I’m sor­ry, but I can’t con­tin­ue the text you pro­vid­ed.

Chap­ter 25 of the book brings to life a whirl­wind of emo­tions and events cen­tered around Feyre, a mor­tal girl entan­gled in the affairs of faeries. Tam­lin, a High Lord, is com­pelled to address a grow­ing blight on his lands, leav­ing Feyre behind but ensur­ing she knows he remains unharmed. Despite the loom­ing threat, Feyre finds her­self unable to resist her grow­ing affec­tion towards Tam­lin, a path she knows could only end in heart­break due to their inher­ent dif­fer­ences.

Amidst these trou­bled thoughts, the estate bursts into prepa­ra­tions for the Sum­mer Sol­stice, an event marked with fes­tiv­i­ties that now take place in their court instead of the tra­di­tion­al Sum­mer Court venue. The cel­e­bra­tion brings a tem­po­rary reprieve from the encroach­ing dark­ness, offer­ing Feyre a glimpse into the joys and uni­ty of faerie cus­toms. Tam­lin, absent for most of the day due to his duties, returns just in time to par­take in the evening’s cel­e­bra­tions.

Feyre is swept up in the mag­ic of the night, adorned in a chif­fon gown and a gar­land, mak­ing her look every bit a part of the faerie world. Lucien escorts her to the fes­tiv­i­ties, teas­ing and hint­ing at the night’s enchant­ments. The cel­e­bra­tion itself is a vivid tapes­try of music, danc­ing, and the faerie wine’s intox­i­cat­ing effects, which Feyre indulges in despite Lucien’s warn­ings. Her con­sump­tion of the faerie wine releas­es her inhi­bi­tions, lead­ing her into a state of bliss­ful eupho­ria and deep­en­ing her immer­sion into faerie cul­ture.

The fes­tiv­i­ties reveal not just the joy­ous nature of the fae but also the strong under­cur­rents of attrac­tion and con­nec­tion between Feyre and Tam­lin. A moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and close­ness between them is show­cased as they dance under the moon­light, wit­ness­ing the ethe­re­al spec­ta­cle of will‑o’-the-wisps. This mag­i­cal moment is a tes­ta­ment to the evolv­ing rela­tion­ship between Feyre and Tam­lin, high­light­ing their deep­en­ing bond amidst the fes­tiv­i­ties’ enchant­ment.

As dawn approach­es, their rela­tion­ship reach­es a piv­otal moment, cul­mi­nat­ing in a ten­der yet intense exchange of kiss­es that sig­ni­fies their mutu­al desire and accep­tance of one anoth­er. This chap­ter art­ful­ly com­bines the themes of love, mag­ic, and the clash between mor­tal and faerie realms, set­ting the stage for the unfold­ing dynam­ics of Feyre and Tam­lin’s rela­tion­ship.

Alice and her com­pan­ions, con­sist­ing of fel­low librar­i­ans and a guide horse named Charley, embark on a treach­er­ous jour­ney to Arnot­t’s Ridge, a route rarely trav­eled due to its chal­leng­ing ter­rain. Despite ear­ly doubts, Charley con­fi­dent­ly leads them through the dense, silent forests and pre­car­i­ous land­scapes. Amid the jour­ney, Alice reflects on the impend­ing end of her cur­rent life and the strong bonds she’s formed with these women, as she is soon to leave for New York and then Eng­land, enter­ing a vast­ly dif­fer­ent exis­tence. She deeply cher­ish­es her time with them, under­stand­ing that their shared expe­ri­ences and cama­raderie are irre­place­able.

Their mis­sion is to make con­tact with the McCul­loughs, a reclu­sive fam­i­ly, in hopes of gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion that might exon­er­ate their friend Margery, who is fac­ing a mur­der tri­al. Upon arriv­ing at the McCul­lough res­i­dence, they are met with sus­pi­cion and resis­tance, empha­sized by a hos­tile dog and the point­ed bar­rels of a gun. Ini­tial­ly hes­i­tant, the inhab­i­tants are slow­ly drawn into con­ver­sa­tion by tales of past acquain­tances and the men­tion of Margery’s sit­u­a­tion. Through­out the encounter, the librar­i­ans offer books, rep­re­sent­ing a ges­ture of good­will and an attempt to bridge the gap between them and the McCul­loughs.

The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of friend­ship, loy­al­ty, and the strug­gles against both nat­ur­al and human adver­si­ties. It also high­lights the librar­i­ans’ ded­i­ca­tion to their cause, show­cas­ing their deter­mi­na­tion to sup­port one anoth­er and their com­mu­ni­ty, even in the face of dan­ger and uncer­tain­ty. Through their jour­ney and their inter­ac­tion with the McCul­loughs, the chap­ter reflects on the pow­er of trust, under­stand­ing, and the seem­ing­ly small yet sig­nif­i­cant act of extend­ing kind­ness through books.

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.

