In Chap­ter 5, Lis­beth Salan­der revis­its the nurs­ing home where her moth­er spent her final years, reflect­ing on their strained rela­tion­ship and her sis­ter Camil­la’s con­trast­ing life. The chap­ter explores themes of iden­ti­ty and famil­ial estrange­ment, high­light­ing the pro­found dif­fer­ences between the Salan­der twins and their diver­gent paths from child­hood. Lis­beth’s intro­spec­tion reveals her feel­ings of help­less­ness and soci­etal judg­ment.

In Chap­ter 5 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we are intro­duced to the par­al­lel morn­ing rou­tines of two char­ac­ters, Saint and Patch. Saint begins her day by wak­ing at dawn and stealth­ily mak­ing her way to the rear porch. Mean­while, sev­en streets away, Patch gazes at the same sun­rise, not­ing the mist ris­ing from the grass as if it were on fire. She is about to head inside when an eerie silence catch­es her off guard. Ven­tur­ing bare­foot across the damp yard, she halts near her bees’ hive only to dis­cov­er that the bees have mys­te­ri­ous­ly van­ished.

In a state of urgency, Saint dash­es upstairs to con­front her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma. Out of breath, she exclaims some­one has stolen the bees. Nor­ma, skep­ti­cal and observ­ing her grand­daugh­ter’s lack of glass­es, sug­gests that the bees might still be there but unseen. Ignor­ing this, Saint rush­es to her attic bed­room, retrieves her glass­es, and brush­es her teeth with her finger—a result of a mishap involv­ing a dog fos­sil. Once out­side again, she finds her grand­moth­er exam­in­ing the emp­ty hive and ques­tions the bees’ dis­ap­pear­ance.

Nor­ma sug­gests the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ants or even a skunk, but Saint is increas­ing­ly anx­ious. She believes the bees know her after four years of bond­ing with them. When Nor­ma men­tions a bee keep­er in Wayne Coun­ty arrest­ed for steal­ing hives, Saint’s con­cern esca­lates, and she angri­ly accus­es a local man, Mr. Lewis, of the theft. Despite Nor­ma’s protests about the appro­pri­ate­ness of her lan­guage, Saint rages against Mr. Lewis, recall­ing his past behav­ior of steal­ing sam­ples with­out mak­ing pur­chas­es.

Ulti­mate­ly, her fer­vor leads her to con­sid­er land­ing at Chief Nix’s office to report Mr. Lewis, prompt­ing a stern response from Nor­ma to stop her plan imme­di­ate­ly. The chap­ter con­cludes with Saint run­ning off after a heat­ed exchange, leav­ing Nor­ma in a state of wor­ry and dis­ap­point­ment.

After the bride departs, Phoebe finds her­self over­whelmed by lone­li­ness. The room, pre­vi­ous­ly filled with voic­es, now ampli­fies her own thoughts about her trou­bled fam­i­ly and the uncon­ven­tion­al rela­tion­ships she wit­ness­es. Strug­gling with her iden­ti­ty and worth, she grap­ples with self-hatred, con­tem­plat­ing the loom­ing specter of her exis­tence with­in a body she feels dis­con­nect­ed from.

Seek­ing an escape, Phoebe pours her­self anoth­er drink and opens a bot­tle of tuna-fla­vored painkillers, aware she is devi­at­ing from her res­o­lu­tion to take her own life. Remind­ed of a therapist’s com­ment that she wasn’t “the type” to end her life, Phoebe feels wound­ed and inad­e­quate com­pared to more dar­ing per­son­al­i­ties like Mia, who embraces life with audac­i­ty.

Res­olute yet fear­ful, she devis­es a plan for her sui­cide, yet finds her­self dis­tract­ed by thoughts of the bride, whose scent and lip­stick linger in the air. As reminders of her unful­filled ambi­tions surface—finished nov­els and life choices—Phoebe resolves to cre­ate a final act of defi­ance rather than a hes­i­tat­ing foot­note. After swal­low­ing the pills, she briefly feels a sense of accom­plish­ment but soon ques­tions their effec­tive­ness.

A knock inter­rupts her thoughts; it’s Pauline, offer­ing assis­tance. Despite her urges to seek help, Phoebe finds com­fort in rec­og­niz­ing some­thing famil­iar about Pauline from their shared Mid­west­ern roots. Their con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Pauline’s strug­gles with her new job, and as Phoebe dis­miss­es her assis­tance, the young woman embod­ies the naivety and hope­ful­ness she wish­es to escape.

