The Lace Reader (13 page)

I haven’t found Lyndley’s boxes yet, or any pictures of Auntie Emma except for the one with Cal. And not really that many of me yet either. There are far more of Beezer and my mother. I know how Eva’s mind worked; I know there must be full boxes dedicated to each one of us.

I reach for another, larger, box. It weighs more than I anticipate, and it falls to the floor, raising dust in a little cloud as it lands. It is filled not with photos but with books.

I recognize the old family Bible, its passages marked with bits of faded tissue paper that protrude above the binding. I pick it up. It’s heavier than it looks. In fact, you need two hands to lift it properly. I misjudge its heft, and it flops from my hand, tumbling over, sending the papers falling soundless and weightless as October leaves. I open the Bible to the marked passage.

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John 15:13: “No greater love hath any man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

I put the Bible aside. Someone in the family should have this—

Emma, probably, or maybe Beezer and Anya. There are two other books, matching red journals with leather covers. Both look familiar. I open the first. It is written in Eva’s hand. I have seen it before. It is full of Eva’s thoughts and of readings she has done. It is part journal, part fancy, part instruction manual. On the front inside cover she has scrawled a title: “The Lace Reader’s Guide.” I open to a random page. Reading the Bride on Her Wedding Day

The bridal veil is the most joyful of lace to read. Every pos-
sibility is in it. Because of the sacramental nature of marriage,
there is seldom anything disturbing in the bridal veil; rather it
is possible to see the beauty of a life as it stretches only forward.
The children’s faces can often be seen in the lace at this time
and sometimes even the grandchildren the couple will have.
Where there is a long train of lace that needs to be carried,
it is often possible to see the full figures of the ancestors carry-
ing the train, which appears to float in places where the laws
of gravity would dictate otherwise. A bride’s excitement on
this occasion will often correspond to the number of persons
attendant on the veil.

It all seems so familiar. I have read it before. I must have. I flip through the rest of the book. Sometimes Eva details specific readings, sometimes she writes about different types of lace. If tea was served with a particular reading, the tea blend is sometimes described in detail, with brewing instructions. Interspersed with the readings are daily notes, usually about her flowers. There are observations about her hyacinths and her Cornish roses. There are also bits of the old sayings, written into the margins. Lines of poetry: Goethe, Spenser, The Lace Reader 109

Proust. Clichés blend with news of weather and tides, but each entry always ties back to the lace like a thread moving through a piece of intricate Belgian lace, then returning with symmetry to its center. I feel Eva with me. I am crying again. Maybe this packing thing isn’t such a good idea. It is too much. I feel a hand on my shoulder. Comforting. I do not turn to look. I know it is Eva. She directs my gaze to the second red book. My hand picks it up. Though they are twins in color and size, this book seems much heavier than the first. Too heavy to hold. I almost drop it. The hand reaches to help me. I open the journal.

It is the journal I wrote at McLean. Dosed with Stelazine, my face hanging and drooping, I wrote my history as I remembered it. The handwriting is the opposite of what you might expect—small and forced, controlled. The history was my ticket out of the hospital, as it turned out. I have no idea how much of it was true. When I didn’t remember something, I made it up. I filled in the gaps. I cannot read the journal. It is too painful. Instead I take it, along with Eva’s journal and the family Bible, and hide these books with the other things I will bring with me when I go: the lace pillow, Lyndley’s painting, and a canister of Difficult-Tea. When the Realtor finally arrives, she has brought the house inspector with her, “just to make sure there are no surprises,” she says. I spot a For Sale sign in the back of her Volvo.

“I don’t want a sign,” I say.

“It’s much easier to sell the house if you have a sign.”

“Nevertheless . . .” I say in a voice I recognize as Eva’s. She doesn’t notice but shrugs and leaves the sign in the car. The inspector stays outside walking the perimeter, looking at the house from all angles. Five minutes of small talk follow. She says it’s a shame to sell a house like this, that someone will probably condo it. Then, realizing she might be talking herself out of a sale, she adds, “I wouldn’t move back either, not if I lived in sunny California.”

