Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

The estate that greet­ed me was beyond any­thing I had ever seen, a grand mar­vel nes­tled in rolling green land­scapes, draped in the cas­cad­ing blooms of ros­es and ivy. Lux­u­ri­ous patios, intri­cate balustrades, and dra­mat­ic stair­cas­es adorned its alabaster struc­ture, sprawl­ing so vast that the encir­cling woods seemed a dis­tant frame. But beneath its awe-inspir­ing beau­ty lay an unset­tling silence, an eerie still­ness that hint­ed at the mag­i­cal force keep­ing this land per­pet­u­al­ly in spring, a stark con­trast to the bleak world I had left behind.

As I approached the tow­er­ing estate house, my captor—a faerie of for­mi­da­ble presence—led the way with the ease of some­one return­ing to a famil­iar haunt. The doors swung open upon his approach, silent­ly wel­com­ing us into its opu­lent embrace. Inside, the spec­ta­cle of wealth and grandeur continued—marble floors, a sweep­ing stair­case, doors lead­ing to mys­ter­ies untold. Yet, despite its ele­gance, an unde­ni­able air of men­ace lin­gered, remind­ing me of my pre­car­i­ous posi­tion in this faerie domain.

Push­ing aside my swirling thoughts of escape, I found myself ush­ered into a din­ing hall where opu­lence met the surreal—an array of food so abun­dant and invit­ing, yet for­bid­den by every tale of old warn­ing against faerie enchant­ments. My cap­tor, trans­formed from beast to a gold­en-haired man don­ning an exot­ic mask, beck­oned me to eat, his demeanor a com­plex mix of hos­pi­tal­i­ty and under­ly­ing threat. It was a ges­ture of mer­cy or a cru­el jest, I could­n’t tell. His com­pa­ny was joined by anoth­er High Fae, Lucien, his appear­ance as strik­ing as his dis­dain was appar­ent. Their con­ver­sa­tion, laced with ref­er­ences to a grim event my hands had unwit­ting­ly authored, revealed my role in a trag­ic fate that had befall­en one of their own, Andras.

Lucien’s scorn was pal­pa­ble, his words sharp­en­ing the air between us with the weight of accu­sa­tion and bare­ly con­cealed con­tempt. Yet, amidst this hos­tile wel­come, a strat­e­gy unfold­ed in my mind: com­pli­ance min­gled with an obser­vant silence, await­ing a chance for escape. Regard­less of their inten­tions, these faeries, for now, saw fit to grant me a sem­blance of guest rights, not pris­on­er’s chains—allowing me a glimpse into their world of lethal beau­ty and intri­cate hier­ar­chies.

Led away by Alis, a ser­vant whose demeanor soft­ened the rigid atmos­phere left by the faeries’ exchange, I was tak­en to quar­ters that spoke of lux­u­ry I had nev­er known. The lav­ish care extend­ed towards my accom­mo­da­tion, groom­ing, and dress did lit­tle to ease the deep-seat­ed aware­ness of my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in this faerie realm. Despite the out­ward calm of my sur­round­ings, the serene gar­dens, and the absence of open hos­til­i­ty, the under­cur­rents of dan­ger were pal­pa­ble, whis­per­ing of the pre­car­i­ous bal­ance in which I found myself—a mor­tal amid the High Fae, nav­i­gat­ing a path thread­ed with unpre­dictabil­i­ty and the shad­ow of unseen threats.

Chap­ter 6 recounts a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in the lives of Maeve and Dan­ny Con­roy, mark­ing their final depar­ture from the Dutch House due to their step­moth­er Andrea’s final act of sev­er­ance. After their father’s death, the dynam­ics with­in the Dutch House shift dra­mat­i­cal­ly. Andrea, assert­ing her con­trol and sig­nal­ing her desire to erase Maeve and Dan­ny’s pres­ence from her life and the house, demands they leave imme­di­ate­ly, claim­ing the house for her­self and her daugh­ters.

Maeve, who had been liv­ing inde­pen­dent­ly in Jenk­in­town and work­ing at Otterson’s Frozen Veg­eta­bles, and Dan­ny, still in high school, find them­selves sud­den­ly and harsh­ly uproot­ed. Their expul­sion from the house is swift and unfor­giv­ing, with Andrea dis­miss­ing not just Maeve and Dan­ny but also the long-time house employ­ees, Sandy and Joce­lyn, who had deep ties to the Con­roy fam­i­ly and its matri­arch, Elna.

This chap­ter delves into the deep, com­plex emo­tions sur­round­ing fam­i­ly, loss, and mem­o­ry. It also begins to sketch the out­lines of Maeve and Dan­ny’s resilience in the face of such betray­al and aban­don­ment. The nar­ra­tive pow­er­ful­ly con­veys the shock and rapid adjust­ment Maeve and Dan­ny must make to their new real­i­ty, high­light­ing their unbreak­able bond and deter­mi­na­tion to pro­tect one anoth­er.

Andrea’s deci­sion to remove Maeve, Dan­ny, Sandy, and Joce­lyn from the Dutch House is root­ed in her deep resent­ment and sense of enti­tle­ment, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the fam­i­ly’s already tan­gled dynam­ics. The loss of their father exac­er­bates Maeve and Dan­ny’s sense of dis­place­ment, pro­pelling them into an uncer­tain future with­out the famil­ial and mate­r­i­al anchors they once had.

The chap­ter clos­es with Maeve and Dan­ny, along­side Sandy and Joce­lyn, leav­ing the Dutch House behind phys­i­cal­ly, but it remains a potent sym­bol of their past and a cen­tral fig­ure in their shared his­to­ry and indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ties. This piv­otal moment sets the stage for the unfold­ing explo­ration of how places and peo­ple we deeply con­nect with shape our sense of self and our path for­ward.

Chap­ter 6 opens with a nos­tal­gic reflec­tion on pies and tran­si­tions quick­ly into the cen­tral char­ac­ter, Alice’s life, in Bai­leyville, where she finds solace in the week­ly church din­ners host­ed at her home. These gath­er­ings are punc­tu­at­ed by jovial sto­ry­telling and gos­sip, serv­ing as a tem­po­rary reprieve from the oth­er­wise somber atmos­phere of her house­hold. How­ev­er, the recur­ring top­ic of when Alice and her hus­band, Ben­nett, will have chil­dren con­tin­ues to be a source of dis­com­fort for her, espe­cial­ly giv­en the close quar­ters they share with Ben­net­t’s father, which inhibits any sem­blance of pri­va­cy.

Alice’s frus­tra­tion is com­pound­ed when din­ner guests insen­si­tive­ly dis­cuss her poten­tial fer­til­i­ty issues, con­trast­ing her sit­u­a­tion with the per­ceived fecun­di­ty of oth­ers. The nar­ra­tive then shifts to a more inti­mate per­spec­tive of Alice’s inter­nal strug­gle with her mar­riage’s lack of inti­ma­cy and the pres­sures to con­ceive. The chap­ter explores these themes against the back­drop of soci­etal expec­ta­tions and per­son­al desires, illus­trat­ing Alice’s increas­ing iso­la­tion and sense of entrap­ment with­in her cir­cum­stances.

The nar­ra­tive takes a turn when Alice, along­side fel­low librar­i­ans, par­takes in an impromp­tu and lib­er­at­ing evening that diverges sig­nif­i­cant­ly from her usu­al restrained envi­ron­ment. This gath­er­ing allows Alice to momen­tar­i­ly escape her bur­dens through shared cama­raderie, laugh­ter, and music. It’s a stark con­trast to her life with the Van Cleves, high­light­ing a divide between soci­etal expec­ta­tions and indi­vid­ual hap­pi­ness.

Amid this rev­el­ry, Alice con­fides in Margery, anoth­er librar­i­an, about her mar­i­tal issues, open­ly dis­cussing the lack of phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy and the result­ing strain on her mar­riage. Margery, in an act of sol­i­dar­i­ty and under­stand­ing, offers Alice a book intend­ed to help her nav­i­gate these per­son­al chal­lenges, empha­siz­ing the sup­port­ive, albeit uncon­ven­tion­al, com­mu­ni­ty Alice has found among the librar­i­ans.

The chap­ter con­cludes with the librar­i­ans part­ing ways after their night togeth­er, with Alice return­ing to the cold recep­tion of her home. This end­ing encap­su­lates the nov­el­’s cen­tral themes of female agency, com­mu­ni­ty, and the strug­gle against soci­etal pres­sures, leav­ing the read­er to pon­der the con­straints placed on women and the avenues avail­able for their auton­o­my and ful­fill­ment.

Chap­ter Six sum­ma­rizes the pro­tag­o­nist’s new­found com­fort and sub­se­quent unease upon mov­ing from sleep­ing in their car to sleep­ing in a real bed for the first time in a long while. The cot, despite being lumpy and noisy, rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant upgrade from the car, offer­ing the lux­u­ry of con­ve­nience and safety—a stark con­trast to the rest­less nights spent at rest stops, clutch­ing mace for pro­tec­tion. The relief and safe­ty the pro­tag­o­nist feels are pal­pa­ble as they describe the sim­ple plea­sure of being able to use a bath­room with­out fear and the lux­u­ry of falling asleep quick­ly in a prop­er bed.

How­ev­er, this sense of secu­ri­ty and com­fort is short-lived. After briefly wak­ing in the mid­dle of the night, the pro­tag­o­nist expe­ri­ences a moment of pan­ic upon real­iz­ing they’re no longer in their car; this dis­rup­tion in their rou­tine brings an ini­tial fear until they recall the recent pos­i­tive changes in their life, such as accept­ing a job offer from Nina and mov­ing into a new room. The dark­ness of the night and the qui­et of their sur­round­ings bring a moment of peace that is quick­ly frag­ment­ed by the unex­pect­ed: a door that won’t open.