Exhaust­ed, Phoebe sinks into thoughts of her impend­ing death, wrestling with the irony of life and love unfold­ing just out­side her win­dow. A speech unfolds below, giv­en by Patri­cia, the bride’s moth­er, who mean­ders into mem­o­ries of Lila’s child­hood. The anec­dotes pro­voke Phoebe to pon­der the fraught dynam­ics of parental love and her own unre­solved child­hood expe­ri­ences.

Push­ing aside despair, Phoebe recalls that she prefers com­ple­tion, eager­ly brav­ing life’s chal­lenges to dis­cov­er any con­tin­u­a­tion of the nar­ra­tive. Real­iz­ing she does not want to die, Phoebe rush­es to the bath­room, instinc­tive­ly try­ing to vom­it the pills. The strug­gle leaves her exhaust­ed but enveloped with­in the world she longs to be part of, lis­ten­ing to the echoes of joy­ful cel­e­bra­tions, cling­ing to life amidst the impend­ing void .

Wait­ing ai

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.

5
I was qui­et and small, but when I sang I came alive, and I had tak­en enough
gym­nas­tics class­es to be able to move well. When I was �ve, I entered a local
dance com­pe­ti­tion. My tal­ent was a dance rou­tine done wear­ing a top hat and
twirling a cane. I won. Then my moth­er start­ed tak­ing me around to con­tests all
over the region. In old pho­tos and videos, I’m wear­ing the most ridicu­lous
things. In my third-grade musi­cal, I wore a bag­gy pur­ple T‑shirt with a huge
pur­ple bow on top of my head that made me look like a Christ­mas present. It
was absolute­ly hor­ri­ble.
I worked my way through the tal­ent cir­cuit, win­ning a region­al con­test in
Baton Rouge. Before too long, my par­ents set their sights on big­ger
oppor­tu­ni­ties than what we could accom­plish pick­ing up prizes in school
gym­na­si­ums. When they saw an adver­tise­ment in the news­pa­per for an open call
for The All New Mick­ey Mouse Club, they sug­gest­ed we go. We drove eight
hours to Atlanta. There were more than two thou­sand kids there. I had to stand
out—especially once we learned, after we arrived, that they were only look­ing for
kids over the age of ten.
When the cast­ing direc­tor, a man named Matt Casel­la, asked me how old I
was, I opened my mouth to say “Eight,” then remem­bered the age-ten cuto� and
said: “Nine!” He looked at me skep­ti­cal­ly.
For my audi­tion, I sang “Sweet Geor­gia Brown” while doing a dance rou­tine,
adding in some gym­nas­tics �ips.
They nar­rowed the group of thou­sands from across the coun­try down to a
hand­ful of kids, includ­ing a beau­ti­ful girl from Cal­i­for­nia a few years old­er than
me named Keri Rus­sell.
A girl from Penn­syl­va­nia named Christi­na Aguil­era and I were told we hadn’t
made the cut but that we were tal­ent­ed. Matt said we could prob­a­bly get on the
show once we were a lit­tle old­er and more expe­ri­enced. He told my mom that he
thought we should go to New York City to work. He rec­om­mend­ed we look up
an agent he liked who helped young per­form­ers get start­ed in the the­ater.
We didn’t go right away. Instead, for about six months, I stayed in Louisiana,
and I went to work, wait­ing tables at Lexie’s seafood restau­rant, Granny’s
Seafood and Deli, to help out.
The restau­rant had a ter­ri­ble, �shy smell. Still, the food was amaz­ing—
unbe­liev­ably good. And it became the new hang­out for all the kids. The deli’s
back room was where my broth­er and all his friends would get drunk in high
school. Mean­while, out on the �oor, at age nine, I was clean­ing shell�sh and
serv­ing plates of food while doing my pris­sy danc­ing in my cute lit­tle out�ts.
My mom sent footage of me to the agent Matt had rec­om­mend­ed, Nan­cy
Car­son. In the video, I was singing “Shine On, Har­vest Moon.” It worked: she
asked us to come to New York and meet with her.
After I sang for Nan­cy in her o�ce twen­ty sto­ries up in a build­ing in
Mid­town Man­hat­tan, we got back on the Amtrak and head­ed home. I had been
o�cially signed by a tal­ent agency.
Not long after we got back to Louisiana, my lit­tle sis­ter, Jamie Lynn, was born.
Lau­ra Lynne and I spent hours play­ing with her in the play­house like she was
anoth­er one of our dolls.
A few days after she came home with the baby, I was get­ting ready for a dance
com­pe­ti­tion when my moth­er start­ed act­ing strange­ly. She was hand-sewing a
rip in my cos­tume, but while work­ing the nee­dle and thread she just up and
threw the cos­tume away. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing. The
cos­tume was a piece of shit, frankly, but I need­ed it to com­pete.
“Mama! Why did you throw my cos­tume away?” I said.
Then all of a sud­den there was blood. Blood every­where.