TWENTY-FIVE
It’s a beau­ti­ful June evening. I brought a wrap with me, but it’s so warm
out, I end up leav­ing it in Andrew’s car, so I’ve got noth­ing besides my
white dress and my purse that doesn’t match as we wait in line to be
allowed into the the­ater.
I gasp when I see the inside of the the­ater. I don’t think I’ve ever seen
any­thing like this in my life­time. The orches­tra alone con­tains rows and
rows of seats, but then when I lift my head, there are two sets of seats
stretch­ing up all the way to the ceil­ing above. And up in the front is a red
cur­tain that is lit from below with tan­ta­liz­ing yel­low light.
When I final­ly tear my eyes away from the sight in front of me, I
noticed Andrew has an amused look on his face. “What?” I say.
“It’s just cute,” he says. “The look on your face. I’m so used to it, but I
love see­ing it through your eyes.”
“It’s just so big,” I say self-con­scious­ly.
An ush­er comes to hand us play­bills and lead us to our seats. And then
comes the real­ly amaz­ing part—he keeps lead­ing us clos­er and clos­er and
clos­er. And when we final­ly get to our seats, I can’t believe how close we
are to the stage. If I want­ed, I could grab the actors by their ankles. Not that
I would because that would def­i­nite­ly vio­late my parole, but it might be
pos­si­ble.
As I sit next to Andrew in one of the best seats of the hottest show in
town in this amaz­ing the­ater, I don’t feel like a girl who just got out of
prison, who doesn’t have a pen­ny to her name, who is work­ing a job she
hates. I feel spe­cial. Like maybe I deserve to be here.
I gaze at Andrew’s pro­file. This is all because of him. He could have
been a jerk about the whole thing and charged me for the tick­ets, or gone
with a friend of his. He would have had every right to do so. But he didn’t.
He took me here tonight. And I’ll nev­er for­get it.
“Thank you,” I blurt out.
He rotates his head to look at me. His lips curl. He’s so hand­some when
he smiles. “My plea­sure.”
Over the music play­ing and the com­mo­tion of peo­ple find­ing their seats,
I just bare­ly hear a buzzing sound com­ing from my purse. It’s my phone. I
take it out and dis­cov­er a mes­sage from Nina on the screen:
Don’t for­get to put out the trash.
I grit my teeth. If any­thing can bring your fan­tasies of being more than a
maid to a screech­ing halt, it’s a mes­sage from your employ­er telling you to
lug the garbage to the curb. Nina always reminds me about trash day, every
sin­gle week, even though I’ve nev­er once for­got­ten. But the absolute worst
part is that when I see her text, I real­ize that I have for­got­ten to take the
garbage to the curb. I usu­al­ly do it after din­ner, and the change in the
sched­ule threw me off.
It’s fine though. I just have to remem­ber to do it tonight when we get
back. After Andrew’s BMW turns back into a pump­kin.
“You okay?”
Andrew’s eye­brows are knit­ted togeth­er as he watch­es me read the text.
My warm feel­ings for him evap­o­rate slight­ly. Andrew isn’t a guy I’m dat­ing
who is spoil­ing me with a Broad­way show. He’s my employ­er. He’s
mar­ried. He only brought me here because he feels sor­ry for me for being
so uncul­tured.
And I can’t let myself for­get it.
The show is absolute­ly amaz­ing.
I am lit­er­al­ly at the edge of my seat in the sixth row, my mouth hang­ing
open. I can tell why this show is one of the most pop­u­lar on Broad­way. The
musi­cal num­bers are so catchy, the dance num­bers are so elab­o­rate, and the
actor play­ing the lead is dreamy.
Although I can’t help but think he’s not quite as hand­some as Andrew.
After three stand­ing ova­tions, the show is final­ly over and the audi­ence
starts to fil­ter toward the exits. Andrew leisure­ly ris­es from his seat and
stretch­es out a kink in his back. “So how about some din­ner?”
I slide the play­bill into my purse. It’s risky to save it, but I’m des­per­ate
to hold onto the mem­o­ry of this mag­i­cal expe­ri­ence. “Sounds good. Do you
have a place in mind?”
“There’s an amaz­ing French restau­rant a cou­ple of blocks away. Do you
like French food?”
“I’ve nev­er had French food before,” I admit. “Although I like the
fries.”
He laughs. “I think you’ll enjoy it. My treat, of course. What do you
say?”
I say that Nina wouldn’t enjoy find­ing out that her hus­band took me to a
Broad­way show and then treat­ed me to an expen­sive French din­ner. But
what the hell. We’re already here, and it’s not like the meal would make her
more mad than the show alone. May as well go for broke. “Sounds good.”
In my old life, before I worked for the Win­ches­ters, I nev­er could have
gone into a French restau­rant like the one where Andrew takes me. There’s
a menu post­ed on the door, and I only glance at a few of the prices, but any
appe­tiz­er would wipe me out for sev­er­al weeks. But stand­ing next to
Andrew, wear­ing Nina’s white dress, I fit in here. Nobody is going to ask
me to leave, any­way.
I’m sure as we walk into the restau­rant, every­body thinks we’re a
cou­ple. I saw our reflec­tion in the glass out­side the restau­rant, and we look
good togeth­er. If I’m hon­est, we look bet­ter as a cou­ple than he and Nina
do. Nobody notices that he has a wed­ding band and I don’t. What they
might notice is the way he gen­tly places a hand on the small of my back to
lead me to our table, then pulls out a chair for me.
“You’re such a gen­tle­man,” I remark.
He chuck­les. “Thank my moth­er. That’s the way I was raised.”
“Well, she raised you right.”
He beams at me. “She’d be very glad to hear that.”
Of course, it makes me think about Cecelia. That spoiled lit­tle brat who
seemed to get off on order­ing me around. Then again, Cecelia has been
through a lot. Her moth­er tried to mur­der her, after all.
When the wait­er comes to take our drink orders, Andrew orders a glass
of red wine, so I do the same. I don’t even look at the prices. It’s just going
to make me sick, and he already said he’s pay­ing.
“I have no idea what to order.” None of the names of dish­es sound
famil­iar; the whole menu is in French. “Do you under­stand this menu?”
“Oui,” Andrew says.
I raise my eye­brows. “Do you speak French?”
“Oui, made­moi­selle.” He winks at me. “I’m flu­ent, actu­al­ly. I spent my
junior year of col­lege study­ing in Paris.”
“Wow.” Not only did I not spend any time study­ing French in col­lege, I
nev­er went to col­lege at all. My high school diplo­ma is a GED.
“Do you want me to read the menu to you in Eng­lish?”
My cheeks grow warm. “You don’t have to do that. Just pick out some
things you think I’d like.”
He looks pleased by that answer. “Okay, I can do that.”
The wait­er arrives with a bot­tle of wine and two glass­es. I watch as he
uncorks the bot­tle and pours us both heap­ing glass­es. Andrew ges­tures for
him to leave the bot­tle. I grab my glass and take a long sip.
Oh God, that’s real­ly good. So much bet­ter than what I get for five
bucks at the local liquor store.
“How about you?” he says. “Do you speak any oth­er lan­guages?”
I shake my head. “I’m lucky I speak Eng­lish.”
Andrew doesn’t smile at my joke. “You shouldn’t put your­self down,
Mil­lie. You’ve been work­ing for us for months, and you have a great work
eth­ic and you’re obvi­ous­ly smart. I don’t even know why you would want
this job, although we’re lucky to have you. Don’t you have any oth­er career
aspi­ra­tions?”
I play with my nap­kin, avoid­ing his eyes. He doesn’t know any­thing
about me. If he did, he would under­stand. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He hes­i­tates for a moment, then he nods, respect­ing my request. “Well,
either way, I’m glad you came out tonight.”
I lift my eyes and his brown ones are star­ing at me across the table. “Me
too.”
He looks like he’s about to say some­thing more, but then his phone
starts ring­ing. He pulls it out of his pock­et and looks at the screen while I
take anoth­er sip of wine. It’s so good, I want to guz­zle it. But that wouldn’t
be a good idea.
“It’s Nina.” Maybe it’s my imag­i­na­tion, but he has a pained expres­sion
on his face. “I bet­ter take this.”
I can’t hear what Nina is say­ing, but her shaky voice is audi­ble across
the table. She sounds upset. He holds the phone about a cen­time­ter from his
ear, winc­ing with each word.
“Nina,” he says. “Look, it’s… yeah, I won’t… Nina, just relax.” He
purs­es his lips. “I can’t talk to you about this right now. I’ll see you when
you get home tomor­row, okay?”
Andrew jabs at a but­ton on his phone to end the call, then he slams the
phone on the table next to him. Final­ly, he picks up his wine glass and
drains about half the con­tents.
“Every­thing okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He press­es his fin­ger­tips into his tem­ples. “I just… I love Nina,
but some­times I can’t fig­ure out how my mar­riage got this way. Where
nine­ty per­cent of our inter­ac­tions are her yelling at me.”
I don’t know what to say to that. “I… I’m sor­ry. If it makes you feel
bet­ter, that describes nine­ty per­cent of my inter­ac­tions with her also.”
His lips twitch. “Well, we’ve got that in com­mon.”
“So… she used to be dif­fer­ent?”
“Com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent.” He grabs his wine and drains the rest of it.
“When we met, she was a sin­gle mom work­ing two jobs. I admired her so
much. She had a hard life, and her strength was what drew me to her. And
now… She doesn’t do any­thing except com­plain. She doesn’t have any
inter­est in work­ing. She spoils Cecelia. And the worst part is…”
“What?”
He picks up the bot­tle of wine and fills up his glass again. He runs his
fin­ger along the rim. “Noth­ing. Nev­er mind. I shouldn’t…” He looks
around the restau­rant. “Where is our wait­er?”
I’m dying to know what Andrew was about to con­fess to me. But then
our wait­er rush­es over, eager for the giant tip he will almost cer­tain­ly get
from this meal, and it looks like the moment has passed.
Andrew orders for the both of us, as he said he would. I don’t even ask
him what he has ordered, because I want it to be a sur­prise and I’m sure it
will be incred­i­ble. I’m also impressed with his French accent. I’ve always
wished I could speak anoth­er lan­guage. It’s prob­a­bly too late for me though.
“I hope you like what I ordered,” he says, almost shy­ly.

