Evenfall Read Free Page B

room there was wallpapered with a riot of yellow and pink roses, so realistic looking that as a child she swore one morning she could smell them.
    She puts off unpacking. Instead, she takes her toiletry bag into the bathroom. There’s a claw-foot tub with a handheld shower attachment. An aluminum tray attached to the tub holds a neat assortment of items: Dial soap, a man’s safety razor, a can of shaving cream, a small bottle of generic shampoo.
    The rim of the tub is too narrow to hold any of Andie’s things, so she opens the medicine cabinet. There’s not much inside. A container of Bayer aspirin, a tube of toothpaste, some Ben-Gay, a bottle of roll-on deodorant. There’s also a bottle of prescription medication. Feeling faintly guilty, she picks it up. The drug name—metoprolol—is unfamiliar. Gert hasn’t mentioned being sick, but that’s not surprising.
    There’s a knock at the bathroom door, and Andie jumps.
    “Just a second,” she calls. She turns the water on, then puts the vial back in the cabinet and shuts it. She splashes cold water on her face, dries it on the scratchy white towel laid out on the sink, and opens the door.
    Her aunt is standing there, a dishrag over her shoulder.
    “I was just looking for a place to put my things,” Andie tells her. She holds up her transparent bag for emphasis.
    “Lord, what fancy soap—I can smell it from here,” Aunt Gert says.
    When Andie doesn’t answer, her aunt goes on. “I thought we’d have a meat loaf for dinner. I started it, but then I thought, living in a foreign country for so long, you might not eat meat anymore.”
    “Italy has meat, plenty of it,” Andie reassures her. “And I do eat it, just not very often.” Actually, for the last six months Andie has been a virtual vegetarian, but going down that conversational path with Gert, who firmly believes red meat is necessary for health, can only lead to trouble.
    “Good,” her aunt says. “The potatoes are in, and I’ll finish the meat loaf. We’ll eat at six.” Andie glances at her watch. It’s barely four p.m. now.
    The two women squeeze past each other in the hall, Gert toward the kitchen, Andie toward her bedroom. She starts with her shoes, unzipping each pair from their compartment in her garment bag and lining them against the wall. When she takes out a pair of pale pink leather flats, she holds them up to the window, looking for scuff marks. The color reminds her of her favorite shoes when she was six, a pair of pink high-tops her father gave her when she was spending her first full summer at the farm. For two weeks, she wore them everywhere, and then they disappeared. She cried so hard Uncle Frank drove her into town to buy another pair. A week later the original ones turned up, unearthed from the depths of her closet at the big house.
    The memory gives her an inspiration, and she hurries out to the kitchen, where Gert is beating an egg. Unbidden, Andie opens the old creaky hutch where the china is stored, and begins setting the table.
    “Don’t forget the place mats,” her aunt reminds her, and Andie pulls out two faded squares of blue cotton, well-laundered, and matching napkins. She folds the napkins in half, smoothing out the creases, and carefully places them to the left of the plates, with a fork on top of each. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches her aunt’s quick nod of approval. It gives her the courage to speak.
    “Aunt Gert, I was thinking,” she begins.
    “No charge for that.”
    Andie plows on. “The cottage isn’t really big enough for both of us, not if I’m going to stay awhile. There’s no place for me to spread out my paints, and barely space enough for my clothes. We’re stumbling over each other as it is, and I haven’t even unpacked.”
    “Maybe you need fewer things.”
    Andie ignores this. “What I was thinking is, why not move into the big house? It has room enough for both of us. We’re going to be spending lots of time there anyhow,