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 5
Patri­cia woke up the next morn­ing with the entire side of her face
swollen and hot. She stood in front of her bath­room mir­ror and
looked at the enor­mous white ban­dage that cov­ered the left side of
her head, wrapped beneath her chin, and around her fore­head.
Sad­ness flood­ed her chest. She’d had a left ear­lobe all her life, and
sud­den­ly it was gone. She felt like a friend had died.
But then that famil­iar fish­hook wormed its way into her brain and
got her mov­ing:
“You have to make sure the chil­dren are all right,” it said. “You
can’t let them feel fright­ened.”
So she brushed her hair over the ban­dage as best she could, went
down­stairs to the den, and made Toast­er Strudel. And when Blue
came down, fol­lowed by Korey, and they sat on their stools on the
oth­er side of the counter, she smiled as best she could, even though
her face felt tight, and asked, “Do you want to see it?”
“Can I?” Korey asked.
She found the begin­ning of the gauze at the back of her head,
untaped it, and began the long process of unwrap­ping it around her
fore­head, beneath her chin, over her skull, until she got down to the
final cot­ton pad and gin­ger­ly began to pull it away. “Do you want to
look, too?” she asked Blue.
He nod­ded, and she lift­ed the square ban­dage and felt cool air
wash over her sweaty, ten­der tis­sue.
Korey sucked in her breath.
“Gnarly,” she said. “Did it hurt?”
“It didn’t feel nice,” Patri­cia said.
Korey came around the counter and stood so close her hair
brushed Patricia’s shoul­der. Patri­cia inhaled her Herbal Essences
sham­poo and real­ized that it had been a long time since they’d been
this close. They used to squeeze in togeth­er on the La-Z-Boy and
watch movies on the sun porch togeth­er, but Korey was almost as tall
as Patri­cia now.
“I can see teeth marks, Blue, look,” Korey said, and her lit­tle
broth­er dragged over a kitchen stool and stood on it, bal­anced with
one hand on his sister’s shoul­der, both of them inspect­ing their
mother’s ear.
“Anoth­er per­son knows what you taste like now,” Blue said.
Patri­cia hadn’t thought about it that way before, but she found the
idea dis­turb­ing. After Korey ran to get her ride to school, and Blue’s
car pool honked, Patri­cia fol­lowed him to the door.
“Blue,” she said. “You know Granny Mary wouldn’t do some­thing
like this.”
By the way he stopped and looked at her, Patri­cia real­ized it was
exact­ly what he’d been think­ing.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because this woman has a dis­ease that’s affect­ed her mind,”
Patri­cia said.
“Like Granny Mary,” Blue said, and Patri­cia real­ized that was how
she’d described Miss Mary’s senil­i­ty to him when she’d moved in.
“It’s a dif­fer­ent dis­ease,” she said. “But I want you to know that I
would not let Granny Mary stay with us if it weren’t safe for you and
your sis­ter. I would nev­er do any­thing that put the two of you in
dan­ger.”
Blue turned this over in his head, and then his car pool honked
again and he ran out the door. Patri­cia hoped she’d reached him. It
was so impor­tant that the chil­dren have good mem­o­ries of at least
one of their grand­par­ents.
“Pat­ty,” Carter called from the top of the stairs, a pais­ley tie in one
hand, a red striped tie in the oth­er. “Which do I wear? This one says
I’m fun and think out­side the box, but the red says pow­er.”
“What’s the occa­sion?” Patri­cia asked.
“I’m tak­ing Haley to lunch.”
“Pais­ley,” she said. “Why are you tak­ing Dr. Haley to lunch?”
He start­ed putting on the red tie as he came down the stairs.
“I’m throw­ing my hat in the ring,” Carter said, wrap­ping his tie
around his neck and loop­ing the knot into exis­tence. “I’m tired of
wait­ing in line.”
He stood in front of the hall mir­ror.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to be chief of psy­chi­a­try,”
Patri­cia said.
He tight­ened his tie in the mir­ror.
“We need to make more mon­ey,” he said.
“You want­ed to spend time with Blue this sum­mer,” Patri­cia said
as Carter turned around.
“I’ll have to fig­ure out a way to do both,” Carter said. “I’ll need to
be at all the morn­ing con­sults, I’ll have to spend more time on
rounds, I’ll need to start bring­ing in more grants—this job belongs to
me, Patri­cia. I only want what’s mine.”
“Well,” she said. “If it’s what you want…”
“It’ll only be for a few months,” he said, then stopped and cocked
