both looking as if they were shouldering all of Portland’s mountains.
Mavereen remains hidden. Picturing her in what is doubtless an avalanche of mourning, I calculate just how much her world has shrunk in the past week, and forgive her for that. I don’t plan on forgiving her for what she did to Blossom. But as for not slicing my farewell cake, she’s well and truly acquitted.
“I’m off,” I say from my usual cover by the ficus tree. “Thank you for . . . thank you. Please know that I’m forever sorry I couldn’t accomplish more.”
“Was never your business to set right, Miss James,” Rooster answers, not unkindly. He engulfs my hand, shaking it. “Safe travels.”
Miss Christina, who wears black under her apron now, presses me furtively and releases me. “It’s too much for a body to bear, crashing from one grief straight through to another like this. You were a nuisance, Miss James, but you were a comfort too, and you ought to know it. Please take care.” She pauses, chin quivering. “If you ever find out any more about . . .”
“You would be my first confidant,” I assure her. “Trust in it. But I do believe, Miss Christina, that some of your other trials are destined to end sooner rather than later. There’s been enough suffering. The tide has to turn.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t see my way past violence and misery just now, Miss James. But I’m sure enough gonna try.”
As I turn away, I wonder whether the five thousand dollars in untraceable counterfeit cash I slid in an envelope under her bedroom door will lift her spirits. The information she imparted to me was as manna to the Israelites, and lo, did I in turn shower her with greenbacks. Well—paper indistinguishable from greenbacks.
Anyway, it’s better than a kick in the pants.
When I’ve pushed the spinning glass round and the Paragon Hotel spits me out, I turn to look back at it. Its dozens of windows with its hundreds of guests, all of them hiding something. All of them fighting for something. All of them frightened of something. That’s the kicker about hotels—they aren’t homes, they’re more like the paragon of waiting rooms. Unless you’re part of the inner circle of this one, and you burrow underneath one another’s surfaces, air the cupboards, lift the drapes, and everyone is unhappy, and everyone is searching, and everyone is both cruel and kind.
* * *
—
The bedroom that April the nervous housemaid shows me into is just about the charmingest I’ve ever seen. Wide windows, lace-edged curtains, the walls papered in lilac sprays. There’s a table with a pair of overstuffed armchairs flanking it, and a writing desk with sparrow-claw feet. Like the rest of the house, the outdoor vista is blocked by nature, but here the dripping trees seem like friendly sentinels, and a dainty chandelier sends crystal shards of light scattering in all directions.
“She’s not to be excited, Mr. Vaughan says, and so does the doctor,” April frets.
“I won’t excite her,” I vow. “I’ll calm her like anything. Please leave us, and thank you for allowing me to see her.”
Evelina Vaughan is nestled in a bed all done up in white and lavender, which matches both her complexion and the circles under her eyes. Her hair is down, and gosh and golly don’t cover it. I’d paint her if I had any brushes or talent.
She cranes to see me. “Is that you, Alice?”
“None other.” Sitting at the edge of the bed, I take her hand.
“Tom told me,” she says quietly. Her eyelids are edged azalea pink. “What Overton . . . what he did to Blossom, and why he said he did it, and. I don’t know where to start, Alice.”
“You needn’t start anywhere, actually. It was such an awfully unmitigated disaster, Blossom spilled all. So you just rest your head.”
It’s not a lie, but it omits key aspects of the chronology. I imagine Evelina would prefer to think that Blossom unburdened her bosom to me after the cat had already checked out of the bag, so I let her.
“Oh, Alice,” she laments. “And to think I wasn’t there. I said I always would be, whenever she needed me, and I wasn’t, and—”
“Believe it or not, so did I, which means I know this sort of rumination isn’t going to help.” I lightly clap her hand, encouraging. “You would’ve if you could’ve, but you couldn’t so you didn’t.”
“Is she all right? Please say that she’ll be all