Page 68 of The Manor of Dreams

“But I did call.”

“What?”

Reid leaned against the desk. “Two hours later. I wanted to talk things through with you. Your mother answered. She told me you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. So I stopped.”

Lucille sat up. “That wasn’t me,” she said slowly. “That was—my motherwanted you to stop calling me.”

There was a long silence.

“I wish I’d tried to reach you, then,” Reid said. “I wanted to be there for you, but I didn’t know if you wanted me to. And then your family stopped speaking to mine. And—”

And then there was the rest of that summer.

“I thought I scared you off,” Lucille whispered. “I thought you didn’t care.”

Reid met her eyes, finally. “You don’t know how much I did. I thought it was me. I—I’d wanted to say, then, that I wasn’t sure what was happening with—you know, with me leaving for college after summer and all. But I did want to be with you. Really, Lucy, I did. I thought I ruined everything.”

Lucille was incredulous. “Youdidn’t. You said all the right things. You even humored my ridiculous aspirations.”

“What, about being president?” Reid gave her a small, fond smile. “It wasn’t ridiculous. You had this… certainty, Lucille. You still do. I’m sure you know that about yourself. I remember you looked—I don’t know if you remember that night we met, but at some point we were outside overlooking your garden and you were in this kind of magnificent golden light. I would have believed anything you said.”

Lucille was stilled by this immediate sincerity. He wanted her too. She was sure of it now. The desire now expanded and saturated the rest of her. She remembered what he’d said to her over the phone once.I want to know everything about you.“Spoken like a true writer.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t get my Pulitzer, either.”

“No?”

He crossed his arms. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Had he tried? Given up? Now Lucille was desperate to know what had happened to him since that summer. They could have spoken onthe phone. Stayed in contact all these years. There could have been a version of her that loved him all this time. But Lucille had changed beyond her own recognition. And it was impossible to work backward; to reach that night and the selves they were when their eyes first met over the dining room table.

Instead, she stood. “I should go.”

Reid stepped back. He nodded. “Here, I’ll walk out with you.”

He stood, gathered his briefcase. She straightened her jacket and slung her tote over her shoulder. In front of her, Reid flipped the light switch off, settling the room into darkness. She said, “Wait.”

He turned abruptly. “What?”

Lucille stepped toward him, tilted her head up and teased his lips with hers.

He stumbled back against the door, shutting it. Her tote dropped to the floor. He pulled her to him, and Lucille felt her thoughts dissolve. His once youthful, slim frame had broadened, and now she heard his low voice whisper, “You sure?”

She nodded. He deepened the kiss, and she felt his hands grip her hips, lifting her onto the desk. She sighed, with need and in relief. She was exhausted from having to hold herself and her family up through this brutal, unyielding week. She deserved this. She leaned back, pulling him with her, feeling him get hard. He reached his hand beneath her skirt and his thumb trailed down until it hovered over the peak of her desire. When he pressed down, she gasped at his touch. Her fingers deftly maneuvered the buttons on his shirt.

They were no longer seventeen and hesitant. She felt his teeth trace down her neck and his tongue on her collarbone. They remembered each other, and she reveled in the familiarity, in the heat of him. A moment ago she had felt lost and unmoored, gaping with pain, but here she was. Here was reprieve.

twenty-five

MAY 1990

LUCILLEheard tires skid over the driveway. Rennie flew down the staircase and waited by in the foyer as Lucille scanned the house around her. Everything was in place. She’d swept up the bottle shards on the terrace and collected beer cans the day before. Today she double-checked that were no wine stains, or none that she could see. She had painstakingly unfurled and replaced the rugs and moved back all of her mother’s brush paintings.

The front door unlocked and her parents swept in. Ma had a scarf over her dark, pinned-up hair, every tuck and pleat in place even after an international flight. Large sunglasses obscured half her face.

“Ma!” Rennie was the first to bound up to hug her. Ma set her suitcase down. “Bao bèi,” she said. She pulled away and adjusted her scarf, which wrapped around her high-collared blouse.

Ada and Sophie came down the stairs together. Lucille felt poisonous inside.

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