his head at her left ear. “You took off your ban­dage?”
“Just to show Korey and Blue,” she said.
“I don’t think it looks so bad,” he said, and exam­ined her ear, his
thumb on her chin, cock­ing her head to the side. “Leave the ban­dage
off. It’s going to heal fine.”
He kissed her good-bye, and it felt like a real kiss.
Well, she thought, if that’s the effect try­ing to become chief of
psy­chi­a­try has on him, I’m all for it.
Patri­cia looked at her­self in the hall mir­ror. The black stitch­es
looked like insect legs against her soft skin, but they made her feel
less con­spic­u­ous than the ban­dage. She decid­ed to leave it off.
Rag­tag clicked into the front hall and stood by the door, want­i­ng to
go out. For a moment Patri­cia thought about putting him on a leash,
then remem­bered that Ann Sav­age was in the hos­pi­tal.
“Go on, boy,” she said, open­ing the door. “Go tear up that mean
old lady’s trash.”
Rag­tag charged off down the dri­ve­way and Patri­cia locked the door
behind him. She’d nev­er done that before, but she’d nev­er been
attacked by a neigh­bor in her own yard before either.
She walked down the three brick steps to the garage room, where
she unlatched the side of the hos­pi­tal bed.
“Did you sleep well, Miss Mary?” she asked.
“An owl bit me,” Miss Mary said.
“Oh, dear,” Patri­cia said, pulling Miss Mary into a sit­ting posi­tion
and swing­ing her legs out of bed.
Patri­cia began the long, slow process of get­ting Miss Mary into her
house­coat and then into her easy chair, final­ly get­ting her a glass of
orange juice with Meta­mu­cil stirred into it just as Mrs. Greene
arrived to make her break­fast.
Like most ele­men­tary school­teach­ers, Miss Mary had drunk from
the foun­tain of eter­nal late mid­dle age; Patri­cia nev­er remem­bered
her as young, exact­ly, but she remem­bered when she had been strong
enough to live on her own about a hun­dred and fifty miles upstate
near Ker­shaw. She remem­bered the half-acre veg­etable gar­den Miss
Mary worked behind her house. She remem­bered the sto­ries of Miss
Mary work­ing in the bomb fac­to­ry dur­ing the war and how the
chem­i­cals turned her hair red, and how peo­ple came to tell her their
dreams and she would tell them lucky num­bers to play.
Miss Mary could pre­dict the weath­er by read­ing cof­fee grounds,
and the local cot­ton farm­ers found her so accu­rate they always
bought her a cup of cof­fee when she came by Husker Early’s store to
pick up her mail. She refused to let any­one eat from the peach tree in
her back­yard no mat­ter how good the fruit looked because she said it
had been plant­ed in sad­ness and the fruit tast­ed bit­ter. Patri­cia had
tried one once and it tast­ed soft and sweet to her, but Carter got mad
when she told him about it, so she’d nev­er done it again.
Miss Mary had been able to draw a map of the Unit­ed States from
mem­o­ry, known the entire peri­od­ic table by heart, taught school in a
one-room school­house, brewed heal­ing teas, and sold what she called
fit­ness pow­ders her entire life. Dime by dime, dol­lar by dol­lar, she’d
put her sons through col­lege, then put Carter through med­ical
school. Now she wore dia­pers and couldn’t fol­low a sto­ry about
gar­den­ing in the Post and Couri­er.
Patricia’s pulse throbbed in her ban­daged ear, send­ing her upstairs
for Tylenol. She had just swal­lowed three when the phone rang,
exact­ly on time: 9:02 a.m. No one would dream of call­ing the house
before nine, but you also didn’t want to appear too anx­ious.
“Patri­cia?” Grace said. “Grace Cavanaugh. How are you feel­ing?”
For some rea­son, Grace always intro­duced her­self at the begin­ning
of each phone call.
“Sad,” Patri­cia said. “She bit off my ear­lobe and swal­lowed it.”
“Of course,” Grace said. “Sad­ness is one of the stages of grief.”
“She swal­lowed my ear­ring, too,” Patri­cia said. “The new ones I
had on last night.
“That is a pity,” Grace said.
“It turns out Carter got them for free from a patient,” Patri­cia said.
“He didn’t even buy them.”
“Then you didn’t want them any­way,” Grace said. “I spoke with
Ben this morn­ing. He said Ann Sav­age has been admit­ted to MUSC
and is in inten­sive care. I’ll call if I find out any­thing fur­ther.”
The phone rang all morn­ing. The inci­dent hadn’t appeared in the
morn­ing paper, but it didn’t mat­ter. CNN, NPR, CBS—no
news­gath­er­ing orga­ni­za­tion could com­pete with the women of the
