Christie mystery. She loved solving the murders in advance, and always did. She never tried talking to the teenagers, just liked hearing their giggles close by, seeing the colored bubbles of their laughter floating above their heads. But although Alba always kept a careful distance from the group, invariably one of them couldn’t resist teasing her.
“What you reading?” a voice asked.
Pulling away from Poirot and his “little gray cells,” Alba looked up to see Katherine, Charlotte’s best friend of five years, gazing at her.
“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” Alba held the book up to prove it, then returned to reading it. But Katherine wasn’t done with her yet.
“Aren’t you going to Chelt in Sep?”
Alba looked up again to see the girl’s words hanging in the air: pitch black and blood red. She shivered slightly and nodded.
“So, shouldn’t you be reading more sophisticated stuff? I thought you were supposed to be a super brain-box, or something. I thought you read Shakespeare in your sleep.”
“No.” Alba frowned. “Only when I’m awake.”
At this the giggling girls burst into raucous laughter and Charlotte glared at her sister as though she wished she’d spontaneously combust.
“Well, aren’t you the teacher’s pet,” Katherine sneered. “I bet you’ll go straight to the top of the class.”
“Really?” Alba smiled. “I hope so.”
With that the girls burst into another bout of cackles. Alba stared at them, completely confused.
Katherine turned to Charlotte and said, “With the exception of your gorgeous brother Charlie, you really do have the most ridiculous family. You have my deepest sympathies.”
“She’s your sister?” a new girl piped up. “But she’s so plain, and her clothes are beyond tragic. Have your folks fallen on hard times, or something?”
Charlotte looked at Alba with fury. “It’s not my fault she’s like that. Anyway she’s not my sister, she’s an orphaned cousin who stays with us during the summers.”
“Oh,” the girl said, “poor you.”
“Yeah.” Charlotte continued to glare at Alba. “Exactly.”
Afterward, even though Alba locked herself in her bedroom for two whole days, Charlotte refused to apologize. Her brothers didn’t want to get involved. It was only the cook who eventually coaxed her out with a strawberry blancmange made from real fruit. As a child Alba had adored red foods—strawberries, peppers, chilis, tomatoes—for the bright flaming colors they emitted. She ate them all the time, though her siblings neither knew nor cared why.
—
Greer stands in front of Carmen’s boss, Blake, trying to focus on what he’s saying and formulate words in response. But the impact of his presence makes it difficult. He’s tall, with thick blond hair, green eyes and a smile that is almost too bright. His thick southern U.S. accent speaks of swamps and alligators, colonial houses and cotton fields, sweat and heat. As though he’s stepped out of A Streetcar Named Desire and into a small Cambridge bar, purely for his own pleasure.
It’s the green eyes that are her undoing. She just wants to kiss him, press her lips against his perfect mouth until they are both naked and sweating.
Carmen nudges Greer with an elbow in the ribs. With a blink she returns to reality to see Blake looking at her with a slight frown.
“So then,” he says, “what do you say? Yea or nay?”
“I’m sorry.” Greer flushes. “Could you repeat the question?”
“Sure.” Blake laughs. “I asked if you were gonna take the job?”
And although Greer hasn’t been hearing a single thing that the job actually entails, she just grins. “Oh yes, I will. Absolutely.”
—
For Harry Landon, it was love at first sight. A clichéd phrase and one he never believed in before. It was the day he met Peggy, in the cinema at a matinee of an obscure French film. Until that day he’d been perfectly content with life as it was. A confirmed bachelor, a nearly retired milkman who spent his afternoons, and some of his evenings, watching films. Harry loved the cinema. Ever since his father took him to a Saturday matinee showing of Gone With the Wind in 1939, the year it took eight Oscars, stole the hearts of millions of women worldwide and broke every box office record to date, and the year Harry senior went to war and was never seen again.
Little Harry had hated the film but fell in love with everything about movies: the soft seats, the enormous flickering pictures, the darkness, the sweet smells of popcorn, sugar and Earl Grey tea served during the intervals. During the war he’d delivered papers, shined shoes, stolen milk bottles—anything to get the