In Chap­ter 8, Lis­beth Salan­der unex­pect­ed­ly vis­its her for­mer employ­er, Arman­sky. The vis­it reveals their strained rela­tion­ship, marked by unre­solved ten­sions and unspo­ken griev­ances. Salan­der explains her exten­sive trav­els as a rea­son for her absence, while Arman­sky con­fronts her about her appar­ent dis­re­gard for oth­ers. Despite the ten­sion, Salan­der express­es a desire to recon­nect, prompt­ing Arman­sky to set bound­aries for their future inter­ac­tions. The chap­ter high­lights themes of change and per­son­al growth, as well as the com­plex­i­ties of human rela­tion­ships.

In Chap­ter 8 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the atmos­phere in the town is tense and somber as the com­mu­ni­ty grap­ples with a recent tragedy. The streets are qui­et, res­onat­ing with an unset­tled still­ness, while local chil­dren engage in imag­i­na­tive play, their excite­ment con­trast­ing sharply with the grim real­i­ty hang­ing over them. Cen­tral to the chap­ter is Saint, who watch­es the chief of police, Nix, as he directs the scene, not­ing the stark dif­fer­ence in his demeanor; he usu­al­ly wears a smile, now over­shad­owed by the weight of the event unfold­ing.

Saint is flood­ed with mem­o­ries of her child­hood spent in the wood­land, mem­o­ries now taint­ed by the recent loss of a dear friend. The nos­tal­gia brings her pain, man­i­fest­ing phys­i­cal­ly as a tight­ness in her shoul­ders and dis­com­fort in her stom­ach. She recalls moments shared with Patch, her deceased friend—adventures involv­ing impro­vised stick guns and play­ful warn­ings about his bal­ance. The warmth of those mem­o­ries bat­tles against the cold­ness of his absence.

As Chief Nix takes charge and speaks with author­i­ty, he address­es the extent of the secu­ri­ty mea­sures in place—the coun­ty tight­ly locked down, restrict­ing move­ment and ensur­ing order as the inves­ti­ga­tion unfolds. Dur­ing this inter­ac­tion, Nix rec­og­nizes Saint as the grand­daugh­ter of a bus dri­ver and ques­tions her con­nec­tion to Patch. While she silent­ly acknowl­edges Nix’s com­ments, she grap­ples with feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy, wish­ing to voice how brave Patch tru­ly was in life—not just the deci­sion that led to his demise.

The chap­ter esca­lates into chaos as dogs erupt from a vehi­cle, and Ivy Macauley, a local woman, expe­ri­ences a vis­cer­al reac­tion upon encoun­ter­ing the rem­nants of the tragedy. Her scream res­onates deeply, cap­tur­ing the col­lec­tive grief of those gath­ered. Ivy’s com­posed demeanor, which she nor­mal­ly main­tains even in her job, breaks as she con­fronts the real­i­ty of the situation—a bloody shirt sym­bol­iz­ing the loss they all feel.

In a moment that encap­su­lates the tragedy’s impact, a local res­i­dent, Pat­tie Ray­burn, pro­vides vital infor­ma­tion about the last sight­ing of Patch, con­firm­ing he is gone. The chap­ter con­cludes with a sense of pro­found loss affect­ing the entire com­mu­ni­ty, leav­ing an indeli­ble mark on Saint and those who loved Patch.

In Chap­ter 8, Phoebe is abrupt­ly awak­ened at noon by a loud knock on her door, where Lila enters, eager to show off a hat she’s con­tem­plat­ing for an upcom­ing sail­ing trip. Lila’s pres­ence prompts Phoebe to reflect on the bride’s lack of curios­i­ty for oth­ers, espe­cial­ly regard­ing Phoe­be’s own strug­gles. She finds it incon­ceiv­able that some­one could enter a room of some­one feel­ing sui­ci­dal with­out inquir­ing about their well-being.

As they dis­cuss the hat, Lila reveals her inse­cu­ri­ties about what her friends think of her, par­tic­u­lar­ly stem­ming from a mishap at the pre­vi­ous night’s recep­tion, where she felt humil­i­at­ed. Despite her issues, Lila’s casu­al demeanor in the morn­ing com­forts Phoebe, who is grap­pling with the after­math of a secret encounter from the pre­vi­ous night—a moment that she cher­ish­es deeply, sim­i­lar to how she once felt when meet­ing her hus­band.

They dis­cuss Lila’s friends Nat and Suz, and Lila express­es her feel­ings about her moth­er’s unre­al­is­tic expec­ta­tions through­out her life, empha­siz­ing the dis­tort­ed sto­ries her moth­er shares at pub­lic gath­er­ings. As their con­ver­sa­tion shifts, Phoebe feels the urge to bring wis­dom to the sur­face about Lila’s procla­ma­tions regard­ing love and friend­ship, ques­tion­ing the nature of “won­der­ful” as Lila describes her rela­tion­ship with Gary.

