goals. It’s all the more galling since we were just talking about this on CherryForums and I did a huge post on it. And then I rewrote those two scenes and completely missed that I’d constructed them originally on negative goals instead of positive ones.

Basically, Zelda doesn’t want to go inside Rosemore. That’s a negative goal, as opposed to “Zelda wants to go to Paris and will miss her plane if she goes inside Rosemore.” If that were the goal, then Zelda’s struggle would be about Paris, not about staying in the cold and dark. The reader would be saying, “Hell, yes, go to Paris,” and rooting for her. Zelda doesn’t lose anything in her struggle with Rose because she has nothing at stake except for her peace of mind. She has nowhere else to be, might as well be at Rosemore.

James has the same problem: He doesn’t want to go to Rosemore. If he were missing something fabulous back in Columbus and these yahoos had dragged him away from it but he can still get back to it if he drops them off and goes, then when he gets out of the car at Rosemore, he’s lost something. There are stakes to that scene.

I can’t believe I didn’t SEE that.

On the other hand, Scylla’s scene was tight from the beginning. I only cut two hundred words from it and I changed very little. Why? Because Scylla wanted something in her scene and went after it from the beginning.

And Scylla’s scene gave me back the core of the story which I’d forgotten: That all these people are telling themselves stories that they’ve been living and they think of as true, even though other people’s stories don’t mesh with theirs. Scylla does it blatantly, but James does it, too, telling himself the story of that fifteen-year-old summer and how it shaped him. Zelda doesn’t have a story which I bet is where I’m going to find her goal. My idea in 2003 was that reality is a construct, and that all these constructed realities were going to collide, and I still love that. Scylla can keep hers going because she’s aware of it and constantly revises hers to fit the bumps she hits, but Zelda’s and James’ and Rose’s are all going to shatter because they can’t revise what they don’t even know they’ve constructed. And of course the same goes for Mike and Ruby and Keith, not to mention Malcolm and Mary and Angela and Issy and Quentin.

So now I have to rewrite Zelda and James, as soon as I figure out what they want and get the stories in their heads straight. Positive goals and constructed realities, that’s where I’m going.

And since you waded through two long scenes with negative goals, here’s Scylla’s scene with a positive goal. It comes after Zelda’s first scene and before James’s scene in the car.

But before that, I’d like to thank those of you who stuck with me for twelve days. Your comments were a huge help, truly.

Now here’s Scylla:

*************************

Scylla flipped on the overhead light in the kitchen, looked across the ancient blue Formica serving bar to the chipped red enamel colander on the shelf and the deep yellow mixer on the counter, the cherry-printed hand towels hung against the blue and white tiles on the backsplash, and the battered copper pans hanging on the scrubbed white walls.

Mine.

She pictured herself in a blue gingham apron, her blonde curls gleaming in the light from the square frosted ceiling light, her cheeks rosy from the heat of cooking, stirring things that smelled like heaven. She wasn’t sure who’d be watching her, except that they’d be guests at the Rosemore Bed and Breakfast, and they would admire her and tell all their friends about how charming she was and how fabulous the food was, and their friends would come, too, and the Rosemore Bed and Breakfast would be famous, and she could stay there forever.

She’d have to get a blue gingham apron. Zelda would know where to find one.

She went around the bar, the blue and white checkerboard linoleum under her feet almost soft with wear, touching the ancient gas range and the chipped white cast iron sink, making her way to the broad oak table by the archway to the housekeeper’s lounge. She caressed the wood and saw herself rolling out cookie dough while Zelda sat on the serving bar and gossiped with her about the guests, and the sun would pour through the win–

“Who the hell are you?”

Scylla jerked her head up and saw a middle-aged man slouched in one of the chintz armchairs in the lounge, his stockinged feet propped up on another chair, a fat ancient beagle grinning by his side on a thick red velvet dog pillow. The dog’s muzzle was grizzled, but it looked better than the man, whose long seamed face scowled at Scylla from under a thatch of dry, graying dark hair that stuck up on the top of his head in two cowlicks, like little horns.

She felt annoyed with him for a moment—he had no business in her kitchen or her fantasy, although the dog was good, any story was better with a dog—and then she registered again that his hair was dry and his face was lined and she thought, not enough fat in his diet. That was probably why he was so grumpy, too.

“I said,” the man said with heavy patience and a light British accent, “who are you?”

“The cook.” Scylla went back to the fridge. If she was going to feed twelve people that night, it was time to get started. The guy with not enough fat kept talking, which was annoying because he was getting in the way of her story, but he didn’t belong in her fantasy so he would be gone soon anyway.

And she’d make a magnificent meal and everybody would love her, and Zelda would be happy again–

She opened the refrigerator and sucked in her breath. It was full of food, but awful food, plastic boxes of precut vegetables drying up before her eyes, chicken breasts with no skin looking obscene, a quart of milk—who used only a quart of milk?—and no greens in the crisper, no butter, nothing that—

“I beg your pardon,” the dry guy said. “I’m talking to you.”

Scylla turned around, in no mood to be harassed. “Is this your food?”

“What’s it to you?”

“It’s horrible. No wonder you’re so unhappy.” She thought of feeding him, of watching his hair get glossy and his cheeks fat so he wouldn’t be Skinny Dry Guy any more, and worked him into her story as she said, “Don’t worry, I’ll save you.”

His eyebrows met in a deep dark V over his long nose “I am not unhappy and I do not need to be saved and whatever Rose has told you, you cannot stay.”

Scylla began to open cupboard doors, ignoring him because he was clearly in denial. Nobody who ate food like this could be anything but miserable, and of course she and Zelda were going to stay. The more cupboards she opened, the worse it got. Everything that should have been good—poppy seeds and basil and rosemary—was too old, brown and gray and dead. And everything that wasn’t old was wrong: self-rising flour and instant oatmeal and biscuit mix. Biscuit mix.

Zelda was not going to believe this.

Then she stopped. In the last cupboard, toward the back, were six jars of homemade brandied cherries. “This is the family secret, Syllie,” her mother had said every summer when she’d put them up, always forgetting to share the secret with her. And then every winter, she and Zelda had dipped the cherries into fabulous chocolate and packed them into little gold boxes and sent them off to Rose for her family Christmases, minus the ones they’d pigged out on while they were packing. I could make these again, Scylla thought. If Mom left chocolate somewhere, I could dip them and serve them for dinner and Zelda would taste them and remember the good times and want to stay, and I could figure out what Mom put in the marinade and they could be the specialty at my Rosemore Bed and Breakfast.

She closed the door, imagining how delighted everyone would be to see the cherries, how much they’d love her for it, and then she realized the dry guy was still talking.

“. . . not staying here.”

“What?” she said, trying to think. Okay, she had twelve people coming to dinner plus the dry guy, who was desperate for real food, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

“You are not staying here,” he repeated.

“Yes, I am,” Scylla said. “And I’m going to save you, so if you don’t want saved, get out of my story.”

So all she had to do was make this garbage wonderful . . .

The dry guy got up out of his chair and walked around the table to plant himself in front of her, and the dog sighed and waddled after him. “Look, you won’t like it here. It’s a thousand miles from nowhere, there’s no cable, cellphones don’t work, and neither does the heat.”

“The heat works in the attic,” Scylla said, because her mother’s room had been warm when she’d gone up there. “And it’ll be warm in here because I’ll be cooking.” He kept talking and she walked around him to open the freezer. The top two shelves were full of Haagen Daz butter pecan ice cream pints. The rest of the freezer held at least forty boxes of Lean Cuisine, an eight pound turkey, and six bags of ice. Someone had to be playing a trick on her. Nobody kept a larder like this on purpose.

“I said,” the man began again, and Scylla turned to him, suddenly comprehending his role in her scheme of things.

“Can you drive?”

“Yes,” the man said, his face growing sharper. “But I’m not going to.”

Scylla turned back to her kitchen, too busy to convince him that he was her new assistant. She took a deep breath and saw herself pulling everything out of the fridge, saving it, making it succulent and irresistible, saw people leaning over bowls—she’d make soup, it would have to be soup with this stuff—breaking open muffins and inhaling the scent, smiling because the warm aroma of the thick broth and the crumbly pastry seduced them, drawing them into its savory embrace until they melted and moaned with satiation.

Even this dry guy would fall to her magic and want to drive her to the grocery.

He was still talking. “Do you know who you’re cooking for? They’re terrible people.”

“Rose Moore, Issy and James Entwhistle, and the Awful Inglethorps.” She looked in the fridge again.

She was going to have to be a miracle worker, she was going to have to raise vegetables from the dead, she was going to have to feed twelve, no thirteen, with an eight pound turkey.

Zelda would have to take her to the grocery tomorrow, that was all there was to it. In the meantime, thank God she had her box. With the box, she could fix anything, and she’d save people with her food, and they’d adore her, and Zelda would love Rosemore again, and they’d live happily ever after–

“—really depressing here,” the man was saying. “It’s dangerous. The housekeeper drank herself to death.”

“I know,” Scylla said, closing the freezer. “She was my mother.”

That shut him up for a moment. Then he said, “You must be Priscilla. I’m sorry. I truly am. But you should leave.”

“My name’s not Priscilla, it’s Scylla.” Scylla blinked at him. “And I’m not leaving. This is my story.”

The man drew back, scowling at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

She shook her head at him, more convinced than ever that he would have to go, and then stepped over the dog and around the serving bar and out the door into the checkerboard central hall. We played hopscotch here, she thought, that’s a good memory for Zelda, and made a note to herself to mention it to Zelda when she talked to her about the gingham apron and the grocery.

She went out the door to the front terrace and was surprised to find the snow blowing against her as she went down the steps. She had a brief Dr. Zhivago moment as she reached the bottom and the wind whipped her skirt around her legs. Too bad there wasn’t anybody there to see her. Not the dry guy, though.

The wind blew harder and stung her face, and she thought that she probably looked very fetching in the storm, her cheeks pinked with cold and her curls tipped with snowflakes. Then the cold got to her, so she hauled her box out of the back of the car and lugged it up the steps and back into the kitchen.

She slid the box onto the counter and pulled down the front panel and sighed happily when she saw the drawers of herbs and spices and her knives and her scales and everything else that made cooking better than sex. Now it was her kitchen, and the food would be wonderful, and she’d–

“Bloody hell,” she heard from behind her and turned to see the dry guy towering over her like Ichabod Crane, glaring at the neat contents of her box. “You really are staying.”

“Of course,” Scylla said, out of patience with him.

“Fuck.” He sighed and then nodded, evidently resigned. He gestured to the dog. “This is Plum. I’m Quentin.”

“Hello, Plum,” Scylla said and went to get the turkey out of the freezer and make all her dreams come true.

I went over James’s first scene one more time, this time on paper (I went over all of Act One on paper because once you print it out it looks entirely different and you find things you’d missed before, and yes, I’ll fix the dates, I swear) and the first chapter rose from 6880 to 6925 because of cuts plus clarifications, but it’s still under 7,000, so I think I’m okay for a first chapter. I like chapters to get shorter as I move through the book, so a fairly long first chapter actually helps with the future pacing.

And then I did some timelines and turning points and whiteboard planning to slot in the scenes I already have. Yes, most of them are in the first act. Which can’t go much over 35K, which means by the end of this I’ll have cut my 60K to about 30K because I still have first act stuff to write. Well, it’ll be a good 30K. It’ll make sense this time.

And since you asked, and everything I did today was boring charts and diagrams, here’s James’s first scene followed by the 7225 words it came from. Okay it lost about 2600 of those when I cut the first scene entirely, but it’s still a lot of cutting:

Seventy miles west of Rosemore on a snowy Cincinnati street, James Entwhistle kicked himself for listening to his family again. The roads were growing steadily worse, his cousin Mike was in a bad temper, his cousin Ruby was whining that the accident that had required him to drive two hours from Columbus to pick them up wasn’t her fault, and her latest fiancé, Keith, was being a pretentious boob.

“It wasn’t my fault, James,” Ruby said for the tenth time.

“Oh, can it, Rube.” Mike shifted in the passenger seat. “You were going too fast, you hit the ice, you slid into my car, it’s your fault. End of story.”

If only it were, James thought. The snow was really coming down now. God, don’t let me get stuck in a drift with these people.

“It’s not my fault there was ice there,” Ruby was saying, the pout clear in her baby-sweet voice. “It’s not my fault you told me the garage was open. It was dark and the ice was black. I couldn’t see it. Could I, James?”

“Well, you just keep bitching about it,” Mike said to her. “I’m sure that’s what James came to hear.”

“Look, it’s done,” James said. “Move on.”

There was a short silence and then Ruby said, “I’m sorry, James. Keith and I really are grateful you came and got us. In fact . . . ”

Mike shifted in the passenger seat. “This should be good.”

Ruby leaned forward into the space between them, attaching herself to the edge of James’s seat, and he remembered that Rose had always called her Ivy, saying that she was the epitome of an Awful Inglethorpe because she had their edgy beauty, like one of the more attractive poisonous plants that begged you to pick it and then left you covered with rash and regrets.

Ruby put her hand on his shoulder, and James knew he was going to regret letting her into his back seat. “You really are the family hero, everybody thinks so,” Ruby said, her voice syrup sweet. “We all look up to you. So Keith and I were wondering—”

“No,” James said.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” Ruby said, suddenly sugar-free.

“You have some business proposition that you want my time, money, or influence for.” James squinted at the road. “No.”

“You’re the only one of us who has any money,” Ruby said, entitlement strong in her voice. “You and Angela.”

“That’s because I always say no when you try to take it from me.”

“He’s got you there, Rube,” Mike said.

