long?
The fire was brighter in the sky, she could hear the crackling sounds of Hector’s house burning.
There were no happy memories for her in his house, but she had lived there for two months, two traumatic months. Her first two months in the United States, having lived abroad all her life. The two months after the death of her parents. Aunt Vanessa and Hector hadn’t been warm and welcoming and they’d been in the middle of a vicious divorce, but she’d had a nice room, new clothes—hand me downs from Aunt Vanessa that looked ridiculous on a twelve-year-old, but better than anything she’d had before—and suddenly the Delvauxes had been around a lot.
She spent more time at their estate than at Hector’s and her memories of them were all happy. Particularly when she could see Jack. Just seeing him had been enough to make her happy.
But she remembered the Blake house clearly. The heavy antique furniture, the thick drapes, the plush carpeting. The huge kitchen and astonishing bathrooms. She couldn’t figure out how the shower fixtures worked and washed with a sponge until a maid showed her how to turn the multiple showerheads on. Her first shower in Casa Hector had lasted an hour.
Everything in the house had been expensive, even her inexpert eyes could see that, and now fire was eating it all up.
There wasn’t anywhere to put the emotions she felt. There was no a-fire-is-burning-down-the-home-of-my-aunt-who-was-never-kind-to-me shaped place in her head. All she knew was she felt unsettled and sad. And she also wished that Jack’s presence didn’t unnerve her. And while she was at it she wished she didn’t have hot flashes whenever he came near her.
Damn! All these things springing up from her past, when she’d done such a good job of pushing them all down to the bottom of her brain. Now they were simply popping up and messing with her.
What was Jack doing? Suppose he didn’t come back? Not coming back was a very Jack thing to do. He’d done it before, to her and to innumerable girls. Maybe he was investigating and after that he’d find his way back to wherever it was he was staying and he’d forget that she was here, waiting for him.
In an exact replica of that terrible night when he’d forgotten he had a date with her and she waited and waited.
God, this was so unlike her. This was a
story
. Maybe the story of a lifetime. She had endless patience on the job. One story—which had won her an award—had taken weeks of going through the Snowden files, day after day after day of close study of files and she’d found a thread and pulled it and patiently pieced together a fantastic story of misappropriated funds and quite a lot of cocaine consumption by an American ambassador.
She hadn’t been impatient, not for one second.
Now she felt like leaping out of her skin.
What was taking him so long?
The whole sky was bright now and she could actually see flames over the tree tops. Just like in the movies. Bright reds and oranges and yellows, and dark clots flying up in the air that were the house eating itself alive.
She checked her watch again. Jack was definitely not coming back. It felt like her entire body was one long line of stress and tension. She grabbed the steering wheel and pushed back against the seat in a vain attempt to dissipate some of the tension and it didn’t work.
It was hot. She couldn’t possibly be feeling the heat of the fire from a block away. It was the tension that was making her hot.
This was ridiculous. Summer opened the door and stood up and immediately felt better, even though the rancid smell of smoke burning its way through the house filled the air. She stood in the open door of her car, sniffing the air, as if she could get information through her nose.
But that’s not how a reporter got news. A reporter got news through her eyes and her brain. She slammed the car door, walked to the intersection and looked down the street. It was exactly as she remembered it
The fire was brighter in the sky, she could hear the crackling sounds of Hector’s house burning.
There were no happy memories for her in his house, but she had lived there for two months, two traumatic months. Her first two months in the United States, having lived abroad all her life. The two months after the death of her parents. Aunt Vanessa and Hector hadn’t been warm and welcoming and they’d been in the middle of a vicious divorce, but she’d had a nice room, new clothes—hand me downs from Aunt Vanessa that looked ridiculous on a twelve-year-old, but better than anything she’d had before—and suddenly the Delvauxes had been around a lot.
She spent more time at their estate than at Hector’s and her memories of them were all happy. Particularly when she could see Jack. Just seeing him had been enough to make her happy.
But she remembered the Blake house clearly. The heavy antique furniture, the thick drapes, the plush carpeting. The huge kitchen and astonishing bathrooms. She couldn’t figure out how the shower fixtures worked and washed with a sponge until a maid showed her how to turn the multiple showerheads on. Her first shower in Casa Hector had lasted an hour.
Everything in the house had been expensive, even her inexpert eyes could see that, and now fire was eating it all up.
There wasn’t anywhere to put the emotions she felt. There was no a-fire-is-burning-down-the-home-of-my-aunt-who-was-never-kind-to-me shaped place in her head. All she knew was she felt unsettled and sad. And she also wished that Jack’s presence didn’t unnerve her. And while she was at it she wished she didn’t have hot flashes whenever he came near her.
Damn! All these things springing up from her past, when she’d done such a good job of pushing them all down to the bottom of her brain. Now they were simply popping up and messing with her.
What was Jack doing? Suppose he didn’t come back? Not coming back was a very Jack thing to do. He’d done it before, to her and to innumerable girls. Maybe he was investigating and after that he’d find his way back to wherever it was he was staying and he’d forget that she was here, waiting for him.
In an exact replica of that terrible night when he’d forgotten he had a date with her and she waited and waited.
God, this was so unlike her. This was a
story
. Maybe the story of a lifetime. She had endless patience on the job. One story—which had won her an award—had taken weeks of going through the Snowden files, day after day after day of close study of files and she’d found a thread and pulled it and patiently pieced together a fantastic story of misappropriated funds and quite a lot of cocaine consumption by an American ambassador.
She hadn’t been impatient, not for one second.
Now she felt like leaping out of her skin.
What was taking him so long?
The whole sky was bright now and she could actually see flames over the tree tops. Just like in the movies. Bright reds and oranges and yellows, and dark clots flying up in the air that were the house eating itself alive.
She checked her watch again. Jack was definitely not coming back. It felt like her entire body was one long line of stress and tension. She grabbed the steering wheel and pushed back against the seat in a vain attempt to dissipate some of the tension and it didn’t work.
It was hot. She couldn’t possibly be feeling the heat of the fire from a block away. It was the tension that was making her hot.
This was ridiculous. Summer opened the door and stood up and immediately felt better, even though the rancid smell of smoke burning its way through the house filled the air. She stood in the open door of her car, sniffing the air, as if she could get information through her nose.
But that’s not how a reporter got news. A reporter got news through her eyes and her brain. She slammed the car door, walked to the intersection and looked down the street. It was exactly as she remembered it
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