Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

In Chap­ter 8, the pro­tag­o­nist, Feyre, nav­i­gates the ten­sion and intrigue of her cap­tiv­i­ty in the mag­i­cal estate of Tam­lin, a place both enchant­i­ng and per­ilous. Feyre sub­tly explores the lush, qui­et gar­dens, her mind alert for escape routes and poten­tial weapons, con­scious of her defense­less­ness with­out her con­fis­cat­ed arms. Though the pos­si­bil­i­ty of escape through her unlocked win­dow tempts her, Feyre acknowl­edges the dan­gers out­side the estate’s rel­a­tive safe­ty, along­side the mys­te­ri­ous blight affect­ing the lands.

Deter­mined to bar­gain for her free­dom, Feyre con­tem­plates seek­ing favor with Tam­lin or his emis­sary, Lucien, despite the lat­ter’s open dis­dain. Her reflec­tions on strat­e­gy are dis­rupt­ed by an eerie encounter in the gar­den, where invis­i­ble beings gig­gle and move just beyond sight, height­en­ing her sense of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. This encounter under­scores Feyre’s iso­la­tion and the alien nature of her sur­round­ings, prompt­ing her to stealth­ily arm her­self at din­ner, where she nav­i­gates the com­plex social dynam­ics with Tam­lin and Lucien.

The chap­ter metic­u­lous­ly por­trays Feyre’s care­ful bal­anc­ing act: attempt­ing to main­tain a façade of docil­i­ty while plot­ting her next move. Despite her efforts to under­stand and adapt to the intri­ca­cies of faerie pol­i­tics and pow­er plays, the din­ner con­ver­sa­tion with Tam­lin and Lucien vivid­ly illus­trates her out­sider sta­tus and the under­ly­ing ten­sions. Feyre’s sharp obser­va­tion­al skills, cou­pled with her deter­mi­na­tion to reclaim her auton­o­my, thread through her inter­ac­tions and inter­nal mono­logue, reveal­ing a land­scape teem­ing with unseen dan­gers and allies hid­den in plain sight.

As Feyre endeav­ors to com­pre­hend the motives and machi­na­tions of those around her, the chap­ter weaves a com­plex tapes­try of loy­al­ties and con­flicts, set­ting the stage for her inevitable con­fronta­tion with the real­i­ties of her sit­u­a­tion. The min­gling of appre­hen­sion and curios­i­ty, along­side Feyre’s strate­gic plan­ning and the bewitch­ing yet unnerv­ing atmos­phere of the estate, encap­su­lates her predica­ment – caught between the desire for free­dom and the neces­si­ty of sur­vival in an unfath­omably intri­cate faerie realm.

Chap­ter 8 of the book vivid­ly unfolds on a snowy Wednes­day before Thanks­giv­ing, por­tray­ing the bustling atmos­phere of Penn Sta­tion, New York, teem­ing with anx­ious trav­el­ers. The pro­tag­o­nist, nav­i­gat­ing the crowd­ed sta­tion, longs for the com­fort of his dorm at Colum­bia and the warmth of his coat but is stuck amidst the chaos, reflec­tive of his desire to learn and progress aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Organ­ic Chem­istry, a sub­ject pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges to his aca­d­e­m­ic ambi­tions.

Maeve, a piv­otal char­ac­ter in the pro­tag­o­nist’s life, emerges as a missed com­pan­ion who could have alle­vi­at­ed the dis­com­forts of trav­el and lone­li­ness through her pres­ence. Her char­ac­ter is intri­cate­ly linked to the pro­tag­o­nist’s past, espe­cial­ly a crit­i­cal health cri­sis dur­ing his fresh­man year, reveal­ing the depth of their rela­tion­ship and Maeve’s depend­able, albeit selec­tive, sup­port.

The nar­ra­tive then skill­ful­ly tran­si­tions to the pro­tag­o­nist’s aca­d­e­m­ic strug­gles, high­light­ing a crit­i­cal meet­ing with Dr. Able, who empha­sizes the foun­da­tion­al impor­tance of Organ­ic Chem­istry in the pro­tag­o­nist’s future med­ical career. This meet­ing serves as a wake-up call, pro­pelling him toward aca­d­e­m­ic redemp­tion through a rig­or­ous re-engage­ment with the sub­ject mat­ter, a task made urgent by the loom­ing threat of the draft and his sis­ter’s expec­ta­tions.