“It’s a sweet investment opportunity.” Keith was leaning forward now beside Ruby. “I’ve designed a development that’s going to make big waves in the architectural community. I’ll show you the plans when we get to Rosemore and explain anything you don’t understand.”

“Like why you should care,” Mike said under his breath.

James watched as the car in front of him slid through a stop light. “No.”

“Oh, just fine,” Ruby said and leaned back to whisper with Keith again.

“Sorry,” Mike said to James. “She won’t give up, you know. Especially with God’s gift to brick egging her on.”

“I know.” James frowned at the windshield. “This storm is not good.”

Mike squinted out at the snow, too. “You think we won’t make it in?”

“Oh, we’ll make it in,” James said. “I don’t know if we’ll make it out again.”

“James,” Ruby began again.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mike snapped. “Leave him alone. He already fixed one of your screw-ups tonight, he doesn’t deserve any more.”

Keith leaned forward. “He doesn’t deserve the chance of a lifetime?”

If I had a roof rack, James thought, I could tie Keith to it.

“James doesn’t take chances,” Mike said, and James thought, I take chances. A gust of wind blew snow across the windshield, and he slowed down a little.

“Of course James doesn’t take chances,” Ruby said, giving up on her snow job. “James Darling never does anything wrong, that’s why he has all that money.”

“Shut up, Rube,” Mike said.

“In fact, I’m surprised James Darling didn’t just fix both cars while we waited,” Ruby said, on a roll now. “I’m surprised he didn’t just unbend my grill with his bare hands.” Her voice rose to a teeth-grating shriek. “I’m surprised—“

James pulled off to the side of the street, plowing through the piled up snow. “You want to walk?” he said to Ruby without turning around.

After a short silence, Ruby said, “No.”

“I know that’s a joke,” Keith said to James over the back of the seat, “but that’s out of line.”

“It’s not a joke,” Mike said. “James has no sense of humor. And Ruby’s being a pain in the ass.”

“Now, listen—“ Keith began.

“Want to walk?” James said to him.

Another short silence, and then Keith said, “No.”

“Okay.” James put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the street with more difficulty than he’d anticipated. So much for all-wheel drive. Probably shouldn’t do that again, he thought. Unless there was a chance Ruby and Keith really would get out. That would be worth the risk. Who said he wouldn’t take a chance?

He took the ramp onto 275 as Ruby began to talk to Keith again, keeping her voice low.

Mike was silent for a long while, and then he said, “It must be tough for you with Francis and your mom and their divorce right now. I’m sorry. I should have been there for you–”

“He was her fourth husband,” James said, squinting at the road. “He knew the job was dangerous when he took it.”

“Well, yeah, but still, it must have been a shock for him. Life’s been pretty good to old Francis. Plus him being your senior partner has to be tough.”

Soft soap, James thought. He wants something, too. “He’s says he’ll shoot you if you come back to the office.”

“But you’re doing my divorce,” Mike said, bewildered.

“And you did our receptionist.” The snow was definitely getting heavier now. Don’t turn into ice, James thought. Cut me a break here.

“Astrid?” Mike said, faking innocence badly. “How is Astrid?”

“Living in southern California because you broke her heart. I paid for her plane ticket. It was either that or listen to her weep for the next ten years.”

“Hey, she knew my divorce wasn’t final and I wasn’t ready for anything serious.”

“You told her you loved her.”

“No, I didn’t. Well, maybe once when we were in bed. But no woman should take seriously anything a man says in bed.”

“And yet, they do,” James said. “Try to stay away from nice women, will you?”

“Yeah. That’s probably best.” Mike was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Thanks for getting her the plane ticket.”

“You’re welcome.”

James left him alone with his thoughts again, grateful for the silence as he concentrated on the fast disappearing road, but when Mike hadn’t said anything half an hour later, James glanced over at him in the light from the dash. He looked miserable. Oh, hell, James thought and sacrificed the beautiful silence. “You okay?”

Mike looked back over the seat to Ruby and Keith, but they whispered on, oblivious to them.
“I didn’t mention this before,” Mike said, keeping his voice low. “But I’ve got a deal cooking, too. Rose wants to turn Rosemore into a bed and breakfast, and she wants me to run it.”

Hell. The ways that could go wrong were endless. “It’d be a lot of work,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral and the car on the road. “It’s one of those pie-in-the dreams that turns into twenty-four hour drudgery.” And you’ve never been much for drudgery.

“I need a new start, James,” Mike said, his voice suddenly earnest. “I don’t like myself much. I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t go out with nice women.”

There it was, the crack in Mike’s life where Rose had stuck the thin end of her wedge. “Then don’t be. Start over.”

Mike nodded. “That’s what I’m going to do. Rose says I can have the manager’s job if I buy into the business.”

Money. Of course, Rose wanted money. “Mike, I’d think twice about anything Rose offered me, especially if it involved inves–”

“You think twice about everything.” Mike leaned closer. “Look, it’s not much, only fifty thousand. She’s . . . ”

He talked on, his voice picking up speed as he outlined his bright future greeting guests and being charming, but James had stopped listening as soon as he heard, “Fifty thousand dollars.” Fifty thousand wouldn’t put a dent in what it would take to renovate Rosemore, so why would Rose lowball him like that? Especially since Mike was due to get his trust fund on January first with the rest of the Inglethorp heirs, including grasping little Ruby who evidently hadn’t told her fiancé she was about to inherit a bundle.

Unless that was Rose’s plan, to lure Mike in with fifty thousand and bleed him for his entire trust fund. His share had to be at least half a million by now. That would go a long way toward making Rosemore livable again.

“Of course, fifty thousand is just a start,” Mike was saying. “Rose told me to look for outside investors.”

And she mentioned my name. James focused his attention back on the road because it was safer than thinking about strangling Rose.

“I’d really like you to come in and talk to her with me,” Mike said. “I always see things clearer after you’ve talking to me.”

James began to watch for the Rt. 52 exit sign through the slanting snow, knowing he was going to spend an extra hour at Rosemore talking Mike out of losing his entire trust fund to Rose. “I can stay for a couple of minutes, but then I head back to Columbus.”

“Great,” Mike said.

“What’s great?” Ruby said, popping her head between them.

“None of your business,” her brother said.

“Oh, so only James can hear your secrets,” Ruby said. “James the big hero–

James slowed the car and put on his turn signal.

“You wouldn’t leave me in the middle of nowhere all by myself,” Ruby said.

“No, but I’d leave you in the middle of nowhere with Keith,” James said.

Ruby sat back, and James took the exit for Rosemore.

“You know, it’s a good thing that you’re staying at Rosemore for awhile. You’ll get to see Zelda.”

“Who?” Then memory clicked and nineteen years evaporated, and he was a clumsy fifteen-year-old, staring at tangled black hair and dark eyes like razors and a body like a whip that made him mute with terror-stricken lust–

“Zelda Banks,” Mike said to James. “You remember. You had it bad for her that last summer at Rosemore.”

“No, I didn’t,” James said. Zelda Banks in her rainbow-striped T-shirt, standing on her head in the attic hallway, dancing on the pool table in Rose’s red cowboy boots, rising up wet from the Ohio. “I barely remember her.”

Except for the time he’d tried to kiss her when she’d been sitting on the terrace balustrade and knocked her into the river, and she’d hit her head, and he’d gone in after her, pulled her unconscious body out of the water and tried to give her mouth-to-mouth while the adults gathered because of her scream–his mother repeating hysterically, “Just like Charlie”–and then she’d come to flailing and broken his nose.

Or the time he’d put the car in the ditch and she’d said, “That was amazing, James.” Or the time he’d tried to fix the elevator and got the table leg jammed in it instead while she watched and sighed. It’s a miracle I never killed myself, he thought. Instead he’d ended up in military school. Because Zelda had liked the buttons on the uniform his mother made him try on. If you looked at the situation just right, say from his point of view, she owed him.

“—broke his nose,” Mike was saying to Ruby.

“She broke James’s nose?” Ruby said, leaning forward, delighted. “Why?”

“He tried to kiss her,” Mike said, “and knocked her into the river. Which I’ve always considered a baseline. Whenever I do something really awful to a woman, I think, ‘Well, at least I didn’t knock her into a river.’”

“What I remember,” James said to Mike, “is you and Scylla, the housekeeper’s beautiful daughter.”

“Scylla?” Ruby said, her head swiveling to Mike.

James put his attention back on the road as Mike began to wax rhapsodic about Scylla and her polka dot bikini. Zelda had worn cut-offs that had frayed up beyond a PG rating and that striped T-shirt that went almost invisible when it got wet. He’d spent the entire month of August 1989, following that T-shirt around, and now he thought, Poor clueless kid. If only he’d known then what he knew now . . .

“Is the housekeeper the one who makes the cherries?” Ruby said. “Because I haven’t had those cherries in years.”

“She died,” James said.

“Scylla’s mother died?” Mike said, shocked.

“No cherries?” Ruby wailed.

“In September,” James said to Mike. “I sent flowers. So did you, I put your name on them.”

“What cherries?” Keith asked.

“Special family dessert,” Ruby said, her voice petulant. “She marinates cherries in some secret sauce and then coats them in chocolate. They’re insanely good and we haven’t had them for years. And now she’s dead and I’ll never have them again.”

She sat back again, overcome by her misfortune, and Mike took a deep breath. “You should have told me.”

“I did,” James said. “You were starting the divorce, so I’m not surprised it didn’t register.”

The ice was coming down faster now, and the tires crunched on the road as Mike sat in silence for miles, Ruby and Keith whispering in the back seat. Then finally he took a deep breath. “I really want to talk to Scylla again.”

“So talk to her.”

“And say what? ‘Hi, I’m Mike, I was crazy about you nineteen years ago, my business just folded, my wife left me, and my sister just totaled my only asset, but I’m really glad to see you again?”

“Jesus,” James said, taken aback. “Where did all of that come from?”

“I don’t know.” Mike sounded tired. “Rose kept talking about her, and now she’s back at Rosemore. Maybe I’ll get a second chance.” He looked over at James. “Haven’t you ever wanted a second chance?”

“So James,” Ruby said, leaning forward again. “About our development plan–”

James slowed the car.

“Okay, okay,” Ruby said. “I don’t want to walk.”

“You’re not walking,” James said as he turned down the long icy lane. “We’re here.”

The lane was pretty bad, and he thought, You’ll never get out of here if you don’t leave soon. They inched around the last curve, and the house came into view in the snow-dimmed moonlight, the ugly square brick towers at the corners making it look like a kid’s idea of a castle.

“That’s the masterpiece your grandfather designed?” Keith said to Ruby, the horror in his voice plain. “That’s the place you want to make the center of the development?”

“I think we should put rose-trees on the terrace,” Ruby said happily.

“There’s no way,” Keith said. “We’re going to have to tear it down.”

“Be sure you tell Rose that,” James said as he pulled up by the front steps. “Just wait until I’m there to watch.”

Keith and Ruby got out as soon as the car stopped, but Mike stayed where he was, and James shut off the engine and waited.

“They’re in there,” Mike said, finally. “Scylla and Zelda.”

“Yep,” James said.

“Think we’ll do better this time?” Mike said.

“Well, I can’t do any worse,” James said, and got out of the car.