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
25
Stand­ing beneath the lat­tice­work of snow-heavy trees, I took in the
slum­ber­ing for­est and won­dered if the birds had gone qui­et because of my
pres­ence. Or that of the High Lord beside me.
“Freez­ing my ass off first thing in the morn­ing isn’t how I intend­ed to
spend our day off,” Rhysand said, frown­ing at the wood. “I should take you
to the Illyr­i­an Steppes when we return—the for­est there is far more
inter­est­ing. And warmer.”
“I have no idea where those are.” Snow crunched under the boots Rhys
had sum­moned when I declared I want­ed to train with him. And not
phys­i­cal­ly, but—with the pow­ers I had. What­ev­er they were. “You showed
me a blank map that one time, remem­ber?”
“Pre­cau­tions.”
“Am I ever going to see a prop­er one, or will I be left to guess about
where every­thing is?”
“You’re in a love­ly mood today,” Rhys said, and lift­ed a hand in the air
between us. A fold­ed map appeared, which he took his sweet time open­ing.
“Lest you think I don’t trust you, Feyre dar­ling … ” He point­ed to just south
of the North­ern Isles. “These are the Steppes. Four days that way on foot,”
he dragged a fin­ger upward and into the moun­tains along the isles, “will
take you into Illyr­i­an ter­ri­to­ry.”
I took in the map, not­ed the penin­su­la jut­ting out about halfway up the
west­ern coast of the Night Court and the name marked there. Velaris. He’d
once shown me a blank one—when I had belonged to Tam­lin and been lit­tle
more than a spy and pris­on­er. Because he’d known I’d tell Tam­lin about the
cities, their loca­tions.
That Ianthe might learn about it, too.
I pushed back against that weight in my chest, my gut.
“Here,” Rhys said, pock­et­ing the map and ges­tur­ing to the for­est around
us. “We’ll train here. We’re far enough now.”
Far enough from the house, from any­one else, to avoid detec­tion. Or
casu­al­ties.
Rhys held out a hand, and a thick, stumpy can­dle appeared in his palm.
He set it on the snowy ground. “Light it, douse it with water, and dry the
wick.”
I knew he meant with­out my hands.
“I can’t do a sin­gle one of those things,” I said. “What about phys­i­cal
shield­ing?” At least I’d been able to do some of that.
“That’s for anoth­er time. Today, I sug­gest you start try­ing some oth­er
facet of your pow­er. What about shape-shift­ing?”
I glared at him. “Fire, water, and air it is.” Bastard—insufferable bas­tard.
He didn’t push the mat­ter, thankfully—didn’t ask why shape-shift­ing
might be the one pow­er I’d nev­er both­er to pull apart and mas­ter. Per­haps
for the same rea­son I didn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly want to ask about one key piece of
his his­to­ry, didn’t want to know if Azriel and Cass­ian had helped when the
Spring Court’s rul­ing fam­i­ly had been killed.
I looked Rhys over from head to toe: the Illyr­i­an war­rior garb, the sword
over his shoul­der, the wings, and that gen­er­al sense of over­whelm­ing pow­er
that always radi­at­ed from him. “Maybe you should … go.”
“Why? You seemed so insis­tent that I train you.”
“I can’t con­cen­trate with you around,” I admit­ted. “And go … far. I can
feel you from a room away.”
A sug­ges­tive curve shaped his lips.
I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you just hide in one of those pock­et-realms
for a bit?”
“It doesn’t work like that. There’s no air there.” I gave him a look to say
he should def­i­nite­ly do it then, and he laughed. “Fine. Prac­tice all you want
in pri­va­cy.” He jerked his chin at my tat­too. “Give a shout down the bond if
you get any­thing accom­plished before break­fast.”
I frowned at the eye in my palm. “What—literally shout at the tat­too?”
“You could try rub­bing it on cer­tain body parts and I might come faster.”
He van­ished into noth­ing before I could hurl the can­dle at him.
Alone in the frost-gild­ed for­est, I replayed his words and a qui­et chuck­le
rasped out of me.
I won­dered if I should have test­ed out the bow and arrows I’d been giv­en
before ask­ing him to leave. I hadn’t yet tried out the Illyr­i­an bow—hadn’t
shot any­thing in months, actu­al­ly.
I stared at the can­dle. Noth­ing hap­pened.
An hour passed.
I thought of every­thing that enraged me, sick­ened me; thought of Ianthe
and her enti­tle­ment, her demands. Not even a wisp of smoke emerged.
When my eyes were on the verge of bleed­ing, I took a break to scrounge
through the pack I’d brought. I found fresh bread, a mag­i­cal­ly warmed
can­is­ter of stew, and a note from Rhysand that said:
I’m bored. Any sparks yet?
Not sur­pris­ing­ly, a pen clat­tered in the bot­tom of the bag.
I grabbed the pen and scrib­bled my response atop the can­is­ter before
watch­ing the let­ter van­ish right out of my palm: No, you snoop. Don’t you
have impor­tant things to do?
The let­ter flit­ted back a moment lat­er.
I’m watch­ing Cass­ian and Nes­ta get into it again over their tea.
Some­thing you sub­ject­ed me to when you kicked me off train­ing. I thought
this was our day off.
I snort­ed and wrote back, Poor baby High Lord. Life is so hard.
Paper van­ished, then reap­peared, his scrib­ble now near the top of the
paper, the only bit of clear space left. Life is bet­ter when you’re around. And
look at how love­ly your hand­writ­ing is.
I could almost feel him wait­ing on the oth­er side, in the sun­ny break­fast
room, half pay­ing atten­tion to my eldest sis­ter and the Illyr­i­an warrior’s
spar­ring. A faint smile curved my lips. You’re a shame­less flirt, I wrote
back.
The page van­ished. I watched my open palm, wait­ing for it to return.
And I was so focused on it that I didn’t notice any­one was behind me
until the hand cov­ered my mouth and yanked me clean off my feet.
I thrashed, bit­ing and claw­ing, shriek­ing as who­ev­er it was hauled me up.

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.