This leads to a poignant moment where Lila grap­ples with the def­i­n­i­tion of a gen­uine con­nec­tion as they joke about the absur­di­ties of life. Lila then unex­pect­ed­ly announces that she needs to address an issue with her mother’s room, leav­ing Phoebe to her thoughts. Before exit­ing, Lila sug­gests that Phoebe try mak­ing her bed to improve her mood, a notion Phoebe dis­miss­es humor­ous­ly but with a hint of bit­ter­ness.

As Lila leaves, she acknowl­edges the need for cof­fee, insist­ing on order­ing room ser­vice to make their day eas­i­er. Lila arranges break­fast, cheek­i­ly refer­ring to a dish called “Patri­ot­ic French Toast.” As the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es, Phoebe con­fronts her reluc­tance to take part in life ful­ly, weighed down by her thoughts of how she was sup­posed to be dead. Yet, the prospect of sail­ing and try­ing on new clothes left for her by Lila sub­tly inspires hope with­in Phoebe, indi­cat­ing the unpre­dictable twists in her despair­ing jour­ney.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Phoebe feel­ing a mix­ture of dis­ap­point­ment and excite­ment as she pre­pares for the day, reflect­ing on the beau­ty of life’s unex­pect­ed changes that can lift one from despair, even if only for a moment .

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

In Chap­ter 8, the nar­ra­tor, a young and aspir­ing singer, recounts her unex­pect­ed encounter with Clive Calder, the founder of Jive Records. Enter­ing Calder’s impres­sive three-sto­ry office and meet­ing his teacup ter­ri­er, the nar­ra­tor feels as though she has stepped into a par­al­lel uni­verse where her dreams are giv­en a new dimen­sion of pos­si­bil­i­ty. Calder’s South African accent and wel­com­ing demeanor imme­di­ate­ly make her feel at ease, ignit­ing a sense of con­nec­tion and des­tiny. Despite not hav­ing record­ed any­thing yet, this meet­ing marks the begin­ning of her jour­ney into the music indus­try.

Upon being signed to Jive Records at fif­teen, the nar­ra­tor, along with her fam­i­ly friend Feli­cia Culot­ta, relo­cates to New York to begin record­ing in New Jer­sey with pro­duc­er and song­writer Eric Fos­ter White. Despite her lack of under­stand­ing of the indus­try’s work­ings, her pas­sion for singing and danc­ing dri­ves her for­ward. She under­goes months of inten­sive record­ing ses­sions in an under­ground booth, iso­lat­ing her­self to focus on her music.

