“Yeah.” My voice was strained. “Are you?”
Ezra nodded but didn’t speak.
A silence followed that Foster broke only when I gave a particularly violent shiver. “Maybe Dev could have, like, a towel or something.”
“Yeah. Shit, yeah, sorry.” He turned abruptly and headed up the front steps of the house. After a moment’s hesitation, Foster and I followed.
The inside of Ezra’s house was just as impressive as the outside, but somehow still managed to feel … accessible. Not so chic or expensive-looking that you were afraid to touch anything. Not like walking into a museum.
Ezra had disappeared by the time we got inside, so Foster and I hovered in the entryway; he eyed the rooms branching off the hall past the staircase, and I gathered up the ends of my dress to keep from dripping on the floor. It wasn’t really helping.
In a moment Ezra emerged with a big fluffy towel. He handed it to me and said, “I can grab you some dry clothes if you want.”
In Jane’s time, that was the sort of thing that propriety called upon you to refuse. The other party would then press you to accept, and then you’d refuse again; and then when they pressed a second time, I guess you’d know they really meant it, or they’d know you’d shown a proper amount of restraint or selflessness or whatever. But people in Jane’s time didn’t have scratchy department store Homecoming dresses for 45 percent off, and they certainly didn’t have them soaking wet.
“Thanks,” I said.
Foster stayed in the foyer while I followed Ezra upstairs. I waited in the hall while he was in his room.
There was a whole host of framed photos lining the hallway. A quick survey showed the same cast of characters: a pretty, dark-haired woman and a middle-aged, slightly balding man, posing together on beaches and on the decks of cruise ships. Ezra appeared at varying ages, frowning out of a junior-class portrait, posing on the field in uniform.
I stopped in front of a picture of a middle school–aged Ezra, standing on the banks of a creek and holding up a fish proudly. Behind him, a lanky teenager with a tight smile looked on, a fishing pole resting against his shoulder. What struck me was that I didn’t think I had ever seen Ezra look that happy before. Amused, for sure, or pleased, or sheepish, but not like that, not that undiluted, unabashed kind of happy. Was that the kind of thing you lost with age?
“Cute, huh?” someone said. I wheeled around.
I hadn’t noticed a door open, but now light flooded the hallway, and here in its glow stood Marabelle. She was wearing a fuzzy bathrobe and SpongeBob slippers.
“What—what are you doing here?” I asked, even though it was a dumb question. One of her child beauty queen portraits smiled eerily at me from just a few feet away.
“I live here,” she said. “Part of the time, anyway. Mostly I stay with my mama, but my daddy got this house so we could all be together, and they have a nice room for me here.” She gestured to the picture. “It’s cute, isn’t it? His daddy used to take them fishing.”
“Ezra’s dad?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I thought he didn’t have one.”
“They don’t talk anymore.”
This was news to me. But before I could speak, Marabelle looked over at me, and as if she was seeing me for the first time, said, “Why are your clothes wet?” And in great imitation of Foster, before I could answer, she continued, “Why are you inside? Is Ezra here?” Her eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Did you have sex with Ezra?”
The only thought I could manage to express was, “Why would my dress be soaked?”
“Maybe you were in the shower.”
“With my dress on?”
“Who am I to judge a person’s tastes?” she said as Ezra’s bedroom door opened and he emerged with a bundle of TS warm-up sweats.
“Are you doing okay?” he asked Marabelle.
“Better than Devon,” she said. “She’s getting water all over the floor.”
“Here.” Ezra pressed the clothes into my hands. “There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall.”