Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 15 plunges into a tense con­fronta­tion in the for­est where the pro­tag­o­nist faces the naga, ser­pen­tine crea­tures with humanoid traits known from omi­nous leg­ends. As these crea­tures emerge, reveal­ing their dark, scaly skin and flesh-shred­ding talons, the pro­tag­o­nist finds her­self along­side the Suriel, both regard­ed as prey. The naga, speak­ing of gifts and meals, hints at their dark inten­tions towards the Suriel and our pro­tag­o­nist, who is deter­mined not to go down with­out a fight.

Back­ing away with an arrow nocked in her bow, she plans her escape, all while the naga inch clos­er, rel­ish­ing the hunt. In moments of quick deci­sion-mak­ing, she man­ages to free the Suriel, caus­ing a dis­trac­tion but mak­ing her­self the pri­ma­ry tar­get. Despite her efforts to fight back, includ­ing a des­per­ate scream and a strate­gic shot with her bow, the naga’s over­whelm­ing num­bers and strength force her into a per­ilous retreat through the woods, where she bare­ly main­tains a lead over her pur­suers.

The chase height­ens as the pro­tag­o­nist engages in a lethal dance with the naga, uti­liz­ing every ounce of her sur­vival instincts. She deflects and attacks with her bow, even­tu­al­ly resort­ing to a knife in a grit­ty con­fronta­tion that leaves her blood­ied but fierce. Just as the sit­u­a­tion seems dire, Tam­lin, the High Lord, arrives with fero­cious might, dis­patch­ing the naga with swift, grue­some effi­cien­cy. The relief of his arrival does not erase the raw ter­ror of the encounter, nor the phys­i­cal and men­tal scars it leaves.

In the after­math, Tam­lin’s heal­ing touch and the real­i­ty of their escape bind them in a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and unspo­ken under­stand­ing. Despite the pro­tag­o­nist’s injuries and the shock of the attack, Tam­lin’s pres­ence offers not just phys­i­cal heal­ing but also a fleet­ing sense of secu­ri­ty amidst the chaos of their world. As they leave the scene of the bat­tle, the pro­tag­o­nist wears Tam­lin’s tunic, a sym­bol­ic ges­ture of his pro­tec­tion and a stark reminder of the bru­tal­i­ty they just sur­vived. This chap­ter weaves togeth­er themes of sur­vival, the bru­tal nature of their world, and the com­plex­i­ties of the pro­tag­o­nist’s rela­tion­ship with Tam­lin, each ele­ment skil­ful­ly con­tribut­ing to the nar­ra­tive’s ten­sion and emo­tion­al depth.

Chap­ter 15 delves deep into the intri­cate dance of mem­o­ry, fam­i­ly, and the pas­sage of time, inter­wo­ven with the artistry of bal­let and the phys­i­cal­i­ty of archi­tec­ture. The nar­ra­tive begins with May, a ded­i­cat­ed and tal­ent­ed young bal­le­ri­na who sees dance as her path to the stage, demon­strat­ing ear­ly suc­cess and ambi­tion by secur­ing a spot in the School of Amer­i­can Bal­let and per­form­ing as a mouse in the New York City Bal­let’s pro­duc­tion of *The Nut­crack­er*. Her ded­i­ca­tion cap­ti­vates her fam­i­ly, who sup­ports her with unwa­ver­ing enthu­si­asm, show­cas­ing the depth of their bond and the sac­ri­fices they’re will­ing to make for one anoth­er’s dreams.

The chap­ter then tran­si­tions to a detailed and nos­tal­gic account of attend­ing one of these per­for­mances, where the rich­ness of fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships is dis­played amid the back­drop of bal­let. This expe­ri­ence trig­gers a flood of mem­o­ries for the nar­ra­tor, con­nect­ing the present with traces of the past, illus­trat­ing how phys­i­cal spaces and per­for­mances can evoke deep emo­tion­al respons­es. The set of *The Nut­crack­er* eeri­ly mir­rors the Dutch House, the nar­ra­tor’s for­mer home, blur­ring the lines between mem­o­ry and real­i­ty, and empha­siz­ing the theme of how our envi­ron­ments shape and haunt us.

A health scare with Maeve after the bal­let fur­ther explores themes of fam­i­ly loy­al­ty and the com­plex­i­ties of car­ing for loved ones. This inci­dent serves as a cru­cial moment, high­light­ing the deep con­nec­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ties that bind the fam­i­ly togeth­er, despite past griev­ances and cur­rent chal­lenges.

The nar­ra­tive clos­es with a sym­bol­ic, ear­ly morn­ing vis­it to the Dutch House, dri­ven by a mix of nos­tal­gia and an attempt to con­front past demons. This vis­it cat­alyzes a moment of clar­i­ty for Maeve, who decides to let go of her attach­ment to the house and the pain asso­ci­at­ed with it. This deci­sion marks a piv­otal moment in the sto­ry, demon­strat­ing growth and the poten­tial for heal­ing, as Maeve pledges to move for­ward rather than remain anchored to the past. This chap­ter, rich with emo­tion­al depth and vivid imagery, encap­su­lates the intri­cate dance of life’s chal­lenges and the beau­ty that can be found in let­ting go and mov­ing for­ward.

In a small town where influ­en­tial fam­i­lies dic­tate the social and eco­nom­ic envi­ron­ment, the nar­ra­tive delves into the lives of the librar­i­ans of a pack­horse library. Kath­leen, after a day of fac­ing mixed reac­tions from the towns­peo­ple dur­ing her deliv­er­ies, returns to the library where she and her col­leagues, includ­ing Alice and Beth, nav­i­gate through their dai­ly chal­lenges and per­son­al inter­ac­tions with­in this com­mu­ni­ty. The chap­ter focus­es on the dynam­ics with­in the team, espe­cial­ly high­light­ing Alice’s grow­ing con­nec­tions and her encoun­ters with Mr. Van Cleve, a vocal oppo­nent of the library’s exis­tence and her per­son­al adver­sary.

Alice grap­ples with her place in the town, her unre­solved feel­ings for Fred, and the com­pli­ca­tions aris­ing from the town’s dis­ap­proval of their library. Mr. Van Cleve’s threats and admo­ni­tions reflect the broad­er soci­etal resis­tance they face, chal­leng­ing their mis­sion and per­son­al lives. This ten­sion is jux­ta­posed with Alice’s inter­nal con­flicts about her feel­ings for Fred and her desire to main­tain her inde­pen­dence and the library’s rep­u­ta­tion.

Sophia’s sto­ry pro­vides depth to the nar­ra­tive, reveal­ing the per­son­al loss­es and the resilience of those involved in the library’s work. Her his­to­ry of love and loss, along­side her deci­sion to return and con­tribute to the com­mu­ni­ty despite per­son­al grief, adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to the nov­el­’s explo­ration of human resilience and the impact of com­mu­ni­ty work.

The chap­ter also touch­es on the devel­op­ing roman­tic ten­sion between Alice and Fred, high­light­ing the soci­etal con­straints and per­son­al hes­i­ta­tions that com­pli­cate their rela­tion­ship. Fred’s ges­tures towards Alice, from offer­ing rides to set­ting up a pri­vate din­ner, under­line his affec­tions. How­ev­er, Alice’s reser­va­tions, root­ed in the fear of com­mu­ni­ty back­lash and her strug­gle with her past and future, cre­ate a poignant snap­shot of their bud­ding rela­tion­ship with­in the con­straints of their envi­ron­ment.

Margery and Sven’s strained rela­tion­ship under­scores the theme of per­son­al strug­gles amidst broad­er social chal­lenges. Their inter­ac­tions hint at under­ly­ing issues, empha­siz­ing how exter­nal pres­sures exac­er­bate per­son­al dilem­mas. This sto­ry­line runs par­al­lel to the main nar­ra­tive, rein­forc­ing the nov­el­’s explo­ration of human rela­tion­ships in a tight­ly knit com­mu­ni­ty.

