Читать книгу The Wicked Redhead - Beatriz Williams - Страница 10

WE HAVE brought no luggage to speak of, but a dressing gown hangs thoughtfully from a curving silver hook on the door. I wear neither nightgown nor pajamas, only the most ancient and serviceable of underthings, obtained from a dry goods in Virginia somewhere, last supplied in the previous century. My clothes—likewise ancient, likewise Virginian—lie slung over the back of a nearby chair. I can’t stand the sight of them. I drape myself in the dressing gown instead, which is made of some kind of expensive silk, as fine as gossamer, trimmed in satin piping and no lace whatsoever. I tidy my hair with the silver-backed brush lying on the dressing table, and as I do these elegant things, I consider that our hosts—whoever they are—are likely well-stocked in the lettuce drawer, if you know what I mean.

And just as I’m giving this point the full weight of my concentration, some noise drifts in from the window, the screaming of happy children, and I lift the window sash and stick my head out into the hot afternoon sky. Underneath it, two girls and a boy tear apart the oncoming foam of a most blue ocean, supervised by a tanned, long-limbed, gravid woman wearing a shocking pink bathing costume that does nothing whatsoever to disguise the girth of her expectant belly. One of the girls in the surf is my Patsy, shrieking her head right off as a crestfallen wave swirls about her knees. The damn boy holds her hand solicitously. (As well he might.) The woman, perhaps hearing the slide of the window sash in its casing, cranes her head to meet mine. Waves. Calls out with cupped hand. Motions me down to the white, sunlit beach. Her head’s wrapped up in a matching pink scarf, and she’s so gorgeously happy, so free of every care, I want to fly right out through the window and into her arms, where my own sorrows might dissolve by the heat of her joy.