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“It’s your house, Dad.”
“It’ll be yours,” says Octavian, “after I disappear.”
Ravi groans. “You depressed people are so melodramatic. It’s tedious. Come for a walk.”
Lucy is staring at her bare hand. What Jane sees when she follows Lucy’s gaze makes the back of her throat thrum. The splinter, or whatever injury she sustained earlier, is bruised and festering, green, yellow, gray, and it’s taken on a vague shape. In the dim light, at Jane’s indirect angle, it’s a shape that evokes a familiar scene: an abstract sort of person, sitting on what looks like a cot. Thin veins stand out blackly across the person, like the bars of a prison cell. The person has strange, bruise-colored hair, oversized shoes, and a fresh drop of blood for a nose.
Lucy turns her face to Jane. Her expression is a mask of sadness. She sings along to the song playing below: “Gather round, all you clowns.”
* * *
Jane returns to her rooms in search of the Lucy umbrella.
Dawn has broken. She walks past her bed, hearing the hum of Winnie-the-Pooh lying on the floor. The peeling paint on her bedroom wall has spread, continuing to uncover patches of something red and moist underneath. She pushes on to the morning room and stops in the room’s hot center, contemplating the Lucy umbrella, still propped on the sofa.
The canopy is angled away from Jane, so she can’t see sparkly Lucy sitting behind bars. The umbrella is asking Jane to come to it. She can feel the pull. The umbrella wants her to pick it up and appreciate its artistry, which is interesting, because it’s her artistry, really, isn’t it? Jane made the umbrella what it is. It came from some part of her. Jane wonders: If she’s admiring it, isn’t she really admiring herself? She wonders: Might it even be a kind of mirror? If she looks at it, will she see a version of herself?
When Jane begins to move toward the umbrella, Jasper pushes against her legs, whining. “Jasper,” she says, “remember what I said about the closet.” Jasper sits down and stops pushing.
Jane lifts the umbrella gently by the canopy and gazes at her own work. It’s beautiful. It’s exquisite. Lucy must have done something very bad, she thinks.
Then a flicker of doubt touches Jane. The thought seems wrong somehow, it seems uncharitable. She likes Lucy. She threw Lucy’s book into the yard to protect her from her weird book that was making her sleepy, like Lily Bart. Jane likes the dog too, she loves Jasper, and now, when she looks at the poor little guy, he’s shivering and miserable and pleading at Jane with his eyes.
“Jasper,” she says cheerfully, “want to come with me while I bring this umbrella to Lucy?”
* * *
By some instinct she doesn’t examine, Jane knows which rooms in the west corridor of the second story are Lucy’s. To her astonishment, directly on the wall outside Lucy’s rooms hangs a blown-up and framed photo, taken by Aunt Magnolia.
Immediately, the photo raises Jane to a higher state of wakefulness. It isn’t just the surprise. It’s Jane’s pride, that Aunt Magnolia’s art hangs with the other masterpieces on the walls of this house.
A small yellow fish peeks out from inside the open mouth of a huge gray fish. Aunt Magnolia took this photo in Japan. It’s exactly the impossible-seeming sort of photograph Aunt Magnolia was known for taking, because she had an extraordinary patience and a kind of natural serendipity when she was underwater with her camera. She would, very simply, wait for the amazing thing to happen. And it would.
Jane backs away to the opposite wall to get a better view, breathing slow and deep, the way a jellyfish moves. Someone has framed this photograph badly, or else there’s some other, smaller piece of art in the frame too, behind Aunt Magnolia’s print. Jane can see its rectangular outline. She’ll have to say something to Mrs. Vanders. It’s liable to create creases in Aunt Magnolia’s print.
Jane’s head rests against the wall behind her and she clasps Lucy’s open umbrella at her side. Gradually she notices that on the other side of that wall, a conversation is taking place. She rests her ear against the wall like a stethoscope. It’s a muffled conversation between two voices she recognizes. Two cousins: Lucy St. George and Colin Mack. The yellow fish and the big gray fish stare at Jane as she spies.
“It’s exactly the sort of thing you would do,” says Lucy.
“It’s not,” says Colin.
“Then why was the first word out of Dad’s mouth when I told him about it, Colin?”
