The side streets of Carytown were crowded with the cars of Sunday shoppers. Elizabeth finally found a parking place three blocks from the bookstore. She jaywalked across Cary Street, barely avoiding certain death beneath the wheels of an SUV, and hurried past the shoe store. She saw Marla, with a satisfied smirk upon her face, standing behind her plate glass door. Elizabeth turned her head away and hurried to the bookstore. Two police cars were parked out front.
She gently pushed open the door, from which all the glass had been smashed. Inside she found Miss Price arguing with two policemen. They were surrounded by the litter of destroyed books and smashed pumpkins. Pebbles of glass from the door glittered on the carpet.
"This is not my fault," Miss Price cried. "I don't need an alarm system. I can't afford an alarm system. This is an independent bookstore. We don't have money here, that's the whole point of it. This is purely a matter of vandalism." Miss Price hopped up and down with agitation.
She paused her tirade long enough to greet Elizabeth with high contrast sweetness, and then returned her attention to the policemen.
Elizabeth joined her sister who was kneeling on the floor picking pumpkin guts out of the gray berber carpet and then scraping them off her fingers into a plastic shopping bag. The store was entirely free of customers.
"What's going on?" Elizabeth asked.
"Oh, only everything. I had to take Miss Price over to Charlotte's house so she could get her purse, which she left in Charlotte's car because they carpooled last night, and then take Miss Price over to her own house so she could get changed and cleaned up for work, then we got here and, well, you can see what it looks like." She gestured towards the ruined books and pumpkins.
One of the policemen was scratching his head. "Why do you have so many pumpkins, ma'am? You aren't selling those too."
"No, we don't sell pumpkins. I had the pumpkins in my Halloween displays. I like pumpkins," she added unnecessarily.
"Well, ma'am, most people have Christmas decorations up by now, and those don't make anywhere near so much mess if they get wrecked," the policeman observed.
Miss Price grated, "It's Halloween. I don't put up Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving."
"Why not? They put up the tree in the mall three weeks ago," the other policeman pointed out.
Miss Price stifled a growl and choked out, "Can't I just file a police report?"
"How long has this been going on?" Elizabeth whispered to her sister.
"Ever since the police got here. We called them as soon as we opened up the store, and then we had to wait till they got here before we touched anything. And they took their own sweet time getting here too. I don't think we'll be able to open at all today." She scraped some pumpkin flesh from under her fingernails.
Elizabeth unkindly left her sister to deal with the pumpkin guts and began to sort through the books that were strewn around the store. She fetched a box from upstairs in which she could place the damaged ones. Working quickly, she reshelved the undamaged books at random.
Alice whispered. "We've got insurance. We already took pictures and I think the damage is more cosmetic than anything else. We're going to have to rent a carpet steamer to get some of this out. Does pumpkin stain?"
"I don't know. I think so." Elizabeth carried a box of damaged books to the back office and fetched another empty box.
When she returned to the main room, she found Alice chatting up the younger of the policemen. The older policeman was working on a report with Miss Price. The younger man had evidently been dismissed to go on to his next duty, but was lingering beside Alice and helping her with the worst of the pumpkin pieces.
"Do you like pumpkin pie?" he asked her shyly.
Alice giggled and tossed her hair back over her shoulders. Her Virginia accent strengthened and honeyed her voice. "I just love it. It's my favorite kind of pie."
Elizabeth went back to sorting books and listened to her sister set up a date for coffee and pie with the officer. Her thoughts turned to her own romantic prospects. She recalled that she had a date that very night and let daydreams bubble through her head. Once she was immersed in the reality of the evening, however, her fantasies came back to taunt her. To start with, she had no idea what time they were going out. When she came back from work, her arms itching from paper fibers and pumpkin juice darkening the knees of her jeans, Trip was already knocking on the door.
"Hi there," she said with a smile.
"Oh, there you are." He took in her rumpled appearance. "Can you get ready quickly? We need to go soon. My mother is expecting us in thirty minutes and it does not do to be late at the Martins," he said, dropping a kiss on her forehead.
"We're going to your parents?" She forced a smile as her elegant dinner fantasy popped like an overfilled balloon.
"Yes, for Sunday dinner, I can't get out of it. But we'll be able to take in a movie later." He laughed.
"Okay." Her smile widened of its own accord. "I can get cleaned up in just a few minutes." She opened the door and let him in to cool his heels in the living room.
She ran upstairs to make a quick change into an outfit of the same level of formality as Trip's slacks and sweater, and to spend a few moments in front of the mirror. Five minutes later (she checked her watch), she was stepping lightly down the stairs in a fine wool skirt and a clingy sweater.
Trip drove to the swanky part of town. The only reason why his parents' neighborhood did not have a gate was because it predated the entire concept of the gated community. His car glided through preternaturally quiet streets lined with old trees, and large houses surrounded by graceful proportions of green lawn unblemished by a single fallen leaf.