***************************************************************************

One hundred and forty miles north of Rosemore, James Entwhistle sat in his Columbus law office as a perfectly good day went to hell, thanks once again to the Awful Inglethorps.
In this particular case, hell was the blonde Inglethorp cousin who was also his half-sister. “Come on, James,” Angela said, clearly aware that she was beautiful and clearly unaware they were more than cousins. “You’re a tall, smart, successful man, and I could use one of those right now. Aren’t you tired of all those little brunettes you keep dating and dropping?”
“I have a short attention span.” James kept the desk between them and the exasperation out of his voice. Why hadn’t his aunt Mary ever told her daughter the family secret? Although to be fair, that would be some conversation.
“Oh, stop running away.” Angela tossed her purse on his desk, almost knocking over the only thing on it aside from his leather desk set, a bright, fragile hummingbird made of paper-thin wood that shuddered as her bag touched its base.
“Easy.” He moved it away from her.
Angela frowned at it. “That’s one of those things you always give Rose, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” James said. “Mexican folk art. I get her pieces that look like her.”
“And you thought that looked like her.” Angela shook her head. “Not even close.”
“No.” James looked at the multi-colored pinstripes of the bird’s wings and its sharp, dark eyes. Nothing depraved or blue-eyed or otherwise Rose-like about it. “I bought it for the office because it was bright. People who come here are usually depressed.”
“Yeah, divorce’ll do that to you.” Angela slumped in her chair, and he remembered she’d gotten trounced in court that day. “Forget the bird, James, and think about me.” She leaned forward so that everything shifted under her gray cashmere sweater dress, advertising her complete lack of underwear and moral restraint. “I know it’s taken me awhile to notice how attractive you are, but I had a lot of maturing to do before I could appreciate you.”
James looked at the ceiling, trying to ease the tension at the back of his neck.
“And let’s face it.” Angela nudged her purse as she leaned closer, making the bird shudder again. “You were sort of fat when you were a kid. Plus you had that big, lunkheaded look that doesn’t really work when you’re a teenager.”
“Thank you. Aren’t you taking your mother to Rose’s tonight? Shouldn’t you be going? Now?”
“Oh, but now that you’re older, it’s very attractive.” Angela must have seen that he wasn’t buying it because she crossed her legs, letting the heel of her sharp-toed pump dangle off one shapely, bouncing foot.
Family secret or not, if Angela didn’t give up pretty soon, he was going to have to tell her, which would mean he’d be in the middle of a family war, and they’d all complain to him and snipe at each other, and then someone would drink too much. and his Aunt Mary would probably throw something, since the only thing that had kept her from killing his mother all these years was the pretense that none of it had happened and his mother had gotten him at Sears.
“You know, that must be one of the reasons you’re so successful,” Angela was saying. “The other lawyers look at you and think, ‘Big dummy,’ and then you take them by surprise. And now that you’re older and taller and all muscled-up—” Her eyes flirted with him. “–it’s more broken-nose tough guy, so it’s very hot.”
Her come-on was too heavy. Even if she hadn’t been off limits, there was nothing reckless in her, nothing free. She’s as tired as I am, he thought, and felt sorry for her. “You’re my cousin, Angela. I can’t.”
“James, we’re cousins by marriage, not by blood. My grandfather married your grandmother. There was no genetic mingling.”
Skip down a generation. There was mingling. “Look, Ange, you’re upset about your divorce–”
“James, I decided this at lunch a month ago. I watched you eat your BLT and decided I wanted you. And if the sex works out, I think we should get married.”
James squinted at her to see if she was kidding. She had to be kidding. “Because of the way I ate a BLT.”
Angela nodded at him approvingly. “There aren’t a lot of men who can eat a BLT well.”
“Right.” James relaxed. “This is a joke. Good job. You can leave now.”
“I’m serious, James. You’re the kind of man who can take care of a woman, and . . . “ Angela stood and tested the edge of the desk with her hand, imperiling the bird again. “. . . I’m the kind of woman who can take care of a man.”
He stood and moved the bird away from her, and she sat on the desk, drawing her long fingernails across the polished surface. “Have you ever had sex on this desk?”
‘Yes, but not with a cousin. Knock it off, Angela, you’re scratching the finish.”
Angela straightened, frowning at him. “You’re being stupid,” she said as James’s senior partner and former stepfather appeared in the doorway, looking like an aging, depressed frat boy.
James straightened. “Francis!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Angela said, not botehring to turn around.
“Hello, Angela,” Francis said. “Bad luck in court today. Never divorce anybody James has done the prenup for.”
“So I have learned.” Angela went back to her chair, her face sulky.
Francis came around Angela to hand James a pink message slip. “Our new receptionist put this on my desk instead of yours.” He collapsed into James’s desk chair. “Her writing is awful.”
James took the slip. The new receptionist did have vile handwriting, but it wasn’t illegible; he was pretty sure the name on the “From” line was “Mike,” one of the better Inglethorps, which, James thought, was really faint praise.
“I have to return this message,” he said to Angela. “Family stuff. Francis will walk you to your car.” Seduce him. He could use some cheering up.
“What family stuff?” Angela said as James picked up the phone, and Francis jerked his head up.
“Not Mom,” James said to Francis.
“Are you sure?” Francis rolled the desk chair closer. “Because if Issy needs me, I can go to Rosemore with y–”
“She’s fine.” That was all he needed, Francis following him around Rosemore, mooning after his mother. He punched in Mike’s number, keeping the phone between him and Francis, and then took pity on him when he looked depressed again. “Look, I’m not staying at Rosemore Christmas night, so I’ll be back in Columbus by eleven. If you’re still up, I’d like to stop by for a nightcap.” Listen to a few carols, hear about how miserable you are without Mom, remember why I’m never getting married . . .
“Certainly.” Francis brightened again. Then he hesitated. “Are you sure Issy is all right, because it would be really no trouble–”
“The message is from Mike.” James listened to the phone ring. Come on, Mike. “Mom’s fine.”
“Mike,” Francis said with sudden loathing. “If he shows up here again, have him shot.”
Angela perked up. “What did he do now?”
“He seduced and abandoned our receptionist,” Francis said bitterly while James listened to the phone ring, “and she quit.”
“That may be overstating the case,” James said and then Mike answered and he said, “Mike, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
“James!” Mike’s voice sounded too cheerful, as if he were gritting his teeth behind a smile. “We’re in Cincinnati, my car is totaled, and we need a ride to Rose’s. Ruby made me call.”
“What does Ruby—” James stopped as a picture of Mike’s little sister—tiny, dark-haired, short-tempered, and reckless as hell—came to mind. Family, the gift that kept on giving. “That’s how the car got totaled.”
“You know Ruby.”
“Oh, for the love of God.” Angela got up and began to pace, swinging her arm so that her sleeve brushed the hummingbird, and James caught it with one hand as it began to topple.
“Will you stop that?” he snapped, forgetting he was still on the phone.
“Stop what?” Mike said, sounding confused.
Angela rolled her eyes. “It was an accident, James.”
Like hell it was. He righted the bird, noticing that a couple of feathers were loose. Nothing a little glue wouldn’t put right, but still a pain in the neck.
“Mike’s just blaming it on Ruby,” Francis said, leaning back in James’s chair. “If you look into it, it’ll be Mike’s fault. His divorce was his fault, too, I don’t care if we did represent him.”
James went back to Mike. “If you can wait two days, I’ll come get you on Christmas.”
“I can’t,” Mike said, and then dropped his voice. “I can’t tell you about it now, Ruby’s here and Rose wants me to keep this quiet, but she has a business proposition for me and we’re finalizing it tonight. It’s the deal of a lifetime, James. I’d really like to run it past you.”
A business proposition with Rose that she doesn’t want talked about. Like you don’t have enough trauma in your life, you idiot.
If he went to Cincinnati to get Mike, he could get rid of Angela, talk Mike out of getting swindled by Rose, and come back home blessedly alone, five hours on the road tops.
On the other hand, he really didn’t want to go to Rosemore.
“Rent a car.”
“Okay,” Mike said. “There’s one other thing.”
James closed his eyes and thought longingly of being an orphan, all alone in the world. “What?”
“Rose invited extra people to stay for Christmas.”
“I don’t care.”
“One of them is Zelda.”
“Who?” Then memory clicked and James said, “Oh,” and nineteen years evaporated, and he was a clumsy fifteen-year-old, staring at tangled black hair and dark eyes like razors and a body like a whip that made him mute with terror-stricken lust–
“Zelda Banks,” Mike said to James. “You remember. You had it bad for her that last summer at Rosemore.”
“No, I didn’t,” James said.
“Right,” Mike said. “It wasn’t Zelda, you had a thing for striped T-shirts.”
Zelda Banks in her rainbow-striped T-shirt, standing on her head in the attic hallway, dancing on the pool table in Rose’s red cowboy boots, rising up wet from the Ohio—
“She’s there now,” Mike said. “I just wanted to warn you in case you changed your mind about coming to get us. Which I’d really appreciate because I think it would be good to have a lawyer look over Rose’s stuff before I sign it. I know it’s a lot to ask, but even if you could just come in long enough to look at the papers . . . ”
Zelda, clean and straight and sharp and strong.
“Don’t sign anything. I’ll pick you up in two hours.” James hung up and turned back to the others, thinking, Zelda again. Jesus.
“James.” Angela sounded dangerous. “You’re ignoring me.”
Francis sat up. “James, is something wrong?”
Zelda. James shook his head. “Francis, I have to go get Mike, but we’ll have dinner tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep. You look awful.” He waited until Francis had reluctantly gone, and then he turned to his other problem. “Angela? No.”
“You know, James, any other guy would have ripped off my clothes by now, but you’re being the Good Boy, just like always.” Angela leaned closer. “Doesn’t that get old? Don’t you just want to explode sometimes?”
Zelda. “Not with a cousin.” James took his jacket from the back of his chair. “Go get your mother.”
Angela’s nostrils flared and she looked odd, like a very slender, very pretty bull, but he shrugged on his coat and came around the desk, pointing to the door. She stood, her face flushed. “I can’t believe you’re saying no to me,” she said as she turned to pick up her coat.
“I can’t believe you asked.” Zelda Banks.
“Get used to it, James, it’s going to happen. And you’re going to love it.”
She leaned back into his chest, and he remembered Zelda on the terrace, her skin hot where she’d leaned her back against his shoulder, touching him, not even realizing she was touching him, blanking out every thought he’d had except that Zelda Banks was touching him. He closed his eyes and felt the heat and the sun, tasted pomegranate and vodka, smelled suntan lotion and sweat and the vanilla from her shampoo and the licorice on her breath, saw all that dark, tangled hair fall in her dark, sharp eyes—
God, I really had it bad for her. Good thing he was over her now.
“James,” Angela said softly, and he opened his eyes, surprised she was still there and startled she was so close.
He stepped back and said, “Out,” pointing to the door, and her face twisted. She grabbed her coat and swirled it around her shoulders, catching the hummingbird full on this time and knocking it to the floor before he could grab it.
“Sorry,” she said.
He bent and picked up the bird, and feathers dropped out of the broken wings and fell to the floor. Its beak had cracked off, and he went down on one knee to find it.
“James, it’s just a bird,” Angela said. “You—“
He picked up the beak and stood, looking at her with ice in his eyes.
“Come on, James,” she said, smiling. “Lighten up.”
“Go. Away,” he said, and Angela lost her smile.
“All right. But when you’re over this snit about your bird, remember my offer still stands.”
Oh, yeah, you’re something I want. He put the bird and its broken beak on his desk and gathered up the feathers and put them beside it. Then he picked up his jacket and turned out the light and went down to his car, telling himself to get over it, it didn’t matter. But as he opened the door, he stopped, remembering it was the night for the cleaning crew. If they found the bird and knocked the pieces off the desk or threw away the feathers . . . You might need therapy, he thought, but he got a box from the back of his car and went upstairs to get the bird, gently packing all the broken pieces in crumpled paper to shield them. It was dumb, but he felt better as he carried the box down to the car. Things left unfinished just nagged at you. Much better to fix the bird, get closure, not obsess over what might happen, what might have been.
Zelda, standing in the river in her wet T-shirt, laughing up at him, strong and sure, everything he’d ever wanted. . .
And nineteen years older now, he told himself as he put the box in the cargo hold. That skinny, scary girl was gone and a damn good thing, too, because if she wasn’t, if she was anything like she’d been in 1985 . . .
Be fat, Zelda, he thought. Be fat and stupid and married with fifteen kids and nothing like I remember you.
Because I remember you.
Then he slammed the hatchback and went to get more Inglethorps.
#