A humor­ous and hum­bling moment occurs when she acci­den­tal­ly runs into a screen door at a bar­be­cue, high­light­ing the ground­ing expe­ri­ences amidst her ris­ing fame. This peri­od also fea­tures her col­lab­o­ra­tions with pres­ti­gious pro­duc­ers such as Max Mar­tin, indi­cat­ing the start of her suc­cess­ful music career. The chap­ter empha­sizes themes of youth­ful enthu­si­asm, the sur­re­al nature of achiev­ing one’s dreams, and the naivety and deter­mi­na­tion of a young artist at the onset of her jour­ney in the music indus­try. The nar­ra­tor’s expe­ri­ences of form­ing piv­otal rela­tion­ships, endur­ing embar­rass­ing moments, and work­ing tire­less­ly show­case her evolv­ing per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, lead­ing up to the antic­i­pa­tion of her first album’s com­ple­tion.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 8
That was how she found her­self a lit­tle after noon the next day,
stand­ing on the porch of Ann Savage’s yel­low-and-white cot­tage.
She knocked on the screen door and wait­ed. In front of the new
man­sion across the street, a cement truck dumped gray sludge into a
wood­en frame for its dri­ve­way. James Harris’s white van sat silent­ly
in the front yard, the sun spik­ing off its tint­ed wind­shield and
mak­ing Patri­cia squint.
With a loud crack, the front door broke away from the sticky, sun-
warmed paint and James Har­ris stood there, sweat­ing, wear­ing
over­size sun­glass­es.
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Patri­cia said. “I want­ed to apol­o­gize for
my mother-in-law’s behav­ior last night.”
“Come in quick­ly,” he said, step­ping back into the shad­ows.
She imag­ined eyes watch­ing her from every win­dow up and down
the street. She couldn’t go into his house again. Where was Francine?
She felt exposed and embar­rassed. She hadn’t thought this through.
“Let’s talk out here,” she said into the dark door­way. All she could
see was his big pale hand rest­ing on the edge of the door. “The sun
feels so nice.”
“Please,” he said, his voice strained. “I have a con­di­tion.”
Patri­cia knew gen­uine dis­tress when she heard it, but she still
couldn’t make her­self step inside.
“Stay or go,” he said, anger edg­ing his voice. “I can’t be in the sun.”
Look­ing up and down the street, Patri­cia quick­ly slipped through
the door.
He brushed her aside to slam the main door, forc­ing her deep­er
into the mid­dle of the room. To her sur­prise, it was emp­ty. The
fur­ni­ture had been pushed up against the walls along with the old
suit­cas­es and bags and card­board box­es of junk. Behind her, James
Har­ris locked his front door and leaned against it.
“This looks so much bet­ter than yes­ter­day,” she said, mak­ing
con­ver­sa­tion. “Francine did a won­der­ful job.”
“Who?” he asked.
“I saw her on my way out the oth­er day,” she said. “Your clean­er.”
James Har­ris stared at her through his large sun­glass­es,
com­plete­ly blank, and Patri­cia was about to tell him she need­ed to
leave when his knees buck­led and he slid down to the floor.
“Help me,” he said.
His heels pushed use­less­ly against the floor­boards, his hands had
no strength. Her nurs­ing instincts kicked in and she stepped close,
plant­ed her feet wide, got her hands under his armpits, and lift­ed. He
felt heavy and sol­id and very cool, and as his mas­sive body rose up in
front of her, she felt over­whelmed by his phys­i­cal pres­ence. Her
damp palms tin­gled all the way up to her fore­arms.
He slumped for­ward, drop­ping his full weight onto her shoul­ders,
and the intense phys­i­cal con­tact made Patri­cia light-head­ed. She
helped him to a pressed-back rock­ing chair by the wall, and he
dropped heav­i­ly into it. Her body, freed of his weight, felt sud­den­ly
lighter than air. Her feet bare­ly touched the floor.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
“I got bit­ten by a wolf,” he said.
“Here?” she asked.
She saw his thigh mus­cles clench and relax as he began to
uncon­scious­ly rock him­self back and forth.
“When I was younger,” he said, then flashed his white teeth in a
pained smile. “Maybe it was a wild dog and I’ve roman­ti­cized it into a
wolf.”
“I’m so sor­ry,” she said. “Did it hurt?”
“They thought I would die,” he said. “I had a fever for sev­er­al days
and when I recov­ered I had some brain damage—just mild lesions,
but they com­pro­mised the motor con­trol in my eyes.”
She felt relieved that this was start­ing to make sense.
“That must be dif­fi­cult,” she said.
“My iris­es don’t dilate very well,” he said. “So day­light is extreme­ly
painful. It’s thrown my whole body clock out of whack.”
He ges­tured help­less­ly around the room at every­thing piled up
against the walls.
“There’s so much to do and I don’t know how to get a han­dle on
any of it,” he said. “I’m lost.”
She looked at the liquor store box­es and bags lin­ing the walls, full
of old clothes and note­books and slip­pers and med­ica­tions and
embroi­dery hoops and yel­lowed issues of TV Guide. Plas­tic bags of
clothes, stacks of wire hang­ers, dusty framed pho­tographs, piles of
afghans, water-dam­aged books of Green­bax Stamps, stacks of used
bin­go cards rub­ber-band­ed togeth­er, glass ash­trays and bowls and
spheres with sand dol­lars sus­pend­ed in the mid­dle.
“It’s a lot to sort out,” Patri­cia said. “Do you have any­one to come
help? Any fam­i­ly? A broth­er? Cousins? Your wife?”
He shook his head.
“Do you want me to stay and talk to Francine?”
“She quit,” he said.
“That doesn’t sound like Francine,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m going to have to leave,” James Har­ris said, wip­ing sweat from