As the librar­i­ans nav­i­gate through per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al hur­dles, their ded­i­ca­tion to the library’s mis­sion show­cas­es their com­mit­ment to their cause and to each oth­er, illus­trat­ing the strength found in com­mu­ni­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty. The chap­ter con­cludes on a hope­ful note, with Alice and Fred find­ing solace and com­pan­ion­ship in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, offer­ing a tem­po­rary escape from the con­straints of their sur­round­ings, and hint­ing at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of per­son­al hap­pi­ness amidst soci­etal dis­ap­proval.

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.

FIFTEEN
This Sat­ur­day after­noon, Nina is throw­ing a small PTA gath­er­ing in her
back­yard. They’re meet­ing up to plan some­thing called “field day” in which
the kids play in a field for a few hours, and some­how it takes months of
plan­ning to pre­pare for it. Nina has been talk­ing about it non­stop late­ly. And
she has texted me no less than a dozen times to remind me to pick up the
hors d’oeuvres.
I’m start­ing to get stressed because, as usu­al, the entire house was a
mess when I woke up this morn­ing. I don’t know how this house gets so
messy. Is Nina’s med­ica­tion treat­ing some sort of dis­or­der where she gets
up in the mid­dle of the night and makes a mess in the house? Is that a thing?
I don’t know how the bath­rooms get so bad overnight, for exam­ple.
When I come into her bath­room to clean in the morn­ing, there are usu­al­ly at
least three or four tow­els strewn on the floor, sop­ping wet. There’s usu­al­ly
tooth­paste caked into the sink that I have to scrub to get free. Nina has some
sort of aver­sion to throw­ing her clothes in the laun­dry bas­ket, so it takes me
a good ten min­utes to gath­er her bra, under­wear, pants, panty­hose, etc.
Thank God Andrew is bet­ter at get­ting his cloth­ing in the laun­dry bas­ket.
Then there’s the stuff that needs to be dry cleaned, of which there is a lot.
Nina doesn’t dis­tin­guish between the two, and God for­bid I make the wrong
deci­sion about what goes in the laun­dry machine and what needs to be run
to the dry clean­er. That would be a hang­ing offense.
The oth­er thing is the food wrap­pers. I find can­dy wrap­pers stuffed into
near­ly every crevice in her bed­room and bath­room. I sup­pose that explains
why Nina is fifty pounds heav­ier than she was in the pho­tographs of when
she and Andrew first met.
By the time I have cleaned the house top to bot­tom, dropped off the dry
clean­ing, and com­plet­ed the laun­dry and the iron­ing, I’m run­ning very short
on time. The women are going to arrive with­in the hour, and I’m still not
done with all the tasks Nina assigned me, includ­ing pick­ing up the hors
d’oeuvres. She’s not going to under­stand if I try to explain that to her.
Con­sid­er­ing she near­ly fired me last week when she caught me watch­ing
Fam­i­ly Feud with Andrew, I can’t afford to make any mis­takes. I’ve got to
make sure this after­noon is per­fect.
Then I get to the back­yard. The Win­ches­ters’ back­yard is one of the
most beau­ti­ful sights in the neigh­bor­hood. Enzo has done his job well—the
hedges are trimmed so pre­cise­ly, it’s like he used a ruler. Flow­ers dot the
edges of the yard, adding a pop of col­or. And the grass is so lush and green,
I’m half tempt­ed to lie down in it, wav­ing my arms around to make grass
angels.
But appar­ent­ly, they don’t spend much time out here, because all the
patio fur­ni­ture has a thick lay­er of dust on it. Every­thing has a thick lay­er of
dust on it.
Oh God, I do not have time to get every­thing done.
“Mil­lie? Are you okay?”
Andrew is stand­ing behind me, dressed casu­al­ly for a change, in a blue
polo shirt and kha­ki slacks. Some­how, he looks even bet­ter than he does in
an expen­sive suit.
“I’m fine,” I mum­ble. I shouldn’t even be talk­ing to him.
“You look like you’re about to cry,” he points out.
I wipe my eyes self-con­scious­ly with the back of my hand. “I’m fine.
There’s just a lot to do for this PTA meet­ing.”
“Aw, that’s not worth cry­ing over.” His brow crin­kles. “These PTA
women are nev­er going to be sat­is­fied no mat­ter what you do. They’re all
awful.”
That does not make me feel any bet­ter.
“Look, maybe I have a…” He digs around in his pock­et and pulls out a
crum­pled tis­sue. “I can’t believe I have a tis­sue in my pock­et, but here.”
I man­age a smile as I accept the tis­sue. As I dab my nose, I catch a whiff
of Andrew’s after­shave.
“Now,” he says, “what can I do to help?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I can han­dle it.”
“You’re cry­ing.” He props one of his feet up on the dirty chair.
“Seri­ous­ly, I’m not com­plete­ly use­less. Just tell me what you need me to
do.” When I hes­i­tate, he adds, “Look, we both want to make Nina hap­py,
right? This is how you make her hap­py. She’s not going to be hap­py if I let
you screw this up.”
“Fine,” I grum­ble. “It would be incred­i­bly help­ful if you could pick up
the hors d’oeuvres.”
“Done.”
It feels like a giant weight has been lift­ed from my shoul­ders. It was
going to take me twen­ty min­utes to get to the store to pick up the hors
d’oeuvres and twen­ty min­utes to get back. That would’ve left me only
fif­teen min­utes to clean this filthy patio fur­ni­ture. Could you imag­ine that
Nina sat in one of these chairs in one of her white out­fits?
“Thank you,” I say. “I real­ly, real­ly appre­ci­ate it. Real­ly.”
He grins at me. “Real­ly?”
“Real­ly, real­ly.”
Cecelia bursts into the back­yard that moment, wear­ing a light pink dress
with white trim. Like her moth­er, she doesn’t have so much as a hair out of
place. “Dad­dy,” she says.
He turns his gaze on Cecelia. “What’s up, Cece?”
“The com­put­er isn’t work­ing,” she says. “I can’t do my home­work. Can
you fix it?”
“I absolute­ly can.” He rests a hand on her shoul­der. “But first we are
going on a lit­tle road trip and it’s going to be super fun.”
She looks at him dubi­ous­ly.
He ignores her skep­ti­cism. “Go put on your shoes.”
It would have tak­en me half the day to con­vince Cecelia to put on her
shoes, but she obe­di­ent­ly goes back into the house to do what he says.
Cecelia is nice enough, as long as I’m not in charge of her.
“You’re good with her,” I com­ment.
“Thanks.”
“She looks a lot like you.”
Andrew shakes his head. “Not real­ly. She looks like Nina.”
“She does,” I insist. “She has Nina’s col­or­ing and hair, but she has your
nose.”
He toys with the hem of his polo shirt. “Cecelia isn’t my bio­log­i­cal
daugh­ter. So any resem­blance between the two of us is, you know,

Feyre awak­ens in Rhysand’s res­i­dence at Velaris, still pro­cess­ing her depar­ture from the Spring Court and grap­pling with her fatigue and trau­ma. Despite her heavy heart, she dress­es and joins Rhys, who briefs her on the city’s safe­ty and secre­cy; Velaris has been shield­ed from the out­side world, includ­ing Ama­ran­tha’s reign of ter­ror. Feyre is tak­en aback by the bustling, unscarred city, its vibrant mar­kets, and the artis­tic quar­ter known as the Rain­bow of Velaris, which pro­vokes a mix of long­ing and sor­row with­in her due to her own lost con­nec­tion to art.

Rhysand reveals details about his Inner Cir­cle and the hier­ar­chi­cal struc­ture of his court, empha­siz­ing the pow­er and sig­nif­i­cance of Amren, his sec­ond in com­mand, and Mor, his third. Feyre is intrigued yet appre­hen­sive about meet­ing them, mind­ful of Velar­is’s unstat­ed rules and her own volatile capa­bil­i­ties.