#

Seventy miles west of Rosemore, James pulled down an apartment house drive and saw Mike, tall and dark, arguing with Ruby, short and dark, being watched by an average twenty-something man with none of the blatant good looks of the other two. Rose always said that the only thing that kept the Inglethorps from dying out was the fact they had such edgy beauty, like one of the more attractive poisonous plants that begged you to pick it and then left you covered with rash and regrets. She’d called Mike’s little sister “Ivy” for years based on that, James remembered as he pulled up and Ruby attached herself to the car.
“It’s about time,” she yelled to his closed window and then wrenched open the back door. “It’s freezing.”
“You’ve been in Mike’s apartment,” he told her as he got out. “You are not freezing.”
He went around the car and opened the back, and Mike picked up his bag, his lean handsome face uncharacteristically grim, and said, “Hello, James, thank you for coming to get us. This is Keith Bennet, Ruby’s latest. Keith, this is James Entwhistle, our cousin.”
Keith nodded, trying to be cool while holding a beat-up over-nighter and three pieces of immaculate pink luggage, and James felt sorry for him, caught in Ruby’s clutches and about to be sacrificed to the family for Christmas.
Ten minutes later, on the road and heading for the 275 exit, the only person he felt sorry for was himself. The roads were growing steadily worse, Mike was in a bad temper, Ruby was whining that the accident wasn’t her fault, and Keith was a boob.
“It was your fault,” Ruby said for the tenth time.
“Oh, can it, Rube.” Mike shifted in the passenger seat. “You were going too fast, you hit the ice, you slid into my car, it’s your fault. End of story.”
If only it were, James thought. The snow was really coming down now. Please don’t let me get stuck in a drift with these people.
“It’s not my fault there was ice there,” Ruby was saying, the pout clear in her baby-sweet voice. “It’s not my fault you told me the garage was open. It was dark and the ice was black. I couldn’t see it. Could I, Keith?”
“No, absolutely not,” Keith said.
“Well, you just keep bitching about it,” Mike said to her. “I’m sure that’s what James came to hear. I wouldn’t bother asking him any more favors if I were you.”
“Look, it’s done now.” James said. “Move on.”
There was a short silence and then Ruby said, “I’m sorry, James.”
“It’s all right.”
“In fact,” Ruby went on from behind him, syrup softening the edge in her voice, “Keith and I really are grateful you came and got us.”
Mike shifted in the passenger seat. “This should be good.”
Ruby leaned forward into the space between the seats. “You really are the family hero, everybody thinks so.”
James glanced at her, registering the odd effect that the green light from the dash had on her lovely, vivid little face. She looked half dead.
“We all look up to you,” Ruby said. “So Keith and I were wondering—”
“No,” James said.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” Ruby said, suddenly sugar-free.
“You have some business proposition that you want my time, money, or influence for.” James squinted at the road. “No.”
“You’re the only one of us who has any money,” Ruby said, entitlement strong in her voice. “Well, besides Angela.”
“That’s because I always say no when you try to take it from me.”
“He’s got you there, Rube,” Mike said.
“It really is a sweet opportunity,” Keith said from beside Ruby. “I’ve designed a development that’s going to make big waves in the architectural community.”
“Oh, there’s a place I’d want to live,” Mike said to nobody in particular.
“I’ll show you the plans when we get to Rosemore,” Keith went on. “I’ll be glad to explain anything you don’t understand.”
“Like why you should invest in this,” Mike said under his breath.
James watched as the car in front of him slid through the intersection. If it was this bad here, it was going to be hell when they hit the two-lane stretch of Rt. 52 outside Rosemore.
“It’s the chance of a lifetime,” Keith said. “Of course there are a lot of people who want in on this—”
“Which is why he’s hitting you up,” Mike said.
“—but Ruby thought we should give you the first shot. She didn’t want you to miss–”
Mike turned in his seat to look at Keith. “If I were you, I’d stop annoying James and think of a way to make Rose forget she didn’t invite you. She hates gate-crashers.”
“She didn’t invite me?” Keith’s voice went up. “Ruby?”
“You’re my fiancé,” Ruby said to him. “You’re family. She invited the family.”
“I don’t think so,” Mike said. “James? What do you think?”
I think it’s going to be a long drive.
“James?” Mike said again, clearly looking for some back-up.
If he had to pick sides, he was definitely picking Mike. “It’s not going to help that Keith’s an architect.”
“That’s true,” Mike said. “She hates architects.”
“She hates architects?” Keith said, disbelief strong in his voice. “Why would anybody hate architects?”
“It’s all right, Keith.” Ruby dropped her voice again and James felt his seat ease back as she stopped leaning against it. “Ignore them. They’re always like this when they get together.”
“Sorry,” Mike said to James when Keith and Ruby started whispering again. “She won’t give up, you know. Especially now that she has God’s gift to brick egging her on.”
“I know.” James frowned at the windshield. “This storm is not good.”
Mike squinted out at the snow, too. “You think we won’t make it in?”
“Oh, we’ll make it in,” James said. “I don’t know if we’ll make it out again.”
“James,” Ruby began again.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Mike snapped. “Leave him alone. He already fixed one of your screw-ups tonight, he doesn’t deserve any more.”
Keith leaned forward. “He doesn’t deserve the chance of a lifetime?”
If only I had a roof rack, James thought, I could tie Keith to it.
“James doesn’t take chances,” Mike said, and James thought, I take chances. Sometimes. A gust of wind blew snow across the windshield, and he slowed down a little.
“Of course James doesn’t take chances,” Ruby said, giving up on her snow job. “James Darling never does anything wrong, that’s why he has all that money.”
“Shut up, Rube,” Mike said.
“In fact, I’m surprised James Darling didn’t just fix both cars while we waited,” Ruby said, on a roll now. “I’m surprised he didn’t just unbend my grill with his bare hands.” Her voice rose to a teeth-grating shriek. “I’m surprised—“
James pulled off to the side of the street, plowing through the piled up snow. “You want to walk?” he said to Ruby without turning around.
After a short silence, Ruby said, “No.”
“I know that’s a joke,” Keith said to James over the back of the seat, “but that’s out of line.”
“It’s not a joke,” Mike said. “James has no sense of humor. And Ruby’s being a pain in the ass.”
“Now, listen—“ Keith began.
“Want to walk?” James said to him.
Another short silence, and then Keith said, “No.”
“Okay.” James put the car in gear and pulled back out onto the street with more difficulty than he’d anticipated. So much for all-wheel drive. Probably shouldn’t do that again, he thought. Unless there was a chance Ruby and Keith really would get out. That would be worth the risk. Who said he wouldn’t take a chance?
He took the ramp onto 275 as Ruby began to talk to Keith again, keeping her voice low. James heard Keith say something about Rose, and Ruby said, “Yes, but we’re bringing her James Darling two days early. Rose will give us points for that.”
If she smashed into Mike’s car on purpose, James thought, temper spurting, and then he shelved the idea and the anger. Ruby was selfish as all hell, but she loved her little Miata. She might have run over a pedestrian to get him to Rosemore, but she wouldn’t have crunched her car.
“I am really sorry about this,” Mike said to him. “Although it feels good, you and me against the world. Like the good old days.”
Right, the good old days. Well, they probably had been for Mike, who’d never had an awkward day in his life.
The car struck a patch of ice and slid, and Mike said, “Careful, don’t put her in the ditch,” and James twitched, remembering the last time he’d heard that from Mike, right before he’d put Rose’s car in the ditch that summer. They weren’t supposed to have the car, they weren’t old enough, but Rose didn’t care, she’d send them out to buy cigarettes for her—we weren’t old enough for that, either, James thought—and on that day he’d lost control and they’d gone into the ditch. And Mike had taken Scylla into the woods, and Zelda had sat beside him, watching him, while he took an hour to get the car out. He remembered telling her that the key was to back the car into the same ruts they’d made going in, pretending he had everything under control while he sweated buckets, and then when he finally got the car back on the road, and she’d said, in that flat, cutting voice, “That was amazing, James,” and he’d wanted to kill himself.
Adolescence, he thought. You never really get over it. That’s probably how she remembered him, too. Sweating like a pig, trying to get the damn car out while Scylla got kissed in the woods.
But she’s back there now, and now you know how to get a car out of a ditch. No, that was insane. The car had been out of the ditch for nineteen years. Get over it, he told himself.
Mike looked over in the silence. “You seemed kind of tense on the phone, like you could use a break. Maybe a couple of days at Rosemore would be good for you.”
“A couple of days at Rosemore would finish me off.” Just driving there is making me nuts.
“Right.” Mike sounded disappointed. “I’m being selfish. I’d enjoy it a hell of a lot more if you were there. Like the old days. But that’s a lot to ask.”
“Yep.”
Mike was silent for awhile, and then he said, “It must be tough for you with Francis and your mom and their divorce right now. I’m sorry. I should have been there for you–”
“He was her fourth husband,” James said. “He knew the job was dangerous when he took it.”
“Well, yeah, but still, it must have been a shock for him. And he’s not exactly used to shocks. Life’s been pretty good to old Francis.” Mike took another drink from his flask. “So how’s he doing? Driving you crazy?”
“He’s says he’ll shoot you if you come back to the office.”
“But you’re doing my divorce,” Mike said, bewildered.
“And you did our receptionist.” The snow was definitely getting heavier now. Don’t turn into ice, James thought. Cut me a break here.
“Astrid?” Mike said, faking innocence badly. “How is Astrid?”
“Living in southern California because you broke her heart. I paid for her plane ticket. It was either that or listen to her weep for the next ten years.”
“Hey, she knew my divorce wasn’t final and I wasn’t ready for anything serious.”
“You told her you loved her, you jackass.”
“No, I didn’t. Well, maybe once when we were in bed. But no woman should take seriously anything a man says in bed.”
“And yet, they do,” James said. “Try to stay away from nice women, will you?”
“Yeah. That’s probably best.” Mike was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Thanks for getting her the plane ticket.”
“You’re welcome.”
James left him alone with his thoughts, grateful for the silence, and concentrated on the fast disappearing road, but when Mike hadn’t said anything half an hour later, James glanced over at him in the light from the dash. He looked miserable. Oh, hell, James thought and sacrificed the beautiful silence. “You okay?”
Mike looked back over the seat to Ruby and Keith, but they whispered on, oblivious to them.
“It’s this deal with Rose,” Mike said to James, keeping his voice low. “She wants to turn Rosemore into a bed and breakfast, and she wants me to run it.”
Oh, hell. There were so many ways that idea could go bad that James was hard pressed to pick just one, especially while navigating on ice. “You’ve never done anything like that,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral and the car on the road.
“I could learn,” Mike said. “I mean, I’m nervous about it, but it sounds like a good chance.”
“It’s a lot of work,” James said. “It’s one of those yuppie dreams that turns into twenty-four hour drudgery.” And you’ve never been much for drudgery.
“I need a new start, James,” Mike said, his voice suddenly earnest. “I don’t like myself much. I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t go out with nice women.”
There it was, the crack in Mike’s life where Rose had stuck the thin end of her wedge.
“Then don’t be. Start over.”
Mike nodded. “That’s what I’m going to do. Rose says I can have the job if I buy into the business.”
Money. Of course, Rose wanted money. “Mike, I’d think twice about anything Rose offered me, especially if it involved m–”
“You think twice about everything.” Mike leaned closer. “Look, it’s not much, only fifty thousand. She’s . . . ”
He talked on, his voice picking up speed as he outlined his bright future greeting guests and being charming, but James had stopped listening as soon as he heard, “Fifty thousand dollars.” Mike didn’t have fifty thousand dollars. Everybody knew Mike didn’t have fifty thousand dollars. Rose, you knew I wouldn’t give it to you, so you sent Mike to get it from me.
“Of course, I don’t have fifty thousand,” Mike was saying. “But Rose thinks I can get my dad to give me my trust fund early.”
“He can’t,” James said.
“Rose is sure he can.”
“Rose is wrong. The terms of the trust bar him from it.” James took a deep breath. “Look, you’ll be thirty-five in May and he’ll have to give it to you then. Wait—”
“We can’t,” Mike said. “Spring is prime guest season. We have to have Rosemore renovated by the first of April.”
Fifty thousand dollars wouldn’t put a dent in what it would take to renovate Rosemore. Unless Rose was planning on bleeding Mike for his entire trust fund. His share had to be upwards of half a million by now.
And that would go a long way toward making Rosemore livable again.
“Of course, fifty thousand is just a start,” Mike was saying. “Rose told me to look for outside investors.”
I bet she did. James focused his attention back on the road because it was safer than thinking about strangling Rose.
“What do you think?” Mike said.
“I think it’s going to be very hard to find anybody who’ll invest in a broken down potential bed and breakfast in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh,” Mike said. “Well, what would somebody need to see to be convinced?”
“To begin with, one hellacious business plan.”
“Rose has one,” Mike cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’d consider staying for awhile tonight and looking it over for me. Just to make sure it’s a good one.”
James began to watch for the Rt. 52 exit sign through the slanting snow, knowing it wouldn’t kill him to spend an extra hour at Rosemore talking Mike out of losing his entire trust fund to Rose, but hating the idea just the same. “I can stay long enough to look at it, but then I head back to Columbus.”
“Great,” Mike said.
“What’s great?” Ruby said, popping her head between them.
“None of your business,” her brother said.
“Oh, so only James can hear your secrets,” Ruby said. “James the big hero–
James slowed the car and put on his turn signal.
“You wouldn’t leave me in the middle of nowhere all by myself,” Ruby said.
“No, but I’d leave you in the middle of nowhere with Keith,” James said.
Ruby sat back, and James took the exit for Rosemore.
“I really appreciate you staying,” Mike said, as they merged onto 52.
“Only for an hour,” James said, not wanting him to get his hopes up.
“Right,” Mike said. “You know, it’s a good thing for you that you’re staying awhile. You’ll get a chance to see Zelda.”
“I don’t want to see Zelda,” James said. “I have no good memories of Zelda.” He had no good memories of that summer whatsoever. Dumb, clueless kid.
Like the time he’d tried to kiss her. But it was hard to blame James the kid for that one. She’d been sitting there on the balustrade, that T-shirt plastered to her, laughing up at him, and it had been dark, the adults all inside clinking glasses, and Mike was farther down the terrace necking with Scylla, so it wasn’t out of line for him to lean in . . .
You lunged, you dumbass, his merciless memory grated.
But he couldn’t help it. She was like gravity, she sucked him in, but when he went for her, she’d jerked back, and he’d put out his hands to catch her and knocked her off the balustrade and into the river, onto the steps that were covered by the flood, and she’d hit her head . . .
The humiliation of it all made him cold now at thirty-four. He’d gone in after her, put her down on the terrace, all blue-white skin and wet black hair, tilted her head back–the adults were out by then because of her scream, Rose saying over and over again, hysterically, “Just like Charlie”–and then he’d bent to give her mouth-to-mouth, and she’d come to flailing and broken his nose.
It’s amazing I never killed myself, he thought.
Instead he’d ended up in military school. Because Zelda had liked his buttons.
If you looked at the situation just right, say from his point of view, she owed him.
“—so I don’t believe it,” Mike was saying. “You were happy with Zelda.”
“Who’s Zelda?” Ruby said from the back seat.
Oh, hell, James thought.