This shift from com­fort to unease encap­su­lates the chap­ter’s essence, high­light­ing the pro­tag­o­nist’s strug­gle with adapt­ing to new cir­cum­stances and the fear of unfore­seen obsta­cles, sym­bol­ized by the unyield­ing door. Their attempt at nor­mal­cy and the phys­i­cal move­ment from a car to a cot in a secure room sym­bol­izes a broad­er jour­ney towards sta­bil­i­ty and safe­ty. This tran­si­tion, how­ev­er, is not with­out its chal­lenges, as indi­cat­ed by the locked door—a metaphor for the unfore­seen chal­lenges that lie ahead in their jour­ney towards a new life. The pro­tag­o­nist’s expe­ri­ences reflect a sig­nif­i­cant the­mat­ic ele­ment of change and adap­ta­tion, empha­siz­ing the com­plex­i­ties of mov­ing on from a life of uncer­tain­ty to one of rel­a­tive secu­ri­ty and the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal adjust­ments involved in such a tran­si­tion.

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
6
Rhysand had mocked me about it once—had asked me while we were
Under the Moun­tain if forc­ing me to learn how to read would be my
per­son­al idea of tor­ture.
“No, thank you,” I said, grip­ping my fork to keep from chuck­ing it at his
head.
“You’re going to be a High Lord’s wife,” Rhys said. “You’ll be expect­ed
to main­tain your own cor­re­spon­dences, per­haps even give a speech or two.
And the Caul­dron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appro­pri­ate for
you. Make menus for din­ner par­ties, write thank-you let­ters for all those
wed­ding gifts, embroi­der sweet phras­es on pil­lows … It’s a nec­es­sary skill.
And, you know what? Why don’t we throw in shield­ing while we’re at it.
Read­ing and shielding—fortunately, you can prac­tice them togeth­er.”
“They are both nec­es­sary skills,” I said through my teeth, “but you are
not going to teach me.”
“What else are you going to do with your­self? Paint? How’s that going
these days, Feyre?”
“What the hell does it even mat­ter to you?”
“It serves var­i­ous pur­pos­es of mine, of course.”
“What. Pur­pos­es.”
“You’ll have to agree to work with me to find out, I’m afraid.”
Some­thing sharp poked into my hand.
I’d fold­ed the fork into a tan­gle of met­al.
When I set it down on the table, Rhys chuck­led. “Inter­est­ing.”
“You said that last night.”
“Am I not allowed to say it twice?”
“That’s not what I was imply­ing and you know it.”
His gaze raked over me again, as if he could see beneath the peach fab­ric,
through the skin, to the shred­ded soul beneath. Then it drift­ed to the
man­gled fork. “Has any­one ever told you that you’re rather strong for a
High Fae?”
“Am I?”
“I’ll take that as a no.” He popped a piece of mel­on into his mouth.
“Have you test­ed your­self against any­one?”
“Why would I?” I was enough of a wreck as it was.
“Because you were res­ur­rect­ed and reborn by the com­bined pow­ers of
the sev­en High Lords. If I were you, I’d be curi­ous to see if any­thing else
trans­ferred to me dur­ing that process.”
My blood chilled. “Noth­ing else trans­ferred to me.”
“It’d just be rather … inter­est­ing,” he smirked at the word, “if it did.”
“It didn’t, and I’m not going to learn to read or shield with you.”
“Why? From spite? I thought you and I got past that Under the
Moun­tain.”
“Don’t get me start­ed on what you did to me Under the Moun­tain.”
Rhys went still.
As still as I’d ever seen him, as still as the death now beck­on­ing in those
eyes. Then his chest began to move, faster and faster.
Across the pil­lars tow­er­ing behind him, I could have sworn the shad­ow
of great wings spread.
He opened his mouth, lean­ing for­ward, and then stopped. Instant­ly, the
shad­ows, the ragged breath­ing, the inten­si­ty were gone, the lazy grin
return­ing. “We have com­pa­ny. We’ll dis­cuss this lat­er.”
“No, we won’t.” But quick, light foot­steps sound­ed down the hall, and
then she appeared.
If Rhysand was the most beau­ti­ful male I’d ever seen, she was his female
equiv­a­lent.
Her bright, gold­en hair was tied back in a casu­al braid, and the turquoise
of her clothes—fashioned like my own—offset her sun-kissed skin, mak­ing
her prac­ti­cal­ly glow in the morn­ing light.
“Hel­lo, hel­lo,” she chirped, her full lips part­ing in a daz­zling smile as her
rich brown eyes fixed on me.
“Feyre,” Rhys said smooth­ly, “meet my cousin, Mor­ri­g­an. Mor, meet the
love­ly, charm­ing, and open-mind­ed Feyre.”
I debat­ed splash­ing my tea in his face, but Mor strode toward me. Each
step was assured and steady, grace­ful, and … ground­ed. Mer­ry but alert.
Some­one who didn’t need weapons—or at least both­er to sheath them at her
side. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, and I got to my feet,
awk­ward­ly jut­ting out my hand.
She ignored it and grabbed me into a bone-crush­ing hug. She smelled
like cit­rus and cin­na­mon. I tried to relax my taut mus­cles as she pulled
away and grinned rather fiendish­ly. “You look like you were get­ting under
Rhys’s skin,” she said, strut­ting to her seat between us. “Good thing I came
along. Though I’d enjoy see­ing Rhys’s balls nailed to the wall.”
Rhys slid incred­u­lous eyes at her, his brows lift­ing.
I hid the smile that tugged on my lips. “It’s—nice to meet you.”
“Liar,” Mor said, pour­ing her­self some tea and load­ing her plate. “You
want noth­ing to do with us, do you? And wicked Rhys is mak­ing you sit
here.”
“You’re … perky today, Mor,” Rhys said.
Mor’s stun­ning eyes lift­ed to her cousin’s face. “For­give me for being
excit­ed about hav­ing com­pa­ny for once.”
“You could be attend­ing your own duties,” he said testi­ly. I clamped my
lips tighter togeth­er. I’d nev­er seen Rhys … irked.
“I need­ed a break, and you told me to come here when­ev­er I liked, so
what bet­ter time than now, when you brought my new friend to final­ly meet
me?”
I blinked, real­iz­ing two things at once: one, she actu­al­ly meant what she
said; two, hers was the female voice I’d heard speak last night, mock­ing
Rhys for our squab­ble. So, that went well, she’d teased. As if there were any
oth­er alter­na­tive, any chance of pleas­ant­ness, where he and I were
con­cerned.
A new fork had appeared beside my plate, and I picked it up, only to
spear a piece of mel­on. “You two look noth­ing alike,” I said at last.
“Mor is my cousin in the loos­est def­i­n­i­tion,” he said. She grinned at him,
devour­ing slices of toma­to and pale cheese. “But we were raised togeth­er.
She’s my only sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly.”
I didn’t have the nerve to ask what hap­pened to every­one else. Or remind
myself whose father was respon­si­ble for the lack of fam­i­ly at my own court.
“And as my only remain­ing rel­a­tive,” Rhys went on, “Mor believes she is
enti­tled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.”
“So grumpy this morn­ing,” Mor said, plop­ping two muffins onto her
plate.
“I didn’t see you Under the Moun­tain,” I found myself say­ing, hat­ing
those last three words more than any­thing.
“Oh, I wasn’t there,” she said. “I was in—”
“Enough, Mor,” he said, his voice laced with qui­et thun­der.
It was a tri­al in itself not to sit up at the inter­rup­tion, not to study them
too close­ly.
Rhysand set his nap­kin on the table and rose. “Mor will be here for the
rest of the week, but by all means, do not feel that you have to oblige her
with your pres­ence.” Mor stuck out her tongue at him. He rolled his eyes,
the most human ges­ture I’d ever seen him make. He exam­ined my plate.
“Did you eat enough?” I nod­ded. “Good. Then let’s go.” He inclined his
head toward the pil­lars and sway­ing cur­tains behind him. “Your first les­son
awaits.”
Mor sliced one of the muffins in two in a steady sweep of her knife. The
angle of her fin­gers, her wrist, indeed con­firmed my sus­pi­cions that
weapons weren’t at all for­eign to her. “If he piss­es you off, Feyre, feel free
to shove him over the rail of the near­est bal­cony.”
Rhys gave her a smooth, filthy ges­ture as he strode down the hall.
I eased to my feet when he was a good dis­tance ahead. “Enjoy your
break­fast.”
“When­ev­er you want com­pa­ny,” she said as I edged around the table,
“give a shout.” She prob­a­bly meant that lit­er­al­ly.
I mere­ly nod­ded and trailed after the High Lord.
I agreed to sit at the long, wood­en table in a cur­tained-off alcove only
because he had a point. Not being able to read had almost cost me my life
Under the Moun­tain. I’d be damned if I let it become a weak­ness again, his
per­son­al agen­da or no. And as for shield­ing … I’d be a damned fool not to
take up the offer to learn from him. The thought of any­one, espe­cial­ly Rhys,
sift­ing through the mess in my mind, tak­ing infor­ma­tion about the Spring
Court, about the peo­ple I loved … I’d nev­er allow it. Not will­ing­ly.
But it didn’t make it any eas­i­er to endure Rhysand’s pres­ence at the
wood­en table. Or the stack of books piled atop it.
“I know my alpha­bet,” I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front
of me. “I’m not that stu­pid.” I twist­ed my fin­gers in my lap, then pinned my
rest­less hands under my thighs.
“I didn’t say you were stu­pid,” he said. “I’m just try­ing to deter­mine
where we should begin.” I leaned back in the cush­ioned seat. “Since you’ve
refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.”
My face warmed. “Can’t you hire a tutor?”
He lift­ed a brow. “Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?”
“You’re a High Lord—don’t you have bet­ter things to do?”
“Of course. But none as enjoy­able as see­ing you squirm.”
“You’re a real bas­tard, you know that?”
Rhys huffed a laugh. “I’ve been called worse. In fact, I think you’ve
called me worse.” He tapped the paper in front of him. “Read that.”
A blur of let­ters. My throat tight­ened. “I can’t.”
“Try.”
The sen­tence had been writ­ten in ele­gant, con­cise print. His writ­ing, no
doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked up. “What, exact­ly, is
your stake in all this? You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”
“I didn’t spec­i­fy when I’d tell you.” I peeled back from him as my lip
curled. He shrugged. “Maybe I resent the idea of you let­ting those
syco­phants and war-mon­ger­ing fools in the Spring Court make you feel