Old Vil­lage.
“There’s already a run on alarms,” Kit­ty said. “Horse said the
peo­ple he called about get­ting one told him it would be three weeks
before they could even make it out here to look at the house. I don’t
know how I’m going to sur­vive for three weeks. Horse says we’re safe
with his guns, but trust me, I’ve been dove hunt­ing with that man.
He can bare­ly hit the sky.”
Slick called next.
“I’ve been pray­ing for you all morn­ing,” she said.
“Thank you, Slick,” Patri­cia said.
“I heard that Mrs. Savage’s nephew moved down here from
some­place up north,” Slick said. She didn’t need to be more spe­cif­ic
than that. Every­one knew that any place up north was rough­ly the
same: law­less, rel­a­tive­ly sav­age, and while they might have nice
muse­ums and the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty, peo­ple cared so lit­tle for each
oth­er they’d let you die in the street. “Leland told me some real estate
agents stopped by and tried to get him to put her house on the
mar­ket, but he won’t sell. None of them saw Mrs. Sav­age when they
were there. He told them she couldn’t get out of bed, she was so
poor­ly. How’s your ear?”
“She swal­lowed part of it,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m so sor­ry,” Slick said. “Those real­ly were nice ear­rings.”
Grace called again lat­er that after­noon with break­ing news.
“Patri­cia,” she said. “Grace Cavanaugh. I just heard from Ben: Mrs.
Sav­age passed an hour ago.”
Patri­cia sud­den­ly felt gray. The den looked dark and dingy. The
yel­low linoleum seemed worn, and she saw every grub­by hand mark
on the wall around the light switch.
“How?” she asked.
“It wasn’t rabies, if that’s what you’re wor­ried about,” Grace said.
“She had some kind of blood poi­son­ing. She was suf­fer­ing from
mal­nu­tri­tion, she was dehy­drat­ed, and she was cov­ered with infect­ed
cuts and sores. Ben said the doc­tors were sur­prised she last­ed this
long. He even said”—and here Grace low­ered her voice—“that she
had track marks on her inner thigh. She’d prob­a­bly been inject­ing
some­thing for the pain. I’m sure the fam­i­ly doesn’t want any­one to
know about that.”
“I feel just mis­er­able about this,” Patri­cia said.
“Is this about those ear­rings again?” Grace asked. “Even if you got
back the one she swal­lowed, could you ever real­ly bring your­self to
wear them? Know­ing where they’d been?”
“I feel like I should take some­thing by,” Patri­cia said.
“Take some­thing by to the nephew?” Grace asked, and her voice
climbed the reg­is­ter so that nephew was a high, clear note of
dis­be­lief.
“His aunt passed,” Patri­cia said. “I should do some­thing.”
“Why?” Grace asked.
“Should I take him flow­ers, or some­thing to eat?” Patri­cia asked.
There was a long pause on Grace’s end, and then she spoke firm­ly.
“I am not sure what the appro­pri­ate ges­ture is to make toward the
fam­i­ly of the woman who bit off your ear, but if you felt absolute­ly
com­pelled, I cer­tain­ly wouldn’t take food.”
Maryellen called on Sat­ur­day and that was what decid­ed things for
Patri­cia.
“I thought you should know,” she said over the phone, “we did the
cre­ma­tion for Ann Sav­age yes­ter­day.” After her youngest daugh­ter
had entered first grade, Maryellen had got­ten a job as the
book­keep­er at Stuhr’s Funer­al Homes. She knew the details of every
death in Mt. Pleas­ant.
“Do you know any­thing about a memo­r­i­al ser­vice or dona­tions?”
Patri­cia asked. “I want to send some­thing.”
“The nephew did a direct cre­ma­tion,” Maryellen said. “No flow­ers,
no memo­r­i­al ser­vice, no notice in the paper. I don’t even think he’s
putting her in an urn, unless he got one from some­place else. He’ll
prob­a­bly just toss her ash­es in a hole for all the care he showed.”
It ate at Patri­cia, and not mere­ly because she sus­pect­ed that not
putting Rag­tag on a leash had some­how caused Ann Savage’s death.
One day, she would be the same age as Ann Sav­age and Miss Mary.
Would Korey and Blue act like Carter’s broth­ers and ship her around
like an unwant­ed fruit­cake? Would they argue over who got stuck
with her? If Carter died, would they sell the house, her books, her
fur­ni­ture, and split up the pro­ceeds between them­selves and she’d
have noth­ing left of her own?
Every time she looked up and saw Miss Mary stand­ing in a
door­way, dressed to go out, purse over one arm, star­ing at her

