the confusion with Carlo, not the skeletons in my closet determined to drag me back in.
Just the pain. Nothing else.
When I’m done running, I wander through the house. I imagine Carlo walking around the corner, shirtless, a smirk on his face as he sees me all sweaty and breathy. I imagine him lifting me up and shoving me against the wall, and I picture how it would feel to grind against him, making myself go slow so I don’t explode too fast …
I shake my head, dislodging the fantasy.
I end up at the custom elevator. On a whim, I step inside and click the attic button. I didn’t even know there was an attic here, but this elevator has caught my eye once or twice. It’s large, and looks out of place.
It hurtles me upwards with a silent whoosh and then the door opens with a beep onto a custom-built attic: walls covered in prints of old books. I spot The Great Gatsby, Oliver Twist, and then, further along, more modern romance and thriller titles. I round a bend and see a bed, a desk—but no chair—
And then, further along, a young woman.
She’s sitting in a wheelchair near a telescope. She must have heard me enter, because she turns with an electric buzz, smiling. She’s curvy and looks vivacious. Her blue-green eyes glow in the light from the lava lamp. She wears colorful bracelets that jangle with the motion of her wheelchair.
It was impossible to tell that Alda and Carlo were related—veils will do that—but this woman is clearly Carlo’s relative.
“I’m his sister,” she says, apparently reading my mind. “Emily. I’m guessing you’re Hazel.”
I nod dumbly. Has Carlo been talking about me?
“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
She demurs. “Oh no, I’m glad for the company.” She wheels away from the telescope with the control pad near her hand, and rolls over to her desk. The laptop is open on a Word document. “I’ve been in a writing frenzy. That’s why I haven’t come down. When the muse strikes, you’ve gotta get to work. You know what I mean?”
“Actually, yeah.” I sense that it’s okay if I move closer. Emily seems like the open-book type. “I’m a painter. Well, sort of. I dabble. Mostly, I cook. But I know what it’s like to have a muse … or not, as the case may be.”
Am I rambling? Do I sound stupid? Double yes, I think, but Emily doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest.
“What do you write?” I ask.
“Romance.” Emily smiles. She gets this faraway look. “Dashing heroes and heroines. Fierce love and, well …” She winks. “You can guess the rest.”
She’s beaming. I gotta admit, her enthusiasm and confidence are contagious.
“I self-publish them,” she goes on. “Carlo pays for everything: cover, editing, marketing, the whole deal. But it all starts with good writing. Mom told me you were nice. She’s right.”
I’m guessing she’s not yet twenty-one. She has that giddy, infectious energy, sort of like Lucille.
“I publish under a pen name, Bella Bloom, because, well—”
“Publishing under the De Maggio name wouldn’t be smart?”
She wags her finger at me. Her bracelets tsk-tsk. “You’re perceptive. Or maybe Carlo’s more of a sharer than I guessed.”
“Carlo is definitely not a sharer,” I laugh.
“He’s a good guy, under all the gruff.” Emily shrugs. “Do you want to look through the scope? It’s a nice clear night.”
So we spend the rest of the night together, viewing the stars, discussing different names for Bella Bloom’s hero’s brother—Dave, Dick, Daniel, Danger; it has to start with a D, apparently—and me trying not to let my opinion of Carlo change. But it’s hard because, well, I mean … Jesus, one second, he’s this ice-cold prick and the next, he’s got these two great women singing his praises. Plus, he helped calm me down earlier.
It’s a lot.
There’s something else, too: Emily’s wheelchair, Alda’s veil, Carlo’s scar. What the hell happened to these people? I want to ask, but I sense that it would ruin the evening, so instead I just let out a gasp as a meteor shower cascades in front of the telescope.
“You have to promise to visit me,” Emily says as I yawn for what feels like the fiftieth time.
If she didn’t seem like such a good girl, I’d guess that Emily was on cocaine. She’s wired even though it’s three in the morning. But she just tells me she’s high on prose, and even says she’s going to do more writing when I leave.