In Chap­ter 8 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds over sev­er­al days as Lis­beth Salan­der recon­nects with Dra­gan Arman­sky, her for­mer employ­er. She arrives at his office, offer­ing him cof­fee, which sparks a tense yet famil­iar exchange. Despite their past, Arman­sky express­es annoy­ance at her abrupt depar­ture over a year ago with­out a good­bye. Salan­der brush­es off the con­fronta­tion, reveal­ing that she’s been trav­el­ing exten­sive­ly across var­i­ous coun­tries, includ­ing Italy, the Mid­dle East, and the Caribbean.

As their con­ver­sa­tion deep­ens, Arman­sky con­fronts Salan­der about her self­ish­ness, high­light­ing her lack of regard for Hol­ger Palm­gren, her men­tor who had suf­fered a stroke two years pri­or. This rev­e­la­tion shocks Salan­der, who had thought Palm­gren was dead. The unex­pect­ed news leads her to feel guilt and remorse as she reflects on her past behav­ior and the peo­ple she has neglect­ed.

Despite her denials, it becomes clear that she isn’t look­ing for a job but is instead focused on her inde­pen­dence. Arman­sky, how­ev­er, sees poten­tial for col­lab­o­ra­tion, not­ing the need for skilled oper­a­tives but Salan­der resists, assert­ing her finan­cial self-suf­fi­cien­cy. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of past events, includ­ing Mar­tin Vanger’s death.

Salan­der’s moti­va­tion to vis­it Palm­gren emerges, dis­play­ing her emo­tion­al evo­lu­tion. The next day, she vis­its him at a reha­bil­i­ta­tion home, where she wit­ness­es his long jour­ney to recov­ery. Once there, she finds him strug­gling to eat, a poignant scene that illus­trates his frag­ile state. Salan­der feeds Palm­gren, a rare act of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty from her as she com­mu­ni­cates desire, regret, and love in silence.

Their bond is rekin­dled as they exchange sim­ple words and ges­tures, tran­scend­ing the heav­i­ness of their past. Salan­der promis­es to vis­it reg­u­lar­ly and seeks to be involved in Palm­gren’s care, feel­ing a new­found respon­si­bil­i­ty and con­nec­tion. Through their inter­ac­tions, read­ers see Salander’s growth and her com­mit­ment to those she cares about, set­ting up a nar­ra­tive thread that inter­twines their fates.

In the after­math of a trou­bling night, Jody has iso­lat­ed him­self, mov­ing his belong­ings to a room down­stairs. Despite not har­bor­ing hatred for Janie, he wish­es for her to believe that he does. Their com­mu­ni­ca­tion has dwin­dled, cre­at­ing a façade of peace around their store that con­ceals a brew­ing ten­sion. Janie reflects on her dete­ri­o­rat­ing mar­riage, ques­tion­ing why Jody resents her for things he him­self has done for years.

Mean­while, Jody exhibits signs of phys­i­cal decline, appear­ing bag­gy and worn, and form­ing new alliances with peo­ple he had pre­vi­ous­ly dis­re­gard­ed, includ­ing a dubi­ous root-doc­tor, caus­ing Janie to wor­ry about his health. Despite her attempts to care for him by prepar­ing a meal, Jody cold­ly rebuffs her efforts, inten­si­fy­ing her feel­ings of hurt and betray­al. She con­fides her sor­row to her friend Pheo­by, who tries to com­fort her amidst rumors cir­cu­lat­ing in their com­mu­ni­ty that Janie has poi­soned Jody.

As Jody’s con­di­tion wors­ens, he becomes reclu­sive, keep­ing Janie at a dis­tance, while towns­folk who pre­vi­ous­ly shunned her now stop by to check on him. She real­izes he has neglect­ed his health, and, against his wish­es, she arranges for a doc­tor, who sad­ly informs her it’s too late for Jody’s recov­ery. This news brings forth thoughts of death, a pres­ence Janie fears yet has come to terms with. She can’t under­stand why Jody refus­es to accept his sit­u­a­tion, cling­ing instead to super­sti­tious beliefs.