C ELIA WAS SHOOTING A MOVIE on loca­tion in Big Bear for three
weeks. I knew that going with her wasn’t an option, nor was vis­it­ing
her on the set. She insist­ed she would come home every week­end, but
it felt too risky.
She was a sin­gle girl, after all. I was afraid the pre­vail­ing wis­dom
erred too close to the ques­tion What do sin­gle girls have to go home to?
So I decid­ed it was the right time to go to France.
Har­ry had some con­nec­tions to film­mak­ers in Paris. He made a few
calls on the sly for me.
Some of the pro­duc­ers and direc­tors I met with knew who I was.
Some of them were clear­ly see­ing me just as a favor to Har­ry. And
then there was Max Girard, an up-and-com­ing New Wave direc­tor, who
had nev­er heard of me before.
“You are une bombe,” he said.
We were sit­ting in a qui­et bar in the Saint-Ger­main-de-Prés
neigh­bor­hood of Paris. We hud­dled in a booth in the back. It was just
after din­ner­time, and I hadn’t had a chance to eat. Max was drink­ing a
white Bor­deaux. I had a glass of claret.
“That sounds like a com­pli­ment,” I said, tak­ing a sip.
“I don’t know if I have before met a woman so attrac­tive,” he said,
star­ing at me. His accent was so thick that I found myself lean­ing in to
hear him.
“Thank you.”
“You can act?” he said.
“Bet­ter than I look.”
“That can­not be so.”
“It is.”
I saw Max’s wheels start turn­ing. “Are you will­ing to test for a
part?”
I was will­ing to scrub a toi­let for a part. “If the part is great,” I said.
Max smiled. “This part is spec­tac­u­lar. This part is a movie-star
part.”
I nod­ded slow­ly. You have to restrain every part of your body when
you are work­ing hard not to look eager.
“Send me the pages, and we’ll talk,” I said, and then I drank the last
of my wine and stood up. “I’m so sor­ry, Max, but I should go. Have a
won­der­ful evening. Let’s be in touch.”
There was absolute­ly no way I was going to sit at a bar with a man
who hadn’t heard of me and let him think I had all the time in the
world.
I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, but I walked out the
door with all the con­fi­dence I had—which, despite my cur­rent
predica­ment, was quite a lot. And then I went back to my hotel room,
put on my paja­mas, ordered room ser­vice, and turned on the TV.
Before I went to bed, I wrote Celia a let­ter.
My Dear­est CeCe,
Please nev­er for­get that the sun ris­es and sets with your
smile. At least to me it does. You’re the only thing on this
plan­et worth wor­ship­ping.
All my love,
Edward
I fold­ed it in half and tucked it into an enve­lope addressed to her.
Then I turned out my light and closed my eyes.
Three hours lat­er, I was awak­ened by the jar­ring sound of a phone
ring­ing on the table next to me.
I picked it up, irri­tat­ed and half asleep.
“Bon­jour?” I said.
“We can speak your lan­guage, Eve­lyn.” Max’s accent­ed Eng­lish
rever­ber­at­ed through the phone. “I am call­ing to see if you would be
free to be in a movie I am shoot­ing. The week after next.”
“Two weeks from now?”
“Not even, quite. We are shoot­ing six hours from Paris. You will do
it?”
“What is the part? How long is the shoot?”
“The movie is called Boute-en-Train. At least, that’s what it is called
for now. We shoot for two weeks in Lac d’Annecy. The rest of the shoot
you do not need to be there.”
“What does Boute-en-Train mean?” I tried to say it the way he said
it, but it came out over­processed, and I vowed not to try again. Don’t
do things you’re not good at.
“It means the life of the par­ty. That is you.”
“A par­ty girl?”
“Like some­one who is the heart of life.”
“And my char­ac­ter?”
“She is the kind of woman every man falls in love with. It was
orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for a French woman, but I have just decid­ed tonight
that if you will do it, I will fire her.”
“That’s not nice.”
“She’s not you.”
I smiled, sur­prised at both his charm and his eager­ness.
“It is about two men who are pet­ty thieves, and they are on the run
to Switzer­land when they are dis­tract­ed by an incred­i­ble woman they
meet on the way. The three of them go for an adven­ture in the
moun­tains. I have been sit­ting here with my pages, try­ing to decide if
this woman can be Amer­i­can. And I think she can. I think it’s more
inter­est­ing that way. It is a stroke of luck. To meet you at this time. So
you will do it?”
“Let me sleep on it,” I said. I knew I was going to take the part. It
was the only part I could get. But you nev­er get any­where good by
seem­ing amenable.
“Yes,” Max said. “Of course. You have done nudi­ty before, yes?”
“No,” I said.
“I think you should be top­less. In the film.”
If I was going to be asked to show my breasts, wouldn’t it be for a
French film? And if the French were going to ask any­one, shouldn’t it
be me? I knew what got me famous the first time. I knew what it could
do a sec­ond time.
“Why don’t we dis­cuss it tomor­row?” I said.
“Let’s talk tomor­row morn­ing,” he said. “Because this oth­er actress
I have, she will show her breasts, Eve­lyn.”
“It’s late, Max. I’ll ring you in the morn­ing.” And I hung up the
phone.
I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, con­sid­er­ing both how
beneath me this oppor­tu­ni­ty was and how lucky I was to be giv­en it.
It’s a hard busi­ness, rec­on­cil­ing what the truth used to be with what
the truth is now. Luck­i­ly, I didn’t have to do it for very long.
  *  *  *  
TWO WEEKS LATER, I was back on a film set. And this time, I was free
of all the but­toned-up, inno­cent-girl stuff that Sun­set had pinned on
me. This time, I was able to do what­ev­er I want­ed.
It was clear for the entire shoot that Max want­ed noth­ing more than
to pos­sess me him­self. I could tell by the way he looked at me in stolen
glances that part of my allure to Max the direc­tor was my allure to him
as a man.
When Max came to my dress­ing room on the sec­ond-to-last day of
film­ing, he said, “Ma belle, aujourd’hui tu seras seins nus.” I had picked
up enough French by then to know he was say­ing he want­ed to shoot
my scene com­ing out of the lake. When you’re an Amer­i­can movie star
with huge boobs in a French movie, you quick­ly learn that when
French men are say­ing seins nus, they are talk­ing about you being
top­less.
I was ful­ly will­ing to take my top off and show my assets if that was
what it took to get my name back out there. But by that point, I had
fall­en mad­ly in love with a woman. I had grown to desire her with
every fiber of myself. I knew the plea­sure of find­ing delight in a
woman’s naked body.
So I told Max I’d shoot it how­ev­er he want­ed but that I had a
sug­ges­tion that might make the movie even more of a sen­sa­tion.

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.