As they pre­pare to dine with the Inner Cir­cle at the House of Wind, Rhys empha­sizes the impor­tance of Feyre mak­ing her own deci­sions regard­ing her place in his court and her role in the poten­tial con­flict with Hybern. Despite Feyre’s resid­ual anger and des­o­la­tion, Rhys assures her of her auton­o­my and the pro­tec­tive, albeit secre­tive, nature of his rule.

Upon choos­ing to fly to the House of Wind rather than walk, Feyre expe­ri­ences both the thrill of flight and a brief, immer­sive under­stand­ing of Rhysand’s his­to­ry and his moth­er’s lega­cy. Their arrival prompts a silent con­tem­pla­tion of the city’s panoram­ic view, where Rhys shares his per­son­al reflec­tions on free­dom, loss, and the lurk­ing threat of war. This moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty under­scores the com­plex dynam­ic between Feyre and Rhysand, inter­twin­ing their per­son­al trau­mas with the broad­er polit­i­cal and mag­i­cal intrigues of their world.

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.

A WEEK INTO REHEARSALS, DON and I were lying in bed. He was
ask­ing how it was going, and I admit­ted that Celia was just as good as
I’d thought she’d be.
“Well, The Peo­ple of Mont­gomery Coun­ty is going to be num­ber one
again this week. I’m at the top of my game again. And my con­tract is
up at the end of this year. Ari Sul­li­van is will­ing to do what­ev­er I want
to make me hap­py. So just say the word, baby, and poof, she’s out of
there.”
“No,” I said to him, putting my hand on his chest and my head on
his shoul­der. “It’s OK. I’m the lead. She’s sup­port­ing. I’m not going to
wor­ry too much. And any­way, there’s some­thing I like about her.”
“There’s some­thing I like about you,” he said, pulling me on top of
him. And for a moment, all my wor­ries com­plete­ly dis­ap­peared.
The next day, when we broke for lunch, Joy and Ruby went off to
get turkey sal­ads. Celia caught my eye. “There’s no chance you’d want
to cut out and grab a milk shake, is there?” she asked.
The nutri­tion­ist at Sun­set would not have liked me get­ting a milk
shake. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.
Ten min­utes lat­er, we were in Celia’s baby-pink 1956 Chevy, mak­ing
our way to Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard. Celia was a ter­ri­ble dri­ver. I gripped
the door han­dle as if it was capa­ble of sav­ing my life.
Celia stopped at the light at Sun­set Boule­vard and Cahuen­ga. “I’m
think­ing Schwab’s,” she said with a grin.
Schwab’s was the place every­body hung around dur­ing the day
back then. And every­body knew that Sid­ney Skol­sky, from Pho­to­play,
worked out of Schwab’s almost every day.
Celia want­ed to be seen there. She want­ed to be seen there with
me.
“What kind of game are you play­ing?” I asked.
“I’m not play­ing any game,” she said, false­ly insult­ed that I’d
sug­gest such a thing.
“Oh, Celia,” I said, dis­miss­ing her with a wave of my hand. “I’ve
been at this a few more years than you. You’re the one who just fell off
the turnip truck. Don’t con­fuse us.”
The light turned green, and Celia gunned it.
“I’m from Geor­gia,” she said. “Just out­side of Savan­nah.”
“So?”
“I’m just say­ing, I didn’t fall off a turnip truck. I was scout­ed by a
guy from Para­mount back home.”
I found it some­what intimidating—maybe even threatening—that
some­one had flown out to woo her. I had made my way to town
through my own blood, sweat, and tears, and Celia had Hol­ly­wood
run­ning to her before she was even some­body.
“That may be so,” I said. “But I still know what game you’re
run­ning, hon­ey. Nobody goes to Schwab’s for the milk shakes.”
“Lis­ten,” she said, the tone of her voice chang­ing slight­ly, becom­ing
more sin­cere. “I could use a sto­ry or two. If I’m going to star in my
own movie soon, I need some name recog­ni­tion.”
“And this milk shake busi­ness is all just a ruse to be seen with me?”
I found it insult­ing. Both being used and being under­es­ti­mat­ed.
Celia shook her head. “No, not at all. I want­ed to go get a milk
shake with you. And then, when we pulled out of the lot, I thought, We
should go to Schwab’s.’ ”
Celia stopped abrupt­ly at the light at Sun­set and High­land. I
real­ized at that point that was just how she drove. A lead foot on both
the gas and the brake.
“Take a right,” I said.
“What?”
“Take a right.”
“Why?”
“Celia, take the god­damn right before I open this car door and
throw myself out of it.”
She looked at me like I was nuts, which was fair. I had just
threat­ened to kill myself if she didn’t put on her blink­er.
She turned right on High­land.
“Take a left at the light,” I said.
She didn’t ask ques­tions. She just put on her blink­er. And then she
spun onto Hol­ly­wood Boule­vard. I instruct­ed her to park the car on a
side road. We walked to CC Brown’s.
“They have bet­ter ice cream,” I said as we walked in.
I was putting her in her place. I wasn’t going to be pho­tographed
with her unless I want­ed to be, unless it was my idea. I cer­tain­ly wasn’t
going to be pushed around by some­body less famous than I was.
Celia nod­ded, feel­ing the sting.
The two of us sat down, and the guy behind the counter came up to
us, momen­tar­i­ly speech­less.
“Uh . . .” he said. “Do you want menus?”
I shook my head. “I know what I want. Celia?”
She looked at him. “Choco­late malt, please.”
I watched the way his eyes fixed on her, the way she bent for­ward
slight­ly with her arms togeth­er, empha­siz­ing her chest. She seemed
unaware of what she was doing, and that mes­mer­ized him even more.
“And I’ll have a straw­ber­ry milk shake,” I said.
When he looked at me, I saw his eyes open wider, as if he want­ed to
see as much of me as he could at one time.
“Are you . . . Eve­lyn Hugo?”
“No,” I said, and then I smiled and looked him right in the eye. It
was iron­ic and teas­ing, with the same tone and inflec­tion I’d used
count­less times when I was rec­og­nized around town.
He scat­tered away.