Trip pulled the BMW into a driveway occupied by a midnight blue Jaguar and a black Porsche with personalized tags: DADYS GRL.
Oh barf, Elizabeth thought to herself. The prospects for the evening dimmed even further.
Trip opened the passenger side door of the car for her and offered her a hand out. He kept her hand in his as they went up the slate walk leading to the open door of the Tudor revival mini-mansion (except that this house predated mini-mansions).
A woman elegantly dressed in silk and pearls tapped into the foyer on perfectly balanced heels. Lambskin, Italian, and worth more than the assessed value of her truck, Elizabeth guessed.
"Trip, darling!" she exclaimed and held out her arms. Trip let go of Elizabeth and accepted air kisses from his mother before introducing Elizabeth who smiled shyly and held out her hand.
Mrs. Martin had the hard grasp of a butcher. "It's lovely to have you here, dear. Trip has told us so much about you."
Elizabeth could not imagine that her statement could be true, but she smiled and murmured something self-effacing.
Mrs. Martin directed her attention elsewhere and called, "They're here."
She led them into a living room with ankle-deep Bijar rugs and Chippendale furniture which was occupied by an array of people who looked like Trip and who were all dressed more formally than Elizabeth was. She became horrifyingly aware of every pill on her sweater. Surreptitiously she picked at a few of Rififi's hairs that clung to her skirt.
A rosy-cheeked and slightly red-nosed man with silver hair stood by a small bar where he was pouring out Scotch whiskey from a decanter. Another man in his early thirties lounged on the couch with one foot on a Sheraton coffee table and a crystal tumbler half filled with whiskey in his hand. He was also red of cheek and nose. Beside him sat a pretty woman who chewed gum with a vacant stare. A wing chair was occupied by another girl who would have been lovely, if not for the skeletal thinness that left her clothes dangling from her shoulders. A wire hanger would have filled them out better. She was holding a glass of mineral water.
Introductions were made. The man at the bar was Trip's father, Mr. Martin. The couple on the sofa were Trip's brother and sister-in-law, Jack and Betty. The girl in the wing chair was named Jennifer, and turned out to be both the anorexic who knew Dirk from college and the family member specializing in real estate law.
"You're the one who lives in that house," Jennifer said abruptly. She looked at Elizabeth with a reptilian interest. "There's no record of anyone paying taxes on that place for years. The title hasn't reverted to the city yet, but it will soon, and you'll be apartment hunting before you know it."
Elizabeth said, "There must be some mistake. I'm sure the trust that owns the house has been paying the taxes."
"I wouldn't be so certain if I were you," said Jennifer, taking a pull on her water. With a significant glance at Trip, she continued, "There is somebody named Shevrell who is pushing the city to get the property condemned."
"But the place is in great shape," said Elizabeth. "I think it's the nicest place I've ever lived." She decided it would not help her argument to mention the quicksand in the basement.
"That says more about you than about the condition of the house. It's been a rental property for decades. I can't imagine how filthy it must be inside." Jennifer wrinkled her nose.
Elizabeth defended her housemates. "No, really. It's clean."
"You only moved in there last week, right? You have no idea whether it's like that all the time."
An African-American woman in a maid's uniform stood in the doorway. "Dinner is served," she said and then faded off to the side as the Martins moved into the dining room.
Dinner was not the most excruciating experience in Elizabeth's life up to that point, but it was certainly up there with some weekly editorial meetings at her former employers'. The Martins talked mainly about legal matters and their cases, and were ostentatiously careful not to mention any names because of the outsider in their midst. When the parental Martins weren't talking about their work, they were scolding their daughter Jennifer for not eating.
Jennifer turned up her nose at most of the food on the table. She took only a small portion of salad, to which she emphatically added no dressing, and some steamed vegetables. Elizabeth took healthy portions of chicken and scalloped potatoes and received disgusted sidelong glances from Jennifer. Elizabeth returned her glances with a bland smile and the dish of potatoes. Jennifer hissed in revulsion and passed the dish on to Betty.
Mrs. Martin looked at her daughter's plate with dismay. "You know, your heart will stop if you don't get enough potassium. Do you at least eat bananas?"
Jennifer rolled her eyes and made a rude retching sound. "I hate bananas."
"So anyway, he decided to go ahead and sue. I think we'll get plenty of hours out of that." Trip's brother laughed with self-satisfaction.
Elizabeth mimicked the others' sounds of approval. She tuned out most of the conversation and occupied her mind by wondering what movie she and Trip might go see later. A sudden silence brought her abruptly back to her surroundings. Everyone was looking at her with inbred expressions of irritation.
"Elizabeth, Trip said that you went to Georgetown?" Mrs. Martin was obviously repeating herself.