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Outside, the inspector pulls a ladder from his truck and carries it to the building, stepping over flower beds.

“The perennial gardens are great,” the Realtor says, “a real selling point.” She makes a note of it, as well as some other things she sees, including the slate roof.

“How many bedrooms?”

“I don’t know. Ten? Twelve? Some of them she was using for other things.”

“How many closets?”

I’m totally blank.

“That’s how we define a bedroom, by whether or not it has a closet.”

“Oh,” I say. It doesn’t help.

“FYI,” she says.

I follow her around the house. She looks in every closet, writes “7”

in the blank next to bedrooms. She looks in cabinets, under eaves. She stops short of opening Eva’s drawers.

I must be making a face. “It’s not easy,” she says, “when it’s someone you love.”

The inspector finds water in the basement. There’s just a small puddle in the wine cellar, next to the wall where Eva has hung some of her dried flowers. He inspects it, curious about its origins. He looks at the wine bottles to see if any of them are broken. Not finding anything, he turns to me. “Is there a sink above this?”

“No,” I say.

“I don’t think it’s anything too serious,” he says, “maybe just a spill of some kind.”

The Realtor picks up a dried bouquet and smells it. It’s lavender, I can see that from here. She makes a face as if she were smelling bad cheese. “Who in the world would dry flowers in a basement?” she wants to know. “Get rid of these and you get rid of half the problem.”

She gestures to the drying flowers. “They’re all mildewed.”

The Lace Reader 111

I think it’s odd that Eva
would
dry flowers down here, but she has them everywhere, little bunches hanging upside down drying, so maybe she just ran out of room upstairs. Or maybe the cellar was dry at the time.

“I’ll throw them away,” I say, and the Realtor smiles, erasing her bad-cheese expression. I know I should write this down, or I’ll probably forget to do it.

“Anything else?” she says to him.

“Some of the windows need reglazing. But the house is in pretty good shape considering its age.”

“What more can you ask for than that?” The Realtor turns to me.

“I wish someone would say that about me.”

I try to smile.

The Realtor finishes her list. “Is any of the furniture for sale? Or the wine?”

The inspector takes this as his cue to exit.

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You probably need to get an appraisal. You’ve got some nice things here.”

She gave me a number for someone at Skinner’s, for the antiques.

“We have a guy back at the office who’s pretty good with wine,” she adds. “Collecting it, I mean, not drinking it. Although he’s pretty good at that, too, come to think of it.”

I walk her out. The peonies are flopping in the heat. I don’t think anyone has watered them since Eva died, so it’s amazing they’re even still alive. When I get back inside, I look up Ann Chase’s phone number and dial.

“Hi, Towner,” she answers, “I’ve been expecting you to call.” She speaks in a low, spooky-mystic voice. Before I have a chance to fall for it, she laughs. “I was only kidding. I wasn’t expecting you. I just sprang for caller ID.”

I can hear some voices in the background. “Is this a good time?”

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“It’s tourist season. There won’t be a good time until after Halloween, and that’s months away. But that shouldn’t stop you from calling. . . . How are you holding up?”

“I have something for you.”

“Sounds intriguing.”

“Maybe I’ll come by.”

“I came by there this morning, to see if you needed any help with the garden. You must still be on California time.”

“Probably,” I say.

“I watered them a little for you.”

“I didn’t even hear you. Thanks.”

“You need to give them a lot more water. A good soaking.”

I hear the sound of an old-fashioned cash register
cha-chinging
as she rings someone up.

“Water the whole garden,” she says. “But don’t do it until late afternoon or you’ll scorch the leaves. This sun makes the water into a magnifying glass. I’ll come over tomorrow morning, and we can figure out the rest.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. How’re you holding up other than that?”

“I’m okay,” I say.

“Okay is good,” she says. “Sometimes okay is real good.”

I don’t know what to say.