Sub­se­quent­ly, the pro­tag­o­nist embarks on a train jour­ney home for Thanks­giv­ing, clev­er­ly uti­liz­ing his bas­ket­ball skills to nav­i­gate the crowd­ed sta­tion and secure a seat. The train ride becomes a sanc­tu­ary for study and reflec­tion, inter­rupt­ed only by inter­ac­tions with fel­low pas­sen­gers, includ­ing a mys­te­ri­ous girl with blonde curls who shares a fleet­ing con­nec­tion over chem­istry and poet­ry, high­light­ing con­trasts in aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al inter­ests.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with the protagonist’s arrival in Philadel­phia, where famil­ial bonds and mem­o­ries are rekin­dled, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Maeve, who dons a sweater sym­bol­iz­ing their shared his­to­ry. The encounter with Celeste at the sta­tion, fol­lowed by their shared jour­ney, sets the stage for future rela­tion­ships and nar­ra­tive devel­op­ments.

Laced with nos­tal­gia, aca­d­e­m­ic pres­sures, the com­plex­i­ties of rela­tion­ships, and a vivid depic­tion of a snow-laden New York, the chap­ter rich­ly por­trays the protagonist’s jour­ney through per­son­al growth, aca­d­e­m­ic endeav­ors, and the warmth of famil­ial con­nec­tions, set­ting a poignant back­drop for the unfold­ing nar­ra­tive.

In Bai­leyville, the recent ran­sack­ing of the Pack­horse Library by local men, lead­ing to Sophia Kenworth’s employ­ment becom­ing a town scan­dal, cul­mi­nates in a charged town meet­ing. Alice, along­side Margery, Beth, and Izzy, attend, find­ing them­selves amidst a heat­ed debate over the library’s role and Sophia’s employ­ment. The gath­er­ing, presided over by Mrs. Brady, quick­ly becomes a bat­tle­ground of ide­olo­gies, where the com­mu­ni­ty’s val­ues and prej­u­dices are laid bare.

Fred, the own­er of the prop­er­ty hous­ing the library, asserts his pro­tec­tion over it, implic­it­ly sup­port­ing the library staff against unwar­rant­ed attacks. How­ev­er, Hen­ry Por­te­ous, voic­ing con­cerns shared by sev­er­al towns­folk, crit­i­cizes the library for influ­enc­ing women and chil­dren away from con­ven­tion­al roles and inject­ing dis­rup­tive ideas into the com­mu­ni­ty. Mrs. Brady and Mrs. Bei­deck­er counter these crit­i­cisms by high­light­ing the edu­ca­tion­al ben­e­fits the library pro­vides, the lat­ter fac­ing xeno­pho­bic scruti­ny for her for­eign back­ground.

The debate esca­lates when Pas­tor McIn­tosh intro­duces the con­tentious issue of Sophi­a’s race, sug­gest­ing her employ­ment at the library con­flicts with both local sen­ti­ment and seg­re­ga­tion­ist laws. Margery, unfazed, clev­er­ly nav­i­gates the legal­i­ty of Sophia’s role, empha­siz­ing her invalu­able con­tri­bu­tion to the library’s oper­a­tions with­out infring­ing upon seg­re­ga­tion­ist reg­u­la­tions.

Return­ing home, the Van Cleves con­front inter­nal strife, with Mr. Van Cleve demand­ing Alice’s res­ig­na­tion from the library due to Margery’s defi­ant stand and Sophia’s employ­ment. Alice, with new­found resolve, refus­es to com­ply, assert­ing her inde­pen­dence and chal­leng­ing Mr. Van Cleve’s author­i­ty, backed some­what reluc­tant­ly by Ben­nett.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with the com­mu­ni­ty’s response to Gar­rett Bligh’s death, pro­vid­ing a con­trast to the ear­li­er con­flict. The com­mu­nal sup­port and tra­di­tions sur­round­ing his pass­ing under­line the deep-root­ed con­nec­tions and mutu­al sup­port among Baileyville’s res­i­dents, despite pre­vail­ing ten­sions and dis­agree­ments over the library and its staff. Through these events, Alice sub­tly reassess­es her place with­in both her imme­di­ate fam­i­ly and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty, hint­ing at a grad­ual trans­for­ma­tion influ­enced by her expe­ri­ences and the com­plex web of rela­tion­ships in Bai­leyville.