inad­e­quate. Maybe I indeed enjoy see­ing you squirm. Or maybe—”
“I get it.”
Rhys snort­ed. “Try to read it, Feyre.”
Prick. I snatched the paper to me, near­ly rip­ping it in half in the process. I
looked at the first word, sound­ing it out in my head. “Y‑you … ” The next I
fig­ured out with a com­bi­na­tion of my silent pro­nun­ci­a­tion and log­ic. “Look
… ”
“Good,” he mur­mured.
“I didn’t ask for your approval.”
Rhys chuck­led.
“Ab … Absolute­ly.” It took me longer than I want­ed to admit to fig­ure
that out. The next word was even worse. “De … Del … ”
I deigned to glance at him, brows raised.
“Deli­cious,” he purred.
My brows now knot­ted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face
toward him. “You look absolute­ly deli­cious today, Feyre?! That’s what you
wrote?”
He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my
mind and his voice whis­pered inside my head: It’s true, isn’t it?
I jolt­ed back, my chair groan­ing. “Stop that!”
But those claws now dug in—and my entire body, my heart, my lungs,
my blood yield­ed to his grip, utter­ly at his com­mand as he said, The fash­ion
of the Night Court suits you.
I couldn’t move in my seat, couldn’t even blink.
This is what hap­pens when you leave your men­tal shields down. Some­one
with my sort of pow­ers could slip inside, see what they want, and take your
mind for them­selves. Or they could shat­ter it. I’m cur­rent­ly stand­ing on the
thresh­old of your mind … but if I were to go deep­er, all it would take would
be half a thought from me and who you are, your very self, would be wiped
away.
Dis­tant­ly, sweat slid down my tem­ple.
You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be
thank­ing the gods-damned Caul­dron that in the past three months, no one
with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.
I couldn’t. Those claws were everywhere—digging into every thought,
every piece of self. He pushed a lit­tle hard­er.
Shove. Me. Out.
I didn’t know where to begin. I blind­ly pushed and slammed myself into
him, into those claws that were every­where, as if I were a top loosed in a
cir­cle of mir­rors.
His laugh­ter, low and soft, filled my mind, my ears. That way, Feyre.
In answer, a lit­tle open path gleamed inside my mind. The road out.
It’d take me for­ev­er to unhook each claw and shove the mass of his
pres­ence out that nar­row open­ing. If I could wash it away—
A wave. A wave of self, of me, to sweep all of him out—
I didn’t let him see the plan take form as I ral­lied myself into a crest­ing
wave and struck.
The claws loosened—reluctantly. As if let­ting me win this round. He
mere­ly said, “Good.”
My bones, my breath and blood, they were mine again. I slumped in my
seat.
“Not yet,” he said. “Shield. Block me out so I can’t get back in.”
I already want­ed to go some­where qui­et and sleep for a while—
Claws at that out­er lay­er of my mind, stroking—
I imag­ined a wall of adamant snap­ping down, black as night and a foot
thick. The claws retract­ed a breath before the wall sliced them in two.
Rhys was grin­ning. “Very nice. Blunt, but nice.”
I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the piece of paper and shred­ded it in
two, then four. “You’re a pig.”
“Oh, most def­i­nite­ly. But look at you—you read that whole sen­tence,
kicked me out of your mind, and shield­ed. Excel­lent work.”
“Don’t con­de­scend to me.”
“I’m not. You’re read­ing at a lev­el far high­er than I antic­i­pat­ed.”
That burn­ing returned to my cheeks. “But most­ly illit­er­ate.”
“At this point, it’s about prac­tice, spelling, and more prac­tice. You could
be read­ing nov­els by Nyn­sar. And if you keep adding to those shields, you
might very well keep me out entire­ly by then, too.”
Nyn­sar. It’d be the first Tam­lin and his court would cel­e­brate in near­ly
fifty years. Ama­ran­tha had banned it on a whim, along with a few oth­er
small, but beloved Fae hol­i­days that she had deemed unnec­es­sary. But
Nyn­sar was months from now. “Is it even possible—to tru­ly keep you out?”
“Not like­ly, but who knows how deep that pow­er goes? Keep prac­tic­ing
and we’ll see what hap­pens.”
“And will I still be bound by this bar­gain at Nyn­sar, too?”
Silence.
I pushed, “After—after what hap­pened—” I couldn’t men­tion specifics
on what had occurred Under the Moun­tain, what he’d done for me dur­ing
that fight with Ama­ran­tha, what he’d done after— “I think we can agree
that I owe you noth­ing, and you owe me noth­ing.”
His gaze was unflinch­ing.
I blazed on, “Isn’t it enough that we’re all free?” I splayed my tat­tooed
hand on the table. “By the end, I thought you were dif­fer­ent, thought that it
was all a mask, but tak­ing me away, keep­ing me here … ” I shook my head,
unable to find the words vicious enough, clever enough to con­vince him to
end this bar­gain.
His eyes dark­ened. “I’m not your ene­my, Feyre.”
“Tam­lin says you are.” I curled the fin­gers of my tat­tooed hand into a fist.
“Every­one else says you are.”
“And what do you think?” He leaned back in his chair again, but his face
was grave.
“You’re doing a damned good job of mak­ing me agree with them.”
“Liar,” he purred. “Did you even tell your friends about what I did to you
Under the Moun­tain?”
So that com­ment at break­fast had got­ten under his skin. “I don’t want to
talk about any­thing relat­ed to that. With you or them.”
“No, because it’s so much eas­i­er to pre­tend it nev­er hap­pened and let
them cod­dle you.”
“I don’t let them cod­dle me—”
“They had you wrapped up like a present yes­ter­day. Like you were his
reward.”
“So?”
“So?” A flick­er of rage, then it was gone.
“I’m ready to be tak­en home,” I mere­ly said.
“Where you’ll be clois­tered for the rest of your life, espe­cial­ly once you
start punch­ing out heirs. I can’t wait to see what Ianthe does when she gets
her hands on them.”
“You don’t seem to have a par­tic­u­lar­ly high opin­ion of her.”
Some­thing cold and preda­to­ry crept into his eyes. “No, I can’t say that I
do.” He point­ed to a blank piece of paper. “Start copy­ing the alpha­bet. Until
your let­ters are per­fect. And every time you get through a round, low­er and
raise your shield. Until that is sec­ond nature. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“What?”
“Copy. The. Alpha­bet. Until—”
“I heard what you said.” Prick. Prick, prick, prick.
“Then get to work.” Rhys uncoiled to his feet. “And at least have the
decen­cy to only call me a prick when your shields are back up.”
He van­ished into a rip­ple of dark­ness before I real­ized that I’d let the
wall of adamant fade again.
By the time Rhys returned, my mind felt like a mud pud­dle.
I spent the entire hour doing as I’d been ordered, though I’d flinched at
every sound from the near­by stair­well: qui­et steps of ser­vants, the flap­ping
of sheets being changed, some­one hum­ming a beau­ti­ful and wind­ing
melody. And beyond that, the chat­ter of birds that dwelled in the unnat­ur­al
warmth of the moun­tain or in the many pot­ted cit­rus trees. No sign of my
impend­ing tor­ment. No sen­tries, even, to mon­i­tor me. I might as well have
had the entire place to myself.
Which was good, as my attempts to low­er and raise that men­tal shield
often result­ed in my face being twist­ed or strained or pinched.
“Not bad,” Rhys said, peer­ing over my shoul­der.
He’d appeared moments before, a healthy dis­tance away, and if I hadn’t
known bet­ter, I might have thought it was because he didn’t want to star­tle
me. As if he’d known about the time Tam­lin had crept up behind me, and
pan­ic had hit me so hard I’d knocked him on his ass with a punch to his
stom­ach. I’d blocked it out—the shock on Tam’s face, how easy it had been
to take him off his feet, the humil­i­a­tion of hav­ing my stu­pid ter­ror so out in
the open …
Rhys scanned the pages I’d scrib­bled on, sort­ing through them, track­ing
my progress.
Then, a scrape of claws inside my mind—that only sliced against black,
glit­ter­ing adamant.
I threw my lin­ger­ing will into that wall as the claws pushed, test­ing for
weak spots …
“Well, well,” Rhysand purred, those men­tal claws with­draw­ing.
“Hope­ful­ly I’ll be get­ting a good night’s rest at last, if you can man­age to
keep the wall up while you sleep.”
I dropped the shield, sent a word blast­ing down that men­tal bridge
between us, and hauled the walls back up. Behind it, my mind wob­bled like
jel­ly. I need­ed a nap. Des­per­ate­ly.
“Prick I might be, but look at you. Maybe we’ll get to have some fun
with our lessons after all.”
I was still scowl­ing at Rhys’s mus­cled back as I kept a healthy ten steps
behind him while he led me through the halls of the main build­ing, the
sweep­ing moun­tains and blis­ter­ing­ly blue sky the only wit­ness­es to our
silent trek.
I was too drained to demand where we were now going, and he didn’t
both­er explain­ing as he led me up, up—until we entered a round cham­ber at
the top of a tow­er.
A cir­cu­lar table of black stone occu­pied the cen­ter, while the largest
stretch of unin­ter­rupt­ed gray stone wall was cov­ered in a mas­sive map of
our world. It had been marked and flagged and pinned, for what­ev­er
rea­sons I couldn’t tell, but my gaze drift­ed to the win­dows through­out the
room—so many that it felt utter­ly exposed, breath­able. The per­fect home, I
sup­posed, for a High Lord blessed with wings.
Rhys stalked to the table, where there was anoth­er map spread, fig­urines
dot­ting its sur­face. A map of Prythian—and Hybern.
Every court in our land had been marked, along with vil­lages and cities
and rivers and moun­tain pass­es. Every court … but the Night Court.
The vast, north­ern ter­ri­to­ry was utter­ly blank. Not even a moun­tain range
had been etched in. Strange, like­ly part of some strat­e­gy I didn’t
under­stand.
I found Rhysand watch­ing me—his raised brows enough to make me
shut my mouth against the form­ing ques­tion.
“Noth­ing to ask?”
“No.”
A feline smirk danced on his lips, but Rhys jerked his chin toward the
map on the wall. “What do you see?”
“Is this some sort of way of con­vinc­ing me to embrace my read­ing
lessons?” Indeed, I couldn’t deci­pher any of the writ­ing, only the shapes of
things. Like the wall, its mas­sive line bisect­ing our world.
“Tell me what you see.”
“A world divid­ed in two.”