“Cheer up, but­ter­cup,” I said as I looked at Celia. She was star­ing
down at the glossy counter. “You’re get­ting a bet­ter milk shake out of
the deal.”
“I upset you,” she said. “With the Schwab’s thing. I’m sor­ry.”
“Celia, if you’re going to be as big as you clear­ly want to be, you
need to learn two things.”
“And what are they?”
“First, you have to push people’s bound­aries and not feel bad about
it. No one is going to give you any­thing if you don’t ask for it. You
tried. You were told no. Get over it.”
“And the sec­ond thing?”
“When you use peo­ple, be good at it.”
“I wasn’t try­ing to use you—”
“Yes, Celia, you were. And I’m fine with that. I wouldn’t have a
moment’s hes­i­ta­tion in using you. And I wouldn’t expect you to have a
sec­ond thought about using me. Do you know the dif­fer­ence between
the two of us?”
“There are a lot of dif­fer­ences between the two of us.”
“Do you know the one in par­tic­u­lar I’m talk­ing about?” I said.
“What is it?”
“That I know I use peo­ple. I’m fine with the idea of using peo­ple.
And all of that ener­gy that you spend try­ing to con­vince your­self that
you’re not using peo­ple I spend get­ting bet­ter at it.”
“And you’re proud of that?”
“I’m proud of where it’s got­ten me.”
“Are you using me? Now?”
“If I was, you’d nev­er know.”
“That’s why I’m ask­ing.”
The guy behind the counter came back with our milk shakes. He
appeared to have to give him­self a pep talk just to give them to us.
“No,” I said to Celia, once he was gone.
“No what?”
“No, I’m not using you.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Celia said. It struck me as painful­ly naive, the
way she so eas­i­ly, so read­i­ly believed me. I was telling the truth, but
still.
“Do you know why I’m not using you?” I said.
“This should be good,” Celia said as she took a sip of her shake. I
laughed, sur­prised by both the world-weari­ness in her voice and the
speed with which she spoke.
Celia would go on to win more Oscars than any­body else in our
cir­cle back then. And it was always for intense, dra­mat­ic roles. But I
always thought she’d be dyna­mite in a com­e­dy. She was so quick.
“The rea­son I’m not using you is that you have noth­ing to offer me.
Not yet, at least.”
Celia took a sip of her shake again, stung. And then I leaned
for­ward and took a sip of mine.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Celia said. “I’ll give you that you’re more
famous than me. Being mar­ried to Cap­tain Hol­ly­wood can have that
effect on a per­son. But oth­er than that, we’re at the same place,
Eve­lyn. You’ve turned in a cou­ple of good per­for­mances. So have I.
And now we’re in a movie togeth­er, which both of us took on because
we want an Acad­e­my Award. And let’s be hon­est, I have a leg up on
you in that regard.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’m a bet­ter actress.”
I stopped sip­ping the thick shake through the straw and turned
myself toward her.
“How do you fig­ure that?”
Celia shrugged. “It’s not some­thing we can mea­sure, I sup­pose. But
it’s true. I’ve seen One More Day. You’re real­ly good. But I’m bet­ter.
And you know I’m bet­ter. That’s why you and Don almost had me
kicked off the project.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Ruby told me.”
I wasn’t mad at Ruby for telling Celia what I’d told her, the same
way you’re not mad at a dog for bark­ing at a mail­man. That’s just what
they do.
“Oh, fine. So you’re a bet­ter actress than me. And sure, maybe Don
and I dis­cussed get­ting you fired. So what? Big deal.”
“Well, that’s just my point exact­ly. I’m more tal­ent­ed than you, and
you’re more pow­er­ful than me.”
“So?”
“So you’re right, I’m not very good at using peo­ple. So I’m try­ing
this a dif­fer­ent way. Let’s help each oth­er out.”
I sipped my milk shake again, mild­ly intrigued. “How so?” I said.
“After hours, I’ll help you with your scenes. I’ll teach you what I
know.”
“And I go with you to Schwab’s?”
“You help me do what you’ve done. Become a star.”
“But then what?” I said. “We both end up famous and tal­ent­ed?
Com­pet­ing for every job in town?”
“I sup­pose that is one option.”
“And the oth­er?”
“I real­ly like you, Eve­lyn.”
I looked at her side­ways.
She laughed at me. “I know that’s prob­a­bly not some­thing most
actress­es mean in this town, but I don’t want to be like most actress­es.
I real­ly like you. I like watch­ing you on-screen. I like how the moment
you show up in a scene, I can’t look at any­thing else. I like the way
your skin is too dark for your blond hair, the way the two shouldn’t go
togeth­er and yet seem so nat­ur­al on you. And to be hon­est, I like how
cal­cu­lat­ing and awful you kind of are.”
“I am not awful!”
Celia laughed. “Oh, you def­i­nite­ly are. Get­ting me fired because you
think I’ll show you up? Awful. That’s just awful, Eve­lyn. And walk­ing
around brag­ging about how you use peo­ple? Just ter­ri­ble. But I real­ly
like it when you talk about it. I like how hon­est you are, how
unashamed. So many women around here are full of crap with
every­thing they say and do. I like that you’re full of crap only when it
gets you some­thing.”
“This laun­dry list of com­pli­ments seems to have a lot of insults in
it,” I said.
Celia nod­ded, hear­ing me. “You know what you want, and you go
after it. I don’t think there is any­one in this town doubt­ing that Eve­lyn
Hugo is going to be the biggest star in Hol­ly­wood one of these days.
And that’s not just because you’re some­thing to look at. It’s because
you decid­ed you want­ed to be huge, and now you’re going to be. I want
to be friends with a woman like that. That’s what I’m say­ing. Real
friends. None of this Ruby Reil­ly, back­stab­bing, talk­ing-about-each-
oth­er-behind-our-backs crap. Friend­ship. Where each of us gets bet­ter,
lives bet­ter, because we know the oth­er.”
I con­sid­ered her. “Do we have to do each other’s hair and stuff like
that?”
“Sun­set pays peo­ple to do that. So no.”
“Do I have to lis­ten to your man trou­bles?”