his fore­head. “I thought about stay­ing but my con­di­tion makes it too
hard. I feel like there’s a train already mov­ing and no mat­ter how fast
I run I can nev­er catch up.”
Patri­cia knew the feel­ing but she also thought about Grace, who
would stay here until she had learned all she could about a good-
look­ing, seem­ing­ly nor­mal man who had found him­self all alone in
the Old Vil­lage with no wife or chil­dren. Patri­cia had nev­er met a
sin­gle man his age who didn’t have some kind of sto­ry. It would
prob­a­bly prove to be small and anti­cli­mac­tic, but she was so starved
for excite­ment she’d take any mys­tery she could.
“Let’s see if we can fig­ure this out togeth­er,” she said. “What’s
over­whelm­ing you the most?”
He lift­ed a sheaf of mail off the cross-stretch­er break­fast table next
to him like it weighed five hun­dred pounds.
“What do I do about these?” he asked.
She went through the let­ters, sweat prick­ling her back and her
upper lip. The air in the house felt stale and close.
“But these are easy,” she said, putting them down. “I don’t
under­stand this let­ter from pro­bate court, but I’ll call Bud­dy Barr.
He’s most­ly retired but he’s in our church and he’s an estate lawyer.
The Water­works is just up the street and you can be there and
change the name on the account in five min­utes. SCE&G has an
office around the cor­ner where you can get the elec­tric bill put in
your name.”
“It all has to be done in per­son,” he said. “And their offices are only
open dur­ing the day when I can’t dri­ve. Because of my eyes.”
“Oh,” Patri­cia said.
“If some­one could dri­ve me…,” he began.
Instant­ly, Patri­cia real­ized what he want­ed, and she felt the jaws of
yet anoth­er oblig­a­tion clos­ing around her.
“Nor­mal­ly I’d be hap­py to,” she said, quick­ly. “But it’s the last week
of school and there’s so much to do…”
“You said it would only take five min­utes.”
For a moment, Patri­cia resent­ed his wheedling tone, and then she
felt like a cow­ard. She’d promised to help. She want­ed to know more
about him. Sure­ly she wasn’t going to quit at the first obsta­cle.
“You’re right,” she said. “Let me get my car and pull it around. I’ll
try to get as close to your front door as I can.”
“Can we take my van?” he asked.
Patri­cia balked. She couldn’t dri­ve a stranger’s car. Besides, she’d
nev­er dri­ven a van before.
“I—” she began.
“The tint­ed win­dows,” he said.
Of course. She nod­ded, not see­ing anoth­er option.
“And I hate to both­er you when you’re doing so much already…” he
began.
Her heart sank, and then imme­di­ate­ly she felt self­ish. This man
had come to her home last night and been sassed by her daugh­ter
and spat at by her moth­er-in-law. He was a human being ask­ing for
help. Of course she would do her best.
“What is it?” she asked, mak­ing her voice sound as warm and
gen­uine as pos­si­ble.
He stopped rock­ing.
“My wal­let was stolen, and my birth cer­tifi­cate and all those kind
of things are in stor­age back home,” he said. “I don’t know how long
it’ll take some­one to hunt them down. How can I do any of this
with­out them?”
An image of Ted Bundy with his arm in a fake cast ask­ing Bren­da
Ball to help him car­ry his books to his car flashed across Patricia’s
mind. She dis­missed it as undig­ni­fied.
“That pro­bate court let­ter is going to solve the prob­lem of
iden­ti­fi­ca­tion,” she said. “That’s all you need for the Water­works, and
when we’re there we’ll get a bill print­ed with your name and this
address on it to show the elec­tric com­pa­ny. Give me the keys and I’ll
get your car.”
—
The tint­ed win­dows kept the front seats of his van dim and pur­ple,
which wasn’t such a bad thing since they were cov­ered in stains and
rips. What Patri­cia didn’t like was the back. He had screwed wood
over the back win­dows to make it com­plete­ly dark, and it made her
ner­vous to dri­ve with all that empti­ness behind her.
At the Water­works, they dis­cov­ered that he had left his wal­let at
home. He apol­o­gized pro­fuse­ly, but she didn’t mind writ­ing the one-
hun­dred-dol­lar check for the deposit. He promised to pay her back as
soon as they got home. At SCE&G they want­ed a two-hun­dred-fifty-
dol­lar deposit, and she hes­i­tat­ed.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to do this,” James Har­ris said.
She looked at him, his face already red­den­ing with sun­burn,
cheeks wet with the flu­id stream­ing from beneath his sun­glass­es. She
weighed her sym­pa­thy against what Carter would say when he
bal­anced their check­book. But it was her mon­ey, too, wasn’t it? That
was what Carter always said when she asked for her own bank
account: this mon­ey belonged to both of them. She was a grown
woman and could use it how­ev­er she saw fit, even if it was to help
anoth­er man.
She wrote the sec­ond check and tore it off with a brisk flick of her
wrist before she could change her mind. She felt effi­cient. Like she
was solv­ing prob­lems and get­ting things done. She felt like Grace.
Back at his house she want­ed to wait on the front porch while he
got his wal­let, but he hus­tled her inside. By now it was after two
o’clock and the sun pressed down hard.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, leav­ing her alone in his dark kitchen.
She thought about open­ing his refrig­er­a­tor to see what he had
inside. Or look­ing in his cup­boards. She still didn’t know any­thing
about him.
The floor cracked and he came back into the kitchen.
“Three hun­dred fifty dol­lars,” he said, count­ing it out on the table
in worn twen­ties and a ten. He beamed at her, even though it looked