“Because you’re both assholes,” Colin says.
“Oh, trust me,” says Lucy. “Dad can be an epic asshole, but I, as an asshole, am legendary. I’m sick to death of how hard you make my job. It’s over now.”
“Over?” says Colin. “What exactly do you imagine you’re going to do?”
“You’ll see.”
“Oh, give it up, Luce.”
“You’ll see!”
“And when you realize I’m not the one who took the damn sculpture? Will your little rebellion have been worth it?”
“Oh,” Lucy says with her familiar laughter. “Dear Colin. This rebellion will be worth more than you can possibly imagine.”
“That can only mean the Vermeer,” Colin says. “What’ve you done with the Vermeer?”
“Nothing you need to know about.”
“Mm-hm,” says Colin. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t turn against the family.”
“You’re leaving my rooms right now. Go be fake and insincere to your girlfriend. Not to me.”
“Ha,” says Colin. “What I’m doing with that stupid bitch is no different from what you’re doing with Ravi. We’re exactly the same.”
“Fuck off, Colin,” says Lucy with sudden passion. “Stay away from me.”
“I love you too, fair cuz,” says Colin.
A door opens and shuts. Colin comes into the corridor and sees Jane, standing there, staring dazedly at the photograph, accompanied by the world’s most haggard dog.
“Oh. Hello,” he says, trying to find a natural tone for his voice, but looking distinctly alarmed. “Why are you lurking in the hallway?”
“I fixed Lucy’s umbrella,” says Jane.
“Oh, right,” Colin says, barely glancing at it. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.” He marches away.
A moment later, Lucy St. George steps into the corridor, then starts in surprise at the sight of Jane. She looks terrible. She holds her bandaged hand to her side. Her eyes shoot anxiously to Aunt Magnolia’s photograph, then back to Jane.
“It’s just me,” Jane says, “and Jasper. Sorry to startle you. I brought your umbrella.” She holds the umbrella out to Lucy, like a gentle offering.
The glitter drawing faces Lucy so that she can see it. Lucy’s lips part in wonder, then in a sort of revulsion. “You made that just now?” she says.
“I made it yesterday.”
“You can’t have.”
“That’s true,” Jane says, “but I did. It’s for you. You’re meant to take it.”
“Yes,” Lucy says. “I know.”
Such a strange, resigned voice Lucy speaks with. She holds out both hands, reaches for the umbrella’s handle, and takes it gently from Jane. Then she carries the umbrella away, down the corridor, holding it firmly, but far removed from her body.
She will fall in. Somewhere, out of Jane’s sight, Lucy will fall into the scene in the umbrella, enter that story, and become that umbrella’s soul. And Charlotte will have had her revenge on Lucy. Part of Jane knows this somehow, and wonders, with a morbid curiosity, what it will look like, because really, it doesn’t make sense. How can a person fall into a story?
Feeding someone to Charlotte, personally delivering someone the way Jane has, bonds Jane to Charlotte in a whole new way. Jane feels it. It’s probably why, when she gets back to her rooms, she loses patience with the whining dog and closes him in the closet.
*
* *
All day long, currents and waves of people move through the house, preparing it for the gala. Cleaners, decorators, caterers, musicians. Occasionally Jane sees Ivy, or Patrick, or one or another Vanders, from a distance, doing what she supposes are any number of Important Gala Things.
She glides down to the receiving hall at one point, weeds among the people, and picks up the photo of Charlotte. Charlotte seems bigger than she did before; the other people in the photo are cast into shadow. Her face gleams with triumph, which Jane knows is about Lucy. It aches with hunger, which Jane knows is about anybody, everybody.
A wave of warmth rushes through Jane suddenly and she knows, without looking, that Ivy is touching her. She also knows Charlotte doesn’t like it, Charlotte wants her to lie to Ivy and get away from her.
“Janie? Are you okay?” says Ivy. “You’ve got the weirdest expression on your face.”
“I’m fine,” Jane lies, turning to face Ivy, who’s holding her tattooed arm. She’s all light and color, dark hair and blue eyes, jasmine and chlorine, and some part of Jane shakes into clarity. She hugs Ivy unhesitatingly, body to body, startling Ivy, who hugs her back with awkward surprise.
