Page 59
Story: Willow (DeBeers 1)
"Who knows? Maybe he's crawling in the sand looking for shells. Don't pay attention to him. C'mon," she said. "We'd better get back."
"I'll be right along." I said, staring at the easel.
"Don't be long." she advised, and started toward the house.
I continued down to the easel and stopped to look at what was on it.
A picture had been sketched in, the painting of it just begun.
It was a picture of someone standing in the entryway of a house. He was looking out at a young woman who resembled me. I thought.
In the ocean seen behind her, a woman was drowning.
It all put a chill in my heart. "Hey!" I heard.
Linden was coming up over the hill in front of me. I turned, and, with my heart thumping like a flat tire. I ran up the beach to the walkway. I didn't stop running until I reached the Ionia where everyone was enjoying the desserts. They looked up surprised.
"Are you all right. dear?" Bunny asked immediately.
"I... just need to use the bathroom." I said, and hurried inside, their confused and surprised faces turning to follow me.
In the bathroom. I looked at my face in the mirror.
"Go home. Willow De Beers," I told that face. "You're trying to get back something that never existed and probably never will."
"I can't." I replied. "I've got to try."
Why? I thought,
The first word most babies uttered was Mama.
I was almost nineteen years old. and I had yet to say it once.
That's why.
9
A Night for Romance
.
"I'm not sure I'm doing that." I said when
Bunny jumped up as soon as Thatcher returned to tell him I was staying at the house. "Oh, of course you're sure," she declared as though she knew my mind better than I did.
Lord and Lady Thomas and the McClusters had left. and Thatcher's father had gone into his office to phone someone about the golf game he was planning for the following morning. Bunny had been showing me around the house, especially where I would stay.
"Look at the size of these rooms!' she cried. "And how far away the guest suites are from our bedrooms. Why, we won't even realize you're here, and you'll have as much privacy as you wish."
That was not an exaggeration. The rambling structure did seem to go on forever, and the rooms were enormous by any standard. The bedroom she suggested for me was, according to her, designed by Addison Mizner himself.
"He wouldn't do a house unless he could put his stamp inside as well as outside." she said.
The room was easily twenty feet by forty, with its own sitting area, large-screen television, stereo, and secretary desk--hardly what anyone would think of as a guest bedroom. It was done in soft, warm colors: salmon and beige and a pale green she called celadon.
Bunny pointed out a beautiful vase in a sort of turquoise glaze. "That's his signature color. Mizner Blue, "It's as if he left his fingerprints," she declared, and then whispered. "It makes the house more valuable. Someday, we might buy it. We're leasing with an option to buy."
I nodded and continued to look about the room. The ceiling-high windows were draped in salmon silk, and a pair of French doors opened to a balcony that looked out at the sea.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59 (Reading here)
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136