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.

15
To get my con�dence back, in Sep­tem­ber 2002 I went to Milan to vis­it
Donatel­la Ver­sace. That trip invig­o­rat­ed me—it remind­ed me that there was still
fun to be had in the world. We drank amaz­ing wine and ate amaz­ing food.
Donatel­la was a dynam­ic host. I was hop­ing things would turn around a lit­tle bit
from that point.
She had invit­ed me to Italy to attend one of her run­way shows. Donatel­la
dressed me in a beau­ti­ful spark­ly rain­bow dress. I was sup­posed to sing but I
real­ly didn’t feel like it, so after I did a lit­tle bit of pos­ing, Donatel­la said we
could take it easy. She played my cov­er of Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” I
said hi to the mod­els, and we were done.
Then it was time to par­ty. Donatel­la is known for her lav­ish par­ties, and this
one was no excep­tion. I remem­ber see­ing Lenny Kravitz there, all these cool
peo­ple. That par­ty was real­ly the �rst thing I did to put myself out there a bit
after the breakup with Justin—on my own, inno­cent.
Dur­ing the par­ty I noticed a guy and I remem­ber think­ing he was so cute. He
looked like he was prob­a­bly Brazil­ian: dark hair, hand­some, smok­ing a blunt—
your typ­i­cal bad boy. He was noth­ing like the LA actor types I’d known—he was
more like a real man, the kind of man you have a one-night stand with. He was
just sex.
When I �rst noticed him, he was o� talk­ing to these two girls, but I could tell
he want­ed to talk to me.
Even­tu­al­ly we start­ed talk­ing, and I decid­ed I’d like to have drinks with him at
my hotel. We head­ed to my car, but dur­ing the dri­ve, he did some­thing that just
turned me o�—honestly, I can’t even remem­ber what it was. But it was one lit­tle
thing that real­ly irri­tat­ed me, so I told the dri­ver to pull over, and with­out say­ing
a word, I kicked the guy out on the side of the road and left him there.
Now that I’m a mom, I’d nev­er do any­thing like that—I’d be more like “I’ll
drop you o� at this place at this time…” But back then, at twen­ty years of age, it
was pure instinct. I’d made a bad mis­take let­ting this stranger inside my car, and
I kicked him out.
Soon after my return, Justin was prepar­ing to release his solo album Jus­ti­fied. On
20/20 he played an unre­leased song for Bar­bara Wal­ters called “Don’t Go
(Hor­ri­ble Woman)” that seemed to be about me: “I thought our love was so
strong. I guess I was dead wrong. But to look at it pos­i­tive­ly, hey girl, at least you
gave me a song about anoth­er Hor­ri­ble Woman.”
Less than a month lat­er, he released the video for his song “Cry Me a Riv­er,”
in which a woman who looks like me cheats on him and he wan­ders around sad
in the rain. In the news media, I was described as a har­lot who’d bro­ken the heart
of America’s gold­en boy. The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was
hap­pi­ly run­ning around Hol­ly­wood.
May I just say that on his explo­sive album and in all the press that sur­round­ed
it, Justin neglect­ed to men­tion the sev­er­al times he’d cheat­ed on me?
There’s always been more lee­way in Hol­ly­wood for men than for women.
And I see how men are encour­aged to talk trash about women in order to
become famous and pow­er­ful. But I was shat­tered.
The thought of my betray­ing him gave the album more angst, gave it a
pur­pose: shit-talk­ing an unfaith­ful woman. The hip-hop world of that era loved
a sto­ry­line with the theme “Fuck you, bitch!” Get­ting revenge on women for
per­ceived dis­re­spect was all the rage at the time. Eminem’s vio­lent revenge song
“Kim” was huge. The only prob­lem with the nar­ra­tive was that, in our case, it
wasn’t like that.
“Cry Me a Riv­er” did very well. Every­one felt very sor­ry for him. And it
shamed me.
I felt there was no way at the time to tell my side of the sto­ry. I couldn’t
explain, because I knew no one would take my side once Justin had con­vinced
the world of his ver­sion.
I don’t think Justin real­ized the pow­er he had in sham­ing me. I don’t think
he under­stands to this day.
After “Cry Me a Riv­er” came out, any­where I went, I could get booed. I
would go to clubs and I would hear boos. Once I went to a Lak­ers game with my
lit­tle sis­ter and one of my brother’s friends, and the whole place, the whole
are­na, booed me.
Justin told every­one that he and I had had a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship, which some
peo­ple have point­ed out depict­ed me as not only a cheat­ing slut but also a liar
and hyp­ocrite. Giv­en that I had so many teenage fans, my man­agers and press
peo­ple had long tried to por­tray me as an eter­nal virgin—never mind that Justin
and I had been liv­ing togeth­er, and I’d been hav­ing sex since I was four­teen.
Was I mad at being “out­ed” by him as sex­u­al­ly active? No. To be hon­est with
you, I liked that Justin said that. Why did my man­agers work so hard to claim I
was some kind of young-girl vir­gin even into my twen­ties? Whose busi­ness was it
if I’d had sex or not?
I’d appre­ci­at­ed it when Oprah told me on her show that my sex­u­al­i­ty was no
one else’s busi­ness, and that when it came to vir­gin­i­ty, “you don’t need a world
announce­ment if you change your mind.”
Yes, as a teenag­er I played into that por­tray­al, because every­one was mak­ing
such a big deal out of it. But if you think about it, it was pret­ty stu­pid for peo­ple
to describe my body in that way, for them to point to me and say, “Look! A
vir­gin!” It’s nobody’s busi­ness at all. And it took the focus o� me as a musi­cian
and per­former. I worked so hard on my music and on my stage shows. But all
some reporters could think of to ask me was whether or not my breasts were real
(they were, actu­al­ly) and whether or not my hymen was intact.
The way Justin admit­ted to every­one that we’d had a sex­u­al rela­tion­ship
broke the ice and made it so that I nev­er had to come out myself as a non-vir­gin.
His talk­ing about our hav­ing had sex nev­er both­ered me at all, and I’ve defend­ed
him to peo­ple who crit­i­cized him for doing it. “That’s so rude!” peo­ple have said
about his talk­ing about me sex­u­al­ly. But I liked it. What I heard when he said
that was “She’s a woman. No, she’s not a vir­gin. Shut up.”
As a child, I’d always had a guilty con­science, a lot of shame, a sense that my
fam­i­ly thought I was just plain bad. The sad­ness and the lone­li­ness that would
hit me felt like my fault some­how, like I deserved unhap­pi­ness and bad luck. I
knew the truth of our rela­tion­ship was noth­ing like how it was being por­trayed,
but I still imag­ined that if I was su�ering, I must have deserved it. Along the line,
sure­ly I’d done bad things. I believe in kar­ma, and so when bad things hap­pen, I
imag­ine that it’s just the law of kar­ma catch­ing up with me.
I’ve always been almost dis­turbing­ly empath­ic. What peo­ple are feel­ing in
Nebras­ka, I can sub­con­scious­ly feel even though I’m thou­sands of miles away.
Some­times women’s peri­ods sync up; I feel like my emo­tions are always sync­ing
up with those around me. I don’t know what hip­pie word you want to use for it
—cos­mic con­scious­ness, intu­ition, psy­chic con­nec­tion. All I know is that, 100
per­cent, I can feel the ener­gy of oth­er peo­ple. I can’t help but take it in.
At this point, you might be say­ing to your­self, “Oh my God, is she real­ly
going to talk about this New Age stu�?”
Only for one more minute.
Because the point is, I was so sen­si­tive, and I was so young, and I was still
reel­ing from the abor­tion and the breakup; I didn’t han­dle things well. Justin
framed our time togeth­er with me as the bad guy, and I believed it, so ever since
then, I’ve felt like I’m under a sort of curse.
And yet, I also start­ed to hope that if that were true, if I had so much bad
kar­ma, it might be up to me—as an adult, as a woman—to reverse my luck, to
bring myself good for­tune.
I couldn’t stand it any­more, so I escaped to Ari­zona with a girl­friend. That
girl­friend hap­pened to have been dat­ing Justin’s best friend, and we’d all bro­ken
up around the same time, so we’d decid­ed to take a road trip to get away from all
of it. We found each oth­er and decid­ed that we would leave it all behind.
Giv­en what she’d been through, my friend was heart­bro­ken, too, so we talked
a lot, beside our­selves with grief and lone­li­ness, and I was grate­ful for her
friend­ship.