Deter­mined to con­front him, Janie finds her­self par­a­lyzed by the emo­tion­al weight of the moment. When she final­ly sees him, he is weak and dis­tant, no longer the vibrant man she mar­ried. Their con­ver­sa­tion is tense and filled with accu­sa­tions, reveal­ing a life­time of mis­un­der­stand­ings. Janie tries to con­vey her feel­ings, but Jody repels her attempts at con­nec­tion. Despite Jody’s insis­tence for her to leave, she res­olute­ly express­es her need for him to rec­og­nize his behav­ior and the love that he’s for­sak­en.

As Jody’s con­di­tion declines fur­ther, Janie’s com­pas­sion grows. Rumi­nat­ing over their years togeth­er, she reflects on her lost self and the per­son­al trans­for­ma­tions she has endured. In a moment of empow­er­ment, she uncov­ers her phys­i­cal beau­ty, sym­bol­iz­ing a reclaim­ing of her iden­ti­ty. Ulti­mate­ly, she announces to the world that Jody has passed—her hus­band gone, yet she feels a com­plex mix­ture of sor­row and relief over­whelm­ing her as she faces this turn­ing point in her life.

In Chap­ter 8 of “1984,” Win­ston and Julia final­ly vis­it O’Brien, an Inner Par­ty mem­ber they sus­pect of being part of a con­spir­a­cy against the Par­ty. The atmos­phere of O’Brien’s home is lux­u­ri­ous and intim­i­dat­ing, with a dim­ly lit room, thick car­pets, and an air of author­i­ty. Despite their rush of excite­ment and antic­i­pa­tion, both Win­ston and Julia feel anx­i­ety about their bold intru­sion into such a priv­i­leged space.

O’Brien begins the meet­ing by engag­ing in bureau­crat­ic tasks, show­cas­ing the hol­low nature of pow­er with­in the Par­ty. Once he turns off the omnipresent tele­screen, the sense of inti­ma­cy deep­ens, and a flick­er of hope sparks in Win­ston. They express their desire to join a secret orga­ni­za­tion work­ing against the oppres­sive regime, iden­ti­fy­ing them­selves as ene­mies of the Par­ty and con­fess­ing their thought-crimes.

Once drinks are served, O’Brien con­firms the exis­tence of Emmanuel Gold­stein and the real­i­ty of a secret orga­ni­za­tion known as the Broth­er­hood. He empha­sizes its decen­tral­ized nature, stat­ing that it has no for­mal struc­ture or iden­ti­fiers, exist­ing sole­ly as an idea. Win­ston and Julia are warned of the dan­gers ahead; they must oper­ate alone, with each des­tined to suf­fer with­out hope of assis­tance or sol­i­dar­i­ty.

O’Brien sub­jects them to a series of grue­some hypo­thet­i­cal ques­tions to gauge their com­mit­ment to the cause. Win­ston responds affir­ma­tive­ly to all except one ques­tion, where Julia vehe­ment­ly refus­es to accept the idea of sep­a­rat­ing from Win­ston. This ten­sion sig­nals the pro­found bond they share, which con­trasts O’Brien’s imper­son­al method­i­cal ques­tion­ing.

Despite the grav­i­ty of their con­ver­sa­tion, O’Brien exhibits a slight irrev­er­ence about their poten­tial­ly fatal mis­sion. He out­lines the bleak out­look for those who oppose the Par­ty, indi­cat­ing a prob­a­bil­i­ty of cap­ture and inevitable betray­al. Yet, he fills them with a sense of pur­pose, high­light­ing the impor­tance of work­ing toward a dis­tant future of lib­er­a­tion.

Before they part ways, O’Brien and Win­ston share an exchange about an old nurs­ery rhyme, mark­ing their con­nec­tion in the face of the Par­ty’s oppres­sive real­i­ty. O’Brien’s part­ing grip feels both pow­er­ful and dis­mis­sive, leav­ing Win­ston unset­tled about their uncer­tain future and the decep­tive nature of their sup­posed alliance .

In Chap­ter 8 of “1984,” Win­ston finds him­self wan­der­ing through the grimy, bustling slums of Lon­don, drawn by the entic­ing smell of real cof­fee, rem­i­nis­cent of his child­hood before the Par­ty’s con­trol. His legs ache from walk­ing sev­er­al kilo­me­ters, though the lure of soli­tude and the pleas­ant April weath­er dri­ves him to escape the oppres­sive atmos­phere of the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where he had grown weary of the dull rou­tine.