#

“Zelda was James’s first girlfriend,” Mike said.
“Not true,” James said. “I barely remember her.
“Liar,” Mike said. “She broke your nose. That kind of thing stays with a guy.”
“She broke James’s nose?” Ruby said, delighted. “Why?”
“He tried to kiss her,” Mike said, “and knocked her into the river. Which I’ve always considered a baseline. Whenever I do something really awful to a woman, I think, ‘Well, at least I didn’t push her in a river.’”
“Is that true, James?” Ruby said, practically in the front seat with now.
“I don’t remember. What I do remember is your brother and Scylla, the cook’s beautiful daughter. Have him tell you about Scylla and her amazing red bikini, Rube.”
“Scylla?” Ruby said, her head swiveling to Mike.
James put his attention back on the road as Mike began to wax rhapsodic about Scylla and her white polka dots. He heard Mike say, “The river was really high that summer,” and he remembered Zelda, balancing on the concrete terrace steps, in water up to her thighs because the river was in flood, her hands on her hips, her eyes daring him to come in with her, the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen. Zelda hadn’t had a bikini. Zelda had cut-offs that had frayed up beyond a PG rating and that striped T-shirt that went almost invisible when it got wet. He’d spent the entire month of August 1985, following that T-shirt around, and now he thought, Poor clueless kid. If only he’d known then what he knew now . . .
“There were five of us,” he heard Mike say. “Scylla and me and James and Zelda and Owen.”
“Owen?” Ruby said.
“Great guy,” James said, grateful they weren’t talking about Zelda anymore. “He’s working for the county sheriff now.”
“Owen is?” Mike laughed. “The county must be going to hell if Owen’s the law.”
“Well, he knew more about breaking it than anybody else,” James slowed as a truck passed him going too fast. Idiot.
“What’d he do?” Ruby said.
Mike slipped back happily back to the past. “One time, he stole a boat from weekenders. He said it was the middle of the week and we wouldn’t get caught if we borrowed it.”
“Did you?” Ruby said.
“Nope. We went down river. and the girls brought cake and a tape player, but they’d only brought one tape—”
“Oh, God.” James started to laugh in spite of the snow. “I’d forgotten that. The Thompson Twins.”
“And then what?” Ruby said.
“And we stretched out in the boat and ate cream cake and listened to “Hold Me Now” about four thousand times,” Mike said. “One of the best days of my life. I wonder if that tape’s still up in the attic. I know we took pictures. I bet they’re up there.”
That was a good day, James thought. Except for the music.
“They were something else, Zelda and Scylla,” Mike said. “And now they’re writing a cookbook.” He sounded bemused by that.
“Zelda writes cookbooks?” James hadn’t thought about what Zelda would be doing as an adult, but if he had, it’d have been something to do with knives and biker bars.
“According to Rose, Zelda writes the biography of the cook, and Scylla does the recipe part. They’re doing her life now.”
James was so surprised that he slowed the car again. “Rose’s life? She agreed to that?”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m having a hard time imagining Rose in a cookbook.”
“It’s going to be a damn short one,” James said. “I don’t think Rose even makes her own martinis.”
“They’re using Scylla’s mother’s recipes. She cooked for Rose a lot. Scylla’s cooking for us this week, James. You should stay for dinner.”
“Is she the cook who makes the cherries?” Ruby said. “Because I haven’t had those cherries in years.”
“She died,” James told Ruby.
‘Her mother died?” Mike said, sounding shocked.
“No cherries?” Ruby wailed.
“In September,” James said to Mike. “I sent flowers. So did you, I put your name on them.”
“Thanks,” Mike said, still looking stunned.
“I can’t believe there won’t be cherries,” Ruby said.
“What cherries?” Keith asked.
“Special family dessert,” Ruby said, her voice petulant. “The cook marinates cherries in some secret sauce and then coats them in chocolate. They’re insanely good and we haven’t had them for years. And now she’s dead and I’ll never have them again.”
She sat back again, overcome by her misfortune, and Mike took a deep breath. “You should have told me.”
“I did,” James said, and Mike was quiet. “I told you Rose’s summer cook had died, but I didn’t mention Scylla. You were going through a rough patch with the divorce, so I’m not surprised it didn’t register.”
The ice was coming down faster now, and the tires crunched on the road.
“Rose talked about Scylla a lot when we were talking about the B&B,” Mike said. “She kept saying maybe I could talk Scylla into being the cook at the B&B, that the book would be good publicity and that if we could talk Scylla into staying as chef, that would be even better.”
James slowed as a fresh onslaught of ice hit the windshield, and thought, I wonder what she told Scylla.
Mike took a deep breath. “I really want to talk to Scylla again.”
“So talk to her.”
“And say what? ‘Hi, I’m Mike, I was crazy about you nineteen years ago, my business just folded, my wife left me, and my sister just totaled my only asset, but I’d really like to see you again?”
“Jesus,” James said, taken aback. “Where did all of that come from?”
“I don’t know.” Mike sounded tired. “Rose kept talking about her, and it was such a bright time, that summer. I thought I could do anything. I’ve fallen really far since then. And now she’s back at Rosemore. . . I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get a second chance.” He looked over at James. “Haven’t you ever wanted a second chance?”
James guided the car along iced-over ruts and wondered if he wanted a second chance, go back to Rosemore sitting like a sugar cube on the banks of the Ohio, and to Zelda, who’d owned it all that last summer.
Or maybe she’d just owned him.
And then, out of nowhere, he remembered the day they’d been on the east terrace and Angela had found them talking and told him to come along, that his mother wanted him. He’d felt stuck in place, humiliated, and then Angela had said to Zelda, “He doesn’t belong with you anyway, you’re the maid.” And he’d held his breath, waiting for Zelda to strike her dead, and instead she’d turned to him, her eyes like coals, and said, “James?” and he’d said, without thinking, “She’s not the maid, she’s my girl.”
And Zelda hadn’t said a word. Especially she hadn’t said, “No, I’m not.”
That was a damn good memory. And he’d stayed, too. His mother had come to get him, and he’d said no, and then his stepfather had come–it was the Colonel that year, he remembered–and said to his mother, “Pick your fights, Issy, you’re not going to win this one,” and taken her away.
And Zelda definitely had not said, “No, I’m not your girl.”
He grinned now in the darkness. That was a good memory.
“So James,” Ruby said, leaning forward again. “What happened after she broke your nose?”
James slowed the car.
“I was just kidding,” Ruby said, hastily. “And no, I don’t want to walk.”
“You’re not walking,” James said as he turned down the icy lane. “We’re here.”
The lane was pretty bad, and he thought You’ll never get out of here if you don’t leave soon. They inched around the last curve, and the house came into view in the snow-dimmed moonlight, square and institutional and possibly the ugliest Modernist building ever built which, James thought, was saying something.
“What the hell is that?” Keith said.
“It looks like a home for wayward girls.” James said, thinking of Zelda. “Unfortunately, it’s not. Welcome to Rosemore.”
“That’s the masterpiece your grandfather designed?” Keith said to Ruby, the horror in his voice plain. “That’s the place you want to make the center of the development?”
James raised his eyebrows at Mike, who looked equally surprised.
“I think we should paint it rose-pink,” Ruby said happily. “With rose-trees on the terrace.”
“There’s no way,” Keith said. “We’re going to have to tear it down.”
“Be sure you tell Rose that,” James said as he pulled up by the front steps. “Just wait until I’m there to watch.”
Keith and Ruby got out as soon as the car stopped, but Mike stayed where he was, and James shut off the engine and waited.
“They’re in there,” Mike said, finally.
“Yep,” James said, not bothering to pretend anymore that he didn’t care.
“Think we’ll do better this time?” Mike said.
“Well, I can’t do any worse,” James said, and got out of the car.

So I just cut James’s introductory scene stuff from 7,225 words to 2,816. Which was still three hundred words too many. Scylla’s scene was 2242, so it was already short, but I cut it to 1988 anyway because once you get cutting, it doesn’t hurt that much. That put the first chapter at right around 7252 words which is long, but then I transferred the scenes from Scrivener into Word, which made them look completely different, and went through it again and got it down to 6880. Really, once you get into the rhythm of it, it’s practically painless.

What I need is a first chapter that introduces Zelda and her conflict (which is reinforced in the Scylla POV scene) and James and his conflict, and get them in the same place, which is why the chapter ends with James pulling up to Rosemore. It would be even better if I could get him inside, but it’s just not working. Of course by the time I’m finished with the book, I may be able to cut another two thousand words out of the intro and get a scene in there at the end but I’m not counting on it.

And then tomorrow, I’ll go try to write the end scene since I have three or four versions of it. All I need is a good enough draft so that I know what I’m aiming for. And then I’ll go back to the mess in the middle and see what I can salvage. There’s some good stuff there, but I think it’s all first act stuff. Which means the first act is too long, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

And yes, I’m over the wingnut. Turns out burying yourself in work blocks wingnuts in the same way wingnuts block the work. Just depends on who you give the upper hand to. Or your frontal lobe.

And now, having gotten my first chapter done, I’m going back to the Fun Book for awhile. Because i deserve it.

One of the hardest things about writing is keeping the outside out of your head. When you’re writing and the story is in there so strong and you’re going ninety miles an hour, and then the phone rings and you answer it and it’s somebody foisting their wing-nutted-ness on you and suddenly the outside’s in your head. I was really doing well rewriting James’s scene last night and then this person called, and now I’ve got her voice in my head instead of James. Sometimes it’s family or friends who need you for a moment and you have to be there because you love them, sometimes it’s somebody spreading poison like last night, but whoever it is, it breaks that web of reality in your brain, and there you are, shut out from your book, your story spinning away from you.

I was talking online the other day with other writers about how many of us, although surrounded by people we love, would really prefer to just lose ourselves in our books. I worry about that sometimes, especially about becoming so detached from reality that my books no longer seem real, but it’s so hard to write when the world wants in, and the more you know of it, the more it clamors. I remember in the beginning, writing while working full time as a teacher during the day and part time in a bookstore at night to learn publishing and doing a lousy job of raising a teenager as a single mother (she turned out great, though), and I don’t remember feeling this way, that one bad phone call could get into my brain and block the story. Maybe because I was going ninety miles an hour twenty-four-seven then and had no time for reflection, just grabbed whatever minutes I could find to write. I am not about to tell you those were good times, but I’m not happy that I can let this kind of toxicity in now that I have space and time to write. And yet I feel guilty for trying to evict it, for the things I’ve done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Where’s my compassion, where’s the loyalty I owe people, where’s my humanity if I can turn my back and say, “No more. I have to write this book”?

Faulkner was all over this. He said, “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.” (from Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 1959). And then there’s Rilke who missed his daugther’s wedding to write, demanding what he called an “unconfined solitude . . . a spaciousness that puts no limit on vision”. These are men who can turn away without a second’s thought. But then, they’re men.

I think it’s harder for women although that’s a gross generalization, but I do think we feel responsible for people who call on us, feel responsible for everybody we love, and if we love them, don’t we have to save them? But as writers we love our books, too, they’re our children, if we don’t write them, the stories will never be told. I’m not Rilke, and I wouldn’t have missed that wedding, and I think the world could have missed a poem for her moment of celebration, of connection to another human. It gets harder when the other person isn’t your daughter at her wedding, is somebody who’s just spewing rage and thinks you’re a good target, much harder when you have to slam doors on people you care about to keep the work safe. What do we owe each other and what do we owe the work?

Because tonight I am getting nothing done. The story seems like it has a hard shell around it and my mind keeps sliding off into the pool of venom this woman left in my brain, and into all the guilt and regret that surrounds everything that happened afterward. It’s real life, not something I made up, and I’ll probably use it some day, writers use everything, but right now, I just feel like hell and I can’t write.

Of course, this is a high class problem if there ever was one. I’ll find a way back to the book. There’s no real loss here, nothing that can’t be fixed. But it’s a question that writers have to deal with, you have to be open to people and understanding and listen to all their voices, you have to know and love the world to hold a mirror to it. But the world will destroy your work if you don’t protect it. So where do you draw the line? And how do you deal with the guilt after you’ve drawn the line?

All of which is to say, I did nothing on You Again today. So I’m giving the rest of the night over to carbs and DVD, see if a placid stomach and a diverted mind will finally get me back to where I belong, inside that book. Because a really good book is worth any number of whack jobs who drink and dial.

I think.

I’m still cutting James’s scene, but Zelda’s is first draft done, until I get the whole book done and come back and write it again, but definitely enough to anchor the beginning of the book. It’s too dialogue heavy still, so some of that will go to put more physical cues on the page, but at least it’s down to 2500 words which is a good size for a first scene. Of course I have no idea if it’s a good scene, just a good size.

So here it is. And at the end is the original 6300 words (I exaggerated when I said 7000, so I actually cut only about 4K) if you want to wade through all the infodump that was there before:

Chapter One
in which Zelda and James are lured to Rosemore
and find themselves overwhelmed.

Zelda Banks steered her ancient Camry toward the last curve in the snow-crusted lane and thought, I am cheerfully optimistic and completely in control. Except that she was back in Ohio with Scylla emoting beside her, and the damn snow was a foot deep, and the massive trees on both sides had killer branches at eye level so if the car started to slide, she’d be impaled, and the papers would read “Little-Known Plant Expert Dies in Freak Tree Accident.”

Then they rounded the curve and Syl said, “There!” her voice thrilling, and Zelda saw Rose’s house again.

Rosemore. It looked cold and rundown in the white landscape—the crumbling brick scribbled with dead ivy, the stone balustrade capped with six inches of snow, the Ohio River grim and gray in the background—but she felt her heart pounding as she looked.

“Oh, Zellie, it’s been so long,” Scylla said, a sob in her voice, clearly enjoying herself enormously.

“Only nineteen years. I could have gone twenty, easy.” Zelda pulled up in front of the house and reached behind her seat for the Kleenex box she kept for Scylla’s romantic fits.

“Remember how wonderful it was, you and me and Mike and James, and I had that red polka dot bikini and you had that rainbow T-shirt. . .”

Scylla paused, distracted by her fashion flashback, and in spite of herself Zelda remembered that cold, wet T-shirt and the sun glinting on the water and the smell of suntan oil and the heat of a boy’s shoulder against her back. James.

“—and now we’re home again! Isn’t it wonderful?”

“No. Listen, Syl, I know you need to pick up your mother’s stuff and probably cry over it, I get that.” Zelda took a deep breath, keeping an eye on the front door. “But hurry. There’s a snowstorm coming, and we cannot afford to be trapped here with Rose. I know this is lousy of me, but we cannot stay here.”

Scylla looked away. “Can we go inside now?”

“I’m not going in,” Zelda said, trying to make it sound like a rational decision.

Scylla looked back at her, incredulous. “You have to come in. You have to. Rose invites us back—”

“She wants something.”

“—and you don’t even go up to say hello? That’s awful.”

“I’ll wave,” Zelda said.

Scylla stared at Zelda reproachfully.

Zelda stared back, unblinking.

“This is a woman who was wonderful to us when we were kids,” Scylla said, her voice low with unusual intensity. “This is the place we had the best times of our lives. And you’re pretending none of it happened because Rose hasn’t called us in nineteen years. Well, she’s calling us now, and inside that house are a lot of good memories, and I’m going in.” Her chin went up and her voice became operatic again. “I can’t believe you’re being such an ungrateful coward.” She swept out of the car and up the stone steps, leaving the ungrateful, coward vanquished behind her.

