Unraveling Isobel (3 page)

“The west wing of the house is closed up.” Dick pointed to one side of the house. His eyebrows drew together in concern. “It needs a few repairs.”

I looked closer at the one side of the house. There were shingles missing on the roof and a few of the upstairs windows looked as if they had been boarded up from the inside. Here and there an occasional brick had broken free of the facade like a missing tooth. A few repairs? No wonder Dick and my mom got along: they both lived in fantasyland.

“The roof has a tiny leak, and the wiring is a bit old,” Dick explained. “Of course, most rooms on that side aren't needed for daily use—the ballroom, the library, the gallery … that type of thing. It's been closed up for years, but not any longer. In the spring we'll open it up and get started on some repairs. You girls deserve the best.” Mom beamed and nodded along as if the idea of renovations excited her. “There are plenty of bedrooms in the east wing. Isobel can have her choice.”

Dick looked at me like he expected me to fall to my knees and thank him for not requiring me to sleep on a dingy mat in
the kitchen. If I could really have any bedroom of my choice, I would choose my old room back in Seattle. He wasn't doing me any favors. I hadn't even been allowed to bring any of my own furniture, because Dick's place was full of family heirlooms that his great-great-grandfather had chiseled down from trees planted by some other long-dead relative. My mom sold most of our stuff at a garage sale. The U-Haul trailer we'd brought contained nothing more than our clothes, my art supplies, and a few knickknacks my mom wanted to keep that used to belong to my grandparents. I'd seen people go on vacation with more stuff than we had with us.

“Honey, how about that? A library in the house!” Mom turned to Dick. “She's such a bookworm. I don't know who she gets that from, because it certainly isn't me.”

He gave her nose an affectionate tap with his finger. “It would be a tragedy for you to hide your pretty face in a book.”

My mom laughed and squeezed Dick's arm. I noticed no one mentioned that it would be a tragedy if I kept
my
face in a book.

Dick bent over and swept my mom off her feet, and she let out a high-pitched giggle. “Nathaniel, bring in the luggage. I'm going to carry this fine woman over the threshold and make this marriage official.”

Nathaniel and I stood in the driveway and watched our parents acting like idiots. There is something especially gross about knowing your parents have sex. Especially if you have no sex life of your own. I peeked over at Nathaniel. His face was
made up of strong lines, like someone drew him with a ruler. He wore his hair just a bit too long, and he was always pushing it out of his face. I couldn't help but notice he had these amazing lashes models could only achieve with multiple applications of plumping mascara. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and tried to think of something to say that didn't involve either of our parents, the weather, or weddings. Nothing came to mind.

Without a word, Nathaniel started to unpack the U-Haul trailer. Before now I hadn't noticed how cheap and shabby our luggage was. The large roller bag had a piece of duct tape holding the side together, and there was a huge ink stain on my duffel bag where a pen had exploded in a pocket years ago. I felt myself flush and made a grab for my bag as soon as he unloaded it.

“I'll get it,” Nathaniel said.

“I can carry my own stuff,” I insisted. “Seriously, I'm not handicapped.” As soon as the words flew out of my mouth, I winced. Nathaniel's younger sister had been mentally disabled.
Super,
I chided myself.
Insult his dead handicapped sister. Great way to win him over.

“Fine.” His mouth set into a firm line.

“Sorry. That didn't come out the way I wanted.”

“Whatever.” Nathaniel tossed a few more of our bags out of the U-Haul and onto the driveway. He paused, looking over at me. “How do you see with all that black crap all over your eyes?”

I raised my hand and touched the corner of my eye. Who did he think he was? The makeup police?

“How do you see with your head shoved so far up your ass?” I fired back and twirled around before he could say anything else. I stomped toward the house. It would have been a really dramatic exit except for the fact that the driveway was covered in at least six inches of gravel and my right foot slid out from under me. I went down hard on one knee. I heard Nathaniel start to laugh before he managed to choke it back down. I pulled myself up. My knee was bleeding.

“You okay?” Nathaniel asked.

“No. Actually, I'm not okay, and if possible, could we skip the whole part where you act like you care?” I dusted myself off and glared back at him.

Nathaniel stood with his mouth slightly open. “Whatever you want.”

“If I got what I wanted, I wouldn't be here.” I shouldered my bag and climbed up the front stairs.

Home sweet home. Yeah, right.

Chapter 3

T
he entrance hall was designed to impress. The floor was a buttery cream-colored marble and the walls were paneled in dark wood. I'm not a lumberjack, so I had no idea what kind of wood it was, but it looked expensive and it had been carved into elaborate scrolls and designs. A huge staircase dominated the room. It looked like it had been stolen from the movie set for
Gone with the Wind
or
Titanic
. At the bottom of the stairs, at either side of the railings, were two carved women holding aloft what I think were supposed to be the lamps of knowledge. The house smelled like lemon furniture polish and old books. All that was missing was an English butler named Jeeves to take my coat and bag. Impressive, but no one was going to call this place cozy.

I dragged my duffel up the main staircase. I really hoped Dick didn't think part of our “one big, happy family” plan included me cleaning this place. The main banister had been polished, but I could see some cobwebs near the ceiling. Dusting would be a full-time job in this place.

I dropped my bag at the top of the stairs and started peeking in the various rooms, looking for one I could tolerate. The bedrooms on the second floor were decorated in a style I would call uptight fussy meets grandma's house. The curtains had giant flouncy ruffles. Each of the beds came with a herd of small pillows in flowered fabrics. They looked hard and uncomfortable. A lot of the furniture seemed to be perched on tiny fragile wooden legs designed to break. A few of the rooms had wallpaper that could be used as a torture device. I was fairly certain constant exposure to those patterns could lead to blindness or insanity.