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.

5
“You’re late on your half of the rent.”
I look up from my spot on the couch. I’ve only been home for ten min­utes and had hoped I might
miss John this after­noon. He’s an office assis­tant at a local church, plus he works with the Youth
Music Min­istry, what­ev­er that actu­al­ly means—I’ve nev­er been a big churchgoer—and his hours are
nev­er as set as I’d like. This is hard­ly the first time I’ve come home to find him stand­ing in the
kitchen, his hip propped against the counter, one of my yogurts in his hand.
He always eats my food, no mat­ter how many times I put my name on it, or where I try to hide it in
our admit­ted­ly tiny kitchen. It’s like noth­ing in this apart­ment belongs to me since it was John’s place
first, and he’s let­ting me live here. He opens my bed­room door with­out knock­ing, he uses my
sham­poo, he eats my food, he “bor­rows” my lap­top. He’s skin­ny and short, a wisp of a guy, real­ly, but
some­times it feels like he sucks up all the space in our shared 700 square feet.
Anoth­er rea­son I want to get out.
Liv­ing with John was only ever sup­posed to be a tem­po­rary thing. It was risky, going back to
some­one who knew my past, but I’d fig­ured it would just be a place to land for a month, maybe six
weeks, while I fig­ured out what to do next.
But that was six months ago, and I’m still here.
Lift­ing my feet off the cof­fee table, I stand, dig­ging into my pock­et for the wad of twen­ties I
shoved in there after my vis­it to the pawn­shop this after­noon.
I don’t always get rid of the stuff I take. The mon­ey has nev­er been the point, after all. It’s the
hav­ing I’ve always enjoyed, plus know­ing they’ll nev­er notice any­thing is miss­ing. It makes me feel
like I’ve won some­thing.
But dog-walk­ing isn’t bring­ing in enough to cov­er every­thing yet, so today, I’d plucked Mrs.
Reed’s lone dia­mond ear­ring from the pile of trea­sures on my dress­er, and while I didn’t get near­ly
what it was worth, it’s enough to cov­er my half of this shit­ty con­crete box.
I shove it into John’s free hand, pre­tend­ing I don’t notice the way his fin­gers try to slide against
mine, search­ing for even a few sec­onds of extra con­tact. I’m anoth­er thing in this apart­ment that John
would con­sume if he could, but we both pre­tend we don’t know that.
“How’s the whole dog-walk­ing thing going?” John asks as I cross back over to our sad couch.
He’s got a bit of yogurt stuck to the cor­ner of his mouth, but I don’t both­er point­ing it out. It’ll
prob­a­bly stay there all day, too, form­ing a crust that’ll creep out some girl down at the Stu­dent Bap­tist
Cen­ter where John vol­un­teers a few nights a week.
I already feel sol­i­dar­i­ty with her, this unknown girl, my sis­ter in Vague Dis­gust for John Rivers.
Maybe that’s what makes me smile as I sit back down, yank­ing the ancient afghan blan­ket out from
under me. “Great, actu­al­ly. Have a few new clients now, so it keeps me pret­ty busy.”
John’s spoon scrapes against the plas­tic tub of yogurt—my yogurt—and he watch­es me, his dark
hair hang­ing limply over one eye.
“Clients,” he snorts. “Makes you sound like a hook­er.”
Only John could try to shame a girl for some­thing as whole­some as dog-walk­ing, but I brush it off.
If things keep going as well as they’re going, soon I won’t have to live here with him any­more. Soon I
can get my own place with my own stuff and my own fuck­ing yogurt that I’ll actu­al­ly get to eat.
“Maybe I am a hook­er,” I reply, pick­ing up the remote off the cof­fee table. “Maybe that’s what I’m
actu­al­ly doing, and I’m just telling you I walk dogs.”
I twist on the couch to look at him.
He’s still stand­ing by the fridge, but his head is ducked even low­er now, his eyes wary as he
watch­es me.
It makes me want to go even fur­ther, so I do.
“That could be blowjob mon­ey in your pock­et now, John. What would the Bap­tists think about
that?”
John flinch­es from my words, his hand going to his pock­et, either to touch the mon­ey or to try to
hide the bon­er he prob­a­bly popped at hear­ing me say blowjob.
Eddie wouldn’t cringe at a joke like that, I sud­den­ly think.
Eddie would laugh. His eyes would do that thing where they seem brighter, bluer, all because
you’ve sur­prised him.
Like he did when you noticed the books.
“You ought to come to church with me,” he says. “You could come this after­noon.”
“You work in the office,” I say, “not the actu­al church. Not sure what good it would do me
watch­ing you file old newslet­ters.”
I’m not nor­mal­ly this open­ly rude to him, aware that he could kick me out since this place is
tech­ni­cal­ly all his, but I can’t seem to help myself. It’s some­thing about that day in Eddie’s kitchen.
I’ve known enough new begin­nings to rec­og­nize when some­thing is click­ing into place, and I think—