Zelda reached over and closed the door Scylla had left open. Then she stared into the cold, bare branches of the woods in front of her and tried to feel practical, but she just felt stupid, which was par for her course at Rosemore. It was rude to sit out in the car, which didn’t bother her, but it was also childish, which did. Plus there was that coward thing.
I am cheerfully optimistic and completely intimidated by a woman I haven’t seen in nineteen years.

“Just hell.” Zelda zipped up her boxy black quilted jacket, wrenched open her car door, and got out, looking up the stone steps to the doorway.

Rose was there, wrapped in red cashmere and roped in pearls, as dark and beautiful at sixty-two as she’d been at forty-three, bending close to Scylla now like a conspirator. Then she looked down at the car and called, “Zelda, darling,” and opened her arms, the sleeves of her beautiful red dress falling back from her wrists.

She’s been practicing that, Zelda thought, and jerked at the hem of her jacket, feeling a mile wide under the quilting. She took a deep breath and went up the steps for Rose’s air kiss, the one that brushed your cheek without smearing her lipstick.

But Rose really kissed her cheek and then rubbed the lipstick off with her thumb. “So good to see you, Zellie,” she said, sounding as if she meant it as she looked Zelda up and down. “You’re so grown up. You’ve filled out and put on weight. So smart of you not to go for that living death look. Men don’t really care for it. Like making love to a bicycle.”

“Hello, Rose,” Zelda said flatly.

“And now you’re here. Welcome home.” Rose gestured to the open door magnificently, her red cashmere sleeves flowing.

“You’re up to something.” Zelda shivered and crossed her arms awkwardly in her bulky jacket as the snow began to fall harder.

“Of course I am, darling,” Rose said, her famous blue eyes wide and innocent as she stepped back from the door, leaving the dark entry gaping at Zelda. “Come in, Zelda. It’s cold where you are.”

This is going to be bad, Zelda told herself, but it was stupid to stand out in the cold, so she walked into the dark entry hall.

It wasn’t much warmer inside.

Though the arch, she could see Scylla crossing the huge central hall under the blue white light from the skylight three stories above, the black and white marble tiles stretching for yards with only the ancient elevator plunked down in the middle, its brass doors embossed with roses and wedged shut with a table leg.

“Elevator’s still busted, huh?” Zelda said.

“It’s not broken,” Rose said. “It’s . . . “ She paused, evidently at a loss for a euphemism.

“Resting?” Zelda said. “For nineteen years? I was here when James shoved that in there.” James again. Damn.

“We haven’t been back very often,” Rose said. “Come in, Zelda, it’s so dark in this entry—”

“They have this new invention,” Zelda said. “Electricity. You flip a switch—”

Rose moved around her to shut the heavy front door, blocking out the light from the outside, and then it really was dark.

“Subtle,” Zelda said. “It’s all right, I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Zelda.”

“Just tell me what you want,” Zelda said.

Rose opened her mouth, looking as if she were going to protest and then she stopped. “All right. I never could put anything past you.”

Damn right.

“I want you to make Rosemore a garden again,” Rose said, dramatically. “Come in and talk to me about it.”

“What garden again?” Zelda said, dumbfounded. “This place was never a garden. It’s surrounded by nine acres of woods and bog and backed by a big ass river that moves too fast to put water plants in. You’re not thinking about cutting down the trees?”

“No, of course not,” Rose said. “But you know, wildflowers, shade perennials, that’s why I need you. You’re the perennial expert, you’re famous for it. And I always go for the best. That’s you. Come out of the dark, Zellie.”

“I am not making you a garden,” Zelda said, but the thought of planting wildflowers in the woods and marshes appealed to her, and she moved into the blue light of the central hall, shivering as she went through the archway.

Rosemore was freezing inside.

Of course, she thought. Rosemore was a summer house. She’d never been here when the sun wasn’t shining and the terrace doors weren’t open, when people weren’t laughing and glasses weren’t clinking. Nobody ever came to Rosemore in the winter.

“What’s going on?” she said to Rose. “Why are you here in the winter after nineteen years? And don’t give me any more crap about a garden.”

“We used to always spend Christmas here,” Rose said, trying to lead her farther into the house. “I’m just starting an old tradition again. Let’s go into the sitting room. There’s a fire in there.”

“I’m good here.”

Rose straightened, shedding grace and softness. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Zelda, stop being so obstinate. I’m just asking you to come in and get warm and stay for the Christmas house party so we can talk about you doing the gardens. It’s just family.”

“Christmas house party?” Zelda said, appalled. “With the Inglethorpes?”

“It won’t be just the Inglethorpes, you know,” Rose said in a throwaway tone that meant she was about to play her trump card. “James will be here, too.”

James, Zelda thought and shook her head. Nineteen years ago he was a mess, she told herself firmly. He probably hadn’t changed. She turned back toward the door. “I might actually have fallen for the garden thing, Rose,” she said over her shoulder, “but there is nothing on earth that could make me stay and have Christmas with the Awful Inglethorpes.”

“Not even finding out who your father is?”

“What?” Zelda stopped and thought, Don’t listen to her, and then she turned around. “What the hell?”

“If you’ll stay for Christmas and agree to do my gardens,” Rose said, “I will help you find your father.”

Zelda bit down on her temper. “Rose, this is just cruel. You can’t find my father, nobody can. That died with my mother.”

Rose came closer. “Upstairs in the attic are dozens of boxes from the time Rosemore was built. Some of them are from August of 1973, the month you were conceived. There will be pictures, guest books, things guests left behind, at the very least a list of the men who were here that month.” She wrapped her arms around herself, all that cashmere, everything about her soft again except her eyes. “The boxes are in the maid’s dorm so you can move in there and have all your research—”

Zelda stepped back. “I’m not staying in the maid’s room.”

“—right there, so convenient. And there are the people who are coming to stay, coming tonight, as a matter of fact.” Rose leaned forward, her eyes intent. “People who were there that August, who must have seen something, must have talked—”

“About the guy who slept with the maid?”

“—about all the affairs,” Rose finished. “It was 1972, the summer of love. Everybody was sleeping with somebody. And somebody who’s coming tonight will know something, maybe more than one person.”

“And I’ll just ask them,” Zelda said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.

Rose shook her head. “If it had been general gossip, I’d know about it. No, we’ll have to get them talking about the old times, and then when they split up and begin whispering, you can eavesdrop and hear their secrets.” Her face set, suddenly hard. “I know they have them.”

“Eavesdrop.” Zelda folded her arms. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would they gossip about something that happened thirty-nine years ago? And why would they do it in front of me?”

“They won’t even see you,” Rose said. “They’re Inglethorps and you’ll be the maid.”

“What?” Zelda jerked back. “No!”

“They have no discretion, and they won’t pay any attention to you because you’ll be the help. You’ll be able to hear everything. You know how to do it, you did it that last summer.”

Zelda stopped, mad as hell, especially mad because Rose was right. None of the Awful Inglethorps had ever paid any attention to her. Snotty little Angela and her horrible mother, Mary, and wretched Malcolm, they’d all treated her like wallpaper. “I hate them,” she said, without thinking.

“Everybody does, darling,” Rose said. “But it won’t be just the Inglethorps, James and Issy will be here, too.”

Zelda shook her head. “I don’t care about James. But this maid thing is not–”

“That’s just as well,” Rose said. “He’s not for you anyway.”

“Hey,” Zelda said, and then caught herself.

“Well, I know you had a tremendous crush on him a long time ago,” Rose said. “I just want to make it clear that there’ll be no more of that. You’re here to find your father and–”

“I did not have a crush on him,” Zelda said and felt like a kid.

“Darling, you told me you did. You said that being around him flustered you, and I told you it was chemistry.” Her face shifted and became stern. “And you said you didn’t want any chemistry with a chubby mama’s boy.”

Zelda winced. “That was lousy of me, but I was fifteen. Forget James. The important thing is that I’m not going to be your–”

“He was crazy about you, too.” Rose lifted her chin. “But he was just a child then, he’s grown now. Don’t think you can have the same effect on him.”

“I don’t care,” Zelda said, stung. “If you think so little of me, why do you even want me here?”

“I want you to do my gardens,” Rose said with obvious patience. “Just stay away from James, concentrate on what’s important.”

“And what’s important is, of course, what you want.”

Rose looked exasperated, all charm gone. “Zelda, either you want to find out who your father is, or you don’t. If you do, the boxes and the people who are coming are your best hopes. If you don’t, feel free to go.”

I hate you, Zelda thought. But if she stayed . . .

Rose nodded. “So you’ll give me what I need and I’ll give you what you need. Now you’ll be in the maid’s dorm in the attic, and I thought Scylla would want her mother’s old room up there—”

“I’ll stay at the Holiday Inn,” Zelda said.

“Zelda, it’s only for ten days,” Rose said, the voice of reason.

“Ten days?”

“They’re coming tonight and they’re leaving the day after New Year’s. And Quentin has agreed to act as butler, so he’ll do most of the heavy work.”

“Quentin?” Zelda said, caught off guard. “Who’s Quentin?”

“My caretaker,” Rose said. “He lives here year round so the house is never empty. And now he’s the butler.”

“The butler, of course.” Zelda took a deep breath. “Rose, I don’t–”

“Do you want to know who your father is or not?”

The silence stretched out, but Zelda knew she was only delaying the inevitable. This could be her last chance, all the people here who might know, all the boxes in the attic.

In the maid’s room.

“Zelda, he’s not going to live forever, whoever he is. If you want to find him—”

“Yes.”

Rose smiled at her, wrapped in cashmere. “You won’t regret this.”

“I already do,” Zelda said and went to find Scylla.