As soon as I opened the next door, I knew I'd found Nathaniel's room. The lack of floral wallpaper was a giveaway, along with a giant bag of sports gear that was spilling out onto the floor. Instead of shutting the door, I took a few steps inside after shooting a look over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't coming up the stairs. He wasn't a slob, other than the duffel bag on the floor. There weren't piles of laundry in the corners. Unlike Anita's brother's room, which always smelled like old socks, his smelled a bit like campfire smoke mixed with vanilla. There were no posters of bands or half-naked women draped over cars on his walls, instead he had a bunch of framed black-and-white
photographs. I wandered around the room touching the odd thing here and there. I wasn't sure what I was looking for—maybe something that would help me understand him. I ran my fingers over the stacks of things on his desk: a pile of loose change, a pen with a chewed cap, his music player, a stack of books for school.

There was a small frame on top of his dresser. I picked it up. A woman stood on the beach looking at the camera, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. Her other arm was draped around a little girl. There was an elaborate sandcastle in front of them, the sides decorated with shells and rocks. It had to be a photo of his mom and sister. It struck me that when this picture was taken, they had no idea they were going to die. I put the frame down. I didn't want to see their smiling faces. They probably thought their biggest problem was that the tide would come in and destroy the castle they spent hours making. I heard a noise in the hall and my heart sped up. I could only imagine what Nathaniel would say if he found me in his room. I backed out quickly and shut the door.

There was another room stuffed with antiques, and the next had to be the master bedroom. The room was large, but all the dark colors and heavy fabrics made the room feel claustrophobic to me. Above the dresser was a giant painting of a woman I was pretty sure was Dick's mom. The idea that he wanted a life-size portrait of his mom in his room was creepy. The windows were covered in thick red velvet draperies, and in the center of
the room was a giant four-poster bed. The idea of my mom and Dick rolling around on that football-field-size mattress while his mom watched made my stomach clench. The idea of Dick in general made me nauseated.

I stood back out in the hallway. I was out of bedrooms. I wondered if it would be rude to ask Dick if he was open to some major remodeling. I'm not a giant pink cabbage-rose-bedroom kind of person. I was trying to picture Dick's face if I used pushpins on his walls to hang up my poster of Klimt's painting
The Kiss
. Then I noticed the door. It was covered in the same paneling as the wall, and the handle was a small brass knob designed to blend in to the wood detailing. I must have walked right past it. I'd barely touched the handle when the door clicked open to reveal a narrow staircase leading up. I was surprised. From the outside, it hadn't looked like the house had a third floor.

At the top of the stairs there were two more doors. I opened one and found the attic. It ran the length of the wing. The ceiling was sloped, giving the room the appearance of a huge wooden tent. The room was dusty, with piles of old leather trunks that looked like they were last used in the 1800s when the Wickham family moved in. I wandered in farther. I pulled a sheet off one of the giant lumps to expose a rack of dresses. They were ball gowns. My hands ran down the sides of an emerald-green silk dress. The bodice was covered in blue, green, and gray beads. There was a handwritten dry cleaning tag on the hanger. Elizabeth Wickham.
That was Dick's mom. Apparently, she didn't just keep her house like a royal estate, she liked to dress as if she were a queen too. The dress was stunning in a cool vintage over-the-top way, but since I was hardly ever (as in never) invited to royal balls, I hadn't a clue where I would wear it. Across the aisle I spotted a row of boxes marked
TOYS
. A lonely stuffed zebra sat on top of one box. One of his eyes was gone, and someone had sewn a black button on in its place.

“Tragic war injury?” I asked, picking him up. I expected the zebra to smell musty, but he smelled clean and almost minty, like toothpaste, maybe. I touched his button eye. “Don't you worry about it,” I told him. “Real women dig men with scars. Gives them character.” I tucked the floppy zebra under my arm and went back into the hall.

As soon as I opened the only other door, I knew I had found my bedroom. It was larger than the other bedrooms downstairs, but much of the space was lost, due to the ceilings that sloped down to the floor like a Parisian garret. Two big windows opened to the back of the house, each with a deep inset window seat. I kneeled in the first and peered out. The view was amazing. You could see the stone patio I had noticed from the ferry, and beyond that, the cliff edge jutting out, and then the ocean. The waves marched along in perfect formation, and I could hear the sound of them breaking against the rocks, even through the thick glass.

The floor was wide-planked hardwood that had been stained
so dark it looked nearly black. The walls were a soft gray instead of the insipid pinks of downstairs. There wasn't a single inch of ugly wallpaper or giant floral fabric anywhere. There was another door, which led to a small bathroom. My own bathroom! I gave the zebra a hug in glee. The bed wasn't made up, but a soft white blanket had been pulled over the mattress. The only other furniture in the room was a desk tucked into one of the corners and a low bookshelf that was completely empty.

I put my duffel bag down and looked around the room. It was perfect.

“What the hell are you doing?”

I jumped when I heard the voice. Nathaniel was standing in the doorway looking at me, his eyes the same cold gray color as the ocean outside.

“Your dad told me to pick out a bedroom.” I hated how my voice sounded so defensive.

“Well, you can't have this one.”

“Look, if you wanted it, you should have called dibs before now. I saw yours downstairs.”

“You went through my room?” He yanked up his sleeves as if he was getting ready to start a fistfight with me.

My face flushed red-hot. “I didn't ‘go through' your room. I opened the door and figured it was yours since it was one of the few places that wasn't pink,” I said, hoping he wouldn't call me on my lie.