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.

EIGHT
Nina must have thrown half the con­tents of the refrig­er­a­tor on the kitchen
floor, so I have to make a run to the gro­cery store today. Since appar­ent­ly,
I’m also going to be cook­ing for them, I select some raw meat and
sea­son­ing that I can use to throw togeth­er a few meals. Nina loaded her
cred­it card onto my phone. Every­thing I buy will be auto­mat­i­cal­ly charged
to their account.
In prison, the food options were not too excit­ing. The menu rotat­ed
between chick­en, ham­burg­ers, hot­dogs, lasagna, bur­ri­tos, and a mys­te­ri­ous
fish pat­ty that always made me gag. There would be veg­eta­bles on the side
that would be cooked to the point of dis­in­te­gra­tion. I used to fan­ta­size about
what I would eat when I got out, but on my bud­get, the options weren’t
much bet­ter. I could only buy what was on sale, and once I was liv­ing in my
car, I was even more restrict­ed.
It’s dif­fer­ent shop­ping for the Win­ches­ters. I go straight for the finest
cuts of steak—I’ll look up on YouTube how to cook them. I some­times used
to cook steak for my father, but that was a long time ago. If I buy expen­sive
ingre­di­ents, they’ll come out good no mat­ter what I do.
When I get back to the Win­ches­ter house, I’ve got four over­flow­ing
bags of gro­ceries in the trunk of my car. Nina and Andrew’s cars take up the
two spots in the garage, and she instruct­ed me not to park in the dri­ve­way,
so I have to leave my car on the street. As I’m fum­bling to get the bags out
of the trunk, the land­scap­er Enzo emerges from the house next to ours with
some sort of scary gar­den­ing device in his right hand.
Enzo notices me strug­gling, and after a moment of hes­i­ta­tion, he jogs
over to my car. He frowns at me. “I do it,” he says in his heav­i­ly accent­ed
Eng­lish.
I start to take one of the bags, but then he scoops all four of them up in
his mas­sive arms, and he car­ries them to the front door. He nods at the door,
wait­ing patient­ly for me to unlock it. I do it as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, giv­en
that he’s car­ry­ing about eighty pounds’ worth of gro­ceries in his arms. He
stomps his boots on the wel­come mat, then car­ries the gro­ceries the rest of
the way into the kitchen and deposits them on the kitchen counter.
“Gra­cias,” I say.
His lips twitch. “No. Gra­zie.”
“Gra­zie,” I repeat.
He lingers in the kitchen for a moment, his brows knit­ted togeth­er. I
notice again that Enzo is hand­some, in a dark and ter­ri­fy­ing sort of way.
He’s got tat­toos on his upper arms, par­tial­ly obscured by his T‑shirt—I can
make out the name “Anto­nia” inscribed in a heart on his right biceps. Those
mus­cu­lar arms could kill me with­out him even break­ing a sweat if he got it
in his head to do so. But I don’t get a sense that this man wants to hurt me at
all. If any­thing, he seems con­cerned about me.
I remem­ber what he mum­bled to me before Nina inter­rupt­ed us the
oth­er day. Peri­co­lo. Dan­ger. What was he try­ing to tell me? Does he think
I’m in dan­ger here?
Maybe I should down­load a trans­la­tor app on my phone. He could type
in what he wants to tell me and—
A noise from upstairs inter­rupts my thoughts. Enzo sucks in a breath. “I
go,” he says, turn­ing on his heel and strid­ing back toward the door.
“But…” I hur­ry after him, but he’s much faster than me. He’s out the
front door before I’ve even cleared the kitchen.
I stand in the liv­ing room for a moment, torn between putting away the
gro­ceries and going after him. But then the deci­sion is made for me when
Nina comes down the stairs to the liv­ing room, wear­ing a white pants suit. I
don’t think I’ve ever seen her wear any­thing besides white—it does
com­ple­ment her hair, but the effort of keep­ing it clean would dri­ve me
crazy. Of course, I’m going to be the one tak­ing care of the laun­dry from
now on. I make a note to myself to buy more bleach next time I’m at the
gro­cery store
Nina sees me stand­ing there and her eye­brows shoot up to her hair­line.
“Mil­lie?”
I force a smile. “Yes?”
“I heard voic­es down here. Were you hav­ing com­pa­ny?”
“No. Noth­ing like that.”
“You may not invite strangers into our home.” She frowns at me. “If
you want to have any guests over, I expect you to ask per­mis­sion and give
us at least two days’ notice. And I would ask you to keep them in your
room.”
“It was just that land­scap­er guy,” I explain. “He was help­ing me car­ry
gro­ceries into the house. That’s all.”
I had expect­ed the expla­na­tion would sat­is­fy Nina, but instead, her eyes
dark­en. A mus­cle twitch­es under her right eye. “The land­scap­er? Enzo? He
was here?”
“Um.” I rub the back of my neck. “Is that his name? I don’t know. He
just car­ried the gro­ceries in.”
Nina stud­ies my face as if try­ing to detect a lie. “I don’t want him inside
this house again. He’s filthy from work­ing out­side. I work so hard to keep
this house clean.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Enzo wiped his boots off when he
came into the house and he didn’t track in any dirt. And noth­ing is
com­pa­ra­ble to the mess I saw when I first walked into this house yes­ter­day.
“Do you under­stand me, Mil­lie?” she press­es me.
“Yes,” I say quick­ly. “I under­stand.”
Her eyes flick over me in a way that makes me very uncom­fort­able. I
shift between my feet. “By the way, how come you nev­er wear your
glass­es?”
My fin­gers fly to my face. Why did I wear those stu­pid glass­es the first
day? I should nev­er have worn them, and when she asked me about them
yes­ter­day, I shouldn’t have lied. “Um…”
She arch­es an eye­brow. “I was up in the bath­room in the attic and I
didn’t see any con­tact lens solu­tion. I didn’t mean to snoop, but if you’re
going to be dri­ving around with my child at some point, I expect you to
have good vision.”
“Right…” I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans. I should just come
clean. “The thing is, I don’t real­ly…” I clear my throat. “I don’t actu­al­ly
need glass­es. The ones I was wear­ing at my inter­view were more… sort of,
dec­o­ra­tive. You know?”
She licks her lips. “I see. So you lied to me.”
“I wasn’t lying. It was a fash­ion state­ment.”