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.

M Y MOTHER HAD BEEN A cho­rus girl off Broad­way. She’d
emi­grat­ed from Cuba with my father when she was sev­en­teen. When I
got old­er, I found out that cho­rus girl was also a euphemism for a
pros­ti­tute. I don’t know if she was or not. I’d like to think she wasn’t—
not because there’s any shame in it but because I know a lit­tle bit
about what it is to give your body to some­one when you don’t want to,
and I hope she didn’t have to do that.
I was eleven when she died of pneu­mo­nia. Obvi­ous­ly, I don’t have a
lot of mem­o­ries of her, but I do remem­ber that she smelled like cheap
vanil­la, and she made the most amaz­ing cal­do gal­lego. She nev­er called
me Eve­lyn, only mija, which made me feel real­ly spe­cial, like I was
hers and she was mine. Above all else, my moth­er want­ed to be a
movie star. She real­ly thought she could get us out of there and away
from my father by get­ting into the movies.
I want­ed to be just like her.
I’ve often wished that on her deathbed she’d said some­thing
mov­ing, some­thing I could take with me always. But we didn’t know
how sick she was until it was over. The last thing she said to me was
Dile a tu padre que estaré en la cama. “Tell your father I’ll be in bed.”
After she died, I would cry only in the show­er, where no one could
see me or hear me, where I couldn’t tell what were my tears and what
was the water. I don’t know why I did that. I just know that after a few
months, I was able to take a show­er with­out cry­ing.
And then, the sum­mer after she died, I began to devel­op.
My chest start­ed grow­ing, and it wouldn’t stop. I had to rifle
through my mom’s old things when I was twelve years old, look­ing to
see if there was a bra that would fit. The only one I found was too
small, but I put it on any­way.
By the time I was thir­teen, I was five foot eight, with dark, shiny
brown hair, long legs, light bronze skin, and a chest that pulled at the
but­tons of my dress­es. Grown men were watch­ing me walk down the
street, and some of the girls in my build­ing didn’t want to hang out
with me any­more. It was a lone­ly busi­ness. Moth­er­less, with an
abu­sive father, no friends, and a sex­u­al­i­ty in my body that my mind
wasn’t ready for.
The cashier at the five-and-dime on the cor­ner was this boy named
Bil­ly. He was the six­teen-year-old broth­er of the girl who sat next to me
in school. One Octo­ber day, I went down to the five-and-dime to buy a
piece of can­dy, and he kissed me.
I didn’t want him to kiss me. I pushed him away. But he held on to
my arm.
“Oh, come on,” he said.
The store was emp­ty. His arms were strong. He grasped me tighter.
And in that moment, I knew he was going to get what he want­ed from
me whether I let him or not.
So I had two choic­es. I could do it for free. Or I could do it for free
can­dy.
For the next three months, I took any­thing I want­ed from that five-
and-dime. And in exchange, I saw him every Sat­ur­day night and let
him take my shirt off. I nev­er felt I had much choice in the mat­ter.
Being want­ed meant hav­ing to sat­is­fy. At least, that was my view of it
back then.
I remem­ber him say­ing, in the dark, cramped stock­room with my
back against a wood­en crate, “You have this pow­er over me.”
He’d con­vinced him­self that his want­i­ng me was my fault.
And I believed him.
Look what I do to these poor boys, I thought. And yet also, Here is my
val­ue, my pow­er.
So when he dumped me—because he was bored with me, because
he’d found some­one else more exciting—I felt both a deep relief and a
very real sense of fail­ure.
There was one oth­er boy like that, whom I took my shirt off for
because I thought I had to, before I start­ed real­iz­ing that I could be the
one doing the choos­ing.
I didn’t want any­one; that was the prob­lem. To be per­fect­ly blunt,
I’d start­ed to fig­ure my body out quick­ly. I didn’t need boys in order to
feel good. And that real­iza­tion gave me great pow­er. So I wasn’t
inter­est­ed in any­one sex­u­al­ly. But I did want some­thing.
I want­ed to get far away from Hell’s Kitchen.
I want­ed out of my apart­ment, away from my father’s stale tequi­la
breath and heavy hand. I want­ed some­one to take care of me. I want­ed
a nice house and mon­ey. I want­ed to run, far away from my life. I
want­ed to go where my mom had promised me we’d end up some­day.
Here’s the thing about Hol­ly­wood. It’s both a place and a feel­ing. If
you run there, you can run toward South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, where the sun
always shines and the grimy build­ings and dirty side­walks are
replaced by palm trees and orange groves. But you also run toward the
way life is por­trayed in the movies.
You run toward a world that is moral and just, where the good guys
win and the bad guys lose, where the pain you face is only in an effort
to make you stronger, so that you can win that much big­ger in the end.
It would take me years to fig­ure out that life doesn’t get eas­i­er
sim­ply because it gets more glam­orous. But you couldn’t have told me
that when I was four­teen.
So I put on my favorite green dress, the one I had just about grown
out of. And I knocked on the door of the guy I heard was head­ed to
Hol­ly­wood.
I could tell just by the look on his face that Ernie Diaz was glad to
see me.
And that’s what I trad­ed my vir­gin­i­ty for. A ride to Hol­ly­wood.
Ernie and I got mar­ried on Feb­ru­ary 14, 1953. I became Eve­lyn
Diaz. I was just fif­teen by that point, but my father signed the papers. I
have to think Ernie sus­pect­ed I wasn’t of age. But I lied right to his
face about it, and that seemed good enough for him. He wasn’t a bad-
look­ing guy, but he also wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly book-smart or charm­ing.
He wasn’t going to get many chances to mar­ry a beau­ti­ful girl. I think
he knew that. I think he knew enough to grab the chance when it
swung his way.
A few months lat­er, Ernie and I got into his ’49 Ply­mouth and drove
west. We stayed with some friends of his as he start­ed his job as a grip.
Pret­ty soon we had saved enough to get our own apart­ment. We were
on Detroit Street and De Long­pre. I had some new clothes and enough
mon­ey to make us a roast on the week­ends.
I was sup­posed to be fin­ish­ing high school. But Ernie cer­tain­ly
wasn’t going to be check­ing my report cards, and I knew school was a
waste of time. I had come to Hol­ly­wood to do one thing, and I was
going to do it.
Instead of going to class, I would walk down to the For­mosa Cafe
for lunch every day and stayed through hap­py hour. I had rec­og­nized
the place from the gos­sip rags. I knew famous peo­ple hung out there.
It was right next to a movie stu­dio.
The red build­ing with cur­sive writ­ing and a black awning became
my dai­ly spot. I knew it was a lame move, but it was the only one I had.
If I want­ed to be an actress, I would have to be dis­cov­ered. And I
wasn’t sure how you went about that, except by hang­ing around the
spots where movie peo­ple might be.
So I went there every day and nursed a glass of Coke.
I did it so often and for so long that even­tu­al­ly the bar­tender got
sick of pre­tend­ing he didn’t know what gam­ble I was run­ning.
“Look,” he said to me about three weeks in, “if you want to sit
around here hop­ing Humphrey Bog­a­rt shows up, that’s fine. But you
need to make your­self use­ful. I’m not giv­ing up a pay­ing seat for you to
sip a soda.”
He was old­er, maybe fifty, but his hair was thick and dark. The lines
on his fore­head remind­ed me of my father’s.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked him.
I was slight­ly wor­ried that he’d want some­thing from me that I had
already giv­en to Ernie, but he threw a waiter’s pad at me and told me
to try my hand at tak­ing orders.
I had no clue how to be a wait­ress, but I cer­tain­ly wasn’t going to
tell him that. “All right,” I said. “Where should I start?”
He point­ed at the tables in the place, the booths in a tight row.
“That’s table one. You can fig­ure out the rest of the num­bers by
count­ing.”
“OK,” I said. “I got it.”
I stood up off the bar stool and start­ed walk­ing over to table two,
where three men in suits were seat­ed, talk­ing, their menus closed.
“Hey, kid?” the bar­tender said.
“Yes?”
“You’re a knock­out. Five bucks says it hap­pens for you.”
I took ten orders, mixed up three people’s sand­wich­es, and made
four dol­lars.
Four months lat­er, Har­ry Cameron, then a young pro­duc­er at
Sun­set Stu­dios, came in to meet with an exec from the lot next door.
They each ordered a steak. When I brought the check, Har­ry looked
up at me and said, “Jesus.”
Two weeks lat­er, I had a deal at Sun­set Stu­dios.
  *  *  *  
I WENT HOME and told Ernie that I was shocked that any­one at Sun­set
Stu­dios would be inter­est­ed in lit­tle old me. I said that being an actress
would just be a fun lark, a thing to do to pass the time until my real job
of being a moth­er began. Grade‑A bull­shit.
I was almost sev­en­teen by that point, although Ernie still thought I
was old­er. It was late 1954. And I would get up every morn­ing and
head to Sun­set Stu­dios.
I didn’t know how to act my way out of a paper bag, but I was
learn­ing. I was an extra in a cou­ple of roman­tic come­dies. I had one
line in a war pic­ture.
“And why shouldn’t he?” That was the line.
I played a nurse tak­ing care of a wound­ed sol­dier. The doc­tor in the
scene play­ful­ly accused the sol­dier of flirt­ing with me, and I said, “And
why shouldn’t he?” I said it like a child in a fifth-grade play, with a
slight New York accent. Back then, so many of my words were
accent­ed. Eng­lish spo­ken like a New York­er. Span­ish spo­ken like an
Amer­i­can.
When the movie came out, Ernie and I went to see it. Ernie thought
it was fun­ny, his lit­tle wife with a lit­tle line in a movie.
I had nev­er made much mon­ey before, and now I was mak­ing as
much as Ernie after he was pro­mot­ed to key grip. So I asked him if I
could pay for act­ing class­es. I’d made him arroz con pol­lo that night,
and I specif­i­cal­ly didn’t take my apron off when I brought it up. I
want­ed him to see me as harm­less and domes­tic. I thought I’d get
fur­ther if I didn’t threat­en him. It grat­ed on my nerves to have to ask
him how I could spend my own mon­ey. But I didn’t see anoth­er choice.
“Sure,” he said. “I think it’s a smart thing to do. You’ll get bet­ter,
and who knows, you might even star in a pic­ture one day.”
I would star.
I want­ed to punch his lights out.
But I’ve since come to under­stand that it wasn’t Ernie’s fault. None
of it was Ernie’s fault. I’d told him I was some­one else. And then I
start­ed get­ting angry that he couldn’t see who I real­ly was.
Six months lat­er, I could deliv­er a line with sin­cer­i­ty. I wasn’t great
by any means, but I was good enough.
I’d been in three more movies, all day-play­er roles. I’d heard there
was a part open to play Stu Cooper’s teenage daugh­ter in a roman­tic
com­e­dy. And I decid­ed I want­ed it.
