Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As I finish breakfast, I try to ignore the tightness in my chest. I want to stay in the room while Bradley calls, but he waves me away and walks outside to the back garden.
I wonder what will happen next. Will there be stories in the paper? Will we be taken for questioning? Will they search the house?
I finish my champagne and take a second glass to the kitchen. I turn on the radio and listen for news of the fires. Apparently, the wind has picked up again, and it’ll be days before it’s safe to leave. I’m stuck here—but even if I wasn’t, would I really go?
I’m glad I don’t need to find this out just yet.
I walk with the radio through the house while these questions bounce around in my mind. If I left, where would I go? Some cheap town in the Midwest? Australia?
And what would I do? Waitress again?
There’s no extraordinary life waiting for me outside of Pine Ridge. I’m not eighteen anymore. I don’t have any fantasies about what life can be. I’ll just work to make ends meet.
I remember what Bradley said about Grace, that she didn’t understand how risky life could be. She never knew how far there was to fall. For people like me, life is always precarious. I’m a few poor decisions away from living in my car again. I probably always will be.
I go back to the table and pour myself a third glass.
With every sip, I feel my thoughts getting clearer, my choices becoming more obvious.
I attempt to raise a forkful of egg to my mouth, but it slips off and lands on my pajamas, leaving a dark streak below my waist. I clean myself as best I can at the table, then go upstairs to change.
I look for my pack in the corner of Bradley’s room, but it’s gone.
Typical. He must have unpacked my clothes into the wardrobe—yet another attempt to make my presence in this room feel inevitable.
I slide open the wardrobe door, but everything is Grace’s.
I look through his clothes, too, until I see a familiar pattern peeking out from one of his drawers.
I pull it open and find my pack, but it’s completely empty.
“Bradley!” I storm down the hallway and find him standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“What is it?” he asks, climbing up to meet me.
“Where did you put my clothes?”
“Oh.” He looks sheepish as he reaches the landing. “I put them in the trash.”
“What!”
“You don’t need them. We have clothes. More than you’ll ever need.”
“You want me to wear your dead wife’s clothes! Please tell me you’re kidding!”
“She barely wore half of them. And they’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
“Stop! Go get them.”
“From the trash?”
“We can wash them. No, you can wash them.”
“Ah, well. There’s a problem with that.” He scratches his cheek sheepishly. “I had some old cans of oil. The painters used them to stain the house last year, and I wanted to get rid of them. I didn’t realize they were half full until I threw them in.”
“Bradley! You didn’t?”
“But it’s fine! You have all the clothes you’ll ever need. I can show you soon. I just need to call the police back. I couldn’t get through before.”
He goes back downstairs, and I turn back to the bedroom. I can’t exactly wear my pajamas until the fires are put out.
Still, as I open Grace’s wardrobe, the voice returns, louder than ever.
This is wrong. Over thirty dresses are hanging in a line, in various styles and colors. I run my hands across them and take out my favorite—the black dress with blue lines like pale veins. I check the tag and see that it’s Dior. Of course it is.
She wore this when we first met. And when she appeared in my cottage at night to scare me.
I expect it to be too small, but to my surprise, the dress fits. The plain diet and physical work of the last month must have taken off a few pounds.
I go to the mirror. In the dress, I no longer look like myself.
But do I look like her? When we first met, I would have said definitely not, even though our hair color and build aren’t so different.
But there was an attitude to her, a defiance, an unpredictability that made us seem like entirely different people.
“My name is Grace Frost,” I mutter. No—definitely not. Bradley’s throwing around promises for the future, but I’m an intellectual lightweight compared to Grace. I’m basic. No one’s ever called me a genius or thought I was special, not even my own mother.
How long will it take before he gets bored with me? How long before he misses the friction and unpredictability of someone like Grace?
Next to the dresses inside the wardrobe, there’s a set of dark wooden drawers.
On top of them is a jewelry box with three trays.
I pull out the first and find four pairs of earrings.
I pick out a pair with small diamonds and put them on.
The next tray has various necklaces, all tasteful and expensive.
The third is filled with miscellaneous objects—hair-ties, bracelets, and a small golden ring.
“Whoa.”
I jump at the voice and immediately feel myself blush.
I cross my arms, suddenly aware of how tight the dress feels across my chest. “I’m not wearing this, just so you know.
I just wanted to see how it fits.” I glance at myself in the mirror and cover my face with my hands.
“Oh God, what am I doing? I’ve had too much to drink. What did the police say?”
“They said to go in and file a report when the roads are open. I think they’re stretched with the fires, and I didn’t make it sound too urgent.” I reach behind to unzip the dress, but he grabs my hand. “It’s fine,” he says, his voice low. “For a second, I thought you were her.”
“It’s a little snug.”
“In all the right places.” He turns me around so I’m facing the mirror once more and kisses me on the neck. “You are much more beautiful than her, you know.”
I’m ashamed at how much I want to hear this.
“It’s wrong,” I insist. “We can clean my old clothes.”
“That’s impossible. They’re ruined. Anyway, why are you so skittish? Grace tormented you. She was going to kill you. There’s no need to feel guilty. For once in your life, enjoy what you have.”
His hands wander from my waist to my breasts. I look at them, the same hands that killed Grace, and wait to feel the fear and disgust I felt yesterday. But it doesn’t come. Instead, I feel a strange and forbidden ripple of desire.
This is wrong, my inner voice screams—but there’s another voice. This voice has had three glasses of champagne in the last hour, and it’s ready to say, fuck it.
I reach for the zip, but he stops my hand.
“No,” he says, hitching up my dress while he looks at me in the mirror. “Leave it on.”