“So drop by the shop if you want. Otherwise I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I realize I’m starving. There’s nothing in the house. I need to go out, but first I have to find something to wear. I have no clean clothes. Because of my surgery, I couldn’t lift a suitcase when I came here, so I only brought the pillow. I go to my closet, but I’ve already worn all of my teenage stuff. I put on an old pair of cutoffs that Lyndley and I bleached one summer. I cinch them tight with a beaded belt that reads wolfeboro, new hampshire across the back. Then I raid Eva’s closet for shoes and a short-sleeved shirt.

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My feet are bigger than hers, and the only shoes I can find are the sandals I bought her my last summer here. Frilly white ones with daisies on the strap. I figured she’d like them because they were flowers, but they’re still in their original box. I scratch up the leather soles with a metal nail file I find in one of her dresser drawers, because they’re too slick for me to walk down the stairs in them as they are.

I walk over to Red’s Sandwich Shop. It’s packed. There’s a line halfway down the block. I get in, but then a seat at the counter opens up and no one wants it, so I grab it. I order everything I can without going over ten dollars, which is what I have in my pocket.

“Coffee?”

“Tea.”

“With milk?”

“Straight up.”

They’re grilling English muffins and piles of potatoes and eggs in groups of a dozen at a time. I’m wondering where all these people are coming from, and the waitress answers me as if I’d asked the question out loud.

“Fleet’s in,” she says.

The cook groans.

“Twelve o’clock tour bus,” the waitress explains, pointing to the Trolley Stop.

The crowd stirs, and a group of tourists moves together toward the windows. Outside, a young woman in Puritan costume is running down the street, trying to escape from a crowd. They follow, finally catching her, holding her while a man berates her, reading a list of accusations in a loud voice. I recognize Bridget Bishop and check my watch. She was the first of the accused witches. They put her on trial once every few hours in the summertime, recruiting the tourists 114 Brunonia

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to sit on the jury. Poor Bridget is often condemned and sentenced to hang all over again . . . often, but not always. I hear some whispers and turn around. Two women sit in a booth, a mother and a daughter. They stop talking as soon as I look at them. The daughter picks up her coffee, sips.

I pay the cashier and have to walk through the line that is all the way out the door.

Rafferty’s coming in as I’m going out. He takes one look at the line, swears under his breath, and heads back outside, stopping when he recognizes me, grabbing the door at the last minute before it hits me.

“I thought you went back to California,” he says.

“Nope.”

“May told me you did.”

“Maybe I did, then,” I say, shrugging. “God knows May Whitney is always right.”

He laughs. “According to her, anyway.”

I see him struggling to think what to say next.

“I’m selling the house,” I volunteer. “That’s probably what she meant.”

“You’re selling the house?” He sounds surprised.

“It’s too much.” I feel stupid explaining, feeling the need to explain.

“It’s a lot of house.” He is trying.

I nod.

“Does that mean you’re going back to California?” he asks.

“Pretty much,” I say.

“Too bad.”

It seems an odd thing to say, but he doesn’t elaborate.

“Nice meeting you,” I say, extending my hand to shake his. It is good Eva etiquette, but not really in character for me. I can tell he gets a kick out of it.

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He grins. “You’re not leaving today, are you?”

“No. I’ve got to finish cleaning out.”

“I’ll see you before you go.”

I get all the way up the street before I think of asking him for the key. I remember Jay-Jay saying they had one, and not only do I not like the thought of a key floating around, even if it is with the cops, but I’d told the Realtor I’d make her a copy. It occurs to me that the only key I know of is in police custody. I rush back down the street.

“You okay?” he asks me as I catch up with him. “You look a little pale.”

“Fine,” I say. “How about you?”

“I’m Irish. I always look a little pale.”

I ask him for the key then, and although he clearly doesn’t know what I’m talking about, or remember that they even had a key, he tells me he’ll look into it and get back to me. I return to the house, intending to do more packing. But I catch sight of myself in the mirror and think better of it. I do look a little pale—

not surprising, really. I feel slightly queasy and decide to slow down a bit. It’s getting too hot to do any work on the second floor. Instead I decide to walk down to Ann’s shop. I pick up the box of lace that Anya left on the table and head out.