So I did some­thing that not many oth­er actress­es at my lev­el would
have had the guts to do. I knocked on Har­ry Cameron’s door.
“Eve­lyn,” he said, sur­prised to see me. “To what do I owe the
plea­sure?”
“I want the Car­o­line part,” I said. “In Love Isn’t All.”
Har­ry motioned for me to sit down. He was hand­some, for an
exec­u­tive. Most pro­duc­ers around the lot were rotund, a lot of them
los­ing their hair. But Har­ry was tall and slim. He was young. I
sus­pect­ed he didn’t even have a decade on me. He wore suits that fit
him nice­ly and always com­ple­ment­ed his ice-blue eyes. There was
some­thing vague­ly mid­west­ern about him, not so much in how he
looked but in the way he approached peo­ple, with kind­ness first, then
strength.
Har­ry was one of the only men on the lot who didn’t stare direct­ly at
my chest. It actu­al­ly both­ered me, as if I’d been doing some­thing
wrong to not get his atten­tion. It just goes to show that if you tell a
woman her only skill is to be desir­able, she will believe you. I was
believ­ing it before I was even eigh­teen.
“I’m not going to bull­shit you, Eve­lyn. Ari Sul­li­van is nev­er going to
approve you for that part.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not the right type.”
“What’s that sup­posed to mean?”
“No one would believe you were Stu Cooper’s daugh­ter.”
“I cer­tain­ly could be.”
“You could not.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Yes, I want to know why.”
“Your name is Eve­lyn Diaz.”
“So?”
“I can’t put you in a movie and try to pre­tend you’re not Mex­i­can.”
“I’m Cuban.”
“For our pur­pos­es, same dif­fer­ence.”
It was not the same dif­fer­ence, but I saw absolute­ly no mer­it in
try­ing to explain that to him. “OK,” I said. “Then how about the movie
with Gary DuPont?”
“You can’t play a roman­tic lead with Gary Dupont.”
“Why not?”
Har­ry looked at me as if to ask if I was real­ly going to make him say
it.
“Because I’m Mex­i­can?” I asked.
“Because the movie with Gary DuPont needs a nice blond girl.”
“I could be a nice blond girl.”
Har­ry looked at me.
I tried hard­er. “I want it, Har­ry. And you know I can do it. I’m one of
the most inter­est­ing girls you guys have right now.”
Har­ry laughed. “You’re bold. I’ll give you that.”
Harry’s sec­re­tary knocked on the door. “I’m sor­ry to inter­rupt, but
Mr. Cameron, you need to be in Bur­bank at one.”
Har­ry looked at his watch.
I made one last play. “Think about it, Har­ry. I’m good, and I can be
even bet­ter. But you’re wast­ing me in these small roles.”
“We know what we’re doing,” he said, stand­ing up.
I stood up with him. “Where do you see my career a year from now,
Har­ry? Play­ing a teacher with three lines?”
Har­ry walked past me and opened his door, ush­er­ing me out. “We’ll
see,” he said.
Hav­ing lost the bat­tle, I resolved to win the war. So the next time I
saw Ari Sul­li­van at the stu­dio din­ing hall, I dropped my purse in front
of him and “acci­den­tal­ly” gave him an eye­ful as I bent down to pick it
up. He made eye con­tact with me, and then I walked away, as if I
want­ed noth­ing from him, as if I had no idea who he was.
A week lat­er, I pre­tend­ed I was lost in the exec­u­tive offices, and I
ran into him in the hall­way. He was a port­ly guy, but it was a weight
that suit­ed him. He had eyes that were so dark brown it was hard to
make out the iris­es and the kind of five o’clock shad­ow that was
per­ma­nent. But he had a pret­ty smile. And that was what I focused on.
“Mrs. Diaz,” he said. I was both sur­prised and not sur­prised to find
that he had learned my name.
“Mr. Sul­li­van,” I said.
“Please, call me Ari.”
“Well, hel­lo, Ari,” I said, graz­ing my hand on his arm.
I was sev­en­teen. He was forty-eight.
That night, after his sec­re­tary left for the day, I was laid across his
desk, with my skirt around my hips and Ari’s face between my legs. It
turned out Ari had a fetish for oral­ly pleas­ing under­age girls. After
about sev­en min­utes of it, I pre­tend­ed to erupt in reck­less plea­sure. I
couldn’t tell you whether it was any good. But I was hap­py to be there,
because I knew it was going to get me what I want­ed.
If the def­i­n­i­tion of enjoy­ing sex means that it is plea­sur­able, then
I’ve had a lot of sex that I didn’t enjoy. But if we’re defin­ing it as being
hap­py to have made the trade, then, well, I haven’t had much I hat­ed.
When I left, I saw the row of Oscars that Ari had sit­ting in his office.
I told myself that one day I’d get one, too.
Love Isn’t All and the Gary DuPont movie I’d want­ed came out
with­in a week of each oth­er. Love Isn’t All tanked. And Pene­lope Quills,
the woman who’d got­ten the part I’d want­ed oppo­site Gary, got
ter­ri­ble reviews.
I cut out a review of Pene­lope and sent it by interof­fice mail to
Har­ry and Ari, with a note that said, “I would have knocked it out of
the park.”
The next morn­ing, I had a note from Har­ry in my trail­er: “OK, you
win.”
Har­ry called me into his office and told me that he had dis­cussed it
with Ari, and they had two poten­tial roles for me.
I could play an Ital­ian heiress as the fourth lead in a war romance.
Or I could play Jo in Lit­tle Women.
I knew what it would mean, play­ing Jo. I knew Jo was a white
woman. And still, I want­ed it. I hadn’t got­ten on my back just to take a
baby step.
“Jo,” I said. “Give me Jo.”
And in so doing, I set the star machine in motion.
Har­ry intro­duced me to stu­dio styl­ist Gwen­dolyn Peters. Gwen
bleached my hair and cut it into a shoul­der-length bob. She shaped my
eye­brows. She plucked my widow’s peak. I met with a nutri­tion­ist, who
made me lose six pounds exact­ly, most­ly by tak­ing up smok­ing and
replac­ing some meals with cab­bage soup. I met with an elo­cu­tion­ist,
who got rid of the New York in my Eng­lish, who ban­ished Span­ish
entire­ly.
And then, of course, there was the three-page ques­tion­naire I had to
fill out about my life until then. What did my father do for a liv­ing?
What did I like to do in my spare time? Did I have any pets?
When I turned in my hon­est answers, the researcher read it in one
sit­ting and said, “Oh, no, no, no. This won’t do at all. From now on,
your moth­er died in an acci­dent, leav­ing your father to raise you. He
worked as a builder in Man­hat­tan, and on week­ends dur­ing the
sum­mer, he’d take you to Coney Island. If any­one asks, you love ten­nis
and swim­ming, and you have a Saint Bernard named Roger.”
I sat for at least a hun­dred pub­lic­i­ty pho­tos. Me with my new blond
hair, my trim­mer fig­ure, my whiter teeth. You wouldn’t believe the
things they made me mod­el. Smil­ing at the beach, play­ing golf,
run­ning down the street being tugged by a Saint Bernard that
some­one bor­rowed from a set dec­o­ra­tor. There were pho­tos of me
salt­ing a grape­fruit, shoot­ing a bow and arrow, get­ting on a fake
air­plane. Don’t even get me start­ed on the hol­i­day pho­tos. It would be
a swel­ter­ing-hot Sep­tem­ber day, and I’d be sit­ting there in a red vel­vet
dress, next to a ful­ly lit Christ­mas tree, pre­tend­ing to open a box that
con­tained a brand-new baby kit­ten.
The wardrobe peo­ple were con­sis­tent and mil­i­tant about how I was
dressed, per Har­ry Cameron’s orders, and that look always includ­ed a
tight sweater, but­toned up just right.
I wasn’t blessed with an hour­glass fig­ure. My ass might as well
have been a flat wall. You could hang a pic­ture on it. It was my chest
that kept men’s inter­est. And women admired my face.
To be hon­est, I’m not sure when I fig­ured out the exact angle we
were all going for. But it was some­time dur­ing those weeks of pho­to
shoots that it hit me.
I was being designed to be two oppos­ing things, a com­pli­cat­ed
image that was hard to dis­sect but easy to grab on to. I was sup­posed
to be both naive and erot­ic. It was as if I was too whole­some to
under­stand the unwhole­some thoughts you were hav­ing about me.
It was bull­shit, of course. But it was an easy act to put on.
Some­times I think the dif­fer­ence between an actress and a star is that
the star feels com­fort­able being the very thing the world wants her to
be. And I felt com­fort­able appear­ing both inno­cent and sug­ges­tive.
When the pic­tures got devel­oped, Har­ry Cameron pulled me into
his office. I knew what he want­ed to talk about. I knew there was one
remain­ing piece that need­ed to be put into place.
“What about Amelia Dawn? That has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” he
said. The two of us were sit­ting in his office, him at his desk, me in the
chair.
I thought about it. “How about some­thing with the ini­tials EH?” I
asked. I want­ed to get some­thing as close to the name my moth­er gave
me, Eve­lyn Her­rera, as I could.
“Ellen Hen­nessey?” He shook his head. “No, too stuffy.”
I looked at him and sold him the line I’d come up with the night
before, as if I’d just thought of it. “What about Eve­lyn Hugo?”
Har­ry smiled. “Sounds French,” he said. “I like it.”
I stood up and shook his hand, my blond hair, which I was still
get­ting used to, fram­ing my sight.
I turned the knob to his door, but Har­ry stopped me.
“There’s one more thing,” he said.
“OK.”
“I read your answers to the inter­view ques­tions.” He looked at me
direct­ly. “Ari is very hap­py with the changes you’ve made. He thinks
you have a lot of poten­tial. The stu­dio thinks it would be a good idea if
you went on a few dates, if you were seen around town with some guys
like Pete Greer and Brick Thomas. Maybe even Don Adler.”
Don Adler was the hottest actor at Sun­set. His par­ents, Mary and
Roger Adler, were two of the biggest stars of the 1930s. He was
Hol­ly­wood roy­al­ty.
“Is that going to be a prob­lem?” Har­ry asked.
He wasn’t going to men­tion Ernie direct­ly, because he knew he
didn’t have to.
“Not a prob­lem,” I said. “Not at all.”
Har­ry nod­ded. He hand­ed me a busi­ness card.
“Call Ben­ny Mor­ris. He’s a lawyer over in the bun­ga­lows. Han­dled
Ruby Reilly’s annul­ment from Mac Rig­gs. He’ll help you straight­en it
out.”
I went home and told Ernie I was leav­ing him.
He cried for six hours straight, and then, in the wee hours of the
night, as I lay beside him in our bed, he said, “Bien. If that’s what you
want.”
The stu­dio gave him a pay­out, and I left him a heart­felt let­ter telling
him how much it hurt me to leave him. It wasn’t true, but I felt I owed
it to him to fin­ish out the mar­riage as I’d start­ed it, pre­tend­ing to love
him.
I’m not proud of what I did to him; it didn’t feel casu­al to me, the
way I hurt him. It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now.
But I also know how bad­ly I’d need­ed to leave Hell’s Kitchen. I
know what it feels like to not want your father to look at you too
close­ly, lest he decides he hates you and hits you or decides he loves
you a lit­tle too much. And I know what it feels like to see your future
ahead of you—the hus­band who’s real­ly just a new ver­sion of your
father, sur­ren­der­ing to him in bed when it’s the last thing you want to