Dur­ing his aim­less wan­der­ing through the streets, Win­ston reflects on a phrase he wrote in his diary, “If there is hope, it lies in the pro­les,” find­ing deep res­o­nance in the lives of the work­ing class he encoun­ters. The streets teem with peo­ple: boys chas­ing girls, women com­plain­ing, and chil­dren play­ing in filthy pud­dles. Win­ston notes their wary expres­sions when they spot him, a Par­ty mem­ber in blue over­alls. As he observes, he feels uneasy; he real­izes it’s unwise for a Par­ty mem­ber to roam here with­out a pur­pose.

Sud­den­ly, chaos erupts as peo­ple scram­ble for safe­ty from an incom­ing bomb, a “steam­er,” which caus­es a sig­nif­i­cant explo­sion near­by. Wit­ness­ing this dev­as­ta­tion, he sees a sev­ered hand amidst the rub­ble, which he kicks away in dis­gust. Soon after, he con­tin­ues on, nav­i­gat­ing towards a near­by pub, a famil­iar haunt for the pro­les, where he becomes engrossed in over­hear­ing peo­ple pas­sion­ate­ly argu­ing over lot­tery winnings—a notable source of hope for the pro­les.

Inside the pub, he encoun­ters an elder­ly man who rem­i­nisces about the past, before the Rev­o­lu­tion, though his mem­o­ries are frag­ment­ed and vague. Win­ston tries to glean infor­ma­tion about life before the Par­ty’s regime, but the old man’s rec­ol­lec­tions lack clar­i­ty. Despite his attempts to dis­cuss oppres­sion and the real­i­ties faced dur­ing the cap­i­tal­ist era, the elder­ly man’s sto­ries seem abstract and triv­ial. He dis­cuss­es tokens of the past, like top hats and lack­eys, with­out grasp­ing their sig­nif­i­cance.

Even­tu­al­ly, Win­ston buys an antique item that res­onates with an age gone by, reflect­ing his long­ing for a past that he has­n’t tru­ly known. Their con­ver­sa­tion mean­ders through nos­tal­gia and vague rec­ol­lec­tions of his­to­ry, hint­ing at the irre­triev­able loss as Win­ston real­izes that the past may nev­er be under­stood while the cur­rent regime rewrites nar­ra­tives.

Return­ing home, Win­ston grap­ples with the severe ten­sion between his rebel­lious thoughts and the sti­fling Par­ty con­trol. The chap­ter ends with his inner turmoil—caught between the urge to rebel and the debil­i­tat­ing effects of the oppres­sive real­i­ty he inhab­its, as he con­tem­plates the inevitable con­se­quences of his thought­crime. The themes of mem­o­ry, oppres­sion, and the yearn­ing for free­dom per­me­ate, illus­trat­ing the strug­gle against the Party’s total­i­tar­i­an grip.

In Chap­ter 8 of “The Art Thief,” the nar­ra­tive explores the world of muse­um heists, high­light­ing var­i­ous infa­mous thieves and their auda­cious meth­ods. The chap­ter opens by not­ing that steal­ing from three muse­ums with­in a year is a remark­able achieve­ment, as most thieves are usu­al­ly only enticed by muse­ums once. The nar­ra­tive intro­duces Vin­cen­zo Perug­gia, who, after eight months as a handy­man at the Lou­vre, famous­ly stole the *Mona Lisa* in August 1911 by uti­liz­ing his inti­mate knowl­edge of the muse­um’s secu­ri­ty. Dis­guised in his work uni­form, Perug­gia suc­cess­ful­ly removed the paint­ing dur­ing the muse­um’s clo­sure for clean­ing and fled into the Paris streets.

The chap­ter fea­tures oth­er notable heists, includ­ing a 1975 elab­o­rate raid at the Boston Muse­um of Fine Arts orches­trat­ed by Myles Con­nor Jr., a bril­liant crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind. In Mex­i­co City, two bur­glars exe­cut­ed a metic­u­lous­ly planned theft at the Nation­al Muse­um of Anthro­pol­o­gy, infil­trat­ing through an air-con­di­tion­ing duct to steal arti­facts unno­ticed. A dra­mat­ic 2000 rob­bery at the Swedish Nation­al Muse­um involved car bomb­ings that dis­tract­ed secu­ri­ty while the thieves stole sev­er­al valu­able paint­ings.