A week after Tam­lin and Feyre’s brief time togeth­er, the Tithe – a sig­nif­i­cant event demand­ing trib­utes from the Spring Court’s sub­jects – dis­rupts their tran­quil­i­ty. With Tam­lin away at the bor­der, Feyre is left to man­age her night­mares and the com­pa­ny of Ianthe, avoid­ing dif­fi­cult top­ics such as the mas­sacre of Ianthe’s sis­ters. Advised to mere­ly observe dur­ing the Tithe, Feyre stands by as count­less fae offer their dues, but she strug­gles with the pro­ceed­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly when a water-wraith, rep­re­sent­ing her species, pleads for lenien­cy due to a lack of fish in their lake. Tam­lin, adher­ing to strict tra­di­tion­al rules, demands the pay­ment regard­less of the wraith’s abil­i­ty to pay, leav­ing Feyre dis­tressed over the harsh­ness towards their sub­jects.

Tak­ing mat­ters into her own hands, Feyre offers her own jew­els to the wraith to cov­er the debt, receiv­ing grat­i­tude and the promise of remem­brance from the water-wraith and her sis­ters. This act of kind­ness, how­ev­er, caus­es ten­sion between Feyre and Tam­lin. Dur­ing a silent din­ner with Tam­lin and Lucien, Tam­lin con­fronts Feyre about her actions, assert­ing that her gen­eros­i­ty under­mines the court’s author­i­ty and por­trays weak­ness. Feyre, enraged by Tam­lin’s insen­si­tiv­i­ty towards the wraith’s plight and unmoved by the lux­u­ry their posi­tion offers, vehe­ment­ly defends her deci­sion. She recalls her past strug­gles with pover­ty and hunger, empha­siz­ing her empa­thy towards the wraith and under­scor­ing the gap between her val­ues and Tam­lin’s rigid adher­ence to tra­di­tion. The chap­ter clos­es on their unre­solved ten­sion, high­light­ing the grow­ing ide­o­log­i­cal divide between Feyre and Tam­lin.