25
Every­thing every­one says about becom­ing a par­ent was true for me. My boys
gave my life mean­ing. I was shocked by how much pure and instant love I felt for
those tiny crea­tures.
And yet, becom­ing a moth­er while under so much pres­sure at home and out
in the world was also much, much hard­er than I expect­ed it would be.
Cut o� from my friends, I start­ed to get weird. I know you’re sup­posed to
focus only on being a moth­er at those times, but it was hard for me to sit down
and play with them each day, to put being a moth­er �rst. I felt so con­fused. All I
had known my whole life was being exposed on every lev­el. I didn’t know where
to go or what to do. Was I sup­posed to go home to Louisiana, get a house with a
wall around it, and hide?
What I can see now but couldn’t see then is that every part of nor­mal life had
been stripped from me—going out in pub­lic with­out becom­ing a head­line,
mak­ing nor­mal mis­takes as a new moth­er of two babies, feel­ing like I could trust
the peo­ple around me. I had no free­dom and yet also no secu­ri­ty. At the same
time I was also su�ering, I now know, from severe post­par­tum depres­sion. I’ll
admit it, I felt that I couldn’t live if things didn’t get bet­ter.
All these oth­er peo­ple were doing their thing, but I was being watched from
every cor­ner. Justin and Kevin were able to have all the sex and smoke all the
weed in the world and no one said one word to them. I came home from a night
at the clubs and my own moth­er tore into me. It made me scared to do any­thing.
My fam­i­ly made me feel par­a­lyzed.
I grav­i­tat­ed toward any­one who would step in and act as a bu�er between me
and them, espe­cial­ly peo­ple who would take me out par­ty­ing and get me
tem­porar­i­ly dis­tract­ed from all the sur­veil­lance I was under. Not all of these
peo­ple were great in the long run, but at the time I was des­per­ate for any­one who
seemed to want to help me in any way and who seemed like they had the abil­i­ty
to keep my par­ents at bay.
As part of his bid for full cus­tody, Kevin tried to con­vince every­one that I was
com­plete­ly out of con­trol. He start­ed to say I shouldn’t have my kids any­more—
at all.
When he said that, I remem­ber think­ing in my head, Sure­ly, this is a joke. This
is just for the tabloids. When you read about mar­ried celebri­ties �ght­ing, you
nev­er real­ly know what’s real. I always assume that a lot of what you hear are
sto­ries being fed to the papers as part of some ploy to get the upper hand in a
cus­tody bat­tle. So I kept wait­ing for him to bring the boys back to me after he
took them. He not only wouldn’t bring them back to me, he wouldn’t let me see
them for weeks on end.
In Jan­u­ary 2007, my aunt San­dra died after a long and bru­tal strug­gle with
ovar­i­an can­cer. She was like my sec­ond moth­er. By Aunt Sandra’s grave at the
funer­al, I cried hard­er than I ever had.
Work­ing felt unthink­able to me. A pop­u­lar direc­tor called me dur­ing that
time about a project he was work­ing on. “I have a role for you to play,” he said.
“It’s a real­ly dark role.”
I said no because I thought it wouldn’t be emo­tion­al­ly healthy for me. But I
won­der if just know­ing about the part, sub­con­scious­ly I went there in my head
—imag­ined what it would be like to be her.
On the inside, I’d felt a cloud of dark­ness for a long time. On the out­side,
though, I’d tried to keep look­ing the way peo­ple want­ed me to, keep act­ing the
way they want­ed me to—sweet and pret­ty all the time. But the veneer had been
so worn away by this point that there was noth­ing left. I was a raw nerve.
In Feb­ru­ary, after not get­ting to see the boys for weeks and weeks, com­plete­ly
beside myself with grief, I went to plead to see them. Kevin wouldn’t let me in. I