The text delves into the unique chal­lenges of han­dling stolen art, empha­siz­ing that the true dif­fi­cul­ty lies in the after­math of the theft. The noto­ri­ety of stolen art­works often makes it near­ly impos­si­ble to dis­play or sell them safe­ly. Perug­gia’s fate is revealed as he con­cealed the *Mona Lisa* in his apart­ment for two and a half years before attempt­ing to sell it, lead­ing to his arrest and the paint­ing’s safe return to the Lou­vre.

In dis­cussing the dynam­ics of thefts, the chap­ter high­lights Stéphane Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine, who form a crim­i­nal part­ner­ship, suc­cess­ful­ly steal­ing art­works across Europe with an ele­gant and strate­gic approach. Their unique bal­ance of skills—Breitwieser’s knack for exploit­ing secu­ri­ty flaws and Anne-Cather­ine’s care­ful vigilance—enhances their suc­cess rate. Despite their fru­gal lifestyle fund­ed par­tial­ly by fam­i­ly, their crim­i­nal spree accel­er­ates with­in a year, with numer­ous thefts, moti­vat­ed by a desire for art, sta­tus, and per­haps a deep­er psy­cho­log­i­cal ful­fill­ment that remains elu­sive. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a reflec­tion on the empti­ness that per­sists despite their bur­geon­ing col­lec­tion of stolen trea­sures.

In the chap­ter titled “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” we fol­low Frank as he expe­ri­ences a piv­otal evening at his niece Abi­gail’s debut per­for­mance in her ele­men­tary school’s musi­cal, *Beau­ty and the Beast*. Despite her small role as a spoon, Abi­gail had been intense­ly focused dur­ing weeks of rehearsals, while Frank, act­ing as her care­tak­er and guardian, felt the pres­sure to ensure the night went per­fect­ly. Set against the back­drop of a chal­leng­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ic involv­ing Abigail’s birth moth­er, Frank reflects on their cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and the com­mit­ment he and his sis­ter, Tam­my, made to adopt Abi­gail to pro­vide her sta­bil­i­ty and sup­port.

On open­ing night, Frank finds him­self back­stage, where he anx­ious­ly awaits the show’s suc­cess. He has invest­ed deeply in this moment, mem­o­riz­ing all the songs and active­ly help­ing with set changes. The per­for­mance turns out to be a resound­ing suc­cess, cul­mi­nat­ing with a stand­ing ova­tion for the cast and crew, although Frank miss­es the cur­tain call due to his respon­si­bil­i­ties. After the show, the cel­e­bra­tion in the school park­ing lot buzzes with excite­ment as chil­dren enjoy home­made treats under the warm spring sky. Frank shares a humor­ous moment with Abi­gail while wait­ing for ice cream and shows his affec­tion­ate nature by offer­ing her his ice cream cone after she acci­den­tal­ly drops hers.

As the evening draws to a close, Frank inter­acts with Abi­gail’s school prin­ci­pal, who mis­tak­en­ly iden­ti­fies him as Abi­gail’s father. The mis­un­der­stand­ing high­lights Frank’s unique posi­tion as her uncle rather than a tra­di­tion­al father fig­ure, stem­ming from Tammy’s adop­tion of Abi­gail. The prin­ci­pal lat­er shows Frank an essay Abi­gail wrote about him, titled “#1 Dad Frank Sza­tows­ki,” which high­lights his role in her life, not just as an uncle but as a sig­nif­i­cant father fig­ure. The moment is emo­tion­al for Frank, who is clear­ly touched by Abi­gail’s sen­ti­ments and the recog­ni­tion from her school.

In the end, Frank appre­ci­ates Abigail’s achieve­ments and reflects on the impor­tance of their fam­i­ly bond while con­tem­plat­ing future con­ver­sa­tions about their unusu­al fam­i­ly struc­ture. The principal’s con­cern about poten­tial con­fu­sion for Abi­gail is addressed, and they estab­lish a plan for Frank to com­mu­ni­cate open­ly with her, indi­cat­ing a hope­ful future for the vibrant fam­i­ly they are build­ing togeth­er.

In the seclud­ed Globe, an old out­door the­ater nes­tled among trees, a wed­ding rehearsal was under­way, sur­round­ed by an unwel­come crowd of guests. The atmos­phere, meant to feel sacred, was dis­rupt­ed by dozens sip­ping wine and nib­bling on snacks. I was dis­ap­point­ed that the couple’s moment remained a pub­lic spec­ta­cle.