painful to move his sun­burned face. “I can’t tell you how much this
means to me.”
“I’m hap­py to help,” she said.
“You know…,” he said, and trailed off. He looked away, then shook
his head briskly. “Nev­er mind.”
“What?” she asked.
“It’s too much,” he told her. “You’ve been won­der­ful. I don’t know
how I can repay you.”
“What is it?” Patri­cia asked.
“For­get it,” he said. “It’s unfair.”
“What is?” she asked.
He got very still.
“Do you want to see some­thing real­ly cool? Just between the two of
us?”
The inside of Patricia’s skull lit up with alarm bells. She’d read
enough to know that any­one say­ing that, espe­cial­ly a stranger, was
about to ask you to take a pack­age over the bor­der or park out­side a
jew­el­ry store and keep the engine run­ning. But when was the last
time any­one had even said the word cool to her?
“Of course,” she said, dry-mouthed.
He went away, then returned with a grimy blue gym bag. He
swung it onto the table and unzipped it.
The dank stench of com­post waft­ed from the bag’s mouth and
Patri­cia leaned for­ward and looked inside. It was stuffed with mon­ey:
fives, twen­ties, tens, ones. The pain in Patricia’s left ear dis­ap­peared.
Her breath got high in her chest. Her blood siz­zled in her veins. Her
mouth got wet.
“Can I touch it?” she asked, qui­et­ly.
“Go ahead.”
She reached out for a twen­ty, thought that looked greedy, and
picked up a five. Dis­ap­point­ing­ly, it felt like any oth­er five-dol­lar bill.
She dipped her hand in again and this time pulled out a thick sheaf
of bills. This felt more sub­stan­tial. James Har­ris had just gone from a
vague­ly inter­est­ing man to a full-blown mys­tery.
“I found it in the crawl space,” he said. “It’s eighty-five thou­sand
dol­lars. I think it’s Auntie’s life sav­ings.”
It felt dan­ger­ous. It felt ille­gal. She want­ed to ask him to put it
away. She want­ed to keep fondling it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I want­ed to ask you,” he said.
“Put it in the bank.”
“Can you imag­ine me show­ing up at First Fed­er­al with no ID and a
bag of cash?” he said. “They’d be on the phone to the police before I
could sit down.”
“You can’t keep it here,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I can’t sleep with it in the house. For the past
week, I’ve been ter­ri­fied someone’s going to break in.”
The solu­tions to so many mys­ter­ies began to reveal them­selves to
Patri­cia. He wasn’t just sick with the sun, he was sick with stress.
Ann Sav­age had been unfriend­ly because she want­ed to keep peo­ple
away from the house where she’d hid­den her life sav­ings. Of course
she hadn’t trust­ed banks.
“We have to open an account for you,” Patri­cia said.
“How?” he asked.
“Leave that to me,” she said, a plan already form­ing in her mind.
“And put on a dry shirt.”
—
They stood at the counter of First Fed­er­al on Cole­man Boule­vard half
an hour lat­er, James Har­ris already sweat­ing through his fresh shirt.
“May I speak with Doug Mack­ey?” Patri­cia asked the girl across
the counter. She thought it was Sarah Shandy’s daugh­ter but she
couldn’t be sure so she didn’t say any­thing.
“Patri­cia,” a voice called from across the floor. Patri­cia turned and
saw Doug, thick-necked and red-faced, with his bel­ly strain­ing the
bot­tom three but­tons of his shirt, com­ing at them with his arms
spread wide. “They say every dog has its day, and today’s mine.”
“I’m try­ing to help my neigh­bor, James Har­ris,” Patri­cia said,
shak­ing his hand, mak­ing intro­duc­tions. “This is my friend from high
school, Doug Mack­ey.”
“Wel­come, stranger,” Doug Mack­ey said. “You couldn’t have a
bet­ter guide to Mt. Pleas­ant than Patri­cia Camp­bell.”
“We have a slight­ly del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion,” Patri­cia said, low­er­ing her
voice.
“That’s why they let me have a door on my office,” Doug said.
He led them into his office dec­o­rat­ed in Low­coun­try sports­man.
His win­dows looked out over Shem Creek; his chairs were made of
bur­gundy leather. The framed prints were of things you could eat:
birds, fish, deer.
“James needs to open a bank account, but his ID has been stolen,”
Patri­cia said. “What are his options? He’d like to get it done today.”
Doug leaned for­ward, press­ing his bel­ly into the edge of the desk,
and grinned.
“Dar­lin’, that’s no prob­lem a’tall. You can be the cosign­er. You’d be
respon­si­ble for any over­drafts and have full access, but it’s a good
way to start while he waits for his license. Those peo­ple at the DMV
move like they get paid by the hour.”
“Does it show up on our state­ment at all?” Patri­cia asked, think­ing
about how she’d explain this to Carter.
“Nah,” Doug said. “I mean, not unless he starts writ­ing bad checks
all over town.”
They all looked at each oth­er for a moment, then laughed
ner­vous­ly.
“Let me get those forms,” Doug said, leav­ing the room.
Patri­cia couldn’t believe she’d solved this prob­lem so eas­i­ly. She
felt relaxed and com­pla­cent, like she’d eat­en a huge meal. Doug came
back in and bent over the paper­work.
“Where are you from?” Doug asked, not look­ing up from his forms.
“Ver­mont,” James Har­ris said.
“And what kind of ini­tial deposit will you be mak­ing?” Doug asked.
Patri­cia hes­i­tat­ed, then said, “This.”
She unfold­ed a two-thou­sand-dol­lar check and pushed it across
Doug’s desk. They’d decid­ed deposit­ing cash right away was a bad
idea, espe­cial­ly giv­en how seedy James Har­ris looked today. He’d
already reim­bursed her in cash, and it burned inside her purse. Her
face burned, too. Her lips felt numb. She’d nev­er writ­ten a check this
big before.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