*************************************************************************

Chapter One

Zelda Banks turned her ancient Camry down into the snow-crusted lane and thought, I am cheerfully optimistic and completely in control. Except that she was back in Ohio, and the damn snow was a foot deep, and the massive trees on both sides had killer branches at eye level so if the car started to slide, she’d be impaled, and the papers would read “Little-Known Cookbook Author Dies in Freak Tree Accident”–
“Why are we going so slow?” Scylla leaned forward in the passenger seat, her pretty, round face intent on the view ahead. She looked like a Renaissance cherub, one of those fat-cheeked little blondes who seemed sweet but who talked people into doing stupid and dangerous things—
Not fair, Zelda told herself. You agreed. Suck it up and play nice. “The snow is deep,” she said as she inched the car around another curve. “And I think there’s ice–”
“Stop!”
Zelda slammed on the brakes, and the car fishtailed off the drive, sliding to a halt just inches short of a sycamore branch, where it stalled.
When her heartbeat slowed again, Zelda shoved back the heavy dark hair that had flopped into her eyes and looked at Scylla.
Scylla was smiling down the lane.
“If that was for a squirrel,” Zelda said, “I am going to be cranky.”
“Look,” Scylla said, her voice catching, and Zelda followed her eyes to the end of the drive.
Rosemore hadn’t aged well. It squatted on its massive concrete slab of terrace, a three-story white concrete cube broken by expanses of square-paned, industrial-looking windows, all of it grim and bleak and forlorn, like a minimalist caught in the rain. Machine for living, Zelda thought. Those Bauhaus boys have a lot to answer for.
But she felt her heart pounding as she looked. From the almost-accident. Not from Rosemore.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Scylla said. “Doesn’t it take your breath away? Don’t you just want to stay forever?”
“God, no.” Zelda opened her car door to see how deep the drift was.
“Doesn’t it make you remember the good times?” Scylla said, still staring happily at the house.
“What good times?” Miraculously, the snow wasn’t that deep under the car. The trees probably kept the lane clear down here in the dark. Which meant that above were tons of snow caught in fragile branches, waiting to crash down on her–
““Remember that last summer?” Scylla was saying. “My mom made Italian cream cake every weekend, and we went swimming with Mike and Owen and James—“
Zelda slammed the door and then froze, waiting for the avalanche from above. When nothing happened, she turned the key in the ignition. The car coughed back to life as Scylla ran out of boys and moved on to herself.
“–and I had that red polka dot bikini and you had that rainbow T-shirt. . .”
She paused, distracted by her fashion flashback, and in spite of herself Zelda remembered that cold, wet T-shirt and the sun glinting on the water and the sound of laughter and the smell of suntan oil and the heat of a boy’s shoulder against her back. James. Her foot slipped off the clutch and the car died.
“Just hell,” Zelda said and started it again.
“—and everything was perfect–” Scylla went on.
“Not even close.” Zelda eased the car into the ruts they’d made when they’d slid, backing carefully until they were on the lane again.
“—and you were so happy,” Scylla finished.
“No, I wasn’t. The cream cake was good, but the music was terrible. The Thompson Twins?” And James. No, she told herself as put the car into first. James had been shorter than she was, and overweight and mostly silent, and nothing to stall a car over. She began to drive slowly toward the house, inoculating herself with its ugliness while “Hold Me Now” plodded in her head.
“Oh, it’s been so long,” Scylla said, a sob in her voice, clearly enjoying herself enormously.
“Only nineteen years.” Zelda reached under her seat for the Kleenex box she kept for Scylla’s romantic fits, keeping her eyes on the road and her mind off the past. “I could have gone twenty, easy.”
“I’ve been so homesick.” Scylla took the Kleenex and wept while outside her window, the snow began to fall again, probably in sympathy. “It’s so beautiful.”
It’s so wrong, Zelda thought, frowning at the house as they pulled up to the long flight of concrete steps. In summer, covered in ivy and surrounded by green, Rosemore looked like a factory that had lost its way, almost romantic. Now in March, naked to the elements, its metal-rimmed windows bleeding rust onto the concrete, it looked like a women’s prison. The kind where they made license plates.
“Okay, it’s not beautiful.” Scylla sniffed. “But really, this is so good for us. We need this.”
Zelda let the car idle as she looked at the house, not seeing how it could be good for anybody. Even the huge square towers at the corners looked dejected, and they held the famous Rosemore window seats, big enough to do damn near anything in, so people often had. Not her, of course, but other people. The ones who’d belonged there, who hadn’t been the maid’s fatherless daughter, crossing acres of black and white checkerboard floor to deliver red martinis to people like the Awful Inglethorps–
“We had the best times inside this house.” Scylla sniffed again. “Mike and I, you and James–”
“There was no me and James,” Zelda said, putting a stop to that before Scylla made an awkward boy into The Love of A Lifetime. “And you and I would have had good times and good memories anywhere. Probably better memories someplace we weren’t the summer help.”
“We were more than summer help.” Scylla stuck her chin out, which at least stopped the sniffing. “You’re Rose’s goddaughter. We’re family.”
Zelda flinched. “No.”
“We belong here.”
“Some guest knocking my mother up does not make me family.” Zelda tried not to sound bitter because she wasn’t. I am cheerfully optimistic and completely not bitter–
“Rose loves us,” Scylla said, and Zelda knew she had already written the movie of how Rose would meet them at the door and embrace them like long lost daughters. “She took care of us those summers. This is our home.”
“Since when?” Zelda said. “We’ve been gone for nineteen years and she’s never called us once. Not once. Nobody called us.”
Scylla sniffed again, but she was looking mulish now.
“Rose used us for cheap labor and paid us off with pomegranate juice and vodka.” Zelda thought of Rose, dark and glittering, turning her beautiful back on them and walking away. “She’s dangerous. That’s what you never understood about Rose, she’s dangerous. What the hell was she thinking, giving us liquor? We were fifteen.”
“We asked for one.”
“Yeah, and that one almost got me killed.” But it had been wickedly delicious. That’s what Rose had called it. Wickedly delicious. “She is irresponsible and dangerous. All the people in that damn family are.”
“It was a martini, not arsenic.” Scylla sounded normal again as she blotted her eyes with the Kleenex. “ I don’t care what you say, Rose loved us, and we were family, and now we’re home.” She opened her door, and Zelda caught her arm as she tried to get out.
“Listen, Scyll, you have to listen to me.”
Scylla turned to her, radiating patience.
“I know you need to feel sentimental about Rose, I know you need to get dramatic over all those summers while we were growing up, I know you need to see the room where your mother stayed and cry over her things while you pack them. I understand all of that, I’m with you.” Zelda took a deep breath. “But I need you to make this the fastest catharsis on record. There’s a snowstorm coming, and Rose is up to something, and we cannot afford to be trapped here. I know this is lousy of me, but we cannot stay here.”
Scylla looked away. “Can we go inside now?”
“I’m not going in,” Zelda said, trying to make it sound like a rational decision.
Scylla looked back at her, incredulous. “You’re going to sit out here in the snow?”
“I’ll keep the heater running.”
“That’s rude.” Scylla frowned at her, uncharacteristically focused. “You have to come in. You have to. This is our home. Rose invites us back—”
“She wants something.”
“—and you don’t even go up to say hello? That’s awful.”
“I’ll wave,” Zelda said.
Scylla stared at Zelda reproachfully.
Zelda stared back, unblinking.
“This is a woman who was wonderful to us when we were kids,” Scylla said, her voice low with intensity. “This is the place we had the best times of our lives. This—”
“You had the best times,” Zelda said. “I—”
“You did, too. And you’re pretending none of it happened because Rose hasn’t called us in nineteen years. Well, she’s calling us now, and inside that house are a lot of good memories, and I’m going in.” Her chin went up and her voice became rich again. “I can’t believe you’re being such an ungrateful coward,” she said, and swept out of the car and up the steps while music undoubtedly swelled in her head, leaving the ungrateful, cowardly infidel vanquished behind her.
Zelda slumped back in her seat, not used to being the infidel. Most of the time, it was fun watching Scylla, but there were other times, times like this, when the urge to trip her and say, “Okay, reality check” was overwhelming. That’s what I’m supposed to do, she thought, trying to muster some indignation. I’m the sensible one, I’m supposed to be the one who says, “Be careful,” I’m supposed to be the one who keeps things real.
Not that reality was anything to shout about at the moment. Zelda stared into the cold, bare branches of the woods in front of her and tried to feel practical but she just felt stupid, which was par for her course at Rosemore. It was rude to sit out in the car, which didn’t bother her, but it was also childish, which did. Plus there was that coward thing.
I am cheerfully optimistic and completely intimidated by a woman I haven’t seen in nineteen years.
“Wonderful,” she said to the trees, and even as she said it, the car coughed and died and took the heater with it.
“Just hell.” Zelda zipped up her boxy black quilted jacket. Then she wrenched open her car door, flung herself out, and slipped on the ice, her feet shooting out from under her and her body slamming against the side of the car as she grabbed for the door, just saving herself from landing butt-first in the snow.
She pulled herself upright again, breathing hard and feeling stupid for not having seen that coming even though she’d known the ice was everywhere.
Then she looked up and saw Scylla at the top of the steps, and next to her was Rose, wrapped in red cashmere and roped in pearls, as dark and beautiful at sixty-two as she’d been at forty-three.
Zelda’s heart clutched and she thought, Nothing’s changed, and panic welled up until she caught herself. Yes it has. I’m not fifteen any more.
She slammed the door a lot harder than she needed to and almost fell again.
Scylla said something to Rose and melted into the darkness of the doorway, and Rose called, “Zelda, darling,” and opened her arms, the sleeves of her beautifully cut dress falling back from her wrists.
She’s been practicing that, Zelda thought, and jerked at the hem of her jacket, feeling a mile wide under the quilting. She took a deep breath and went up the steps for Rose’s air kiss, the one that brushed your cheek without smearing her lipstick.
But Rose really kissed her cheek and then rubbed the lipstick off with her thumb. “So good to see you, Zellie,” she said, sounding as if she meant it as she looked Zelda up and down. “You’re so grown up. You’ve filled out and put on weight. So smart of you not to go for that living death look. Men don’t really care for it. Like making love to a bicycle.”
“Hello, Rose,” Zelda said flatly.
“And now you’re here. Welcome home.” Rose’s voice was as dramatic as Scylla’s had been as she invited Zelda through the massive concrete doorframe.
Zelda gave her a tight smile as the wind picked up. “I’ll just wait for Scylla out here.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Zelda,” Rose said, her voice dropping back into its normal range. “Get in here. It’s freezing.”
“You’re up to something.” Zelda shivered and crossed her arms awkwardly in her bulky jacket as the snow began to fall harder.
“Of course I am, darling,” Rose said. “But it’ll be good for you. Come in.”
Zelda swallowed. “Listen, I like my life. You are not going to meddle in it this time.”
Rose smiled, her famous blue eyes wide and innocent.
Zelda looked away, up at the ugly concrete façade instead. I am cheerfully optimistic and–
Oh, the hell with it. She was feeling enough foreboding to power a string section. “Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again,” she told Rose. “It didn’t look anything at all like this.”
Rose’s smile evaporated, and she would have frowned if her forehead muscles hadn’t been botoxed into oblivion. “If you’re calling me Mrs. Danvers, you can go sit in the car.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you’d be Rebecca.”
Rose smiled again. “Much better. Now get in here before you catch your death.”
Zelda hugged her coat tighter around her. “You do realize that Rebecca was a sadistic, sociopathic whore.”
Rose’s smile never wavered. “But she was beautiful, wasn’t she?”
Zelda nodded, trying to keep from shivering. “Incredibly beautiful and infinitely unforgettable.”
“Well, that’s all right then.” Rose stepped back from the door, leaving the dark entry gaping at Zelda. “Come in, Zelda. It’s cold where you are.”
I am so screwed, Zelda thought and walked back into her past.