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 15
Patri­cia only knew one per­son who owned a white van. She dropped
Kit­ty off at See­wee Farms and with a heavy sense of dread drove to
the Old Vil­lage, turned onto Mid­dle Street, and slowed to look at
James Harris’s house. Instead of the white van in his front yard, she
saw a red Chevy Cor­si­ca parked on the grass, glow­ing like a pud­dle of
fresh blood beneath the angry late-after­noon sun. She drove by at
five miles an hour, squint­ing painful­ly at the Cor­si­ca, will­ing it to
turn back into a white van.
Of course, Grace knew exact­ly where to find her note­book.
“I know it’s prob­a­bly noth­ing,” Patri­cia said, step­ping into Grace’s
front hall, pulling the door shut behind her. “I hate to even both­er
you, but I have this ter­ri­ble thought gnaw­ing at me and I need to
check.”
Grace peeled off her yel­low rub­ber gloves, opened the draw­er of
her hall table, and pulled out a spi­ral-bound note­book.
“Do you want some cof­fee?” she asked.
“Please,” Patri­cia said, tak­ing the note­book and fol­low­ing Grace
into her kitchen.
“Let me just make some room,” Grace said.
The kitchen table was cov­ered in news­pa­per and in the mid­dle
stood two plas­tic tubs lined with tow­els, one filled with soapy water,
the oth­er filled with clean. Antique chi­na lay on the table in order­ly
rows, sur­round­ed by cot­ton rags and rolls of paper tow­el.
“I’m clean­ing Grandmother’s wed­ding chi­na today,” Grace said,
care­ful­ly mov­ing the frag­ile teacups to make room for Patri­cia. “It
takes a long time to do it the old-fash­ioned way, but any­thing worth
doing is worth doing well.”
Patri­cia sat down, cen­tered Grace’s note­book in front of her, then
flipped it open. Grace set her mug of cof­fee down, and bit­ter steam
stung Patricia’s nos­trils.
“Milk and sug­ar?” Grace asked.
“Both, please,” Patri­cia said, not look­ing up.
Grace put the cream and sug­ar next to Patri­cia, then went back to
her rou­tine. The only sound was gen­tle slosh­ing as she dipped each
piece of chi­na into the soapy water, then the clean. Patri­cia paged
through her note­book. Every page was cov­ered in Grace’s metic­u­lous
cur­sive, every entry sep­a­rat­ed by a blank line. They all start­ed with a
date, and then came a descrip­tion of the vehicle—Black boxy car,
Tall red sports vehi­cle, Unusu­al truck-type automobile—followed by
a license plate num­ber.
Patricia’s cof­fee cooled as she read—Irregular green car with
large wheels, Per­haps a jeep, Needs washing—and then her heart
stopped and blood drained from her brain.
April 8, 1993, the entry read. Ann Savage’s House—parked on
grass—White Dodge Van with drug deal­er win­dows, Texas, TNX
13S.
A high-pitched whine filled Patricia’s ears.
“Grace,” she said. “Would you read this, please?”
She turned the note­book toward Grace.
“He killed her grass park­ing on it like that,” Grace said, after she
read the entry. “Her lawn is nev­er going to recov­er.”
Patri­cia pulled a sticky note from her pock­et and placed it next to
the note­book. It read, Mrs. Greene—white van, Texas plate, — - X
13S.
“Mrs. Greene wrote down this par­tial license plate num­ber from a
car she saw in Six Mile last week,” Patri­cia said. “Kit­ty went with me
to take her a pie and she scorched our ears with this sto­ry. One of the
chil­dren at Six Mile com­mit­ted sui­cide after he was sick for a long
time.”
“How trag­ic,” Grace said.
“His cousin was mur­dered, too,” Patri­cia said. “At the same time,
they saw a white van dri­ving around with this license plate num­ber.
It nig­gled at the back of my mind, think­ing where else I’d seen a
white van, and then I remem­bered James Har­ris had one. He’s got a
red car now, but these plates match his van.”
“I don’t know what you’re imply­ing,” Grace said.
“I don’t either,” Patri­cia said.
James Har­ris had told her his ID was being mailed to him. She
won­dered if it had ever arrived, but it must have, oth­er­wise how had
he bought a car? Was he dri­ving around with­out a license? Or had he
lied to her about not hav­ing any ID? She won­dered why some­one
wouldn’t use their iden­ti­fi­ca­tion to open a bank or a util­i­ty account.
She thought about that bag of cash. The only rea­son she thought it
belonged to Ann Sav­age was because he said so.
They had read too many books about mafia hit men mov­ing to the
sub­urbs under assumed names and drug deal­ers liv­ing qui­et­ly
among their unsus­pect­ing neigh­bors for Patri­cia not to start
con­nect­ing dots. You kept your name off pub­lic records if you were
want­ed for some­thing by the gov­ern­ment. You had a bag of mon­ey
because that was how you had been paid, and peo­ple who got paid in
cash were either hit men, drug deal­ers, bank robbers—or wait­ers, she
sup­posed. But James Har­ris didn’t seem like a wait­er.
Then again, he was their friend and neigh­bor. He talked about
Nazis with Blue and drew her son out of his shell. He ate with them
when Carter wasn’t home and made her feel safe. He had come
around the house to check on them that night some­one got on the
roof.
“I don’t know what to think,” she repeat­ed to Grace, who dipped a
serv­ing plat­ter in the soapy water and tilt­ed it from side to side.
“Mrs. Greene told us that a Cau­casian male is com­ing into Six Mile
and doing some­thing to the chil­dren that makes them sick. She
thinks he might be dri­ving a white van. And it’s only been hap­pen­ing
since May. That’s right after James Har­ris moved here.”
“You’re under the influ­ence of this month’s book,” Grace said,
lift­ing the plat­ter out of the soapy water and rins­ing it in the tub of
clean. “James Har­ris is our neigh­bor. He is Ann Savage’s
grand­nephew. He is not dri­ving out to Six Mile and doing some­thing
to their chil­dren.”
“Of course not,” Patri­cia said. “But you read about drug deal­ers
liv­ing around nor­mal peo­ple, or sex abusers both­er­ing chil­dren and
get­ting away with it for so long, and you start to won­der what we
real­ly know about any­one. I mean, James Har­ris says he grew up all
around, but then says he grew up in South Dako­ta. He says he lived
in Ver­mont, but his van had Texas plates.”
“You have suf­fered two ter­ri­ble blows this sum­mer,” Grace said,
lift­ing the plat­ter and gen­tly dry­ing it. “Your ear has bare­ly healed.
You are still griev­ing for Miss Mary. This man is not a crim­i­nal based
on when he moved here and the license plate of a pass­ing car.”
“Isn’t that how every ser­i­al killer gets away with it for so long?”
Patri­cia asked. “Every­one ignores the lit­tle things and Ted Bundy
keeps killing women until final­ly some­one does what they should
have done in the first place and con­nects the lit­tle things that didn’t
add up, but by then it’s too late.”
Grace set the gleam­ing plat­ter on the table. Creamy white, it
fea­tured bright­ly col­ored but­ter­flies and a pair of birds on a branch,
all picked out in del­i­cate, near-invis­i­ble brush­strokes.
“This is real,” Grace said, run­ning one fin­ger along its rim. “It’s
sol­id, and it’s whole, and my grand­moth­er received it as a wed­ding
gift, and she gave it to my moth­er, and she passed it down to me, and
when the time comes, if I deem her appro­pri­ate, I’ll hand it down to
whomev­er Ben mar­ries. Focus on the real things in your life and I
promise you’ll feel bet­ter.”
“I didn’t tell you this,” Patri­cia said, “but when I met him he
showed me a bag of mon­ey. Grace, he had over eighty thou­sand
dol­lars in there. In cash. Who has that just lying around?”
“What did he say?” Grace asked, dip­ping a tureen lid in the soapy
water.
“He told me he’d found it in the crawl space. That it was Ann
Savage’s nest egg.”
“She nev­er struck me as the kind of woman who’d trust a bank,”
Grace said, rins­ing the tureen lid in clean water.
“Grace, it doesn’t add up!” Patri­cia said. “Stop clean­ing and lis­ten
to me. At what point do we get con­cerned?”
“Nev­er,” Grace said, dry­ing the tureen lid. “Because you are
spin­ning a fan­ta­sy out of coin­ci­dences to dis­tract your­self from
real­i­ty. I under­stand that some­times real­i­ty can be over­whelm­ing,
but it must be faced.”
“I’m the one fac­ing it,” Patri­cia said.
“No,” Grace said. “You stood right there on my front porch after
book club two months ago and said you wished that a crime or
some­thing excit­ing would hap­pen here because you couldn’t stand
your rou­tine. And now you’ve con­vinced your­self some­thing
dan­ger­ous is hap­pen­ing so you can act like a detec­tive.”