"Yes, ma'am, that's right. I majored in English."
"At Georgetown? Why did you bother to go out of state?" Jack snorted. "Why didn't you go to William and Mary or UVA?"
"I wanted to go out of state," Elizabeth said.
"Did you not get into William and Mary?" asked Mr. Martin.
Elizabeth recalled that the Jaguar out in the driveway had William and Mary vanity plates. "I did," she purred. "But I only applied as backup in case I didn't get into a good school."
The Martins collectively flushed and Trip choked on a piece of chicken. Elizabeth solicitously thumped his back. The rest of the meal passed in a blur, for which she was sincerely thankful. She sensed that the Martins silently agreed to ignore her as they would a rude bodily noise.
Elizabeth and Trip excused themselves after dessert, a dry apple pie from which Jennifer abstained, and from which Elizabeth wished she had, and surprisingly strong coffee. Once they were in the car, Trip passed her a copy of the newspaper to look for movies. Elizabeth scanned down the list of action flicks and, well, more action flicks until she found something that didn't sound mind-numbing. Dinner had provided more than enough of that, and she was looking for something more intellectually stimulating than a series of loud noises.
"Jane Eyre is playing at the Westhampton," she said.
"That sounds fine," said Trip.
"Really? It's a major chick film," she told him in case he didn't realize.
Trip said, "Those are okay with me. They usually have chicks in them, after all." He flashed her a smile and swung onto Grove Avenue.
Her mind was awash with Mr. Rochester dreams (despite the unsavory business of him locking his first wife in the attic for years and years). Trip was nuzzling her neck and nibbling her ear in a most delightful way. She expected he was angling for an invitation upstairs, but she did not make the offer because she felt constrained by the presence of her housemates down the hall and by Penrose, who was hovering right behind her shoulder.
She was getting her kiss goodnight in the foyer. She had unlocked the door and stepped in with the intention of bidding her suitor farewell without the discomfort of the nighttime chill. Unfortunately, Trip seemed to regard his entry into the house as an avenue to higher things.
The ear that was not distracted with Trip's attentions caught the strains of a slow, sugary waltz from the direction of the music room. She tried to put it out of her mind, but was unable to ignore the sarcasm that Penrose managed to squeeze from every note. Once she had transferred her attention entirely to the compelling activity of Trip's lips and the warmth that was spreading from her belly downwards to weaken her knees, the musician approached.
She opened one eye and saw Penrose standing in the doorway of the living room. His face assumed the expression of a strolling violinist. Maybe if she gave him a dollar, he'd go bother somebody else. Penrose came closer until his bow nearly poked her in the eye. His presence was even more repressive than the thought of what Alice would say if she came upon them.
Reluctantly and with difficulty, she detached Trip and sent him back to his own apartment. Penrose ducked back into the living room to spare Trip the sight of a violin floating in midair and playing itself.
She locked the door and turned, arms folded across her chest, to face a smirking Penrose. She said, "I hope you're satisfied, because I'm not."
Penrose approached and touched her lightly on the chin with his bow. "He's really not a nice young man."
"He does a good enough imitation of one." Elizabeth brushed away the bow.
"It's just an act."
"Evidence, please?"
Penrose scratched his head with the end of his bow. "Where shall I begin?"
Elizabeth started for the stairs. "Oh, don't bother."
"For example," Penrose began and she paused. "He got a satellite dish as soon as they became commercially available and he has subscribed to all the channels."
"What does that mean? He spends too much on TV service? Who cares?"
"No. When I say he gets all the channels, I mean all the channels. Think about it."
She did. "Oh. You mean he gets that so-called adult programming? I don't think that's any of my business."
"He will make it so."
"Not if—I can't believe we're arguing about this. Good night." She went up the stairs to her room.
Penrose followed. "I have only your best interests at heart," he told her, closing the door behind them.
"No you don't. You're just jealous."
"Jealous? Why on earth should I be jealous?"
"Because you're not alive."
"I am not dead. I'm—"
"Ensorcelled. Yes. Whatever. And soon to be auctioned off if your trust loses title to this house," she added.
"What are you talking about?"
Elizabeth sat down at the vanity and pulled off her earrings. She picked up her hair brush. "Trip's sister Jennifer said that the taxes haven't been paid on the house for years, and that somebody named Shevrell is pushing to have the city acquire the title so they can buy it."
"No, that can't be." Penrose stood stock still and faded out around the edges. Elizabeth assumed this was the spirit version of blood draining from the face. He looked stunned. He said, "That's not possible. The taxes get paid on this place every year. The rent you all pay more than covers the taxes."
"Who writes the check at the trust? Maybe they haven't been making out the check to the city," Elizabeth said.
"I never thought of that," Thomas said. His eyes met hers in the mirror and they looked at each other gravely.