8
Every­thing in the Ingra­ham house feels like it’s wait­ing for Blanche to return.
I walk in the next morn­ing, feel­ing heavy and slow, last night’s failed date with Eddie sit­ting like a
rock low in my stom­ach. It some­how seems fit­ting that this should be the day I’d agreed to go over
and start pack­ing up some of Blanche’s stuff for Tripp.
Bea’s ghost last night, Blanche’s today.
It’s been months since she went miss­ing, but one of her hand­bags is still sit­ting on the table in the
foy­er. There’s a pile of jew­el­ry there, too, a coiled neck­lace, a care­less pile of rings. I imag­ine her
com­ing home from a din­ner out, tak­ing off all that stuff, toss­ing it casu­al­ly against the wide glass base
of the lamp, kick­ing her shoes just under the table.
The pair of pink ging­ham flats is still lying there, too. It was July when she went miss­ing, and I
imag­ine her wear­ing them with a match­ing pink blouse, a pair of white capris. Women here always
dress like flow­ers in the sum­mer, bright splash­es of col­or against the vio­lent­ly green lawns, the
blind­ing­ly blue sky. It’s so dif­fer­ent from how things were back East, where I grew up. There, black
was always the chicest col­or. Here, I think peo­ple would wear laven­der to a funer­al. Pop­py-red to a
wed­ding.
I’ve nev­er tried to take any­thing from Tripp. Trust me, he’d notice.
Unlike Eddie, Tripp has kept all the pic­tures of Blanche up and in plain sight. I think he might
have actu­al­ly added some. Every avail­able sur­face seems over­crowd­ed with framed pho­tos.
There are at least five of their wed­ding day, Blanche smil­ing and very blond, Tripp look­ing
vague­ly like her broth­er, and nowhere near as paunchy and deflat­ed as he looks now.
He’s sit­ting in the liv­ing room when I come in, a plas­tic tum­bler full of ice and an amber-col­ored
liq­uid that I’m sure is not iced tea.
It’s 9:23 A.M.
“Hi, Mr. Ingra­ham,” I call, rat­tling my keys in my hand just in case he’s for­got­ten that he gave me a
key so that I could let myself in. That was back when he still pre­tend­ed like he might go into work.
I’m not even sure what he does, if I’m hon­est. I thought he was a lawyer, but maybe I just assumed that
because he looked like the type. He doesn’t seem to own any oth­er clothes besides polo shirts and
khakis, and there’s golf detri­tus all over the house—a bag of clubs lean­ing by the front door, mul­ti­ple
pairs of golf­ing shoes jum­bled in a rat­tan bas­ket just inside the front door, tees dropped as care­less­ly
as his wife’s jew­el­ry.
Even the cup he’s cur­rent­ly drink­ing his sad break­fast booze in has some kind of golf club insignia
on it.
There’s a pho­to album spread across his lap and as I step far­ther into the dim liv­ing room, Tripp
final­ly looks up at me, his eyes bleary behind design­er glass­es.
“Jan,” he says, and I don’t both­er to remind him it’s Jane. I’ve already done that a few times, and
it nev­er seems to actu­al­ly pen­e­trate the muck of Wood­ford Reserve his brain is per­ma­nent­ly steeped
in.
“You asked me to start on the sec­ond guest room today,” I tell him, point­ing upstairs, and after a
beat, he nods.
I head up there, but my mind isn’t on Tripp and Blanche.
It’s still on Eddie, on our din­ner last night. The way he’d just nod­ded when I had said I’d walk to
my car on my own. How we’d hugged awk­ward­ly on the side­walk, and how quick­ly he’d walked
away from me.
I’d thought—
Fuck, it doesn’t mat­ter. Maybe I’d thought some­thing was hap­pen­ing there, but clear­ly, I’d been
wrong, and the only thing cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing was that I was head­ing into the “sec­ond guest room” at
the Ingra­hams’ house to pack up … who knew what.
The bed­room was on the sec­ond floor, and it was rel­a­tive­ly small, done all in shades of blue and
semi-trop­i­cal flo­ral pat­terns. There were box­es and plas­tic stor­age con­tain­ers on the floor, but I had
the feel­ing Tripp hadn’t put them there. He had sis­ters. Maybe they had come to pre­pare the room for
me to pick up, a sort of pre-clean­ing to main­tain the fic­tion that Tripp had his shit togeth­er.
Which he decid­ed­ly did not.
I’d only been up there ten min­utes before I heard him com­ing.
I think that once in his life, Tripp had prob­a­bly been a lot like John. Not as pathet­ic, of course,
and blonder, hand­somer. Less like some­thing that grew in dark places behind the fridge. But there’s a
sim­i­lar vibe there, like he’d total­ly eat food with some­one else’s name on it, and I bet more than one
woman at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Alaba­ma had turned around sur­prised to sud­den­ly find Tripp Ingra­ham in
the door­way, had won­dered why some­one who looked so innocu­ous could sud­den­ly feel so scary.