Grace picked up a stack of saucers and began plac­ing them in the
soapy water.
“Can’t you stop clean­ing chi­na for a sec­ond and admit that maybe
I’m right about this?” Patri­cia asked.
“No,” Grace said. “I can’t. Because I need to be fin­ished by 5:30 so
I can clear off the table and set it for sup­per. Bennett’s com­ing home
at six.”
“There are more impor­tant things than clean­ing,” Patri­cia said.
Grace stopped, hold­ing the last two saucers in her hand, and
turned on Patri­cia, eyes blaz­ing.
“Why do you pre­tend what we do is noth­ing?” she asked. “Every
day, all the chaos and messi­ness of life hap­pens and every day we
clean it all up. With­out us, they would just wal­low in filth and
dis­or­der and noth­ing of any con­se­quence would ever get done. Who
taught you to sneer at that? I’ll tell you who. Some­one who took their
moth­er for grant­ed.”
Grace glared at Patri­cia, nos­trils flar­ing.
“I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just
wor­ried about James Har­ris.”
Grace put the last two saucers in the soapy water bin.
“I’ll tell you every­thing you need to know about James Har­ris,” she
said. “He lives in the Old Vil­lage. With us. There isn’t any­thing wrong
with him because peo­ple who have some­thing wrong with them don’t
live here.”
Patri­cia hat­ed that she couldn’t put into words this feel­ing gnaw­ing
at her guts. She felt fool­ish that she couldn’t shift Grace’s cer­tain­ty
even for a moment.
“Thank you for putting up with me,” she said. “I need to start
sup­per.”
“Vac­u­um your cur­tains,” Grace said. “No one ever does it enough. I
promise it’ll make you feel bet­ter.”
Patri­cia want­ed that to be true very bad­ly.
—
“Mom,” Blue said from the liv­ing room door. “What’s for sup­per?”
“Food,” Patri­cia said from the sofa.
“Is it chick­en again?” he asked.
“Is chick­en food?” Patri­cia replied, not look­ing up from her book.
“We had chick­en last night,” Blue said. “And the night before. And
the night before that.”
“Maybe tonight will be dif­fer­ent,” Patri­cia said.
She heard Blue’s foot­steps retreat to the hall, walk into the den, go
into the kitchen. Ten sec­onds lat­er he reap­peared at the liv­ing room
door.
“There’s chick­en defrost­ing in the sink,” he said in an accusato­ry
tone.
“What?” Patri­cia asked, look­ing up from her book.
“We’re hav­ing chick­en again,” he said.
A pang of guilt twist­ed through Patri­cia. He was right—she’d made
noth­ing but chick­en all week. They’d order piz­za. It was just the two
of them and it was a Fri­day night.
“I promise,” she said. “We’re not hav­ing chick­en.”
He gave her a side­ways look, then went back upstairs and slammed
his bed­room door. Patri­cia went back to her book: The Stranger
Beside Me: The Shock­ing Inside Sto­ry of Ser­i­al Killer Ted Bundy.
The more she read, the more uncer­tain she felt about every­thing in
her life, but she couldn’t stop.
Not-quite-book-club loved Ann Rule, of course, and her Small
Sac­ri­fices had long been one of their favorites, but they’d nev­er read
the book that made her famous, and Kit­ty was shocked when she
found out.
“Y’all,” Kit­ty had said. “She was just a house­wife who wrote about
mur­ders for crum­my detec­tive mag­a­zines, and then she got a deal to
write about these coed mur­ders hap­pen­ing all over Seat­tle. Well, she
winds up find­ing out that the main sus­pect is her best friend at a
sui­cide hot­line where she works—Ted Bundy.”
He wasn’t Ann Rule’s best friend, just a good friend, Patri­cia
learned as she read, but oth­er­wise every­thing Kit­ty said was true.
That just goes to show, Grace had pro­nounced, when­ev­er you call
one of those so-called hot­lines, you have no clue who’s on the oth­er
end of that phone. It could be any­one.
But the fur­ther she got into the book, the more Patri­cia won­dered
not how Ann Rule could have missed the clues that her good friend
was a ser­i­al killer, but how well she her­self actu­al­ly knew the men
around her. Slick had called Patri­cia last week, breath­less, because
Kit­ty had sold her a set of her Grand­moth­er Roberts’s sil­ver but
asked her not to men­tion it to any­one. It was William Hut­ton and
Slick couldn’t help herself—she need­ed some­one to know that she’d
got­ten it for a song. She’d cho­sen Patri­cia.
Kit­ty told me she need­ed extra mon­ey to send the chil­dren to
sum­mer camp, Slick had said over the phone. Do you think they’re
in trou­ble? See­wee Farms is expen­sive, and it’s not like Horse
works.
Horse seemed so sol­id and depend­able, but appar­ent­ly he was
spend­ing all his family’s mon­ey on trea­sure-hunt­ing expe­di­tions
while Kit­ty snuck around sell­ing off fam­i­ly heir­looms to pay camp
fees. Blue would grow up to go to col­lege and play sports and meet a
nice girl one day who would nev­er know he was once so obsessed
with Nazis he couldn’t talk about any­thing else.
She knew that Carter spent so much time at the hos­pi­tal because
he want­ed to be head of psy­chi­a­try, but she won­dered what else he
did there. She was rel­a­tive­ly sure he wasn’t see­ing a woman, but she
also knew that since his moth­er had died he was spend­ing few­er and
few­er hours at home. Was he at the hos­pi­tal every time he said he
was? It shocked her to real­ize how lit­tle she knew about what he did
between leav­ing the house in the morn­ing and com­ing home at night.
What about Ben­nett, and Leland, and Ed, who all seemed so
nor­mal? She was start­ing to won­der if any­one real­ly knew what
peo­ple were like on the inside.
She ordered piz­za and let Blue watch The Sound of Music after
sup­per. He only liked the scenes with the Nazis and knew exact­ly
when and where to fast-for­ward so the three-hour movie flew by in
fifty-five min­utes. Then he went upstairs to his room and closed the
door, and did what­ev­er it was he did in there these days, and
Patricia’s mood dark­ened while she washed the dish­es. It was too late
to run the vac­u­um clean­er and vac­u­um her cur­tains, so she decid­ed
to take a quick walk. With­out mean­ing to, her feet took her right past
James Harris’s house. His car wasn’t out front. Had he dri­ven up to
Six Mile? Was he see­ing Des­tiny Tay­lor right this minute?
Her head felt dirty. She didn’t like think­ing these thoughts. She
tried to remem­ber what Grace had said. James Har­ris had moved
here to take care of his sick great-aunt. He had decid­ed to stay. He
wasn’t a drug deal­er, or a child moles­ter, or a mafia hit man in
hid­ing, or a ser­i­al killer. She knew that. But when she got home she
went upstairs, took out her day plan­ner, and count­ed the days. She
had tak­en the casse­role to James Harris’s house and seen Francine
on May 15, the day Mrs. Greene said she went miss­ing.
Every­thing felt wrong. Carter was nev­er home. Mrs. Sav­age had
bit­ten off a piece of her ear. Miss Mary had died ter­ri­bly. Francine
had run away with a man. An eight-year-old boy had killed him­self. A
lit­tle girl might do the same. This wasn’t any of her busi­ness. But
who looked out for the chil­dren? Even the ones who weren’t their
own?
She called Mrs. Greene and part of her hoped she wouldn’t pick
up. But she did.
“I’m sor­ry to call after nine,” she apol­o­gized. “But how well do you
know Des­tiny Taylor’s moth­er?”
“Wan­da Tay­lor isn’t some­one I spend a lot of time think­ing about,”
Mrs. Greene said.
“Do you think we could talk to her about her daugh­ter?” Patri­cia
asked. “That license plate you saw, I think it belongs to a man who
lives here. James Har­ris. Francine worked for him and I saw her at
his house on May 15. And there are some fun­ny things with him. I
won­der if we could talk to Des­tiny, maybe she could tell us if she’d
seen him out at Six Mile.”
“Peo­ple don’t like strangers ask­ing after their chil­dren,” Mrs.
Greene said.
“We’re all moth­ers,” Patri­cia said. “If some­thing were hap­pen­ing
to one of ours and some­one thought they knew some­thing, wouldn’t
you want to know? And if it turns out to be noth­ing, all we’ve done is
both­er her on a Fri­day night. It’s not even ten.”
There was a long pause, and then:
“Her light’s still on,” Mrs. Greene said. “Get out here quick and
let’s get this over with.”
Patri­cia found Blue in his room, sit­ting on his bean­bag chair,
read­ing The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
“I need to run out for a lit­tle while,” Patri­cia said. “Just to the
church. There’s a meet­ing of the dea­cons I for­got. Will you be okay?”
“Is Dad home?” Blue asked.