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.

L ITTLE WOMEN TURNED OUT TO be a car­rot dan­gled in front of me.
Because as soon as I became “Eve­lyn Hugo, Young Blonde,” Sun­set
had all sorts of movies they want­ed me to do. Dumb sen­ti­men­tal
com­e­dy stuff.
I was OK with it for two rea­sons. One, I had no choice but to be all
right with it because I didn’t hold the cards. And two, my star was
ris­ing. Fast.
The first movie they gave me to star in was Father and Daugh­ter. We
shot it in 1956. Ed Bak­er played my wid­owed father, and the two of us
were falling in love with peo­ple at the same time. Him with his
sec­re­tary, me with his appren­tice.
Dur­ing that time, Har­ry was real­ly push­ing for me to go out on a
few dates with Brick Thomas.
Brick was a for­mer child star and a mati­nee idol who hon­est-to-God
thought he might be the mes­si­ah. Just stand­ing next to him, I thought
I might drown in the self-ado­ra­tion cas­cad­ing off him.
One Fri­day night, Brick and I met, with Har­ry and Gwen­dolyn
Peters, a few blocks from Chasen’s. Gwen put me in a dress, hose, and
heels. She put my hair in an updo. Brick showed up in dun­ga­rees and
a T‑shirt, and Gwen put him in a nice suit. We drove Harry’s brand-
new crim­son Cadil­lac Biar­ritz the half mile to the front door.
Peo­ple were tak­ing pic­tures of Brick and me before we even got out
of the car. We were escort­ed to a cir­cu­lar booth, where the two of us
packed our­selves in tight togeth­er. I ordered a Shirley Tem­ple.
“How old are you, sweet­heart?” Brick asked me.
“Eigh­teen,” I said.
“So I bet you had my pic­ture up on your wall, huh?”
It took every­thing I had not to grab my drink and throw it right in
his face. Instead, I smiled as polite­ly as pos­si­ble and said, “How’d you
know?”
Pho­tog­ra­phers snapped shots as we sat togeth­er. We pre­tend­ed not
to see them, mak­ing it look as if we were laugh­ing togeth­er, arm in
arm.
An hour lat­er, we were back with Har­ry and Gwen­dolyn, chang­ing
into our nor­mal clothes.
Just before Brick and I said good-bye, he turned to me and smiled.
“Gonna be a lot of rumors about you and me tomor­row,” he said.
“Sure are.”
“Let me know if you want to make ’em true.”
I should have kept qui­et. I should have just smiled nice­ly. But
instead, I said, “Don’t hold your breath.”
Brick looked at me and laughed and then waved good-bye, as if I
hadn’t just insult­ed him.
“Can you believe that guy?” I said. Har­ry had already opened my
door and was wait­ing for me to get into the car.
“That guy makes us a lot of mon­ey,” he said as I sat down.
Har­ry got in on the oth­er side and turned the key in the igni­tion but
didn’t start dri­ving. Instead, he looked at me. “I’m not say­ing you
should be dal­ly­ing around too much with these actors you don’t like,”
he said. “But it would do you some good, if you liked one, if things
pro­gressed past a pho­to op or two. The stu­dio would like it. The fans
would like it.”
Naive­ly, I had thought I was done pre­tend­ing to like the atten­tion of
every man I came across. “OK,” I said, rather petu­lant­ly. “I’ll try.”
And while I knew it was the best thing to do for my career, I grinned
through my teeth on dates with Pete Greer and Bob­by Dono­van.
But then Har­ry set me up on a date with Don Adler, and I for­got
why I would ever have resent­ed the idea in the first place.
  *  *  *  
DON ADLER INVITED me out to Mocam­bo, with­out a doubt the hottest
club in town, and he picked me up at my apart­ment.
I opened the door to see him in a nice suit, with a bou­quet of lilies.
He was just a few inch­es taller than me in my heels. Light brown hair,
hazel eyes, square jaw, the kind of smile that, the moment you saw it,
made you smile. It was the smile his moth­er had been famous for, now
on a hand­somer face.
“For you,” he said, just a bit shy­ly.