But all the drink­ing had foiled Tripp on the creep­er front. I think he meant to sneak up on me there
in the “blue bed­room,” but I could hear his tread com­ing down the hall even though he was mov­ing
slow­ly, and, I think, try­ing to be qui­et.
Maybe don’t wear golf shoes on hard­wood floors, dum­b­ass, I thought to myself, but I was
smil­ing when I turned to face him there in the door­way.
“Is every­thing okay?” I asked, and his watery hazel eyes widened a lit­tle. There was a sour look
on his face, prob­a­bly because I’d ruined what­ev­er it was he’d hoped for. A girl­ish shriek maybe, me
drop­ping a box and clasp­ing my hands over my mouth, cheeks gone pink.
He would’ve liked that, prob­a­bly. Tripp Ingra­ham was, I had no doubt, the kind of ass­hole who
had jerked steer­ing wheels, jumped in ele­va­tors, pre­tend­ed to near­ly push girl­friends off high ledges.
I knew the type.
“You can pack up every­thing in here if you want,” Tripp says, rat­tling the glass in his plas­tic cup.
“None of this real­ly meant any­thing to Blanche.”
I can see that. It’s a pret­ty room, but there’s some­thing hotel-like about it. Like every­thing in here
has been select­ed for just how it looks, not any kind of per­son­al taste.
I glance over beside the bed, tak­ing in a lamp meant to look like an old-fash­ioned tin buck­et. The
shade is print­ed in a soft blue-and-green flo­ral pat­tern, and I could swear I’ve seen it before.
Wouldn’t sur­prise me—all the knick­knacks in these hous­es look the same. Except for in Eddie’s
house.
It strikes me then that actu­al­ly, every­thing in these hous­es seems to be a pale knock­off of the stuff
at Eddie’s, a Xerox machine slow­ly run­ning out of ink so that every­thing is a lit­tle fainter, a lit­tle less
dis­tinct.
And then I real­ize where I’d seen that tin buck­et lamp.
“That’s from South­ern Manors, isn’t it?” I ask, nod­ding toward the bed­side table. “I was look­ing
at their web­site the oth­er night, and—”
Tripp cuts me off with a rude noise, then tips the glass to his mouth again. When he low­ers it,
there’s a drop of bour­bon cling­ing to his scrag­gly mus­tache, and he licks it away, the pink flash of his
tongue mak­ing me gri­mace.
“No, that lamp was Blanche’s. Think it had been her mom’s or some­thing, picked it up at an estate
sale, I don’t know.” He shrugs, bel­ly jig­gling under his polo shirt. “Bea Rochester wouldn’t have
known an orig­i­nal idea if it bit her in her ass. All that shit, that ‘South­ern Manors’ thing. All that was
Blanche’s.”
I put down the half-emp­ty box. “What, like she copied Blanche’s style?”
Tripp scoffs at that, walk­ing far­ther into the room. The tip of his shoe catch­es an over­stuffed trash
bag by the door, tear­ing a tiny hole in it, and I watch as a bit of pink cloth oozes out.
“Copied, stole…” he says, wav­ing the cup at me. “They grew up togeth­er, you know. Went to
school at the same place, Ivy Ridge. I think they were even room­mates.”
Turn­ing back to the stack of books on the bed, I start plac­ing them in the box at my feet. “I heard
they were close,” I reply, won­der­ing just how much more info I can get out of Tripp Ingra­ham. He’s
the only one so far who hasn’t talked about Bea like the sun shone direct­ly from her ass, so I wouldn’t
mind hear­ing more of what he has to say. But gos­sip is tricky, slip­pery. Pre­tend to be too inter­est­ed,
and sud­den­ly you look sus­pi­cious. Act bored and non­cha­lant, some­times the per­son will clam up
total­ly, but then some­times they’re like Emi­ly Clark, eager to keep shar­ing, hop­ing to find the right
worm to bait the hook.
I don’t know what kind Tripp is, but he sits on the cor­ner of the bed, the mat­tress dip­ping with his
weight.
“Bea Rochester,” he mut­ters. “Her name was Bertha.”
I look up at that, tuck­ing my hair behind my ear, and he’s watch­ing me, his eyes bleary, but
def­i­nite­ly focused on my face.
“Seri­ous­ly?” I ask, and he nods. His leg is mov­ing up and down rest­less­ly, his hands twist­ing the
now emp­ty cup around and around.
“She changed it when she went to col­lege, appar­ent­ly. That’s what Blanche said. Came back to
Birm­ing­ham one day all, ‘Call me Bea.’” He sighs again, that leg still jig­gling. “And Blanche did.
Nev­er even men­tioned her real name to peo­ple far as I know.”
Bertha. The same sits heav­i­ly on the tongue, and I think back to those pic­tures I looked at last
night, those red lips, that shiny dark hair. She def­i­nite­ly didn’t look like a Bertha, and I couldn’t blame
her for want­i­ng to change it.
Plus, it was anoth­er thing we had in com­mon, anoth­er secret tucked against my chest. I hadn’t been
born “Jane,” after all. That oth­er, old­er name was so far behind me now that when­ev­er I heard it on
TV or in a store or on the radio, part of a snatch con­ver­sa­tion as I walked by peo­ple, I didn’t even