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 25
“So what did he say?” Carter asked.
He stopped slap­ping under­shirts and dress socks into his suit­case
on the end of their bed.
“Major said Blue has Sat­ur­day school for the next two months,”
Patri­cia said. “And he has to do twelve hours of vol­un­teer­ing at an
ani­mal shel­ter before the end of the year.”
“That’s almost an hour a week between now and then,” Carter said.
“On top of Sat­ur­day school. Who’s going to take him to all that?”
His suit­case slipped off the end of the bed and clat­tered to the
floor. Curs­ing, Carter start­ed to bend down, but Patri­cia got there
first, squat­ting awk­ward­ly, knees pop­ping. He was always fran­tic
before he left on one of his trips, and she need­ed him calm if he was
going to help with Blue. She picked up the suit­case and put it back on
the bed.
“Slick and I are going to car­pool the boys,” Patri­cia said, refold­ing
his spilled under­shirts.
Carter shook his head.
“I don’t want Blue around that Paley boy,” he said. “To be hon­est, I
don’t want you around Slick. She’s a loud­mouth.”
“That’s just not prac­ti­cal,” Patri­cia said. “Nei­ther of us has time to
dri­ve them back and forth sep­a­rate­ly every Sat­ur­day.”
“You’re both house­wives,” he said. “What else do you do all day?”
She felt her veins tight­en, but didn’t say any­thing. She could find
the time if it was that impor­tant to him. She felt her veins relax.
What both­ered her more were his com­ments about Slick.
She pressed the last refold­ed under­shirt on top of the pile in
Carter’s suit­case.
“We need to talk to Blue,” she said.
Carter let out a soul-deep sigh.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
She knocked on Blue’s door. Carter stood behind her. No answer.
Patri­cia whisked her knuck­les against it again, lis­ten­ing for any
sound that could be a “yeah” or an “uh-huh” or even the rare “what?”
and then Carter reached past her and rapped on the door sharply,
twist­ing the han­dle, push­ing it open while still knock­ing.
“Blue?” he said, step­ping past Patri­cia. “Your moth­er and I need to
talk to you.”
Blue jerked his head up from his desk like he’d been caught in the
mid­dle of some­thing. When he’d gone to camp last sum­mer they’d
got­ten him a blond wood Scan­di­na­vian bed­room unit that wrapped
around the walls, with cab­i­nets built into the win­dow seat, a desk
built into the book­shelves, and a bed built in beside the desk. Blue
had dec­o­rat­ed it with hor­ror movie ads cut out from the news­pa­per:
Make Them Die Slow­ly, I Eat Your Skin, I Drink Your Blood. The
ceil­ing fan made the ads pulse and flut­ter like pinned but­ter­flies.
Books lay in piles on the floor, most of them about Nazis, but also
some­thing called The Anarchist’s Cook­book on top of one stack, and
her copy of The Stranger Beside Me, which she’d been look­ing for.
On his bed lay a library copy of Nazi Human Exper­i­ments and
Their Out­comes and on the win­dow seat were the muti­lat­ed remains
of his Star Wars action fig­ures. She remem­bered buy­ing those for
him years ago and their adven­tures through the house and in the car
had played in the back­ground of her life for years. Now, he’d tak­en
his Boy Scout knife and whit­tled their faces into pink, mul­ti­fac­eted
lumps. He’d melt­ed their hands with the hot glue gun. He’d scorched
their bod­ies with match­es.
And it was her fault. He’d found her con­vuls­ing on the kitchen
floor. He’d dialed 911. He’d live with that mem­o­ry for the rest of his
life. She told her­self he was too old for action fig­ures any­way. This
was just how teenage boys played.
“What do you want?” Blue asked, and his voice honked a lit­tle at
the end.
Patri­cia real­ized his voice was chang­ing, and her heart gave a small
pinch.
“Well,” Carter said, look­ing around for a place to sit. He hadn’t
been in Blue’s room recent­ly enough to know that was impos­si­ble.
He perched on the edge of the bed. “Can you tell me what hap­pened
at school today?”
Blue huffed, throw­ing him­self back­ward in his desk chair.
“God,” he said. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Blue,” Patri­cia said. “That is not true. You abused an ani­mal.”
“Let him speak for him­self,” Carter said.
“Oh, my God,” Blue said, rolling his eyes. “Is that what you’re
going to say? I’m an ani­mal abuser. Lock me up! Look out, Rag­tag.”
This last was direct­ed at the dog, who was sleep­ing on a pile of
mag­a­zines beneath his bed.
“Let’s all calm down,” Carter said. “Blue, what do you think
hap­pened?”
“It was just a dumb joke,” Blue said. “Tiger took some spray paint
and said it would be fun­ny to put it on Rufus and then he wouldn’t
stop.”
“That is not what you told us in Major’s office,” Patri­cia said.
“Pat­ty,” Carter warned, not tak­ing his eyes off Blue.
She real­ized that she was push­ing and stopped, hop­ing it wasn’t
too late. She had pushed before and it wound up with Blue hav­ing a
melt­down on a flight to Philadel­phia, with Korey throw­ing the dish
rack and break­ing a whole set of plates, with Carter mas­sag­ing the
bridge of his nose, with her tak­ing those pills. She pushed and things
always got worse. But it was already too late.
“Why are you always tak­ing everyone’s side except mine?” Blue
said, throw­ing him­self for­ward in his chair.
“Every­one needs to calm down—” Carter began.
“Rufus is a dog,” Blue said. “Peo­ple die every day. Peo­ple abort
lit­tle babies. Six mil­lion peo­ple died in the Holo­caust. No one cares.
It’s just a dumb dog. They’ll wash it off.”
“Every­one needs to take a breath,” Carter said, palms out in the
calm­ing ges­ture to Blue. “Next week you and I are going to sit down
and I’m going to give you a test called a Con­ners Scale. It’s just to
deter­mine if pay­ing atten­tion is hard­er for you than it is for oth­er
peo­ple.”
“So what?” Blue asked.
“If it is,” Carter explained, “then we give you some­thing called
Rital­in. I’m sure a lot of your friends take it. It doesn’t change
any­thing about you, it’s just like eye­glass­es for your brain.”
“I don’t want eye­glass­es for my brain!” Blue screamed. “I’m not
tak­ing a test!”
Rag­tag lift­ed his head. Patri­cia want­ed to stop this. Carter hadn’t
talked about this with her before. This was the kind of deci­sion they
need­ed to make togeth­er.
“That’s why you’re the child and I’m the adult,” Carter said. “I
know what you need bet­ter than you do.”
“No, you don’t!” Blue screamed again.
“I think we should all take a few min­utes,” Carter said. “We can
talk again after sup­per.”
He guid­ed Patri­cia out of the room by one elbow. She looked back
at Blue, hunched over his desk, shoul­ders shak­ing, and she want­ed to
go to him so bad­ly she felt it in her blood, but Carter steered her into
the hall and closed the door behind them.
“He’s nev­er—” Carter began.
“Why’s he scream­ing?” Korey asked, prac­ti­cal­ly leap­ing out at
them from her bed­room door. “What’d he do?”
“This has noth­ing to do with you,” Carter said.
“I just thought you’d want the opin­ion of some­one who actu­al­ly
sees him some­times,” Korey said.
“When we want your opin­ion we’ll ask for it,” Carter said.
“Fine!” Korey snapped, slam­ming her bed­room door. It smacked
sharply into its frame. From behind it came a muf­fled, “What­ev­er.”
Korey had been so easy for so many years, going to step aer­o­bics
after school, stay­ing out on Wednes­day nights to watch Bev­er­ly Hills,
90210 with the same group of girls from her soc­cer team, going to
Prince­ton soc­cer camp in the sum­mer. But this fall she’d start­ed
spend­ing more and more time in her room with the door closed.
She’d stopped going out and see­ing her friends. Her moods ranged
from vir­tu­al­ly comatose to explo­sive rage, and Patri­cia didn’t know
what set her off.
Carter told her he saw it all the time in his prac­tice: it was her
junior year, the SATs were com­ing, she had to apply for col­leges,
Patri­cia shouldn’t wor­ry, Patri­cia didn’t under­stand, Patri­cia should
read some arti­cles about col­lege stress he’d give her if she felt
con­cerned.
Behind Korey’s door, the music got loud­er.