RJ, a young man with curly hair, intro­duced him­self as the cer­e­mony’s host, despite being a human resources work­er rather than a pas­tor. He had obtained his offi­ciant cre­den­tials online pri­mar­i­ly for this event. Eager to meet the groom, Aidan, RJ sought him out. Aidan, sit­ting with grooms­men, appeared pale and unwell, his face marked with a rash.

As Errol Gard­ner arrived, he expressed regret for his wife’s absence due to ill­ness but remained opti­mistic about her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the wed­ding. Mean­while, Tam­my and Abi­gail prac­ticed flower girl duties, but Abi­gail was over­ly ener­getic, often trail­ing behind her cousin, proud­ly pre­sent­ing her­self as “the cousin of the bride,” much to my annoy­ance.

Tam­my point­ed out Abigail’s back­ground from a bro­ken home and how this wed­ding was a sig­nif­i­cant event for her, con­trast­ing my jad­ed per­spec­tive. I point­ed out Aidan’s appar­ent dis­tress, but Tam­my insist­ed it was nerves, recall­ing my own anx­ious­ness before my wed­ding.

The rehearsal even­tu­al­ly began, led by RJ, who direct­ed the pro­ces­sion, dur­ing which Abi­gail scat­tered flower petals down the aisle, fol­lowed by the brides­maids and grooms­men. When it was my turn to escort my daugh­ter Mag­gie, con­flict arose over our pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sions about trust and the inci­dent that had caused ten­sion between us. Despite this, I tried to stay com­posed, rec­og­niz­ing my wor­ries about Aidan’s emo­tion­al state could stem from var­i­ous ratio­nal caus­es.

As the rehearsal pro­gressed, RJ revealed his “Bible” was just a prop, and he assuaged Mag­gie and Aidan’s wor­ries about the ceremony’s tone. Most par­tic­i­pants were ner­vous, except for Tam­my, who con­fi­dent­ly rehearsed her read­ing from the Bible. Her heart­felt recita­tion filled the air with a rev­er­ent silence, prompt­ing RJ to ques­tion if they should con­sid­er a more con­tem­po­rary approach, but Mag­gie assured him it was per­fect, sta­bi­liz­ing the emo­tion­al atmos­phere of the rehearsal .

In the chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on the uncom­fort­able atmos­phere fol­low­ing their arrival at a wed­ding camp. The new bed­room lacks ade­quate seat­ing, and while unpack­ing is under­way, the pro­tag­o­nist feels increas­ing­ly iso­lat­ed. Antic­i­pa­tion builds for a chance to meet future in-laws, Errol and Cather­ine, but their absence height­ens a sense of unwel­come­ness, com­pound­ed by the rapid depar­tures of fam­i­ly mem­bers, includ­ing Aidan rush­ing off with a friend and Mag­gie head­ing into town with­out invit­ing the pro­tag­o­nist.

Around three o’clock, as the pro­tag­o­nist waits for their daugh­ter, Abi­gail, they engage in a brief con­ver­sa­tion about games. Despite Abi­gail’s desire to join, the pro­tag­o­nist encour­ages her to stay behind, aim­ing for some qual­i­ty time with Mag­gie. Just then, Mag­gie calls, report­ing a myr­i­ad of wed­ding-relat­ed dis­as­ters, such as the florist’s mis­takes and a COVID-pos­i­tive video­g­ra­ph­er, reveal­ing her esca­lat­ing stress. The pro­tag­o­nist strug­gles with the idea of explor­ing the camp alone, hav­ing antic­i­pat­ed fam­i­ly bond­ing instead of soli­tary activ­i­ties like horse­shoes.

After the call, the pro­tag­o­nist feels some­what embar­rassed lying to Abi­gail about where Mag­gie is. They ven­ture out­doors, pass­ing emp­ty chairs and a seem­ing­ly desert­ed beach, while cater­ers set up for an elab­o­rate din­ner. Sur­prised by the scale of the prepa­ra­tions, the pro­tag­o­nist learns from a car­pen­ter that the team is get­ting ready for that evening rather than the actu­al wed­ding on Sat­ur­day. When Aidan appears with a woman named Gwen­dolyn, the pro­tag­o­nist attempts to catch up, but they van­ish into the woods.

