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.