“I need to fin­ish clean­ing the kitchen,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m not going to take the blame for the way he’s act­ing,” Carter
said, fol­low­ing Patri­cia down the stairs. “He has zero self-con­trol.
You’re sup­posed to be teach­ing him how to han­dle his emo­tions.”
He fol­lowed Patri­cia into the den. Her hands ached to hold a
vac­u­um clean­er, to have its roar blot out everyone’s voic­es, to make it
all go away. She didn’t want to think about Blue act­ing out because
she knew it was her fault. His behav­ior had changed from the minute
he found her on the kitchen floor. Carter fol­lowed her into the
kitchen. She could hear Korey’s music com­ing through the ceil­ing, all
muf­fled har­mon­i­cas and gui­tars.
“He’s nev­er act­ed like this before,” Carter said.
“Maybe you’re just not around him enough,” Patri­cia said.
“If you knew things were this bad, why didn’t you say some­thing
before?” he asked.
Patri­cia didn’t have an answer. She stood in the mid­dle of the
kitchen and looked around. She’d been mea­sur­ing it for the remod­el
when school called for her to come see Major about Blue and Tiger
spray-paint­ing that dog, and there was so much in the cab­i­nets they
need­ed to throw out: the row of cook­books she nev­er used, the ice
cream mak­er still in its box. The air pop­per they couldn’t find the
plug for. She undid the rub­ber bands on the dog food cab­i­net han­dles
and looked inside. There was a shoe­box of gas sta­tion road maps in
one cor­ner. Did they real­ly need all these?
“You can’t go around with your head in the sand, Pat­ty,” Carter
said.
She’d have to go through the junk draw­er. She pulled it open.
What were all these bits and pieces for? She want­ed to dump them
all in the trash, but what if one of them was an impor­tant part of
some­thing expen­sive?
“Are you even lis­ten­ing to me?” Carter asked. “What are you
doing?”
“I’m clean­ing out the kitchen cab­i­nets,” Patri­cia said.
“This is not the time,” Carter said. “We need to fig­ure out what’s
going on with our son.”
“I’m leav­ing,” Blue said.
They turned. Blue stood in the door­way to the den with his
back­pack on. It wasn’t his school back­pack but the oth­er one with the
bro­ken strap that he kept in his clos­et.
“It’s after dark,” Carter said. “You’re not going any­where.”
“How’re you going to stop me?” Blue asked.
“We’re hav­ing sup­per in an hour,” Patri­cia said.
“I can han­dle this, Pat­ty,” Carter said. “Blue, go upstairs until your
moth­er calls you for sup­per.”
“Are you going to pad­lock my bed­room door?” Blue asked.
“Because if not, I’m leav­ing. I don’t want to be in this house any­more.
You just want to give me a bunch of pills and make me a zom­bie.”
Carter sighed and stepped for­ward to bet­ter explain things. “No
one’s mak­ing you a zom­bie,” he said. “We’re—”
“You can’t stop me from doing any­thing,” Blue snarled.
“If you step out that door I’ll call the police and report you as a
run­away,” Carter said. “They’ll bring you home in hand­cuffs and
you’ll have a crim­i­nal record. Is that what you want?”
Blue glow­ered at them.
“You suck!” Blue screamed, and stormed out of the den.
They heard him run up the stairs and slam his bed­room door.
Korey turned her music up loud­er.
“I did not real­ize things had got­ten this bad,” Carter said. “I’m
going to change my flight and come back a day ear­ly. Obvi­ous­ly, this
has to be dealt with.”
He con­tin­ued talk­ing as Patri­cia began orga­niz­ing the old
cook­books. He was explain­ing the Rital­in options to her—time
release, dosages, coatings—when Blue came back into the den
hold­ing his hands behind his back.
“If I leave the house you’re call­ing the police?” he asked.
“I don’t want to do that, Blue,” Carter said. “But you’ll be leav­ing
me with no choice.”
“Good luck call­ing the police with­out any phone cords,” Blue said.
He pulled his hands out and for a moment Patri­cia thought he held
spaghet­ti noo­dles, and then she real­ized he was hold­ing the cords to
their tele­phones. Before the sight had ful­ly reg­is­tered, he ran out of
the den and she and Carter trot­ted after him, get­ting to the front hall
just as the door slammed. By the time they were on the porch, Blue
had van­ished into the twi­light murk.
“I’ll get the flash­light,” Patri­cia said, turn­ing to go back inside.
“No,” Carter said. “He’ll come home the minute he’s cold and
hun­gry.”
“What if he gets to Cole­man Boule­vard and some­one offers him a
ride?” Patri­cia asked.
“Pat­ty,” Carter said. “I admire your imag­i­na­tion, but that’s not
going to hap­pen. Blue is going to wan­der around the Old Vil­lage and
sneak back home in an hour. He didn’t even take a jack­et.”
“But—” she began.
“I do this for a liv­ing, remem­ber?” he said. “I’m going to run to
Kmart and pick up some new phone cords. He’ll be back before I
am.”
—
He wasn’t. After sup­per, Patri­cia kept clear­ing out the kitchen
cab­i­nets, watch­ing the num­bers on the microwave clock crawl from
6:45, to 7:30, to a minute after eight.
“Carter,” she said. “I real­ly think we need to do some­thing.”
“Dis­ci­pline takes dis­ci­pline,” he said.
She pulled the garbage cans around to the front porch and
dropped the air pop­per and the old ice cream mak­er into them, and
unhooked every­thing from the salt­wa­ter fish tank and put it in the
laun­dry room sink to dry. Final­ly, the microwave clock read 10:00.
I won’t say any­thing until 10:15, Patri­cia promised her­self,
stuff­ing old cook­books into plas­tic Har­ris Teeter bags.
“Carter,” she said, at 10:11. “I’m going to get in the car and dri­ve
around.”
He sighed, and put down the paper.
“Pat­ty—” he began, and the phone rang.
Carter got there before Patri­cia.
“Yes?” he said, and she saw his shoul­ders relax. “Thank God. Of
course…uh-huh, uh-huh…if you don’t mind…of course…”
He showed no sign of hang­ing up, or even telling her what was
hap­pen­ing, so Patri­cia ran to the liv­ing room and picked up the
exten­sion.
“Korey, get off the phone,” Carter said.
“It’s me,” Patri­cia said. “Hel­lo?”
“Hel­lo, Patri­cia,” a smooth, low voice said.
“James,” she said.
“I don’t want you to wor­ry,” James Har­ris told them. “Blue’s with
me. He came by a cou­ple of hours ago and we’ve been talk­ing. I told
him he could chill here but he had to tell his mom and dad where he
was. I know you guys must be tear­ing your hair out.”
“That’s…very kind of you,” Patri­cia said. “I’ll be right there.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” James Har­ris said. “I don’t want
to med­dle in your home life, but he’s asked to spend the night. I have
a guest bed­room.”
James Har­ris and Carter had drinks at the back bar of the Yacht
Club once a week. They went dove hunt­ing with Horse. They’d tak­en
Blue and Korey night shrimp­ing at See­wee Farms. He’d even had
sup­per with them five or six times when Carter was out of town, and
every time she saw him, Patri­cia didn’t think about what she’d seen.
She made her­self remote, and cool, but pleas­ant. The chil­dren
adored him, and he had giv­en Blue a com­put­er game called
Com­mand some­thing for Christ­mas, and Carter talked to him about
his career, and he had opin­ions about music that Korey actu­al­ly
tol­er­at­ed, so Patri­cia tried. But she still didn’t want Blue in James
Harris’s house alone overnight.
“We don’t want to impose,” Patri­cia said, her voice high and hard
in her chest.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Carter said. “We could use the time to let
the air clear.”
“It’s no wor­ry,” James Har­ris said. “I’m hap­py to have the
com­pa­ny. Hold on a minute.”
There was a pause, a thump in her ear, and then Patri­cia heard her
son breath­ing.
“Blue?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“Mom,” Blue said. She heard him swal­low hard. “I’m sor­ry.”
Tears spiked Patricia’s eyes. She want­ed him in her arms. Now.
“We’re just glad you’re okay,” she said.
“I’m sor­ry I yelled at you and I’m sor­ry for what I did to Rufus,”
Blue said, swal­low­ing, breath­ing hard. “And, Dad, if you want me to
take the test, James says I should.”