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.

15
We have the next meet­ing for the Neigh­bor­hood Beau­ti­fi­ca­tion Com­mit­tee at Eddie’s house.
My house. Some­times I think of it like that. But think­ing it and actu­al­ly feel­ing it are two dif­fer­ent
things, and as I car­ry our emp­ty wine­glass­es to the sink once the meet­ing is over, I can’t shake the
feel­ing that I’m right back where I start­ed: a ser­vant, rather than the lady of the house.
The meet­ing was most­ly point­less, and I think the ladies only agreed to it for the chance to get
back inside this place. The whole time we’d been sit­ting in the liv­ing room, talk­ing about Pin­ter­est
boards and “Fes­tive Fall Fun Décor,” I’d felt their eyes cat­a­logu­ing what was gone, what was new.
Camp­bell and Emi­ly linger after the oth­er women have gone home, say­ing it’s to help me pick up,
but I know it’s to do some more dig­ging.
“This place looks great,” Camp­bell says, putting our wine bot­tle in the recy­cling. “I mean, it
always did, but it just feels brighter now, doesn’t it, Em?”
Emi­ly hums, nod­ding as she sips the last of the wine from her glass. “Total­ly.”
The house can’t look any dif­fer­ent from how it did the last time they were in here. There might be
a few pic­tures miss­ing, but it’s not like I’ve gone on a redec­o­rat­ing spree.
I can’t tell if they’re being nice or fish­ing, so I decide to do a lit­tle fish­ing myself.
“Every­thing was so gor­geous that I didn’t real­ly want to change any­thing. Bea real­ly had excel­lent
taste.” A self-con­scious lit­tle laugh for effect. “I mean, I guess that was her whole career, hav­ing
excel­lent taste.”
Emi­ly and Camp­bell share a glance I pre­tend not to see.
“She did know how to put things togeth­er,” Camp­bell agrees at last, com­ing to stand next to me at
the kitchen counter, prop­ping her elbows on the gran­ite. “But you know what? I always thought
Blanche’s place was even cuter. No offense, Jane,” she hur­ries to say, and I wave it off even as I think
back to the Ingra­hams’. There was some cute stuff there, for sure, but maybe Tripp had made
every­thing so grub­by I hadn’t been able to see it.
“God, remem­ber how pissed Blanche was when Bea’s liv­ing room got the big Birm­ing­ham
Mag­a­zine spread at Christ­mas?” Camp­bell says, and I see Emi­ly look over at me for just a sec­ond.
“Blanche was fun­ny about Christ­mas,” she replies del­i­cate­ly, and Camp­bell pulls a face.
“Blanche was fun­ny about Bea.”
Turn­ing to me, Camp­bell tucks her hair behind one ear. “Sor­ry. We’re just here in your kitchen
rehash­ing old gos­sip, aren’t we?”
“I don’t mind,” I say, and I real­ly don’t. I feel like I keep get­ting these glimpses of Bea and
Blanche that don’t line up with what I thought I knew, and I want more of them. Maybe if I can paint a
full pic­ture of Bea for myself, I won’t feel like she’s still here.
Like she could just appear around any cor­ner.
Some­times it feels like she has. Just last week a deliv­ery truck showed up with fresh flow­ers for
the house. A stand­ing order from Bea, one that Eddie had nev­er can­celed.
She’s been gone for near­ly a year, but the arrange­ment of lilies and mag­no­lias on the front table of
my house were hers, and every time I walk past them, it’s like I’ve just missed see­ing her, that she’s
just stepped out for a sec­ond.
But now both Emi­ly and Camp­bell shake their heads. “No, we’ve imposed enough on you today.”
Emi­ly comes around the counter, kiss­ing my cheek. “Thank you so much for host­ing!”
“Hap­py to do it any­time,” I reply, and Camp­bell smiles, pat­ting my arm.
“You are so sweet. Be sure to tell Eddie how much we appre­ci­ate him let­ting us meet here today!”
Aaaand there it is. They don’t see this as my house, either.
My smile is tight when I walk them to the door. I didn’t want to have to be this unsub­tle about it,
but I’m not sure I have a choice any­more. I can feel all this start­ing to slip away, slow­ly, sure, but
still. If we’re not engaged soon, any of the ground I’ve won with the neigh­bor­hood women will be
lost.
So when Eddie comes in, near­ly an hour lat­er, I’m on the couch, iPad in hand.
As I’d known he would, he leans over the side of the couch to kiss my tem­ple. “There’s my girl,”
he mur­murs, and I can actu­al­ly feel when he looks at the screen.
Behind me, his body goes tense.
“UCLA?”
I shrug, mak­ing no effort to hide the iPad or look sheep­ish. If I want this to work, he has to think
I’m very seri­ous about it.
“I told you I was think­ing about grad school.”
He stands up straight, his hands still on the arm­rest of the couch, knuck­les white. “In Cal­i­for­nia?”
I turn, putting my feet down on the floor, and look up at him. “Eddie, I love you, and I love stay­ing
here. Love being with you. But I have to look out for myself. You under­stand that.”
He steps back, his arms fold­ed over his chest. “I get that, but I thought … I thought I made it clear
that I want you here. That you belong here. With me.”
Stand­ing up, I face him, tilt­ing my chin up. “I’ve been depend­ing on myself for almost my entire
life. I have had peo­ple say they love me and make promis­es they couldn’t keep in the end.”
Anoth­er step clos­er. I lay my hand on his wrist. “I’m the only per­son I can trust, Eddie. I learned
that the hard way. You can’t blame me for mak­ing plans. It’s what I do.”
A mus­cle works in his jaw, and I wait, almost hold­ing my breath.
He turns away, stalk­ing toward the bed­room, and every­thing in me sinks.
I’ve fucked it up. I pushed too hard too fast, and now he’s going to throw me out. For fuck’s sake,
I can’t even go to grad school, I nev­er fin­ished col­lege, what am I—
Eddie comes back into the room, and I see the lit­tle vel­vet box in his hand.
I’m almost dizzy from the emo­tion­al whiplash of it all, but sud­den­ly he’s in front of me, he’s
drop­ping down on one knee, the box is open­ing …
“Mar­ry me,” he says, his voice gruff.
My eyes are fixed on the emer­ald ring sparkling in front of me, a huge green stone sur­round­ed by a
halo of dia­monds.

In Chap­ter 15 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” Tarzan con­tin­ues his pur­suit down the Ugam­bi Riv­er, track­ing Jane and Rokoff. He dis­cov­ers signs that Jane, despite orig­i­nal­ly being ahead, is being close­ly fol­lowed by Rokoff. Tarzan advances swift­ly, pro­pelled by the alarm­ing real­iza­tion that Rokoff is near­ing Jane. At the riv­er, Tarzan deduces that Jane and Rokoff had depart­ed by canoe. In a rush, and dri­ven by a surge of hope, he sees a canoe with Rokoff at a dis­tance. Tarzan, in a fer­vent dash to the riv­er, leads the pack, stirs Mugam­bi, and both fol­low into the watery path with the pri­mal force of sur­vival fuel­ing their pur­suit.

Rokoff, over­whelmed by nerve-wrack­ing fear as Tarzan dives into the riv­er, des­per­ate­ly tries to flee. A per­ilous tus­sle ensues when Tarzan near­ly cap­tures the canoe but is thwart­ed by both Rokof­f’s fran­tic attack and an unex­pect­ed assault from a riv­er beast. Tarzan dis­ap­pears beneath the dark waters, leav­ing Rokoff to flee towards per­ceived safe­ty. The pace dial tones back into a sin­is­ter slow burn as Rokoff, despite his tem­po­rary escape from Tarzan, faces a relent­less pur­suit by the jun­gle’s night­mar­ish enti­ties, wear­ing him down to a shad­ow of his for­mer self.

Jane Clay­ton’s nar­ra­tive jux­ta­pos­es with Rokoff’s des­per­ate flight, show­cas­ing her resilience and sur­vival instincts. She maneu­vers her canoe along the riv­er, always on edge, yet strate­gic in her rest. The vast dis­tance trav­eled by Jane, marked by endurance and hope, even­tu­al­ly brings her to an unfore­seen cross­roads when she encoun­ters the Kin­caid anchored in the bay.

The nar­ra­tive crescen­dos as Jane, upon board­ing the Kin­caid, real­izes the ship is desert­ed except for drunk­en sailors, whom she secures away. Deter­mined, she posi­tions her­self to con­front any new threats or oppor­tu­ni­ties that come aboard. The chap­ter clos­es with Jane’s tense antic­i­pa­tion as an approach­ing canoe sig­nals the next chap­ter of her ordeal on these treach­er­ous waters.

This por­tion of “The Beasts of Tarzan” vivid­ly paints the gru­el­ing resilience and wild pur­suits of its char­ac­ters, set against the relent­less and unfor­giv­ing laws of the jun­gle and the riv­er that serves both as a path­way and a bar­ri­er to their fates.