know—that my time in this shit­ty box with this shit­ty human is tick­ing down.
“You’re a bitch, Jane,” John mut­ters sul­len­ly, but he throws away the emp­ty yogurt and gath­ers his
things, slink­ing out the door with­out anoth­er word.
Once he’s gone, I hunt through the cab­i­nets for any food he hasn’t tak­en. Luck­i­ly, I still have two
things of Easy Mac left, and I heat them both up, dump­ing them into one bowl before hun­ker­ing down
with my lap­top and pulling up my search on Bea Rochester.
I don’t spend much time on the arti­cles about her death. I’ve heard the gos­sip, and hon­est­ly, it
seems pret­ty basic to me—two ladies got too drunk at their fan­cy beach house, got on their fan­cy boat,
and then suc­cumbed to a very fan­cy death. Sad, but not exact­ly a tragedy.
No, what I want to know about is Bea Rochester’s life. What it was that made a man like Eddie
want her. Who she was, what their rela­tion­ship might have looked like.
The first thing I pull up is her company’s web­site.
South­ern Manors.
“Noth­ing says For­tune 500 com­pa­ny like a bad pun,” I mut­ter, stab­bing anoth­er bite of mac­a­roni
with my fork.
There’s a let­ter on the first page of the site, and my eyes imme­di­ate­ly scan down to see if Eddie
wrote it.
He didn’t. There’s anoth­er name there, Susan, appar­ent­ly Bea’s sec­ond-in-com­mand. It’s full of
the usu­al stuff you’d expect when the founder of a com­pa­ny dies sud­den­ly. How sad they are, what a
loss, how the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue on, bur­nish­ing her lega­cy, etc., etc.
I won­der what kind of a lega­cy it is, real­ly, sell­ing over­priced cutesy shit.
Click­ing from page to page, I take in expen­sive Mason jars, five-hun­dred-dol­lar sweaters with
HEY, Y’ALL! stitched dis­creet­ly in the left cor­ner, sil­ver sal­ad tongs whose han­dles are shaped like
bees.
There’s so much ging­ham it’s like Dorothy Gale explod­ed on this web­site, but I can’t stop
look­ing, can’t keep from click­ing one item, then anoth­er.
The mono­grammed dog leash­es.
The ham­mered-tin water­ing cans.
A giant glass bowl in the shape of an apple some­one has just tak­en a bite out of.
It’s all expen­sive but use­less crap, the kind of stuff lin­ing the gift tables at every high-soci­ety
wed­ding in Birm­ing­ham, and I final­ly click away from the orgy of pricey/cutesy, going back to the
main page to look at Bea Rochester’s pic­ture again.
She’s stand­ing in front of a din­ing room table made of warm, worn-look­ing wood. Even though I
haven’t been in the din­ing room at the Rochester man­sion, I know imme­di­ate­ly that this is theirs, that
if I looked a lit­tle deep­er into the house, I would find this room. It has the same vibe as the liv­ing
room—nothing match­es exact­ly, but it some­how goes togeth­er, from the flo­ral vel­vet seat cov­ers on
the eight chairs to the orange-and-teal cen­ter­piece that pops against the egg­plant-col­ored drapes.
Bea pops, too, her dark hair swing­ing just above her shoul­ders in a glossy long bob. She has her
arms crossed, her head slight­ly tilt­ed to one side as she smiles at the cam­era, her lip­stick the pret­ti­est
shade of red I think I’ve ever seen.
She’s wear­ing a navy sweater, a thin gold belt around her waist, and a navy-and-white ging­ham
pen­cil skirt that man­ages to be cute and sexy at the same time, and I almost imme­di­ate­ly hate her.
And also want to know every­thing about her.
More googling, the Easy Mac con­geal­ing in its bowl on John’s scratched and water-ringed cof­fee
table, my fin­gers mov­ing quick­ly, my eyes and my mind fill­ing up with Bea Rochester.
There’s not as much as I’d want, though. She wasn’t famous, real­ly. It’s the com­pa­ny peo­ple seem
to care about, the stuff they can buy, while Bea seemed to keep her­self out of the spot­light.
There’s only one inter­view I can find—with South­ern Liv­ing, of course, big sur­prise. In the
accom­pa­ny­ing pho­to, Bea sits at anoth­er din­ing room table—seriously, did this woman exist in any
oth­er rooms of a house?—wearing yel­low this time, a crys­tal bowl of lemons on her elbow, an
enam­el cof­fee cup print­ed with daisies casu­al­ly held in one hand.
The pro­file is a total puff piece. Bea grew up in Alaba­ma, one of her ances­tors was a sen­a­tor in
the 1800s, and they’d had a gor­geous home in some place called Calera that had burned down a few
years ago. Her moth­er had sad­ly passed away not long after Bea start­ed South­ern Manors, and she
“did every­thing in mem­o­ry of her.”
My eyes keep scan­ning past the details I already know—the Ran­dolph-Macon degree, the move
back to Birm­ing­ham, the growth of her business—until I final­ly snag on Eddie’s name.
Three years ago, Bea Mason met Edward Rochester on vaca­tion in Hawaii. “I was def­i­nite­ly

