“I think if I tell police, they come after me. Or call Immigration—and I can’t go back to Brazil, it’s not a good place for me there, not anymore. My sister is new citizen, but who knows what the authorities do if Cerny say something? And then I find that locked room behind the mirror. I know something is wrong, but I don’t know what it is.” He rubs his forehead. His face looks pained.
I put my hand on his arm. “I opened a bottle of wine earlier. Would you like a drink?”
“Sure. Yes.”
We take the bottle and two glasses outside. Luca tells me to sit in the Adirondack chair and insists on cleaning up my earlier spill. When he’s done, he pulls up a chair, and I fill his glass. We talk. Well, he talks—he tells me about emigrating from Brazil two years ago, moving in with his sister and her husband into their tiny apartment in Dunfree. He’d been in med school in S?o Paulo but had gotten involved with a woman who turned out to have a husband with some seriously shady connections. After being bodily threatened by these guys—organized-crime types, he learned—he left the country.
He goes on to say that he told the police everything about his involvement with Cerny and Baskens, and recently, he’s started culinary school in Atlanta.
“And my last name is Isidoro,” he concludes.
I smile at this personal detail, glad that he wanted me to know.
“I want to say something earlier, but . . .” he says.
“What?”
He looks embarrassed. “Forget it.”
“Tell me.”
“I was going to say”—he does this kind of adorable shrug thing—“your hair . . . it looks good.”
I’m touched in an unexpected way. It’s not that spectacular, as far as compliments go, but it’s the way he’s said it. Like he was thinking it all along and only now just got up the courage.
“Yours looks good, too.”
The worst comeback in the history of haircut banter, but it’s all I’ve got. And now the words are hanging out there, and we’re just sitting in a semi-uncomfortable silence, staring at each other’s heads. After a moment or two, I realize gravity’s kicked in, and we’ve gone from staring at hair, down to eyes, then mouths. I have a moment of panic. This is the point where Daphne Amos would’ve felt a tingle. Where she would’ve gotten swept away by hormones and idiotic notions about soul mates.
But there’s no tingle or sweeping away or any of that nonsense, because I’m no longer Daphne Amos. I am Sydney Green, and she doesn’t traffic in that currency. There is something else, though, something I am feeling. It’s like the negative of a film print. The barest hint that I may, at some point, in some wild, possible future, feel something for another person again. It unsettles me, and I don’t know exactly what to do with it, but it is still there, all the same. Glimmering in and out of sight in the space between Luca and me.
I decide, before we can move forward, two things must happen. First, that diamond ring on my kitchen table must be pitched over the side of the deck and into the valley below, never to be seen again. And second . . .
“Can I tell you something?” I ask. “About my past?”
He looks a little surprised, but unguarded. “Sure. Okay.”
I take a deep breath. “I lived for a while at a home for children in south Georgia,” I begin. “In my house, there was a girl. Her name was Chantal.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is an unabashed love letter to Emily Bront?. I have often thought since we shared a first name, we must share some kind of psychic simpatico. That may or may not be true, but I still thank you, my dear, passionate Emily, for your beautiful, dark, heartrending story that helped create the gothic genre. How you continue to confound readers with the lines you blurred between love and obsession is a marvel to me.
Unending thanks go to my superstar agent, Amy Cloughley, and the rest of the team at Kimberley Cameron & Associates. Also thanks to Mary Alice Kier and Anna Cottle for their unwavering support of my books. Thanks also to my editors Alicia Clancy, Danielle Marshall, and Kelli Martin of Lake Union—a group effort this time, but, as always, such an affirming experience. I always know I am in the best of hands with you all.
Shannon O’Neill—I cannot thank you enough for understanding what I was trying to achieve with this one. Your support and incredible perception, smarts, and willingness to get on the phone and discuss cuckoo birds as a motif were a godsend. Rex Bonomelli, your cover was right up badass alley, and I thank you. To Kate Orsini, thank you for being the voice of Althea and Meg. You inspire me.
Special thanks to M. J. Pullen for your insight into the world of therapy and psychology, and to Charles Bailey and Brad Stephens for their advice concerning legal matters. And to my other beta readers/critique partners Kimberly Brock and Chris Negron. I count on y’all in a way that is probably not healthy. Thank you to Erratica: M. J., Becky Albertalli, Chris, and George Weinstein. And to the ladies of the Tinderbox Writers Retreat, who talked floor mats and ponytail holders. Also a huge thanks to the folks at Happy Writers Hour: J. D. Jordan, Ellie Jordan, Jane Haessler. A special thanks to Katy Shelton for her unwavering understanding and support, and to Henry and Kathleen Drake for always being my Birmingham home away from home.
Finally, to Everett, Noah, and Alex, thanks for your love and support and not minding when I don’t cook dinner. Rick, you’re perfect. Always us (but not in a creepy way).