Through the dense, entan­gled jun­gles of the equa­to­r­i­al night, a for­mi­da­ble crea­ture moved silent­ly, its path lit only by the occa­sion­al gleam of its eyes reflect­ed by the moon­light. Ignor­ing its hunger, it ven­tured deter­mined­ly toward a native vil­lage, encir­cled by a pal­isade, where prepa­ra­tions for a grand feast stirred the air with excite­ment and antic­i­pa­tion. Inside one of the huts, Tarzan of the Apes lay bound, con­tem­plat­ing his immi­nent death and the fates of Jane and their son, left vul­ner­a­ble by his cap­ture. Despite sev­er­al vis­its from his neme­sis, Rokoff, who taunt­ed and abused him, Tarzan remained defi­ant, his mind rac­ing for any avenue of escape.

As night deep­ened, a pan­ther, Shee­ta, silent­ly infil­trat­ed Tarzan’s prison, offer­ing a momen­tary flick­er of hope but ulti­mate­ly fail­ing to under­stand the task of free­ing Tarzan. Instead, Shee­ta became dis­tract­ed by an approach­ing native, whom it bru­tal­ly killed, momen­tar­i­ly stalling the vil­lagers’ plans for Tarzan. Despite the inter­rup­tion, Rokoff and the vil­lagers soon ral­lied, drag­ging Tarzan to the stake in the vil­lage’s cen­ter for a sav­age rit­u­al intend­ed to cul­mi­nate in his death.

Rokoff took sadis­tic plea­sure in taunt­ing Tarzan about Jane’s sup­posed dan­ger, aim­ing to deep­en his despair with the prospect of his fam­i­ly’s suf­fer­ing. The cer­e­mo­ny began, war­riors danc­ing men­ac­ing­ly around Tarzan, spears at the ready. Yet, as the rit­u­al reached its cli­max, a dis­tant, pri­mal scream—answered by Tarzan—halted the pro­ceed­ings. Shee­ta, hav­ing momen­tar­i­ly fled, returned in a whirl­wind of fury, stand­ing pro­tec­tive­ly beside Tarzan. The sight of the fear­some pan­ther along­side the bound Tarzan struck a moment of ter­ror in the hearts of all present, paus­ing the dance of death in its tracks.