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.

6
When I was ten, I was invit­ed to be a con­tes­tant on Star Search.
On the �rst show, I did a spunky ver­sion of a song I’d heard sung by Judy
Gar­land: “I Don’t Care.” I got 3.75 stars. My rival, a girl who sang opera, got
3.5. I advanced to the next round. The next episode taped lat­er that day, and I
was up against a bolo-tie-wear­ing boy with a lot of hair spray in his hair named
Mar­ty Thomas, age twelve. We were friend­ly; we even played bas­ket­ball togeth­er
before the show. I sang the Jud­ds’ “Love Can Build a Bridge,” which I’d sung the
year before at my aunt’s wed­ding.
While we were wait­ing for our scores, Mar­ty and I were inter­viewed onstage
by the host, Ed McMa­hon.
“I noticed last week, you have the most adorable, pret­ty eyes,” he said to me.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Why not?”
“They’re mean.”
“Boyfriends?” Ed said. “You mean all boys are mean? I’m not mean! How
about me?”
“Well, it depends,” I said.
“I get that a lot,” Ed said.
I got 3.75 again. Mar­ty got a per­fect 4. I smiled and hugged him polite­ly, and
as I walked o�, Ed wished me luck. I kept it togeth­er until I made it back­stage—
but then I burst into tears. After­ward, my mom got me a hot fudge sun­dae.
My mom and I kept �ying back and forth to New York. The inten­si­ty of
work­ing in the city as a lit­tle girl was excit­ing for me, even if it was also
intim­i­dat­ing.
I got o�ered a job: an under­study role in the o�-Broadway musi­cal Ruth­less!,
inspired by The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Mame, and Gyp­sy. I played a
socio­path­ic child star named Tina Den­mark. Tina’s �rst song was called “Born
to Enter­tain.” It hit close to home. The oth­er under­study was a tal­ent­ed young
actress named Natal­ie Port­man.
While I was doing the show, we rent­ed a lit­tle apart­ment for my mom, baby
Jamie Lynn, and me near my pub­lic school, the Pro­fes­sion­al Per­form­ing Arts
School, and I took class­es near­by at Broad­way Dance Cen­ter. But most­ly I
passed my time at the Play­ers The­atre down­town.
The expe­ri­ence was a val­i­da­tion in some way, proof I had enough tal­ent to
make it in the the­atri­cal world. But it was a gru­el­ing sched­ule. There was no time
to be a reg­u­lar kid or real­ly make friends, because I had to work near­ly every day.
On Sat­ur­days there were two shows.
I also didn’t love being an under­study. I had to be at the the­ater every night
until as late as mid­night, in case I had to take over for the main Tina, Lau­ra Bell
Bundy. After a few months, she left and I took over the lead, but I was awful­ly
worn out.
By the time Christ­mas came around, I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to go home—and
then I learned I was sup­posed to per­form on Christ­mas Day. In tears, I asked my
mom, “Am I real­ly going to do this for Christ­mas?” I looked at the lit­tle mini
tree in our apart­ment, think­ing about the stur­dy ever­green we’d have in our
liv­ing room in Kent­wood.
In my lit­tle-girl mind, I didn’t under­stand why I’d want to do that—continue
per­form­ing through the hol­i­days. So I quit the show and went home.
The sched­ule of New York City the­ater was just too rough on me at that age.
One good thing did come out of it, though: I learned how to sing in a the­ater
with small acoustics. The audi­ence is right beside you—just two hun­dred peo­ple
in the room. Hon­est­ly, it’s strange, but in that space, the feel­ing of singing is