#
Zelda walked through the cold, dark entry hall and into the huge and equally frigid central hall, cheered by how grim it all looked, no heartstrings tugged at all. When she’d been a teenager here, the black and white marble checkerboard floor had stretched for what seemed like miles; now it just looked like a horrendous waste of space. The two massive skylights three floors above had been exotic and wonderful; now she thought, They must be a bitch to clean and I bet they leak. The three-story white elevator shaft that rose in the middle of the hall had been impressive, but now it looked impotent, its metal doors still wedged shut with the board that James had jammed into them nineteen years ago. Forget James. Even the fake palms at the bottom of the main stair that wrapped around the elevator looked dusty and forlorn, and the naked Christmas tree that stood among the palms like a lost soul only added to the pathos.
“Elevator still broken?” she said brightly to Rose, jerking her head toward the jammed door.
“It’s not broken,” Rose said, keeping her voice flat, a sure sign she was annoyed. “It’s just—”
“Resting?” Zelda moved around the tubular metal railing of the stairway to look up at the half landing on the back of the elevator. Rose’s portrait was still up there, the 1969 version of her reclining in a white peasant dress like Cleopatra at a love-in, but now it seemed smaller, as if it had shrunk. Rose came to stand beside her and Zelda realized with a start that Rose was smaller, too, shorter than Zelda by at least an inch. You used to be a goddess, Zelda thought. Rose gestured to the archway behind her and said, “Let’s go into the sitting room,” and she sounded human, like anybody else might sound, and in the unkind winter light from above, she looked human, too, aging and tired.
This is not a problem, Zelda thought, and relaxed. Scylla had been right. It was time to come back and realize that Rosemore was nothing special, not a nightmare, just a very old, ugly house that meant nothing at all to her any more, and that Rose was just a woman in her sixties.
She turned and walked to the archway into the sitting room, and it was the same but less, too: the white pickled paneling gray with age; the rose chintz chairs still wide but shabby now; the back of huge chintz couch that faced the terrace doors slumping, as if too many people had leaned against it and sat on its arms; even the wrought iron table against the couch back looking bowed. It was all vaguely off-key, cold and forlorn even though both the east and west fireplaces were blazing and the silk-shaded lamps were all on, and then she realized it was because it was winter. The sun should have been shining, the terrace doors open, people laughing and glasses clinking and the Ohio River sloshing against the terrace wall outside. Nobody ever came to Rosemore in the winter.
Especially Rose.
“What’s going on?” Zelda said to Rose.
Rose had crossed to the terrace doors that lined the south wall of the room and she stood in front of them now, the backlighting much kinder to her than the skylights had been. “It’s Christmas,” she said, stirringly, “and you’ve come home, Zellie.”
“No,” Zelda said. “Really.”
‘Really,” Rose said, dropping the drama. “I’m very happy you’re here. Mother’s here, too, and she can’t wait to see you.”
“Lily?” Zelda leaned forward and then stopped herself. Lily hadn’t tried to see her since that last summer in 1985. Why should she care?
“She’s next door.” Rose gestured to the west side of the room, where the double doors that led to the conservatory were now covered with the same rose curtains that were on the terrace windows. “We moved her bedroom down here, she can’t take the stairs anymore, but—”
“Why didn’t you fix the elevator?” Zelda said, glad to have a reason to criticize. “She’s your mother, for heaven’s sake—”
“The elevator doesn’t need fixed,” Rose said. “But she can’t wait to see you, Zelda, she—”
“She’s waited nineteen years to see me,” Zelda said before she could stop herself. “You, too.”
Rose straightened at the accusation in Zelda’s voice. “I truly am glad you’re home, Zelda.”
“That’s not an explanation.” Zelda took a breath and shrugged. “Okay, fine, never mind, I don’t care. But that’s not why I’m here. You did not suddenly get the urge to see me at Rosemore in the dead of winter when it’s impossible to heat this place and nobody’s here to party.” Rose looked taken aback, and Zelda thought Why was I ever afraid of her? “Look, I’m tired, I’m cranky, and I’m leaving in thirty minutes, so cut to the chase. What do you want?”
Rose drifted across the dull hardwood floor to the ancient couch, her red dress moving as fluidly as she did.
That really is cashmere, Zelda thought and against all her better instincts coveted it. Well, it didn’t matter, she could have a dress like that, too, if she emptied her savings account, it wasn’t magic, it was just a dress. And Rose was just another woman.
Rose settled onto the couch, put one graceful arm along its back, and smiled toward Zelda, still standing in the archway. “Come here and sit down with me, Zellie.”
“No.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Zelda, don’t make me shout across the room,” Rose said, and Zelda gave up and walked around the wrought iron table at the back of the couch. It held a slinky black wood cat leaning forward to menace a spiky fern, its blue eyes intent on its prey.
“Nice cat.” Zelda sat down gingerly on the edge of the cushion.
“James gave her to me,” Rose said, and it seemed to Zelda as if she watched her a little too closely as she said it. “It’s Mexican folk art—“
“I don’t care about James. What do you want?”
“–an alebrije. He’s been giving them to me for years.” Rose’s smile widened. “He started with a raccoon because he said it had eye makeup just like mine. Did you see the frog in the elevator palms? I bought him. I named him Howard—”
“I’m not here to chat, Rose,” Zelda said. “We’re not friends. What do you want?”
Rose folded her hands in her cashmere lap, the epitome of the gracious hostess. “I’ve been watching your career with a great deal of interest, darling. So clever of you to combine Scylla’s talent for cooking with your talent for organization.”
“My talent for writing,” Zelda snapped.
“Well, of course, writing,” Rose said. “I know you write the books, obviously. I thought the one about the Amish baker was fascinating.”
“The Amish baker bored you to tears. What do you want?”
Rose’s face hardened, but when she spoke, she was still cheerful. “I have a wonderful idea for your next book.”
“Our next book is about a diner cook in Ames, Iowa.”
Rose’s chin went up, still firm, thanks, no doubt, to a very good plastic surgeon. “This idea is better than Iowa. This is Rosemore.”
“Huh?” Zelda said, caught flatfooted in spite of herself.
Rose leaned toward her. “I want you to write the Rosemore Cookbook, Zelda. We had fabulous parties here, and Scylla’s mother cooked for every one of them. You’d have great stories to tell, and Scylla will have her mother’s recipes and you can stay here, rent free, to write it and–”
“And freeze to death, too.” Zelda got up and moved away from Rose to the arm of the couch, but it creaked under her weight, so she stood instead. “We’re writing about Iowa next.” She moved farther still, putting the couch and the table and the black wood cat between her and Rose. “Thanks for the offer, but no.”
“Iowa.” Rose’s tone dismissed the entire state as she leaned over the back of the couch, trying to engage Zelda with those famous eyes. “Your diner cook doesn’t have my past.”
“Nobody has your past, Rose. I’m not even sure you do.”
Rose smiled at her, and Zelda backed up again and hit one of the ancient chintz chairs by the east fireplace, losing her balance to sit down hard on the arm, but it was built of sterner stuff than the couch and nothing creaked.
“Wonderful stories,” Rose said. “People have died here, you know.”
“I know,” Zelda said. “But we write cookbooks–”
“Cookbooks with stories. My stepbrother Charlie Inglethorp died right out there on the terrace. You could put his martini recipe in.”
Zelda pulled back, appalled. “Wasn’t he the one who got drunk and drowned? Not a big selling point for a recipe.”
“A man disappeared here,” Rose said. “Charlie’s wife’s third husband. No one ever heard from him again.”
Zelda frowned at her. “Wait a minute. I was here for that, that was in ‘85. Howard somebody. He didn’t disappear, he left a note telling her he couldn’t stand her any more and absconded with her jewelry, and she had hysterics in the second floor hall. What was her name? Mary. Mary Inglethorp. Angela’s horrible mother.”
“You do remember,” Rose said, smiling her pleasure.
Zelda drew back. “No, I don’t, I–”
“You could edit the story so that he disappeared.”
“Rose, editing is not a synonym for lying. And it wouldn’t work anyway. The stories would be good but the recipes would be lousy. Scylla’s mother turned every cut of meat she touched into jerky. And besides, we’re not–”
“Yes, but her desserts were legendary. People still talk about her Italian cream cake and her chocolate-covered cherries.”
Murder, sex, and chocolate-covered cherries. It’s a book, Zelda thought and remembered all the people who had passed through Rosemore, drinking and laughing and doing things in the window seats that would sell a lot of books. The Awful Inglethorps alone would make for riveting reading. And Scylla’s mother’s desserts had been spectacular–
“Scylla loves the idea,” Rose said.
Zelda jerked back to face her. “You’ve already talked to Scylla about this?”
“Don’t scowl like that, darling,” Rose said. “You look like an angry cat. Brush your hair out of your eyes.”
“You’ve talked to Scylla about this.” Zelda took a deep breath. This is exactly what I deserve for even considering coming back here. “You talked to Scylla before you talked to me. You suckered her in. Well, the answer is no. No, we will not do a Rosemore Cookbook.”
“I’m talking to you now, Zelda. And I will say this for Scylla, she didn’t say yes to the project without you—”
“Of course she didn’t,” Zelda said.
“—the way you just said no to it without consulting her,” Rose finished. “She wants to do her mother’s recipes.” She smiled at Zelda, her blue eyes huge and innocent. “Like a memorial.”
Zelda turned away from her, biting back her anger. Of course Scylla wanted to do a Rosemore book, all she could see was the drama and the fat and the sugar. She couldn’t see—
“What a fabulous book it would make,” Rose said from behind her.
Up on the east mantel, a large blue and yellow wood anteater, probably another one of James’s gifts, stuck its red wood tongue out at her. The anteater was like the woman who’d collected it: graceful, bright, ruthless, and aiming for something. Above it, on the top shelf of the bookcase flanking the fireplace, a pale orange-pink wood flamingo spread blue-tipped wings and glanced seductively over its shoulder as it flaunted its brightness and beauty. It looked like Rose, too. And on the table beside her, the black cat still menaced the fern. I know how you feel, Zelda told the fern, and then realized in a room full of folk art that screamed color and movement, she’d just identified with a potted plant.
“Really, Zelda,” Rose said into the silence. “This would be good for Scylla. I know she’s probably pretending everything’s all right, but she just lost her mother four months ago. Don’t be selfish—”
“Selfish?” Zelda wheeled around, stung. “I came back here, didn’t I? To you and this place and everything I hate, I came back because she wanted to. But I never promised to stay.”
“Oh, stop it, Zelda.” Rose leaned against the back of the couch as if she were exhausted. “Think of the money you’ll save staying here. You love saving money.”
She made it sound like a dubious goal, and Zelda felt grubby and small when she said it.
“So I’m practical,” she said, trying not to sound defensive, holding onto her anger. “That doesn’t mean–”
“Not really.” Rose leaned closer, over the back of the couch. “You’re not naturally practical, any more than you’re naturally selfish. You were born to embrace life the way I do, to give to people–”
“Like you, I suppose,” Zelda said.
“—to open your arms to life!”
Zelda folded her arms and leaned back. “Not even close.”
Rose sat back again. “It’s that mother of yours,” she said darkly. “She curbed your spirit.”
Zelda set her jaw. “She didn’t like you, either. She thought you corrupted me and poisoned my soul.”
“You belong here, Zellie,” Rose said, her eyes firmly on the prize.
“Yeah, as the maid.” Zelda ducked her head so her hair fell across her eyes. Do not lose your temper with Rose. That’s when she wins. “It’s no use, Rose. I will not stay.”
Rose sat back, and anyone else would have thought she’d given up but Zelda had seen the look on her face too many times.
“Stop running away, Zelda,” Rose said softly. “That’s not what you were born for. Stay here, write the book, look for–”
“No,” Zelda said. “There is nothing you can do to make me stay.”
She turned her back on Rose, and she’d almost made it to the archway when Rose’s voice came from behind her.
“I can help you find your father.”
Zelda went cold, her breath like lead in her lungs.
“As God is my witness,” Rose’s voice floated out to her. “I can help you find out who he is.”
Up on the half landing, Rose’s blue-eyed portrait smiled down at her, beautiful, ruthless, and dangerous. On the mantel, Rose’s anteater flicked its lethal tongue, and up on the bookcase, the flamingo gloated down at her over its wicked curved beak.
Zelda closed her eyes. “You bitch.”
“I know,” Rose said. “Come back and sit down, Zellie, and I’ll tell you what you’re going to do for me.”
Don’t do it, Zelda told herself. This place is dead. This woman has no power over you. You’ve gotten along fine without a father for thirty-four years, just walk away.
The clock ticked loudly on the west mantel, marking off the time she was losing, time she’d already lost, running from things she was afraid of. Like Rosemore. And Rose.
Yeah, but I was right to be afraid, she thought and turned back.

#

Zelda came back into the sitting room and sat on the edge of the couch. She looked out the terrace doors to the crumbling stone balustrade and the river beyond, not wanting to see the triumph in Rose’s eyes. There was one place in the stonework where the balustrade was almost completely gone, and she could see quite a lot through the breach. The river was really high. Once it had come up and surrounded the house and they’d been stuck, nowhere to go, standing on the front terrace watching ducks float down the lane, a completely surreal feeling.
Much like now.
She took a deep breath, turned to Rose, and said, “Tell me.”
Rose leaned toward her. “Upstairs in the attic are dozens of boxes from the time Rosemore was built. Some of them are from August of 1969, the month you were conceived. There will be pictures, guest books, things guests left behind, at the very least a list of the men who were here that month.”
Zelda gripped her hands together. “And you waited until now to tell me this.”
“I didn’t have any choice.” Rose sat back again. “Your mother called me after that last summer and forbade me to see you again.”
Zelda blinked at her. “What?”
“She was very unhappy with the way you behaved when you came home.” Rose’s hand curled closed on the chintz. “She accused me of being a bad influence.”
“And that’s why you never wrote or called or invited me back?” Zelda’s anger kicked in, blowing away the tension. “That’s why you just dropped me?”
Rose stayed impassive. “She was your mother. I had no legal right to you.”
“And you didn’t want me.” Zelda stopped, hating it that she sounded like she cared.
“You didn’t want me,” Rose said. “You didn’t call me, either.”
Zelda began to walk around the room, trying not to feel hurt again. I knew this would happen, I knew we shouldn’t come back here. Over by the terrace doors, a red wood lion glared at her, selfish and blue-eyed under its stiff, dark sisal mane, and she thought about kicking it. But that would be childish. That would be what a fifteen-year-old would do if her mother had betrayed her. “So all this time, you have all this stuff in the attic that would tell me who my father was, and you never—”
“Zelda, did you ever ask your mother who your father was?”
Zelda swallowed. “She said he was dead, that I shouldn’t ever ask again.”
“She didn’t want you to know. Yvonne was a very smart, very strong woman, Zelda, but she did not share you with anyone. You were all she had–”
“That’s not true, she had a wonderful career—”
“A career is not a life, Zelda, even if you’re trying to tell yourself that it is.”
“Stay out of my life,” Zelda said flatly.
Rose smiled at her, no warmth at all. “That’s what your mother said, too.”
Zelda took a deep breath. Don’t let her get to you like that. You don’t care. “Okay, so what good will all these boxes in the attic do me? A bunch of pictures and some guestbooks, big deal.”
Rose relaxed against the couch, everything about her soft again except her eyes. “There’s be clues there. The boxes are in the maid’s dorm so you can move in there and have all your research—”
Zelda stepped back. “I’m not staying in the maid’s room.”
“—right there, so convenient. And there are the people who are coming to stay, coming tonight, as a matter of fact.” Rose leaned forward, her eyes intent. “People who were there that August, who must have seen something, must have talked—”
“About the guy who slept with the maid?”
“—about all the affairs,” Rose finished. “Somebody who’s coming tonight will know something, maybe more than one person.”
“And I’ll just ask them,” Zelda said, sarcasm heavy in her voice.
Rose shook her head. “If it had been general gossip, I’d know about it. No, we’ll have to get them talking about the old times, and then when they split up and begin whispering, you can eavesdrop and hear their secrets.” Her face set, suddenly hard. “I know they have them.”
“Eavesdrop.” Zelda turned away. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would they gossip about something that happened thirty-five years ago? And why would they do it in front of me?”
“They won’t even see you,” Rose said. “They’re Inglethorps and you’ll be the maid.”
“What?” Zelda jerked around. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” Rose said. “They have no discretion, and they won’t pay any attention to you because you’ll be the help. You’ll be able to hear everything.”
Zelda stopped, mad as hell, especially mad because Rose was right. None of the Awful Inglethorps had ever paid any attention to her. Snotty little Angela and her horrible mother, Mary, and the wretched Malcolm, they’d all treated her like wallpaper.
“I hate them,” Zelda said, without thinking.
“Everybody does, darling,” Rose said. “But it won’t be just the Inglethorps, James and Issy will be here, too.”
James. Zelda shook her head, no time for him. “I don’t care about James. But this maid thing is not–”
“That’s just as well,” Rose said. “He’s not for you anyway.”
“Hey,” Zelda said, and then caught herself.
“Well, I know you had a tremendous crush on him a long time ago,” Rose said. “I just want to make it clear that there’ll be no more of that. You’re here to find your father and–”
“I did not have a crush on him,” Zelda said and felt like a kid. “And I’m not going to be your–”
“Darling, you told me you did.” Rose relaxed against the couch. “You said that being around him flustered you, and I told you it was chemistry.” Her face shifted and became stern. “And you said you didn’t want any chemistry with a fat mama’s boy.”
Zelda winced. “That was lousy of me, but I was fifteen. Forget James. The important thing is that I’m not going to be your–”
“He was crazy about you, too.” Rose lifted her chin. “But he was just a child then, he’s grown now. Don’t think you can have the same effect on him.”
“I don’t care,” Zelda said, stung. “If you think so little of me, why do you even want me here?”
“You’re a very bright woman, Zelda,” Rose said. “Stay away from James, concentrate on what’s important, and we’ll be fine.”
“And what’s important is, of course, what you want.”
“Zelda, either you want to find out who your father is, or you don’t. If you do, the boxes and the people who are coming are your best hopes. If you don’t, feel free to go.”
I hate you, Zelda thought. But she stayed.
Rose nodded. “So you can stop arguing. You need to go through those boxes and listen to people to find out about your father.”
“And what do you need?” Zelda said, knowing the worst was yet to come.
“I told you. Ineed you to be the maid, darling. And to write the Rosemore Cookbook. And while you’re doing that, you can find out who your father is. Now you’ll be in the maid’s dorm, and I thought Scylla would want her mother’s room—”
“Scylla?” Zelda said. “You’re roping Scylla into this, too?”
“Of course.” Rose laughed, just far enough off normal that Zelda wasn’t relieved. “Scylla will be working on her mother’s recipes for the book.”
“No,” Zelda said.
“If it’s being the maid that’s throwing you,” Rose said, relaxed now, “it’s only for ten days. They’re coming tonight and they’re leaving the day after New Year’s. And Quentin has agreed to act as butler, so he’ll do most of the heavy work.”
“Quentin?” Zelda said. “Who’s Quentin?”
“The butler.”
“Right, the butler, of course.” Zelda took a deep breath. “Rose, I–”
“Do you want to know who your father is or not?”
The silence stretched out, but Zelda knew she was only delaying the inevitable.
“Zelda?”
“Yes.”
Rose relaxed against the back of the couch. “You won’t regret this.”
“I already am,” Zelda said and went to find Scylla.