Com­pelled to fol­low them, the pro­tag­o­nist soon over­hears a tense con­ver­sa­tion between Aidan and Gwen­dolyn. She express­es frus­tra­tion, insist­ing on hon­esty, while Aidan pres­sures her to avoid Mar­garet. This cryp­tic inter­ac­tion rais­es the pro­tag­o­nist’s con­cerns. Upon dis­cov­er­ing Gwen­dolyn’s hos­tile reac­tion toward their iden­ti­ty as Mar­garet’s father, the pro­tag­o­nist’s unease deep­ens. Aidan explains Gwen­dolyn’s back­ground and her crit­i­cal nature of the camp, but the atmos­phere hangs heavy with unspo­ken ten­sions. As the chap­ter unfolds, themes of fam­i­ly dynam­ics, the stress of wed­dings, and the loom­ing uncer­tain­ties of rela­tion­ships come to the fore­front, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist grap­pling with their obser­va­tions and the impli­ca­tions of what they have over­heard.

In the lead-up to the wed­ding, time seemed to fly by. With Mag­gie and the Gard­ners man­ag­ing the bulk of the arrange­ments, I still found numer­ous tasks on my own to-do list. I rum­maged through my attic and found my old tuxe­do, the last time I had worn it being my wed­ding day twen­ty-eight years pri­or. Although it no longer fit, nos­tal­gia filled me as I sift­ed through its pock­ets, dis­cov­er­ing a cock­tail nap­kin stained with Colleen’s lip­stick, which I decid­ed to keep for good luck.

For the wed­ding, I opt­ed to rent a light-gray sum­mer tuxe­do from Men’s Wear­house, com­plete with a match­ing vest and bow tie. The sales­man, a young man with pink hair and pierc­ings, was eager to make a sale and suc­cess­ful­ly con­vinced me to pur­chase a nine-piece acces­so­ry pack­age includ­ing shoes and cuff links. My daugh­ter’s wed­ding left me with a feel­ing of good­will towards every­one around me.

My pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for the week­end was prepar­ing a toast for the recep­tion. The bridal web­sites sug­gest­ed that the ide­al length was nine­ty sec­onds, encour­ag­ing me to speak from the heart. How­ev­er, as I attempt­ed to write, I found myself with eigh­teen pages of notes, strug­gling to con­dense my thoughts into the allot­ted time. Each writ­ing ses­sion seemed to exac­er­bate the issue by increas­ing the length of my notes.

I also tried to form a bond with my future son-in-law, Aidan, by propos­ing we attend a Red Sox game. How­ev­er, Mag­gie informed me that Aidan wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in sports. I then sug­gest­ed a vis­it to the Boston Muse­um of Fine Arts, where he could show me his favorite exhibits, but despite our shared inter­ests, we could nev­er pin down a date. After sev­er­al attempts met with excus­es from Aidan, I real­ized he might not be keen to spend time togeth­er, some­thing I chose not to take per­son­al­ly, acknowl­edg­ing he already had a father fig­ure.

Mag­gie, too, seemed pre­oc­cu­pied, and I found that dis­heart­en­ing. Although we had re-estab­lished com­mu­ni­ca­tion, her busy sched­ule with wed­ding plan­ning and her job left lit­tle room for our con­ver­sa­tions, which often end­ed quick­ly. She reas­sured me, promis­ing more fam­i­ly time dur­ing our stay at Osprey Cove before the wed­ding, where we could even relive our past camp­ing adven­tures, like canoe­ing together—an idea that delight­ed me. As July pro­gressed, I antic­i­pat­ed our reunion while vow­ing to give Mag­gie the space she need­ed until the big day.

In Chap­ter 8 of “James,” the nar­ra­tive explores themes of guilt, revenge, and exis­ten­tial reflec­tion through intro­spec­tive thoughts and dia­logue. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on the actions he has tak­en, grap­pling with the moral­i­ty of his revenge. He ques­tions whether his actions were jus­ti­fi­able or a man­i­fes­ta­tion of evil. This con­tem­pla­tion leaves him feel­ing apa­thet­ic, more curi­ous about his capac­i­ty for action than bur­dened by his emo­tions.

As he lies on a bed of leaves, he hears the dis­tant church bell, sig­nal­ing Sun­day. He encoun­ters Huck, who has man­aged to escape from watch­ful eyes, hint­ing at the increas­ing ten­sion sur­round­ing them. Huck reveals the scruti­ny he faces from oth­ers, hav­ing had to sneak out from church to meet his friend. Their reunion reflects a deep bond, as Huck has been pro­tec­tive, refus­ing to believe in the pro­tag­o­nist’s demise.