come. He explained the sail and his inten­tions ful­ly to Mugam­bi, who was delight­ed with the prospect of being able to return to his own country.The canoe was drawn well up on the beach above the high water mark,and as Tarzan had had con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence in the build­ing of small craft among the can­ni­bals of the main­land, he felt no doubt but that he could fash­ion a sea­wor­thy dugout with which to make the short jour­ney to the coast.The fol­low­ing few days were occu­pied in prepar­ing for their depar­ture.
The first con­sid­er­a­tion was the procur­ing of weapons that might be relied upon in an encounter with the beasts of the jun­gle through which they must pass on their way to the coast. For this pur­pose Tarzan select­ed four spears of medi­um size, pre­fer­ring them to the full-sized weapons of the war­riors of Mugam­bi. The short­er weapons were lighter and more effec­tive for use in the hand of a man swing­ing by a rope through the trees
of the for­est. His next care was to secure arrows and a bow that would send them straight and true enough to car­ry a mes­sage of death to a sav­age foe. With these prim­i­tive weapons and a knowl­edge of the jun­gle that was born of years of expe­ri­ence in it, Tarzan felt that he might be more than a match for any­thing that he would be apt to meet upon the mainland.As Mugam­bi, who was again clothed in the appar­el of his own coun­try that con­sti­tut­ed his entire wardrobe when he had set forth upon his ill-
starred jour­ney, was unarmed and with­out means of procur­ing weapons,Tarzan pre­sent­ed him with the spear and bow and arrows which the ape­man had brought with him from the main­land. Mugam­bi was much pleased with the gift, since he knew that it not only might mean much to him in the way of pro­tec­tion, but that it added not a lit­tle to his pres­tige
among the mem­bers of his own sav­age tribe–even though it had beenre­duced to a mem­ber­ship of one by the car­niv­o­rous tastes of Shee­ta, the pan­ther.
At last all was ready. The craft, such as it was, lay upon the beach with her prow toward the water, and her sail hang­ing in lazy folds from the crude mast. Tarzan sought to detain her upon the soft sands, while with pad­dles Akut and he pro­pelled her beyond the break­ing surf. But even
The Beasts of Tarzan 45 before Akut and Tarzan had entered it, Mugam­bi had leaped to his place,having grasped the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make the return jour­ney to his beloved
Ugam­bi and the wife and chil­dren who mourned him there as dead.