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 6
Friends and rel­a­tives had dropped by the house all Fri­day and
brought Patri­cia six bunch­es of flow­ers, two copies of South­ern
Liv­ing and one copy of Red­book, three casseroles (corn, taco,
spinach), a pound of cof­fee, a bot­tle of wine, and two pies (Boston
cream, peach). She decid­ed that regift­ing a casse­role was
appro­pri­ate, giv­en the sit­u­a­tion, so she took out the taco one to thaw.
Carter had gone to the hos­pi­tal ear­ly even though it was the
week­end. Patri­cia found Mrs. Greene and Miss Mary sit­ting on the
back patio. The morn­ing felt soft and warm, and Mrs. Greene leafed
through Fam­i­ly Cir­cle mag­a­zine while Miss Mary stared at the bird
feed­er, which was, as usu­al, crawl­ing with squir­rels.
“Are you enjoy­ing the sun­shine, Miss Mary?” Patri­cia asked.
Miss Mary turned her watery eyes toward Patri­cia and scowled.
“Hoyt Pick­ens came by last night,” she said.
“Ear’s look­ing bet­ter,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Thank you,” Patri­cia said.
Rag­tag, lying at Miss Mary’s feet, perked up as a fat black marsh
rat streaked out of the bush­es and dashed across the grass, mak­ing
Patri­cia jump and send­ing three squir­rels flee­ing in ter­ror. It dashed
around the edge of the fence sep­a­rat­ing their prop­er­ty from the
Langs next door and was gone as fast as it had appeared. Rag­tag put
his head down again.
“You ought to put out poi­son,” Mrs. Greene said.
Patri­cia made a men­tal note to call the bug man and see if they had
rat poi­son.
“I’m just going down the street to drop off a casse­role,” Patri­cia
said.
“We’re about to have some lunch,” Mrs. Greene said. “What are
you think­ing about for lunch, Miss Mary?”
“Hoyt,” Miss Mary said. “What was his name, that Hoyt?”
Patri­cia wrote a quick note (So sor­ry for your loss, The Camp­bells)
and taped it to the tin foil over the taco casse­role, then walked down
the warm­ing streets to Ann Savage’s cot­tage, the freez­ing cold
casse­role held in front of her.
It was turn­ing into a hot day so she had a lit­tle bit of a shine on her
by the time she stepped off the road onto Mrs. Savage’s dirt yard. The
nephew must be home because his white van sat on the grass,
under­neath the shade. It looked out of place in the Old Vil­lage
because, as Maryellen had point­ed out, it seemed like the kind of
thing a child snatch­er would dri­ve.
Patri­cia walked up the wood­en steps to the front porch and rat­tled
her knuck­les against the screen door. After a minute she knocked
again and heard noth­ing but the hol­low echo of her knock inside the
house and cicadas scream­ing from the drainage pond that sep­a­rat­ed
Mrs. Savage’s yard from the John­sons next door.
Patri­cia knocked again and wait­ed, look­ing across the street at
where devel­op­ers had torn down the Short­ridges’ house, which used
to have the most beau­ti­ful slate roof. In its place, some­one from out
of town was build­ing an osten­ta­tious minia­ture man­sion. More and
more of these eye­sores were pop­ping up all over the Old Vil­lage, big
heavy things that sprawled from prop­er­ty line to prop­er­ty line and
didn’t leave any room for a yard.
Patri­cia want­ed to leave the casse­role, but she hadn’t come all this
way not to speak to the nephew. She decid­ed to try the front door.
She’d just leave it on the kitchen counter with a note, she told her­self.
She opened the screen door and turned the door­knob. It stuck for a
moment, then swung open.
“Yoo-hoo?” Patri­cia called into the dim inte­ri­or.
No one answered. Patri­cia stepped inside. All the blinds were
drawn. The air felt hot and dusty.
“Hel­lo?” Patri­cia said. “It’s Patri­cia Camp­bell from Pier­ates
Cruze?”
No answer. She’d nev­er been inside Ann Savage’s house before.
Heavy old fur­ni­ture crowd­ed the front room. Liquor store box­es and
paper bags of junk mail cov­ered the floor. Cir­cu­lars, cat­a­logs, and old
rolled-up copies of the Moul­trie News spilled from the seats of every
chair. Four dusty old Sam­sonite suit­cas­es were lined up against the
wall. Built-in shelves around the front door were crowd­ed with
water­logged romance nov­els. It smelled like the Good­will store.
A door­way on her left led into a dark kitchen, and a door­way on
her right led to the back of the house. A ceil­ing fan spun lethar­gi­cal­ly
over­head. Patri­cia looked down the hall­way. There was a half-open
door at the far end lead­ing to what she assumed was the bed­room.
From it, she heard the groan­ing of a win­dow-unit air con­di­tion­er.
Sure­ly the nephew wouldn’t have gone out and left his air
con­di­tion­er on.
Hold­ing her breath, Patri­cia walked care­ful­ly down the hall and
pushed the bed­room door all the way open.
“Knock knock?” she said.
The man lying on the bed was dead.
He lay on top of the quilt, still in his work boots. He wore blue
jeans and a white but­ton-up shirt. His hands were at his sides. He
was huge, well over six feet, and his feet hung off the end. But despite
his size, he looked starved. The flesh clung tight to his bones. The
sal­low skin of his face looked drawn and fine­ly wrin­kled, his blond
hair looked brit­tle and thin.
“Excuse me?” Patri­cia asked, her voice a shaky rasp.
She forced her­self to step all the way into the room, put the
casse­role dish on the end of the bed, and took his wrist. His skin felt
cool. He had no pulse.
Patri­cia exam­ined his face close­ly. He had thin lips, a wide mouth,
and high cheek­bones. His looks lay some­where between hand­some
and pret­ty. She shook his shoul­der, just in case.
“Sir?” she croaked. “Sir?”
His body bare­ly moved beneath her hand. She held the back of her
fore­fin­ger under his nos­trils: noth­ing. Her nurs­ing instincts took
over.
She used one hand to pull his chin down, and the oth­er to pull his
upper lip back. She felt inside his mouth with one fin­ger. His tongue
felt dry. Noth­ing obstruct­ed his air­way. Patri­cia leaned over his face
and real­ized, with a tick­ling in the veins on the inside of her elbows,
this was the clos­est she’d been to a man who wasn’t her hus­band in
nine­teen years. Then her dry lips pressed against his chapped ones
and formed a seal. She pinched his nose shut and blew three strong
breaths into his wind­pipe. Then she per­formed three strong chest
com­pres­sions.
Noth­ing. She leaned down for a sec­ond attempt, made the seal
with their lips, and blew into his mouth, once, twice, then her tra­chea
vibrat­ed back­ward as air blast­ed down her throat. She reared back
cough­ing, the man bolt­ed upright, his fore­head smack­ing into the
side of Patricia’s skull with a hol­low knock, and Patri­cia stag­gered
back­ward into the wall, knock­ing all the breath out of her lungs. Her
legs went out from under her, and she slid to the floor, land­ing hard
on her butt, as the man leapt to his feet, wild-eyed, send­ing the
casse­role dish clat­ter­ing to the floor.
“What the fuck!” he shout­ed.
He looked wild­ly around the room and found Patri­cia on the floor
at his feet. Chest heav­ing, mouth hang­ing open, he squint­ed at her in
the dim­ness.
“How’d you get in?” he shout­ed. “Who are you?”
Patri­cia man­aged to get her breath­ing under con­trol enough to
squeak, “Patri­cia Camp­bell from Pier­ates Cruze.”
“What?” he barked.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“What?” he barked again.
“I per­formed CPR,” she said. “You weren’t breath­ing.”
“What?” he barked one more time.
“I’m your neigh­bor?” Patri­cia cow­ered. “From Pier­ates Cruze?”
He looked out the hall door. He looked back at his bed. He looked
down at her.
“Fuck,” he said again, and his shoul­ders slumped.
“I brought you a casse­role,” Patri­cia said, point­ing at the upside-
down casse­role dish.
The man’s chest heaved slow­er.
“You came here to bring me a casse­role?” he asked.
“I’m so sor­ry for your loss,” Patri­cia said. “I’m…your great-aunt
was found in my yard? And things got a lit­tle bit phys­i­cal? Maybe
you’ve seen my dog? He’s a cock­er spaniel mix, he, well…maybe it’s
bet­ter you haven’t? And…? Well, I so hope that noth­ing hap­pened at
our house to make your aunt worse.”
“You brought me a casse­role because my aunt died,” he said, as if
explain­ing it to him­self.
“You didn’t come to the door,” she said. “But I saw your car out­side
so I stuck my head in.”
“And down the hall,” he said. “And into my bed­room.”
She felt like a fool.
“No one here thinks twice about that,” she explained. “It’s the Old
Vil­lage. You weren’t breath­ing.”
He opened his eyes wide and closed them tight­ly a few times,
sway­ing slight­ly.
“I am very, very tired,” he said.
Patri­cia real­ized he wasn’t going to help her to her feet, so she
pushed her­self up off the floor.
“Let me clean this up,” she said, reach­ing for the casse­role dish. “I
feel so stu­pid.”
“No,” he said. “You have to leave.” He wavered, his head jerk­ing in
lit­tle shakes and nods.
“It’ll only take a minute,” she said.

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.