The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to recent events: Huck shares the rumors he has heard about the King and Bil­ge­wa­ter, as well as a mys­te­ri­ous inci­dent involv­ing a slave. They dis­cuss a man named Hop­kins who has van­ished, rais­ing ques­tions about his fate. The pro­tag­o­nist real­izes that his emo­tion­al state led him to over­look cru­cial infor­ma­tion, such as ques­tion­ing Hop­kins, fuel­ing his desire for vengeance. This rev­e­la­tion leads him to resolve not to let anger dic­tate his actions in the future.

Huck express­es con­cern for the dan­ger the pro­tag­o­nist faces, men­tion­ing a poten­tial hang­ing. The pro­tag­o­nist feels a sense of res­ig­na­tion; he has lived in fear and rec­og­nizes it can­not inten­si­fy beyond what he has already endured. They exchange thoughts on fish­ing and the ongo­ing war, reflect­ing Huck­’s youth­ful per­spec­tive about reach­ing adult­hood and his cho­sen side in the con­flict, which is against slav­ery.

The chap­ter ends with the pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plat­ing the Gra­ham farm, a new lead that sparks his curios­i­ty and intent on uncov­er­ing its sig­nif­i­cance, set­ting the stage for fur­ther devel­op­ments in their jour­ney. The poignant exchanges between Huck and the pro­tag­o­nist reveal the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal land­scape they nav­i­gate, deep­en­ing their con­nec­tion while high­light­ing the exter­nal chal­lenges they face.

In Chap­ter 8, the sto­ry unfolds in the engine room of a steam­boat, where two indi­vid­u­als, Jim and Nor­man, find them­selves in a tense sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter begins with Jim hid­ing when a wiry black man car­ry­ing a can­dle approach­es, ques­tion­ing them. Jim claims he is hid­ing and is quick­ly sup­port­ed by Nor­man, who insists the man should not speak to Jim dis­re­spect­ful­ly. The men delib­er­ate on the trust­wor­thi­ness of the slave, dis­cussing the poten­tial risk of being exposed as run­aways. Nor­man, look­ing dirty and disheveled, strug­gles with the notion of rum­mag­ing through trunks for clothes.

As they dis­cuss their plans, the engine room slave, Brock, returns to warn them that they shouldn’t be there, as it could get him into trou­ble. Nor­man, assert­ing dom­i­nance, demands to know where the bag­gage is kept, which Brock reveals is in the hold locat­ed at the front. Despite his fear, Brock is com­pelled to obey Nor­man when he’s ordered to return to his work, reveal­ing the com­plex dynam­ics of pow­er and race.

The two then ven­ture into the hold, where they sift through bags for cloth­ing. Nor­man even­tu­al­ly finds an out­fit to wear, albeit ill-fit­ting. They briefly dis­cuss the poten­tial recog­ni­tion of the clothes by the true own­er and the stakes involved if caught. After Nor­man ascends to the next deck, Brock, the engine room slave, engages Jim in con­ver­sa­tion, sug­gest­ing that Jim must work while he’s there or risk alert­ing Mas­sa Corey.

As Brock explains his respon­si­bil­i­ties, Jim con­tem­plates the envi­ron­ment and what lit­tle free­dom there is with­in it, with dis­cus­sions around the harsh real­i­ties of being a slave. The chap­ter cap­tures the exer­tion of labor, the impact of fear and sur­vival, and Brock­’s pecu­liar attach­ment to his “mas­sa,” adding lay­ers of com­plex­i­ty to themes of loy­al­ty and sub­mis­sion. As the ten­sion builds, Jim express­es doubts about their master’s exis­tence, hint­ing at a deep­er nar­ra­tive con­cern­ing pow­er and depen­den­cy, which leaves the read­er pon­der­ing the pre­car­i­ous­ness of their sit­u­a­tion amidst the exter­nal chaos of an impend­ing war.

In Chap­ter 8, Jim express­es relief and hap­pi­ness as he sends Huck­le­ber­ry Finn on a crit­i­cal mis­sion to the main­land. Jim is opti­mistic that Huck’s poten­tial fail­ure could shift sus­pi­cion away from him for his escape and lessen fears of being seen as Huck­’s mur­der­er. He also deeply hopes Huck will return with news about his fam­i­ly’s sit­u­a­tion. Observ­ing Huck’s deter­mi­na­tion as he pad­dles against the cur­rent fills Jim with pride, and as Huck departs, Jim returns to the cave, eats, and takes a nap.

