13 Little Blue Envelopes Read Free Page B

tightly packed together, all going in the wrong direction. An actual red double-decker bus lumbered along.
    As soon as she turned off the main road, everything became much quieter. She found herself on a narrow street with a zigzagging line that cut down the middle. The houses were all chalk white and were nearly identical except for the colors of their doors (mostly black, but occasionally there was a red or a blue) and they all had multiple chimney pots poking out of the top, along with antennas and satellite dishes. The effect was weird—it was like a space station had crashed into a Charles Dickens story.
    Number 54a had a jagged crack running down the six concrete steps that led to its front door. Several large pots lined these steps, each containing plants that didn’t exactly look like they had been condemned to death on purpose. They were weak and small but still making an effort. Someone had obviously tried, and failed, to keep them alive.
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    Ginny paused at the base of the steps. This had a very good chance of being a major mistake. Aunt Peg had some very unusual friends. Like the performance artist roommate—the one who ate her own hair onstage. Or the guy who spent a month communicating only through interpretive dance as a form of protest (against what, no one really knew).
    No. She had come this far. She wasn’t going to give up on the very first step. She walked up the stairs and knocked at the door.
    “Hang on a moment,” a voice called from inside. “Just a moment.”
    The voice was British (which really shouldn’t have surprised her but still did). It was also male. Not an old voice. She heard a thumping—someone running downstairs. And then the door swung open.
    The man standing in front of her was in the process of getting dressed. The first thing that surprised Ginny was that he was wearing half a black suit (the pants). A silver gray tie hung loosely around his neck, and his shirt was only half tucked in.
    Aunt Peg’s friends did not usually wear suits (or even parts of suits) and ties. It was less of a surprise that he was handsome—
    tall, with very dark, slightly curly hair and highly arched eyebrows. Aunt Peg attracted people with lots of personality, lots of charm.
    The man gaped at her for a moment, then hurriedly tucked in his shirt.
    “Are you Virginia?” he asked.
    “Yeah,” Ginny said. The yeah came out too broad, and she suddenly heard her own accent. “I mean, yes. That’s me. I’m Ginny. How did you know?”
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    “Just a guess,” he said, his eyes lingering over her bag. “I’m Richard.”
    “I’m Ginny,” she said again. She gave her head a quick snap to try to get the blood flowing up there again.
    Richard clearly had a moment of confusion over what kind of greeting to give her. He finally stuck out his hand for her bag.
    “It’s a good thing you caught me. I wasn’t sure when you were coming. I wasn’t even sure if you were coming.”
    “Well, I’m here,” she said.
    They nodded at each other for a moment in acknowledgment of this fact until Richard seemed to be physically struck by a thought.
    “You should come in,” he said.
    He opened the door wider and grimaced only slightly as he relieved Ginny of the groaning purple-and-green backpack.
    Richard gave her a quick tour that revealed that 54a Pennington Street was just a house—not an artists’ colony, or a commune, or any kind of sociological experiment. It was a fairly plainly decorated one at that. It looked like it might have been shipped straight out of an office supply catalog. Low-pile carpet.
    Simple furniture in flat navy blues and blacks. Nothing on the walls. Nothing, that is, until they came to a small, sunny bedroom.
    “This was Peg’s room,” Richard said, opening the door. But Ginny didn’t need to be told that. It was a miniature version of the 4th Noodle apartment. In fact, the room resembled the apartment so closely it was almost spooky. It wasn’t that she had furnished it