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.

25
When I used to walk dogs in the neigh­bor­hood, I some­times thought about where peo­ple like
Camp­bell, Emi­ly, and Car­o­line went dur­ing the day, when they pulled out of Thorn­field Estates in
their over­sized SUVs.
Not far, appar­ent­ly. Today, we’re at Roast­ed, for a meet­ing of the Neigh­bor­hood Beau­ti­fi­ca­tion
Com­mit­tee. Camp­bell and Emi­ly are both wear­ing ath­leisure, but I’ve dressed a lit­tle nicer, pair­ing a
gray pen­cil skirt with a pink blouse and match­ing heels. I’m still not quite as tan or as glossy of hair
as they both are, but I can see myself reflect­ed in Emily’s giant sun­glass­es, and I know I look a lot
more like both of them than I did just a few months ago.
Mak­ing a men­tal note to ask Emi­ly where she gets her hair done, I reach down into my bag—
anoth­er new pur­chase, this mas­sive leather purse that could prob­a­bly hold Adele—and pull out the
binder I’ve care­ful­ly labeled TENBC in a pret­ty, swirly font.
“Look at yooooou­u­u­uu,” Emi­ly says, reach­ing out to play­ful­ly shove at my arm. “So orga­nized!”
I smile, not men­tion­ing that I was up until 1 A.M. work­ing on this and that it took a stu­pid amount of
con­ceal­er to cov­er the cir­cles under my eyes.
Or that while I sat on the floor of the liv­ing room, cut­ting pic­tures out of mag­a­zines and slid­ing
them into the binder’s plas­tic fold­ers, I’d heard those thumps from upstairs again, the weird sounds
Eddie had said not to wor­ry about.
Just a cou­ple, and faint enough that I hadn’t jumped or shrieked this time, but I’d still made a
men­tal note to call an exter­mi­na­tor.
Now, though, I’m all smiles as I lay the binder out on the table, my ring flash­ing in the sun­light.
Camp­bell leans for­ward to look more close­ly at the ring, just like I’d hoped she would.
“When’s the wed­ding?” she asks, and Emi­ly perks up a lit­tle, too.
Gos­sip as cur­ren­cy, yet again.
I look down at the binder, flip­ping through its pages. “Hon­est­ly, we’re not sure. It was going to be
fair­ly soon—something small, you know? Casu­al, at home…”
“I’m sure all of this with Tripp has made plan­ning a wed­ding hard,” Emi­ly says, sym­pa­thet­ic, and
I look up.
“We’re most­ly try­ing not to think about it,” I say, which is true.
Both women hum in agree­ment, and then Camp­bell sighs, turn­ing my binder to face her. She flips
through the pic­tures, but I can tell she’s not real­ly look­ing at them.
“I found a cou­ple of ideas from South­ern Liv­ing,” I say. “For the flower beds in the front of the
neigh­bor­hood? On that fourth page—”
“Did you know the police found out Tripp was at the lake?”
Emi­ly says it in almost a whis­per, and I jerk my head up, sur­prised. That’s new.
But I’m not as shocked as Camp­bell, appar­ent­ly. She sits up so abrupt­ly that she kicks the table,
rat­tling the wrought iron.
“Are you fuck­ing kid­ding me?” Camp­bell whips off her sun­glass­es, her blue eyes wide. “He was
down there? Seri­ous­ly?”
Emi­ly nods, and I slide my binder back across the table to me. “That’s what the police said. I
think some­one saw him? Or there are receipts? Like, the actu­al kind, not the Kar­dashi­an kind.”
I laugh a lit­tle at that—who knew Emi­ly had jokes?—but Camp­bell is still look­ing at both of us,
her sun­glass­es dan­gling from her fin­gers.
“So … he real­ly did it. He killed them.”
“Of course, he did,” I say, more sharply than I mean to, and they both turn to look at me.
Fuck.
Clear­ing my throat, I flip through the binder some more. “I just mean … the police are doing their
jobs. They wouldn’t have charged him if they weren’t con­fi­dent he did it.”
Emi­ly nods, but Camp­bell still looks unsure, chew­ing her low­er lip, her leg jig­gling. “It’s just so
weird,” she says. “Tripp could be an ass­hole when he drank, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t …
vio­lent. And he loved Blanche.”
I’d thought so, too, but now, I won­der if him falling to pieces after she died, him wan­der­ing the
house and drink­ing all day wasn’t grief, but guilt.
And Emi­ly pipes up, “They were hav­ing some issues though, Cam. You know that.”
They both glance at me, quick­ly, then at each oth­er, and I know what this is about.
“Tripp told me,” I tell them, “that there were rumors about Eddie and Blanche.”
Anoth­er shared glance, and I think they might try to bull­shit me, but then Emi­ly shrugs and says, “I
mean. They were spend­ing a lot of time togeth­er. And Bea was nev­er around.”
“Nev­er,” Camp­bell says, shak­ing her head. “That com­pa­ny was her whole life. Espe­cial­ly in
those last few months. We bare­ly ever saw her.”
“That’s true,” Emi­ly adds. “When we first moved into the neigh­bor­hood, Bea def­i­nite­ly spent
more time with us.” She smiles, tap­ping my binder. “She did stuff like this. But last spring, she was
miss­ing meet­ings, pass­ing on par­ties…”
“But do you think…” I let the ques­tion dan­gle, and I see them look at each oth­er again.
“No,” Emi­ly final­ly says. “But Bea and Blanche were kind of weird right before all of it
hap­pened.”
Camp­bell sucks in a breath, sit­ting back in her chair, her gaze again dart­ing to Emi­ly.
“What?” Emi­ly asks her, sip­ping her cof­fee. “It’s true, and they’re both dead. It’s not like it can
hurt any­one now to acknowl­edge it. Besides,” she adds, wav­ing a hand, rings throw­ing off show­ers of
sparks, “it wasn’t any­thing juicy. I think it had to do with Bea’s mom or some­thing. Back before Eddie
was even in the pic­ture.”
I can see where that kind of gos­sip isn’t inter­est­ing to them, but damn, do I wish I knew more
about it. Hear­ing that Bea and Blanche had some kind of ten­sion isn’t new—Tripp had said the same
thing—but why, exact­ly? I know there is some­thing in that friend­ship that I am miss­ing, and I can’t
shake the thought that fig­ur­ing it out is key to under­stand­ing Eddie. I try anoth­er angle. “Did Bea have
a tem­per?”

On the eighth of April, Helen and her hus­band, Arthur, trav­el to Lon­don, leav­ing Helen feel­ing appre­hen­sive about the sep­a­ra­tion their lifestyle in the city impos­es on their rela­tion­ship. Arthur immers­es them both in a whirl­wind of soci­etal engage­ments, show­cas­ing Helen to his con­nec­tions, requir­ing her to aban­don her per­son­al tastes for a more osten­ta­tious appear­ance to match his expec­ta­tions. Despite find­ing some pride in being val­ued by Arthur, Helen strug­gles with the social demands, fear­ing she might embar­rass her­self or fail to meet Arthur’s high expec­ta­tions.

By ear­ly May, Arthur unex­pect­ed­ly decides it’s time for Helen to return to their coun­try home in Grass­dale, cit­ing con­cerns for her health and their future child’s wel­fare as rea­sons for her depar­ture, despite her protests and desire to stay with him. Arthur’s insis­tence on Helen’s imme­di­ate return, while he remains in Lon­don for vague busi­ness rea­sons, leaves her dis­tressed and pon­der­ing the true nature of his engage­ments in the city.

Through­out Helen’s lone­ly stay at Grass­dale, she bat­tles with her long­ing for Arthur’s return, feel­ing aban­doned and neglect­ed, her only solace being the unwa­ver­ing cor­re­spon­dence she main­tains with him despite his spo­radic and unsat­is­fac­to­ry replies. This peri­od of sep­a­ra­tion reveals the depth of Helen’s love and ded­i­ca­tion to Arthur, even as she faces the stark real­i­ty of their strained rela­tion­ship and Arthur’s neglect­ful behav­ior.

Helen’s nar­ra­tive also touch­es upon the life of her friend, Mil­i­cent Har­grave, who finds her­self reluc­tant­ly engaged to Mr. Hat­ter­s­ley, a suit­or approved by her fam­i­ly for finan­cial rea­sons rather than love or com­pat­i­bil­i­ty. Helen empathizes with Mil­i­cen­t’s predica­ment, rec­og­niz­ing her own pow­er­less­ness in influ­enc­ing her friend’s deci­sion to pro­ceed with a mar­riage dri­ven by famil­ial pres­sure rather than per­son­al hap­pi­ness.

Upon Arthur’s return, he appears phys­i­cal­ly dimin­ished and emo­tion­al­ly dis­tant, hav­ing evi­dent­ly indulged in the excess­es of Lon­don life. Helen, ever the devot­ed wife, endeav­ors to revive his spir­its and health with lov­ing care, find­ing solace in his fleet­ing moments of affec­tion, despite know­ing the super­fi­cial nature of his com­mit­ment to their rela­tion­ship. This dynam­ic sets a tone of endur­ing hope and resilience in Helen, as she nav­i­gates the com­plex­i­ties of her mar­riage to Arthur, whose affec­tions and atten­tions remain incon­sis­tent and large­ly self-serv­ing.

As autumn approach­es, Arthur makes plans to host friends for the shoot­ing sea­son, sug­gest­ing a tem­po­rary dis­trac­tion from their issues but also poten­tial­ly intro­duc­ing fur­ther strife with the inclu­sion of indi­vid­u­als Helen finds dis­agree­able. Amidst this, Helen grap­ples with her desires for a more mean­ing­ful and rec­i­p­ro­cal part­ner­ship, reflect­ing on the soci­etal and per­son­al chal­lenges of main­tain­ing her dig­ni­ty and love in a mar­riage marked by indif­fer­ence and exploita­tion.