Jim’s main con­cern shifts to a snake bite he has endured, feel­ing reas­sured by the lack of swelling around the wound. As he recu­per­ates, Jim works hard to main­tain the fire and gath­ers food, prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of need­ing to escape. His thoughts wan­der to the body he saw in the flood­ed house, con­tem­plat­ing how reveal­ing its iden­ti­ty as Huck’s father could impact both boys. Jim fears that the news might over­whelm Huck with grief, pon­der­ing the self­ish impli­ca­tions of such a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

While on edge, Jim observes a col­umn of smoke from across the island, prompt­ing alarm as he sus­pects they might be spot­ted. This anx­i­ety is inter­rupt­ed by Huck­’s arrival, who informs Jim that he set the fire as a dis­trac­tion, believ­ing he was being tracked. Rec­og­niz­ing the urgency of their sit­u­a­tion, Jim insists they must leave imme­di­ate­ly.

Prepar­ing for their escape, the two boys tread cau­tious­ly through the reced­ing flood­wa­ters, nav­i­gat­ing through the mud­dy ter­rain while try­ing not to draw atten­tion. They exhib­it a mix of cau­tion and resource­ful­ness as they push their canoe into the water, dip­ping low to con­ceal them­selves from any poten­tial threats. The chap­ter con­cludes with the pair silent­ly slip­ping away from the shore, anx­ious but deter­mined to con­tin­ue their jour­ney togeth­er.

In Chap­ter 8 of “We Solve Mur­ders,” François Lou­bet shares his reflec­tions on writ­ing and his noto­ri­ous activ­i­ties, wrapped in a tone that bal­ances lev­i­ty and grav­i­ty. He begins by admit­ting that while his desire to write stems from van­i­ty, it also serves to ensure that his achievements—many of which are criminal—are acknowl­edged after he’s gone. He humor­ous­ly reas­sures read­ers that he does­n’t plan to van­ish any­time soon.

A sig­nif­i­cant point in the chap­ter arrives when Lou­bet receives an intrigu­ing email from Joe Blow, his part­ner in crime. Joe pleads for an end to the killings, empha­siz­ing that Andrew Fair­banks should be the last vic­tim. This exchange reveals a sense of urgency and ten­sion; Joe seems to have cold feet about their vio­lent under­tak­ings. Lou­bet mus­es amus­ing­ly about Joe’s iden­ti­ty, sug­gest­ing that Joe could be anyone—possibly even using the same tech­nol­o­gy, like Chat­G­PT, to craft their mes­sage.

Lou­bet acknowl­edges Joe’s role in their crim­i­nal activ­i­ties, not­ing that despite the dis­com­fort that may arise from their deal­ings, the real­i­ty of their agree­ment involves accep­tance of some blood­shed. He reminds Joe of their part­ner­ship, empha­siz­ing that the respon­si­bil­i­ty for these deaths is shared between them. The tone of Lou­bet’s response is both dis­mis­sive and con­fronta­tion­al, as he rein­forces the notion that the risk must accom­pa­ny the finan­cial gains they’ve nego­ti­at­ed.

More­over, Lou­bet express­es con­fi­dence that the mur­der of Amy Wheel­er may final­ly put an end to the com­pli­ca­tions posed by oth­er indi­vid­u­als like Jeff Nolan—whom he con­sid­ers a nui­sance. He rev­els in the dark humor of the sit­u­a­tion and sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of elim­i­nat­ing Nolan as well while main­tain­ing a jovial facade.

As the chap­ter con­cludes, Lou­bet reas­sures him­self about Amy’s fate, hint­ing at a calm accep­tance of the vio­lent path he’s on. His reflec­tions are tinged with both a thrill of the chase and a cal­cu­lat­ed approach to his crim­i­nal deal­ings, cul­mi­nat­ing in a light­heart­ed yet sin­is­ter affir­ma­tion of his inten­tions: “Tal­ly-ho!” This blend of wit with dark­er under­tones high­lights Lou­bet’s com­plex char­ac­ter as both a crim­i­nal mas­ter­mind and a charm­ing nar­ra­tor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

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.