6
Eddie isn’t there when I walk Adele the next morn­ing. His car is miss­ing from the garage, and I tell
myself I’m not dis­ap­point­ed when I take the pup­py from the back­yard and out for her walk.
Thorn­field Estates is just up the hill from Moun­tain Brook Vil­lage where I used to work, so this
morn­ing, I take Adele there, her lit­tle legs trot­ting hap­pi­ly as we turn out of the neigh­bor­hood. I tell
myself it’s because I’m bored with the same streets, but real­ly, it’s because I want peo­ple to see us. I
want peo­ple who don’t know I’m the dog-walk­er to see me with Eddie’s dog. Which means, in their
heads, I’m linked with Eddie.
It makes me hold my head up high­er as I walk past Roast­ed, past the lit­tle bou­tique sell­ing things
that I now rec­og­nize as knock­offs of South­ern Manors. I pass three stores with bright­ly pat­terned
quilt­ed bags in the win­dows, and I think how many of those bags are prob­a­bly tucked away in clos­ets
in Thorn­field Estates.
What would it feel like to be the kind of woman who spent $250 on an ugly bag just because you
could?
At my side, Adele trots along, her nails click­ing on the side­walk, and I’m just about to turn by the
book­store when I hear, “Jane?”
It’s Mrs. McLaren. I walk her dal­ma­t­ian, Mary-Beth, every Wednes­day, and now she’s stand­ing in
front of me, a Roast­ed cup in hand. Like Emi­ly Clark, she wears fan­cy yoga clothes half the time, but
she’s small­er and curvi­er than Emi­ly or Mrs. Reed, her hair about four dif­fer­ent shades of blond as it
curls around her face.
“What are you two doing all the way down here?” She asks it with a smile, but my face sud­den­ly
flames hot, like I’ve been caught at some­thing.
“Change of scenery,” I reply with a sheep­ish shrug, hop­ing Mrs. McLaren will just let this go, but
now she’s step­ping clos­er, her gaze falling to Adele.
“Sweet­heart, it’s prob­a­bly not safe to have the dogs out of the neigh­bor­hood.” The words are
cooed, sug­ar-sweet, a cot­ton can­dy chas­tise­ment, and I hate her for them.
Like I’m a child. Or, worse, a ser­vant who wan­dered out of her gat­ed yard.
“We’re not far from home,” I say, and at my side, Adele whines, strain­ing on her leash, her tail
brush­ing back and forth.
Home.
There’s a shop­ping bag dan­gling from Mrs. McLaren’s wrist as she steps clos­er. It’s imprint­ed
with the logo of one of those lit­tle bou­tiques I just passed, and I won­der what’s in it, want­i­ng to catch
a glimpse of the item inside, so that when I see it lying around her house lat­er, I can take it. A stu­pid,
pet­ty reac­tion, lash­ing out, I know that, but there it is, an insis­tent pulse under my skin.
What­ev­er this bitch bought today, she’s not going to keep it, not after mak­ing me feel this small.
“Okay, well, maybe run on back there, then?” The uptick, mak­ing it a ques­tion. “And sweet­ie,
please don’t ever take Mary-Beth out of the neigh­bor­hood, okay? She gets so excitable, and I’d hate
for her to be out in all this…” she waves a hand, the bag still dan­gling from her wrist. “Rig­ma­role.”
I’ve seen maybe three cars this morn­ing, and the only rig­ma­role cur­rent­ly hap­pen­ing is Mrs.
McLaren stop­ping me like I’m some kind of crim­i­nal for dar­ing to walk a dog out­side Thornfield’s
gates.
But I nod.
I smile.
I bite back the ven­om flood­ing my mouth because I have prac­tice at that, and I walk back to
Thorn­field Estates and to Eddie’s house.
It’s cool and qui­et as I let myself in, and I lean down to unclip Adele’s leash. Her claws skit­ter
across the mar­ble, then the hard­wood as she makes her way to the slid­ing glass doors, and I fol­low,
open­ing them to let her out into the yard.
This is the part where I’m sup­posed to hang up her leash on the hook by the front door, maybe
leave a note for Eddie say­ing that I came by and that Adele is out­side, and then leave. Go back to the
con­crete box on St. Pierre Street, think again about tak­ing the GRE, maybe sort through the var­i­ous
trea­sures I’ve picked up on dressers, on bath­room coun­ters, beside night­stands.
Instead, I walk back into the liv­ing room with that bright pink­ish-red couch and flo­ral chairs, the
shelves with all those books, and I look around.
For once, I’m not look­ing for some­thing to take. I don’t know what it says about me, about Eddie,
or how I might feel about Eddie that I don’t want to take any­thing from him, but I don’t. I just want to
know him. To learn some­thing.
Actu­al­ly, if I’m being hon­est with myself, I want to see pic­tures of him with Bea.
There aren’t any in the liv­ing room, but I can see spaces on the wall where pho­tographs must have
hung. And the man­tel is weird­ly bare, which makes me think it once held more than just a pair of
sil­ver can­dle­sticks.
I wan­der down the hall, sneak­ers squeak­ing, and there’s more empti­ness.
Upstairs.
The hard­wood is smooth under­foot, and there are no blank spaces here, only taste­ful pieces of art.
On the land­ing, there’s a table with that glass bowl I rec­og­nize from South­ern Manors, the one
shaped like an apple, and I let my fin­gers drift over it before mov­ing on, up the short­er flight of stairs
to the sec­ond floor.
It’s dim up here, the lights off, and the morn­ing sun not yet high enough to reach through the
win­dows. There are doors on either side, but I don’t try to open any of them.
Instead, I make my way to a small wood­en table under a round stained-glass win­dow, there at the
end of the hall.
There’s only one thing on it, a sil­ver-framed pho­to­graph, and it’s both exact­ly what I want­ed to
see, and some­thing I wish I’d nev­er seen at all.
I had won­dered what Bea and Eddie looked like togeth­er, and now I know.
They’re beau­ti­ful.
But it’s more than just that. Lots of peo­ple are beau­ti­ful, espe­cial­ly in this neigh­bor­hood where
every­one can afford the upkeep, so it’s not her per­fect hair and flaw­less fig­ure, her bright smile and
design­er bathing suit. It’s that they look like they fit. Both of them, stand­ing on that gor­geous beach,
her smil­ing at the cam­era, Eddie smil­ing at her.
They’d found the per­son for them. That thing most of us look for and nev­er find, that thing I always
assumed didn’t exist, because in this whole wide world, how could there ever be one per­son who
was just right for you?
But Bea was right for Eddie, I can see that now, and I sud­den­ly feel so stu­pid and small. Sure,
he’d flirt­ed with me, but he was prob­a­bly one of those guys for whom it was sec­ond nature. He’d had
this. He cer­tain­ly didn’t want me.
“That was in Hawaii.”
I whirl around, the keys falling from my sud­den­ly numb fin­gers.
Eddie is stand­ing in the hall­way, just at the top of the stairs, lean­ing against the wall with one
ankle crossed in front of the oth­er. He’s wear­ing jeans today and a blue but­ton-down, the kind that
looks casu­al, but prob­a­bly costs more than I’d make in a cou­ple of weeks at the cof­fee shop or
walk­ing dogs. I won­der what that’s like, to have so much mon­ey that spend­ing someone’s rent on one
shirt doesn’t even reg­is­ter.
His sun­glass­es dan­gle from his hand, and he nods at the table. “That pic­ture,” he tells me, as if I
hadn’t known what he was refer­ring to. “That’s me and Bea in Hawaii last year. We met there,
actu­al­ly.”
I swal­low hard, shov­ing my hands into the back pock­ets of my jeans, straight­en­ing my shoul­ders.
“I was just look­ing for the bath­room,” I tell him, and he smiles a lit­tle.
“Of course you were,” he says, push­ing off from the wall and walk­ing clos­er. The hall is wide
and bright, filled with light from the inset win­dow above us, but it feels small­er, clos­er, as he moves
near­er.
“It was the one pic­ture I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of,” he says now, and I’m very aware of
him stand­ing right next to me, his elbow near­ly brush­ing my side.
“The rest were most­ly shots of our wed­ding, a few pic­tures of when we were build­ing this house.
But that one…” Trail­ing off, he picks up the frame, study­ing the image. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t
throw it out.”
“You threw the rest of them away?” I ask. “Even your wed­ding pic­tures?”
He sets the frame back on the table with a soft clunk. “Burned them, actu­al­ly. In the back­yard three
days after the acci­dent.”
“I’m so sor­ry,” I say qui­et­ly, try­ing not to imag­ine Eddie stand­ing in front of a fire as Bea’s face
melt­ed.
But then he looks at me, his blue eyes nar­row­ing just a lit­tle bit. “I don’t think you are, Jane,” he
says, and my mouth is dry, my heart ham­mer­ing. I wish I’d nev­er come upstairs into this hall­way, and I
am so glad I came into this hall­way because if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be stand­ing here right now, and
he wouldn’t be look­ing at me like that.
“What hap­pened was awful,” I try again, and he nods, but his hand is already com­ing up to cup my
elbow. His fin­gers fold around the sharp point, and I stare down at where he’s touch­ing me, at the
sight of that hand on my skin.
“Awful,” he echoes. “But you’re not sor­ry, because her not being here means that you can be here.
With me.”

In Chap­ter 6 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “A Hideous Crew,” the jour­ney of Tarzan, Mugam­bi, Akut, Shee­ta, and the sav­age apes pro­gress­es as they ven­ture towards the open sea in a war-canoe, nav­i­gat­ing through a break in the reef amidst chal­leng­ing waves. The jour­ney, ini­tial­ly smooth, soon becomes tumul­tuous as the apes aboard are thrown into pan­ic by the rough seas, threat­en­ing to cap­size their canoe. How­ev­er, Tarzan and Akut man­age to restore order, and the apes adapt to their mar­itime sur­round­ings.

Upon reach­ing clos­er to the shore as night falls, their canoe cap­sizes, but all man­age to reach safe­ty. While the apes and Mugam­bi set­tle by a fire, Tarzan and Shee­ta ven­ture into the jun­gle, hunt­ing a bull buf­fa­lo in a dis­play of their pri­mal prowess and syn­er­gy. After feast­ing, they return to the group, lead­ing them towards the Ugam­bi Riv­er in search of natives for infor­ma­tion about Rokoff, Tarzan’s adver­sary, and the kid­napped child, Jack.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to Kaviri, a local chief, who, spurred by the sight­ing of Tarzan’s crew, believes them to be anoth­er threat sim­i­lar to a pre­vi­ous white man (Rokoff), who had brought vio­lence and abduc­tion to his peo­ple. Kaviri sets out with war canoes to attack but is astound­ed and over­pow­ered by the feroc­i­ty of Tarzan’s bes­tial crew. After a fierce con­fronta­tion, where Tarzan’s jun­gle allies dis­play their for­mi­da­ble prowess, Kaviri finds him­self cap­tive and con­vers­es with Tarzan, learn­ing of his quest to find the very man (Rokoff) he despis­es. Tarzan dis­cov­ers from Kaviri that a white man, woman, and child, like­ly being pur­sued by Rokoff, had passed through the area ear­li­er.

This rev­e­la­tion fuels Tarzan’s fears for his son’s safe­ty and sets the stage for his con­tin­ued quest, fur­ther into the heart of dark­ness along the Ugam­bi, with the unex­pect­ed but sol­id alliance of Kaviri’s men pro­pelled by a mutu­al enmi­ty for Rokoff. Span­ning a blend of intense action, the dynam­ics of trust and betray­al, and the pri­mal bond between man and beast, this chap­ter cru­cial­ly bridges Tarzan’s sav­age prowess with his pater­nal instincts, ampli­fy­ing his deter­mi­na­tion to van­quish Rokoff and recov­er his child.