“Wow,” I said, tak­ing them from him. “They’re gor­geous. Come in.
Come in. I’ll put them in some water.”
I was wear­ing a boat­neck sap­phire-blue cock­tail dress, my hair up in
a chignon. I grabbed a vase from under­neath the sink and turned the
water on.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” I said as Don stood in my kitchen,
wait­ing for me.
“Well,” he said, “I want­ed to. I’ve been hound­ing Har­ry to meet you
for a while. So it was the least I could do to make you feel spe­cial.”
I put the flow­ers on the counter. “Shall we?”
Don nod­ded and took my hand.
“I saw Father and Daugh­ter,” he said when we were in his
con­vert­ible and head­ed over to the Sun­set Strip.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, Ari showed me an ear­ly cut. He says he thinks it’s going to
be a big hit. Says he thinks you’re going to be a big hit.”
“And what did you think?”
We were stopped at a red light on High­land. Don looked at me. “I
think you’re the most gor­geous woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Oh, stop,” I said. I found myself laugh­ing, blush­ing even.
“Tru­ly. And a real tal­ent, too. When the movie end­ed, I looked right
at Ari and said, ‘That’s the girl for me.’ ”
“You did not,” I said.
Don put up his hand. “Scout’s hon­or.”
There’s absolute­ly no rea­son a man like Don Adler should have a
dif­fer­ent effect on me from the rest of the men in the world. He was no
more hand­some than Brick Thomas, no more earnest than Ernie Diaz,
and he could offer me star­dom whether I loved him or not. But these
things defy rea­son. I blame pheromones, ulti­mate­ly.
That and the fact that, at least at first, Don Adler treat­ed me like a
per­son. There are peo­ple who see a beau­ti­ful flower and rush over to
pick it. They want to hold it in their hands, they want to own it. They
want the flower’s beau­ty to be theirs, to be with­in their pos­ses­sion,
their con­trol. Don wasn’t like that. At least, not at first. Don was hap­py
to be near the flower, to look at the flower, to appre­ci­ate the flower
sim­ply being.
Here’s the thing about mar­ry­ing a guy like that—a guy like Don
Adler, back then. You’re say­ing to him, “This beau­ti­ful thing you’ve
been hap­py to sim­ply appre­ci­ate, well, now it’s yours to own.”
Don and I par­tied the night away at the Mocam­bo. It was a real
scene. Crowds out­side, packed tight as sar­dines try­ing to get in.
Inside, a celebri­ty play­ground. Tables upon tables filled with famous
peo­ple, high ceil­ings, incred­i­ble stage acts, and birds every­where.
Actu­al live birds in glass aviaries.
Don intro­duced me to a few actors from MGM and Warn­er
Broth­ers. I met Bon­nie Lake­land, who had just gone free­lance and
made it big with Mon­ey, Hon­ey. I heard, more than once, some­one
refer to Don as the prince of Hol­ly­wood, and I found it charm­ing when
he turned to me after the third time some­one said it and whis­pered,
“They are under­es­ti­mat­ing me. I’ll be king one of these days.”
Don and I stayed at Mocam­bo well past mid­night, danc­ing togeth­er
until our feet hurt. Every time a song end­ed, we said we were going to
sit down, but once a new one start­ed, we refused to leave the floor.
He drove me home, the streets qui­et at the late hour, the lights dim
all over town. When we got to my apart­ment, he walked me to my
door. He didn’t ask to come in. He just said, “When can I see you
again?”
“Call Har­ry and make a date,” I said.
Don put his hand on the door. “No,” he said. “Real­ly. Me and you.”
“And the cam­eras?” I said.
“If you want them there, fine,” he said. “If you don’t, nei­ther do I.”
He smiled, a sweet, teas­ing smile.
I laughed. “OK,” I said. “How about next Fri­day?”
Don thought about it a sec­ond. “Can I tell you the truth about
some­thing?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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